“I should suppose it was,” the Auditor observed.  “I am sorry to be obliged to disallow the costs of all these inventions, but the ratepayers must not he forced to pay for fads; and, as you take such an interest in them, I am sure you won’t mind, paying for them yourself.  Good-day!”

* * * * *

HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN.

(BORN, JANUARY, 1822.  DIED, DECEMBER 26, 1890)

  Helen, who fired the topmost towers of Troy,
  Should spare a smile for the North-German boy,
  Who, from a sketch of Ilium aflame,
  Was fired with zeal which led so straight to fame. 
  ’Twas a far cry from that small grocer’s shop
  To Priam’s city; but will distance stop
  Genius, which scorns to fear or play the laggard? 
  “The World’s Desire” (as HELEN’s called by HAGGARD)
  Might well have crowned on Ilium’s windy cope,
  This patient follower-up of “The Heart’s Hope!”

* * * * *

SHOW OF THE OLD MASTERS AT BURLINGTON HOUSE.—­This Exhibition opened last Saturday.  It was such a peasoupy day that the Artiest of our Fine Arts’ Critics couldn’t get there.  Old Masters, indeed! it was a good Old Foggy that prevented him from being in his place (and he knows his place too) on that occasion.

* * * * *

CHRISTMAS IN TWO PIECES.

[Illustration]

Pantomime!  Pantomime!!  The only DRURIOLANUS, and the only Pantomime in the Tame West.  Therefore, it is almost a duty, let alone a pleasure, on the part of Parents and Guardians to take the young gentlemen from school, schools public and private, and the young ladies freed awhile from their Governesses, to see Beauty and the Beast at Drury Lane.  “Is it a good Pantomime this year?” “That,” as Hamlet once observed, though at that particular moment he was not thinking of Pantomimes, nor even of his own capital little drawing-room drama for distinguished amateurs, entitled The Mousetrap, “that is the question.”  And Mr. Punch’s First Commissioner of Theatres can conscientiously answer, “Yes, a decidedly good Pantomime.”  If pressed farther by those who “want to know” as to whether it’s the best Pantomime he ever saw, the First Commissioner answers, “No, it is not Beauty and the Best,” and he is of opinion that he must travel, in a train of thought on the line of Memory, back to the PAYNES and the VOKESES in the primest of their prime, if he would recall two or three of the very best, mind you, the very best, Pantomimes ever seen in the Tame West.  For real good rollicking fun, the Pantomimes at the Surrey and the Grecian used to be worth the trouble of a pilgrimage; but it was a trouble, for the show used to commence early and end late, and indigestion was the consequence of a disturbed dinner and the unaccustomed heartiness of a most enjoyable supper.

[Illustration:  “Sure such a pair,” &c.]