Brooks. The answer of his audience need hardly be told-how their applause recorded their appreciation of the writings of Thomas Hood.

Tom Taylor, born at Sunderland, in 1817, was also a contributor. Perceval Leigh whose name was not so well known, but "Pips his Diary," and "Ye Manners and Customs of ye English in ye Nineteenth Century," &c., were from his pen-Henry and Horace Mayhew, Laman Blanchard, Maguire, Thackeray, Tennyson, Trench, were also among the writers; and Doyle, who drew the design for the cover-which, by the bye, is not the original one in which Mr. Punch first showed- and Kenny Meadows were among the illustrators. The names of those of the present time are too well known to need mention here.

Shirley Brooks said, "the cartoons were settled at a dinner given once a-week, at which the editor met the contributors and artists. These meetings were most pleasant, and the dinners remarkably good."

He further related some humorous anecdotes of the curious communications forwarded to the editor. "Ladies sometimes sent accounts of the dresses, ribands, and bonnets of other persons, with a request to 'cut them up,' the information being of so minute a character that it could only be written by one lady of another. Sometimes the editor was requested to write something stinging about persons who gave parties and did not pay their debts, laying special stress on those who crammed 120 guests into a room not capable of holding fifty.

"Some persons were patronizing; and one gentleman sought to bribe, by stating he, if something he sent were inserted, would take twenty copies of Punch. Sometimes artful advertisers sent communications deprecatory of themselves, hoping to get notoriety;

but Mark Lemon was too old to be sold in that way"--as no doubt Shirley Brooks is.

"An hotel keeper," he added, "who had lately opened a house in a watering-place, pleasantly situated, offered, if a cut of his premises were inserted, and a couple of

in the periodical of which Shirley Brooks himself was the author.

Our outline of the remarks the lecturer made on the history of Punch is necessarily very imperfect. But the lecture on "Satire" was altogether a very charming evening's entertainment. We wish the editor of Punch would repeat it. We close this little article by quoting a few words from James Hannay's estimate of the satire of Punch :-"The decorum which distinguishes Punch from the best effusions of the class in the olden days belongs as much to the age as to the periodical. In the worst of times our facetious friend is innocent; and though our progenitors seem to have thought that all wit required great licence, the student finds that they were often licentious and dull too, sacrificing decency, and getting nothing in exchange."

Shirley Brooks, in accepting the duty of carrying out the traditional policy of the leading satirical journal on all social and political questions, in taking the chair so long and so well filled by one of the first promoters of the paper, and in essaying to maintain the prestige of the best journal of the kind in the world, took upon himself a grave responsibility. For Punch belongs to the British nation. This step was taken two years ago. The result has proved how happy was the selection of a successor to him who had grown old with the paper whose interests he watched so well-how capable and how gentle a follower has been found to hold the coachman's whip over the flyers that pull the Punch coach.

A

OUR VILLAGE.-III.

MRS. TIMEPIECE AT A VISITATION.

VISITATION makes as much stir amongst the clergy as the visit of the angel to the pool of Bethesda did in the old

The comparison between the visitations cannot, of course, be extended beyond "the stir."

It reminds one of a nest of ants removing their eggs to an upper or lower ledge of their little mound.

The high roads and bye-roads-especially if the visitation includes a rural district-are dotted at interspaces with a number of different shaped vehicles, containing gentlemen with white cravats. Some are in oldfashioned gigs licensed only to carry two, and these may be taken as an emblem of the union between the clergy and laity.

The driver and owner of these is generally a churchwarden, who lends his gig to the curate or vicar for the honour of riding with him.

Some of the clergy gravitate towards their archdeacon in more pretentious carriages four-wheeled phaetons, drawn by a stout horse, containing their wives and uprising daughters.

Very often the road to a visitation is to these ladies a road to matrimony.

Some aspiring curate is dazzled both by the phaeton and the daughter, and is stimulated to the ambition of having in a future day a natural right to a seat in the convey

ance.

The stamp of respectability is considered more important than plenty of bread and butter; and these girls, born with plenty of flesh about them, often feel the truth of one of their papas' remarks, that the flesh is contrary to the spirit.

It is a paramount necessity that they should keep up respectable appearances, but surely the cost of doing so is great.

It seems so natural in the country to be fond of bread and butter, and fillets of veal, and currant cakes, and eggs; but the want of money prevents the flesh and the spirit from developing their tastes severally as they would.

And these girls, knowing all this, having the horrors and contempt of poverty full before their eyes, will often make matters tenfold worse than they are, by marrying some curate with a stipend of not less than £80 or £100 per annum.

