Various

“ But I think it will keep for a week, and on this New Year's Eve I will put in the Bag a letter of my own, addressed to him who, take him for all in all, (as Bacon wrote) is the most Eminent Man of the century. No one, a cynic has said, is a hero to his own valet—meaning, I suppose, that the closer a man is looked into the less profound his valley appears. It has been my lot to sit at your feet for close upon half-a-century, perched upon the pile of volumes which, oddly enough, never grows an eighth-of-an-inch higher through the revolving years. ”

“ Not all reading, my Francis, makes a full man—save in the sense in which one may be filled with the East wind. My books were men. Not much that is novel in Nature, human or otherwise, to study in these shadowy realms. I miss the "Mermaid," and the mazy world which was my stage. Donelly's book is dull, however. Canst furnish us with a substitute, excellent Mr. Punch? ”

“ The eight hours of daily toil were over, and the crowds of cheery-voiced and happy-faced working people were returning in merry groups to their respective homes, scattered here and there amid the splendid Co-operative Palaces that reared their decorated fronts to meet the last golden glories of the setting sun, and break the soft progress of the gentle evening breeze laden with the sweet scents of the myriad flowers blooming freshly amid the verdant parterres and winding woodland walks by which they were divided and surrounded. ”

“ Even for the elders, too, there is a mirth and joy about the Sacred Season, as they calmly retire to their beds just when the row down-stairs is becoming unbearable, and locking their doors, look carefully round the room to see that the jug is filled in readiness for the midnight serenaders of this blissful time. ”

“ Verily it might almost pass the might of Mother Nature to round two such splendid orbs into one. Rare Ben had his tribute for you also, my Verulam. "No man ever spake more neatly, more purely, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered." ”

“ There was a private view on Sunday, a week before Christmas Day, and those who examined the treasures revealing the glories of Regent Street and the Lowther Arcade, could not help thinking "Mr. Labouchere must have a heart as good as his head, and be a very kind man au fond." We wonder whether that confirmed cynic, the proprietor of Truth, would make the same admission?
The reasons given in the correspondence published in the Times of last Thursday for discharging Mr. Highton from his offices in connection with the Westminster Play seem to us inadequate. ”

“ Under brighter and more inspiriting auspices comes another group. May I present them to my honoured Master? Eighteen Eighty-Eight this is Mr. Punch of whom you may have heard. Mr. Punch, this is Eighteen Eigthy-Eight of whom I expect you will hear a good deal. And here, happier in his possessions than King Lear, are his four daughters—Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. They come to wish you a Happy New Year in which no one joins so heartily as your humble friend and servitor, Toby, M.P. ”

“ Bernard Beere in As in a Looking Glass. Indeed, she does hold the mirror up to "nature,"—which is in this instance what Zola calls la bête humaine,—and in it is reflected the worn face, so weary of wickedness and so hopeless of the future, of Lena Despard. The moral of the story—for moral there is—is never out of date. If we can ever retrace any of our steps in life, which I doubt, there are at all events some false steps that never can be retraced. Our deeds become part and parcel of ourselves, and we can no more rid ourselves of them than we can jump off our shadows. ”

“ Lives there the man with soul so dead, Whose heart within him has not bled, And who, quite promptly has not fled, at mention of that grandest of Nineteenth Century inspirations, the Jubilee Imperial Institute? ”

“ What a glorious free-drinking race we must have bin in days gone by! How one's respect rises up when one hears of a digneterry of the Church who lived to the green old age of 80, becoz he always drunk a bottle of old port every day of his life from his youth upwards. ”

“ The "Social Trumps" must be enjoying their Christmas festivities. Their Christmas, of course, is The King of Trumps.
[pg 310]
INTERIORS AND EXTERIORS. No. 56. MR. PUNCH'S NEW YEAR'S DAY RECEPTION. CHRISTMAS CRIMES. (Dedicated to the unfortunate Concocters of Sensational Leading Articles.)
"A merry Christmas! And why not a Merry Christmas, we should like to be informed? Is it not far better to be joyous and mirthful than to be——" (&c. Supply vigorous epithets here) . ”

“ No loyal Toastes, nor no Army and Navy and Wolluntears, and no blushing Churchman's helth, nor no Lord Mayor's helth, but dreckly as they've dun their dinner away they goes to the Play or some such frivolus emusement, insted of setting for ours and ours over their wine, and lissening with rapshure to the long speaches, as full of wit as they is of wisdom, which has made us what we are, the sollemest, and the most respectablest, and the most diningoutest peeple in Urope, and the best frends to the pore hardworking Waiters of any other nation. ”

“ I swear to you, Cornet, that each hammer I strike vibrates on my own heart-strings!
C. Then you can be innerpennant of a pianner.
P. I am young—but the young have their sorrows, I suppose. Is it nothing to have to minister to others' gaiety with a bitter pang in one's own breast? ”

“ I had not read the novel,—you have, but considerately refrained from telling me the plot,—so I enjoyed the performance without my memory compelling me to compare it, for better or worse, with the original story.
I have never seen Mrs. Beere play anything before this, nor have I seen Sarah Bernhardt, who, as you tell me, was in other pieces this lady's model. ”

