SHEIL’S oratory’s like bottled Dublin stout;
  For, draw the cork, and only froth comes out.

* * * * *

CALUMNY REFUTED.

We can state on the most positive authority that the recent fire at the Army and Navy Club did not originate from a spark of Colonel Sibthorp’s wit falling amongst some loose jokes which Captain Marryatt had been scribbling on the backs of some unedited purser’s bills.

* * * * *

HITTING THE RIGHT NAIL ON THE HEAD.

  The Whigs resemble nails—­How so, my master? 
  Because, like nails, when beat they hold the faster.

* * * * *

A MATTER OF TASTE.

“Do you admire Campbell’s ’Pleasures of Hope’?” said Croker to Hook.  “Which do you mean, the Scotch poet’s or the Irish Chancellor’s? the real or the ideal—­Tommy’s four thousand lines or Jocky’s four thousand pounds a-year?” inquired Theodore.  Croker has been in a brown study ever since.

* * * * *

CHARLES KEAN’S “CHEEK.”

MR. PUNCH,—­Myself and a few other old Etonians have read with inexpressible scorn, disgust, and indignation, the heartless and malignant attempts, in your scoundrel journal, to blast the full-blown fame of that most transcendant actor, and most unexceptionable son, Mr. Charles Kean.  Now, PUNCH, fair play is beyond any of the crown jewels.  I will advance only one proof, amongst a thousand others that cart-horses sha’n’t draw from me, to show that Charles Kean makes more—­mind, I say, makes more—­of Shakspere, than every other actor living or dead.  Last night I went to the Haymarket—­Lady Georgiana L——­ and other fine girls were of the party.  The play was “Romeo and Juliet,” and there are in that tragedy two slap-up lines; they are, to the best of my recollection, as follow:—­

  “Oh! that I were a glove upon that hand,
  That I might touch that cheek.”

Now, ninety-nine actors out of a hundred make nothing of this—­not so Charles Kean.  Here’s my proof.  Feeling devilish hungry, I thought I’d step out for a snack, and left the box, just as Charles Kean, my old schoolfellow, was beginning—­

  “Oh!—­”

Well, I crossed the way, stepped into Dubourg’s, swallowed two dozen oysters, took a bottom of brandy, and booked a small bet with Jack Spavin for the St. Leger, returned to the theatre, and was comfortably seated in my box, as Charles Kean, my old school-fellow, had arrived at

“------cheek!”

Now, PUNCH, if this isn’t making much of Shakspere, what is?

Yours (you scoundrel), ETONIAN.

* * * * *

AN AN-TEA ANACREONTIC—­No. 4.

The following ode is somewhat freely translated from the original of a
Chinese emigrant named CA-TA-NA-CH, or the “illustrious minstrel.”