to “The People’s WILLIAM” and the carrying out of the People’s will—­which is quite another affair,—­all, to quote Sir PETER, “vastly entertaining.”  The chapter on the Shibboleth “Education” is, thinks the Baron, about the best.  Mr. LILLY is a Satirist who, as GEORGIUS MEREDITHIUS MAGNUS might express it, is, in his fervour, near a truth, grasps it, and is moved to moral distinctness, mental intention, with a preference of strong, plain speech, and a chuck of interjectory quotation over the crack of his whip, with which tramping active he flicks his fellows sharply.  With which Meredithism concludes

THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.

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PREUX CHEVALIER.

SIR,—­The amazing popularity of the Costermonger Songs seems to me a significant phenomenon.  While no humane person would deny to the itinerant vendor of comestibles that sympathy which is accorded to the joys and sorrows of his more refined fellow-creatures, it is impossible to view without alarm the hold which his loose and ungrammatical diction is obtaining in the most cultured salons of to-day.  Anxious to minimise the danger, yet loth to check a sentiment of fraternity so creditable to our common humanity, I have devised a plan by which Mr. CHEVALIER’s songs may he rendered in such-wise that while all their deep humanity is preserved, their English is so elevated as to be innocuous to the nicest sensibility.  Permit me to give, just as a sample, my treatment of that very popular ballad, known, rubesco referens, as “Knocked ’em in the Old Kent Road.”  Not being a singer, I have adopted Mr. CLIFFORD HARRISON’s charming plan of speaking through the music of the song, and this is how I render the chorus:—­

“‘How is it with you?’ was the universal exclamation of the residents in the vicinity.

“‘With whom, WILLIAM, have you made an appointment?’

“’Have you, WILLIAM, purchased all the house-property in this thoroughfare?’

“Were my risible faculties exercised?—­you ask me.  Nay.  Indeed I was actually apprehensive of a fatal issue.

“So striking was the effect produced upon those in the ancient Cantian highway.”

This, Sir, not only gives the sense, but gives it, I venture to claim, in a form fit for the apprehension of the most refined.  Judging, too, by the reception it met with at our recent Penny Readings, I am convinced that Mr. CHEVALIER’s peculiar humour is thoroughly preserved, for, indeed, many of the audience laughed till I became positively concerned for their safety.

Yours faithfully, ROBERT BOWDLER SPALDING.

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GOOD NEWS INDEED!

That fiendish malefactor, the Influenza Bacillus, has been caught at last!  The peculiarity about him, confound him, is said to be his “immobility.”  Ugh! the hard-hearted infinitesimally microscopic monster!  No tears, short-breathings, sighs, no groans, no sufferings, nothing will move him.  There he remains, untouched, immobile.  But there was one hopeful sign mentioned in the Times of last Saturday—­the Bacillus was found “in chains, and in strings.”  Let the chains be the heaviest possible till he can be tried by a Judge and Jury; and don’t resort to “strings” till the supply of chains has failed.