about fifteen miles beyond that place, overtook the two heroes on foot, each leading his jaded horse, and looking very foolish on the approach of the farmer. The latter now began to laugh in his turn, and the cockney travellers, who still were sixteen or seventeen miles short of Northampton, after lamenting their present condition, asked the farmer the old question, "Whether he thought they would get to Northampton that night ?"-"Yes," said he, "gentlemen, I dare say you may, provided you can contrive to go fast enough." He afterwards proceeded in his usual course to Melton Mowbray, and on the following week learnt that our two heroes, after leading their horses several miles, stopped for the night at an inn ten miles short of Northampton.

KISSING AND BITING.

When the court of France waited upon the king, on the birth of the duke of Burgundy, all were welcomed to kiss his hand. The Marquis of Spinola, in the ardour of respect, bit his majesty's finger, on which the king started, when S. begged pardon, and said in his defence, if he had not done so, his majesty

would not have noticed him.

MATRIMONIAL HAPPINESS.

An old nobleman having married a young girl, was asked how he could possibly expect at his years to possess the heart of so young a female. He replied, "That he had rather possess a corner of her heart, than the whole heart of an old woman, who was tottering into the grave like himself."

any means deprive him of it, as he presumed it must be a family piece."

ON MR. FOOTE.

Thou mimic of Cibber-of Garrick thou ape!
Thou fop in Othello! thou cipher in shape!
Thou trifle in person! thou puppet in voice!
Thou farce of a player! thou rattle for boys!
Thou mongrel! thou dirty-face harlequin thing!
Thou puff of bad paste! thou ginger-bread king!
Was a Quin, or Delane, the boast of our stage,
Set up as fit marks for thy envy or rage?
Was a Quin, or Delane, who excel in their art,
To be ap'd by a cobbler, who bungles his part?
Thou mummer in action! thou coffee-house jester !
Thou mimic sans sense! mock hero in gesture!
Can the squeak of a puppet present us a Quin?
Or a pigmy, or dwarf, shew a giant's design?
Shall deficience, unpunish'd, at excellence rail?
Or a sprat, without ridicule, mimic a whale?
Can a Foot represent us the length of a yard?
Where, then, shall such insolence meet its reward?
Contempt were the best, like the mastiff that feels,
With superior derision, the cur at his heels-

O Ireland' too prone to encourage new toys!
In trinkets, and novelty, fickle as boys!
O Dublin! alas! to a proverb well known,
To receive what is foreign, yet scoff at thy own;
Learn truly to judge 'twixt a F-t and a tune :
Applaud the good player-but damn the buffoon!

AMATEUR EXECUTIONER.

George Selwyn was introduced at Paris to a club or ordinary, which consisted of the Headsmen, or Jack Ketches, of the several provinces in France; and as it is usual there to call them by the names of the towns to which they belong, they addressed one another as Monsieur Paris, Monsieur Lyons, Monsieur Marseilles, &c.; when the toast came George's turn, being an Englishman, and taking him for one of the trade, they saluted him by the name of Monsieur Tyburn. On which he said he humbly begged their pardon, he was not an artist in that line, he was ouly an amateur.

to

POPE'S LAST ILLNESS.

Dunces rejoice, forgive all censures past,

The greatest dunce has kill'd your foe at last." CHARACTER OF SETTLE, THE CONTEMPORARY AND

RIVAL OF DRYDEN.

Now stop your noses, readers, all and some,
For here's a tun of midnight work to come,
Og from a treason tavern rolling home.
Round as a globe, and liquor'd every chink,
Goodly and great, he sails behind his link;
With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,
For every inch that is not fool is rogue:
A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter,
As all the devils had spew'd to make the batter.
When wine had given him courage to blaspheme,
He curses God; but God before cursed him :
And if man could have reason, none has more,
That made his paunch so rich and him so poor.
With wealth he was not trusted, for Heaven knew
What 'twas of old to pamper up a Jew;

To what would he on quail and pheasant swell,
That e'en on tripe and carrion could rebel?

But though Heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking,

He never was a poet of God's making;

The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing- Be thou dull;
Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk; do any thing but write:
Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men;
A strong nativity-but for the pen!
Fat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
Still thou mayest live, avoiding pen and ink.'

U

Darest thou presume in verse to meet thy foes,
Thou, whom the penny pamphlet foil'd in prose?
Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has made,
O'ertops thy talent in thy very trade:
Doeg to thee, thy paintings are so very coarse,
A poet is, though he's the poet's horse,
A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
For writing treason, and for writing dull:
To die for faction is a common evil,
But to be hang'd for nonsense is the devil.
Hadst thou the glories of thy king express'd,
Thy praises had been satire at the best;
But thou, in clumsy verse, unlick'd, unpointed,
Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed.
I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,
For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes
But of king David's foes be this the doom,
May all be like the
young man Absalom:
And for my foes, may this their blessing be
To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee.

