let me tell you everything is good in moderation. They tell you to drink water, and promise you length of years, which is as much as to say that if you drink water, your ears will increase to the length of a donkey's!-pah! when the spirit is fled the man is dead, and all arguments are weak that are wanting in-spirit! But I must assist my master; the greatest fool can give a man a lift upon occasion." Having released the conjuror and the donkey, which appeared very stupid and inert, the master stood in the midst of the circle, to take a little breath after his feat.

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Now, calf, leave the donkey," said he.

"Calf indeed!" replied the indignant fool, “I'll shew you I can make a little wheel before I 'm dead, at any rate; " and casting a hoop adroitly over his master's head, he exclaimed, "There, now; there's a little wheel in a jiffy."

"How do you mean, sirrah?"

"Why, that 'ere hoop's the tire, and you're the knave," to be sure, replied he.

"But where's the spokes, fellow?"

"Why, you 're the spokes-man, everybody must allow," quickly answered the fool; and his master picking up the hoop, and throwing it at him, he caught it, and began trundling it round the area formed by the spectators.

"What are you about, sirrah?”

"Playing at hoop," replied the fool; "will you hide?"

"I'll hide you," said his master. "Come, strike up;" and the buffoon immediately resumed his musical instruments, and began. blowing his pipes, and throwing and swinging about his drumsticks, after the most approved mode of the Moorish drummer.

The conjuror then took a large blue and white dish, and began whirling it to and fro, up and down, to the nervous amazement of the throng, who expected every moment to see it fall, and dashed to pieces on the ground. At last, placing it between his legs, he looked up, and pretended to cast it in the air. Up went his hand, and the dish was gone! All eyes were upturned towards the sky, expecting to see the dish skimming the air; and so adroitly was the deception executed, that they all laughed heartily at their disappointment; for the conjuror had merely passed it from one hand to the other, and now quietly laid it down.

Placing a sort of leathern cup, with a strap, upon his forehead, which projected like the horn of a rhinoceros, he grasped a wooden ball, about the size of an orange, and began tossing it in the air,

about as high as the copings of the adjoining houses; and at last, in its descent, caught it in the cup! He repeated the apparently dangerous experiment; for, in its fall, should he miss it, the ball certainly threatened to "put him out of countenance." Having caught it for the third time, he appealed to the generosity of a "British public" for more contributions. A few more pence were

scattered.

"That's your sort!" exclaimed the fool, seizing the large bag, and beginning to collect the tribute; "down with your dust! If any lady or gentleman wishes to contribute a piece of silver, I've a hand open as day to melting charity.' Only consider my master's family. Here's a big drum; and here's the pipes, which cost, I don't know how much and a great deal more; and then there's the ass, myself and himself, and a large family of small children at home, who are admiring the beautiful eyes of an old potatoe, and smelling a red herring! Pray tip; for master owes me the last fortnight's wages, and there's my washerwoman all 'in the suds; and when she asks me, Dick, how are you off for soap?' poor creature, she'll look blue-bags at me if I don't shell out the browns. Washerwomen, of all women in the world, can do the least without coppers,' you know. Thank 'e, sir, thank 'e."

Having made a tolerably good collection, he looked round the circle before tying up the contribution :

"I do not wish to disappoint the generosity of any individual : before I draw the string, is there any one who wishes to bestow a mite?"

"No, no; go on!" shouted a boy from the crowd, who had contributed nothing, and was impatient of the delay.

"We shall go on directly," replied the fool. gentlemen, the fireworks are all over!"

"Ladies and

Hereupon there was a general movement in the crowd, and they gradually separated; while the Street-Conjuror and his merry colleague resumed their walking attire, and took up their paraphernalia preparatory to a repetition of their gambols in some favourable spot in the vicinity.

do they spin.

SHELLEY

THE YOUNG LORD.

BY DOUGLAS JERROLD.

"WHEN a sow farrows," writes Henry Lord Brougham, in his "Dissertations," illustrative of Paley, "each pig"-by the action of the abdominal muscles, being literally thrown upon the world— "instantly runs up to one of the teats, which he ever after regards as his own peculiar property." So far, so well, with the first-born pigs; for his lordship continues :-"When more pigs than teats are produced, the latter ones run to the tail of some of the others, and suck till they die of inanition."*

Never before were the advantages and injuries of primogeniture more strikingly, and withal more affectingly, displayed. Who could have believed that a parallel was to be drawn between peers and pigs? And yet the Chinese, a philosophic, far-seeing people, must have had some inkling of the curious fact; for, in their harmonious and mysterious tongue, "the word 'shu,'" says Dr. Mason Good, means both a lord and a swine." It is, however, but just to add, that this irreverence of synonym is purely the fault of the Chinese radicals; although, in the whole Celestial language, they "do not exceed four hundred and eleven."

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The reader, after the authority we have cited, must admit that pigs are of two kinds : pigs born to teats, and pigs born to tails!

(Let us not be mistaken: far be it from us to mingle in an unseemly crowd sucking pigs with sucking peers. We hope to be understood as speaking philosophically, and not profanely.)

Young Lords, like young porkers, are of two kinds : lords born to teats, and lords born to tails. Here, however (and for the sake of our common humanity it is great happiness to know it), the parallel ends. Lords, though the twentieth of the same house, do not die of inanition; for though aristocracy has but one teat, the state has many most nutritious tails. The firstborn tugs all his life at the family breast; the younger Lords Charleses and Lords Augustuses have, time out of mind, been wet-nursed at the Treasury. When

* See "Dissertations on Subjects of Science," vol. i., p. 208.

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