Save Captain M'Fuze,

Who is taking a snooze,

While Sir Carnaby Jenks is busy at work,
Blacking his nose with a piece of burnt cork.

The clock strikes Four !

Round the debtors' door

Are gather'd a couple of thousand or more;
As many await

At the press-yard gate,

Till slowly its folding doors open, and straight
The mob divides, and between their ranks

A waggon comes loaded with posts and with planks.

The clock strikes Five!

The sheriffs arrive,

And the crowd is so great that the street seems alive; But Sir Carnaby Jenks

Blinks, and winks,

A candle burns down in the socket, and stinks.

Sweetly, oh! sweetly, the morning breaks,
With roseate streaks,

Like the first faint blush on a maiden's cheeks;
Seem'd as that mild and clear blue sky
Smil'd upon all things far and nigh,
All-save the wretch condemn'd to die!
Alack that ever so fair a Sun

As that which its course has now begun,
Should rise on such scene of misery!
Should gild with rays so light and free
That dismal, dark-frowning Gallows tree!

And hark!—a sound comes big with fate,

The clock from St. Sepulchre's tower strikes-Eight!List to that low funereal bell:

It is tolling, alas! a living man's knell!

And see!-from forth that opening door

They come HE steps that threshold o'er

Who never shall tread upon threshold more.
-God! 'tis a fearsome thing to see

That pale wan man's mute agony,

The glare of that wild despairing eye,

Now bent on the crowd, now turn'd to the sky,

As though 'twere scanning, in doubt and in fear,

The path of the Spirit's unknown career;

Those pinion'd arms, those hands that ne'er
Shall be lifted again,—not ev'n in prayer;
That heaving chest!-Enough-'tis done!
The bolt has fallen !-the Spirit is gone-
For weal or for woe is known to but One!
Oh! 'twas a fearsome sight! Ah me!
A deed to shudder at,-not to see.

Again that clock !-'tis time, 'tis time!
The hour is past :—with its earliest chime
The cord is sever'd, the lifeless clay
By" dungeon villains" is borne away:
Nine-'twas the last concluding stroke!
And then-my Lord Tomnoddy awoke!
And Tregooze and Sir Carnaby Jenks arose,

And Captain M'Fuze, with the black on his nose;

And they stared at each other, as much as to say "Hollo! Hollo!

Here's a Rum Go!

Why, Captain!-my Lord!-Here's the Devil to pay ! The fellow's been cut down and taken away!

What's to be done?

We've miss'd all the fun!

Why, they'll laugh at, and quiz us all over the town,
We are all of us done so uncommonly brown!"

What was to be done?-'twas perfectly plain
That they could not well hang the man over again
What was to be done?-The man was dead!-
Nought could be done-nought could be said;
So-my Lord Tomnoddy went home to bed!

:

EPIGRAM.

'Tis strange, amid the many trades
By which men gather riches,
That ridicule should most attach

To those who make our breeches !
But so it is; yet, as they sew,

Rich is the harvest made:
Then call not theirs, unseemly wags!
A so-so sort of trade.

R. J.

THE ROMANCE OF A DAY.

A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF AN ADVENTURER.

WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

WHEN things are at the worst, they are sure to mend, says the old adage; and the hero of the following narrative is a case in point. Dick Diddler was a distant connexion, by the mother's side, of the famous Jeremy, immortalized by Kenny. He was a shrewd, reckless adventurer, gifted with an elastic conscience that would stretch like Indian-rubber, and a genius for raising the wind unsurpassed by Æolus himself. At the period to which this tale refers, he had dissipated at the minor West-end hells, and elsewhere, the last farthing of a pittance which he inherited from his father; and was considerably in arrears with his landlady, a waspish gentlewoman who rented what she complacently termed "an airy house" in the windiest quarter of Camden Town. This was embarrassing; but Dick was not one to despair. He had high animal spirits, knowledge of the world, imperturbable self-possession, good exterior, plausible address, and a modesty which he felt persuaded would never stand in the way of his advancement.

Thousands of London adventurers, it has been observed, rise in the morning without knowing how they shall provide a meal for the day. Our hero was just now in this predicament, for he had not even the means of procuring a breakfast. Something, however, must be done, and that immediately, so he applied himself to a cracked bell which stood on his ill-conditioned table; and, while waiting his landlady's answer to the tintinnabulary summons, occupied himself by casting a scrutinizing glance at his outer Adam. Alas! there was little here to gratify the eye of taste and gentility! His coat was in that peculiar state denominated "seedy," his linen was as yellow as a sea-sick cockney, and his trousers evinced tokens of an antiquity better qualified to inspire reverence than admiration.

Just as he had completed his survey, his landlady entered the room, accompanied by her first-born,-a hopeful youth, with a fine expanse of mouth calculated seriously to perplex a quartern loaf. Dick perused her features attentively, and thought he had never before seen her look so ugly. But this of course: Venus herself would look a fright, if she came to dun for money.

"Ah, poppet, is that you?" exclaimed Dick, affectionately patting the urchin's head, by way of an agreeable commencement to the conversation; "Why, how the dear boy grows! Blessings on his pretty face; he's the very image of his Ma!"

"Come, come, Mr. Diddler," replied Mrs. Dibbs, "that language won't do no longer. You've been blessing little Tom twice a day ever since you got into my books, but I'm not going to take out my account in blessings. Blessings won't pay my milk-score, so I must have my money, and this very day too, for I've got a bill to make up to-morrow.'

"Have patience, my good lady, and all will be right."

Ay, so you've said for the last month; but saying 's one thing, and doing's another."

"Very good."

2 Q