engaged; or run away with the Queen, if she'd take him with her. There's worse one's in the world than them there conceited little four-footed fellows, I believe-eh?"

I nodded assent. And here, another rough movement occurring in the mob, I looked round when it was over, and missed my very pleasant stumpy-footed friend, Mr. Gumption; and very sorry I was to lose him. If I should meet with him hereafter on any public occasion, or fall into his company on any private one at the Windmill, or at the Pig with the Portmanteau and Pouncet-Box, I shall be sure, I think, of further entertainment; and as an enjoyment "for one," as they say at chop-houses, is not half so great an enjoyment as when shared between two, whether it be something good to eat, or something good to drink, or any other good, I shall share it with my friends, for their further entertainment.

"What went ye out for to see? A reed shaken in the wind?" No. Half a million of persons had crowded to Vauxhall, in an autumn afternoon, to witness the ascension of the largest bubble ever blown. The day was cold and dreary: rain clouds hung heavily laden overhead-a mist and dark air gradually spread around-these gave the pass to a fog, which came down all at once, and put an extinguisher upon all but a few favoured eyes whose noses were close against the balloon. Suddenly a cry went up of" Balloon! balloon!" and up went Mr. Green; you could just see him go; and ere you could count_ten he was gone like magic from all earthly eyes. The dense cloud of fog had taken him in, and he was gone. His disappearence was so total, so sudden, and so final for that day, that the disappointment of the sight-seers vented itself in good-humour, and the groves and bowers and roads of Vauxhall rung with the laughter of half a million of "de best-temperet blackhearts" (as a French gentleman near me called them) and best-behaved gentlemen and ladies in the world, who then went each unto their homes, as well

as they could find the way. Never was disappointment more complete in all its conditions, and never was it better sustained. A mighty London mob had waited four hours to see something, and they saw nothing, and were satisfied. Merriment, however, not murmurs, made light of their bereavement, and testified, laughter-tongued, to the genuine good-humour of my countrymen. Had such a total eclipse of gaiety and "loss of sight" occurred to the good citizens of Paris, there would have been, at least, a change of ministry next day; but we "manage these things better in" London.

PUNNING &c. MADE EASY.

(In a Letter to a lively young Pundit.)

"We have found out the only true, satisfactory, and indisputable definition of Man is-that he is a punning animal.”

DEAR

Punning is not so difficult an accomplishment as it is said to be. The few living masters of the art, of course, stick the garden-wall of this humorous Hesperides with all sorts of insuperable and insurmountable objections, in the shape of bits of broken glassbottle, to make the clambering over it appear to be a difficulty and "no joke;" and if they see that you are meditating a lively jump over all intervening impediments, to frighten you out of your wits, they point to those watchful outscouts-the critics-taking up their posts upon the debateable ground-the border-land-to warn you off, and alarm you, if they may, with fearful premonishings of steel-traps and spring-guns," sudden and quick in quarrel," and determined, if you will steal the forbidden fruit, that it shall be at your peril. And this ruse de guerre is,

in general, so successful "with the general," that they give up the ambitious notion of distinguishing themselves by any such escapade-let their courage ooze and dribble away-make up their minds that "the better part of valour is discretion"—give it up as a forlorn hope, and are well-contented to look on, and, when it is well done by others, "applaud the deed."

Punning is as easy as lying; but there are not so many professors and eminent hands engaged in the one as in the other-which is to be regretted, considering how amusingly innocent the one indulgence is, and how mischievously wicked is the other. The disparity of hands engaged in each manufacture shews, indeed, how small the demand is for punning: whereas the demand for liars is incessant-(good liars are invaluable in these speculating times-especially in your railway companies and political clubs) -the market brisk, and liars may be said to "look up," which they seldom do, whilst punsters are “ dull, and in no demand."

