She has circled the Ring!-she crosses the Park!
Mazeppa, although he was stripp'd so stark,
Mazeppa couldn't outstrip her!

The fields seem running away with the folks!
The Elms are having a race for the Oaks!
At a pace that all Jockeys disparages!
All, all is racing! the Serpentine

Seems rushing past like the "arrowy Rhine,"
The houses have got on a railway line,

And are off like the first-class carriages!

She'll lose her life! she'is losing her breath!
A cruel chase, she is chasing Death,

As female shriekings forewarn her :
And now-as fearless as blood of Guelph-
She clears that gate, which has clear'd itself
Since then, at Hyde Park Corner!

Alas! for the hope of the Kilmanseggs!
For her head, her brains, her body, and legs,
Her life's not worth a copper!
Willy-nilly,
In Piccadilly,

A hundred hearts turn sick and chilly,
A hundred voices cry, "Stop her!"
And one old gentleman stares and stands,
Shakes his head and lifts his hands,
And says, "How very improper !"

On and on!-what a perilous run!
The iron rails seem all mingling in one,
To shut out the Green Park scenery!
And now the Cellar its dangers reveals,

She shudders-she shrieks-she's doom'd, she feels,
To be torn by powers of horses and wheels,
Like a spinner by steam machinery!

Sick with horror she shuts her eyes,

But the very stones seem uttering cries,
As they did to that Persian daughter,

When she climb'd up the steep vociferous hill,
Her little silver flagon to fill

With the magical Golden Water!

"Batter her! shatter her!

Throw and scatter her!"

Shouts each stony-hearted chatterer

"Dash at the heavy Dover!

Spill her! kill her! tear and tatter her!

Smash her! crash her!" (the stones didn't flatter her!) "Kick her brains out! let her blood spatter her!

Roll on her over and over!"

For so she gather'd the awful sense

Of the street in its past unmacadamiz'd tense,
As the wild horse overran it,—

His four heels making the clatter of six,

Like a Devil's tattoo, play'd with iron sticks

On a kettle-drum of granite!

On! still on! she's dazzled with hints

Of oranges, ribbons, and colour'd prints,
A Kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and tints,
And human faces all flashing,

Bright and brief as the sparks from the flints,
That the desperate hoof keeps dashing!

On and on! still frightfully fast!
Dover-street, Bond-street, all are past!
But-yes-no-yes!-they're down at last!
The Furies and Fates have found them!
Down they go with a sparkle and crash,
Like a Bark that's struck by the lightning flash-
There's a shriek-and a sob-

And the dense dark mob
Like a billow closes around them!

"She breathes !"

"She don't!"

"She'll recover!"

"She won't!"

"She's stirring! she's living, by Nemesis !"
Gold, still gold! on counter and shelf!
Golden dishes as plenty as delf!

Miss Kilmansegg's coming again to herself
On an opulent Goldsmith's premises!
Gold! fine gold!-both yellow and red,
Beaten, and molten-polish'd, and dead—
To see the gold with profusion spread
In all forms of its manufacture!
But what avails gold to Miss Kilmansegg,
When the femoral bone of her dexter leg
Has met with a compound fracture.
Gold may sooth Adversity's smart;
Nay, help to bind up a broken heart;
But to try it on any other part

Were as certain a disappointment,

As if one should rub the dish and plate,
Taken out of a Staffordshire crate,

In the hope of a Golden Service of State-
With Singleton's "Golden Ointment."

HER PRECIOUS LEG.

"As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined," Is an adage often recall'd to mind,

Referring to juvenile bias :

And never so well is the verity seen,

As when to the weak, warp'd side we lean,
While Life's tempests and hurricanes try us.

Even thus with Miss K. and her broken limb,
By a very, very remarkable whim,

She show'd her early tuition :

While the buds of character came into blow
With a certain tinge that served to show
The nursery culture long ago,

As the graft is known by fruition!

Sept.-VOL. LX. NO. CCXXXVII.

H

For the King's Physician, who nursed the case,
His verdict gave with an awful face,

And three others concurr'd to egg it;
That the Patient to give old Death the slip,
Like the Pope, instead of a personal trip,
Must send her Leg as a Legate.

The limb was doom'd-it couldn't be saved!
And like other people the patient behaved,
Nay, bravely that cruel parting braved,
Which makes some persons so falter ;
They rather would part without a groan,
With the flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone,
They obtain'd at St. George's altar.

But when it came to fitting the stump
With a proxy limb-then flatly and plump

She spoke, in the spirit olden;

She couldn't-she shouldn't-she wouldn't have wood! Nor a leg of cork, if she never stood,

And she swore an oath, or something as good,

The proxy limb should be golden!

A wooden leg! what, a sort of peg,

For your common Jockeys and Jennies!
No, no, her mother might worry and plague-
Weep, go down on her knees, and beg,
But nothing would move Miss Kilmansegg
She could-she would have a Golden Leg,

If it cost ten thousand guineas!

Wood indeed, in Forest or Park,
With its sylvan honours and feudal bark,
Is an aristocratical article.

But split and sawn, and hack'd about town,
Serving all needs of pauper or clown,
Trod on! stagger'd on! Wood cut down
Is vulgar-fibre and particle!

!

And Cork!-when the noble Cork Tree shades
A lovely group of Castilian maids,

'Tis a thing for a song or sonnet!

