fancy suggested the above testaceous image! I rolled myself over and over on the carpet; slapped my fore. head; laughed, aye cried in the depth of my passionate feeling; and running to my aunt's apartment, begged she would order two dozen roasted oysters for my supper.

Well, Reader-my poem is finished, and my panegyric is finished. What think you?

-That you have more vanity than I had hitherto thought could enter into the composition of one man.

Softly, I pray you, good Reader! Say I appear to have. Vanity is pretty nearly of the same calibre in all men. The only difference is, that the man of sense, taught a lesson by the ridiculous seeming of the fool, affects to despise what the latter makes a merit of displaying. Allowing for the difference of gender, the former is the guinea-fowl which deposits her eggs in hidden places; while the opposite is the dunghill hen, which must needs cackle till every chick in the barn yard knows of her safe delivery.

Upon my word, honest Jeremy, you have made ample apology for your indiscreet boasting. A dunghill hen and a fool will fairly balance Milton and the father of impassioned poetry.—

Well then, remember for the future not to judge by appearances.

-

After I had transcribed the poem in my best style, and eaten the supper with my best relish, I retired to bed.By the by, I think I must be differently constituted from the rest of mankind; for all the lovers I have ever read of invariably lost their appetites when they gained a favour; and then, they would live on air-dreams, sighs, groans, and such short allowance, till they had blown themselves into a state of complete inflation,-when the fit would subside, the wind pass away in the shape of a sonnet, and the unhappy gentlemen would call for beef.

steaks and porter, that they might be ready for a new attack the next time their mistresses should smile upon them. Now, between my stomach and its neighbour heart there exists so strong a sympathy, that when the one is particularly easy, the other is sure to be particularly greedy; and vice versa. And I uphold that this is the most natural way of proceeding; for children, when they are crusty, care not for crumb, and when they are happy, the plates are sure to suffer: Now, all lovers are children-Ergo, they should stuff when they are pleased, and starve when they are displeased. Hence it follows, of course, that I did exactly as I should do:-I ate, not because I had been miserable, but because I was happy. "Why then," you ask, did you affect to be miserable? You had been decidedly favoured by your mistress; you were filled to the fingers' ends with anticipations of success; and yet you deprecated her anger-pictured your. self as starving for want of a dish of smiles-as utterly lost-and, finally, as dying with a dropsy of the chest, caused by the inward gushing of Despair's dark water! There seems to be some strange inconsistency in all this." You have hit it exactly," there seems to be." It was the fashion for lovers to be unhappy, and I did not wish to be thought singular.

66

I retired to bed; but, either owing to the restlessness of my muse, or the indigestibility of my aunt's oysters, I could not sleep. I therefore indulged myself after the manner of the loyal Manchegan, who was wont to wile away the hours "pensando en su señora Dulcinea.” I brought in review before me all those little favours, which one is so fond of retracing after certain interviews, and when the imagination is raised to 112° of Fahrenheit; till, with the aid of the foreign accent in my charmer's voice, I found myself the son-in-law of a Spanish ambas. sador. The idea was too tender for a heart so suscepti bie as mine, and my feelings kept melting, and melting, and melting, till they overflowed at my eyes; and so I

fell asleep, with the last deep sigh just breaking from my lips, and the last bright tear just trickling from my eyelids.

The

I dreamed, and lo! I lay supine upon the shores of a troubled ocean. On either side of me, far as the strained eye could reach, stretched the bare white sands, drifted here and there into little hillocks; while innumerable tracks, as of the hoofs of horses and the wheels of carriages, seemed to tell of some procession that had lately passed. Before me heaved the dark ocean in all the agitation which denotes the recent storm; while a cloud, whose parting volumes gave glimpses of a rainbow, hung over the crested billows its heavy canopy. As I watched the dense vapour-how it gathered, and parted, and gathered again, it suddenly began to descend, as though it would drop into the sea: but no sooner had it touched the surface than a mighty sound, as of the frying of many fishes, hissed over the expanse of waters. cloud opened in the middle; and I beheld the mistress of my affections straddled upon the back of a monstrous lobster. Her clothes were tucked up under her garters, that the brine might not wet them; while in one hand she held aloft a huge oyster, and in the other brandished a broken fiddle. Onward she came, her gallant steed breasting with ease the raging billows; when suddenly a bell was heard to toll as for a funeral. At that sound the lady shrieked-the oyster dropped into the sea-the cloud, swallowing both the lobster and its rider, disappeared-and the sea opening, I saw a great number of oysters on the bottom arranged in battalions and marching towards me. At once my mouth watered, and I felt a strong desire to spring in among them; but it seemed as though I were chained down.-On the troops came. When they had reached me, they filed off on either side, and displayed in their midst the identical oyster which my mistress had held, escorted by two of smaller growth. These last, opening their shells, took up the oyster of distinction and set him on my leg, then left him, retiring

backwards with great respect. Up crept the bivalveon my leg, my thigh, my chest; then his mouth slowly opened-the knell again was heard the troops rushed hissing into the sea-the sea closed-a dreadful hurricane howled over the abyss-and the oyster, springing on my face, grasped my nose-and I awoke.

The first thing I did was to feel if my nose was in its place, and the next-to kick my uncle's bitch off the bed; for the creature, shut up in the room, had welcomed herself to a share of my pillow, and was comfortably snoring, with her cold damp snout resting on my cheek.

CHAPTER XIX.

Here's a goodly jewel!

How it sparkles!-like an old lady's eyes.

Rule a Wife and Have a Wife.

LET me see!said I, as with finger on lip, I was pondering the manner of introducing my poem to the eyes of my mistress.— -I have twenty-five guineas in my pocket-and women love presents-hum!-I have and forthwith I stepped into the shop of a jew

it!eller.

"What is the price of this?" I asked, taking up a ring set with a small diamond.

"Eleven guineas, sir," answered the man. "I have but one like it in the store: you may take them both for twenty, sir."

I deliberated. My aunt was generous-and easily

flattered.

Suppose I buy the second ring for herShe will return me twice its value at least: --and thus I shall be master of a diamond for nothing!

thought I.

The speculation did me honour-and I bought the rings.

Scarcely had I left the store, when it struck me as somewhat singular, that the man should have fallen so greatly from his first price-and of his own accord. I had obtained some knowledge of the world, I thought, from the books I had read; I had learned in them that the young and unwary were always practised upon; and I decided at once that the man had imposed upon me. Proud of my penetration, I entered the shop of a neighbouring jeweller, and showing him the rings, begged him to tell me if the stones were real. "I myself think they are false," said I, with a most sapient smack of the lips. The man eyed me steadily a moment. May I ask, sir, where you purchased them?"

"At Opal's, a few doors above."

"You could not have gone to a worse place, sir!What did they cost you, sir?"

"Twenty guineas."

"Twenty guiueas!" exclaimed the man with horrour: "what a wicked world we live in!-Why, sir, I'll sell you just such for a guinea!" And raising the lid of a glass case, he produced some rings of exactly the same appearance. "I'll allow you for yours, sir, the same price as I sell mine at-for I see the gold is remarkably fine--, and I'll let you have two small diamonds, sir, which I'll warrant real, for ten guineas."

I looked at the man's countenance. It was open, serious, and even gentlemanly.-Surely-thought I,-this man is honest !-

"Your offer is fair," I said; "but I shall oblige the scoundrel to take back his rings, and return me the money. Then, I will purchase of you."

"I shall be happy to serve you, sir," said the man, with a low bow; "but you must promise me not to tell Mr. Opal you referred to my opinion: it would only pro.