on the occasion, and Mr. Jorrington gave an unlimited order for beer to the labourers, who met that night at the Otter.

I still visit the place sometimes on Saturdays, and often I find my old seat occupied by a very pretty lady, who makes room for me to come and see her baby, as he sits crowing on the table. A grave, but good-looking young man, accompanied by a rosy old one, comes towards me on one of these occasions, and hands me a letter, this is it :— "New South Wales, September, 18

"Dear Sir,-Here I am on a cattle station. I have done well, and wish to tell you so, as I know you'll be glad to hear it. I saw a paper at Sydney, with some good news in it, and enclose a little present for the boy.

"Remember me to the old man at Boggenham, and tell him I hope he has succeeded in obtaining somebody to fill the place of Yours, ever, very truly,

Late "THE PUNTMAN AT THE OTTER."

Let it be granted, that I may draw as much profit as I can from my neighbour's pocket to my own, by a straight or honourable line, and, if not so, by a crooked one,

II.

That a terminated straight line, or upright character, may be produced to any length, in a straight line, provided its straightness does not lead to the King's Bench Prison or the workhouse, at which place honesty usually meets its reward.

III.

And that a circle, or scope of speculation, may be described from any centre, whether bank, railway committee, mining, or insurance office, at any distance from that centre, and to any extent of ruinous results to thousands, provided only that the knaves and knavery are sufficiently influential to break through the meshes of the law.

AXIOMS.
I.

Things which are equal to the same thing, are equal to one another, thus— if one toady is equal to a bad schoolmaster, and a bad schoolmaster to an average bishop, one toady is equal to one bishop.

II.

If equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal, thus-if Lord Num

skull's son marries Lord Booby's daughter, the family of the pair will have no more brains than their progenitors.

N.B.-This accounts for the decay of intellect in princes; the boobybreed being diligently kept up by intermarriage.

III.

If equals be taken from equals, the remainders are equal, thus-if poor John marries penniless Molley, and you take from the one his cat's-meat cart and the other her mangle, the remainders are equal, i. e., they both have what they originally begun the world with, namely, nothing in their pockets and the workhouse in perspective.

IV.

If equals be added to unequals, the wholes are unequal, thus—if Thomas Tape, the rich mercer, marries the Right Honourable Lady Fabilthia Highnose, daughter of the Duke of Outelbows, the descendants will be very unequal, some partaking of the plain vulgarity of the sire, others of the icy bumptiousness of the mother. However, the match will be unequal, and Tape will often have his bobbins cast in his teeth by his wife, so that the house will be lopsided, and, whilst Tape and the Honourable Mrs. will be always "two," the children and domestics will be at "sixes" and "sevens." Mem. An honourable (?) Life-Guardsman will assist in "splitting the difference."

V.

If equals be taken from unequals, the remainders are unequal, thus-if you take two equal hands of Lord Ernest Vane, off a theatrical manager's collar, he, being his lordship's unequal, and bring the case before a toady mayor or magistrate, the decision will be very unequal; in other words, justice will be a "Vane" delusion, and Lord Vane will have the best of it.

VI.

Things which are double of the same thing, are equal to one another, thus if you put two Times' reviews, one upon "Whitelock's Memoirs and the other upon "The Roving Englishman" together, as doubles of the same reviewer's capacity, they are as equal to one another in worthlessness, as Lord Stuart de Rothsay is to Lord Westmoreland for diplomacy; or, Jullien to Madame Celeste for knowledge of the Queen's English.

VII.

Things which are halves of the same thing, are equal to one another, thus-as Mr. Fullom's "Marvels of Science" is worth half a calf's head, and Mrs. Stowe's "Sunny Memories proportionate to ditto, Mr. Fullom's "Marvels" is equal to Mrs. Stowe's "Memories," and the total equivalent to a whole calf's head.

VIII.

Magnitudes which coincide with one another, that is, which exactly fill the same space, are equal to one another, thus-two booby lords, or magnitudes, which coincide in the Cabinet, in the same pig-headed obtuseness about Austria; two gouty admirals, who admire routine; two tyrannical episcopal tricksters, who concur that £20,000 is £5,000 a-year; two lawyers, who each take 6d. 8d. to make black appear white; two felons, who agree upon the community of pocket-handkerchiefs; two fat women, in bustles, which exactly fill the same space, in palace, prison, or

omnibus, and are equal to one another in the various qualities of stupidity, obstinacy, rapacity, chicanery, dishonesty, and discomfort.

IX.

The whole is greater than its part, thus-the whole Houses of Parliament contain more knavery and ignorance than each individual member; the whole ecclesiastical commission is a greater nest of corruption than each white-choked ingredient in it; the whole of the "Man in the Moon" more droll than Punch, which was, at first, a part of it; and the whole of the pirated work of was more surreptitious than Sir- -'s book, which was copied from it, after which the MSS. was sent back as unsuitable."

