JANUARY.

Should any reader be puzzled by the title of this discursive volume, the following verses may provide him with an explanation. They were written some time ago for a lady who had requested, required, requisitioned (I forget the precise shade of the imperative) something for her album. "We are in the last ages of the world," wrote Charles Lamb to Barry Cornwall, "when St. Paul prophesied that women should be 'headstrong, lovers of their own will, having albums.—'"