dreary and desolate features of the Common over which they were passing. Harry was endeavouring to fortify himself with a desperate resolution, when suddenly the loud and wailful howl of a dog met his ear; at the same time he heard a harsh creaking, and looking up he beheld close to him a gibbet, with the remains of a highwayman who had been hung in chains swinging and rattling in the blast. His heart sunk within him; but erecting his head, and clenching his teeth with a look of defiance, he was passing on with a firm tread, when his attention was arrested by two shining objects at the foot of the gibbet, which he conjectured to be either glowworms, or the eyes of some animal. Presently they raised themselves from the ground, and at that moment a ray of light fell upon the wild and haggard features of Ranting Moll, who, stretching out her long bony arm to the moon, exclaimed in a sepulchral voice-“Look at it, boy; look at yonder moon-it is the last thou shalt see, for ere her face is again full, thine shall be dust, and thy body shall be like the jingling bones of this murderer, that dance in the night-wind to the music of their own irons. Said I not right? He who is an ass, and takes himself to be a stag, finds his mistake when he comes to leap the ditch. Thou wouldst not heed me - when I said an idle man is the devil's bolster, and another man's bread costs more than our own. But we may save a man from others whom we cannot save from himself; when the pear is ripe, it must needs fall to the ground. I told thee, Harry, thou shouldst flourish under the sign of the Bear; and who

is he that marches behind thee with thy life in his hand, that it may be laid down at the judge's bar? Is it not Bruin ? What! cannot I read a palm? yet thou wouldst neither heed me when I bade thee fear the Bear, nor believe me when I said he who would be rich in a year, gets hanged at six months' end.— Away! Away

PETER PINDARICS.

South Down Mutton.

Ir men, when in a rage, porrected
Before a glass their angry features,
Most likely they would stand corrected,
At sight of such distorted creatures;
So we may hold a moral mirror

Before these myrmidons of passion,
And make ill-temper see its error,
By gravely mimicking its fashion.

A sober Cit of Sweeting's Alley,

Deem'd a warm man on 'Change, was what
In temper might be reckon'd hot,
Indulging many an angry sally
Against his wife and servants :-this
Is no unprecedented state

For man and wife, when tête-à-tête

They revel in domestic bliss,—
But to show off his freaks before his
Guests, was contra bonos mores.

Our Cit was somewhat of a glutton,
Or Epicure, at least in mutton,

Esteeming it a more delicious
Feast, than those of old Apicius,
Crassus's savoury symposia,

Or even Jupiter's ambrosia.

One day a leg arrived from Brighton,
A true South Down legitimate,
When he enlarged with much delight on

The fat and grain, and shape and weight,-
Pronounced on each a learned stricture,
Declared the joint a perfect picture;
And as his eye its outline follow'd,
Call'd it a prize—a lucky hit—
A gem-a pearl more exquisite
Than ever Cleopatra swallow'd,
Promulging finally this fiat

"I'll dine at five, and ask Jack Wyatt."

The cover raised, the meat he eyed

With new enjoyment-next the cloth he
Tuck'd in his button-hole, and cried,
"Done to a tittle-brown and frothy!"
Then seized the carving-knife elate,
But lo! it would not penetrate
The skin (the anatomic term is
The what-dye-call ?-ay-Epidermis.)

He felt the edge-'twas like a dump,
Whereat with passion-crimson'd frown,
He reach'd the stair-head at a jump,
And threw the blade in fury down,
Venting unnumber'd curses on
His thoughtless lazy rascal-John.
His guest, observing this disclosure
Of temper, threw with great composure
The dish, with mutton, spoons and all,
Down helter-skelter to the hall,

Where it arrived with fearful clatter.

"Zounds!” cried the Cit-" why, what's the matter?"

"Nothing whatever," with a quiet

Look and accent, answer'd Wyatt:

"I hope I haven't unawares

Made a mistake; but, when you threw

The knife below in such a stew,

I thought you meant to dine down stairs!"

THE HOUNDSDITCH ALBUM.-No. II.

Second Letter from Miss Hebe Hoggins.

MISS CAUSTIC, I am sorry to say, is elected a member of our society, in spite of my blackball, and has already begun to gratify her envy, hatred, and malice. Mr. Skinner, the tanner, of Norton Falgate, has undertaken a poem of the most comprehensive and daring kind, entitled "The Creation," which promises completely to eclipse Sir Richard Blackmore's, and of which the headings of the different chapters are already composed. We are told, exclaimed Miss Caustic, after reading the plan of this noble work, that at the creation every thing was made out of nothing, but it appears to me, that this author has made nothing of every thing. In answer to my observation, that Mr. Schweitzkoffer's verses were destined to immortality, she cried with a sneer-"Yes, because he writes them to no end;" and when an erudite sonnet of Mr. M'Quill's was pronounced to smell of the lamp, she peevishly whispered-" Ay, it

would smell of the fire if it were treated as it deserves." But the chief object of her illnatured ridicule is a literary phenomenon whom I am patronizing, a genius of the first order, although at present in the humble occupation of carman to Messrs. Tierce and Sweetman, grocers in Whitechapel. This prodigy, if I be not grievously mistaken, will speedily eelipse all the Bristol milkwomen, farmers' boys, Ettrick shepherds, Northamptonshire peasants, and Dumfries stonecutters, that ever burst their bonds, and set themselves to work with their heads instead of their hands; and yet the members of our club make him the subject of their jealous banter and illiberal sarcasm, venting their misplaced jokes upon his employment, which constitutes his principal claim to admiration. Miss Caustic observes that he will be able to drive a good bargain with the booksellers, and that, as he goes every morning to take orders, he will be soon qualified for the living of Horselydown, or the curacy of Whitehall, in which case he would be quite at home in the Stable-yard; but Mr. M'Quill suggests that he may be one of Horace's Carmen Seculare, and of course ineligible to spiritual dignities, although by the nails in his shoes he seems already to be of the order of Pegasus. This gentleman sneeringly calls him the philosopher Descartes, and at other times terms him my Lord Shaftsbury, observing that his bad grammar is one of his Characteristics. Even Mr. Schweitzkoffer, who ought to have been superior to such vulgar raillery, anticipates that his wit will be attic, because he must always