Make your Game! Is't fortune, fame, Power supreme, mere notoriety, 'Tis mere gambling all the same,-- Craving knowing not satiety. Marquis or Gavroche, what matter? Rabagas or Noble Red; How the bullion's clink and clatter Fires the eye and heats the head! Mammon-Mephistopheles At the sight in shadow grins; And the player, at his ease, With a dream his heart may please, Red wins!
_Will_ it win, or, winning, will _La République_ lose or gain? Is the game chance _versus_ skill, Sly intrigue 'gainst heart and brain? Sanguine as sanguineous, The Mob-loving Marquis sits. Exile, will _finesse_ and fuss, Clack of tongues, and clash of wits, Play the patriotic game? Fall the cards, the ball re-spins! Blood a-fire and walls a-flame Menace if--to Wisdom's blame-- Red wins!
THE LONG FROST.--Sportsmen are coming up to town in despair. Their hunters are "eating their heads off," and very soon there will be nothing left to tell the tail!
IN THE LORDS.--Lord BATTERSEA "the Flower of the Flock."
(_From Mr. Punch's Very Special Correspondents._)
Reports from all parts of the country are eloquent of the phenomenal nature of the weather experienced everywhere. By an extraordinary coincidence, of which it is hardly possible to make too much, the intense cold has been accompanied by a lowness of temperature--on the (Fahren) height.
The Oldest Inhabitant has had a high old time, and been in immense form. To prevent the extinction in future years of this interesting individual, oxen have been roasted freely, and, wherever at all practicable, carriages have been driven over frozen rivers. Occasionally irreverent descendants have roasted the Oldest Inhabitant.
It is reported, on the authority of Lord SALISBURY, that the Liberal Party intend at once to engage in snowballing the House of Lords. As the ex-Prime Minister has promised to play the game with no lack of mutuality, interesting developments are expected.
A very remarkable occurrence comes from abroad--considerations of an international character make it advisable not to particularise further. A bishop went out in the middle of a raging blizzard. Although the bishop was suitably attired in episcopal dress, so that no mistake as to his identity was possible, it went on blizzarding, and the spiritual dignitary was put to extreme temporal temporary inconvenience.