petit-maître, exchanging civilities with a Chinese mandarin, or a solemn brahmin. Yet the effect, though ludicrous, is not so offensive as might be supposed. Grandeur is indeed lost, but amusement and interest remain. It is after the rainy season that these groups cut an unhappy figure: the materials of which they are composed not being of a description to support moisture, they become miserably injured; legs, arms, and heads drop off, the paint is washed away, and the whole assumes a very curious appearance, until the annual repairs take place, after which the statues recover their lost limbs, and the mansion resumes its gay dress.

The ground-floor of this building is calculated for coolness; the apartments are lofty and spacious; the floor is of marble; the high vaulted roof is fretted and adorned with cameo medallions, of white upon a blue ground: the walls are adorned with gold and silver work, mingled with various colours, in a rich and fanciful though somewhat tawdry style. There seems no end to the succession of chambers, small and great, of every form, and as variously fitted up, some with orchestra as for musicians, others with galleries all round. The second story is less lofty, but contains several apartments fitted up with fireplaces or stoves for the cold season, and more calculated for comfort; the major part is, however, divided into a wonderful number of multiform chambers, communicating with each other in extraordinary ways; and all carved, fretted, and painted like those below. The third story is in the same taste, but contains fewer rooms; and a succession of narrow staircases and ladders lead first to the balconies and terraced roofs, and thence to the lofty look-out above all.

The whole building is calculated to facilitate defence, and prevent surprises in case of attack in an insecure country, without carrying the appearance of a formal fortification: it is fire-proof, not having a piece of wood used in its whole construction; the roofs are all vaulted, and the doors and window-shutters are of iron. There is no grand staircase; a defect both in appearance and in convenience; but a vast additional means of security, for, the only means of communication between the stories being by narrow spiral staircases, a single man could defend them against an army. Many of the passages from one apartment to another have been made thus poor and narrow upon the same principle; and there are multitudes of secret places for concealment, formed in the thickness of the walls and in the corners of the house. It is indeed a place quite unique in its kind, and the grounds, considering the country, are almost as singularly laid out. A large garden in the old French taste, divided into numerous alleys, bordered with trees cut into various fantastic forms, stretches behind it; while in front has been excavated a large oval tank, in the centre of which rises a pillar more than one hundred feet in height, erected by direction and according to the plan left by the late General Martine, which serves as his monu

LONDON LYRICS.

Christmas out of Town.

FOR many a winter in Billiter-lane

My wife, Mrs. Brown, was not heard to complain;
At Christmas the family met there to dine

On beef and plum-pudding, and turkey and chine.
Our bark has now taken a contrary heel,
My wife has found out that the sea is genteel,
To Brighton we duly go scampering down,
For nobody now spends his Christmas in Town.

Our register-stoves, and our crimson-baized doors,
Our weather-proof walls, and our carpeted floors,
Our casements well fitted to stem the North wind,
Our arm-chair and sofa are all left behind.

We lodge on the Steine, in a bow-window'd box,
That beckons up-stairs every Zephyr that knocks;
The sun hides his head and the elements frown,-
But nobody now spends his Christmas in Town.

In Billiter-lane, at this mirth-moving time,
The lamplighter brought us his annual rhyme,
The tricks of Grimaldi were sure to be seen,

We carved a twelfth cake, and we drew king and queen;
These pastimes gave oil to Time's round-about wheel,
Before we began to be growing genteel:

'Twas all very well for a cockney or clown,

But nobody now spends his Christmas in Town.

At Brighton I'm stuck up in Donaldson's shop,
Or walk upon bricks, till I'm ready to drop;
Throw stones at an anchor, look out for a skiff,
Or view the Chain-pier from the top of the cliff.
Till winds from all quarters oblige me to halt,
With an eye full of sand, and a mouth full of salt.
Yet still I am suffering with folks of renown,
For nobody now spends his Christmas in Town.
In gallop the winds, at the full of the moon,
And puff up my carpet like Sadler's balloon;
My drawing-room rug is besprinkled with soot,
And there is not a lock in the house that will shut.
At Mahomet's steam-bath I lean on my cane,
And murmur in secret-" Ah, Billiter-lane!"
But would not express what I think for a crown,
For nobody now spends his Christmas in Town.