Punning, it must not be concealed from you, has many prejudices to confront, and put down, and affront, and put up. Punning is said to be an impertinence, and very impertinent people say so. "Punning" says a sixpenny teacher of men and manners, calling himself" ACTEOS"-" Punning is now decidedly out of date!!" Marry, how long? Is it an hour since ? With whom is it out of date? With you, "goodman Dull?" Yow!-I could make a mouth at you-such a mouth as the sceptical flounder made at the holy haddock marked by the Apostle's thumb, when, vaunting perhaps somewhat too much thereof, it was mocked with most contemptuous wry mouths by that gorbellied unbeliever, the flat fish, who thereupon got his mouth twisted awry to teach him better manners, and to this day all Flounders are wrymouthed. Is it with you that punning is out of date? By'r Lady, not unlikely, for it never yet was in date with a dullard! "Divine Paronomasia"-the good

Genius who inspires all thoughts that "palter with us in a double sense"-would never "waste her sweetness on the desert"-your head! But this goodman Dull-this Signor Asteios-cannot have done with his simple declaration (which is as good as an af fidavit) of his dullness; he goes on to say, that "It is a silly and displeasing thing when it becomes a habit !" -just the time when it is not displeasing!-it is during the noviciate of the aspirant to the honours of Swift, Hook, and Hood, when he lets fly at any bird that flies, and sometimes, with a double charge of powder and shot, brings down a poor Tom-tit, that the sport seems silly, but is not so! When it " becomes a habit," the real sportsman reserves his fire, and keeps his powder dry," till a fine lively fat fowl of a pun goes off with a whirr and a whizz, when "bang" goes his Manton, and 'some such spaniel as this Asteios, unbidden, runs up, picks up the dead bird, and lays it at his feet.

66

But though this Asteios has committed himself sufficiently, he cannot yet have done: he goes on to say "Some one has called it (punning) the wit of fools." You have perhaps, in your lifetime, heard a goose sing Psalms to a milestone, and, subsequently, add a few words, by way of general exhortation to the same impenitent; but, if you observed, he did not turn it from the error of its way! He is preaching now upon this same text; but don't think of lending him your ear: there is an animal in the aisle which can much better afford to make such a loan."Fit audience" let him find, "though few?" See how attentive he is now! Let him drone on with his determined dullness-steal out of the church, and let us have a game at hop-scotch on a flat mural stone, till he is done, and had his say. He will make no converts to his heterodox opinions, unless it be Tom Dibdin, or Tom Moore, or Tom Hood, or some such serious bodies.

If you,

dear

have made up your mind "to pun," it will save you a deal of vexation if you, at

the same time, make up your mind to listen to, and take no notice of, all sorts of dull-dog, stupid, serious objections to such an indulgence. Prepare yourself to hear the punless persons quote the dogma of that prosy old perpetual president of Piozzi's parlour, Dr. Johnson, touching punning; but "heed not what they say." He, in one of his weak moments (and he had many of them, Colossus as he was) is said to have said "that the man who would make a pun would pick a pocket." Now, to show how little you can depend upon these morose moralists, this very Doctor Johnson himself would and did make puns, and turned them out in a workmanlike manner, too; and did you ever hear (I never did) that he picked a pocket? I doubt whether he ever indulged that way, because Boswell has made no mention of any such little eccentricity; and you know what a tittle-tattling, gossiping, Paul Pry-ing son of a previous old woman he was; not the sort of "Dougal creature likely to cloak, conceal, cover up, or wink at the worthy Doctor, if he had ever been so ingenious. Johnson's dogma, therefore, goes to the dogs. Homer punned; yet no account comes down to us of his propensity to pocketlarceny. Virgil punned-in imitation, of course, of his great epic master. Do you believe that Horace would not have quizzed him and smoked him not a little before great company if he had had any such affection as an unlawful love for another man's pocketmoney? Can you think, for one moment, that the great Augustus-the conservator of the public morals of Rome-(no very onerous task, by the bye)would have set so bad a public example as to invite a poet-(always a poor creature, and, therefore, liable to suspicion)-to his table who could not keep his furtive fingers from picking and stealing, and let his pocket-handkerchief alone-though marked at the corner, C. A., by the fair hands of his daughter Julia -if indeed such a cleanly luxury was known in those old, barbarous days? It is unlikely.

To get a little out of chronological order-Moses