106. My first is a plaything; my second no one wishes to play with; and my whole plays with nobody.

107. What islands resemble the Trojan horse?

108. What is the difference between a bare head and a hair bed?

109. Who was the first whistler, and what did he whistle?

110. When is a man thinner than a lath?

111. Why are gymnastics like the tide at low water?

112. Why is the letter D like a wedding ring?

113. Why is "chaffing" improper for old folk?

114. When is money damp?

115. Why is a rakish Israelite like a witticism?

116. What sweetens the cup of life, yet, divested of its end, embitters the most grateful draught?

117. What is that which you can see, but cannot catch?

118. When is a fellow's eye like a barrel?

119. Why is a fool like a needle?

120. What is invisible blue?

121. Which is of the most value, a £5 note or five sovereigns?

122. Why is a fiddle like a bad hotel?

123. Why is a bad wife better than a good one?

124. Why should ladies never learn French?

125. Which tree is the most suggestive of kissing? 126. What animal falls from the clouds?

127. When is a ship foolishly in love?

128. When is a ship dishonourably in love?

129. When is a ship honourably in love?

130. Why are washerwomen the most stupid people?

131. Why should a cabman never be a coward?

132. Why should an apothecary be the most sober of men?

133. What is the most difficult surgical operation?

134. Why are there no flirtations on board the P. and O. steamers?

135. What did the sunbeam say to the opening rose-bud?

136. Why is a person casting-up accounts like a venomous reptile?

137. Why is an empty cellar like a ship at sea?

138. What letter made Queen Bess mind her P's and Q's?

139. What is that from which if the whole be taken some will yet remain?

140. Why would it be useless going to an auction where Chang was?

141. Why are people who sit in free seats not likely to get any good from going to church?

142. Why should it affront an owl to mistake him for a pheasant?

143. Why must a manufacturer of steel pens be a very immoral character? 144. When is an ox not an ox?

145. Why is blind man's buff like sympathy?

146. With what musical instrument would you catch a fish?

147. When has a man four hands?

148. Why is it easy to break into an old man's house?

149. Why should you not go to London by the 12.50 train?

150. Why should the male sex avoid the letter A ?

151. What is the best way of making a coat last?

152. Why does a day labourer never cease growing? 153. When does a man sneeze three times?

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154. What relation is the door-mat to the scraper?

155. Why does a piebald pony never pay toll?

156. When does a steamboat captain say that he is what he is not? 157. When are you like a spider?

158. Which are the laziest shell-fish?

159. Why is the best baker most in want of bread?

160. Why is the letter S like a sewing machine?

161. Why do ducks go under water?

162. Why is France never afraid of inundations?

163. What is the difference between a cow and a broken chair?

164. What three letters are of most use to a statesman?

165. When does a man look most like a cannon-ball?

166. Why is the letter A like a honeysuckle?

167. What flower most resembles a bull's mouth?

168. What does a stone become in the water?

169. Why is a spectator like a bee-hive? 170. What does every one thirst after? 171. Which is the highest island?

172. Why is the letter N like a pig?

173. Why is a theatre the saddest of places?

174. Why is it wrong to call a bloater a soldier?

175. What lane do ladies most like walking in?

176. Why is a lean monarch a contemplative man?

177. Why is a spider's web like a lawsuit?

178. Why is a tournament like sleep?

179. Why is rheumatism like a glutton?

180. Why is the county of Buckingham like a drover's goad? 181. Why are sailors bad horsemen ?

182. Why should a man never marry a woman named Ellen? 183. When is a soldier not half a soldier?

184. When was beef-tea first introduced into England?

185. Why is Cupid like poverty?

186. What people can never live long, nor wear greatcoats?

187. Why is a horse doctor like a water-rat?

188. Why should Japanese grandees never pay their debts?

189. When does a man eat his furniture?

190. What letter does a deaf woman like best?

191. Why is an old woman like a well-driven nail?

192. Why is a pig's tail like a carving-knife?

193. When does a man belong to the vegetable kingdom?

194. Why are ladies like churches?

195. Why ought the children of a thief to be burnt? 196. When is love a deformity?

197. Why is a mouse like hay?

198. Why is a madman equal to two men?

199. Why are good resolutions like fainting ladies?

200. Why is a short person like an entertaining book?

201. What wonderful metamorphosis is a laundress subject to?

202. If cheese comes after meat, what comes after cheese?

203. What island is most like snow?

204. When is a wave of the sea like a medical man?

205. Why must the inventor of beaver hats have been necessarily a talented

man?

206. When will the soup run out of the saucepan ?

207. Why is a lifeboat at sea like a new-born baby?

ACROSTICS.

I.

