“Were I to go further into detail, I should show you that the floodgates of (financial) abuse have been opened even to a much larger extent than I have described.  We are getting into a system under which Parliament is treated, and the country is treated, to the exhibition of fictitious surpluses of revenue over expenditure.”—­Mr. Gladstone (at Hastings) on Mr. Goschen’s Finance.

  I.

  The backwater was snug and fair,
  And the gay Canoeist cavorted there. 
  Thinks he, “I have built up everywhere
    A reputation for pluck and stay!”
  Amidst the reeds the river ran;
  Behind them floated a Grand Old Swan,
        And loudly did lament
    The better deeds of a better day;
  Ever the gray Canoeist went on,
    Making his memos. as he went.

  II.

  “My foes are piqued, I must suppose,
  But cannot see their way to a ‘Cry.’”
    (So mused the man with the Semite nose,
        As up the backwater he swept.)
  “What I like” (said he) “in this nook so shy,
  Is that I am quiet, and free as a swallow,
  Squaring accounts at my own sweet will. 
  With never a fear of the Big Swan’s Bill! 
  The Swan’s as quiet as though he slept. 
  I fancy I’ve funked the fierce old fellow!”

  III.

  The Grand Old Swan came out of his hole,
  Snorting with furious joy. 
  Hidden by rushes he yet drew near,
  Behind the Canoeist, until on his ear
  Those snortings fell, both full and clear. 
  Floating about the backwater shy,
  Stronger and stronger the shindy stole,
  Filling the startled Canoeist with fear;
  And the jubilant jobating voice,
  With menaces meaning and manifold,
  Flowed forth on a “snorter” clear and bold
  (As when a party-procession rejoice
  With drums, and trumpets, and with banners of gold),
  Until the Canoeist’s blood ran cold,
  And over his paddle he crouched and rolled;
  And he wished himself from that nook afar
  (If it were but reading the evening star): 
  And the Swan he ruffled his plumes and hissed,
  And with sounding buffets, which seldom missed,
  He walloped into that paddler gay
  (Bent on enjoying his holiday). 
  He smote him here, and he spanked him there,
  Upset his “balance,” rumpled his hair. 
  “I’ll teach you,” he cried, with pounding pinions,
  “To come intruding in my dominions!”
  And the frightened flags, and the startled reeds,
  And the willow-branches hoar and dank,
  And the shaking rushes and wobbling weeds,
  And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,
  And the Grand Old Swan’s admiring throng
  (Who yelled at seeing him going so strong)
  Were flooded and fluttered by that Stentor song!

* * * * *

THE PROPOSED OLD ETONIAN BANQUET.—­“Floreat Etona!” by all means, and may “HENRY’s holy shade” never be less!  But doesn’t it seem rather like a contradiction in terms, for Old Etonians to sit down to an Eaten Dinner?—­Yours, once removed,