I wonder why, whenever pressed
  A little money to invest
  In something which is quite the best
    Affair to buy,
  I always read next morning that
  Not I, but it (in parlance pat
  Of City articles) was “Flat,”
    I wonder why.

* * * * *

CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS NURSERY RHYMES.

(FOR USE OF INFANT STUDENTS IN NEW SCHOOL OF DRAMATIC ART.)

  ’Tis the voice of the Prompter,
    I hear him quite plain;
  He has prompted me twice,
    Let him prompt me again.

* * * * *

THE PRETTY SIMPLETON.

[The Spectator warns men against marrying simpletons, pointing out that “there is no bore on earth equal to the woman who can neither talk nor listen, and who has no mental interests in common with her husband.”]

[Illustration]

  When fair BELINDA sweetly smiles,
    And airily before you trips,
  You’re captured by her artless wiles,
    And must admire her rosy lips. 
  You know that she is very fair,
    You see that she has splendid eyes;
  But ah, rash lover, have a care,
    And find out if BELINDA’s wise.

  For beauty, trust us, is not all
    A wife in these days should possess;
  Her conversation’s apt to pall,
    If she can talk of naught but dress. 
  She need not be too deeply read,
    You do not want a priggish bride;
  But still take care the pretty head
    Can boast some little brain inside.

  In courtship all she said was sweet,
    For you had died to win a glance;
  Her little platitudes seemed neat,
    Breathed ’mid the pauses of the dance. 
  You would have felt a heartless fiend
    To criticise, when by her side;
  Nor would the lady have demeaned
    Herself to answer, had you tried.

  But when you’ve won her for a wife,
    And ante-nuptial glamour dies,
  What food for matrimonial strife
    Her crass inconsequent replies. 
  How terrible to find her dense,
    And never grasping what you mean;
  You’ll think one gleam of common sense
    Worth more than finest eyes e’er seen.

  Days come when love no longer gives
    Illusions as in hours of yore;
  And hapless is the man who lives
    To find his wife become a bore. 
  Then keep, if you’d avoid that day,
    The wise Spectator’s golden rule: 
  Don’t be by beauty led away,
    And choose for wife a pretty fool.

* * * * *

In the Times’ book advertisement column, the S.P.C.K. announces the following new publication:—­

    THE OUSE.  By the Rev. A.J.  FOSTER, M.A.

This, we suppose, is the first of a new unaspirated ARRY SERIES.  The next Volume being The Ome, and, after that, Books of Ighgate, Amsted, Olloway, and other Ills.