The Duke and the Earl are no cronies of mine,
His Majesty never invites me to dine;
The Marquess won't speak, when we meet on the pier,
Which makes me suspect that I'm nobody here.
If that be the case, why then welcome again
Twelfth-cake and snap-dragon in Billiter-lane.
Next winter I'll prove to my dear Mrs. Brown,
That Nobody now spends his Christmas in Town.

INSUBORDINATION OF MODERN STOMACHS.

If little faults, proceeding on distemper,

SHAKSPEARE.

Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye When capital crimes, chewed, swallow'd and digested, Appear? "SIR," said Dr. Longwind, beginning one of his usual periods with more than his customary pomposity, "No one can develope the inscrutable affinities which connect the moral and physical world, occasioning them perpetually to act and re-act upon one another: how do you explain, you who pretend to explain every thing, the mysterious union of mind and matter, whereby "That is a matter which I have no mind to investigate," cried Mr. Snapton, interrupting him, "though I have no objection to attempt it, if you will expound the connexion between volition and muscular action, and tell me why, if I had a wish to tweak you by the nose, my finger and thumb would instantly prepare themselves for the execution of my purpose." "Sir!" exclaim

ed the Doctor, drawing back his nose to a safe distance, "this is an illustration which I do not understand." "If I am only to talk of what you understand," cried Mr. Snapton tartly, "I shall not often be reproached with loquacity."-"Sir," resumed the Doctor, bristling with offended dignity, "your observation is rude without being witty.""Then it has nothing but its truth to distinguish it from yours," retorted Mr. Snapton.

Now came the supercilious leer,

The scornful gibe, the taunting jeer,
The bitter bickering and wrangle,
Of those fierce casuists, who since
They cannot conquer or convince,
Resolve at least to tease and mangle,
Solving deep points of all complexions
By dogmatising interjections,

Such as Psha! Stuff and nonsense! Pooh!
Why zooks! I say it isn't so.

"You set the matter right? what you!"
"Sir, you'll confess I ought to know."-
"You ought," the other cries, "I own 't;
The more's the wonder that you don't."

Good Heavens! I really haven't patience
To see how soon, on such occasions,
Some folks forget all moderation,

And talk themselves into a passion."

Without participating in the irritable Mr. Snapton's amazement, we may be allowed to remark, that there is a more intimate sympathy between body and mind than is generally apprehended, and that our pathologists might do more good, in some instances, by considering the mental than the corporeal pulsations. We know that an impression received through the eye, may occasion such a sudden nausea as to reverse the whole economy of nature; but we do not sufficiently consider that the system may be equally deranged, without the external interference of the senses, by the invisible operation of the mind. This effect will of course be more sensibly felt in the immediate head-quarters of the intellectual faculty, than in the remoter parts; and in order that we may direct our attention to the proper region, it is necessary

to apprise our physiological readers, and the medical world in general, that the stomach, and not the head, is unquestionably the seat of thought in the human subject. Whatever may be our merit in having confirmed this fact, we do not by any means claim it as a discovery. Buffon long ago asserted the same thing, Persius had already dubbed the stomach a master of arts, and in spite of the craniologists, who look for the developement of the disposition in bumps upon the skull, and of the physiognomists, who seek the same thing in the visage, it is observable that in our proverbs and colloquial phrases, which may be termed the concentrated wisdom of nations, the defrauded stomach asserts its superiority, and is universally treated as the depository of reason and our intellectual citadel. What should we say of a people who should establish their capital upon an extreme frontier, instead of the centre and heart of the country, and why should we suppose nature to be less provident in this respect than men? We admit all the affections of our nature to emanate from the heart, which is coming very near to the stomach, and consequently to the truth; while we absurdly give the head credit for the higher exercises of an intellectual faculty, which we do not by any means admit in our vulgar parlance. The truth of the phrase may, perhaps, be hardly deemed a sufficient excuse for its coarseness when the common people familiarly say of a stupid fellow, that he has "no guts in his brains," yet it may be defended as a shrewd, sound, and pertinent expression, spite of its cacophony to fastidious ears polite. Nay, do not they who even affect purism in their discourse, almost unconsciously assign all our emotions to the intestinal region, when they habitually say of a coward, that he has no stomach for fighting, and of themselves when any thing lingers unpleasantly in their recollection, that it sticks in their stomach? and have they not warrant of authority from our best authors for making this important ventricle the organ of almost every human affection? Spenser could even read the expression of a man's stomach in his face-"Stern was his look, and full of stomach;" Shakspeare, wishing to give an idea of Wolsey's ambitious mind, tells us that he was a man "of an unbounded stomach;" and speaking elsewhere of two pugnacious adversaries, he exclaims, 'High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire," whence in all probability arose our term of belly-gerent powers, applied to parties in a state of hostility. Butler talks of the trumpet and drum, "That makes the warrior's stomach come," thus using the word as synonymous with courage; and, in this figurative sense, it is obvious that the sick Hibernian perpetrated no bull when he consented to have a blister put upon his back, although, as he said, "it went quite against his stomach."

