So in the village inn the Poet dwelt. 
  His honey-dew was gone; only the pouch,
  His cousin’s work, her empty labour, left. 
  But still he sniffed it, still a fragrance clung
  And lingered all about the broidered flowers. 
  Then came his landlord, saying in broad Scotch,
  “Smoke plug, mon,” whom he looked at doubtfully. 
  Then came the grocer, saying, “Hae some twist
  At tippence,” whom he answered with a qualm. 
  But when they left him to himself again,
  Twist, like a fiend’s breath from a distant room
  Diffusing through the passage, crept; the smell
  Deepening had power upon him, and he mixt
  His fancies with the billow-lifted bay
  Of Biscay, and the rollings of a ship.

  And on that night he made a little song,
  And called his song “The Song of Twist and Plug,”
  And sang it:  scarcely could he make or sing.

  “Rank is black plug, though smoked in wind and rain;
  And rank is twist, which gives no end of pain;
  I know not which is ranker, no, not I.

  “Plug, art thou rank?  Then milder twist must be;
  Plug, thou art milder; rank is twist to me. 
  O Twist, if plug be milder, let me buy.

  “Rank twist, that seems to make me fade away,
  Rank plug, that navvies smoke in loveless clay,
  I know not which is ranker, no, not I.

  “I fain would purchase flake, if that could be;
  I needs must purchase plug, ah woe is me! 
  Plug and a cutty, a cutty, let me buy.”

* * * * *

COMPLICATED CASE.—­The other day, an Italian Organ-grinder was arrested for having shot one GIUSEPPE PIA.  “He admitted the charge” (we quote the Globe), “but said the gun went off accidentally.”  When a Gentleman “admits the charge” (though indeed it was the other one who did that), how the gun went off seems to be a matter of secondary importance.

* * * * *

THE NAME AND THE THING.—­A vote of thanks to Sir CHARLES RUSSELL, after his address to the Liberal and Radical Association, was earned by a Wapping Majority.

* * * * *

A LATTERDAY VALENTINE.

(LEAP YEAR:  NEW STYLE.)

(FROM MISS ANASTASIA JAY, NEW YORK, TO THOMAS, EARL OF DUNBROWNE, LONDON.)

[Illustration]

  Valentines plebeian
    Cannot fix an Earl—­
  I’m as you may see, an
    Ardent Yankee girl. 
  Nothing “soft” you’ll find here,
    No old-fashioned lay;
  Say then, you’ll be mine, dear,
    In the modern way.

  You (we haven’t met as
    Yet I must record)
  Figure in Debrett as
    Out-and-out a Lord: 
  Ancestors, a thousand,
    Dignities, a score—­
  Hear my bashful vows, and
    Think this matter o’er.

  I don’t in for Pa go;
    Pa despised New York;
  Porpa in Chicago
    Cultivated pork: 
  Ma was born a Gerald;
    Birth was Morma’s pride—­
  As the New York Herald
    Mentioned when she died.