and dulcet as the flesh of young pigs. It looks like refining a violet!

I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students. when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, "Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained his death by whipping (per flagellationem extremam) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that method of putting the animal to death?" I forget the decision.

[ESSAYS OF ELIA, BY CHARLES LAMB.]

THE HOUR OF FORTUNE,

IN THREE NICKS.

Jove

METHOUGHT 1 was present with Quevedo, when he paid one of his visits to Elysium. seemed to be in a most towering passion, and grumbled and growled amazingly; interlarding his discourse with sundry expletives not fit to be mentioned to ears polite.

Many of the immortals came running up to ascertain the cause of his indignation: Apollo, with a flaming crown upon his head, made of highly burnished brass, rose from a table where

he had been puzzling for a rhyme, and approached with the pen still in his hand: Bacchus was disturbed at his fifteenth tumbler, and resigned the whisky-bottle with a sigh. The ladies, too, drew near in a state of great agitation: Venus came first, wondering what could have put her father into such a rage, and hiding a billet-doux she had received from Mars. That gallant deity also just approached, dressed like a captain in the yeomanry; and while all the rest stood in silence, wondering at Jupiter's exclamations, he looked as bold as a bully after a beating, and said, “How now, governor! what's the meaning of all this? what mare's-nest have you discovered now?" Jupiter, who, by the by, very needlessly, as I thought, heid a flaming thunderbolt in his hand, though it was now the height of summer, frowned upon his impertinent questioner, and said, “Hold your tongue, you babbling Bobadil, or I'll crack your skull with this thunderbolt: send little

Mercury here, some of you." In a moment Mercury was at his side, dressed in the Olympian livery, sky-blue turned up with sable,—as tidy a sort of footman as ever I saw; and bowing, waited his master's command. "Go," said Jupiter, "and bring that infernal old jade Fortune here, as fast as you can; and don't stay tippling in the pot-houses by the way, or making love to the bar-maids."

In an instant the shoulder-knots expanded into wings, the gold-headed cane changed into a caduceus, and the clocks in his stockings sprang out into well-feathered pinions; and before you could see that he was gone, he was back again, dragging an old-looking woman by the ear, who squalled terribly under the operation, and uttered many complaints against him for his roughness.

She rolled in upon a curious sort of wheel, round which an innumerable multitude of strings were twisted in all possible directions; and she

was attended by a tall, strapping-looking woman, as her servant. This domestic was almost bald, except that there was one lock of rich glossy hair hanging over her brow; and the story went, that whoever could lay hold of that lock, had not only her, but her mistress also, entirely in their power. The maid's name was Opportunity.

I had scarcely time to make these remarks, when Jupiter, in a voice of thunder exclaimed, "So, madam, you are here at last: I have fifty complaints sent up to me every day, that you neglect your duty, and what is worse, they cast all the blame of your negligence upon me: now that's what I won't stand,-it would wear out the patience of Job.”

look on

Upon this, the old lady cast an angry her attendant, and said, "How is this, you good, for-noting baggage? Is it for this that I pay you such wages, and feed you so well; that I should be nubbed before company after this fashion?”