heaven forbid—in the jugular vein, where would you apply the lancet?

Wit. In the arm to be sure. I am a bit of a dentist.

Mr. D. Indeed! suppose then a person had the tooth-ache, and could not bear it, how would you proceed?

Wit. Beat it out, to be sure.

Mr. D. With what?

Wit. A hammer.

Mr. D. You may retire-I am perfectly satisfied.

HENRY IV's SOLILOQUY ON SLEEP.

How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O gentle Sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down,

And steep my senses in forgetfulness!

Why, rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber.
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile

In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case to a common larum-bell?

Wilt thou upon the nigh and giddy mast

Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamours in the slippery shrouds,
That, with the hurly, Death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And in the calmest and the stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

R

TRAGIC REMINISCENCES.

My father was a slaughterman thriving in a small country village, for, although a religious place, the inhabitants concurred in patronizing his propensity for butchering. To this fact do I ascribe the tragical turn of my thoughts, although it was said I imbibed it with my mother's milk, for she, like a good helpmate, helped her husband in his cruel trade: be that as it may, I certainly had a most sanguinary turn of mind; a fight would excite my admiration most unsophistically, and when very young, I could recite, and with glee, the whole of the part of Hotspur, who

"Killed some six or seven dozen at a breakfast,"

and that with all the emphasis and twang attached by schoolboys to the productions of "our immortle bard." In due time I was installed into my father's business, and became quite as cruel as my progenitors; but still retaining my dramatic propensities, I was at the head of a corps of privateers, who, like myself, did justice to their profession by murdering all within their reach.

My first appearance in public being at the time of an election, I expected to make a hit, but had not been on the stage many minutes, when I was assailed with a volley of missiles, rotten eggs, oranges, &c. which made more hits than I liked: I was therefore obliged to make a speedy exit, so much did they make their eggs hit. This so put me out of countenance (my face bearing palpable marks both of hard and soft usage) that I determined to make myself scarce, and did not forget to make my father's money scarce also, the possession of which so elevated my spirits, (God knows I ought to have been elevated else. where,) that I never thought of the future, but made my way to the first strolling company; where by dint of a few presents to the understrappers, I soon got a character for wealth (though I lost my character in getting it) among these poor actors,-poor in every sense of the word. My next public appearance was under better auspices, and I came off with eclat, although some of my companions thought it was only so-so but I told them I expected to reap advantage from spending my time in their company.

I will pass over my minus transactions in the country, and minor theatrical exploits in town, to the time when, thinking myself at the top of the tree, I wished to gather some of the fruit of my labour. I was engaged at Drury Lane Theatre at a good salary and lived like a prince, until my vanity led me

:

to think I could take up first-rate parts, and bring down such torrents of applause as were nightly showered on the reigning favourites. The night came, and I entered as Richard III. in all my kingly state, panting for applause, the audience for their Christmas pantomime, nor did they wish my tragic thoughts to interrupt their merry ones: added to which my bad qualities, hitherto in the back ground, appeared more forcibly, when rubbed up to suit my present advancement on the stage of life. In fact, both actor and audience were quite characteristic of the character I represented, and I was (to use a Thespian term)

DAMNED!

The dress and upper circles I could have boxed in the best Tom Spring style; the pit I wished a hundred times in the bottomless one, and the gods above so put my gall awry, that I made a foolish speech, forfeited my engagement, and went adrift like a stray boat, without a name, a prey to the first bum (or water) bailiff-for I had not forgotten to run in debt, for which in the long run I was indebted to my short run of pros perity. I applied in vain at the minors; and after being shifted from one scene of misery to another, I was at length appointed scene-shifter in Clark's Theatricals; but one night making shift to intrude a wood scene into a parlour, I was dismissed and left to shift for myself.

I now began to have serious thoughts of returning, like the prodigal son, to my father, but finding he was a bankrupt, I disliked the idea of being called to account for the money I had so unaccountably abstracted. I was at length obliged to enter upon a new scene, and act the part of candle-snuffer, at a country playhouse, where in despite of slanderers and backbiters, I hope to remain in that performance, till death puts his extinguisher on my vital spark.