CONSULTATION OF PHYSICIANS.

A man much addicted to drinking, being extremely ill with a fever, a consultation was held in his bedchamber by three physicians, how to "cure the fever, and abate the thirst." Gentlemen," said he, I will take half the trouble off your hands; you cure the fever, and I will abate the thirst myself.”

66

FUTURE PROSPECTS.

Dean Swift knew an old woman of the name of Margaret Styles, who was much addicted to drinking. Though frequently admonished by him, he one day found her at the bottom of a ditch. The dean, after severely rebuking her, asked her, "Where she thought of going to?" (meaning after her death.) I'll tell you, sir," said she, "if you'll help me up.' When he had assisted her, and repeated his question, -"Where do I think of going to?" said she, "where the best liquor is, to be sure!"

CHARACTER OF LOTHARIO.

From his youth upwards to the present day
When vices more than years, have mark'd him gray,
When riotous excess, with wasteful hand,
Shakes life's frail glass, and hastes each ebbing sand,
Unmindful from what stock he drew his birth,
Untainted with one deed of real worth,
Lothario, holding honour at no price,
Folly to folly added, vice to vice,

Wrought sin with greediness, and sought for shame
With greater zeal than good men seek for fame.
Where (reason left without the least defence)
Laughter was mirth, obscenity was sense;
Where impudence made decency submit;
Where noise was humour, and where whim was wit;
Where rude untemper'd license had the merit
Of liberty, and lunacy was spirit;
Where the best things were ever held the worst,
Lothario was, with justice, always first,

To whip a top, to knuckle down at taw,
To swing upon a gate, to ride a straw,
To play at push-pin with dull brother peers,
To belch out catches in a porter's ears,
To reign the monarch of a midnight cell,
To be the gaping chairman's oracle;
Whilst, in most blessed union, rogue and whore
Clap hands, huzza, and hiccup out-encore;
Whilst gray authority, who slumbers there
In robes of watchman's fur, gives up his chair;
With midnight howl to bay th' affrighted moon,
To walk with torches through the streets at noon;
To force plain nature from her usual way,
Each night a vigil, and a blank each day;
To match for speed one feather 'gainst another,
To make one leg ruu races with his brother;
'Gainst all the rest to take the northern wind,
Bate to ride first, and he to ride behind;
To coin newfangled wagers, and to lay them
Laying to lose, and losing not to pay them;
Lothario, on that stock which Nature gives,
Without a rival stands, though March* yet lives.

CHURCHILL,

Lord March, famous for his libertinism. U 2

NICHOLAS WOOD, THE KENTISH GLUTTON. The following circumstances relative to this eccentric fellow are extracted from an old pamphlet, entitled "Nicholas Wood, the great eater, or the admirable teeth and stomach exploits of Nicholas Wood, of Harrisom, in the county of Kent," He is the only tugmutton, or mutton-monger, betwixt Dover and Dunbar for hee hath eaten a whole sheepe of sixteen shillings price, raw, at one meal: pardon me, I think he left the skin, the wool, the hornes, and the bones: but why talke I of a sheepe, when it is apparently knowne, that he hath at one repast, and with one dish, feasted his carkas with all manner of meates. All men will confesse that a hogge will eat any thing, either fish, flesh, fowle, root, or herb; and this same noble Nick Nicholas, or Nicholas Nick, hath made an end of a hogge all at once, as if it had been but a rabbit-sucker; and presently after, for fruit to recreate his palate, he hath swallowed three pecks of damsons. What say you to a lease or flecke of brawne, new killed, to be of weight eight pounds, and to be eaten hot out of the boare's belly, raw? Was it not a glorious dish? and presently after, instead of suckets, twelve raw puddings. I speak not one word of drinke all this while; for indeed he is no drunkard, hee abhores that swinish vice: alehouses nor tapsters cannot nick this nick with froth; curtoll cannes, tragicall black potts, and double-dealing bombasted jugges, could never cheat him, for one pinte of beere, or ale, is enough to wash downe a hogge, or water a sheepe with him. Two loynes of mutton, and one loyne of veal, were but as three sprats for him: once at Sir Warrapam Saint Leger's house, and at Sir William Sydleye's, he shewed himself so valiant of teeth and stomache, that he ate as much as would well have served and sufficed thirty men, so that his belly was like to have turned bankrupt and breake: but the serving-man turned him to the fire, and anoynted his paunche with greace and butter, to make it stretch and hold, and afterwards being layed in bed, hee slept eight hours, and fasted all the while: which, when the king understood, he commanded him to be laid in the stocks, and there to endure as long time as he had lain bedrid with eating.