TRYING HER STRENGTH.

["The one certain result of the elections will be to give increased stability to the Republic."Daily Chronicle.]

Madame La République loquitur:

Our! What a pull! Who said my muscularity

Was dwindling? It is truly Amazonian! Ma foi! Phraseurs are not all blessed with clarity,

Even when their eloquence is Ciceronian. How now, MILLEVOYE? How now, mad DÉROULÈDE?

And what of the grim prophecies you made? Both out of it-as prophets and as StrongMen !

Discredited, disqualified, defeated! The Rallies too! Results prove them the wrong men.

How the Gazette de France has blared and

bleated!

Les dames, long pooh-poohed, now display ability

To do-most things as well as ever men did. Because I'm gai and witty, fools of course Fancied me destitute of sinewy force.

Ah, DELAHAYE, DRUMONT, and ANDRIEUX, verily

You've found the game was hardly worth

the scandal!

My firebrand foes played up that game right merrily;

Against me anything would serve as handle; Yet, after WILSON, Panama, (and Siam), They find that if there is an athlete, I am. Babblers of "British Gold," canard-cɔn

cocters,

Reactionaries, Ralliés, Rowdies, RoyalistsAll who would act as my exclusive doctorsYou find the Voters are the real loyalists, And, spite of partial failures in the past, I've pulled this State Machine right

at last!

WORDS! WORDS! WORDS!
(By an Unpaired M.P., who has "Sat it Out.")
M.P.'s gagged? Why, tongues have wagged
Seventy days, or eighty.
Little said on any head

Has been wise or weighty.
Gag's all hum! How shall we sum

Seven long weeks' oration P-
Polyphrasticontinomemegalondulation!
BARTLEY, BOWLES-loquacious souls!-
HANBURY and RUSSELL,
Have kept going, seldom "slowing"
In the talky tussle.
SAUNDERSON went sparring on,

JOE pursued jobation.-
Polyphrasticontinomemegalondulation!
Righteous causes, wicked clauses,

All meant bleats and blethers.
Beaming BOLTON had to moult on,
Gone his old Rad feathers.
round-"Yaller Jaunders" seized on SAUNDERS.
All drew "explanation !"—
Polyphrasticontinomemegalondulation!
Grim MACGREGOR-dogged beggar:-
Had "ideas"-and told them;
So had bores in tens and scores,

BRUTUS OF BRUMMAGEM. ON a "False Foe" my venom I may spend, But what of my "Right Honourable

Friend"?

Ask "the ironic fiend." He'll give an

Why should they withhold them? What result from all this cult

Of roundaboutation ?Polyphrasticontinomemegalondulation With composure I the Closure

Welcome-our sole saviour From the gabble of the rabble,

And their bad behaviour. The Front Benches? Well, one blenches E'en from their "oration "Polyphrasticontinome megalondulation!

"BALLADE JOYEUSE."

(Nor by Théodore de Banville.) THOUGH you're pent up in town While you pant for the breeze Upon moorland and down,

For the whispers of trees, And the hum of the bees Winging home to the hive,

Drain your cup to the leesAren't you glad you're alive? Though you miss the renown

Yonder dolt wins with ease, And you're mocked by the clown You've a fancy to squeeze. Though your blood boil and freeze When folk say he will wive

With the maid you would please-
Aren't you glad you're alive?
Though with pout, or with frown,
Or in shrillest of keys,
Madam seek a new gown,
And no less will appease,
While your creditors tease,
Or by dozens arrive,

And behave like Pawnees-
Aren't you glad you 're alive?
Though your argosies drown
In the deepest of seas,
And you lose your last crown,,
Not to say bread and cheese';

Though you cough and you wheeze

Till you barely survive,

At existence don't sneeze

Aren't you glad you're alive?

MARS-BISMARCK, TITAN-WAGNER, stalwarts these,

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FROM

THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

House of Commons, Monday, August 21.Some excellent speaking to-night. SQUIRE OF MALWOOD in fine form. Opportunity made to his hand. With JOSEPH, friend and ally of Conservative Ministry that had invented and applied Guillotine Closure, indignantly protesting against the "gag," there was room for obvious remark. Then there was J. C.'s article in monthly magazine of so recent date as 1890, in which, in his forcible manner, had, with circumstance, demanded application of gag not only to successive stages in important measures, but to Supply.

he

Oh that mine enemy would write an article in the Nineteenth Century!" exclaimed GEORGE CURZON. "Anyone could make a speech with such opportunity as the SQUIRE has."

66

Who would not twaddle at "Esthetic Exactly," said the Member for SARK; "but perhaps they mightn't do it so well."

Teas;"

HERACLES-VIRCHOW is a valorous slayer, And JOVIAN GOETHE proves a splendid stayer;

But the mild, mawkish, modern German

muse

Another good speech from unexpected quarter was WHITBREAD'S. WHITBREAD is the Serious Person of the Liberal Party. Whenever Mr. G. gets into difficulties on constitutional questions or points of Parliamentary practice, WHITBREAD solemnly

Olympian nectar will for "slops" refuse.
Submerged in sentimentalism utter,
Asked for Art-bread she proffers-Bread-marches to front, and says nothing particular
and-butter!

with imposing air that carries conviction. To-day came out quite in new style; almost epigrammatic, certainly pointed. Quite a "HEAVY MARCHING ORDER" (IN AUGUST). model of Parliamentary speech of the old stately, yet flexible style now little known.

66 Shirt-sleeves and Sherbet." 99