* * * * *

The wedding was a pretty thing;
I sent the “Idylls of the King,”
Well bound.  And Mariana wrote
A most appreciative note. 
They live in London now, I’m told;
The Moated Grange is let (or sold);
I only hope they’ll manage so
That TENNYSON need never know.

* * * * *

VERGILIANA.

For a certain German Admiral on being booted:  “Ite, Capellae.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  HERE TO-DAY AND GONE TO-MORROW.

CHORUS OF KAISER WILHELM’S EX-CHANCELLORS (from below).  “COMING
DOWN, MICHAELIS?”]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Tuesday, October 16th.—­To Mr. Punch’s blunt inquiry, “Why?” in last week’s cartoon different answers would, I suppose, be returned by various Members.  The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER would say that the reassembling of Parliament was necessary in order that he might obtain a further Vote of Credit from the representatives of the taxpayers.  Brigadier-General PAGE CROFT, inventor and C.-in-C. of the new “National” party, who has already attached to himself a following not inferior numerically to the little band which, under Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL in the eighties, struck terror into the hearts of the Front Benches, longs to prove that, under his brilliant leadership, Lord DUNCANNON, Sir RICHARD COOPER and Major ROWLAND HUNT will emulate the early prowess of Sir JOHN GORST, Sir HENRY DRUMMOND-WOLFF and Mr. ARTHUR BALFOUR.

But a word to the gallant General:  he will do little until he has secured a corner-seat.  By hook or by crook Mr. HOUSTON, “the Pirate King,” must be induced or compelled to surrender his coign of vantage to the new generalissimo, who will then be able alternately to pour a broadside into the Government or to enfilade the ex-Ministers who aid and abet them.

Then there are those humanized notes of interrogation like Mr. KING, Mr. HOGGE and Mr. PEMBERTON BILLING.  They would like Parliament to be in permanent session in order that the world might have the daily benefit of their searching investigations.  Mr. KING has not yet quite run into his best form.  He had only six Questions on the Paper, and actually asked only five of them—­a concession which so paralysed the MINISTER OF RECONSTRUCTION, to whom the missing Question was addressed, that, when asked where his department was located, he had to confess that he did not know the precise number, but it was somewhere in Queen Anne’s Gate.

Eclipsed in Ireland by the more spectacular attractions of Sinn Fein, the Nationalists’ only hope of recovering their lost popularity is to kick up the dust of St. Stephen’s.  Accordingly Mr. REDMOND gave notice of yet another Vote of Censure on the Irish Executive, but whether for its slackness or its brutality the terms of his motion do not make quite clear.  Perhaps he has not yet made up his own mind on the subject.