He thinks, with you,

To notice how you do,

My bus'ness I might learn a little faster."

"The thought is happy," the preceptor cries;
"A better method he could scarce devise ;
So Bob, (his pupil's name) it shall be so,
And when I next pay visits you shall go."

To bring that hour, alas! time briskly fled :
With dire intent,

Away they went,

And now behold them at a patient's bed.

The master-doctor solemnly perus'd

His victim's face, and o'er his symptoms mus'd; Look'd wise, said nothing—an unerring way, When people nothing have to say:

Then felt his pulse, and smelt his cane, And paus'd and blink'd, and smelt again, And briefly of his corps perform each motion: Manoeuvres that for death's platoon are meant, A kind of a make ready and present, Before the fell discharge of pill and potion.

At length the patient's wife he thus address'd: "Madam, your husband's danger's great; And (what will never his complaint abate) The man's been eating oysters I perceive," "Dear! you 're a witch, I verily believe," Madam replied, and to the truth confess'd.

Skill so prodigious Bobby too admir'd;
And home returning, of the sage inquir'd
How these same oysters came into his head;
"Psha! my dear Bob, the thing was plain-
Sure that can ne'er distress thy brain:
I saw the shells lie underneath the bed!"

So wise by such a lesson grown,

Next day Bob ventur'd forth alone,

And to the self-same suff 'rer paid his court-
But soon, with haste and wonder out of breath
Return'd the stripling minister of death,

And to his master made this dread report:

Why sir, we ne'er can keep that patient under-
Mercy! such a maw I never came across!
The fellow must be dying, and no wonder,
For-if he hasn't eat a horse!"

"A horse!" the elder man of physic cried,
As if he meant his pupil to deride-
How came so wild a notion in your head ?"
"How! think not in my duty I was idle;
Like you, I took a peep beneath the bed,
And there I saw-a saddle and a bridle !"

DEATH OF A BLACKSMITH.-ANON.

WITH the nerves of a Sampson, this son of the sledge,
By the anvil his livelihood got,

With the skill of a Vulcan could temper an edge,
And strike-while the iron was hot.

By forging he liv'd-yet never was tried
Or condemn'd by the laws of the land;
But still it is certain, and can't be denied,
He often was-burnt in the hand.

With the sons of St. Crispin no kindred he claim'd,
With the last he had nothing to do;

He handled no awl, and yet in his time
Made many an excellent shoe.

He olew up no coals of sedition, but still
His bellows were always in blast ;
And I will acknowledge (deny it who will)
That one vice, and but one, he possess'd.

No actor was he, nor concern'd with the stage,
No audience to awe him appear'd;

Yet oft in his shop (like a crowd in a rage)
The voice of hissing was heard.

Tho' steeling of axes was part of his cares,
In thieving he never was found,
And tho' he was constantly beating on bars,
No vessel he e'er ran aground.

Alas! and alack! what more can I say

Of Vulcan's unfortunate son?

The priest and the sexton have borne him away,
And the sound of his hammer is done.

WHAT WE WISH WE READILY BELIEVE.-JOANNA BAILLIE.

BALTIMORE, PETER and DAVID.

Baltimore. What were you laughing at?

Peter. Only, sir, at Squire Freeman, (he, he, he !) who was riding up the back lane a little while ago, on his new cropeared hunter, as fast as he could canter, with all the skirts of his coat flapping about him, for all the world like a clucking hen upon a sow's back-He, he, he !—

Balt. Thou art pleasant, Peter; and what then?

Pet. When just turning the corner, your honor, as it might be so, my mother's brown calf (bless its snout! I shall love it for it, as long as I live) set its face through the hedge, and said "Mow!"

Balt. And he fell: did he ?

Pet. O bless you, yes, your honor! into a good soft bed of all the rotten garbage of the village.

balt. And you saw this; did you ?

Pet. O yes, your honor! as plain as the nose on my face. Balt. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! and you really saw it?

David. (Aside.) I wonder my master can demean himself so as to listen to that knave's tale: I'm sure he was proud enough once.

Balt. (Still laughing.) You really saw it?

Pet. Ay, your honor! and many more than me saw it. Balt. And there were a number of people to look at him too?

Pet. Oh! your honor! all the rag-tag of the parish were grinning at him.

Balt. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! this is excellent! ha, ha, ha! He would shake himself but ruefully before them. (Still laughing violently.)

Pet. Ay sir: he shook the wet straws and the withered turnip-tops from his back. It would have done your heart good to have seen him.

Dav. Nay, you know well enough, you do, that there is nothing but a bank of dry sand in that corner. (Indignantly to Peter.)

Balt. (Impatiently to David.) Poo! silly fellow! it is the dirtiest nook in the village.—And he rose and shook himself: ha, ha, ha! I did not know that thou wert such a humorous fellow, Peter : here is money for thee to drink the brown calf's health.

Pet. Ay your honor! for certain he shall have a noggen. Dav. (Aside.) To think now that he should demean himself so !

HANDS VERSUS HEADS.-ANON.

I THINK the hand must certainly be a more important member than the head; for we all know, if a man lose his hand, he is subjected to much inconvenience which cannot be disguised;

whereas if a man lose his head there's an end of all his troubles and he never complains about the matter. Again, if a mañ should be born without a head, although it might at first be thought he would cut a very strange figure in the world, yet we know from experience otherwise. We know that such a man may be a good neighbor, a loyal subject, and indeed an excellent parish officer. Suppose the same man without an arm-still he is better, for if there's any treason abroad he's sure to have no hand in it; although this may not say much for his honesty, inasmuch as the world may call him lightfingered. I am willing to take both sides of the question, but still I cannot avoid a little partiality in the favor of hands. I hope every person present has not lived so long in the world, without being three or four times in imminent danger of going out of it. If this has been the case, I must triumph in one position; does the doctor deal with his head? no, he applies to the hand. Go to a lawyer, ask him for a single monosyllable, and we all know, before he opens his mouth, he holds out his hand. There is a current from the palm to the other functions and moral capacities of man. The hand may be said to contain all the channels in the moral world;-from the hand of a lawyer it washes the cape of Good Hope, and abounds in flat. In the miser, it is the Frozen Ocean. In the doctor, too frequently, the Dead Sea. In the slave merchant, it is the Atlantic, for it keeps the whites from the blacks. The parson's hand holds the parish stream. Every man contributes a share-in the hand of the tax gatherer, is the Bay of Biscay, for what falls in, there is no knowing where it goes to; in the hand of the man of the world, is the petrifying spring of Derbyshire, for whatever is put into it, comes out a stone, and in the hand of the man of charity, is the blessed Nile, for its overflowings give abundancy and content. It would be well if our heraldry were as Othello says, “hands not hearts." From the true poet's hand flows the purest crystal, which without disguise shows the little shining pebbles and the hollow shells in their native brilliancy and emptiness. Hands are the most important members, far superior to heads;