THANKS, my lord, for your venison; for finer or fatter,
Ne'er ranged in a forest, or smoked in a platter

The haunch was a picture for painters to study,
The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy ;

GOLD MIT!!.

Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting
To spoil such a delicate picture by cating;

I had thoughts in my chambers to place it in view

To show to my friends as a piece of virtù:

As in some Irish houses, where things are so, so,

One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show:

But for eating a rasher of what they take pride in,
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fry'd in.
But hold-let me pause-don't I hear you pronounce
This tale of the bacon's a damnable bounce?
Well, suppose it a bounce-sure a poet my try
By a bounce now and then to get courage to fly.

But, my lord, it's no bounce; I protest in my turn,
It's a truth, and your lordship may ask Mr. Burn.
To go on with my tale :-as I gazed on the haunch,
I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch;
So I cut it, and sent it to Reynolds undrest,
To paint it, or eat it, just as he liked best.

Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose,

'Twas a neck and a breast that might riva! Monroe's.

But in parting with these I was puzzled again,

With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when.
There's H- d, and Cy, and H- rth, and H- ff,

I think they love venison-I know they love beef.

There's my countryman Higgins-Oh! let him alone
For making a blunder or picking a bone:
But hang it-to poets who seldom can cat,
Your very good mutton's a very good treat;

Such dainties to send them their health it might hurt,
It's like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt.
While thus I debated in reverie centred,

An acquaintance a friend as he call'd himself, enter'd ;

An under-bred fine-spoken fellow was he,

And he smiled as he look'd at the venison and me
"What have we got here ?-why, this is good eating!
Your own, I suppose-or is it in waiting?"

"Why, whose should it be?" cried I, with a flounce,
"I get these things often:" (but that was a bounce)
"Some lords my acquaintance, that settle the nation,
Are pleased to be kind,—but I hate ostentation."

"If that be the case then," cried he, very gay, "I'm glad I have taken this house in my way. To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me; No words-I insist on 't-precisely at three;

We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there; My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare.

And now that I think on 't, as I am a sinner,

We wanted this venison to make out the dinner!
What say you-a pasty; it shall, and it must
And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.
Here, porter-this venison with me to Mile End ;
No stirring, I beg, my dear friend, my dear friend.”
Then snatching his hat, he brush'd off like the wind,
And the porter and eatables follow'd behind.

Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf,
And nobody with me at sea but myself,”
Though I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty
Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison pasty,
Were things that I never disliked in my life,
Though clogg'd with a coxcomb and Kitty his wife.
So next day, in due splendour to make my approach,
I drove to his door in my own hackney coach.

When come to the place where we all were to dine
(A chair-lumber'd closet, just twelve feet by nine),
My friend made me welcome, but struck me quite dumb,
With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come;
"For I knew it," he cried; "both eternally fail,
The one with his speeches and t'other with Thrale;
But no matter. I'll warrant we 'll make up the party
With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty.
The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew,
They 're both of them merry, and authors like you.
The one writes the 'Snarler,' the other the 'Scourge ;'
Some thinks he writes Cinna-he owns to 'Panurge.""
While thus he described them by trade and by name,
They enter'd and dinner was served as they came.

At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen,
At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen ;
At the sides there was spinage and pudding made hct ;
In the middle a place where the pasty-was not.
Now, my lord, as for tripc, it's my utter aversion,
And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian :

So that I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound,

While the bacon and liver went merrily round:

But what vex'd me most, was that d-n'd Scottish rogue,
With his long-winded speeches, his smiles, and his brogue.
And "Madam," quoth he, "may this bit be my poison,
A prettier bit I never set eyes on:

Pray a slice of your liver; though, may I be curst,
But I've eat of your tripe till I'm ready to burst.

"The tripe!" quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek,
"I could dine on this tripe seven days in the week :
I like these here dinners so pretty and small;

But your friend there, the doctor, eats nothing at all.

"Oh, oh!" quoth my friend, "he 'll come on in a trice,
He's keeping a corner for something that 's nice :
There's a pasty"-" A pasty !" repeated the Jew;
"I don't care if I keep a corner for 't too."
"What the de'il, mon, a pasty!" re-ccho'd the Scot;
"Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for thot."
"We'll all keep a corner," the lady cried out;
"We'll all keep a corner," was echoed about.
While thus we resolved, and the pasty delayed,
With looks that quite petrified, enter'd the maid :
A visage so sad, and so pale with affright,
Waked Priam in drawing his curtains by night.

