DISRAELI'S LAST.

IND MR. BENJAMIN DISRAELI has said a great many good things in his time; but, of all of them, BEN's last is his best. It was spoken the other day at Amersham, where DIZZY was the guest of the Amersham and Chesham Agricultural Association, and, after making some observations about leases, delivered his opinion ec as to the expediency of rewarding long service by a pecuniary donation." The Ex-CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER and leader of the Conservative party in the House of Commons declared that he approved of that practice, and in answer to the objection that the sum usually awarded to meritorious labour-p ers is small, advanced the exquisite argument reported as follows:

"It is a very great mistake to suppose that because to the editor of a

newspaper, who perhaps receives €1,000 a year, the reward may seem trifling, therefore it is small in the estimation of the person who receives it. Recollect, you must estimate the value of a reward of £3 to a labourer in proportion to his income. £3 to a labourer with 12s. a week represents a sum equivalent to £500 or £600 to a gentleman worth £5,000 a year. Now I have observed that gentlemen in the receipt of £5,000 a year are not absolutely indifferent to the chances of receiving £400 or £500 extra. (Laughter.)"

Naturally the squirearchical and agricultural auditors of [this comic reasoning, laughed to hear it. To be sure it constituted, and of course it was meant for, a joke at their expense; which they did not see. But they took a keen satire on their parsimony for a jocular illustration of their munificence; and so they laughed. They particularly relished the idea, ironically suggested to them, that, at the sacrifice of only three sovereigns, they were really bestowing, on the receiver of that absolutely not large amount, the relative equivalent of five hundred pounds.

It is almost cruel to open their eyes; but yet pity guides the hand of the surgeon that couches for cataract. Let them understand, then, that there is a converse to the statement which so highly delighted them. True, £3 stumpy down, is a great deal of money in proportion to 12s. a-week. But, on the other hand, 12s. a week is a very small income in proportion to £5,000 a year. Not only that, but it is a very wretched income, a very insufficient income, for any man whose wants are above the wants of a beast; and it is hardly sufficient for those.

Never did there issue from the enclosure of our BENJAMIN's teeth a jest more incisive than the mock eulogy with which he affected to flatter the members of the Amersham and Chesham Agricultural Society. What an advantage, however, it is to be pachydermatous, and to feel the sensation of being smartly whipped, as an agreeable tickling!

DEAR MR, PUNCH,

OLD SAWS NEW SET.

I AM just home from a foreign tour which I have relished incontinently well. Musing one day on the subject of proverbs-by a singular coincidence I was on the Adige at the time it struck me that many saws of English manufacture were rusty, antiquated, and not sufficiently polished, and might be reset to the gain of a genteel generation which has ceased to call a spade a spade, and only knows it as a gardening implement. Possessed with this idea I set to work, and gave my nights and days to adapting a few familiar proverbs to modern ways and customs. I now submit my brainwork to your judgment, in the hope that you will not object to give a world-wide currency to the new mintage. Yours proverbially, ROBERT SAWYER.

Least broken soonest paid for. (Recommended to the notice of servants of all work) addicted to the grave offence of smashing.

Rolling stock gathers no dividend.

Money makes the Lord Mayor to go.

It is never too late to repair. (Said to have been originated by some humble tailor.) Keep your breath to cool your Revalenta Arabica.

The better the client, the better the deed.

HOBBS laughs at locksmiths. Troubles never come to the single. (The reflection of a bachelor of long experience.) Good wine needs no puff.

Greenwich time and tide wait for no man. Let not the repairer of boots and shoes go beyond his ultimatum.

Pride will have a "fall." (Supposed to have been said of the first housemaid whose ambition it was to wear a veil.)

Hansom is as Hansom does. (By one who has ridden in cabs for a quarter of a century.)

Never say dye. (An awful warning to all whose cry is, "No more grey hair.")

Drink before you leap. (The advice of the celebrated LORD HUNTINGFIELD.)

Do not enumerate your young Dorkings before the process of incubation is complete. Indisposed weeds grow apace.

"FROM PLAGUE, PESTILENCE AND FAMINE."

"QUI LABORAT ORAT."-Medieval Proverb.

WHO are they, that, sadly doubting,
Ordered prayer presume on scouting?
Who are they, that, darkly straying,
Question what's the use of praying?
Praying that our hands He'd strengthen,
Praying that our days He'd lengthen,
Praying blessing on our labours,
For ourselves and for our neighbours:
Blessing on our prayers and preaching,
Reading, visiting, and teaching;
Our relieving and our training,
Sewering, scavenging, and draining.
Praying selfishness to soften,
Rampant still though scourged so often;
Praying pride of purse to chasten;
Our slow-moving steps to hasten
To the goal of wise endeavour,
Still proclaimed, but compassed never.
Pray-but see the Church's ora
Finds its echo in labora.

He who links effects and causes,
He who works by law, nor pauses;
Who for all to read that run by
Writes, "Do as you would be done by."
He knows prayer is sorely needed-
Prayer, that lessons may be heeded;
Prayer, that ill ways may be looked to;
Stubborn backs due burdens crooked to;
Stony hearts to pity quickened;
Sluggish souls of idlesse sickened;
Till no more our towns' pollution
Call down plague's grim retribution:
Till no more centralisation
And self-rule in altercation
Jangle, while between them lying
Squalid youth and age are dying.
But how hope God heeds our ora,
While we heed not his labora?

Till the hands, in prayer uplifted,
From the lap for work are shifted;
Till the lips that move in praying,
Own how "doing" shameth "saying;"
While good law to tinder crumbles,
In the hands of bloated Bumbles;
While Domestic Thuggee smothers,
Baseborn babes of wretched mothers;
While unhappy childhood stunted,
Dwarfed of mind, with senses blunted,
Labours on from dawn to dark'ning;
While the soul's voice finds no heark'ning,
And its eye no glimpse of nature,
Not trod out of shape and feature;
While in our hot quest of riches,
Of fair streams we make foul ditches;
While we house our human workers,
As no squire would house his porkers-
Wiser 'twere, instead of ora,

If our Church would preach labora!

In the concluding volume of MR. THOMAS CARLYLE'S Life of Friederich the Second, you will find these words :

"These are the results for England, and in the rear of these, had those and the other elements once ripened for her, the poor country is to get into such merchandisings, colonisings, foreign settlings, gold nuggetings, as lay beyond the drunkenest dreams of JENKINS (supposing JENKINS addicted to liquor); and in fact, to enter into an universal uproar of Machineries, El Dorados, Unexampled Prosperities, evidently not of a sublime type, which, in the meanwhile, seem to be covering the which make a great noise for themselves in the very days now come, Prosperities at one time creditably clean and comely face of England with mud-blotches, sootblotches, miscellaneous squalors and horrors; to be preaching into her amazed heart, which once knew better, the omnipotence of shoddy: filling her ears and soul with shriekery and metallic clangour, mad noises, mad noises mostly nowhither; deeper and more anxious set of questions than have ever risen in England's history

and are awakening, I suppose, in such of her sons as still go into reflection at all, a before."

May I be allowed to offer you a brief exposition of part of the foregoing text? It is not nonsense, Sir, as you perhaps hastily call it, prefixing a strong epithet to a contemptuous appellation. No, Sir, neither is it ridiculous nonsense. It is strange language, I grant you, very different from that of a prospectus, but there is a sense in it, and that sense is no laughing matter. The meaning of it, Sir, is awful, perfectly awful.

What do you suppose, Sir, that MR. CARLYLE means by the "merchandisings, colonisings, foreign settlings, gold nuggetings, machineries, El Dorados, and Unexampled Prosperities" of which he speaks so disrespectfully? You will shudder, Sir, when I tell you that he means the development of the commercial and industrial resources, mechanical and material progress, of the British Empire, on which the sun never sets! These are the things which he speaks of as transcending the "drunkenest dreams" of a base and servile individual. Is not this derisive mention of the most important if not sacred things unspeakably shocking?

He is down, and for ever! The good fight is ended.
In deep-dinted harness our Champion has died,
But tears should be few in a sunset so splendid,
And Grief hush her wail at the bidding of Pride.

He falls, but unvanquished. He falls in his glory,
A noble old King on the last of his fields:

And with death-song we come, like the Northmen of story,
And haughtily bear him away on our shields.

Nor yet are we mourners. Let proud words be spoken
By those who stand, pale, on the marge of his grave,
As we lay in the rest never more to be broken
The noble, the gentle, the wise, and the brave.