X.

All right-angles are equal to one another, thus-the right-angle formed between a bishop's head and his sleeve, and between a Field-Marshal's cocked hat and his epaulette, are equal to one another, both being a fanciful display formed between grandeur and incapacity.

XI.

Two straight lines, which intersect one another, cannot be both parallel to the same straight line. For instance, two bishops' charges-though these are seldom straightforward—which intersect one another, as Philpott v. Sumner; or, Oxford v. Winchester; or, sometimes Blomfield v. himself, so that they blow hot and cold, often have the same master, cannot both be parallel to the Bible, conscience, common sense, intelligence, or to the same straight line of conduct or religion whatsoever.

END OF THE FIRST BOOK.

BOOK II.

PHYSIOLOGICAL DEFINITIONS.

I.

A right-angled parallelogram is a man's face, which is contained by any two straight lines drawn from his shirt collar, at the angle of his chin, and again from the top of his head downwards to the same. These lines may go through the head, but there is nothing in that; neither is the rectangle disturbed by the individual wearing a glass in one eye, and not seeing in a straight line, nor by his having a determined squint.

II.

In every parallelogram, or face, any of the parallelograms about the diameter or profile, together with the two complements (or nostrils), is called a gnomon, or nose, no matter whether the same vary in shape, size, or name, as a Brougham, Wellington, Grecian, snub, coach, or bottle-nose.

END OF THE SECOND BOOK.

368

TEA ANACREONTIC.

COME, let each China cup o'erflow
With Howqua's cheering mixture;
It came from a first-rate depôt,
So drain it off betwixt you.
The renegade who only sups-

Who does not drink it hearty-
Who cannot quaff his sixteen cups—
Expel him from our party!

CHORUS.

Then, let the (buttered) toast go round,
For this night we'll be merry;
With Hyson strong, or good Souchong-
A fig for port or sherry!

Let milk-and-water bibbers croak
That strong tea will enerve us,
We treat their warning as a joke,
And fear not being nervous.
The fool may water well his tea,
To make him live the longer;
Such slop will suit not such as we,

Who like our Bohea stronger.

Chorus.-Then, let the (buttered) toast go round, &c.

Love's blisses are but transient joys-
When age draws on, they vanish;
But drinking hath such charms, my boys,
As time can never banish.

Then, pass the cups with jest and smile,
And shame upon the laddie

Who dares to quit the table while

A spoonful's in the caddy!

Chorus.-Then, let the (buttered) toast go round, &e.

J. HOLLINGSHEAD.

THE BOOK WITHOUT A TITLE-PAGE.

A TALE.

CHAPTER II.

I WILL not detain you by relating the oaths in which the wrath of Lord Flintshire found its vent, or the tears which flowed from the eyes of the Countess. I was not a witness to either of these manifestations of feeling, and only gathered them from hearsay. Hilliard's parents remained in Cambridge only a sufficient time to learn that their journey had been made in vain, and departed the very evening of their arrival, without taking the least notice of poor Williams's prayers and submission.

To return to Hilliard himself: three years elapsed without my having seen or heard anything further of him, beyond learning casually that he was living abroad, and had been blessed with a son and heir. Regularly, once in every season, the doors of Flintshire House were thrown open to me at the epoch of the Countess's annual ball, and I appeared at the tail of the company in next day's Post with one or more strange letters in my name. The Earl, on these occasions, preserved his usual appearance. The Countess was, evidently, much changed and broken. Not all the manœuvres of the women of high breeding neither the skilfully-disposed smile, nor the glance, intended to be a cheerful one, from those sunken eyes, could conceal the fact that there was a heart ill at ease within. Every one saw this, and every one attributed it to what I then considered the real cause, the mésalliance of her son.

It was about three years after Hilliard's marriage, and a little before the time of my call to the bar, that I received an invitation to pass the month of September at Whittlesford Park, Lord, or, more properly, Lady Flintshire's seat in the North of England. To what cause this invitation might be owing, I could not at the moment conjecture, since my last visit there, had been made in company with my friend Walter during our undergraduate days. I was not long left in doubt, for, on the afternoon of my arrival, Lord Flintshire informed me, in the course of a walk upon the terrace, that he expected his son and daughter-in-law to arrive the next evening. "They will come here straight from Folkestone," said he "merely passing through London on their way.

I thought you and he, as old friends, would like to meet again, after, let me see— -it must be three years since you met. We have not seen him for a much longer time."

I was delighted to hear this news, and ventured to express the hope that all past differences had been forgotten, and that a reconciliation was about to take place. "After all, sir," said I, "Mrs. Hilliard is a very charming woman, and now, with-with a little continental polish and so forth, I have, no doubt, she will prove in every way worthy of your son." 2 B

VOL. V.