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OR, A REGULAR UPSET.

SKETCHES AT BOW-STREET.-No. II.

MR. PHINEAS WIGGINS, a Westminster chandler, appeared before the Magistrate, to charge Mr. Theophilus Thoughtful with having assaulted his person, damaged and destroyed his goods, defamed his character, and otherwise maltreated him.

Mister Phineas Wiggins, was a little dapperlooking costermonger, with a countenance somewhat resembling an intelligent muffin, compressed into certain indefinite forms by the thumb and finger of the kitchen deity: he was clean robed, shaved, and decorated with his white flag in front, and tiddivated up to his elbows in a pair of unblemished (not lawn) but Holland sleeves: all of which personal illustrations had been no doubt:

assumed, to give his Worship some idea of the assaultee's great respectability.

The assaulter, Mr. Theophilus Thoughtful, was of the generic race denominated exquisite, not the superlative or hyper-ex.-nor yet of the outré dandy, or double distilled; but of the gentler species, partaking of the idler, or insipid, and the genteel dulness of the finished roué. In his altitude, as much above the assaultee as he was in manners; in his person he bore evident marks of deterioration; strong symptoms of having been in contact with some hard substances in front, and vice versa, of having endured the "pitiless peltings" of some soft substances behind; the yellow vestiges of which still clinging about his exterior vestment, created very suspicious (but undeserved) sensations in the olfactory organs of the bystanders.

Mr. Phineas Wiggins opened his case thus: "May it pleese yur Vurship, I keeps a chandler's shop and heating-house in Peter-street, Vestminster, vere I sells a number of small articles, with hoysters and green grocery, and on tother side my shop I cooks hot joints, good soups, and rich puddings in the day time; and at night I frizzles a few sheep's heads, and makes prime hot-faggots out of thur plucks, for the benefit of the public. Vell, your Vurship, as I said, there I have been living, man and boy, any time these twenty yearsthought much of by my vife, treated kindly by my neighbours, respected by the gentlemen-costermongers, and always reckoned a remarkably honest man. Now, pleese your Vurship, last Friday night, about half-past nine o'clock, I vas

valking by the Admirallity in my vay home with some fine sheep's plucks, three pound of candles, half an ounce of black pepper, two ounces of mustard, and a prime lot of new-laid heggs, in a hamper on my knowledge-box, when I overtook this here gemman swaggering along before me, ven just at the same unlucky moment one of the Golden-cross porters vas coming tother way, loaded like an helephant, with a trunk upon his nob. "How are you Phinee?" says he (for he's a bit of a customer, your Vurship); ven I vent for to look up to see hoo it vas, and flush comes this here gemman against me, and up vent the hamper, and down came the candles, and the mustard, and sheep'sheads, and the eggs, all smash into the mud, and slap came the porter's box upon them, and wery queere I looked about it, your Vurship may depend on't. "Hallo!!" says I-"you're a pretty gemman, arn't you:"-" Vat do you mean by that?" says he.-" Can't you see were you're a going, my master?" says the porter." No, I can't, you rascal," says he, "for you've shov'd out my eye."-" Vell, Sir," says I," that's no Gad a mercy o'mine; you've spoil'd all my commodities, and smashed my eggs: and now you must pay for 'em."-" Dam your eggs," says he, they were all rotten;" and then he proceeded to scrape himself down, and took no notice of me.-Altho' I was choking vith rage at being called in the public street a dealer in rotten eggs, howsomdever I put it to him again, if he meant a poor man like me to suffer for his vant of keeping a good look out." Vy, as to that,"

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says he, "I think I'm the greatest sufferer, having got myself all bedaubed with your rotten filth; and my eye jamm'd into my head by that hanimal's trunk." And then he said something about hinditing us both for an assault; and ven I tried to monstrate, he swore he would tip me a smeller, and a smeller he vou'd have tipt me, if I hadn't called the vatch; and so here he is, your Vurship, to answer for his doings."

Mr. Theophilus Thoughtful having made a pro- found bow to his Worship, now advanced to the table; he was, he said, a literary character, and had been on the evening in question to his printer's at Charing-Cross, to correct some proof sheets; when returning peaceably homewards, buried in deep abstraction on his forthcoming work, and contemplating on the profound science of metaphysics, he all at once felt the angle of a huge mass forced longitudinally into the orifice of his ocular organ with the violence of an earthquake, and at the same time felt his spinal extremities and his ultimatum covered by a shower of slimy material of a very offensive odour, which he had since discovered to be the dura mater of a hamper of rotten eggs; in the concussion his head had suffered severely, as his Worship could perceive, and his wardrobe had been rendered entirely unfit for future service. Instead of his appearing there as the assaulter, he contended he ought to be considered as the assaultee, for he verily believed both the fellows were stupidly drunk.

"Bless my soul! how can you say so?" said Mr. Phineas Wiggins, interrupting him-" you

mean you was stupidly blind,-or you vou'd never have backed into my egg-basket."

Sir Richard Birnie, after condoling with poor Mr. Theophilus Thoughtful on the damage he had already sustained, advised him to come to some compromise with Mr. Phineas Wiggins, as the best way of backing out of the business; for, observed Sir Richard, if literary characters will walk in the public streets blind-folded among the illiterate, they must expect to meet with a few hard knocks.

To this truism Mr. Theophilus Thoughtful readily assented; paid the chandler for his eggs;apologised for having called them rotten;-drew the patch over his clouded vision; and retired from the office ruminating on the incident, and determined to make something of it, and reimburse himself by writing an essay on the subject for the Monthly Magazines.-Original.

SONNET, FROM THE ITALIAN.

THERE is no God, the fool in secret said—
There is no God that rules on earth or sky:
Tear off the band that folds the wretch's head,

That God. may burst upon his faithless eye.
Is there no God?—the stars in myriads spread,
If he look up, the blasphemy deny,
Whilst his own features in the mirror read,
Reflect the image of Divinity..

Is there no God?—the stream that silver flows,

The air he breathes, the ground he treads, the trees,
The flowers, the grass, the sands, each wind that blows,
All speak of God: throughout one voice agrees,

And eloquent his dread existence shows:

Blind to thyself, ah, see him, fool, in these.

London Magazine.