Surely the power of love must be great. But the delusion becomes very sickening after a time, when babies begin to appear, and the father of them has to go about his parish begging for the necessary clothes to cover them on their entrance into the world.

This is not an overdrawn picture. There is, it is well known, a depôt in London in which children's clothes are received from the pitying and charitable in all parts of the land, to cover the nakedness of the offspring of poor clergymen, and their name is legion.

Yet, oftentimes, the love of a wife and children is the only earthly comfort which a clergyman has; and he trusts in Providence to an extent that nothing in the Bible or out of it has authorized.

Some few of the clergymen drove to the visitation in a carriage, with the ancient family crest upon its door panels, and drawn by horses that seemed as proud as their owners.

There did not seem, in them or about them, much likeness of that Divine being who was meek and lowly in heart, whose cause they professed to represent.

But their idea is, that their external trappings magnify and tend to bring into respect his spiritual truth.

Yet, the founder of the faith that these clergymen have met to talk about said that His kingdom was not of this world.

Mrs. Timepiece and two of her younger daughters had been invited by Mr. Roecliffe to share his carriage on the occasion.

The visitation was held this year at a beautiful watering-place in the district of Ironopolis, about fifteen miles from Mr. Roecliffe's vicarage. The day was fine, and the sky Italian.

Visitations almost always take place at the time when young ducks are ready for cooking, and green peas and new potatoes for boiling. It is probably not an undesigned coincidence.

The monks in the old time always built their abbeys near a trout and grayling stream; and a strong sense of religion and a keen palate are by no means incongruous. Strange as it may appear, there is some sort of a line of communication between the palate and the conscience. It is said that Cranmer was passionately fond of woodcocks. One thing is certain, that the dinner at the Zetland is by no means the least important part of the visitation day.

For a time it seems to send into oblivion the charge that has been delivered; but it comes up again during the comparative quiet of dessert, as cream comes upon milk.

The most painful part of the proceedings is when the waiter comes round with a tray to collect the money for the dinner.

It is

a bad plan to make the collection after the dinner is eaten.

Clergymen and others don't value a dinner when they are full, and are apt to complain when they have to pay six shillings for it, exclusive of wine and beer. It is so with all material pleasures, that they seem valueless when they have been enjoyed.

Now, if you read a good book, or kneel down to say your prayers, you value reading and prayer at the end of it more than at the beginning.

It is not so with a dinner, and mine host of the Zetland ought to have collected the money for his dinner when the clergy came in hungry from the charge. Some excuse may be made for the complaint of some of them, as this six or seven shillings is the whole of their professional income for the day. The churchwardens made themselves very jolly, at the expense of the church rate, at a tavern a little lower down the cliff.

Mrs. Timepiece and her daughters got some tea and ham sandwiches at a confectioner's near the railway station, and afterwards walked on the Pier with Mr. Roecliffe, who remarked how very deficient the archdeacon's charge had been in extolling the value of "sticking-plaster."

The archdeacon was rather a high churchman, and his charge, which lasted more than an hour, was chiefly upon the importance of maintaining and believing the Athanasian Creed. He was a fine aristocratic old man; but he probably thought in his secret heart, that, if things went by merit in the Church, he would have been more than an archdeacon.

There was a good deal of what might be called the personal in his charge; as though he thought dignity, learning, and ecclesiastical history were the leaven by which the clergy were to raise a naughty world from its death unto sin.

Let the Athanasian Creed be retained in the Prayer Book, a venerable monument of theological histories; but if the Church has no better bulwark than this against the assaults of modern enemies, her end as a distinct and pre-eminent religious body is not far off.

But very few of these clergymen at this visitation seem to have much idea that their

foes lie in their own hearts. I can see clearly the imps of jealousy, pride, and uncharitableness peeping out through their eyes and eyebrows.

They are always suspecting that there is a Judas among their brethren. They do not seem to have much notion that the essence of Christianity is to beat down "self" under our feet. They are jealous of one another's opinions, and especially of one another's eloquence.

There are, of course, many exceptions to this general rule, in men of noble and exalted spirit, who show by their ways and words that an image of the Creator still remains in human nature. But I cannot help thinking that the archdeacon would have done the work of regeneration amongst his clergy better service by telling them the secrets of their own hearts rather than by arguing for the maintenance of the Athanasian Creed. Perhaps this accounts for the loud cheers which greeted the proposition, after the dinner, that the charge should be printed.

The clergy would not have liked a printed disclosure of the secrets of their own hearts, but the virtues and antiquity of the Athanacian Creed were a mirror in which they saw the reflection of their apostolic succession. The greatest foes are those of our own household.