“ A London Cousin of mine, who is a theatre-goer, and knows several of the leading actors and actresses "at home," tells me that in this piece the individuality of the actress is completely merged in the part, and that it is only when she is saying something very cynical, that he was reminded by a mannerism peculiar to this actress how bitter this Beere could be on occasion. It is a pity her name is Beere, because when I asked my cousin (do you know him—Joseph Miller?) if, off the stage, this lady was really thin and tall, he replied, "Yes—Mrs. ”

“ Thorne as James is admirable; representing the character as a man gifted with an overpowering appreciation of the humorous side of every situation,—including his own as a butler,—in which either accident or design may place him. ”

“ I begins to feel as how the older one gits the more a little bother seems to worry him. There was a time when I could look bothers in the face with the same carm look as I lissens to a gent when he tries to perswade me as how as that port isn't '47 Port, but them times is gorn I'm afeard, never to return.
My present bother came upon me amost like a moderate size thunderbolt, and was summut in this way. The Manager of one of my best Hotels took me into his privet room, one day larst week, and had sum werry sollem tork with me. ”

“ Why, to such a man his dinner must have bin to him the one great object of his life, as it ort to be to every reel Gentleman. My son William, who is a good calculator, tells me that this trewly reverend Diwine must have drunk a hole Pipe of Port ewery two years of his life! What a time of it his rewerend Butler must have had! Robert.
SWIVELLERIANISM.
From the Police Reports we have discovered that there is a Society called "The Social Trumps." What a Swivellerian title! The dispute which made these trumps Police Court Cards turned on a question of money, and the Magistrate, Mr. ”

“ Why, they don't mind you and me more than the drugget under their feet. Even gutter kids have got manners enough to thank the Italian as plays the orgin for 'em to dance to. Are we ever thanked? I arsk you.
P. The Italian plays for nothing. We don't.
C. There you go, redoocin' everything to coppers. You're arguin' beside the question, you are. Ever see a well-dressed kid give a orgin a penny without there was a monkey a-top of it? I never did. If you chained a monkey to your pianner now, they might condescend to look at yer now and then—not unless. ”

“ I find too, werry much to my discumfort and worry, that I am xpected to bussel about jest as if I was the mere boy as the French gents calls me, witch is of coarse so werry different to what I have for so many years bin akustomed to in the dear, old, quiet, respecktable City, that I sumtimes wunders whether I shall be able to stand it for long. Another thing too as I misses terribly, is the hutter habsence of Toastes. ”

“ Change my name and address next year, call myself B-ckle of the Times.
Mr. Ch-mb-rl-n. Retire from "Fisheries'" as gracefully and as soon as possible. As J-sse C-ll-ngs would say, "Hook it." Codling's the man.
The Lord Ch-f J-st-ce of Engl-nd. Shall begin New Year by leaving off voice lozenges, or may be called a "Sucking Ch-f J-st-ce." Shouldn't like this, and I know of one worldly journalist who wouldn't hesitate to write it.
The Right Hon. J. G. G-sch-n, M.P. Think I shall go back to the Liberal Party for a year at least; have tried them all round; find the last rather worse than others. ”

“ The perruquier makes the wig, and the wig makes the actor. There are portraits of various theatrical celebrities, including one or two of Mr. Toole, in various wigs, whose presentments in these pages may entitle the work to be called Fox's Book of Martyrs—willing martyrs, of course, and many of them after they've strutted and fretted for several hours on the stage, quite ready to go cheerfully to "The Steak."
Mr. Frederick Barnard's Character Sketches from Dickens have been republished. They are the work of a true artist ”

“ Present, the Shades of Shakspeare and Bacon, engaged in reading Mr. Donelly's egregious lucubrations, not without such mild and mitigated mirth as becomes the locality. To them enters a small and sprightly Personage, light-footed, but of seeming cis-Stygian solidity.
Bacon
Shakspeare } (together) . Hillo!
Mr. Punch. That sounds human. Savours rather of my own Fleet Street than of the realms of the other Rhadamanthus. What cheer, sweet Will? How fare you, Brother Francis? ”

“ Leave Wales to the Welshers.
Mr. A-g-st-s H-rr-s. Commence Pantomime for 1888-89. Entertain everybody. Send Life Pass for the Queen's Box, to the Assistant Architect of the Metropolitan Board of Works. Must be presented at Court this year. Should look well in Court suit.
Dr. R-bs-n R-se. Must invent something new in the diet line for New Year ”

“ Lichfield House of Call (A) , 180 Light from the Wind, 133 Lighting the Dublin Beacon, 258 Line for Browning (A) , 237 Literary Find (A) , 252 Loaded with Presents, 174 "Long expected come at Last!" 5 Lord Mayor's Day in Dublin (A) , 170 Lord Salisbury's Shakspeare, 273 Lords and Ladies, 21 Lost Record (The) , 130 Magazines in Bulk, 205 Making it Easy, 42 Manners and Customs of the City of London, 228 Marble Arch (The) , 73 "Margarine," 34 May in November, 242 Measure for Measure, 96 Medical New Year's Day (The) , 166 Messenger of Peace (The) , 186 "Mi Lor Maire," 240 Mixed Pickles ”