and health at least as freely as the humblest of her subjects.  The continuance of her life is certainly a political desideratum.  It largely aids in maintaining a wholesome balance between conservatism and reform.  So long as she lives there will be no masculine will to exaggerate the former or obstruct the latter, as notably happened under George III. and William IV.  Her personal bearing is also in her favor.  Her popularity, temporarily obscured a few years ago, is becoming as great as ever.  It has never been weakened by any misstep in politics, and so long as that can be said will be exposed to no serious danger.

We are far from being at the end of the upper Thames.  Oxford, were there no other namable place, is beyond us.  But we have explored the denser portion—­the nucleus of the nebula of historic stars that stretches into the western sky as seen from the metropolis.  We lay aside our little lorgnette.  It has shown us as much as we can map in these pages, and that we have endeavored to do with at least the merit of accuracy.

EDWARD C. BRUCE.

THE POET’S PEN.

      I am an idle reed;
  I rustle in the whispering air;
      I bear my stalk and seed
  Through spring-time’s glow and summer’s glare.

      And in the fiercer strife
  Which winter brings to me amain,
      Sapless, I waste my life,
  And, murmuring at my fate, complain.

      I am a worthless reed;
  No golden top have I for crown,
      No flower for beauty’s meed,
  No wreath for poet’s high renown.

      Hollow and gaunt, my wand
  Shrill whistles, bending in the gale;
      Leafless and sad I stand,
  And, still neglected, still bewail.

      O foolish reed! to wail! 
  A poet came, with downcast eyes,
      And, wandering through the dale,
  Saw thee and claimed thee for his prize.

      He plucked thee from the mire;
  He pruned and made of thee a pen,
      And wrote in words of fire
  His flaming song to listening men;

      Till thou, so lowly bred,
  Now wedded to a nobler state,
      Utt’rest such paeans overhead
  That angels listen at their gate.

  F.A.  HILLARD.

SKETCHES OF INDIA.

II.

I had now learned to place myself unreservedly in the hands of Bhima Gandharva.  When, therefore, on regaining the station at Khandallah, he said, “The route by which I intend to show you India will immediately take us quite away from this part of it; first, however, let us go and see Poona, the old Mahratta capital, which lies but a little more than thirty miles farther to the south-eastward by rail,”—­I accepted the proposition as a matter of course, and we were soon steaming down the eastern declivity of the Ghats.  As we moved smoothly down into the treeless plains which surround Poona I could not resist a certain feeling of depression.