Verily (as Touchstone says), “I’ll rhyme you so, eight years together, dinners and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted.”  And if it is “the right butterwoman’s rate to market,” or “the very false gallop of verses,” it is at any rate good enough for a long-eared public or a postulant for the Laureateship.

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WAR ON A LARGE SCALE.

(AN ACCOUNT OF THE CONFLICT, FROM THE DIARY OF AN INHABITANT OF HERNE BAY.)

Monday.—­Extremely awkward—­the entire British Fleet have come ashore; and, as it is impossible to move them on account of their enormous tonnage, this will entail a loss of L24,000,000,000!

Tuesday.—­Troubles never come singly!  The French, taking advantage of the temporary suspension of our naval operations, have declared war.  This means the utter ruin of the bathing season, not only at Herne Bay, but Southend, and the Isle of Thanet.

Wednesday.—­As I expected!  The French Fleet are coming up towards London.  They are sure to pepper us as they pass.  As every gun carries several hundred miles, I do not see how books can be uninterruptedly issued from and returned to the Circulating Library.

Thursday.—­Our first slice of luck!  The entire French Fleet during the mist last night came into collision with the Nore Light, and sank immediately.  I was surprised at their sparing the Reculvers and the local bathing-machines, but now the mystery is explained.

Friday.—­Just learned that the great gun of Paris, which carries forty-four thousand miles, is to be tried for the first time to-morrow.  It would have been used earlier, had it not been necessary to raise a foreign loan to supply funds to load it.  Trust it won’t be laid in our direction.  This war has already caused the Insurance Companies to double their charges!  Too bad!

Saturday.—­All’s well that ends well.  Hostilities are at an end.  This morning all the glass in the windows were broken at 8 o’clock.  Ten minutes later the Champs Elysees was deposited half a mile from Birchington.  We now know that the great Paris gun burst on its first discharge, and France exists no longer as a country, but as a “geographical expression” is deposited in various parts of Europe.

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REAL AND IDEAL.—­“A Really Hard-Headed Man”—­the Iron-skulled individual now exhibiting at the Aquarium.  If his will is as iron as his head, what a despot he would be!  If France is tired of her Republic, she might try the Iron-Headed Man as a ruler.  There is the chance, of course, that he might turn out a numskull, and be only King Log, after all.

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[Illustration:  A GENTLEMAN WHO “TAKES LIFE EASILY.”]

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[Illustration:  A REMINISCENCE OF THE BASEBALL SEASON.]