fashionables, like a hog in a tulip bed, with the equally laughable inten

tion of inspecting long

horns and short horns,

prime beasts and lean stock; of handling the porkers and coughing the colts. Nay, imagine our bumpkin at the great Fancy Fair of all, blundering up to a stall kept by a Royal Duchess, and inquiring perseveringly for a gilt gingerbread King and Queen-a long-promised fairing to brother Bill at Leighton Buzzard!"

Little did L. dream during this flourish of fancy, that his whim

sical fiction had been

forestalled by fact; and a deep shade of vexation passed over his features while he perused the following hints from Hants, as conveyed in a bona fide letter to the Editor of the Comic Annual.

HONNORD SUR,

Dont no if you Be a Hamshire man, or a man atacht to the fancy, but as Both such myself, have took the libberty to write about what is no joke. Of coarse allude to being Hoaxt up to Lonnon, to sea a fair no fair at all and About as much fancy as you mite fancy on the pint of a pin.

Have follerd the Fancy, ever since cumming of Age, and bean to every Puglistical fite, from the Gaim Chicking down to the fite last weak. Have bated Buls drawd Baggers, and Kild rats myself meening to say with my hone Dogs. Ought to no wot Fancy his. Self prays is no re-comendation But have bean at every Fair Waik or Revvle in England. Ought to no then wot a Fare is.

Has for the Lonnon job-could Sea nothin like Fancy and nothing like fare. Only a Toy shop out of Town with a gals skool looking after it, without a Guvverness and all oglein like Winkin. Lots of the fare sects but no thimbel rig, no priking in the garter no nothing. Am blest if our hone little Fare down at Goos Grean dont lick it all to Styx. Bulbeating, Baggerdrawing, Cuggleplaying, Rastlin, a Sopped pigtale, a Mane of Cox Jackasreacing jumpin in Sax and a Grand Sire Peal of Trouble Bobs puld by the Collige youths by way of givin a Bells Life to the hole. Call that Fancy. Too Wild Best Shoes, fore theaters besides a Horseplay a Dwarft a She Giant a fat Child a

prize ox five carriboo savidges a lurned Pigg an Albany with wite Hares a real See Murmad a Fir Eater and lots of Punshes and Juddis. Call that a Fare.

Now for Lonnon. No Sanderses-no Richardsens no wum wills menageris no backy boxis to shy for-no lucky Boxis. No poster makin no jugling or Dancing. Prest one yung laidy in ruge oheaks and trowsers verry civelly For a bit of a caper on the tite rop-But miss got on the hi rop, and calld for a conestubble. Askt annother in a ridding habbit for the faver of a little horsemunship and got kicked out of her Booth. Goos Grean for my munny! Saw a yung laidy there that swallerd a Sord and wasnt too Partickler to jump threw

a hoop. Dutchesses look dull after that at a Fare. Verry dignified, but Prefer the Wax Wurk, as a Show. Dont sea anny think in Watch Pappers cut out by Countisses that have been born with all their harms and legs-not Miss Biffins.

Must say one thing for Goos Grean. Never got my pockit pict xcept at Lonnon-am sorry to say lost my Reader and Ticker and every Dump I had let alone a single sovran. And lost the best part of that besides to a Yung Laidy that nevver gave change. Greenish enuf says you for my Tim of Day but I was gammund by the baggidge to bye five shillin Pin Cushins. Wish Charrity

had stayd at Hoam! The ould Mare got a coald by waiting outside. And the five Charrity pincushins hadn't Bran enuf in their hole boddys to make her a Mash.

Am told the Hos

pittle don't clear anny grate proffits after all is dun and Like enuff. A Fare should be a Fare and fokes at Room oght to do as Room does. Have a notion Peeressis that keep Booths wood take moor Munny if they wasn't abuv having the dubble drums and speakin trumpets and gongs. Theres nothin like goin the hole Hog!

Shall be happy, sur, to sea You at Goos Green next Fare and pint out the Difference. Maybe in Flurtashun, and Matchmacking and getting off Dorters along with the dolls we ar a littel

FANCY-FAIRINGS

чами

cut out, but for Ginuen Fancy and Fun and Fair Play its a mear Green Goos to Goos Green.

Remain Sur,

Your humbel tu command,

JACOB GILES.

P.S. Think Vallintins day wood be a Good fixter for next Fancy Fare. Shant say why. Sniff sumthing of the kind going on amung our hone Gals-Polly as just begd a sak of bran and she dont keap rabits. Pincushins and nothin else. Tother day cum across a large Watchpokit and suspect Mrs. G is at the Bottom of it. No churnin butter no packin egs no setten Hens and crammin Turkis—All sniping ribbins folding papper sowin up satten and splitting hole trusses of straw. Am blest if its for litterin down Horsis. Dont no how its all to be got to markit at Lonnon, the nine Gals and all 'xcept its by a Pickfurd Van.

There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,

The Muse found Scroggins stretched beneath a rug.-GOLDSMITH.

66

POETRY and poverty begin with the same letter, and, in more respects than one, are as like each other as two P's."-Nine tailors are the making of a man, but not so the nine Muses. Their votaries are notoriously only water-drinkers, eating mutton cold, and dwelling in attics. Look at the miserable lives and deaths recorded of the poets. "Butler," says Mr. D'Israeli, "lived in a cellar, and Goldsmith in a Deserted Village. Savage ran wild,-Chatterton was carried on St. Augustine's Back like a young gipsy; and his half-starved Rowley always said heigho, when he heard of gammon and spinach. Gray's days were ode-ious, and Gay's gaiety was fabulous. Falconer was shipwrecked. Homer was a blind beggar, and Pope raised a subscription for him, and went snacks. Crabbe found himself in the poorhouse, Spenser couldn't afford a great-coat, and Milton was led up and down by his daughters, to save the expense of a dog."

It seems all but impossible to be a poet, in easy circumstances. Pope has shown how verses are written by Ladies of Quality-and what execrable rhymes Sir Richard Blackmore composed in his chariot. In a hay-cart he might have sung like a Burns.

As the editors of magazines and annuals (save one) well know, the truly poetical contributions which can be inserted, are not those which come post free, in rose-coloured tinted paper, scented with musk, and sealed with fancy wax. The real article arrives by post, unpaid, sealed with rosin, or possibly with a dab of pitch or cobbler's wax, bearing the impression of a halfpenny, or more frequently of a button,-the paper is dingy, and scant-the hand-writing has evidently come to the author by nature-there are trips in the spelling, and Priscian is a little scratch'd or so-but a rill of the true Castalian runs through the whole composition, though its fountain-head was a broken tea-cup, instead of a silver standish. A few years ago I used to be favoured with numerous poems for insertion, which bore the signature of FitzNorman; the crest on the seal had probably descended from the Conquest, and the packets were invariably delivered by a Patagonian footman in green and

gold. The author was evidently rich, and the verses were as palpably poor; they were declined, with the usual answer to correspondents who do not answer, and the communications ceased-as I thought for ever, but I was deceived; a few days back one of the dirtiest and raggedest of street urchins delivered a soiled whity brown packet, closed with a wafer, which bore the impress of a thimble. The paper had more the odour of tobacco than of rose leaves, and the writing appeared to

have been perpetrated with a skewer dipped in coffee-grounds; but the old signature of Fitz-Norman had the honour to be my "very humble servant" at the foot of the letter. It was too certain that he had fallen from affluence to indigence, but the adversity which had wrought such a change upon the writing implements, had, as usual, improved his poetry. The neat crowquill never traced on the superfine Bath paper any thing so unaffected as the following: