“There's ingratitude!" exclaimed Mr. Merriman. his cast-off finery, and he gives me a whip-in!”

"I take care of

Tossing the oranges alternately in the air, and catching them in quick succession on the prongs of the forks, the master gallopped on his never-ending road, amid the plaudits of the spectators. "There's a dabster in dough for ye!" cried the clown. has had a good education, and no mistake, and those are the fruits of it."

"He

Having performed these evolutions, the mountebank gradually reined in his steed, and slipped astride the padded saddle, his legs dangling loosely and wearily against the panting sides of the tired animal. "Now, Mr. Merriman, help me to alight," said he.

"In the twinkling of a bed-post," replied his humorous attendant, and drawing out a box of lucifer-matches from his capacious pockets, lighted one in an instant, and presented it.

"What's that, booby?"

"Booby? Didn't you go for to ask me to help you to a light?' "Assist me to get down, you fool, I meant."

"There now! what a thousand little pities it is-so it is-you were not born a goose--for they always get down without assistance! But I can see which way the cat jumps-it's as plain as the nose on my face that, clever as you are, you're offended 'cause I've found a match. for you."

"Mr. Merriman, you're a sad fellow, but I'll help myself," so saying, the mountebank stood upon the saddle, and leaping up, turned a summerset, and came cleverly upon his feet.

"There for ye, ain't that droll now? he gets up to get down! What a natural turn he has to the business!" exclaimed the clown; then turning to the grinning crowd. "Now can any of ye guess this, riddle-ma-riddle-ma-ree! Why is my master a liberal fellow? Why, 'cause he comes down' handsomely. Come, now, ain't that smart? addressing his superior, who was adjusting his velvet cap, "and yet you called me a fool."

"Ay, a great fool."

Certainly, or I should not own such a master."

"How mean you, sirrah?”

"I'll explain allegorically, metaphorically, categorically, and paregorically," replied the clown, and gradually elevating the cart-wheel, he clasped the nave, and supported it with one hand. "There, that's it to a tittle! Don't you see the nave has got the upper hand of the fool? The nave 's you, and I'm me the fool - by reason of being under you."

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At this practical illustration there arose a general laugh.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen," said the mountebank in a loud voice, "we are about to offer you by lottery a large and valuable collection of tea-trays, gown and waistcoat pieces, knives and forks, candlesticks and candleboxes, and numerous other articles both useful and ornamental. There are so many prizes that none of you can possibly lose-more than one shilling, which is the small price at which we offer the tickets."

While he was thus addressing and inviting them to try their fortune, the clown was busily occupied in unpacking the bales, and spreading the bright and gaudy gown-pieces on the grass, and scattering hither and thither the painted tea trays and glittering tin-candlesticks and

candleboxes all over the interior of the circle in the most alluring confusion.

Having quickly executed this temptation part of the business, he ran round, distributing the tickets to the spectators, and I was pleased to observe that the sale went on rapidly; indeed he had such a facetious and irresistible way of puffing his tickets that he extracted many a reluctant shilling, and relaxed the grasp of many a prudent hand.

A young country-woman in a red cloak, with an infant in her arms, who was standing before me, tried all her eloquence upon her husband to induce him to venture. "She should so like to have those knives: they were just what they wanted so much!"

With much ado she at last prevailed, and holding out the shilling called out eagerly for a ticket, apparently fearing her husband might repent, and perhaps recal the coin.

I could not help sympathising in her sanguine expectations of a favourable result. I too gave my shilling, which I considered due to the performers for the amusement they had afforded me.

"There's a prime dozen of knives and forks!" said the clown, exhibiting them. "Twenty-four pieces! why it's only a halfpenny a-piece: who would use their fingers when they can get tools so dogcheap? They are all town-made, too-warranted; there's blades for you; with an edge as keen as a February frost, and of as good a temper as the cobbler's wife, who kissed her husband for welting' her!" Having at last most profitably exerted his eloquence in the sale of the chances in this minor lottery, he proceeded to make a circuit with the lucky-bag, containing the blanks and prizes, in his hand.

The lots were speedily drawn by the eager expectants, who had ventured their shillings, and-only to see the tricks of that jade, Fortune-the young mother handed the mystic paper to her husband, who, unfolding it, declared to her disappointment that it was a blank, while mine turned up a capital prize, for I had won, without a wish, the much-coveted knives and forks. I felt half-ashamed of proclaiming my good luck. It occurred to me, however, that I might easily overcome this nervous difficulty, and handing the paper to the young woman, I said: "Will you do me the favour to take home these knives and forks for me?"

"Surely, sir," replied she, curtseying and blushing; "where be you ving, sir?"

You mistake me," I replied. "I wish you to accept them as a

“ Lauk, sir!—I'm sure-I thank you, sir," said she.

"Thank'ee kindly, sir," interposed the husband; "our Nell longed for they, and——”

"Say no more," interrupted I," you 're heartily welcome," for I felt almost as much by the observation the expression of their gratitude drew upon me as I should have done in holding out my hand and claiming the prize before the gaze of the crowd; so I slunk away, and mingled with the group in another quarter, as stealthily as if I had picked a pocket, and feared detection, although I was really gratified in being able to give the young housekeeper so much pleasure at so slight a cost.

All the prizes having been distributed, one of the men from the public-house handed a pint of foaming porter to the clown, who presented it to his master.

"Is that the way you offer the beverage to me, sirrah?” said he, with dignity.

'Beverage?" exclaimed the clown. "Why it's genuine malt and hops."

'Bring me a glass," said the mountebank, gracefully waving his hand.

Upon which the clown presented him with a pocket looking-glass. "You want to see the way to your mouth, I suppose," said he. "Put it into a tumbler, Mr. Merriman," cried the other impatiently. Whereupon the fool stared, and then nodding, applied his lips to the measure, and drained it.

"Hollo! sirrah, what do you mean by that?

"

"Didn't you tell me to put it into a tumbler?" said the quibbler, "and ain't I a tumbler? Look at that!" And he immediately turned a summerset in the air, leaping up, and coming down upon his feet again without touching the ground with his hands.

A shout of merriment welcomed the conceit and the agility of the clown; and another pint, with a glass being brought for the refreshment of the spangled rider, he remounted his steed, and recommenced his equestrian evolutions, skipping with a hoop, and anon rapidly passing it over his head, legs, and arms, while at full gallop.

After sundry other gymnastic feats were exhibited, not only by the master, but the man, to the evident delight of all assembled, "both great and small," the mountebank, standing upon the saddle, proclaimed aloud, that, "encouraged by the liberality of his indulgent audience, he was induced to offer a sheep to be raffled for-if he could only make up a sufficient number for so large a prize.”

"Only hear that!" said the clown. "There never was such a man as my master. I verily believe he would give the little coat off his back-if anybody would wear it; and thereby hangs a tale (I don't mean to his coat, but touching his liberality). When a mere boyhobbledehoy - he once gave a schoolfellow two whole radishes for one -cucumber! But here's mutton here, my masters and mistresses, and no mistake. Never was such a favourable opportunity offered to a discerning public for the profitable investment of a small capital. For the trifling risk of one shilling the agriculturist may (possibly) purchase as much fine wether as will last him a whole fortnight. A lawyer may gain a profitable client, whom he may fleece' without fear of taxation, and have parchment enough left for a marriage settlement. Gentlemen of the bar, if there be any here, I pray ye put in for the baa-lamb! Nay, even those sapient noddles who go forth

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wool-gathering, may for once have a chance of success, and not go home shorn! And O! ve sportsmen-ye hedge and ditch leapers, and clearers of five-barred gates!-ye riders of matches, and matchless riders, here's a particular nice chance for you!—nothing less than four famous trotters-warranted fast. So come along, my merry customers, and down with the dibs!”