But cork, as it stops the bottle of gin,
Or bungs the beer-the small beer! in-
It pierced her heart like a corking-pin,
To think of standing upon it!

A Leg of Gold-solid gold throughout,
Nothing else, whether slim or stout,

Should ever support her, God willing!
She must-she could-she would have her whim,
Her father, she turn'd a deaf ear to him-
He might kill her-she didn't mind killing!
He was welcome to cut off her other limb-
He might cut her all off with a shilling!
All other promised gifts were in vain,
Golden Girdle or Golden Chain,
She writhed with impatience more than pain,
And utter'd "pshaws !" and "pishes!"
But a Leg of Gold! as she lay in bed,
It danced before her-it ran in her head!
It jump'd with her dearest wishes!

"Gold-gold-gold! Oh, let it be gold!"
Asleep or awake that tale she told,
And when she grew delirious:

Till her parents resolved to grant her wish,
If they melted down plate, and goblet, and dish,
The case was getting so serious.

So a Leg was made in a comely mould,
Of Gold, fine virgin glittering gold,
As solid as man could make it-
Solid in foot, and calf, and shank,
A prodigious sum of money it sank;
In fact 'twas a Branch of the family Bank,
And no easy matter to break it.

All sterling metal-not half-and-half,
The Goldsmith's mark was stamp'd on the calf-
'Twas pure as from Mexican barter!

And to make it more costly just over the knee-
Where another ligature used to be,

Was a circle of Jewels, worth shillings to see,
A newfangled Badge of the Garter!

'Twas a splendid, brilliant, beautiful Leg,
Fit for the Court of Scander-Beg,
That Precious Leg of Miss Kilmansegg!
For, thanks to parental bounty,

Secure from Mortification's touch,

She stood on a member that cost as much
As a Member for all the County!

(To be continued.)

A QUARREL WITH SOME OLD ACQUAINTANCES.*

BY LAMAN BLANCHARD, ESQ.

(5.)-ANTI-SPECULATORS.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

Nor so save in the estimation of those who would rather sit ingloriously at home, listening to the solitary chirper as he bewails the loss of his mate, than dash onward into the fields of glorious enterprise, content with the risk of returning empty-handed, so that they secure the chance of a double capture. He is no true sportsman who would not forego the one sure bird for the brace that he has a fair prospect of bringing down. The poor in spirit pocket their small winnings and decamp, while the bold player throws for the double stake. This bird-inthe-hand principle militates against all speculation-all adventure. It tends to induce people to stop short at the halfway house and be satisfied, lest they should encounter an obstacle further on in the road, and miss the shabby entertainment they may otherwise secure. To him who has studied the art of catching the two in the bush, the one in the

* Continued from No. ccxxxvi., page 555,

hand is at best worth only half as much. He has but to take aim, and they are his; he has but to lodge upon their tails some grains of salt, and they are bagged. Moreover there is this great addition to the advantage of acquiring a double treasure: The value of the "one in hand" is known-it is a tomtit perhaps-perhaps it is a barndoor relic of the last century, or a snipe in a consumption. Now the "two in the bush" may be birds of paradise. Who can say what they will not be? They are yet to be caught; and they may be Venus's doves, or a pair of geese with golden eggs-or descendants from

"The bird of Jove

With thunder in his train."

Great deeds had never been done, great fame never achieved, if the giant hand had been satisfied with the one flutterer it held fast, and failed to stretch itself forth to seize the two, that, although they

"Dallied with the wind and scorn'd the sun,"

soared not so high but that the wings of hope could follow; and when a lofty and daring hope leads, success is seldom far behind. If wisdom, and enterprise, and patriotism, had always preferred the one bird caught to the brace that invited the catcher, our teachers, the philosophers, had left off at the first lesson, and sitting down with the fame of a single volume, had shunned the risk of answering themselves and of writing their works into obscurity; our merchants had kept their hard-earned wealth at home, instead of casting it out upon the waters to be returned to them again a twofold blessing, or just cent. per cent.; and our statesmen and warriors had left the little isle much as they had found it, unconscious of its limitless capacity for triumph over land and sea. Careless about the two birds in the bush, content to be something and indifferent to captures, Napoleon had remained the little corporal all his days, and the Duke had cautiously sold out after his first battle, lest in the second he should lose his glory as the hero of one fight his bird in the hand. Point out the blockhead who will not win when he may for fear of losing, and recognise in him the image of the noodle who cherishes his sprat through dread of not insnaring the couple of salmon that are already half-out of the river, and actually boiling to be caught. And this, of course, is the counterpart of the idiot, who, instead of sending out the one bird he can boast of, as a feathery seducer to bring back a troop of webfooted brethren following close at its tail-feathers, goes home and dines upon his decoy-duck roasted. No doubt he would have kept Sir Francis Drake at home after his first voyage, as a rara avis too sacred to be allowed to go beating about foreign bushes any more; and he would have the coolness to assure you that his own lottery-ticket, which had come up a blank, was worth as much as two tickets, each a lucky number, and not yet out of the wheel!

(6).-FAMILY CONTRADICTIONS.

"Like father like son."

WE never found the young Grimaldi much like the old one; nor was Cardinal Wolsey as he grew up, remarkable for any striking likeness to his sire. Nor did Claude Lorraine resemble his, nor Nero his; nor was Cleopatra in all things the image of her mother. The first son was not a bit like the first father.