what he has since said occasionally of his hand, that it "held literally nothing."

At sixteen, after a long maternal debate between the black and red suits, William was articled to an attorney: but instead of becoming a respectable land-shark, he played double-dummy with the CommonLaw clerk, and was discharged on the 6th of November. The principal remonstrated with him on a breach of duty, and William imprudently answered that he was aware of his duty, like the ace of spades. Mr. Bitem immediately banged the door against him, and William, for the first time in his life-to use his own expression, "got a slam."

William having served his time, and as he calls it, followed suit for five years, was admitted as an attorney, and began to play at that finessing game, the Law. Short-hand he still studied and practised; though more in parlours than in court.

William at one period admired Miss Hunt, or Miss Creswick, or Miss Hardy, or Miss Reynolds; a daughter of one of the great cardmakers, I forget which-and he cut for partners, but without "getting the Lady." His own explanation was, that he "was discarded." He then paid his addresses to a Scotch girl, a Miss MacNab, but she professed religious scruples about cards, and he revoked. I have heard it said that she expected to match higher; indeed William used to say she "looked over his hand."

William is short, and likes shorts. He likes nothing of longs, but the St. John of them: and he only takes to him, because that saint is partial to a rubber. Whist seems to influence his face as well as form; it is like a knave of clubs. I sometimes fancy whist could not go on without William, and certainly William could not go on without whist. His whole conversation, except on cards, is wool-gathering; and on that subject is like wool-carded. He "speaks by the card," and never gives equivocation a chance. At the Olympic once he had a quarrel with a gentleman about the lead of Madame Vestris or Miss Sydney he was required to give his card, and gave the "Deuce of Hearts." This was what he termed "calling out."

Of late years William only goes out like a bad rushlight, earlyish of a night, and quits every table that is not covered with green baize with absolute disgust. The fairies love by night to "gambol on the green," and so does William, and he is constantly humming with great gusto,

"Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands."

The only verses, by the way, he ever got by heart. He never cared to play much with the Muses. They stick, he used to say, at Nine. William can sit longer-drink less-say as little-pay or receive as much-shuffle as well-and cut as deeply as any man on earth. You may leave him safely after dinner, and catch him at breakfast time without alteration of attitude or look. He is a small statue erected in honour of whist, and like Eloquence, "holds his hand well up." He is content to ring the changes on thirteen cards a long Midsummer

night; for he does not play at cards-he works at them, and, considering the returns, for very low wages. William never was particularly lucky; but he bears the twos and threes with as much equanimity as any one, and seems, horticulturally speaking, to have grafted Patience upon Whist. I do not know whether it is the family motto, but he has upon his seal-with the Great Mogul for a crest-the inscription of "Packs in Bello."

William is now getting old (nearly fifty-two), with an asthma; which he says makes him rather "weak in trumps." He is preparing himself accordingly to "take down his score," and has made his will, bequeathing all he has or has not, to a whist club. His funeral he directs to be quite private, and his gravestone a plain one, and especially "that there be no cherubims carved thereon, forasmuch," says this characteristic document, "that they never hold Honours."

Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer Southcote to Northcote.

ONE day, or night, no matter where or when,
Sly Reynard, like a foot-pad, laid his pad
Right on the body of a speckled Hen,
Determined upon taking all she had;

And like a very bibber at his bottle,

Began to draw the claret from her throttle;

Of course it put her in a pretty pucker,
And with a scream as high

As she could cry,

She call'd for help-she had enough of sucker.

Dame Partlet's scream

Waked, luckily, the house-dog from his dream,
And, with a savage growl

In answer to the fowl,

PIGROGROMITUS.

He bounded forth against the prowling sinner,
And, uninvited, came to the Fox Dinner.

Sly Reynard, heedful of the coming doom,
Thought, self-deceived,

He should not be perceived,

Hiding his brush within a neighbouring broom;
But quite unconscious of a Poacher's snare,
And caught in copper noose,

And looking like a goose,

Found that his fate had "hung upon a hare;"
His tricks and turns were render'd of no use to him,
And, worst of all, he saw old surly Tray

Coming to play

Tray-Deuce with him.

Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable,
Under his Master, a most special constable,
Instead of killing Reynard in a fury,
Seized him for legal trial by a Jury;
But Juries-Esop was a sheriff then-
Consisted of twelve Brutes and not of Men.

But first the Elephant sat on the body-
I mean the Hen-and proved that she was dead,
To the veriest fool's head

Of the Booby and the Noddy.

And then the Owl was call'd-for, mark,
The Owl can witness in the dark.

To make the evidence more plain,
The Lynx connected all the chain.
In short there was no quirk or quibble
At which a legal Rat could nibble;

The Culprit was as far beyond hope's bounds,
As if the Jury had been packed-of hounds.
Reynard, however, at the utmost nick,
Is seldom quite devoid of shift and trick;
Accordingly our cunning Fox,

Through certain influence, obscurely channel'd,
A friendly Camel got into the box,
When 'gainst his life the Jury was impanel'd.

Now, in the Silly Isles such is the law,
If Jurors should withdraw,

They are to have no eating and no drinking,
Till all are starved into one way of thinking.

Thus Reynard's Jurors, who could not agree,
Were lock'd up strictly, without bit or mummock,
Till every Beast that only had one stomach,
Bent to the Camel, who was blest with three.
To do them justice, they debated
From four till ten, while dinner waited,
When thirst and hunger got the upper,
And each inclined to mercy, and hot supper:
"Not guilty" was the word, and Master Fox
Was freed to murder other hens and cocks.

MORAL.

What moral greets us by this tale's assistance
But that the Solon is a sorry Solon,
Who makes the full stop of a Man's existence
Depend upon a Colon?

THE COMET.

AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE.

"I cannot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this self-same Starling." STERNE'S SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.

AMONGST professors of astronomy,

Adepts in the celestial economy,

The name of H******·
***I's very often cited;
And justly so, for he is hand and glove
With ev'ry bright intelligence above;
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,
Watching the stars upon the house's top,
That once upon a time he got be-knighted
In his observatory thus coquetting

With Venus or with Juno gone astray,
All sublunary matters quite forgetting
In his flirtations with the winking stars,
Acting the spy-it might be upon Mars-
A new André ;

Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping,
At Dian sleeping;

Or ogling thro' his glass

Some heavenly lass

Tripping with pails along the Milky Way;
Or looking at that Wain of Charles the Martyre:-
Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky,

When lo! a something with a tail of flame

Made him exclaim,

My stars!"-he always puts that stress on my—
My stars and garters!"

"A comet, sure as I'm alive!

A noble one as I should wish to view;

It can't be Halley's though, that is not due
Till eighteen thirty-five.

Magnificent!-how fine his fiery trail!

Zounds! 'tis a pity, though he comes unsought-
Unask'd-unreckon'd,-in no human thought-

He ought he ought he ought

To have been caught

With scientific salt upon his tail!"

"I look'd no more for it, I do declare,
Than the Great Bear!

As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead,
It really enter'd in my head
No more than Berenice's Hair!"