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[Illustration:  THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.

(MODERN POLITICAL VERSION, A LONG WAY AFTER MARLOWE.)]

  “COME LIVE WITH ME, AND BE MY LOVE
  AND WE WILL ALL THE PLEASURES PROVE
  THAT LAND REFORM, ALLOTTED FIELD,
  AND VILLAGE COUNCILS SOON MUST YIELD.”

  And thou shalt sit at ease, and mock
  The Tory Shepherds of the flock,
  The Squire and Parson, o’er whose fall
  The Primrose Dames already squall.

  And I will give thee cots most cosy,
  Of structure sound and aspect rosy;
  True homes, salubrious if not garish,
  And proper influence in the parish.

  One-Man-one-Vote, the Ballot, School,
  And rating on a fairer rule;
  A Charity less harsh and cold
  To warm thine heart when thou grow’st old.

  A chance upon the land to dwell,
  Free, independent, faring well;
  And if these pleasures may thee move,
  Come live with me, and be my love!

  Though Tory Swains thy vote may crave
  To keep thee still the Landlord’s slave,
  If freedom’s joys thy mind may move,
  Come live with me and be my love!

THE NYMPH’S REPLY.

(Some way after Sir Walter Raleigh.)

  If I were sure ’twere sooth thou’st sung,
  That truth were on thy silvery tongue;
  These pleasures must my passion move
  To live with thee and be thy love.

  But art thou sure the Allotted Field
  A present paradise will yield,
  Making a lady of a thrall,
  As dreamed at the Memorial Hall?

  Thy Village Council, Cottage cosy,
  Present in sooth a prospect rosy,
  But promises so oft are rotten;
  I’ve oft been wooed—­and oft forgotten!

  Free vote, fair rating, open school,
  Good wage, intelligent self-rule,—­
  These are enticements me would move
  To live with thee and be thy love.

  If thy zeal last, if love, indeed,
  Fire thee my hapless lot to heed;
  Then such delights my mind shall move
  To live with thee and be thy love.

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A LOST OPPORTUNITY.—­During a recent cause celebre in the Divorce Court the petitioner was asked by Sir CHARLES RUSSELL, Q.C., M.P., P.T.P.C., “Did he do anything?” to which the reply was, “He took up a salt-cellar and threw the contents in my face.”  Mr. FRANK LOCKWOOD, Q.C., M.P., V.P.T.P.C. has been lamenting ever since that he could not have appeared as amicus curiae to point out that this testimony, until flatly contradicted, “must be taken as prima facie evidence of a salting her.”

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CHRISTMAS NUMBERS.

AFTER A VERY OLD NURSERY MODEL.