Various

THE CHILDREN AT GRANDMOTHER'S. HERE was once a grandmother who had fourteen little grandchildren. Some of them were cousins to one another; and some were brothers and sisters. This grandmother lived in an old, old cottage not far from the sea-beach. The cottage had a long sloping roof; and there was an elm-tree in front of it.One fair day in June, the boys went down to the sea-beach to bathe, and... more...

OUT FOR A HOLIDAY. (By our Impartial and Not-to-be-biassed Critic.) I had often been told that St. Margaret's Bay, between Deal and Dover, was lovely beyond compare. Seen from the Channel, I had heard it described as "magnificent," and evidence of its charms nearer at hand, was adduced in the fact that Mr. ALMA TADEMA, R.A., had made it his headquarters during a portion of the recent... more...

THE CARNIVAL OF THE ROMANTIC. Whither went the nine old Muses, daughters of Jupiter and the Goddess of Memory, after their seats on Helicon, Parnassus, and Olympus were barbarized? Not far away. They hovered like witches around the seething caldron of early Christian Europe, in which, "with bubble, bubble, toil and trouble," a new civilization was forming, mindful of the brilliant lineage of... more...

NIGHTMARES. II. OF A T.B.D. CAPTAIN, WHO DREAMS THAT HE HAS FOUND HIS LOG BOOK MADE UP BY MR. PH*L*P G*BBS. Time:—7.30 A.M.—Once more we set out on our never-ending mission, our ceaseless vigil of the seas. The ruddy weather-stained coxswain swung the wheel this way and that—his eyes were of the blue that only the sea can give—in obedience to, or rather in accord with, the curt, mystic,... more...

CHAPTER X.—(Continued.) The Pond at Bumsteadville is sufficiently near the turnpike to be readily reached from the latter, and, if mentioned in the advertisement of a summer boarding-house, would be called Lake Duckingham, on account of the fashionable ducks resorting thither for bathing and flirtation in the season. When July's sun turns its tranquil mirror to hues of amber and gold, the... more...

The Grant parade is over, the monument given to and accepted by the City of New York, and the great day has come and gone as such days will, leaving behind it tired eyes and a confused memory of marching soldiers. The sections of the parade in which The Great Round World took most interest were those in which the boys paraded, and especially the division in which the cadets and boys from the military... more...

THE ALMS-HOUSE. For the purpose of preventing an inconvenient rush of literary tuft-hunters and sight-seers thither next summer, a fictitious name must be bestowed upon the town of the Ritualistic church. Let it stand in these pages as Bumsteadville. Possibly it was not known to the Romans, the Saxons, nor the Normans by that name, if by any name at all; but a name more or less weird and full of damp... more...

OPERATIC NOTES. Amonasro (the Black King). "I am your father. I've kept myself dark so long that I've become quite black!" Aïda (the White Maiden). "Oh! go away, black man; don't come anigh me!! You ought to be Otello to-morrow night." Little Ravelli-Radames (aside). "No matter what colour, I love her!!" Covent Garden Stars seen through the Harriscope. Tuesday,... more...

FRAGMENTS OF GREEK DETAIL. The Art of Greece during the fifth century, B.C., was developed in an amazingly short time from a condition of almost archaic rudeness to that of the greatest perfection which the world has ever seen. At the close of the Persian wars the Athenians, under Pericles, began rebuilding their city and perfecting themselves in all the arts of civilization, and their progress in the... more...

ONLY FANCY! We learn by telegraph from Berlin that some uneasiness exists in that capital owing to demonstrations made by the photographists and artists in plaster-of-Paris, who have been accustomed to reproduce likenesses and busts of His Imperial Majesty. They complain that, owing to a measure of uncertainty about the EMPEROR's personal appearance from day to day, they have large stocks thrown... more...