I will just tell her plainly how utterly vainly
I've striven and struggled to finish her play;
And then--happy thought!--I will mildly suggest
That she'll find for her purpose BUCHANAN the best.

I shall now write a play without dresses at all,
A plan, which I'm sure will be perfectly new.
Yet opposed to convention, why merely the mention
Of a thing so immodest will startle a few;
And, although it's a pity, I shrewdly suspect
The Lord Chamberlain might deem it right to object.

Better still! from the French I will boldly convey
What will be (in two senses) the talk of the town.
You insist on a moral? Well, pray do not quarrel
With the one that I now for your guidance lay down,
That of excellent maxims this isn't the worst--
_Let the play, not the dresses, be settled the first!_

* * * * *

SOMETHING IN A NAME.--What a happily appropriate name for the Chief
Magistrate of so fashionable a watering-place as Brighton is Mr.
SOPER! Whether he is soft SOPER, or Hard SOPER, or Scented SOPER, it
matters not; it is only a pity that after his year of office, if the
Brightonian Bathers can spare him, he should not be transferred to
Windsor. Old Windsor SOPER--what a splendid title for the Mayor of the
Royal town! No doubt he will show himself active and energetic during
his Mayoralty, and that at Brighton henceforth a totally opposite
meaning from the ordinary one will be given to the description of a