is clerk to Mr. Reeves, an attorney in Tottenhamcourt-road, calling upon him to attend on a given day, to show cause why he should not pay a debt of 39s. 114d. Commisssioner-Never mind, we don't want your list-go on. Mr. Williams-Well, then, at last I set up in Boswell-court, Queen-square. Lawk me! what alterations I have seen in that square, surely in my time. I remember when I used to go to shave old LordCommissioner-For God's sake, do come to the end of your story. Mr. Williams-Well, I will. Where was I? Oh! in Boswell-court-[Commissioner, aside: I wish you were there now.]-Well, then, you must know when Lord Mansfield (God rest his soul!) died, his wigthe very, very wig I made-got back to my old master's shop, and he kept it as a pattern for other judge's wigs and at last who should die but iny master himself. Ay, its what we must all come to. The Commissioner-Go on, go on man, and come to the end of your story. Mr. Williams, who spoke with a sort of lisping squeak, garrulously addressed the Commissioner: "He had," he said, "been a hair-dresser, man and boy, for sixty-eight years. He had served his time in the Temple, where he had the honour of making wigs for some of the greatest men as ever lived-of all professions, and of all ranks-judges, barristers, and zommoners-churchmen as well as laymen-illiterate men as well as literate men; and among the latter, he had to rank the immortal Dr. Johnson: but of all the wigs he had ever set comb to, there was none on which he so much prided himself as a full state wig which he had made for Lord Mansfield; it was one of the earliest proofs of his genius: it had excited the warm commendation of his master, and the envy of his brother shopmates; but, above all, it had pleased, nay, even delighted, the noble and learned Oh! in my poor master's shop. Well, so when judge himself. Oh! gemmen," exclaimed Mr. Wil- he died, my mistress, gave me-for she knew, poor liams, if you had kuown what joy I felt when I soul! how I loved it-this 'dentical wig; and I carfirst saw his noble Lordship on the bench with that ried it home with as much delight as if it had been wig on his head!" (in an under tone, but rubbing his one of my children. Ah, poor little things! they're bands with ecstacy.) "Upon my say so, I was all gone before me. fuddled for three days after! The Commissioner- What has this wig to do with the defendant's debt Mr. Williams-A great deal that's the very bone of contention. The Commissioner-Doubtless; but you must come to the marrow, if you can, as soon as possible. Mr. Williams-I will. Well, as I was sayingwhere did I leave off?-Oh! when I was fuddled. The Commissioner-I hope you have left off that habit, now, my good man. Mr. Williams-Upon my say so, I have, trust me; but as I was a saying, to make a long story short, in course of time I left my master in the Temple, set up for myself, and did a great stroke of business. Ay, I could tell you such a list of customers. There was Mr. Williams- I will, I will. Well, where was The Commissioner- Come, if you don't cut this matter short, I must, and send you after them. Mr. Williams- Dearee me! you put me out. the apple of my eye; when, as ill-luck would have it, Well, as I was a saying, I kept this here wig as that ere Mr. Lawrence came to my shop, and often asked me to lend it to him to act with in a play -I think he called it Shycock, or Shylock, for he said he was to play the judge. I long refused, but. he over persuaded me, and on an unlucky day I let him have it, and have never (weeping and wiping his little eye with his white apron) seen it since. The Commissioner-And so you have summoned him for the price of this wig? Mr. Williams-You have just hit the nail on the head. The Commissioner-Well, Mr. Lawrence, what have you to say to this? Mr Lawrence (with great pomposity)- Why, sir, | Chitty, and most erroneously so call him; for you I have a great deal to say. ought to know that the Ch in Italian sounds like an The Commissioner-Well, then, sir, I desire you English K, and Mr. Kitty, by lineal descent, is an will say as little as you can, for there are a great Italian. It is a vulgar error to speil his name with a many persons waiting here whose time is very pre-y final, it ought to be i, and then it would properly sound Kittee. cious. Commissioner-What record? Mr. Lawrence-The record in Court. Mr. Lawrence- You have a summons, on which I attend to defend myself; and that is, to all intents and purposes, de facto, as well as de jure, a record similar to, and of the essence of a record in the Court above. Commissioner-Sir, we are not guided by the precedents of Courts above here. Our jurisdiction and our powers are defined by particular Acts of Parliament. Mr. Lawrence-Sir, I contend, according to the common law of these realms, that I am right. Commissioner-I say, according to the rules of common sense, you are wrong. Mr. Lawrence-Sir, I have cases. self to this case. you I