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So wise by such a lesson grown,

Next day Bob ventur'd forth alone,

And to the self-same suff'rer paid his court

But soon, with haste and wonder out of breath,
Return'd the stripling minister of death,

And to his master made this dread report:

"Why sir, we ne'er can keep that patient under-
Mercy! such a maw I never came across!
The fellow must be dying, and no wonder,
For-if he hasn't eat a horse!"

A horse!" the elder man of physic cried,
As if he meant his pupil to deride-
How came so wild a notion in your head ?"
"How! think not in my duty I was idle;
Like you, I took a peep beneath the bed,
And there I saw--a saddle and a bridle !"

DEATH OF A BLACKSMITH.-ANON.

WITH the nerves of a Sampson, this son of the sledge,
By the anvil his livelihood got,

With the skill of a Vulcan could temper an edge,
And strike-while the iron was hot.

By forging he liv'd-yet never was tried
Or condemn'd by the laws of the land;
But still it is certain, and can't be denied,
He often was--burnt in the hand.

With the sons of St. Crispin no kindred he claim'd,
With the last he had nothing to do;

He handled no awl, and yet in his time
Made
many an excellent shoe.

He blew up no coals of sedition, but still
His bellows were always in blast ; ·
And I will acknowledge (deny it who will)
That one vice, and but one, he possess'd.

No actor was he, nor concern'd with the stage,
No audience to awe him appear'd ;

Yet oft in his shop (like a crowd in a rage)
The voice of hissing was heard.

Tho' steeling of axes was part of his cares,
In thieving he never was found,
And tho' he was constantly beating on bars,
No vessel he e'er ran aground.

Alas! and alack! what more can I say

Of Vulcan's unfortunate son?

The priest and the sexton have borne him away,
And the sound of his hammer is done.

WHAT WE WISH WE READILY BELIEVE.-JOANNA BAILLIE.

BALTIMORE, PETER and DAVID.

Baltimore. What were you laughing at?

Peter. Ouly, sir, at Squire Freeman, (he, he, he !) who was riding up the back lane a little while ago, on his new cropcared hunter, as fast as he could canter, with all the skirts of his coat flapping about him, for all the world like a clucking hen upon a sow's back-He, he, he !—

Balt. Thou art pleasant, Peter; and what then?

Pet. When just turning the corner, your honor, as it might be so, my mother's brown calf (bless its snout! I shall love it for it, as long as I live) set its face through the hedge, and

said "Mow!"

Balt. And he fell: did he?

Pet. O bless you, yes, your honor! into a good soft bed of all the rotten garbage of the village.

balt. And you saw this; did you?

Pet. O yes, your honor! as plain as the nose on my face.
Balt. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! and you really saw it?

David. (Aside.) I wonder my master can demean himself so as to listen to that knave's tale: I'm sure he was proud enough once.

Balt. (Still laughing.) You really saw it?

Pet. Ay, your honor! and many more than me saw it. Balt. And there were a number of people to look at him too?

Pet. Oh! your honor! all the rag-tag of the parish were grinning at him.

Balt. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! this is excellent! ha, ha, ha! He would shake himself but ruefully before them. (Still laugh-ing violently.)

Pet. Ay sir: he shook the wet straws and the withered turnip-tops from his back. It would have done your heart good

to have seen him.

Dav. Nay, you know well enough, you do, that there is nothing but a bank of dry sand in that corner. (Indignantly to Peter.)

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Balt. (Impatiently to David.) Poo! silly fellow! it is the dirtiest nook in the village.—And he rose and shook himself: ha, ha, ha! I did not know that thou wert such a humorous fellow, Peter: here is money for thee to drink the brown calf's health.

Pet. Ay your honor! for certain he shall have a noggen. Dav. (Aside.) To think now that he should demean himself so !

HANDS VERSUS HEADS.-ANON.

I THINK the hand must certainly be a more important member than the head; for we all know, if a man lose his hand, he is subjected to much inconvenience which cannot be disguised;

whereas if a man lose his head there's an end of all his troubles, and he never complains about the matter. Again, if a man should be born without a head, although it might at first be thought he would cut a very strange figure in the world, yet we know from experience otherwise. We know that such a man may be a good neighbor, a loyal subject, and indeed an excellent parish officer. Suppose the same man without an arm-still he is better, for if there's any treason abroad he's sure to have no hand in it; although this may not say much for his honesty, inasmuch as the world may call him lightfingered. I am willing to take both sides of the question, but still I cannot avoid a little partiality in the favor of hands. I hope every person present has not lived so long in the world, without being three or four times in imminent danger of going out of it. If this has been the case, I must triumph in one position; does the doctor deal with his head? no, he applies to the hand. Go to a lawyer, ask him for a single monosyllable, and we all know, before he opens his mouth, he holds out his hand. There is a current from the palm to the other functions and moral capacities of man. The hand may be said to contain all the channels in the moral world;-from the hand of a lawyer it washes the cape of Good Hope, and abounds in flat. In the miser, it is the Frozen Ocean. In the doctor, too frequently, the Dead Sea. In the slave merchant, it is the Atlantic, for it keeps the whites from the blacks. The parson's hand holds the parish stream. Every man contributes a share-in the hand of the tax gatherer, is the Bay of Biscay, for what falls in, there is no knowing where it goes to; in the hand of the man of the world, is the petrifying spring of Derbyshire, for whatever is put into it, comes out a stone,—and in the hand of the man of charity, is the blessed Nile, for its overflowings give abundaney and content. It would be well if our heraldry were as Othello says, "hands not hearts." From the true poet's hand flows the purest crystal, which without disguise shows the little shining pebbles and the hollow shells in their native brilliancy and emptiness. Hands are the most important members, far superior to heads;

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even a bad man's hand may be sometimes held out, and give a hearty shake, when in five minutes after the head may reprove the action; when the hand is given in haste, the repentant head sometimes says ( excuse my glove," which may be translated, excuse my heart." How often do we see when gentlemen can do nothing with their heads, settle matters with their hands; men, who have frequently not reason to withdraw an objection, have fortunately a finger to draw a trigger. I hope these affairs will, in many cases, be allowed to depend entirely upon hands, and in which heads have not the least transaction. A hand, I repeat it, is the most powerful engine in the possession of man; and if any gentleman present is sceptical on this point, I trust he may be arrested before he gets home, in order that he may declare to me, by to-morrow morning's post, that there is nothing so awful as the hand of a sheriff's officer; never mind the head of the law, or I should say, head and wig; for what would one be without the other? but keep from the hand-touch but a little finger, and you are lost. A hand must be the best, for, as Lord Chesterfield says, "Show me the company he keeps, and I'll tell you the man." Now, as the hand keeps the best company, viz., the pocket-it must consequently be superior to every other part, at least until anything shall be found superior to the pocket; which no one will have the hardihood to say is the head; for how often is the head completely lost in the pocket! Everything depends upon the hand; and we may liken society to one great fiddle, that only wants judicious fingering to be made profitable: on it, all men play different tunes, but the most prevalent iscatch. What would Hymen do if it were not for hands?--when a man comes to the dreadful resolution of fettering himself for life, where does he put the ring of his charmer?— upon the hand;--the hand settles all matters at the marriage, and very frequently after it. I am aware that this important subject has been but slightly touched by me, but I at first merely attempted it off-hand, and will leave it to abler fingers; and if, like the patriarchs of old, I find refreshment under your palms, my gratitude shall not be wanting for the obligation.

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