of a character eminently refusable; but his offering no one could refuse. He showed no favouritism, however, and it was a slip of paper I received. It was blank on both sides. His mission was none the less earnest for that. Two ladies were the next recipients of his bounty; I watched them staring. A moment later found him in a jeweller's shop, but he was careful of his opportunities; and he was out again directly. As he stood on the jeweller's threshold I bent down to him. "May I ask why you give people these pieces of paper?" I said. His blue eyes met mine widely, but vacantly; his smooth forehead was puckered. To ask was to puzzle him. He had not the key of his humour.

He met no resentment; how should he? For on his blank slips of paper all his beneficiaries read themselves back into their childhood-that state of dream when action is dear for its own sake, and to play at commerce with real customers is the Game of games.

Correspondence.

"Mr. Punch": A Protest-An American View.

SIR, Few things are more amusing to the stranger within your gates than the touching affection which the British public maintains for their and our-old friend "Mr. Punch"; and, upon the whole, he has deserved it. But I must confess that I regret to see your excellent paper, in a critical article, joining in the praise of the latter-day "Mr. Punch," as though he remained beyond criticism, and as though the paper which we buy on the bookstalls to-day was the same paper which our parents and grandparents bought twenty-nay, ten-nay, fiveyears ago. Please understand that I am only a Yankee, whose humour may be " new," and whose tastes may be vulgar; but what I am, Punch has made me, for he has lain on my table since boyhood, and I would stand the test of examination with the bluest-blooded Britisher that ever laughed or wept with Leech or Keene (that magnificent artist!), or smiled ironically with George Du Maurier. And now, alas! when I study this preceptor of my youth at the end (or is it at the beginning?) of the century, I can only cry (quoting from my Bartlett), "What a falling off is here." The Punch repartee to the old lady who complained that Punch was not so good as it had been Oh, it never has been." But that little spark of humour won't scintillate to-day. The decadence is of a material kind. Lovers of Punch do not complain that Keene is dead, that Tenniel has grown grey, that Phil May is parsimonious of his exquisite draughtsmanship; but an ugly sheet of advertisements has been stuck into the heart of the paper, and sometimes, lately (but this must be whispered), the illustration here has been the one bright spot in the number. The pages are no longer varied with small pictures, and the deadly pun, that microbe of diseased humour, lies everywhere. One shivering block per page is the allowance, and often that block stands as a tombstone to record a jest, long since dead, but which some irreverent jester will not allow to lie at The events of the moment are ignored. Mr. Punch's History of His Own Times is ended, for Mr. Sambourne is a great artist to whom mundane affairs are a bore, and Sir John Tenniel is living in a glorious past which nothing-not even his present-can obscure.

rest.

was,

But this all this-is but the commonplace of the smoking-room and the street, and yet the "conspiracy of silence in the newspapers chatters its unceasing praise and utters no word of criticism. How comes it that English journals, critical in all else, allow their old friend and comrade to stumble on blindly and never to warn him with so much as a hint? Well, sir, my explanation is this all men, especially newspaper men, make jokes,

:

and their hereditary desire to publish them in Punch stays their hands, lest he should die before their progeny is published. As I never detected you,* sir, in anything like a joke, I address my protest and appeal to the ACADEMY.I am, &c., LUCIUS M. DRAGE (Manhattan-crescent, Boston),

Langham Hotel, London:

June 25, 1900.

[* And we have tried to joke so often.-ED.]

"Drift."

SIR, Mr. Beckles Willson's letter to you on the subject of "Drift" shows the imprudence of not consulting a modern dictionary. For while the word drift boasted fewer than half-a-dozen meanings according to the lastcentury lexicographers, its status as a noun is to-day established by at least nineteen, although I am unable to discover anywhere its application to floating weeds, flowers, and grasses. In this poetical sense Mr. Beckles Willson may, therefore, claim to be original; but his rival, Mr. Brown, might with propriety have used drift as implying (vide Century Dictionary) a drift of snow, of logs, of cattle, of swine, or of bullets. Whether this would have been poetical I shall not presume to decide.—I am, &c., E. B. POLLOCK,

Queen Anne's Mansions, S. W. :
June 25, 1900.

Ernest Dowson.

