a manner inexplicable to him, he felt that the more vigorously he grasped them in a body, the more rapidly they seemed to shrink from his touch, till nothing was left but the original pipe, which suddenly slipped out of his hands. "Well then, you won't smoke me," coolly remarked the sooty demon;-" but," added he, in tones that made the marrow in Jacob's bones turn cold as ice, "I'LL SMOKE YOU!" While the last of the family of the Kats was reflecting upon the meaning of those mysterious words, to his increasing horror he observed the well-smoked features of the satyr gradually swell into an enormous bulk of countenance, as the same process of enlargement transformed the stem into legs, arms, and body, proportionately huge and terrific; but the monstrous face still wore its original expression, and seemed to the unhappy Dutchman as if he was looking at the cock of his eye through a microscope. Without saying a word, the monster, with the finger and thumb of his right hand, caught up Jacob Kats by the middle, just as an ordinary man would take up an ordinary pipe, and with his left hand twisted one of his victim's legs over the other, as if they had been made of wax, till they came to a tolerable point at the foot; then, taking from a capacious pocket at his side a moderate-sized piece of tobacco, with the utmost impudence imaginable, he rubbed it briskly upon Jacob's unfortunate nose, which, as would any fiery nose under such circumstances, was burning with indignation; and the weed immediately igniting, as the poor cobbler lay with his head down gasping for breath, he thrust the flaming mass into his mouth, extended a pair of jaws that looked like the lock of the Grand Canal, quietly raised Jacob's foot between them, and immediately began to smoke with the energy of a steamengine! Miserable Jacob Kats!-what agonies he endured! At every whiff the inhuman smoker took, he could feel the narcotic vapour, hot as a living coal, drawn rapidly down his throat, through his veins and out at his toes, to be puffed in huge volumes out of the monster's mouth, till the place was filled with the smoke. Jacob felt that his teeth were red-hot,—that his tongue was a cinder,—and big drops of perspiration coursed each other down his burning cheeks, like the waves of the Zuyder Zee on the shore when the tide's running up. Jacob looked pitiably at his tormentor, and thought he discerned a glimpse of relenting in the atrocious ugliness of his physiognomy. He unclosed his enormous jaws, and removed from them the foot of his victim. The cobbler of Dort congratulated himself on the approach of his release. "Jacob Kats, my boy!" exclaimed the giant, in that quiet patronising kind of voice all great men affect, carelessly balancing Jacob on his finger and thumb at a little distance from his mouth, as he threw out a long wreath of acrid smoke; "Jacob, you are a capital pipe,— there's no denying that. You smoke admirably,-take my word for it;" and then, without a word of pity or consolation, he resumed his unnatural fumigations with more fierceness than ever. Jacob had behaved like a martyr, he had shown a spirit worthy of the Kats in their best days; but the impertinence of such conduct was not to be endured. He would a minute since have allowed himself to have been dried into a Westphalia ham, to which state he had been rapidly progressing, but the insult he had just received had roused the dor mant spirit of resistance in his nature; and, while every feature in his tyrant's smoky face seemed illuminated with a thousand sardonic grins, having no better weapon at hand, Jacob hastily snatched the red cap off his head, and, taking deliberate aim at his persecutor, flung it bang into the very cock of his eye. The monster opened his jaws to utter a yell of agony, and down came the head of Jacob Kats upon the floor, that left him without sense or motion. How long the cobbler of Dort remained in this unenviable situation it is impossible to say, but he was first recalled to consciousness by a loud knocking at the door of his stall. "Jacob! Jacob Kats!" exclaimed the well-known voice of his fair customer, in a tone of considerable impatience; and Jacob, raising himself on his elbows, discovered that he had fallen back off his stool; and the empty flask at his side, and the unfinished work on his lap, while they gave him a tolerably correct notion of his condition, did not suggest any remedy for the fatal consequences of disappointing the burgomaster's nursery-maid. It is only necessary to add, that, with considerable difficulty, he managed to satisfy his important patroness; but, to the very day of his death, Jacob, who proved to be the last of the long dynasty of Kats who enjoyed the dignity inseparable from the situation of Cobbler of Dort, could not, with any degree of satisfaction, make up his mind as to whether the strange effects he had that eventful day experienced had been caused by extraordinary indulgence in the luxury of pickled herrings,-or too prodigal allowance of Schiedam,-or intense disappointment for the loss of the widow Van Bree. AN EPIGRAM. ON Sabbath morn two sisters rise, Fair Caroline to close her eyes, And Jane to eye her clothes (close). ANOTHER. ALL Flora's friends have died, it seems, before her:- HERO AND LEANDER. FROM THE GREEK OF MUSÆUS. THE lamp that saw the lovers side by side Which lured him o'er the ocean's back to wander, And neighbour cities-parted by the sea: Whence grew Leander's passion? Whence again In sensitive white purity excelling, The slander and the touch of licence rude repelling. From the sly urchin's bow the fire-plumed dart Straight to its destined mark, the maiden's trembling heart. What time came round the Sestian festival, Sacred to Cypris, and her Syrian fere, All who inhabited the coronal Of sparkling isles their way to Sestos steer; Thither the virgin-hunters thick repair, A thousand graces budded. Such was she- For without question hers was mortal beauty's prize. With virgins radiant, with love's dazzling splendour; Saw I a girl so dignified, yet tender; She surely is a Grace: Oh, would Queen Cypris lend her "Or give her me! I've tired, not filled mine eye With gazing. Let me press her dainty side, Would I refuse, had I that girl for bride: But, since to me thy priestess is denied, Queen! let my home with such an one be gladdened." Thus spake one bachelor; another tried To smile and mock, as tho' he were not saddened, Hiding the secret wound, which all the time him maddened. But thou, Leander, wouldst not hide the wound, And vex thy secret soul; but when Desire Thou wouldst not live without her; fiercer, higher, Flamed love's hot torch, and pierced into thy marrow, Fed by her eye-beams. Loveliness, entire And blameless, sharper is than any arrow, Reaching the heart of man thro' channel sure tho' narrow. The liquid fire from hers to his eye glides, Thence passing inward, dives into his breast: Amazement at her loveliness confest; Shame at himself soon caught; fear, love's unrest, Her sweet face ever and anon was veiling, And then with furtive nods her lover hailing, She threatened him :-" Why pullest me, lewd ranger? A virgin's bed is not for any stranger." She spake as virgins should; and yet she missed To frighten him, who reckoned soon to change her, When he her chiding heard; for well he wist That women chide the most when they would fain be kissed. And after the most wise Athena, wise! Who fled the couch of Prince Milanion, A virgin's silence ever means consent; The bitter-sweet of love was hers, and eke While yet the thoughts are lost in love's first wonderment. |