our kings, too, how many are there upon whom we can look with gratitude and respect: and how many of these received their due from their contemporaries and subjects? When can we say that England was really prosperousrespected abroad, happy and peaceful at home: its people contented and improving under a virtuous and truly kinglike ruler?

Of the principles by which we shall be guided, we shall presently give some specimens: but we have one prefatory remark to make ere we do so. Let those who judge us remember that uniformity is the leading feature of the day, the basis of popular government, and modern improvement, from the New Poor Law down to the Penny Postage. Everything is to be reduced to one standard: we have model Unions, model Schools, model Prisons and Asylums, and it would perhaps be well if we had a model Parliament too. This, then, is the leading idea of our reform, and may serve to explain the disregard for chronology and historical character we may occasionally display, with those in whose minds such trifles may require excuse. We shall now give our rules.

I. We hold it to be contrary to uniformity, and therefore to expediency, that one king of England should reign longer than another. We shall, therefore, make a new division of time, and give each monarch an equal portion for his reign.

II. As our history is intended for national schools, &c., we think that as much as possible we should get rid of the present confusion of names among our sovereigns. We shall, therefore, first go through all the Williams, then the Henrys, Richards, Edwards, Jameses, Charleses, and Georges; and put king John and the queens in a lump at the end.

III. We have considered much how to obviate the unseemly strife and bloodshed at present arising from disputed successions and civil wars, and have come to the conclusion that Stephen and Oliver Cromwell must be dropped altogether (perhaps we shall treat William the third in the same manner:) and we shall make all our other monarchs the eldest sons and daughters of their predecessors. This will of course get rid of the wars of the roses among others, and give Henry the sixth a lawful right to the throne-for which all Etonians will thank

us.

IV. We mean carefully to collect all the great victories and triumphs, for the purpose of a new and equal distribution of such honours among all our sovereigns: we believe we may promise an average of seven and a half for each reign. Poets, generals, and statesmen will be dispersed in an equally impartial manner throughout the history.

[The poets are not allotted yet-but we are allowed to say in confidence that the victories of Blenheim and Cressy, together with the defeat of the Spanish Armada, have fallen to the portion of the founder of Eton.-Editor.]

V. Of course all the kings and queens die of old age: at present we think they must take it in turns to breathe their last at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

VI. They will also be all highly moral and virtuous : we mean to out-Bowdler Bowdler in excluding anything that may raise a blush in the most sensitive cheek-and undertake that even Henry the eighth shall be a most amiable man in private life,

VII. Such characters as Robert of Normandy, Prince Arthur, the babies in the Tower, &c., are to be treated in an entirely novel and most ingenious manner—but this secret must be kept till the time comes.

VIII. We mean, in accordance with the spirit of the age, to throw aside all paltry distinctions of sects in religion, and shall distribute our church patronage liberally among all denominations of christians. Titus Oates is to be Archbishop of Canterbury, and George Fox the Quaker "sometime Provost of King's."

These are a few of our leading principles, put down at hazard rather by way of specimen, than as any promulgation of our theory. We feel that we have a great work to perform; but that in that work we shall be supported by the favour of our brother Etonians. This assurance alone would be enough to sustain us under labours more overwhelming than any we are likely to meet with; but at the same time we have no apprehensions that we shall need other aid than that afforded us by the great principle we have been endeavouring to advocate. Surely, facts will be our only opponents; may we not add in the words of the well-known theoriser," so much the worse for the facts!"

We have only further to add that, in the third number of the Eton Bureau, William the Conqueror will ascend the throne of his father Harold, be crowned in Westminster Abbey by Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Bolingbroke being First Lord of the Treasury, and "the heavenly Pym" Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader of the House of Commons.

E. M. O.

F

A BALLAD.

1.

The sun is scarcely sunk

In his lov'd Hesperian seas,
And the fitful moaning of the blast
Is heard amid the trees.

But why do Mary's tears o'erflow?
And why so sad her heart?

Her lover ere long to the wars must go ; 'Tis hard so soon to part.

2.

"Tis the breath of early morn
That is wafted on the wind;
Sir Raymond to the wars has gone,
With a blithesome train behind.
But why next to his heart so true
That snow-white scarf so bright?

He has sworn to give it a ruddier hue
In the blood of her recreant knight.

3.

The moon is o'er the hill,

And the wood lark in her nest; 'Mid the dews of eve the nightingale Is soothing her young to rest. But why doth that lute's melodious breath On the gale's soft pinion swell?

'Tis that recreant knight his love beneath His ladye's bower would tell.

4.

Three days have come and gone

Since Sir Raymond went away,

And the tears have flown from his Mary's cheek,
Like the stars at dawn of day.

But why is all that pageant show?

Why do the yeomen ride?

She is going to wed that knight, I trow,
A perjured, faithless, bride.

Folle decet pueros ludere.-MARTIAL.

I had been spending some hours in Mr. Ingalton's back room, now the Ed. E. B.'s studio, reading and criticising tragedies, chronicles, letters, &c., without number, and congratulating myself that I had almost concluded my task, and that No. II. was very good; when, as I dived into the mysterious chest, wherein all our correspondence was deposited, with as much circumspection as the Prince of Morocco did into the fair Portia's, my hand emerged from its entrails, armed with a letter! A letter! Well what's in a letter? O but this letter-It was directed to "the Editor of the Eton Bureau," &c., &c., just as it should be; but there was something in the handwriting that bespoke the inward bitterness of the mind that prompted it.

"The Editor" was written, as if it meant, I wish I was behind him with a brad-awl, or some such other delicate instrument; despondency was evident in " Mr. Ingalton," and the &c., &c., &c., seemed to intimate that the writer had hardly made up his mind whether to drown himself in Barne's-pool, or inflict summary chastisement on unoffending me.