SIR, The discovery that the beautiful lyric by which the name of Ernest Dowson will be chiefly remembered was a mere Swinburnian rendering of a comic ballad of Mr. Burnand's is sufficiently astonishing. The critical insight your correspondent displays is amazing; perhaps, therefore, he will now indicate the source from which Mr. Burnand derived his fable. Whatever that may be, Dowson found the inspiration in his own life; had, probably, never heard of Mr. Burnand's version; and, in writing his own, was only giving the fullest expression to an emotion that has "thrilled dead bosoms." A little more of that astonishing smartness upon which many people pride themselves would have rendered this clear to your correspondent's perspicacity. The line he cites, moreover, is a misquotation; and the poetic formula he styles "Swinburnian" is one favoured in this country by Rossetti as well as Swinburne, and in France by scores of poets since Villon, by whom it was probably conceived.—I am, &c.,

Judy Office, Chancery Lane, W.C.:
June 25, 1900.

HAROLD LUSH.

New Books Received.

[These notes on some of the New Books of the week are preliminary to Reviews that may follow.]

ESSAYS OF JOHN DRYDEN. EDITED BY W. P. KER. Mr. Ker is Professor of English Literature in University College, London, and this work has been anticipated with interest for some time. It is not a complete edition of Dryden's prose. The longer works and those unconnected with literature have been left out. The book contains a collection of Dryden's principal essays on literary subjects, with a short commentary, and an introduction intended to explain his position as a critic. There are also copious notes. Dryden's prose is neglected of the multitude, but its importance to thorough students has always been great, and this presentation of it is welcome. (Clarendon Press.)

Our Weekly Competition.

Result of No. 40 (New Series).

LAST week we offered a prize of One Guinea for the best "Thing Seen" in verse, not exceeding eight lines. This Competition has been popular, and has produced very varied results. We award the prize to Mr. J. M. Strachey, 69, Lancaster-gate, W., for the following: Quick through the bars of his cage the monkey, with jubilant treble,

Seized the small parcel, unfolded the nut from the paper and ate it, Stretched forth his paw for another, when, lo! not a nut but a pebble

Lurked in the treacherous wrapper, grating his teeth as they met it.

What chatter and grinning of fury! what clutching for foes to belabour!

Till sudden he paused, there came over the foam of his wrath a transition;

He re-wrapped the stone in a hurry, and up overhead to his neighbour

Thrust it, then rolled on the floor of his cage in ecstatic derision. Other replies are as follows:

ON THE TACK.

Close where the calm cliff fronts on the splash and the swell of the ocean,

She, in her strength and her height, paused with a shivering sigh;

Wildly the huge white sails flapped about with tumultuous motion,
Loose ropes rattled, and shouts rose to the infinite sky.

This for a moment; then she turned with a bang from the leeward;
Sails taut, deck on a slant, ropes that were rigid again,
And, with the course and the force of a hawk, swept splendidly
seaward,

Buoyed by the great grey winds, over the mist of the main.
[G. L. S., London.]

Above, St. Paul's majestic pile,
The thronged street below,
The busy scene, now flushed awhile

In tender evening glow.

The age-worn spire across the way,
The mighty frosted dome,
The bridge beneath, all seem to say,
In London, here's my home!

[E. H. H., London.] Other replies received from: R. M. S., Gourock; H. D. C., Cambridge; G. B., Liverpool; T. C.. Buxted: J. B. W., Hove; L. C. J., North Berwick; J. C. S.. Bristol; E R., London; A. R, London; M. T., London; A. L., London; M. von S., London; E. J. L. A., Penarth; S. B. M., Glendevon; G. L. S., London; Mrs. D, London; K. E. T.. Bristol; G. C., Ferris; M. B. E., Melbourne. Derbyshire; H. R. B, London; L. L., Ramsgate; S. R., Malvern; T. B. D., Bridgwater; M. C.. London; H. E. M., Edinburgh; F J. O., Walsall; A. S., Edinburgh; R. H. M., Manchester; E. R. G.. Croydon ; E. S. C., Redhill; H. C., Leicester; A. A., Birkdale; Z. McC., Whitby; A. M P., Folkestone; H. C., Leicester; L. F., Manchester; L. M. L., Stafford; S. W. S., Catford; P. P., London; A. W., London; R. B. J., London; H. J., London; C. S. O., London; M. A. W., London.