* * * * *

[Illustration: A LABOUR OF LOVE.

_The Vicar._ "AND WERE YOU AT THE BALL LAST NIGHT, MRS. RAMSBOTTOM?"

_Mrs. R._ "OH, YES; I WAS SHAMPOOING EIGHT YOUNG LADIES THERE!"]

* * * * *

LOCAL COLOUR.

Mr. ALFRED AUSTIN, in his new poem, _Fortunatus, the Pessimist_, has
hit upon a new notion, to say nothing of a novel rhyme. Sings he:--

"When the foal and brood-mare hinny,
And in every cut-down spinney
Lady's-Smocks grow _mauve and mauver_,
Then the Winter days are over."

This opens a polychromatic vista to the New Poetry. Technical Art
comes to the aid of the elder Muses. The products of gas-tar alone
should greatly regenerate a something time-worn poetic phraseology. As
thus:--

When the poet, Mr. PENNYLINE,
Is inspired by beauteous Aniline,
Products chemical and gas-tarry
Give the modern Muse new mastery.
Mauve _may_ chime with love, and mauver
Form a decent rhyme to lover;
While (and if not, why not?) _mauvest_
Antiphonetic proves to lovest.
(Verse erotic always sports
Tricksily with longs and shorts.
Verbal votaries of Venus
Are an arbitrary genus,
And as arrogant as HOWELLS
In their dealings with the vowels.
_Love, move, rove_, linked in a sonnet,
Pass for rhymes; the best have done it!)
Then again there is Magenta!
Surely science never sent a
Handier rhyme to--well, polenta,
Or (for Cockney Muses) Mentor!
The poetic sense auricular
Can't afford to be particular.
Rags of rhymes, mere assonances,
Now must serve. Pegasus prances,
Like a Buffalo Bill buck-jumper,
When you have a "regular stumper"
(Such as "silver") do not care about
Perfect rhyming; "there or thereabout"
Is the Muse's maxim now.
You _may_ get (bards have, I trow)
Rhyme's last minimum irreducible,
From dye-vat, retort, or crucible.

Verily (as _Touchstone_ says), "I'll rhyme you so, eight years
together, dinners and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted." And if it
is "the right butterwoman's rate to market," or "the very false gallop
of verses," it is at any rate good enough for a long-eared public or a
postulant for the Laureateship.

* * * * *

WAR ON A LARGE SCALE.

(_AN ACCOUNT OF THE CONFLICT, FROM THE DIARY OF AN INHABITANT OF HERNE
BAY._)

_Monday._--Extremely awkward--the entire British Fleet have come
ashore; and, as it is impossible to m