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Accordingly our cunning Fox,

Through certain influence, obscurely channeled,
A friendly Camel got into the box,

When 'gainst his life the Jury was impaneled.

Now, in the Silly Isles such is the law,
If Jurors should withdraw,

They are to have no eating and no drinking
Till all are starved into one way of thinking.

Thus Reynard's Jurors, who could not agree,
Were locked up strictly, without bit or mummock,
Till every Beast that only had one stomach,
Bent to the Camel, who was blest with three.
To do them justice, they debated

From four till ten, while dinner waited,
When thirst and hunger got the upper,
And each inclined to mercy, and hot supper:
"Not guilty" was the word, and Master Fox
Was freed to murder other hens and cocks.

MORAL.

What moral greets us by this tale's assistance
But that the Solon is a sorry Solon,

Who makes the full stop of a Man's existence
Depend upon a Colon?

325

THE COMET.

AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE.

"I cannot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this self-same Starling." STERNE'S SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.

AMONGST professors of astronomy,

Adepts in the celestial economy,

The name of H******1's very often cited,
And justly so, for he is hand and glove
With every bright intelligence above;
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,
Watching the stars upon the house's top,
That once upon a time he got be-knighted.

In his observatory thus coquetting

With Venus or with Juno gone astray,
All sublunary matters quite forgetting
In his flirtations with the winking stars,
Acting the spy-it might be upon Mars-
A new André;

Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping
At Dian sleeping;

Or ogling thro' his glass

Some heavenly lass

Tripping with pails along the Milky Way;
Or looking at that Wain of Charles the Martyr's :-
Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky,

When lo! a something with a tail of flame

Made him exclaim,

"My stars!"—he always puts that stress on my—

My stars and garters!"

326

"A comet, sure as I'm alive!

A noble one as I should wish to view;

It can't be Halley's though, that is not due
Till eighteen thirty-five.
Magnificent!-how fine his fiery trail !

Zounds! 'tis a pity, though, he comes unsought—
Unasked-unreckoned-in no human thought—
He ought-he ought—he ought

To have been caught

With scientific salt upon his tail!

"I looked no more for it, I do declare,
Than the Great Bear!

As sure as Tycho-Brahe is dead,
It really entered in my head
No more than Berenice's Hair!"

Thus musing, Heaven's Grand Inquisitor
Sat gazing on the uninvited visitor

Till John, the serving-man, came to the upper
Regions, with "Please your Honor, come to supper."

Supper! good John, to-night I shall not sup
Except on that phenomenon-look up!"

"Not sup!" cried John, thinking with consternation
That supping on a star must be starvation,
Or ev'n to batten

On Ignes Fatui would never fatten.

His visage seemed to say-that very odd is-
But still his master the same tune ran on,
"I can't come down-go to the parlor, John,
And say I'm supping with the heavenly bodies.

"The heavenly bodies!" echoed John, "Ahem!"
His mind still full of famishing alarms,

"'Zooks, if your Honor sups with them,

In helping, somebody must make long arms!" He thought his master's stomach was in danger, But still in the same tone replied the Knight,

"Go down, John, go, I have no appetite, Say I'm engaged with a celestial stranger." Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs, "Wouldn't the stranger take a bit down stairs?" "No," said the master, smiling, and no wonder, At such a blunder,

"The stranger is not quite the thing you think, He wants no meat or drink,

And one may doubt quite reasonably whether
He has a mouth,

Seeing his head and tail are joined together,
Behold him there he is, John, in the South."

John looked up with his portentous eyes,
Each rolling like a marble in its socket
At last the fiery tad-pole spies,

And, full of Vauxhall reminiscence, cries,
"A rare good rocket!"

"A what? A rocket, John!

A rocket, John!

Far from it!

What you behold, John, is a comet;

One of those most eccentric things

That in all ages

Have puzzled sages

And frightened kings;

With fear of change that flaming meteor, John, Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range❞— "Do he?" cried John;

Well, let him flare on,

I have n't got no sovereigns to change!"

I CANNOT BEAR A GUN.

"Timidity is generally reckoned an essential attribute of the fair sex, and this absurd notion gives rise to more false starts than a race for the Leger. Hence screams at mice, fits at spiders, faces at toads, jumps at lizards, flights from daddy longlegs, panics at wasps, sauve qui peut at the sight of a gun. Surely, when the military exercise is made a branch of education at so many ladies' academies, the use of the musket would only be a judicious step further in the march of mind. I should not despair, in a month's practice, of making the most timid British female fond of small-arms.” HINTS BY A CORPORAL

It can't be minced, I'm quite convinced

All girls are full of flam,

Their feelings fine and feminine

Are nothing else but sham.

On all their tricks I need not fix,

I'll only mention one,

How many a Miss will tell you this,

"I cannot bear a gun

יי!

There's cousin Bell can't 'bide the smell

Of powder-horrid stuff!

A single pop will make her drop,

She shudders at a puff.

My Manton near, with aspen fear

Will make her scream and run;

"It's always so, you brute, you know
I cannot bear a gun!"

About my

flask I must not ask,

I must not wear a belt,

I must not take a punch to make

My pellets, card or felt;

And if I just allude to dust,
Or speak of number one,

"I beg you'll not-don't talk of shot,
I cannot bear a gun!"