;

If ignorant impatience makes the people run for gold, Whatever's left that paper bought must be put up and sold If so, perhaps they'll put up me as a purchase of the Crown; I fear I shan't fetch sixpence, but I'm sure to be knock'd down.

The promise is not to be kept, that point is very clear; 'Twas proved so by a Scotch adept who dined with me last year,

I wish, instead of viands rare, which were but thrown away, I had dined him on a bill of fare, to be eaten at Doomsday.

God save the paper money and the paper money men! God save them all from those who call to have their gold again;

God send they may be always safe against a reckoning day; And then God send me plenty of their promises to pay!

LOVE AND THE FLIMSIES.

By T. M.,* Esq.

Ο δ' Ερως, χιτωνα δησας

Υπερ αυχένος ΠΑΠΥΡΩι.—ANACR.

LITTLE Cupid one day on a sunbeam was floating,
Above a green vale where a paper mill played;
And he hovered in ether, delightedly noting

The whirl and the splash that the water-wheel made.

The air was all filled with the scent of the roses,

Round the miller's veranda that clustered and twined; And he thought if the sky were all made up of noses, This spot of the earth would be most to its mind.

And forth came the miller, a Quaker in verity,
Rigid of limb and complacent of face,

And behind him a Scotchman was singing "Prosperity,"
And picking his pocket with infinite grace.

* Thomas Moore.

And "Walth and prosparity," "Walth and prosparity,"
His bonny Scotch burthen arose on the air,

To a song all in praise of that primitive charity,

Which begins with sweet home and which terminates there.

But sudden a tumult arose from a distance,

And in rushed a rabble with steel and with stone, And ere the scared miller could call for assistance, The mill to a million of atoms was blown.

Scarce mounted the fragments in ether to hurtle,
When the Quaker was vanished, no eye had seen where;
And the Scotchman thrown flat on his back, like a turtle,
Was sprawling and bawling, with heels in the air.

Little Cupid continued to hover and flutter,

Pursuing the fragments that floated on high,
As light as the fly that is christened from butter,
Till he gathered his hands full and flew to the sky.

"Oh, mother," he cried, as he showed them to Venus,

"What are these little talismans cyphered-One-One? If you think them worth having, we'll share them between

us,

Though their smell is like, none of the newest, poor John."

"My darling," says Venus, "away from you throw them, They're a sort of fool's gold among mortals 'tis true; But we want them not here, though I think you might know

them,

Since on earth they so often have bought and sold you."

THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM.

By S. T. C., ESQ.,* PROFESSOR OF MYSTICISM.

ΣΚΙΑΣ ΟΝΑΡ.-PINDAR.

In a bowl to sea went wise men three,
On a brilliant night of June:

They carried a net, and their hearts were set
On fishing up the moon.

The sea was calm, the air was balm,

Not a breath stirred low or high,

And the moon, I trow, lay as bright below,
And as round as in the sky.

The wise men with the current went,

Nor paddle nor oar had they,

And still as the grave they went on the wave,
That they might not disturb their prey.

Far, far at sea, were the wise men three,
When their fishing-net they threw ;
And at the throw, the moon below
In a thousand fragments flew.

The sea was bright with a dancing light
Of a million million gleams,

Which the broken moon shot forth as soon

As the net disturbed her beams.

They drew in their net: it was empty and wet,

And they had lost their pain,

Soon ceased the play of each dancing ray,

And the image was round again.

Three times they threw, three times they drew,
Aud all the while were mute;

And evermore their wonder grew,
Till they could not but dispute.

* Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Their silence they broke, and each one spoke
Full long, and loud, and clear;

A man at sea their voices three

Full three leagues off might hear.

The three wise men got home again

To their children and their wives:

But, touching their trip, and their net's vain dip, They disputed all their lives.

The wise men three could never agree,

Why they missed the promised boon;

They agreed alone that their net they had thrown, And they had not caught the moon.

I have thought myself pale o'er this ancient tale,
And its sense I could not ken;

But now I see that the wise men three
Were paper money men.

“Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub,”

Is a mystic burthen old,

Which I've pondered about till my fire went out, And I could not sleep for cold.

I now divine each mystic sign,

Which robbed me oft of sleep,

Three men in a bowl, who went to troll,
For the moon in the midnight deep.

Three men were they who science drank
From Scottish fountains free;

The cash they sank in the Gotham bank,
Was the moon beneath the sea.

The breaking of the imaged moon,
At the fishing-net's first splash,
Was the breaking of the bank as soon
As the wise men claimed their cash.

The dispute which lasted all their lives,
Was the economic strife,

Which the son's son's son of every one
Will maintain through all his life.

The son's son's sons will baffled be,
As were their sires of old;

But they'll only. agree, like the wise men three,
That they could not get their gold.

And they'll build systems dark and deep,
And systems broad and high;

But two of three will never agree
About the reason why.

And he who at this day will seek
The Economic Club,

Will find at least three sages there,
As ready as any that ever were
To go to sea in a tub.

CHORUS OF BUBBLE BUYERS.

"When these practisers come to the last decoction, blow, blow, puff, puff, and all flies in fumo. Poor wretches! I rather pity their folly and indiscretion, than their loss of time and money: for these may be restored by industry: but to be a fool born is a disease incurable."-BEN JONSON'S Volpone.

OH! where are the hopes we have met in the morning,
As we hustled and bustled around Capel Court?
When we laughed at the croakers that bade us take warn-

ing,

Who once were our scorn, and now make us their sport.

Oh! where are the regions where well-paid inspectors
Found metals omnigenous streaked and embossed?

So kindly bought for us by honest directors,

Who charged us but three times as much as they cost.