But we quickly found out-for who could mistake her ?-
That she came with some terrible news from the baker:
And so it turn'd out; for that negligent sloven

Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven.

Sad Philomel thus-but let similes drop

And now that I think on 't, the story may stop.

To be plain, my good lord, it's but labour misplaced,
To send such good verses to one of your taste;
You've got an odd something-a kind of discerning—
A relish,- -a taste-sicken'd over by learning;

At least, it's your temper, as very well known.
That you think very slightly of all that's your own :
So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss,

You may make a mistake and think slightly of this.

327.-A GOSSIP AT RECULVERS.

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

[DOUGLAS JERROLD is a name familiar in every mouth. A book has been dedicated to him as to "the first wit of the present age." Those who have seen him in private life will feel that this is not mere friendly exaggeration. Those who know him through the veil of anonymous writing understand that a good deal of the long-contintinued success of a periodical work, at which all laugh and few are offended, may be ascribed to his inexhaustible possession of that "infinite jest," of those "flashes of merriment" which "set the table in a roar." Such fame is perhaps evanescent. It has its immediate success in light dramas and political jeux-d'esprit. But there is a higher fame to which, even in his highest moods, Mr. Jerrold has not been insensible-that of an earnest vindicator of the claims of the wretched to forbearance and sympathy. We may think, as abstract reasoners, that in these matters he sometimes goes too far; but, when we consider that the tendencies of a great commercial country are in a high degree selfish, we are constrained to acknowledge that it

is the duty and privilege of genius to throw its weight into the opposite scale, and make an carnest fight for the maintenance of that real brotherhood, which must be upheld in every condition of society which aspires to peace and security. This has been the great function of the poetical mind in all ages. Mr. Jerrold's real talent is of the dramatic, rather than the narrative kind. His Candle Lectures' are admirable examples of the skill with which character can be preserved in every possible variety of circumstances. The extract which we give-from a Series of Essays appended to a remarkable little volume, The Chronicles of Clovernook' (which exhibits, perhaps more than any other of his works, his peculiar modes of thought),-is no fair sample of his powers; but it is adapted to our pages, and at least cannot clash with any opinions.]

The spirit of the Saxon seems still to linger along the shores of Kent. There is the air of antiquity about them; a something breathing of the olden day—an influence, surviving all the changes of time, all the vicissitudes of politic and social life. The genius of the Heptarchy comes closer upon us from the realm of shadows: the Wittenagemote is not a convocation of ghosts-not a venerable House of Mists; but a living, talking, voting Parliament. We feel a something old, strong, stubborn, hearty; a something, for the intense meaning of which we have no other word than "English," rising about us from every rood of Kent. And wherefore this? England was not made piecemeal. Her foundations in the deep-could a sea of molten gold purchase the worth of her surrounding occan ?- are of the same age. The same sun has risen and set upon the whole island. Wherefore, then. is Kent predominant in the mind for qualities which the mind denics to other counties? Because it is still invested with the poetry of action. Because we feel that Kent was the cradle of the marrow and bone of England; because we still see, ay, as palpably as we behold yonder trail of ebon smoke,-the broad black pennant of that mighty admiral, Steam,-the sails of Cæsar threatening Kent, and Kent barbarians clustering on the shore, defying him. It is thus that the spirit of past deeds survives immortally, and works upon the future: it is thus we are indissolubly linked to the memories of the bygone day by the still active soul that once informed it.

How rich in thoughts-how fertile in fancies that quicken the brain and dally with the heart, is every foot-pace of the soil! Reader, be with us for a brief time, at this beautiful village of Hernc. The sky is sullen; and summer, like a fine yet froward wench, smiles now and then, now frowns the blacker for the passing brightness; nevertheless, summer in her worst mood cannot spoil the beautiful features of this demure, this antique village. It seems a very nest-warm aud snug, and green—for human life; with the twilight haze of time about it, almost consecrating it from the aching hopes and feverish expectations of the present. Who would think that the bray and roar of multitudinous London sounded but some sixty miles away? The church stands peacefully, reverently; like some old, visionary monk, his feet on earth-his thoughts with God. And the graves are all about; and things of peace and gentleness, like folded sheep, are gathered

round it.

