Full well I mind the days gone by,—­ ’Twas nought but sleep, and wake, and dine; Then John and Pal sang o’ their luck, And fondly sae sang I o’ mine!  But now, how sad the scene, and changed! Johnny and Pal are glad nae mair!  Oh! banks and braes o’ Buckingham!  How can you bloom sae fresh and fair!

* * * * *

CHELSEA.

(From our own Correspondent.)

This delightful watering-place is filling rapidly.  The steam-boats bring down hundreds every day, and in the evening take them all back again.  Mr. Jones has engaged a lodging for the week, and other families are spoken of.  A ball is also talked about; but it is not yet settled who is to give it, nor where it is to be given.  The promenading along the wooden pier is very general at the leaving of the packets, and on their arrival a great number of persons pass over it.  There are whispers of a band being engaged for the season; but, as there will not be room on the pier for more than one musician, it has been suggested to negotiate with the talented artist who plays the drum with his knee, the cymbals with his elbow, the triangle with his shoulder, the bells with this head, and the Pan’s pipes with his mouth—­thus uniting the powers of a full orchestra with the compactness of an individual.  An immense number of Margate slippers and donkeys have been imported within the last few days, and there is every probability of this pretty little peninsula becoming a formidable rival to the old-established watering-places.

* * * * *

THE DRAMA.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

OR, THE COURT OF QUEEN ANNE.

Perhaps it was the fashion at the court of Queen Anne, for young gentlemen who had attained the age of sixteen to marry and be given in marriage.  At all events, some conjecture of the sort is necessary to make the plot of the piece we are noticing somewhat probable—­that being the precise circumstance upon which it hinges.  The Count St. Louis, a youthful attache of the French embassy, becomes attached, by a marriage contract, to Lady Bell, a maid of honour to Queen Anne.  The husband at sixteen, of a wife quite nineteen, would, according to the natural course of things, be very considerably hen-pecked; and St. Louis, foreseeing this, determines to begin.  Well, he insists upon having “article five” of the marriage contract cancelled; for, by this stipulation, he is to be separated from his wife, on the evening of the ceremony (which fast approaches), for five years.  He storms, swears, and is laughed at; somebody sends him a wedding present of sugar-plums—­everybody calls him a boy, and makes merry at his expense—­the wife treats him with contempt, and plays the scornful.  The hobble-de-hoy husband, fired with indignation, determines to prove himself a man.