to the completing my vast improvements at the Olympic, than it would be to the paying a parcel of musty arrears at Leicester, which will hereafter be duly liquidated by the novelties I shall send down. That buzzard Lee, wouldn't have let any person take the money save yourself, that wasn't a creature of his own; therefore, you see, my dear fellow, I was forced to borrow you for a short time, and now the murder's out."

The mystery was now indeed explained-it was useless being angry, and duly arriving at Leamington, the graces of Mrs. Elliston's ball fully reconciled the author to having been smugged-he was not, however, to be cajoled any longer by Elliston, but borrowing a couple of pounds of his little friend, Copps, of the Royal Hotel, took French leave next morning by the Birmingham coach which passed through the town, he reached the Belle Sauvage by six in the evening. His first step of course was to Astley's, from which he had now been absent three days.

Entering the stage-door, and passing down the stable-yard to the prompt-entrance behind the scenes, his ears were saluted, long before he arrived there, by the mingled cry of a thousand voices, vociferating, "Manager-manager-author-author!"

Alarmed beyond measure at this summons, which his greatest selflove had not contemplated, he pushed his way through the astonished performers, who thought that he had dropped from the clouds, and obeyed the call; but he soon collected from the audience the real cause of their displeasure.

cry.

"Restore the author !-restore the author!" was the universal

It was Sloman's benefit-night, and in order to shorten the length of the performances the actor had in the author's alienation very unceremoniously left out three or four scenes of the first piece. A few words confessing that during his temporary absence some liberties had certainly been taken with him, but now that he had come back, he would instantly restore himself, at once allayed the tumult, and thus ended the adventure of Smugging an Author.

It should, perhaps, be mentioned that as Elliston had guaranteed, the Leicester arrears were ultimately duly paid, and that the author excused himself when any charge of collusion was afterwards sportively brought against him, by observing, that he had only done what every one had enjoined him to do, which was to-take care of the money!

EPIGRAM.

ON LIEUTENANT EYRE'S NARRATIVE OF THE DISASTERS AT CABUL.

A sorry tale, of sorry plans,

Which this conclusion grants,

That Affghan clans had all the Khans
And we had all the cant's.

T. H.

SHORT RIDES IN AN AUTHOR'S OMNIBUS.

MAN A MICROCOSM.

"Ir is worthy of remark," says Vico (in the "Scienza Nuova"), "that in all languages, the greater part of the expressions relative to inanimate things are either derived by metaphor from different parts of the human body, or from human sentiments and passions. Hence the word head for summit or commencement-mouth for any opening-the teeth of a plough, of a rake, of a saw, of a comb-a tongue of land -the gorge of a mountain-a handful for a small number-the arm of a river-the heart for the centre-the veins of a mine—the bowels of the earth-the flesh of a fruit-the whistling of the wind-the murmur of the waves-the groaning of any object beneath a great weight."

The Romans used the phrases "sitire agros, laborare fructus, luxuriari segetes:" and the Italians say, "andar in amore le piante, andar in pazzia le viti-lagrimare gli orni;" while they apply to inanimate objects the words, "fronte, spalle, occhi, barbe, collo, gamba, piede, pianta."

We have already said that ignorant man takes himself for the rule of the universe in the above examples, he makes an entire world of himself. Man, in fact, transforms himself into all objects both by intelligence, and by the want of intelligence; and perhaps the second axiom is more true than the first, since in the exercise of his underscanding he stretches his mind to reach and embrace objects; whereas, in the privation of intelligence, he makes all these objects out of himself.

Hence the received notion that man is a microcosm or little world, and that the body natural may be compared to the body politic. Nor have we been content with fashioning an outward world from our inward one; but as God made man in his own image, so have certain fanatical men presumed to create a Deity after their own form and fashion, which is generally the worst they could have selected. Every one is more or less a little world to himself; and in this fusion, or confusion of the outward and visible with the inward and spiritual, most people are apt to identify themselves with external objects, especially if they bear reference to their own immediate habits, callings, or productions; a natural tendency which receives illustration from the beggar, recorded by Matthews, who hobbled about the streets, exclaiming,

"Please to buy a penn'orth of matches of a poor old man all made of dry wood."

