made exclusively to the ashes. It is all over with him. Is it a cinder that I see before me; the shovel towards my hand? Of this fact, there is a fate-tempting proof. Come, let me clutch thee? I have thee not, which is a very cruel case; but yet, melancholy to relate, I see thee still! This is tantalizing and extraordinary. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? a question not to be asked; or wert thou but a sweet dream of the mind of Pivot and all his race, turning to cinders, ashes, and lost dust, when they would feel thy fires? Ah, there's the rub! The French translate this by Voilà la difficulté; but we are not always so wise as we think, in laughing at the French. All this is entre nous-my ghost and I-and, perhaps, oblivion is a better judge of the case than either of the parties concerned. We can proceed no further in this business!' A murmur ran through the hall as Mr. Pivot paused, ‹ Pivot has lost himself! it is all over with his speech!' exclaimed several voices. Let us stone him to death, before he recovers himself!' shouted the head professor of the Snapdragons; Let us cut, maim, crucify, burn, and spiphlicate the sumph, for his family name is mentioned with some respect in the "Exposition of the False Medium!" All such men, and even the shadows of them, who gabble about genius, should be sunk for ever; I swear it by Von Meux and Co. Down with that shadow of a Pivot!' Before any one could echo the unprincipled shout, Mr. Pivot lifted up his head quite recovered from his reverie. I humbly beg pardon' said he, of all the lady and gentlemen puppets here assembled, for having indulged at too great length, not merely in a particular vein; for it was a general-a class I may say; but one that I feel bound to confess was not universal; and that is why I apologize. But to return to my oration, for the once joyous nymphs and beatified muses cry aloud to me from their desecrated abodes! I hear their voices on the winds-I see their forms in the air-I obey their injunctions!' Is there any end to it?' asked Count Riddlecap Ratafie. There is no end,' answered Lord Snakeskin; nothing can stop the human tongue. Talking is hereditary. Mr. Pivot resumed. Nature is one large clock; and every individual thing in nature is in itself a little clock. In every little clock, there are clocks, ad infinitum. The little clocks are as perfect, according to their class, and the duties they have to perform, as the great one for they all go upon the same principle, and are of similar construction, with the exception of the main-spring. With respect to the main-spring, or primum mobile, I shall be silent. The subject cannot be adapted to the understanding of puppets. Let us confine ourselves to a just consideration of the mechanism of small clocks. I need scarcely inform you that they are filled with springs, chains, and wheels. Some of these wheels have "teeth," simply as such; others "fangs;" others are circled with what we call " leaves.". Now, when a tooth escapes by the revolution of the wheel it belongs to, and the next tooth pops into the socket-one wheel thus moving another-we say the clock "goes," and when this does not happen, the clock stops." If no repairing or winding will cause it to go again, then the thing is what you call "dead." I shall not delay the time by delivering a treatise on the pendulum; though it is a noble subject: nor on the great and little wheels,-not even the balance-wheel; nor on the springs-not even the hair-spring-difficult as it is to repair. The energies, movements, vibrations, and vibratiuncles, (or godpapas,) you must of necessity take for granted, or what business have you here? You think, therefore you must be something. You feel, you walk, talk, eat; in short you possess five senses, and you use them, for better or for worse; therefore you are. Now then I am coming to the point.' * Here the whole assembly set up a great shout, Mr. Pivot is coming to the point.' Old Pivot is coming to the point!' The mechanist cast an inspired look upwards, and thus proceeded. 'Oh Nympharum domos! oh sedes Musarum! oh loca literatis apta secessibus!—ea mehercle (ut paulo ante dixi) lugere nunc videntur et operam cultumque Christianorum requirere. Sed multo magis ipsa Constantinopolis-vel tota potius Græcia: quæ quondam florentissima, nunc indigna premitur servitute !† A little ornamental rhetoric is not more requisite to the popular success of a speech, than a warm corner, a clean face, and a little oil, are to the proper goings on of every clock in nature. I will not permit you to deceive yourselves; and do not attempt to deceive me, for I will not have it!' A murmur passed through all the assembled nobility at these words. A deuced odd sort of person is this Mr. Pivot!' muttered some of them: Here's a pretty fellow for a clock-mender!' exclaimed others: Oh! that precious Pivot!' murmured Lord Snakeskin: This is no court mechanist!' ejaculated the ambassadors, indignantly. Long live old Pivot!' shouted thousands of voices from the outskirts of the great hall. 6 I do belong to a court,' pursued Mr. Pivot; I am a respect able man, in the real, moral sense of the word, and a Commissioner. I say that clocks are made to go in oil, and not to stand still in rust. I say that they are very curious and intelligent machines, and that their makers are not properly respected if their wants are neglected, and their bodies treated like dirt, so that they lose, in consequence, all their prime faculties. I say, and I speak as a mechanist, that if they are not wound up at proper intervals, which is their feeding-time, and