There is a stile which man might make the throne of solemn thought-his preg nant matter the peasant bones that lie beneath. And on the other side a park, teeming with beauty; with sward green as emeralds, and soft as a mole's back; and trees, with centuries circulating in their gnarled massiveness.

But we must quit the churchyard, and, turning to the right, we will stroll towards Reculvers. How rich the swelling meadows! How their green breasts Leave with conceived fertility! And on this side corn-fields; the grain-stalk thick as a recd; the crop level and compact as a green bank. And here, too, is a field of canary-seed of seed grown for London birds in London cages. The farmer

:

us.

shoots the sparrow-the little rustic scoundrel-that, with felonious bill, would carry away one grain sown for, made sacred to, Portman Square canary! We might, perhaps, find a higher parallel to this, did we look with curious eyes about Nevertheless, bumpkin sparrow has his world of air to range in; his free loves; and for his nest his ivied wall or hawthorn bush. These, say the worst, are a happy set-off even against a gilt-wired cage; sand like diamond dust; unfailing seed, and sugar from even the sweeter lips of lady mistress. Powder and small shot may come upon the sparrow like apoplexy upon an alderman, with the unbolted morsel in its gullet; yet, consider hath the canary no danger to encounter? Doth not prosperity keep a cat ?

Well, this idle gossip has brought us within a short distance of Reculvers. Here -so goes the hoary legend-Augustine impressed the first Christian foot upon the English shore, sent hither by good Pope Gregory; no less good that, if the same legend be true, he had a subtle sense of a joke. Christianity, unless historians say what is not, owes somewhat of its introduction into heathen England to a pun. The story is so old, that there is not a schoolmaster's dog throughout merry Britain that could not bark it. Nevertheless, we will indicate our moral courage by repeating it. Our ink turns red with blushes at the thought-no matter-for once we will write in our blushes.

Pope Gregory, seeing some white-haired, pink-cheeked boys for sale in the Roman slave-market, asked, who they were? Sunt Angli-they are English, was the response. Non sunt Angli―sed Angeli; they are not English, but angels, was the Papal playfulness. His Holiness then inquired, from what part of England? Deirii, they are Deirians, was the answer. Whereupon the Pope, following up his vein of pleasantry, said, Non Deirii, sed De irû,—not Deirians, but from the anger of the Lord snatched, as his Holiness indicated, from the vengeance that must always light upon heathenism.

This gray-haired story, like the gray hairs of Nestor, is pregnant with practical wisdom. Let us imagine Pope Gregory to have been a dull man; even for a Pope a dull man. Let us allow that his mind had not been sufficiently comprehensive to take within its circle the scattered lights of intelligence which, brought into a focus, make a joke. Suppose, in a word, that the Pope had had no car for a pun? Saint Augustine might still have watched the bubbles upon Tiber, and never have been sea-sick on his English voyage.

What does this prove? What does this incident preach with a thunder-tongue? Why, the necessity, the vital necessity, of advancing no man to any sort of dignity who is not all alive as an eel to a joke. We are convinced of it. The world will never be properly ruled until jests entirely supersede the authority of Acts of Parliament. As it is, the Acts are too frequently the jests, without the fun.

We are now close to Reculvers. There, reader, there-where you see that wave leaping up to kiss that big white stone-that is the very spot where St. Augustine put down the sole of his Catholic foot. If it be not, we have been misinformed, and cheated of our money; we can say no more.

Never mind the spot. Is there not a glory lighting up the whole beach? Is not every wave of silver-every little stone, a shining crystal? Doth not the air vibrate with harmonies, strangely winding into the heart, and awakening the brain? Are we not under the spell of the imagination, which makes the present vulgarity melt away like morning mists, and shows to us the full uplighted glory of the past? There was a landing on the Sussex coast; a landing of a Duke of Normandy, and a horde of armed cut-throats. Looking at them even through the distance of some eight hundred years, what are they but as a gang of burglars? A band of pickpurses-blood-shedders-robbers