FLEAS.

A CHATTERBOX ran about the town of Bath, warning his friends against ever sleeping at the Golden Lion, where he had been most grievously bitten by fleas.

"You remind me," said one of the parties thus addressed, “of the

punishment threatened by Horace to the man who should attack him, "Fle-bit, et insignis totâ cantabitur urbe."

When the late Lord Erskine, then going the circuit, was asked by his landlord how he had slept, he replied,

"Union is strength, a fact of which some of your inmates seem to be unaware; for had the fleas been unanimous last night, they might have pushed me out of bed."

"Fleas !" exclaimed Boniface, affecting great astonishment, "I was not aware that I had a single one in the house.'

"I don't believe you have," retorted his lordship," they are all married, and have uncommonly large families!"

STATE PYRAMIDS.

"It may be taken as a governing principle in all civil relations, that the strong and the rich will continue to grow stronger and richer, and the feeble and the poor more weak and impoverished, until the first become unfit to rule, or the last unable any longer to endure. This is the secret of the downfall of all states that have crumbled beneath their own abuses, and hence the necessity of widening the foundations of society, according to the increased weight that they are required to support. A pyramid, surmounted with a statue, whether crowned or not, should be the emblem of a commonwealth."

Despotic states resemble a pyramid reversed, which the weakest assault may topple down: and few things are more weak, notwithstanding its apparent strength, than absolute power. It has no supporters, no defence-for the tyrant is ever without friends-and he who has no law for others, cannot expect any for himself. Hence the tyrannicide among the ancients was always honoured as a patriot. The modern civilized world is perhaps less governed by constitutions and ministers than by public opinion, which a free press, where it exists, soon elevates into a species of omnipotence. If, therefore, there be any truth in the dictum that the vox populi is the vox Dei, the enlightened European states, so far as they are self-governed, are religiously governed, and approximate to the condition of the Jewish theocracy before the time of Saul.

HOPE.

HOPE is like a poplar beside a river-undermined by that which feeds it-or like a butterfly, crushed by being caught-or like a foxchase, of which the pleasure is in the pursuit-or like revenge, which is generally converted into disappointment or remorse as soon as it is accomplished-or like a will-o'-the-wisp, in running after which, through pools and puddles, you are not likely to catch any thingbut a cold.

A PUZZLING QUESTION.

ROUSSEAU asks his humane, moral, and enlightened reader, what he would do if he could enrich himself, without moving from Paris, by signing the death-warrant of an innocent old Mandarin of China? A concientious Frenchman might urge that we have no right to do

wrong in order that good may come of it; but he would at the same time moot the question, whether it be wrong to put an old Mandarin out of his misery, taking it for granted, that he must be in a wretched state of health from the inordinate use of opium, supplied to him by the unfeeling and unprincipled English. And the pious Gaul would further argue, that, though it would be scandalous to procure the death of a fellow-creature to enrich himself, he was bound, as a father, to consult the interests of his children; whereupon a tear of parental love would start into his eye, and he would sign the deathwarrant with a sentimental ejaculation.

Had the same question been propounded to a plain English John Bull, during the late war with the Celestial Empire, he would probably exclaim,

"What! have I not always been taught to make money-honestly if I could-but at all events to make money-and are not the Chinese our enemies, whom we are bound to destroy by every means in our power?"

"True," might be rejoined; "but this poor old Mandarin is a noncombatant; he has never done you any harm, and it would hardly be in conformity with the laws of religion and humanity to put him to death for nothing."

