PHOTOGENIC PICTURES: A SCENE NEAR FOLKSTONE.
[Folkstone was made, says tradition, of the "odds and ends" left after the rest of the world was finished; and any one who has visited that jumble of heights and hollows, becomes impressed with the conviction that tradition sometimes speaks the truth.]
Some weather-beaten men with clothes all tar-ry, Keeping a sharp look-out upon the ocean, And little Tom, and Jack, and Bill, and Harry, Making upon the beach a dire commotion,-- Dabbling, like dab-chicks, in the billows briny, Hunting for crabs, and other things crustaceous, While a Newfoundland dog, in sport called "Tiny," Wags his huge bushy tail, and looks sagacious: Here wades a shrimper to his waist in water, There swims a bather, snorting like a grampus; And lo! James Muddle, with his wife and daughter, All in a boat, and crying out, "Don't swamp us!" Far in the offing you may see a cutter, Her white sails gleaming like the sea-gull's pinions,-- She means to overhaul that craft, with butter Laden, and cheese, from swampy Scheldt's dominions; I shouldn't wonder if _Schiedam_--however, That's not my business;--turn our glances landward, There's Farley in his garden--well, I never!-- A-talking down the chimney, to my landlord; He says, "I see you've got some greens for dinner, "And pickled pork," but can't say more for coughing; That smoke just serves him right--the prying sinner! He's always jeering folks, and at them scoffing: White cliffs, and houses, underneath and over, And roads that seem to lead to regions airy-- Old boats converted into roofs, that cover Buildings, in shape and size that greatly vary, Denote the place, which popular believings Point out as being made of ends and leavings.
Here we were reminded by a particularly ample, and unprecedentedly flaring wood-cut, borne on an appropriate pole past the vehicle, and intended to describe the indescribable effects of the fireworks in the Surrey Zoological Gardens, of a pleasant discourse which we overheard in that suburban retreat. "Quite a gem," cried a lady from Portland Place, contemplating the splendid pictorial model of Rome; "really quite a monument of the artist's abilities." "I see _St. Paul's_," said a lady from Shadwell, who was standing by, looking at the same time at the crowning feature of the picture, "I see St. Paul's quite plain, but _where's the Monument?_"