And away ran Mr. Merriman round the ring, to gather in the contributions The tickets were soon disposed of, and in less than ten minutes an agriculturist," as I guessed from his garb, did carry off the sheep, and so became "master of the wether," as the fool quaintly observed

The sports were now concluded with an intimation from the mountebank that a ball at three-pence per head, music and lights included, would be given in the "great room" of the Old Prince of Orange. "Purposely," as the clown added, "for the delight and entertainment of the Kentish men, his worthy master knowing the affection they entertained for hips.""

CONTENTMENT.

BY MARTIN OPITZ VON BOBERFELD.

HAPPY is he who wisely loves

Life's simple path in peace to tread :
He quickly falls who mounts too high,
By false ambition blindly led.
Let each his own good sense approve
My shepherdess alone I love.
The loftiest castle feels the most

The pealing thunder's angry might;
So be whose pride impels him on

Soon trembles on the giddy height.
The boundless sea has surging waves,
And rocks, and winds that madly blow;
The wise man by the streamlet dwells
That in the modest vale doth flow.

If Phyllis has nor gems nor gold,

Yet far more precious charms hath she:
No gold, no jewels e'er could buy

Let each, &c.

Let each, &c.

Those eyes with which she dazzles me.

Let each, &c.

399

SECRETS OF THE BLUE CHAMBER.

BY ALBANY POYNTZ.

THE public is beginning, I trust, to recognise in me one of those modern philosophers who, instead of placing in their microscope the wing of a sphinx, or in their retort a crystal of succinamide, delight in the anatomization of insects of a larger growth, and the analysis of the newly-discovered products of the mind; a human naturalist, intent upon pushing his discoveries into the idiosyncrasy of man, through the symptomatic indications of manners.

Those who had the luck to visit Paris some five-and-twenty years ago, may recall to mind a sapient humorist, known by the name of L'Hermite de la Chaussée d'Antin, who, from his secluded hermitage in the heart of that gay metropolis, exercised a most singular inquisition into the peculiarities of his contemporaries. To this day, it is admitted that the domestic life of the times of Napoleon is nowhere so accurately portrayed as in the lucubrations of the Hermit.

Much such a commentator am I.-In the upper story of a commodious mansion of the parish of St. George's, Hanover Square, is my study, familiarly known by privileged visitors as the Blue Chamber; wherein I pass my merry life in laughing over the antics of the fashionable world below. In the days of Molière, by the way, there was also a famous Blue Chamber, La Chambre Bleue of the Hôtel de Rambouillet,-in which used to assemble the celebrated coterie satirized by the dramatic philosopher, under the name of Les Précieuses Ridicules. People are apt to suppose that the designation "Blue," applied to such of the gentler sex as dabble in literature, originated in the epoch of Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Montague. Not a bit!It is as old as those of Menage and Madame de Sévigné,-two of the habitual frequenters of the Marchioness de Rambouillet's Blue Chamber! Blue has consequently been for the last two centuries the emblematical colour of the lettered tribe. Blue devils had probably the same origin. The spirits that minister to my Blue Chamber, however, are couleur de rose; and the feathers I pluck from their wings to depict the manners of the day, though many-hued as the plumage of a humming-bird, rarely include the cerulean tinge of the pedant among their evanes

cent tints.

To paint with discretion the lighter follies of the times, the artist must be a man of the world, yet, "dolphin-like, show above the element he moves in." Inquire of the sun, which receives my morning salutation full five minutes before its rays gild the adjoining balconies of Berkeley Square, whether I rise not considerably above and before my fashionable neighbours. The first object I generally salute after the sun, on summer mornings, is my next door neighbour, Lord John Devereux, lounging home from Crockey's, with the pallid face of a waxwork figure that has weathered the vicissitudes of a show-life for the last thirty years; and from his manner of proceeding along the street,-whether tickling the flank of a fine cab-horse in his days of prosperity, or tapping the area-rail as he saunters along, with a jewelheaded cane, nearly as valuable as the cab-horse, I can infer within a hundred guineas the amount of his winnings or losings. Lord John