"But," retorts John Bull, "it would be in perfect conformity with the laws of war. Besides, I don't put him to death for nothing. I should scorn such a mean and cruel act-I do it to enrich myself. Had I been but a physician, I might have done the same towards scores of my fellow-countrymen, only the warrant would have been written in Latin-so give me the pen.'

Let us suppose one of that daily-increasing class, the Doctor Cantwells, to be placed in the same predicament.

"Though we are at war with the Chinese," would he meekly remark, "no consideration should induce me to sign this poor man's death-warrant, especially for my own interest, for we are commanded to forgive our enemies. But we are nowhere commanded to forgive the enemies of the Lord; and as this miserable sinner is a heathen, and it may be for the interest of the true religion that he should be swept from the face of the earth, I deem it my bounden duty, however painful to my feelings, to give my humble subscription to this heavenly order."

Which having done, and invested the blood-money in land or government securities, he would make donations to half a dozen charitable or religious societies, would call (in his own carriage) upon some polemical Boanerges, and if, as they drove towards Exeter Hall, they chanced to pass some good and kind-hearted, and really religious man who was no pharisee, our Doctor Cantwell would turn to his companion, and exclaim with a look and sneer of sanctimony

"I thank God that I am not as yonder publican."

Let us imagine the same startling question submitted to the decision of a poor devil of an author.

"How-what!" he would exclaim-" get suddenly rich by my own writing, and none of the money to go to the publisher? Done-done! Where's the pen and ink, where's the paper? As to the Mandarin, he

need not shake his gory locks at me. The day of his death shall be the happiest of his life, for I'll write his Epicedium, and immortalize him by publishing it in the New Monthly Magazine.

TO-DAY-A HINT FOR A SERMON.

MARVELLOUS are the statements put forth by calculators as to what four farthings would by this time have accomplished, had they been placed out at compound interest at the birth of Christ. Were such a penny-turning penny in existence, and able to tell its own tale, it would

Make his chronicle as rich with prize,

As is the oozy bottom of the sea,

With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.

A rolling stone, we are told, gathers no moss, and in the case of Sisyphus, we know the assertion to be true; but this ever-turning penny, if Cocker be trustworthy, would, at this our present Anno Domini, almost suffice to purchase our habitable globe, even were it composed "of one entire and perfect chrysolite" a fact of which I have no more doubt, than had Pitt of the efficacy of his sinking fund to annihilate the national debt in a few years! But although we have no metallic evidence of the miracles that may be accomplished by the accumulation of money, we have present and tangible proof of the wonders that may be wrought by the aggregation of Time; for that most marvellous of all prodigies To-DAY-is the astounding result of the one single day of Creation, with its compound interest for six thousand years.

This most imperial To-DAY, therefore, is seated on the throne built up by two million one hundred-and-ninety thousand days, and makes its footstool of twenty-four times as many hours! Acting as the faithful subjects and indefatigable subjects of To-DAY, the countless myriads of the past generations have exterminated monsters, diminished the races of wild beasts and savages, have advanced civilization, improved the fertility of the earth, conquered the elements, and ministered in ten thousand different ways to the physical security, comfort, and happiness of their living successors.

And yet all that God has done for man, and man for himself in a material sense, during these six thousand years, fades into insignificance compared with the inappreciable moral legacies which the past has bequeathed to the present. All the wisdom, experience, investigation, discoveries, inventions, improvements, of sixty centuries, each adding by compound interest to the treasures it had inherited, are the free, absolute, inalienable property of TO-DAY-not entailed to any individual heir-not restricted to any favoured class, but scattering their precious benefits by the diffusion of intelligence in all directions, upon the poor as well as the rich, the peasant as well as the prince. Truly, all those who by living TO-DAY have become the heirs of the past, have succeeded to a splendid patrimony! Let their gratitude be proportioned to their good fortune, especially when they reflect that they pay no legacy-duty nor income-tax on this magnificent bequest. And yet their destiny and position are much less majestical as