will confine your Mr. Lawrence-What says Kitty upon the nature of these pleadings? The Commissioner-And pray who is Kitty? Mr. Lawrence-The most eminent pleader of the present day. The Commissioner-I never heard of a woman being a special pleader. Mr. Lawrence-He is not a woman, sir; he is a man, sir, and a great man, sir-and a man, sirThe Commissioner -Do you mean Mr. Chitty. Mr. Lawrence-I mean the gentleman you call The Commissioner-Sir, I will bring this case to a short issue. Did you borrow this man's wig? Mr. Lawrence-I did. The Commissioner-Do you choose to return it? Mr. Lawrence-It is destroyed. The Commissioner-How destroyed? Mr. Lawrence-It was burnt by accident. The Commissioner-Who burnt it? Mr. Lawrence-I did, in performing the part of the Judge in Shakspeare's inimitable play of the Merchant of Venice. While too intent on the pleadings of Portia, the candle caught the curls, and I, with difficulty, escaped having my eyes burnt out. The plaintiff here uttered an ejaculation of mental suffering, something between a groan and a curse. The Commissioner-Well then, sir, I have only to tell you, you are responsible for the property thus intrusted to your care; and, without farther comment, I order and adjudge that you pay to the plaintiff the sum of 39s. 11 d., which is the sum he is prepared to swear it is worth. Mr. Williams-Swear! Lord love you, I'd swear it was worth a Jew's eye. Indeed, no money can compensate me for its loss. Commissioner-I cannot order you a Jew's eye, Mr. Williams, unless Mr. Lawrence can persuade his friend Shylock to part with one of his; but I will order you such a sum in monies numbered, as you will swear this wig is fairly and honestly worth. A long dispute followed, as to the value of the wig, when Mr. Williams ultimately agreed to take 20s. and costs, and the parties were dismissed mutually grumbling at each other. A SET-DOWN. Swift was one day in company with a young coxcomb, who rose with some conceited gesticulation, and with a confident air, said, "I would have you to know, Mr. Dean, I set up for a wit." indeed," said the Dean," then take my advice, and "Do you, sit down again." THE LIKENESS; OR, MY COUSIN. My lord was all kind, and my lady all fair, And in conjugal fetters were link'd; Yet one thing was wanting, and that was an heir, Then sure, at the moment her cousin came in, When his forehead, his nose, and his sweet dimpled All present could easily trace. The ladies sat smiling; the captain smil'd too; Declar'd it was just like-my lord! MISERIES OF AN AMERICAN STAGE-COACH. melancholy pleasure to travel." My dear Coriuna, Misery 1st. PACKING. 2. After a sleepless night of anxiety, on the eve of the fatal day, mixed with the interesting reflectionsis every thing right in my valise ?- Will Mary remember to wake me at four?-where did I "pack" my shaving apparatus ? &c.- you drop into a perturbed sleep, which in half an hour is broken by the appalling cry-" The stage is come, sir." You wake with aching head and low spirits, and would give every thing in the world, except your already paid passagemoney to sleep till nine." 3. Getting into the coach in the dark, treading on the feet of the peevish, sleepy, occupants-you are stuck upon the midst of the narrow, tottering, middle seat, with no back to lean against, and two or three trunks already in possession of the place destined for your legs. A sick child is awaked by your entrée, and the mother opens an octave higher than concert pitch, to drown his cries and aid in waking him thoroughly. After keeping you in this state half an | hour, the coachman drives on, and you are greeted with the muttered "d-n" of your opposite male fellow-passenger, as you pitch against him, and the whining "dear me ! luddy mercy" of the " LADIES," (to use the coachman's hyperbolical compliment to the gingham draped travellers,) on whom iu turn you recoil. 4. A breakfast at a poor tavern. Domestic coffee, -no pleasant scenery-no pretty chambermaids. The day seems like a little eternity sweetened with maple sugar; heavy, coarse bread— tough, cold ham. No napkins, no salt-spoons, no egg-cups, no toast, no nothing. You have now a Nothing there is to come, and nothing past." view of your fellow-passengers, who are to bear you 9. Arrive at your destination-hotel full-are company throughout a long summer's day. And first corkscrewed up of the "ladies," the sick child's cross mother-a five pair of stairs to a littie, low, red, fat, snuff-faced widow, and two old maids with dark chamber, with two beds. The servant vanishes under the artful pretence of filling your dressing faded silk gowns and gold necklaces. The men ignorant and presuming, wrangling about manufac- pitcher, but returns not :- no bell-grope down to the tures and politics, and treating their salivary glands bar-every one busy with the previous customers, in to a profusion of tobacco. You have a fine time to their new coats and smooth chins-barkeeper, from reflect on your folly, in leaving the charming, cheer- your muddy travelling frock and long beard, takes ful breakfast at C's, the strong, hot amber of the you for your own servant, and minds nothing you say coffee, the light French rolls, the Vauxhall ham,-dressing to go out-find that every thing you want and, above all, the rosy, laughing girls, blooming and is precisely at the nadir of your trunk, which is not giggling from their morning slumbers, and full of the quite so handy as an elephant's clothes full of amusements and sports of the day," a longing, dandies in the reading and bar-rooms-nobody to wrinkles-cravats yellow-quizzed by the native lingering look behind!" 