young woman. When he unrols the baby he
twists its nose, which he says, with rare humour,
is like a parish pickaxe, and the moral is that
we are all to beware of a girl

       With a bundle rolled in her apron,
              Larry doodle dumpy, &c.

This young man — in genteel evening costume —
sang a very gross song, which was
hissed by two or three decent persons. The
singer, on returning to the stage, had the impudence
to rebuke them with another witty retort:
"There were only two things that hissed, a
goose and a serpent." He had this so pat a
the tip of his tongue, that I think he must have
been used to hissing. Glory, Hallelujah, I see,
has been incorporated among the popular comic
songs. We have

        Hang Jeff Davis on a crab-apple-tree,
        Hang Jeff Davis on a crab-apple-tree,
        Hang Jeff Davis on a crab-apple-tree,
             As we go marching home.

Now, then, all together:

       Oh, glory hallelujah, glory, glory
                        Hallelujah,
       Oh, glory hallelujah, glory, glory
                        Hallelujah,

       Oh, glory hallelujah, glory, glory,
           His soul is marching on.

This is in the same programme with 'Tilda
Toots, or, You should have seen her Boots.
'Tilda went skating in the park, and had a
mishap:

        As I, the chair, and 'Tilda Toots,
        Were struggling in a heap,
        A dozen skaters, more or less,
        Came o'er us in a heap;
        Some went tumbling head o'er heels,
        Others on the back,
        When suddenly where 'Tilda lay,
        The ice began to crack.
        The water next came bubbling up,
        Crash, I saw the boots
        Alone above the waters,
        Where had gone down 'Tilda Toots.

Many persons, I dare say, have heard of the
famous song of Paddle Your Own Canoe, without
having heard it sung, or knowing what it
means. As this is one of the best of the class,
I will give a verse:

        I've travelled about a bit in my time,
        And of troubles I've seen a few,
        But found it better in every clime
        To paddle my own canoe.
        My wants are small, I care not at all
        If my debts are paid when due;
        I drive away strife in the ocean of life
        While I paddle my own canoe.

                             Chorus.
        Then love your neighbour as yourself
        As the world you go travelling through,
        And never sit down with a tear or a frown,
        But paddle your own canoe.

Some of the very best of our old popular
songs contain silly lines and bad rhymes, and
some of them — as, for example, the Death of
Nelson — are ungrammatical; but very many of
the popular songs of the present day are destitute
of sentiment, destitute of sense, destitute of
humour. They are only tolerable because their
vulgarly nonsensical words are smothered in
pleasing music. We need not search far in
order to discover that the public to whom they
are addressed tolerate them because they have
no choice. One summer's day lately I was
present at a bean-feast. After dinner, when
conviviality began, the gay young apprentices
favoured us with some songs of the music-hall
class and in the music-hall style. They were
well received; but when a gentleman present
—one of the old school—sang Tom Bowling,
the greatest enthusiasm was aroused.

In all matters of art the people are very easy-going.
They are content to take what they can
get. But that is not to say that the people
cannot appreciate better things than they have.
"A very good song and very well sung," is still
the popular sentiment; and if the people are
content with a very bad song very ill sung, it is
simply because they have no choice.

DISSOLVING VIEWS.

WHAT we saw yesterday, we do not see to-day;
what we behold to-day will be gone to-morrow.
Days which follow each other, are not
alike; while years differ even yet more widely.
The sights which continually meet our eyes,
come like shadows, so depart.

Without wandering into universal space, in
which permanence is a state unknown, and
change the only constant condition; where
stars are set light to, extinguished, and re-lighted,
within the memory of the human race;
where nebulæ coagulate into solar systems which,
when once wound up and set a-going, run down
again as surely as an eight-day clock; where
nothing remains at rest for two consecutive
seconds, or for two consecutive sixtieth parts
of a second.

Earthly phantasmagoria have the advantage
of passing more rapidly before our field of
view. Some only last for a few short centuries
before they change; others not more than a
generation or two; while one generation occasionally
witnesses a whole series of dissolving
views. Life itself is a peep-show, of much the
same kind as those which children see at fairs.
Existence is a magic lantern set up with an
endless stock of slides. The longer our term
of life, and the more multiplied our opportunities,
the greater variety do we behold of gaudy,
glittering, or gloomy shadow-work. Short as
our span is, we extend it infinitely by what we
know of the past and divine of the future.

As an instance — I am hovering over a spot of
earth smaller than the smallest of the small principalities
which are now being swallowed by the
Prussian harpy. It skirts the shore of one of two
nations which, but for the interposition of a
narrow sea, had else, like kindred drops, been
mingled into one. Indeed, from my eminence, I
behold them one. Where it lies geographically,