*** Mr. Poe, and not Mr. Punch's Poet, is responsible for this Cockney rhyme.
"Christmas Is Coming!"—"Tell me not in Christmas Numbers," that Christmas is coming. We wish the good old gentleman would not announce his intended arrival so long beforehand. Everybody knows, that, like one of his own Christmas books, he is "bound to appear" at a certain fixed date. Among the first of the heralds on the bookstalls is the Christmas Number of the Penny Illustrated, price threepence, and well worth the money. Mr. Latey, Junior, arranges a Christmas Literary and Artistic Banquet, and every plate has a plateful of Christmas fare. The picture entitled "Spoons" and representing two persons in evening-dress slipping downstairs—"such a getting downstairs"—in a sitting position, probably two amateur Tobogganists, is distinctly humorous. The coloured illustration, called The Christmas Ball, will be a great favourite with boys. If the Early Bird still catches the worm, the Latey one who is first in the field with this Christmas number ought to pick up the three-pennies.
Literary.—It is announced that Mr. Snodgrass has "thoroughly revised his translations from Heine." We expect next to hear that Mr. Tracy Tupman has "Englished" Catullus, and that Mr. Winkle is preparing a new edition of the Book of Sports.
Floral Appeal To November.—"Fog-get-me-not!"
