for the bettering of my condeetion, and accordingly set aboot. it. Noow, sir, in this pursuit, beauty-beauty-ah! beauty often struck mine eyne, and played aboot my heart, and flut tered, and beet, and knocked, and knocked, but the deil an entrance I ever let it get; for I observed that beauty is generally a proud. vain, saucy, expensive sort of a commodity Eger. Very justly observed, sir.

Sir P. And therefore, sir, I left it to prodigals and coxcombs, that could afford till pay for it, and in its stead, sir,mark-I luocked oot for an ancient, weel-jointured, superannu ated dowager; a consumptive, toothless, phthisicky, wealthy widow; or a shreeveled, cadaverous, neglacted piece of deformity, i' th' shape of an ezard, or an empers-and; or, in short, anything, anything that had the siller, the siller; for that was the north star of my affection. Do ye take me, sir?

Was nae that right?

Eger. O doubtless, doubtless, sir.

Sir P. Noow, sir, where do you think I gaed to luock for this woman wi' th' siller? Nae till court-nae till play-houses or assemblies. Ha, sir! I gaed till the kirk-till the morning and evening service of churches and chapels of ease; and there, at last, sir, I fell upon an old, rich, sour, slighted, antiquated maiden, that luocked-ha! ha! ha! she luocked just like a skeleton in a surgeon's glass-case! Noow, sir, this meeserable object was angry wi' hersel', and aw the warld; had nae comfort but in a supernatural, enthusiastic deleerium; ha! ha! ha! sir, she was mad-mad as a bedlamite!

Eger. Not improbable, sir; there are numbers of poor creatures in the same enthusiastic condition.

Sir P. Oh! numbers, numbers. Now, sir, this poor, cracked crazy creature used to sing, and sigh, and groan, and weep, and wail, and gnash her teeth constantly, morning and evening, at the tabernacle. And as soon as I found she had the siller, aha! gude traith, I plumped me doon upo' my knees close by her, cheek-by-jole, and sung, and sighed, and groaned as vehemently as she could do for the life of her; ay, and turned up the whites of my eyue, till the strings almost cracked again.

I watched her attentively; handed her till her chair; waited on her hame; got most releegiously intimate wi' her in a week; married her in a fortnight; buried her in a month; touched the siller; and wi' a deep suit of mourning, a sorrowful veesage, and a joyful heart, I began the warld again;-and this, sir, was the first effectual boow I ever made till the vanity of human nature. Noow, sir, do ye understand this doctrine? Eger. Perfectly well, sir.

Sir P. My next boow, sir, was till your ain mither, whom I ran away wi' fra the boarding-school, by the interest of whose family I got a gude smart place i' th' treasury; and, sir, my vary next step was intill parliament, the whach I entered wi' as ardent and as determined an ambeetion as ever ageetated the heart o' Cæsar himsel'. Sir, I boowed, and watched, and attended, and dangled upo' the then great mon, till I got intill the vary bowels of his confidence-hah! got my snack of the clothing, the foraging, the contracts, the lottery tickets, and aw the poleetical bonuses; till at length, sir, I became a much wealthier mon than one half of the golden calves I had been so long a-boowing to. (He rises; EGERTON rises too.) And was nae that boowing to some purpose, sir, ha?

Eger. It was indeed, sir.

Sir P. But are ye convinced of the gude efects and of the uteelity of boowing?

Eger. Thoroughly, sir, thoroughly.

Sir P. Sir, it is infallible. But, Charles, ah! while I was thus boowing and raising this princely fortune, ah! I met many heart sores and disappointments, fra the want of leeterature, ailoquence, and other popular abeelities. Sir, gin I could but ha'e spoken i' th' house, I should ha'e done the deed in half the time; but the instant I opened my mouth there, they aw fell a-laughing at me,-aw which defeeciencies, sir, I determined, at any expense, till have supplied by the polished education of a son, who, I hoped, would yane day raise the house of Macsycophant till the highest pinnacle of ministeerial ambeetion. This, sir, is my plan; I ha'e done my part of it; Nature has done her's. Ye are ailoquant, ye are popular; aw

parties like ye; and noow, sir, it only remains for ye to be directed-completion follows.

Eger. Your liberality, sir, in my education, and the judi cious choice you made of an instructor for me, are obligations I ever shall remember with the deepest filial gratitude; for from that good man I have learned, what not even parental power can ever induce me to abandon-namely, under no circumstances whatever, to do what is base in order to secure a personal advantage.

THE FAKENHAM GHOST.-BLOOMFIELD.

THE lawns were dry in Euston Park;
(Here truth inspires my tale)
The lonely foot-path still and dark,
Led over hill and dale.

Benighted was an ancient dame,

And fearful haste she made
To gain the vale of Fakenham,
And hail its willow shade.

The dappled herd of grazing deer
That sought the shades by day,
Now started from her path with fear,
And gave the stranger way.

Darker it grew; and darker fears

Came o'er her troubled mind;

When now, a short quick step she hears
Come patting close behind.

She turn'd; it stopt!-nought could she sea

Upon the gloomy plain,

But as she strove the sprite to flee,

She heard the same again.

Now terror seiz'd her quaking frame:
For, where the path was bare,
The trotting ghost kept on the samo!
She mutter'd many a prayer.

Yet once again, amidst her fright,
She tried what sight could do;
When through the cheating glooms of night
A MONSTER stood in view.

Regardless of whate'er she felt,

It follow'd down the plain!

She own'd her sins, and down she knelt,
And said her prayers again.

Then on she sped; and hope grew strong,
The white park gate in view;
Which pushing hard, so long it swung
That ghost and all pass'd through.

An ass's foal had lost its dam
Within the spacious park;
And, simple as the playful lamb,
Had follow'd in the dark.

No goblin he; no imp of sin:
No crimes had ever known.
They took the shaggy stranger in,
And rear'd him as their own.

His little hoofs would rattle round
Upon the cottage floor;

The matron learn'd to love the sound
That frightened here before.

A favorite the ghost became ;

And 'twas his fate to thrive :

And long he liv'd, and spread his fame,
And kept the joke alive.

For many a laugh went through the vale,
And some conviction too :-
Each thought some other goblin tale,
Perhaps, was just as true.

TRIUMPH OF PRINCIPLE.-MORTON.

SIR PHILIP BLANFORD AND ASHFIELD.

Sir Philip. Come hither. I believe you hold a farm of mine.

Ashfield. Eees, zur, I do, at your zarvico.

Sir P. I hope a profitable one.

Ash. Zometimes it be, zur.

But, thie year it be all t'other

way, as 'twur; but I do hope, as our landlords have a tightish big lump of the good, they 'll be so kind-hearted as to take a little bit of the bad.

V