transmitted by the Post-office Department."]

* * * * *

DESDEMONA TO THE AUTHOR OF "DORIAN GRAY."

(_A PROPOS OF HIS PARAGRAPHIC PREFACE._)

"These are old fond paradoxes, to make boys crow i' the Club corner.
What miserable praise hast thou for him that's foul and foolish?"

* * * * *

SOMETHING IN A NAME.--A recent theatrical announcement informed us
that a new comedy would be produced from the pen of a Mr. HENRY DAM.
If successful, imagine the audience calling for the Author by name. If
a triumph, the new dramatist will be known as "The big, big D."

* * * * *

BY A TIRED AND CYNICAL CRITIC OF CURRENT FICTION.

A "School for Novelists," they say, has risen.
A School? What's really wanted is a Prison.
Life-long confinement far from pen and ink
_Might_ cure the crowd of fictionists, I _think_.
Or, if by Lessons you'd arrest the blight,
Go teach the Novelist how _not_ to write!

* * * * *