It is not the wish of Mr. REDBREAST to divulge the "secrets of the prisonhouse," as to

THE GREAT ATTRACTIONS IN EMBRYO!

To be produced next season at DRURY LANE THEATRE; and yet he cannot resist this opportunity of informing purchasers, that the spirited Lessee has given orders for the construction of an enormous tank beneath the stage, and that

A Fine Lively Hippopotamus

Has been more than obscurely hinted at; being the first appearance—if it appearof that most interesting animal in any theatre in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America.

In conclusion-and Mr. REDBREAST feels it hard to conclude-bidders are respectfully informed, that further particulars of the further advantages connected with the Fifty-Pound Share in question, together with a lithographic plan of the Theatre, its Lobbies, Saloon, &c. &c., may be had, price one shilling, at Mr. REDBREAST'S Office, the week previous to the day of sale, which is positively fixed for the ensuing First of April, 1839.

In this document-preserved, as we fondly hope, in these" our pages for the curiosity and admiration of posterity—the Auctioneer shews his fine knowledge of the world; displays, in an eminent degree, the utility of enlarging nothing into something, by the mere force of words; all men being assailable by the ears, according to their length.

The Auctioneer knows mankind-knows it to be impossible for would-be buyers to read the before-quoted jargon of words, and keep their minds upon the mere "fifty-pound share" in its individual littleness. No; the admission-the privilege which the purchase bestows-cannot be considered in its abstract simplicity; it is so incorporated by the "so potent art" of the Auctioneer with nobler and mightier things-it comes so recommended to the senses of the hesitating buyer by advantages miraculously made manifest to him by the eloquent imagination of the tradesman-that the Dukes of Bedford and York-the shades of Kemble, Siddons, and Kean-of Johnson, Young, and Milton, are in some way associated with the article to be disposed of, and give a worth and dignity altogether extrinsic of the commodity. There is and the eccentric gentleman yearning for the "fifty-pound share of the most under-let establishment in the United Kingdom" cannot wean himself from the delusion -there is a strange, mysterious connexion between the advertised commodity and the glorious objects touched upon by the Auctioneer; the "share" is hallowed by its compelled association with so many brilliant images, that, incapable, or even unwilling to separate the real from the fanciful, the reader purchases, and the eloquence of Mr. Redbreast has its wished reward.

How often have we turned from the rancour of politics and the crimes of the police, to seek in the self-same newspaper the fairy bowers and silver streams-the groves of Arcady, and meadows of perennial emerald-constantly offered by Mr. Redbreast to the worldwearied heart! How often has our imagination revelled in the scenes of 66 more than Italian beauty," somewhere in Lancashire! How have we wished for the wings of a dove," that we might flee away and be at rest" in the sylvan haunts and " more than hermit-like seclusion" of a most unique estate, situate in Kent! How have we yearned to take up our abiding-place in that "romantic abbey" near the village-that happy village!-the inhabitants of whieh are of so primitive and benevolent a character, that "the word incendiarism is unknown in their vocabulary!"

Proceed then, Redbreast! Still conjure to the wondering eyes of Britons haunts of delight-abodes of peace-temples of Druid-like sanctity! still have patches of the Hesperides "continually on sale,” with this further advantage, that the dragon "going with the estate," combines "with the poetical configuration of the dragon the sagacity and docility of the tamest Newfoundland."

Thank Heaven! despite the opinion of Mr. Serjeant Arabin,* there is imagination left in this trading age of pounds, shillings, and pence; a fact as incontestably proved by the brilliant creations of the Auctioneer, as by the parties made captive by them. Mr. Redbreast would not make flies of beautiful colours, were he not-wise angler in this world's dark waters-well assured that there are gold-fish to bite at them!

The Auctioneer is a dealer in words; and his success with the elect and chosen of fortune proves that human nature is in all ranks the same. The illiterate countryman, or simple apprentice, is gulled by the protesting Levite, who, with all his tongue, his eyes and eyebrows, swears that the pencil-case is all silver, when it is the thinnest copper thinly-washed; and the Auctioneer, by the same weaponsthe mere artillery of syllables-" takes the reason prisoner" of the man of many thousands!

This learned gentleman recently complimented the boy who was found in Buckingham Palace, with the possession of the imaginative faculty in a very high degree, and that in "a country by no means celebrated for its imagination!"

From the very moment the mistress of the house is brought to bed, every female in it, from my lady's gentlewoman down to the cinder-wench, becomes an inch taller for it.

TRISTRAM SHANDY.

THE MONTHLY NURSE.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

THE MONTHLY NURSE-taking the class in the lump, without such exceptions as will be noticed before we conclude-—is a middle-aged, motherly sort of a gossiping, hushing, flattering, dictatorial, knowing, ignorant, not very delicate, comfortable, uneasy, slip-slop kind of a blinking individual, between asleep and awake, whose business it is -under Providence and the doctor-to see that a child be not ushered with too little officiousness into the world, nor brought up with too much good sense during the first month of its existence. All grown people, with her (excepting her own family), consist of wives who are brought to bed, and husbands who are bound to be extremely sensible of the supremacy of that event; and all the rising generation are infants in laced caps, not five weeks old, with incessant thirst, screaming faces, thumpable backs, and red little minnikin hands tipped with hints of nails. She is the only maker of caudle in the world. She takes snuff ostentatiously, drams advisedly, tea incessantly, advice indignantly, a nap when she can get it, cold whenever there is a crick in the door, and the remainder of whatsoever her mistress leaves to eat or drink-provided it is what somebody else would like to have. But she drinks rather than eats. She has not the relish for a "bit o' dinner" that the servant-maid has; though nobody but the washerwoman beats her at "a dish o' tea," or at that which "keeps cold out of the stomach," and puts weakness into it. If she is thin, she is generally straight as a stick, being of a condition of body that not even drams will tumefy. If she is fat, she is one of the fubsiest of the cosy; though rheumatic withal, and requiring a complexional good-nature to settle the irritabilities of her position, and turn the balance in favour of comfort or hope. She is the victim of watching; the arbitress of her superiors; the servant, yet rival, of doctors; the opposer of innovations; the regretter of all old household religions as to pap-boats, cradles, and swathes; the inhabitant of a hundred bedrooms; the Juno Lucina of the ancients, or goddess of child-birth, in the likeness of a cook-maid. Her greatest consolation under a death