"To arms!" he cried, the Hermit of the Rock;
"To arms!" the people answered in a breath :
Vainly might navies his bare isle enlock,

He 'scaped, exultant, to success-or death.
But ere he reached the city's strong redoubt
A deadlier engine was assigned his doom:
Science, not courage, put him to the rout,
And sent him, baffled, to a living tomb.
1. Once eloquent on mountain heights,
Now dying out, like Jacobites.

2. Singly I'm a poor creature,
Collectively a great feature;

Scattered in volumes, fastened in frames,
Though I do little but iterate names.

3 Rose-maiden, hence! thou surely must be mad?
She knew his accents, and her heart was glad.
4. All too high he pitched his flight,
Soaring where the ether springs;
We, like him, find stern daylight
Fatal to our waxen wings.

5. In England I'm a lump

Of wood, or brass, or clay;

In Yankeeland a man

With labourers in my pay.

6. Britain, envying Lisbon's vine,

Begged from Bacchus some such tree;
Growled the God, "There's barley-wine,
Drink it, and don't bother me !"

7. In the dusk like moth I show,

Down the streets in glittering row,
Cheerer of the wintry weather,

Feast and song about me gather.

8. We learn 't was good for kitchen duty,
But all aver it was no beauty;
Like homely wife, the best of cooks,
Who shames us by her parlour looks;
But as 't is vanished from the earth,

No matter what its looks were worth.

9. Whate'er our century may miss,
None can accuse its sons as this;
They fuss and fume on daily toil,
Each foremost scrambling for the spoil,
Till, worn out by the tug and tussle,
We wish they were this in the bustle.

II.

Men too oft confuse these twain,

And for the first the second squander;

A fatal loss they find that gain,

A loss for sage profound to ponder.

1. I preside at Guildhall dinners,
Not a single word I say:

Oh, how many fools and sinners
I've seen in my day!

2. It flows and flows as it never would end,
With many a twisting and many a bend;

But the stream's longest course, and the life's longest sweep,
Must finish at last in the fathomless deep.

3. The buffalo in his prairie feeds on the herbage rank,
The mustang, sharply ridden, already nears his flank,
Out flies the curling leather, down falls the mighty brute,
The rider's knife is ready-one death-roar-all is mute!
4. In the workman's hand a tool,
On the lady's breast a flash,

In the pastime of the fool
Mad excitement, ruin's crash.

III.

Brahmin of Brahmins, she her gods adored,

Then passed through me and joined her vanished lord.
Rock, rock the cradle, wash and sift the soil;

Let me be made, the digger leaves his toil.
Bearer of burdens, driven by human hand,
Harder you strike me, firmer do I stand.

The soldier, face still dark with battle's frown,
Waits for my welcome sound, and lays him down.

1. All-gifted fair one, pause! Alas! it is too late.
Swift from their bondage fly the ills of fate.

2. Fierce through the driving snow,
Eager to meet the foe,

There rides Lützow.

Cowards and traitors all,
Flee from that trumpet call,
Here comes Hodson.

A hero each, of equal fame;
Unequal numbers sing his name.

3. As ancient fables say, immortal Jove

For Danaë's charms confessed the power of love;
And, as she dreaming lay in shady bower,
Awoke her, glittering in a golden shower.

Was it, perchance, that 'neath my pendent shade,
O'ercome by sleep, her wearied limbs she laid?
Then, as her drooping eyelids slow unfold,
Mistook my blossoms for the showered gold.

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4. 'Tis Cassim's voice, we hear him shout,
"Open, Barley, let me out!"
We can laugh, for we shall win,
He can't get out, we can get in.

IV.

Ah, happy isle where summer reigns!
We shivering 'neath our blankets cried :
"No fog her azure ether stains,

No frost-bite nips her gardens' pride "---
But while we praised her golden light,
And rhymed her merits o'er again,
The wild wind smote her in his might,

And foundered houses, ships, and men.

I. Oh, the trees of the desert, green to the wanderer's eye! Oh, the fruits of the desert, sweet to the palate dry! Every year to the desert cometh the caravan,

Laden on hunches of camels beareth all fruit that it can. 2. I was when the world was made,

Yet am I fresh as the morn;
Where I am not health must fade,

And the baby perish new-born.

My presence you cannot tell
By hearing, seeing, or smell;
My absence you surely find
By the lassitude left behind.

3. Fierce amid the gentle, 'mid the timid bold,
Curves and lines of beauty architects of old
Drew from his small person, as is often seen,
Genius giving glory to common things and mean.
4. Wiseacres in the mid ages

Quarrelled and puzzled their mind
How many stand-points for angels
On a pin's point they could find.
Wiseacres nowadays worry
Room for all people to seek
On the high crest of good fortune,
All on the uppermost peak :
No one will stand any lower,
Each must the other surpass :
Near them mediæval wiseacre
Was not, I think, such an ass!