It seemed the operation of a minute

A little scuffle-then a whack

And then he took the body snatcher's sack
And poked him in it!

Such is this life!

A very pantomime for tricks and strife!
See Bunce, so lately in Death's passive stock,
Invested, now as active as a griffin,
Walking-no ghost-in velveteens and smock,
To sell a stiff'un!

A flash of red, then one of blue,
At last, like light-house, came in view;

Bunce rang the night-bell; wiped his highlows muddy;
His errand told; the sack produced:

And by a sleepy boy was introduced

To Dr. Oddy, writing in his study.

The bargain did not take long time to settle,

"Ten pounds,

Odd zounds!

How sweet it sounds,

Ten pounds,"

Chinked into Bunce's palm in solid metal.

With joy half-crazed,

It seemed some trick of sense, some airy gammon—
He gazed and gazed,

At last, possessed with the old lust of Mammon,
Thought he, "with what a very little trouble
This little capital I now might double"-
Another scuffle of its usual brevity,
And Doctor Oddy, in his suit of black,
Was finishing, within the sack,

His "Thoughts upon Longevity!"

The trick was done. Without a doubt,
The sleepy boy let Bunce and burthen out;
Who, coming to a lone convenient place,
The body stripped, hid all the clothes, and then,
Still favored by the luck of evil men,
Found a new customer in Dr. Case.
All more minute particulars to smother,
Let it suffice,

Nine guineas was the price

For which one doctor bought the other;

As once I heard a preacher say in Guinea, "You see how one black sin bring on anudder, Like little nigger pickaninny,

A-riding pick-a-back upon him mudder!"

Humph!" said the Doctor, with a smile sarcastic, Seeming to trace

Some likeness in the face,

"So Death at last has taken old Bombastic !”

But in the very middle of his joking,

The subject. still unconscious of the scoff,
Seized all at once with a bad fit of choking,
He too was taken off!

Leaving a fragment "On the Hooping Cough."

Satan still sending luck,

Another body found another buyer :

For ten pounds ten the bargain next was struck,
Dead doctors going higher.

"Here," said the purchaser, with smile quite pleasant,

Taking a glimpse at his departed brother,

"Here's half a guinea in the way of present;

Subjects are scarce, and when you get another.

Let me be first." Bunce took him at his word,
And suddenly his old atrocious trick did,
Sacking M. D. the third,

Ere he could furnish "Hints to the Afflicted.”

Flushed with success,

Beyond all hope or guess,

His new dead-robbery upon his back,

Bunce plotted-such high flights ambition takes-
To treat the Faculty like ducks and drakes,
And sell them all ere they could utter "Quack!"
But Fate opposed. According to the schools,
When men become insufferably bad,

The gods confer to drive them mad :

March hairs upon the heads of April fools!

Tempted by the old demon avaricious,

Bunce traded on too far into the morning;
Till nods, and winks, and looks, and signs suspicious,
Even words malicious,

Forced on him rather an unpleasant warning.
Glad was he to perceive, beside a wicket,

A porter, ornamented with a ticket,

Who did not seem to be at all too busy: "Here, my good man,

Just show me, if you can,

A doctor's-if you want to earn a tizzy !”

Away the porter marches,

And with grave face, obsequious, precedes him,
Down crooked lanes, round corners, under arches;
At last, up an old-fashioned staircase leads him,

Almost impervious to the morning ray,

Then shows a door-"There, that's a doctor's reckoned,
A rare Top-Sawyer, let who will come second-
Good-day."

"I'm right," thought Bunce, "as any trivet;
Another venture-and then up I give it !"
He rings;-the door, just like a fairy portal,
Opens untouched by mortal:

He gropes his way into a dingy room,

And hears a voice come growling through the gloom, "Well-eh ?-Who? What?-Speak out at once!" "I will," says Bunce;

'I've got a sort of article to sell;

Medical gemmen knows me very well—”

But think, Imagination, how it shocked her,

To hear the voice roar out-" Death! Devil! d-n! Confound the vagabond! he thinks I am

A rhubarb-and-magnesia Doctor !”

"No Doctor!" exclaimed Bunce, and dropped his jaw, But louder still the voice began to bellow"Yes-yes-od zounds !-I am a Doctor, fellow,

At law !"

The word sufficed.

Of things Bunce feared the most

(Next to a ghost)

Was law-or any of the legal corps ;

He dropped at once his load of flesh and bone,
And, caring for no body, save his own,
Bolted;--and lived securely till fourscore,
From never troubling Doctors any more!

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.

A PASTORAL REPORT.

ONE Sunday morning-service done—
'Mongst tombstones shining in the sun,
A knot of bumpkins stood to chat
Of that and this, and this and that;
What people said of Polly Hatch-
Which side had won the cricket match;
And who was cotched, and who was bowled;
How barley, beans, and 'taters sold-

What men could swallow at a meal

When Bumstead Youths would ring a peal-
And who was taken off to jail-
And where they brewed the strongest ale-
At last this question they address,
"What's Agricultural Distress?”

HODGE.

"For my peart, it's a thought o' mine,
It be the fancy farming line,
Like yonder gemman-him I mean,
As took the Willa nigh the Green—
And turned his cattle in the wheat;
And gave his porkers hay to eat;
And sent his footman up to town,
To ax the Lonnon gentry down,
To be so kind as make his hay,
Exactly on St. Swithin's day;-
With consequences you may guess-
That's Hagricultural Distress."