though but from the mother's arms. It was worth going five miles to see, the first mile trundling a coach-wheel, the second picking up eggs, the third hopping on one leg, the fourth backwards, and the fifth jumped in a sack. If any man think otherwise, may he dance a country dance, that is to say, in a ten-acre meadow, with a mohawking bully of a bull for a partner.

The whim next seized the Extraordinary, and he danced like a dancing Fakir. He jumped, and thumped, and twirled, and whirled, and so did the rest, till the great drops rolled down their foreheads, for it was in the very middle of the dog-days, and verily if Sirius did not become a dancing dog it was not for want of masters. The clock struck nine, and still they were at it, cross hands, down the middle, and back again 'twas a mercy the bolt held. Chassez-croisez, dos-a-dos !-it was getting on for ten, and yet they never yet called a fresh set! high time, my masters, for authority to interfere; but the Head of the Corporation had no sooner set the foot of the corporation on the scaffold, than the whole of the corporation gave way to the whim, and was carried off with a swagger into the medley, as if it had been the great ball at Easter. There, I say, was the Mayor of London, scarlet cloak, and fur, and gold chain and all, capering like a climbing boy on the first of May. If you had seen that morris danced, 'tis long odds, Londoners, you would not have known your own May'r from a Hobbyhorse.

The Sheriffs came next, and they gave in to the same whim and danced, and so did three Phrenologists who were in waiting to take a cast of the skull, and another old woman who had got upon the scaffold to be stroked on the neck for a wen. Though her dancing day was over, she hobbled her best, and so did a Jew who came up to haggle for the criminal's clothes, and likewise an amateur in hangings, who meant to bid high for a piece of the rope. These all danced, and God knows how many more might have joined the corps de ballet, but for a certain leap that was leaped by the Lord Mayor, and which knocked the whim on the head. Now the Lord Mayor's weight in the city, in mere flesh, was a matter of sixteen stone (on the 10th of November a little more), and his gold chain was seventyfive pounds, as good Troy weight as if Priam had weighed it himself. He had besides in his pocket, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in gold, ninety-five thousand pounds in silver, and five thousand seven hundred pounds in copper; moreover in his fob was an old family watch, formerly the clock of St. Dunstan, equal to ninety-five pounds and a half. Lastly, he carried on his person a huge bunch of keys, house keys, warehouse keys, shop keys, cellar keys, and particularly wine-cellar keys, cupboard keys, and especially pantry keys, and above all the Master Key of the city, which at any old iron shop would have been reckoned at a hundred pounds. Only think, my masters, when such a corporate body jumped, only think, I say, with what a confounding, astounding, crashing, smashing, flattening, pancake-making sole of a foot it would come down on any reptile short

of a crocodile. No wonder, then, that Tony's whim was completely atomised, obliterated, and annihilated, which it was so utterly, that if you were to search on the gallows to-morrow, with a solar microscope to help you, I don't believe, on my soul, that you would find the least article or particle of the cuticle of

A TARANTULA.

SONNET TO VAUXHALL.

"The English Garden."-MASON.

THE cold transparent ham is on my fork

It hardly rains-and hark the bell!-ding-dingle-
Away! Three thousand feet at gravel work,

Mocking a Vauxhall shower!-Married and Single
Crush-rush ;-Soak'd Silks with wet white Satin mingle.
Hengler! Madame ! round whom all bright sparks lurk,
Calls audibly on Mr. and Mrs. Pringle

To study the Sublime, &c.-(vide Burke)
All Noses are upturn'd!-Whish-ish!-On high
The rocket rushes-trails-just steals in sight-
Then dooops and melts in bubbles of blue light-
And Darkness reigns-Then balls flare up and die-
Wheels whiz-smack crackers-serpents twist-and then
Back to the cold transparent ham again!

My dear, do pull the bell,
And pull it well,

And send those noisy children all up stairs,

Now playing here like bears

You George, and William, go into the grounds,
Charles, James, and Bob are there, and take your string,
Drive horses, or fly kites, or any thing,

You're quite enough to play at hare and hounds,-
You little May, and Caroline, and Poll,

Take each your doll,

And go, my dears, into the two-back pair,
Your sister Margaret's there-

Harriet and Grace, thank God, are both at school,
At far off Ponty Pool-

I want to read, but really can't get on

Let the four twins, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John,
Go-to their nursery-go-I never can

Enjoy my Malthus among such a clan!

Oh Mr. Malthus, I agree

In every thing I read with thee!

The world's too full, there is no doubt,
And wants a deal of thinning out,-
It's plain-as plain as Harrow's Steeple-
And I agree with some thus far,
Who say the Queen's too popular,
That is, she has too many people.
There are too many of all trades,
Too many bakers,

Too many every-thing-makers,
But not too many undertakers,-
Too many boys,-

Too many hobby-de-hoys,

Too many girls, men, widows, wives, and maids,-
There is a dreadful surplus to demolish,

And yet some Wrongheads,
With thick not long heads,
Poor metaphysicians!
Sign petitions

Capital punishment to abolish;

And in the face of censuses such vast ones
New hospitals contrive,

For keeping life alive,

LAYING THE FIRST STONE OF AN HOSPITAL.

Laying first stones, the dolts! instead of last ones!--Others, again, in the same contrariety,

Deem that of all Humane Society

They really deserve thanks,

Because the two banks of the Serpentine,
By their design,

Are Saving Banks.

Oh! were it given but to me to weed

The human breed,

And root out here and there some cumbering elf,

I think I could go through it,
And really do it

With profit to the world and to myself,-
For instance, the unkind among the Editors,
My debtors, those I mean to say
Who cannot or who will not pay,

And all my creditors.

These, for my own sake, I'd destroy;
But for the world's, and every one's,
I'd hoe up Mrs. G-'s two sons,
And Mrs. B-'s big little boy,
Call'd only by herself an "only joy."
As Mr. Irving's chapel's not too full,
Himself alone I'd pull-

But for the peace of years that have to run,
I'd make the Lord Mayor's a perpetual station,
And put a period to rotation,

By rooting up all Aldermen but one,-
These are but hints what good might thus be done!
But ah! I fear the public good

Is little by the public understood,

For instance-if with flint, and steel, and tinder,
Great Swing, for once a philanthropic man,
Proposed to throw a light upon thy plan,
No doubt some busy fool would hinder
His burning all the Foundling to a cinder.

Or, if the Lord Mayor, on an Easter Monday,
That wine and bun-day,

Proposed to poison all the little Blue-coats,
Before they died by bit or sup,

Some meddling Marplot would blow up,

Just at the moment critical,

The economy political

Of saving their fresh yellow plush and new coats.

Equally 'twould be undone,
Suppose the Bishop of London,
On that great day

In June or May,

When all the large small family of charity,

Brown, black, or carrotty,

Walk in their dusty parish shoes,

In too, too many two-and-twos,

To sing together till they scare the walls

Of old St. Paul's,

Sitting in red, grey, green, blue, drab, and white,
Some say a gratifying sight,