His courage undaunted, his purpose unaltered,
His long patient labour, his exquisite skill,

The tones of command from a tongue that ne'er faltered
When bidding the Nations to list to our will:
Let these be remembered; but higher and better

The tribute that tells how he dealt with his trust,
In curbing the tyrant, in breaking the fetter,

Lay the pleasure of him we commit to the dust.

But his heart was his England's, his idol her honour,
Her friend was his friend, and his foe was her foe,
Were her mandate despised, or a scowl cast upon her,
How stern his rebuke, or how vengeful his blow!
Her armies were sad, and her banners were tattered,
And lethargy wrought on her strength like a spell,
He came to the front, the enchantment was scattered-
The rest let a reconciled enemy tell.

DIED: OCTOBER 18, 1865.

As true to our welfare, he did his own mission
When Progress approached him with Wisdom for guide;
He cleared her a path, and with equal derision
Bade quack and fanatic alike stand aside.

The choice of his country, low faction despising,
He marched as a leader all true men could claim:
They came to their fellows, and held it sufficing
To give, as a creed, the great Minister's name.

So, of departedce the Old,”

Heir to traditions of Him, long departed,

We lay thee in earth,-gallant-natured, true-hearted!
Break, herald, thy wand, for his honours are told.
No, let Pride say her story and cease, for Affection
Stands near with a wealth of wild tears in her eyes,
And claims to be heard with more soft recollection
Of one who was ever as kindly as wise.

We trusted his wisdom, but love drew us nearer
Than homage we owed to his statesmanly art,
For never was statesman to Englishmen dearer
Than he who had faith in the great English heart.
The frank merry laugh, and the honest eye filling
With mirth, and the jests that so rapidly fell,
Told out the State-secret that made us right willing
To follow his leading-he loved us all well.

Our brave English Chief!-lay him down for the sleeping
That nought may disturb till the trumpet of doom:
Honour claims the proud vigil-but Love will come weeping,
And hang many garlands on PALMERSTON'S tomb!

OUR YACHT.

I MAKE my last extract from the Log.

Entered the Mersey this morning. Low water. Stuck on the bar. Wind E. Latitude and longitude, vide map of England; place, Liverpool. The Treasure penitent but apologetic. Intend to send yacht think that it hasn't been such bad fun, after all: they say I can't rough I back to Bangor, by Captain and Treasure. Commodore and Lieutenant it. I say I can. They ask me then will I go to Norway? I reply no, decidedly. High Tide. We are off the bar, and are going into L'pool. Just in. Log ends. Wind changed."

I had always thought that the arrival of a yacht was a picturesque sight. I imagined, from what I had gathered, that you pulled up alongside of the Quay, where there were Officers and Yachtsmen to meet you that they cheered you all the way wherever you went, crying Vive la République, or anything else that came into their heads. I also had an idea, that, before landing, you sailed majestically into Quarantine, and were saluted by a Flag-ship. But nothing of this sort is done; at least at Liverpool. We couldn't get up to the kerb, I mean the Quay, but had to go ashore in our small boat. We paid off the Captain and Crew, who neither cheered us, nor offered to carry our luggage to the cab. It seems so absurd to talk of a cab, now, after being a son of the Ocean for nearly three weeks. Sailors always roll about when they come on shore: so we all rolled about; at least I did. The Commodore pretended that it made no difference to him. It did to me; walking properly was really difficult, and by the aid of a little art, I made lots of people think I was a sailor. The Lieutenant suggested enviously that they thought I was a fool. But this was only said because he couldn't roll from one side to the other. When a salt is on land he spends all his money: I did this with great facility, beginning with a warm bath, a basin of turtle at the Adelphi Hotel, and a box of cigars at the first Tobacconist's.

To-night I sleep in a comfortable bed: I write this from my room in the Adelphi. O the luxury of sheets! The Commodore has just come into my room to smoke a cigar with me before turning in. He still talks about keeping watch, and one bell. He says he wishes that we had had the Saucy Nautilus during the American war, we might have been a blockade runner, and made our fortunes.

VULCAN AND MINERVA.

FROM THE ROYAL ACADEMY.-Photographic Portraits are taken by Portraits in Oil, by KNIGHT, R.A.