lf across the town behind a
luggage-laden Cab, only to find that the family kept a man-servant,
he would return to the cellar that was now his home, penniless and
exhausted.

Long hours spent over the washtub, to eke out their scanty earnings, had
rendered his wife--once the "Fay" of the "Love Songs"--both muscular and
short-tempered. On such occasions she would lay hands on the poet and
thrash him till he wept. But throughout all he remained a poet, for the
poet is born not made. Every tear in falling turned to a sonnet.
His sorrows were transmuted into poems--poems now suffused with the
concentrated emotions of the human race.

Nevertheless each one as it appeared was brutally slated in the organs
controlled by the literary adviser to the Crown, and himself belittled
and ridiculed. When, as luck would have it, his wife eloped with a
wrestler, a flood of melody poured from his soul which, connoisseurs
have assured us, ranks high amongst the lyrical masterpieces of the
world. These verses will be found amongst the collection known as
"Swan Songs," published posthumously, for, not long after, the poet
unfortunately developed phthisis and died.

But though he was thus cut-off in early manhood his name will live for
ever. It is borne by a square in the boarding-house quarter of the
capital and by a cravat which, though, alas, no longer in the fashion,
is still worn every Sunday by countless artisans.

His poems too have achieved immortality. Showily bound they make a
favourite school prize and have given entertainment to generations of
cultured refined persons, who have never paused in their reading to give
a thought to the author of their enjoyment, the sagacious Prince to
whose action they owe their emotional treat. His royal Highness's reward
was his own aesthetic satisfaction. "By Heaven, this is more like," he
rapturously exclaimed as he laid down the last volume of the collected
works; "this verse has got some stuff in it." And on the occasion of his
next birthday he conferred the Companionship of a Household Order upon
the poet's publisher.

* * * * *

"Lord Basil's scratching is said to be due to soreness."--_Daily
Sketch_.

It frequently is.

* * * * *

[Illustration: OUR WEALTHY WORKERS.

_Host (to guest with Socialistic opinions)._ "I hope you'll be careful
what you have to say about the moneyed classes. Our maid is very
sensitiv