this point of view, I have violated no rule of syntax in beginning my composition with a conjunction; the full stop which closes the poem continued by me, being, like the full stops at the end of the Iliad and Odyssey, a full stop of a very qualified import. Hoping that the immortality which you have given to the Fudges, you will receive from them; and in the firm expectation, that when London shall be an habitation of bitterns, when St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey shall stand, shapeless and nameless ruins, in the midst of an unpeopled marsh; when the piers of Waterloo-Bridge shall become the nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of their PETER BELLS, one, two and three, As the mean of two extremes (This was learnt from Aldric's themes). Like the shadow in the glass Of the second, yet unripe, His substantial antitype. Then came Peter Bell the Second, Who henceforward must be reckoned To the other side, which is,Go and try else,-just like this. Peter Bell the First was Peter Damned since our first parents fell, * The oldest scholiasts read A dodecagamic Potter. This is at once more descriptive and more megalophonous, -but the alliteration of the text had captivated the vulgar ear of the herd of later commentators. There are mincing women, mewing, Without which-what were chastity.+ One of the attributes in Linnæus's description of the Cat. To a similar cause the caterwauling of more than one species of this genus is to be referred ;-except, indeed, that the poor quadruped is compelled to quarrel with its own pleasures, whilst the biped is supposed only to quarrel with those of others. What would this husk and excuse for a virtue be Lawyers-judges-old hobnobbers Things whose trade is, over ladies To lean, and flirt, and stare, and simper, Till all that is divine in woman Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman, Crucified 'twixt a smile and whimper. Thrusting, toiling, wailing, moiling, And all these meet at levees ;— Dinners convivial and political ;Suppers of epic poets ;-teas, Where small talk dies in agonies ;— Breakfasts professional and critical; Lunches and snacks so aldermanic That one would furnish forth ten dinners, Where reigns a Cretan-tongued panic, Lest news Russ, Dutch, or Alemannic Should make some losers, and some winners At conversazioni-balls Conventicles-and drawing-roomsCourts of law-committees-calls Of a morning-clubs-book-stallsChurches-masquerades-and tombs. And this is Hell-and in this smother All are damnable and damned; Each one damning, damns the other; They are damned by one another, By none other are they damned. "Tis a lie to say, "God damns !" Where was Heaven's Attorney General They are mines of poisonous mineral. without its kernel prostitution, or the kernel prostitution without this husk of a virtue? I wonder the women of the town do not form an association, like the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for the support of what may be called the "King, Church, and Constitution" of their order. But this subject is almost too horrible for a joke. *This libel on our national oath, and this accusation of |