DEATH IN THE KITCHEN.

"Are we not here now ?" continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick per pendicularly on the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability)—“and are we not" (dropping his hat upon the ground) “gone ?—In a moment!”—Tristram Shandy.

TRIM, thou art right!-'Tis sure that I,
And all who hear thee, are to die.

The stoutest lad and wench
Must lose their places at the will
Of Death, and go at last to fill
The sexton's gloomy trench.

The dreary grave !-O, when I think
How close ye stand upon its brink,
My inward spirit groans!

My eyes are filled with dismal dreams
Of coffins, and this kitchen seems
A charnel full of bones!

Yes, jovial butler, thou must fail,
As sinks the froth on thine own alo;
Thy days will soon be done!
Alas! the common hours that strike,
Are knells, for life keeps wasting, like
A cask upon the run.

Ay, hapless scullion! 'tis thy case,
Life travels at a scouring pace,
Far swifter than thy hand.
The fast-decaying frame of man
Is but a kettle or a pan,

Time wears away with—sand!

Thou needst not, mistress cook! be told, The meat to-morrow will be cold

That now is fresh and hot:

E'en thus our flesh will, by and by,

Be cold as stone :-Cook, thou must die; There's death within the pot.

Susannah, too, my lady's maid,
Thy pretty person once must aid
To swell the buried swarm!
The "glass of fashion" thou wilt hold
No more, but grovel in the mould,

That's not the "mould of form!"

Yes, Jonathan, that drives the coach,
He too will feel the fiend's approach-
The grave will pluck him down :
He must in dust and ashes lie,
And wear the churchyard livery,

Grass green, turned up with brown.

How frail is our uncertain breath!

The laundress seems full hale, but Death
Shall her "last linen" bring.

The groom will die, like all his kind;
And e'en the stable boy will find
This life no stable thing.

Nay, see the household dog-even that
The earth shall take ;-the very cat
Will share the common fall;
Although she hold (the proverb saith)
A ninefold life, one single death
Suffices for them all!

Cook, butler, Susan, Jonathan,
The girl that scours the pot and pan,
And those that tend the steeds-

All, all shall have another sort

Of service after this ;-in short
The one the parson reads!

The dreary grave !-O, when I think
How close ye stand upon its brink,
My inward spirit groans!

My eyes are filled with dismal dreams
Of coffins, and this kitchen seems

A charnel full of bones!

THE DEAD ROBBERY.

"Here's that will sack a city."-HENRY IV.

OF all the causes that induce mankind

To strike against themselves a mortal docket, Two eminent above the rest we findTo be in love, or to be out of pocket: Both have made many melancholy martyrs, But, p'rhaps, of all the felonies de se,

By ponds, and pistols, razors, ropes and garters, Two thirds have been through want of £. s. d.

Thus happened it with Peter Bunce;

Both in the dumps and out of them at once,
From always drawing blanks in Fortune's lottery,
At last, impatient of the light of day,
He made his mind up to return his clay

Back to the pottery.

Feigning a raging tooth that drove him mad,
From twenty divers druggists' shops

He begged enough of laudanum drops
T'effect the fatal purpose that he had;

He drank them, died, and while old Charon ferried him,
The Coroner convened a dozen men,

Who found his death was phial-ent-and then
The parish buried him!

Unwatched, unwept,

As commonly a pauper sleeps, he slept ;
There could not be a better opportunity
For bodies to steal a body so ill kept,
With all impunity :

In fact when night o'er human vice and folly
Had drawn her very necessary curtains,
Down came a fellow with a sack and spade,
Accustomed many years to drive a trade
With an Anatomy more Melancholy
Than Burton's !

The watchman in his box was dozing;
The Sexton drinking at the Cheshire Cheese;
No fear of any creature interposing,
The human jackal worked away at ease:
He tossed the mould to left and right,
The shabby coffin came in sight,

And soon it opened to his double knocks-
When lo! the stiff'un that he thought to mect,
Starts sudden up, like Jacky-in-a-box,
Upon his seat!

Awakened from his trance,

For so the laudanum had wrought by chance,

Bunce stares up at the moon, next looking level,

He spies a shady figure, tall and bony,

Then shudders out these words, "Are-you-the-Devil?" "The Devil a bit of him," says Mike Mahony,

"I'm only com'd here, hoping no affront,

To pick up honestly, a little blunt—”

"Blunt!" echoes Bunce, with a hoarse croak of laughter, Why, man, I turned life's candle in the socket, Without a rap in either pocket,

For want of that same blunt you're looking after!"
"That's true," says Mike, "and many a pretty man
Has cut his stick upon your very plan,

Not worth a copper, him and all his trumps,
And yet he's fetched a dacent lot of stuff,
Provided he was sound and fresh enough,
And dead as dumps."

"I take," quoth Bance, with a hard wink, "the fact is, You mean a subject for a surgeon's practice

I hope the question is not out of reason,

But just suppose a lot of flesh and bone,

For instance like my own,

What might it chance to fetch now at this season ?” "Fetch is it?" answers Mike, "why prices differBut taking this same small bad job of ours,

I reckon, by the powers!

I've lost ten pounds by your not being stiffer !"

"Ten pounds!" Bunch echoes in a sort of flurry,

"Odd zounds!

Ten pounds,

How sweet it sounds,

Ten pounds!"

And on his feet upspringing in a hurry—