NOSE AND EYES.

BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.

So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause,
With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning,

While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws,

So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.

"In behalf of the Nose, it will quickly appear,

And your lordship," he said, "will undoubtedly find,
That the nose has had spectacles always to wear,

Which amounts to possession time out of mind."

Then holding the spectacles up to the court

"Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle,
As wide as the ridge of the nose is! in short,
Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle.

"Again, would your worship a moment suppose,
('Tis a case that has happened, and may be again,)
That the visage or countenance had not a Nose,
Pray who would, or who could wear spectacles then?
"On the whole it appears, and my argument shows,
With a reasoning the court will never condemn,
That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose,
And the Nose was as plainly intended for them."

Then, shifting his side, (as a lawyer knows how,)
He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes;
But what were his arguments few people know,
For the court did not think they were equally wise.

So his lordship decreed, with a grave solemn tone,
Decisive and clear, without one if or but

That whenever the Nose put his spectacles on,

By day-light or candle light,-Eyes should be shut!

THE MONIED MAN.

OLD Jacob Stock! The chimes of the clock were not more punctual in proclaiming the progress of time, than in marking the regularity of his visits at the temples of Plutus in Threadneedle-street, and Bartholomew-lane. His devotion to them was exemplary. In vain the wind and the rain, the hail and the sleet, battled against his rugged front. Not the slippery ice, nor the thick-falling snow, nor the whole artillery of elementary warfare, could check the plodding perseverance of the man of the world, or tempt him to lose the chance which the morning, however unpropitious it seemed, in its external aspect, might yield him of profiting by the turn of a fraction.

He was a stout-built, round-shouldered, squab looking man, of a bearish aspect. His features were hard, and his heart was harder. You could read the interest-table in the wrinkles of his brow, trace the rise and fall of stocks by the look of his

F

countenance; while avarice, selfishness, and money-getting, glared from his gray, glassy eye. Nature had poured no balm into his breast; nor was his 'gross and earthly mound' susceptible of pity. A single look of his would daunt the most importunate petitioner that ever attempted to extract hard coin by the soft rhetoric of a heart-moving tale.

The wife of one whom he had known in better days, pleaded before him for her sick husband and famishing infants. Jacob on occasions like these was a man of few words. He was as

chary of them as of his money, and he let her come to the end of her tale without interruption. She paused for a reply; but he gave none. Indeed, he is very ill, Sir.- Can't help it.' 'We are very distressed, Sir.'-Can't help it.' 'Our poor children, too'Can't help that neither.'

The petitioner's eye looked a mournful reproach, which would have interpreted itself to any other heart but his, 'Indeed, you can; but she was silent. Jacob felt more awkwardly than he had ever done in his life. His hand involuntarily scrambled about his breeches' pocket. There was something like the weakness of human nature stirring within him. Some coin had unconsciously worked its way into his hand--his fingers insensibly closed; but the effort to draw them forth, and the impossibility of effecting it without unclosing them, roused the dormant selfishness of his nature, and restored his self-possession. 'He has been very extravagant.' Ah, Sir, he has been very unfortunate, not extravagant.' Unfortunate !-Ah! it's the same thing. Little odds, I fancy. For my part, I wonder how folks can be unfortunate. I was never unfortunate. Nobody need be unfortunate, if they look after the main chance. I always looked after the main chance.'-' He has had a large family to maintain.' 'Ah! married foolishly; no offence to you ma'am. But when poor folks marry poor folks, what are they to look for you know. Besides, he was so foolishly fond of assisting others. If a friend was sick, or in gaol, out came his purse, and then his creditors might go whistle. Now if he had inarried a woman with money, you know, why then

The supplicant turned pale, and would have fainted. Jacob was alarmed; not that he sympathised, but a woman's fainting was a scene that he had not been used to; besides there was an awkwardness about it; for Jacob was a bachelor.

Sixty summers passed over his head without imparting a ray of warmth to his heart; without exciting one tender feeling for the sex, deprived of whose cheering presence, the paradise of the world were a wilderness of weeds. So he desperately extracted a crown piece from the depth profound, and thrust it