5. As you are about to mount the mud-fleckered whom you have cards at home-your banker in the coach, you look with tardy prudence for your valise. Country to stay a fortnight-little money and no creRemember, at this convenient season, you forgot it. dit-see a fine girl in the street-laughs at your You thus endure, like the man in the play, not only yankee coat instead of falling in love with you, comme disgrace and inconvenience, but positive loss. Forced de raison-find the reverse of the proverb about a to open your heavy, large, close-packed trunk twenty prophet in his own country true-treated rudely at times a day, for want of the valise as a tender. Your the table d'hôte-quarrel-no friend to take your imagination dwelling on it with nervous tenacity. So neat a valise-so convenient-all my dressing articles-the very valise I had abroad-how could I lose my valise? &c. &c. note-make your dying arrangements; no friend to leave them with-bound over to keep the peace-no friend to be bail-get into the coach to return-every thing worse than before, because you have no cu6. A rough, stony road, wooden springs to the riosity to gratify, and have tired your body and mind carriage, the horses, as well as the driver, in spirits, into a state of querulous despondence.-Arrive at or deep clinging mud, lazy driver and tired horses-home, and learn that in your absence your firm has long stages of twelve or fifteen miles, with a heavy failed, and your mistress married your rival. load. 7. Wishing to make a cross-cut, you are told that, at the next village, you will certainly find horses. Arrive, and while seeking the landlord, let the former stage drive off. Find out that there are no horses in. Perquisitions reluctantly and indolently made for you at the Doctor's, Squire L.'s, &c. unsuccessful, it being the landlord's interest to detain you, and hence 8. A day at a country tavern, no books, amusements, or company. (See Washington Irving's Stout Gentleman) No good wine-no agreeable prospect WHAT'S AN EPIGRAM. The first known English Epigram. That wealth he might have wonne, Since juggling first beganne ILLUSTRATIVE PREACHING, A clergyman preaching a charity-sermon, February 4, 1778, at a church in the city, during his discourse pulled out of his pocket a newspaper, and read out of it the following paragraph, viz.-On Sunday, the 18th of January, two ponies ran on the Uxbridge road twenty miles for twenty guineas, and one gained it by about half a head; both ponies ridden by their Also another paragraph of the like kind, of a race on the Romford road, on a Sunday. He made an apology for reading part of a newspaper in the pulpit, said he believed it was the first instance of the kind, and he sincerely wished that there never might be occasion for the like again. He then pointed out the heinous sin of Sabbath breaking. owners. Hugh Peters, one of the fanatics of Cromwell's time, preaching on Psalm cvii. 7.-" He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation,"-told his audience that God was forty years leading Israel through the wilderness to Canaan, which was not forty days' march; but that God's way was a great way about. He then made a circumflex on his cushion, and said that the Israelites were led "crinkledom cum crankledom." A preacher in a mosque began the history of Noah with this text from the Koran:-"I have called Noah;" but forgetting the rest of the verse, repeated the same words over and over. At length one of his hearers cried out, "If Noah will not come, call somebody else." PROFESSIONAL DUTIES. A city auctioneer, one Samuel Stubbs, Did with his mallet, which (see Bryant's For Samuel knock'd down houses, churches, With greater ease than mad Orlando Tore the first tree he laid his hand to. He ought, in reason, to have raised his own Marking, with paw upon his mazzard Or rattling in a box the dice, Which seem'd as if a grudge they bore Thus, like a male Penelope, our wight, He was beset by clamorous brutes One Mr. Snipps, the tailor, had the longest And naturally thought he had the strongest But debts of honour must be paid, From month to month throughout the year, Or flatteries, compliments, and pledges, He squeezed his hand, and swore to pay,- My dearest Snipps, before the end on't- |