A FALLEN ART.
[A "lady palmist" has been fined ten shillings and costs for fortune-telling.—Daily News.]
She lived, this prophetess, too late,
And plied an art that's out of date,
Another age had seen her gain
Her reputation not in vain,
Had seen a crowd respectful wait
Upon the arbiter of fate,
While kings and rulers brought her gold
To have futurity unrolled!
In some Greek court where fountains play,
Or dwelling by the Appian way,
The prophetess would surely be
Besought by each Leuconoë,
And if for these she sometimes drew
A future pleasanter than true,
At least she gave them, you'll confess,
Anticipated happiness!
Ah! times are changed, and nowadays
Such divination hardly pays;
There comes no more the crowds that used,
The fees are terribly reduced!
And if our policemen caught the Sphinx
Propounding "Missing Words," one thinks
Our British justice could not fail
To send her speedily to gaol!
Impy and Garry.—Colonel Saunderson, "speaking as an Irishman" (did anyone ever hear the gallant Colonel speak as an Englishman?), didn't object to being classed among his countrymen, whom Mr. BRODRICK had styled "impecunious and garrulous." He might have quoted the name of one of their own national airs as emphasizing, by descriptively abbreviating, these two epithets, namely, "Garryowen." "Garry" is clearly the short for "garrulous," and "owen" is the oldest form of "not payin'."