A desert waste all destitute of roses,
Mine is a waist which nobody encloses.
My father gives no parties, no one comes,
He hates all routs, don't care a fig for drums,
Assemblies he detests, yes, hates them all,
He's a weak voice, and so can't give a bawl.

Now just glance at one or two of the
entertainments founded on classical subjects.
"Hercules and Omphale," by Mr. Brough, and
"Cupid and Psyche," by Mr. Burnand. The
author of the latter seems to have exhausted
the punning capabilities of mere English, since
he frequently finds it convenient to operate
upon the Latin, the Greek, the German, and the
French languages.

Here is a specimen of the funny dog's Latin
jokes:

So, Mars, your conduct, all who see it, think low,
Folks give a vink, low trick, and hint a vinc'lo.

Cupid says:

I am the fly in amber—wretched too!
Arcades amber—what am I to do?

Another, the subject being teeth:

Repeat our words! Your fun at us pray poke—we
Thought teeth was not a subject for chew quoque.

The fine old standard witticism follows, as a
matter of course:

                                Daughters, stop this, come!
You'll drop your teeth and hold your jaw, by gum.

Given " teeth," to describe the whole circle of
jokes in connexion with them, and you arrive at
"gum." Quod erat demonstrandum.

A melting allusion to all Greece running down
as grease does when it's hot,recals the fond conundrum
of our youth. Why is the wick of a candle
like? &c. The Righi Mountain is mentioned to
justify Mars in saying that he has been rigilarly
done, and an urn and a whole set of tea-things
are brought in to enable the same character
to remark, "One so enjoys tea when one
earns it." (The urn and tea-things taken away
immediately.)

A French joke:

Ennui you hate, there's one thing worse—envie.

A German:

                            It is the truth I state,
And though but two, they are the two for hate.
Is't thus you reckon up these sisters mine
They hate, I don't, so add in German, neun.

Ha! here is a Turkish joke. "My kiss met
air," says Psyche. Cupid, " Too late." Then
Psyche:

Kismet, as Turks say, I'm resigned to fate.

The readiness of this author to explain any
recondite allusions not patent to the ordinary
understanding, is highly to be commended.

It cannot be said that "Hercules and Omphale"
is destitute of a high purpose, since we find the
author combining amusement with instruction
in an effort to teach the proper pronunciation of
Greek. In what follows we have a specimen of
the pun philological and philhellenic:

KING. Easy, my friend, be cool.
DEJANIRA. Cool! easy please,
Don't taunt your friend by naming her cool ease.
Her cool ease! Hercules, whate'er the rule is
Of accent, but one way to see her cool is
Produce him!
KING. Strange such language in this circle is.
DEJAN. This circle is. Produce him then this
Hercules.

There are some very neat puns in this piece,
but I doubt if they were worth the making. A
good pun, perfect in all its parts, has much the
same effect as a witticism. The listener quietly
admires its point and ingenuity. A bad pun,
one of the outrageous sort, has the effect of a
stroke of humour. The listener roars at it.
As a specimen of verbal jugglery, the following
is perfect in its way:

MERCURY.     I've Hercules called here.
You doubt the Chorus' right to interfere
To lure him back? You're wrong! If bet I may
Upon the Chorus, right to lure I'll lay!
I know it's rightful ere that claim I back;
To win I must be rightful e'er I'll whack.
The Chorus is a riddle, solve it, try to,
If ever Chorus told a riddle / do!

Whatever opinion we may have of the literary
value of these productions—I am speaking, of
course, of those of the West-end—let us ask:
Why are the well-skilled lively young men who
puzzle them out condemned to write our
burlesques and pantomimes, while the unskilled dull
dogs are nearly always selected to write our
comedies and dramas?

HIGHLAND DEER.

As the day lengthened
The cold strengthened

in January 1865. The wolf and sprout months,
as the Saxons called, after their natural
characteristics, the moons which Christians call
January and February after Pagan deities,
exhibited all the signs of severe winters. Of these
signs, none was more impressive to the imaginations
of those who realised it than the news that
the red deer of the Highlands of Scotland had
been driven by hard frosts, strong hurricanes,
and blinding snow-storms, from the uplands
down to the lowlands in search of food. The
wolves, which gave the first moon of the year its
descriptive Saxon name, were exterminated
about a century ago. Will the wild deer
subsist in their ancient haunts for more than
another century? As for the Highlanders
who lived by chasing the wild deer and following
the roe, they have, during the present
century, been more and more displaced by
sheep and grouse, and have left the misty mountains
and purple heaths "to return no more."
Last January and February, snow clothing the
trees, and ice covering even the moss on the
bark, and the lichens on the rocks in the Highland
forests, the deer were compelled by hunger
to rush down from the hills and scrape for
turnips and grass in the snow-covered fields and
meadows. Under the shadow of Ben Muich
Dhui, a mountain four thousand three hundred