humanity: he threw the reins on the horse's back; and having descended from his seat, carefully drew the chaise into the hedge, lest any thing should come along the road, and stepped back to the assistance of his distressed companion, leaving Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass in the vehicle.

9. The horse no sooner beheld Mr. Pickwick advancing towards him, with the chaise-whip in his hand, than he exchanged the rotary motion in which he had previously indulged for a retrograde movement of so very determined a character that it at once drew Mr. Winkle, who was still at the end of the bridle, at a rather quicker rate than fast walking, in the direction from which they had just come. Mr. Pickwick ran to his assistance; but the faster Mr. Pickwick ran forward, the faster the horse ran backward.

10. There was a great scraping of feet, and kicking up of the dust; and at last Mr. Winkle, his arms being nearly pulled out of their sockets, fairly let go his hold. The horse paused, stared, shook his head, turned round, and quietly trotted home to Rochester, leaving Mr. Winkle and Mr. Pickwick gazing on each other with countenances of blank dismay. A rattling noise at a little distance attracted their attention. They looked up. "Bless my soul !" exclaimed the agonized Mr. Pickwick, "there's the other horse running away !"

11. It was but too true. The animal was startled by the noise, and the reins were on his back. The result may be guessed. He tore off with the four-wheeled chaise behind him, and Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass in the four-wheeled chaise. The heat was a short one. Mr. Tupman threw himself into the hedge, Mr. Snodgrass followed his example; the horse dashed the four-wheeled chaise against a wooden bridge, separated the wheels from the body, and the bin from the perch, and finally stood stock-still to gaze upon the ruin he had made.

12. The first care of the two unspilt friends was to extricate their unfortunate companions from their bed of quickset-a

process which gave them the unspeakable satisfaction of dis covering that they had sustained no injury beyond sundry rents in their garments and various lacerations from the brambles. The next thing to be done was to unharness the horse. This complicated process having been effected, the party walked slowly forward, leading the horse among them, and abandoning the chaise to its fate.

DICKENS.

107. SIR HUDIBRAS.

[In this most witty poem Hudibras, a Republican officer during the period of the Commonwealth in England, is represented as sallying out for the entire reformation of the kingdom. Before giving an account of his doughty exploits, his character is thus described :]

E was in logic a great critic,

HE

Profoundly skill'd in analytic:

He could distinguish and divide

A hair 'twixt south and southwest side ;
On either which he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute;
He'd run in debt by disputation,
And pay with ratiocination:

2. All this by syllogism true,

In mood and figure he would do.
For rhetoric he could not ope

His mouth, but out there flew a trope;
And when he happen'd to break off
I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard words ready to show why,
And tell what rules he did it by;

3. Else when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talk'd like other folk;
For all a rhetorician's rules

Teach nothing but to name his tools.

But when he pleased to show 't, his speech

In loftiness of sound was rich;

A Babylonish dialect,

Which learned pedants much affect; 4. It was a party-color'd dress

Of patch'd and piebald languages;
'Twas English, cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian, heretofore, on satin.
In mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater;
For he, by geometric scale,

Could take the size of pots of ale;
5. Resolve by signs and tangents straight,
If bread and butter wanted weight;
And wisely tell what hour o' th' day
The clock does strike by algebra.
Besides, he was a shrewd philosopher,
And had read every text and gloss over;
Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,
He understood b' implicit faith;
6. Whatever skeptic could inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore ;
Knew more than forty of them do,
As far as words and terms could go;
All which he understood by rote,
And, as occasion served, would quote;
No matter whether right or wrong,
They might be either said or sung.

BUTLER.

WE

108. MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.

[The following is a fine example of irony.]

E owe the ancients something. You have read
Their works, no doubt at least, in a translation;

Yet there was argument in what he said,

I scorn equivocation or evasion,

And own, it must, in candor, be confess'd,
They were an ignorant set of men at best.

2. 'Twas their misfortune to be born too soon
By centuries, and in the wrong place, too;
They never saw a steamboat or balloon,
Velocipede, or Quarterly Review;

Or wore a pair of Back's black satin breeches,
Or read an almanac, or C-n's speeches.

3. In short, in every thing we far outshine them-
Art, science, taste, and talent; and a stroll
Through this enlightened city would refine 'em
More than ten years' hard study of the whole
Their genius has produced, of rich and rare-
God bless the corporation and the mayor!

4. And on our City Hall a justice stands;
A neater form was never made of board;
Holding majestically in her hands

A pair of steelyards and a wooden sword,
And looking down with complaisant civility—
Emblem of dignity and durability.

HALLECK.

109. SQUIRE BULL AND HIS SON JONATHAN.

OHN BULL was a choleric old fellow, who held a good

reason of its being quite surrounded by water, was generally called Bullock Island. Bull was an ingenious man, an exceedingly good blacksmith, a dexterous cutler, and a notable weaver and pot-baker besides. He also brewed capital porter, ale, and small-beer, and was, in fact, a sort of Jack-of-all

trades, and good at each. In addition to these, he was a hearty fellow, an excellent bottle-companion, and passably honest as times go.

2. But what tarnished all these qualities was a very quarrelsome, overbearing disposition, which was always getting him into some scrape or other. The truth is, he never heard of a quarrel going on among his neighbors but his fingers itched to be in the thickest of them; so that he was hardly ever seen without a broken head, a black eye, or a bloody nose. Such was Squire Bull, as he was commonly called by the country people, his neighbors-one of those odd, testy, grumbling, boasting old codgers, that never get credit for what they are, because they are always pretending to be what they are

not.

3. The Squire was as tight a hand to deal with in doors as out. Sometimes treating his family as if they were not the same flesh and blood, when they happened to differ with him. in certain matters. One day he got into a dispute with his youngest son Jonathan, who was familiarly called Brother Jonathan, about whether churches ought to be called churches or meeting-houses, and whether steeples were not an abomination.

4. The Squire, either having the worst of the argument, or being naturally impatient of contradiction (I can't tell which), fell into a great passion, and swore he would physic such notions out of the boy's noddle. So he went to some of his doctors, and got them to draw up a prescription made up of thirtynine different articles, many of them bitter enough to some palates. This he tried to make Jonathan swallow, and finding he made villainous wry faces, and would not do it, fell upon him and beat him like fury.

5. After this he made the house so disagreeable to him, that Jonathan, though as hard as a pine-knot, and as tough as leather, could bear it no longer. Taking his gun and axe, he put himself in a boat, and paddled over the mill-pond to some new lands to which the Squire pretended some sort of claim,