METROPOLİTAN IMPROVEMENTS.

BY AN OBSTRUCTIVE.

HERE'ER we wander-up or down-
They still go on improving;

The only cry o'er all the town
Is, "Push along! Keep moving!

For architecture wins the day,

And celebrates her glories

By palaces that line the way
With six or seven storeys.

The haunts we revelled in to-day
We lose to-morrow morning;

As one by one are swept away
In turn without a warning.
Alas! while progress, at a touch,
Commits new devastations,

Our old resorts we miss as much
As elderly relations.

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METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS.

Ah, when shall we again pursue
Our rambles and researches-
As once it was a joy to do—
Among the City churches?
Those fanes have hardly left a trace
To go in loving quest of ;-
Our new-built City is a place

That Mammon has the best of.

No longer we with pleasure plod
Our way by Covent Garden,
To meditate as if we trod

Some Cockney path in Arden.

We cannot call within our ken

The homes of Will and Button ;

The coffee-houses, like the men,

Are gone as dead as mutton.

No nook or cranny dear to me
Should undergo removal,

Though Progress went on either knee.

To beg for my approval.
There's Temple Bar! I only know

That hundreds will regret it,
Supposing that it has to go :—

Still-if it must-why, let it!

TRUE FRIENDSHIP.

HEN a scamp disappears from this region of

woe

The survivors infallibly hear

That, excepting his own, he was nobody's foe ;-
An expression more touching than clear.
O'er the tomb of old Higgins 'twere fitter by far
That the sculptor should carve on a stone-
After stating what all the particulars are―
"He was nobody's friend but his own."

Uncle Higgins, with numbers of thousands a year, Is of course a most excellent man ;

Which is more than they think of his nephew, I fear, With his hundred and fifty per ann.

Does old Higgins come down with his dust? Not a

sou;

Nay, the older old Higgins has grown

The more strictly he renders that epitaph true"He was nobody's friend but his own."

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TRUE FRIENDSHIP.

But with pluck and with patience I somehow get on. And exist by the help of my brains;

While I wait for the time when old Higgins is gone To a world where no currency reigns.

Should his last will and testament show some design For his many past sins to atone,

I could curb my resentment and cancel the line— "He was nobody's friend but his own."

AN EXCUSE FOR EVERYTHING.

HERE is merit in open confession, they say;
So I cheerfully pander to truth

By admitting at once that I still am a prey
To some pleasant illusions of youth.

I shall change for the better, no doubt, by degrees,
And in time be less gushing and green.

Laugh away at my errors as much as you please;
But remember-I'm only eighteen.

To the friends that have brightened my pathway in life

What a depth of devotion I owe!

They are guiltless of hatred, of malice, of strife,
Or of sentiment selfishly low.

What a darling is Jones, what an angel is Brown;
What a trump has young Robinson been !—

I may learn in the future, to run them all down;
But at present-I'm only eighteen.