The clergy are not wanting in their knowledge of Greek and Latin, but they are greatly wanting in their knowledge of human hearts.

It is difficult for any mind to get the fixed habit of viewing things from the standing-point of others; but it seems an impossibility for the classical mind to do so.

Mrs. Timepiece's daughters enjoyed their tea and ham sandwiches more than the archdeacon's charge, and made themselves comfortable at every stage of the day.

Mrs. Timepiece derived as many practical ideas from the charge as if she had been looking at a mill chimney, and Mr. Roecliffe shook his head once or twice rather ominously on their journey home; but he felt that this was as far as was prudent to go in any expression of opinion upon the efforts of so great a man as the archdeacon.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.

A TALE OF CANADA.-IN FOUR CHAPTERS

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

"WELL," said Joe, " it wouldn't do to

have a blank day, you know; and so I agreed to our shooting those wretched partridges. But, really, it's not sport, but

slaughter, to shoot such brutes-too stupid even to fly away."

Taking the matter entirely from a sportsman's point of view, I suppose he couldn't have come home empty-handed; but I should not have minded doing so, delighted as I was with the beautiful country, and the gorgeous beauty of the autumn leaves.

And so we dined at the auberge, and went off to our beds very soon afterwards, mindful of our having to accomplish the twenty-six miles to Quebec early the next morning.

Directly I was in bed I was asleep. It appeared as if I was awakened the moment after by the clanging of a large bell, the jangling of several small ones, a hum of voices, and a mighty crackling sounds unmistakable in that country of wooden houses. After a short colloquy at the door with the landlord, I ran round the front of the house to the immediate spot where the fire was, and was almost knocked down on my way by a man aimlessly carrying about a ladder. I took it from him, and planted it against a side window on the second floor, which seemed likely to communicate with the back room, mentioned by the man as containing an inmate in great danger. I could not get to the window of the room itself, as it was inside the high wall of the back yard, nor could I attract attention in the noise. I had to return to the house to do so. The passage was only just practicable. I rushed through it, kicked open the door of the room; and though I received in my face a blast of flame which burnt off most of the hair and singed the skin, I could see that it was empty, and in a blaze. I tried to make my own escape by the window. Hanging to the sill by my hands, I endeavoured to drop to the ladder; but the sill had caught fire, and the pain of getting my fingers frizzled was so great that I involuntarily let go, just missing the ladder, and scraping my hip against a projecting rung. Thus, I had a painful opportunity of finding a fallacy in the French saying, "D'une chûte il y a deux moments terribles, le départ et l'arrivée; tout le reste est délicieux." On reaching the ground, I had to get out of the way of the house-now a mere blazing shell, scattering burning fragments in every direction; and on rising from the spot where I had fallen, discovered that, in addition to a burned hand and a contused side, I had sprained my ankle. I sank to the

ground in great pain. Almost immediately after, I was surrounded by a chattering and gesticulating crowd, through which my friend, Mr. Hodgkins, shouldered his way, and shortly brought up my horse and "waggon." When on our road home, he replied to my disjointed statement of my mishaps"If you had looked into the yard as I did, this wouldn't have happened."

"Yes," said I, shortly. "What became of the other people who were staying there with us?"

"Don't know, I'm sure. I only saw one girl. I helped her out of the room with a ladder which I found in the yard, and gave afterwards to one of those habitans."

This was the gentleman who had nearly knocked me down.

"Well, was the girl frightened?" I asked. "Deuce a bit frightened," said he. "Cool as a cucumber, very distant and ceremonious, took it all as a matter of course. Said she was very much obliged to me; and, just as I began to think what I was to do with her, up came her brother, or somebody who seemed to belong to her, and took her away from me."

"You didn't tell me whether she was good-looking."

A few days later, as I was lying on a sofa in my sitting-room, thinking how in the world I should get through the afternoon, my friend, Joe Hodgkins, made his appearance, followed by a tall, slim youth, very much like what Don Quixote must have been in his younger days-the same angular dignity, and the same restless brown eyes. He came to thank me for my attempt to save his sister. sister. He was introduced to me as Mr. Falkland. I was very much interested in the peculiarities of this, the first Southerner I had ever seen. When the inevitable drink was had in, he became, under its influence, very boastful about the Southern cause, in which he evidently thoroughly believed, and for which I am sure he would have fought to the death. We English rarely can associate boastfulness with valour or constancy; still, I am inclined to look on this youth as being made of the same stuff as his dauntless brother, Colonel Martin Falkland, of