The little school-boys stood about, And laughed to see her pumping, pumping; Now with a curtsey to the spout, And then upon her tiptoes jumping. Long time she waited for her neighbors, Without a voice to tell her tale, She thinks of her bereaved case. At last she sobs-she cries-she screams! For well poor Bessy knows her mother EPIGRAM, ON THE CHINESE TREATY. OUR wars are ended-foreign battles cease- And Queen Victoria triumphs over all, Still "Mistress of herself though China fall!” SONNET TO VAUXHALL. "The English Garden."-MASON. THE cold transparent ham is on my fork It hardly rains-and hark the bell!-ding-dingleAway! Three thousand feet at gravel work, Mocking a Vauxhall shower!—Married and Single Crush-rush ;-Soaked Silks with wet white Satin mingle. Hengler! Madame! round whom all bright sparks lurk, Calls audibly on Mr. and Mrs. Pringle To study the Sumblime, &c.-(vide Burke) All Noses are upturned !-Wish-ish !--On high The rocket rushes-trails-just steals in sightThen droops and melts in bubbles of blue lightAnd Darkness reigns-Then balls flare up and dieWheels whiz-smack crackers-serpents twist-and then Back to the cold transparent ham again! SONNET. TO A SCOTCH GIRL, WASHING LINEN AFTER HER COUNTRY FASHION. WELL done and wetly, thou Fair Maid of Perth, To cleanse the calico of Mrs. Skirving, I do not mean to give thee a new damper, What Bodkin would but call—" a common tramper." FINE ARTS. T'HERE is a story extant of a mad dog that in his progress through the St. John's Wood-road, flew and snapped at every passenger in his way except one-whom, instead of biting, he saluted in passing with a wag of the tail. The individual thus favored is said to have been a certain wellknown painter, whose pictures of animals have been universally admired. The poor brute had perhaps sat or stood to him, aforetime, for its portrait; or perhaps the acknowledgement was of a more general nature, for no man, except the Great Novelist, has done so much for the canine race as Edwin Landseer. Thanks to the pencil and the partiality of this painter, the Dog now occupies a distinguished station in our galleries. He is become as it were one of us, and is honorably hung in effigy among historical personages of our own spe cies. In every exhibition he has a prominent place-not unworthy for sagacity to appear beside a full-length Lord Mayor-for courage close to a Field Marshall-for honesty, on the right or left of an Attorney-General-for attachment, next to the "Portrait of a Gentleman,"-and for fidelity, by the "Portrait of a Lady." Thus his virtues, his acts, his form and features, are commemorated, and the Dog, who otherwise would only have enjoyed his proverbial day, is made immortal! To such pictures it would not be very fanciful to attribute the introduction of a certain Bill into Parliament, and which ought to have been called "An Act to prevent Dogs being treated like dogs." They are certainly not more cruelly used than many other animals, including some classes of our own species. The poorest of them are not sent to Northleach, nor the wickedest of them to Knutsford. The turnspit's wheel is out of date, whereas the treadmill is in full activity. The same of other punishments. Now and then a young hound gets publicly or privately whipped, but so do some juvenile delinquents and unfortunates of human kind—and for severity, the keeper's or huntsman's whip is milder by some degrees than a red-hot rod, a billy-roller, or a cat-o'-nine-tails. As to the halter, there are more men hung than curs; it may be unpleasant to dance in a red jacket upon compulsion; but it is worse to dance upon nothing. Then as to labor, the brutes would gain nothing by exchanging into our mines or factories, "receiving the difference." A terrier now and then has to grope under ground for a fox or rabbit, but that employment is literally sport, to the boring in the bowels of the earth for metals and minerals. No-it was not the cruelty but the degradations inflicted on the animals in question that produced the Dog Bill, and enlisted the sympathies of its supporters. They had just seen the portrait of the Friend of Byron Who never knew but one, when they met a Newfoundlander harnessed to a truck. They had been gazing at the Shepherd's Chief Mourner, when they encountered a creature of the same breed, dragging a barrow, full of carrion. Fresh from looking at that dignified Dog in Office-or like a Lord Chancellor—they had stumbled on a Poodle, begging on his hind legs, for paltry coppers, with an old greasy hat in his mouth! We have been led into these speculations, as well as the following verses, by a print from the celebrated picture called "Laying Down the Law." It is a highly-finished engraving in mezzotint, by the painter's brother, Mr. Thomas Landseer. The physiognomical expressions are well preserved-the texture of the poodle's fleece is perfect, and the plate altogether will be an attractive and acceptable one to a Lover of the Fine Arts and of the Faithful Animal. LAYING DOWN THE LAW. "I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips let no dog bark." MERCHANT of Venice. "If thou wert born a Dog, remain so; but if thou wert born a Man, resume thy former shape.' ARABIAN NIGHTS. A POODLE, Judge-like, with emphatic paw, A batch of canine Counsel round the table, Thou great Pictorial Esop, say, What is the moral of this painted fable? O, say, accomplished artist! Was it thy purpose, by a scene so quizzical, |