Do we not currently say of a person deficient in compassion, that he has no bowels? and when we sympathise with others in distress, is it not customary to make use of a very sensible phrase, and exclaim that our bowels yearn towards them? When we have laid our spirit in the Red Sea, or, in other words, when we have drowned our stomach, and consequently our reason, in Burgundy, we adapt ourselves to a vulgar error, and declare that the wine has got up into our heads, whereas it is notorious that it has gone down into the intestines. Such are the absurdities to which we are driven in our attempts to bolster up a preposterous and untenable system. In the good old republican times of Rome, we know that the limbs rebelled against the belly, which

they could not have done, had not the latter been considered the head; and we are moreover told in history, that Menenius Agrippa appeased an insurrection of the populace, simply by reminding them that the senate was as much entitled to their obedience, as was the stomach to the implicit subserviency of all the members, including the head:-Happy the people who listen with such reverence to the dictates of the digestive ventricle!

But we have still higher authority for the opinions of the ancient nations upon this subject, some of whom seem to have invested it with divine honours, Philip expressly asserting, "There are many whose god is their belly." If we search the Jewish Proverbs again for the popular opinion as to the seat of the soul, we shall find it distinctly indicated in the following passage: "The words of a tale-bearer go down into the innermost parts of the belly, and wound the very bottom of the soul;" and in another place, "Preserve the lessons of wisdom; if thou keep it within thy belly, in thine heart, it will not break out upon thy lips."-Many people, perhaps, are not aware that they have a sort of Boa Constrictor within them, the great alimentary canal being generally six times the length of the body to which it appertains, though it always lies coiled up like a serpent; and if we reflect that the reptile which it so closely resembles, was in ancient times the great type of wisdom and subtlety as well as of eternity, we shall be the less surprised that they sagaciously domiciliated the soul in this snakelike intestine. With what contradictory reluctance do we moderns, affording justice by halves, make the stomach responsible for our melancholy thoughts, while all our "nimble, fiery and delectable shapes," must forsooth be emanations from the skull, a body in its very nature bulbous, inert, opaque. Heavens! what heaped-up libels are thrown upon the spleen, one of the most innocent of our viscera! for what fantastic and yet melancholy capriccios is it not indicted; Pope himself, no very credulous personage, not hesitating to accuse it of converting men into talkative goose pies, and maidens into bottles! And thou too, recipient of the liver, much-injured Hypochondre! have not maligners charged thee with gloom, wretchedness, horror, and every atrabilarious enormity with which we are afflicted, even up to madness itself, as if the stomach could deprive us of reason, without having the power to confer it? What infatuation possesses us? When we are deficient in virtuous courage we arraign our intestines, accusing ourselves of being lily or pigeon-livered and lacking gall; an insult sticks in our gizzard; we speak of learning as the food of the mind, of pedants who have swallowed more reading than they can digest; and although no metaphor can make the fumes of water mount into the head, we talk of a poet who has once tasted the Pierian spring, as having his imaginative faculty instantly inspired. We attribute to the stomach, in short, all the functions of the soul, and yet deny its residence where these its magisterial powers are perpetually exercised. Verily we are a fantastical generation.

Having, as we flatter ourselves, satisfactorily restored this dementated ventricle to its due honours, we shall have the less to say upon the insubordination of modern stomachs, because it is to be feared there are very few of our readers sufficiently ventripotent to deny the fact. Our omnivorous ancestors, fearless of bile and defying indigestion,