kept warm and dry, by being set in proper places, they either will not go at all, or worse-go wrong! Who shall gainsay these simple facts? No one? Then none have I offended. I would demand a reply from the head professor of * Des Cartes, Metaph. Meditat. + Vide Busbequius, Trav. the Snapdragons; but that I perceive he has imbrued himself in Von Meux, as he would fain do in the very main-spring oil of his betters, till he is compelled to measure his length supine beneath yonder bench, with his eyes staring stultified, and his mouth open with a half-uttered curse, that has stuck, like the crossing out of his last claim to humanity! Surely it cannot be requisite that a third Samson should come among you, when the second has already shown the principles of clock-work action; or that another humane philosopher, like Dr. Shetland, should rise up to set you in order? Who has so good a claim to the consideration of the time, as the clocks that work incessantly to illustrate the progress of hours, chiming, and striking, secundum artem, and playing tunes, and imitating all sorts of tongues of birds, and puppets, besides giving sometimes a very curious scenic action of men knocking down bullocks, soldiers walking on sentry, and kings and queens eating cake, at a slice a minute? Even if clocks were not useful, they would be entitled to great care and praise, for the sake of the industrious example they display to all the world! Rust is the bane of clocks and men. Set them once going fairly, and keep them in proper order, and they are invaluable. Rust is occasioned by atmospheric action upon an inactive body, and soon renders it incapable of action. Without friction a body will rust; but excess of friction without oil, occasions fire. Pour forth then your oil, oh ye of little faith and charity! pour forth your oil in sufficient quantities upon your clocks, and in due season; and continue to do the same so long as they and you hold together, or they must inevitably talk beyond measure, play no tunes, strike at random, tumble about your insane ears, and never get back into their serviceable places, or work any more to please you !' NOTE. It is not without some regret, which should also be accompanied with some apology, that we confess ourselves not to be in possession of any more of the original MS., either of the Comments by the jurisprudential philanthropist, or of the additional matter of Nutcracker.' How far the readers of the Repository,' so many of whom have instituted inquiries concerning the latent meaning of the said high German' Fantasy, may be satisfied with the commentator's elucidation of the first form of the first class,' is more than we can venture to conjecture. But what sensible impression the other forms of the first class—and finally, all the forms of all the classes-would produce, who can conjecture! We once had the presumption ourselves, to contemplate an apocry phal completion of the above Extract, as also of the Comments; but a serious review of the innumerable difficulties, dilemmas, intricacies, and doubts, made us bow and retire from the endless task. The only excuse we have to offer, for even thinking of such a thing, was the persevering exhortation of an erudite friend, who informed us that he had indistinctly seen the form of a divine old man, with grey hair, upon whom the light from a painted window streamed down in quiet splendour of repose, Myself J. B. alias Dr. Smallhorse, evidently pointed at; herein done some degree of justice to Jeremy Bentham. while he sat playing upon an organ. Whether it was the form of Bentham, or Milton, he could not say; but he would be upon his oath, that the air the divine old man was wandering over, was that sublime Mass by Mozart, which comes after his old-fashioned one in See major, commencing with Nolo Episcopari!' If my own affidavit will add anything to the validity of that of my erudite friend, I am sure I have not the slightest objection to make it at Marlborough-street, soliciting his worship's, at the same time, to the same effect. The Author of the Exposition of the False Medium, &c. No. 101, ON A HAWTHORN IN BLOOM. O HAWTHORN tree, I joy to see A nameless line of bards divine, In what lone grove met Beauty Love, In hawthorn screen they met unseen, The Ballad-writers. 2 C Crediton. Voice of deep song, how fondly long Thrice welcome be to hope and me, May the time come, though o'er my tomb, J. RICH AND POOR. It is the established law of society that the poor man shall have nothing but that for which he gives his labour, and the rich man everything for which he gives his money. Machinery is very fast superseding human labour in general; and monopoly is accumulating masses of exclusive wealth: thus the rich and the poor are advancing to a point at which a reaction must occur. 6 Nature, like an indulgent mother, gave humankind vigour, which led to labour; and ingenuity, which led to art for the employment of these powers she has everywhere profusely spread the materials of which wealth is made. Even a cursory glance at the vast hoards which she has for this purpose supplied, astonishes the mind! The sea, the soil, the deep mine, and the broad mountain, the forest, and the field, all cry aloud, We teem.' Impelled by natural wants and inherent energies, man has made the giant oak bow beneath his arm; he has rent the rock, and torn its costly secret from its bosom; he has traversed unfathomed seas, turned desert soils, and scattered harvest gold over the fallow fields of the wilderness. But nature, thus indulgent to our physical wants, has been less prodigal in aid of our |