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vi' almost killing your donkey to death. Answer-am you guilty, or not guilty.

Bill. I vants your vorship to mind vot your arter atvixt the questions. If it should go for to be axed if I vanted to kill the donkey, I could prove, if I vanted to be bounceable, that my donkey vas sitch a rum'un, I could ha' sold him to a knacker for five hogs-all's von for that ere. I ain't guilty of an attempt to kill the donkey to death; but if it's guilty for a costermonger to strike his moke vhen he vont kemarp, vy then I says guilty, and think I've no cause to cry stinking fish.

Mag. You pleads guilty, then? Let me as a jolly good trump of a beak, vot I is, adwise you to eat your vords. At all events, chance your luck on a proper hexamination.

Bill, I leaves that ere chance to your vorship's own breasts ; If they have not a vord for poor Bill, vy I ain't got dimmock to employ a lawyer !

Mag. You von't go back then?

Bill. I'm fixed to it, back and edge, and no gammon.

Mag. Brother Beak, nothing more is left for us to do nor to consider on the amount o' the fine. Although the case o' the unfortunate costermonger admits of a little pity, still, for the proper diffusion of the milk of humane kindness-as the immortal Blackstone says-amongst the bullock-boys and donkey-men of the metropolis, any wood winking or leaning for'ard on our parts vould set a bad hexample, and I fears can't be yielded to. Gennemen, am you made up your minds as to the verdic? Guilty? It remains, then, for me to force the penalty. Prisoner, does not von of your cronies come for'ard to speak to your carrotter ? Am you no von ?

Bill. Not von, your vorship; I didn't go for to think to ax em; but let them choioick, and may I never die in child-bed, if from one end of Kent-street to t'other, you can find a kid to say nothink agin me.

Mag. Sing out for vitnesses !

What am you?

Enter First Witness.

Wit. A coal-heaver, your worship.

Mag. Vot know you on the prisoner?

Wit. Know, your vorship that he's the humanest man as ever skinned a heel-the first at Billingsgate in a morning, the last to go to roost at dark; von as never vos thought nothing else nor a trump; he deals in the freshest mackerel and the largest sprats; for buying and selling to the best advantage give me Bill Finch before any kid in Kent-street.

Mag. But vot knows you on his moral carrotter.

Wit. His maw-maw-ale carrotter, your worship, vy he plays at shove-ha'penny like a cock.

Mag. Are there any more vitnesses ?

[Another Witness comes forward.]

Vot knows you on the prisoner?

Wit. Nothing but good, my lorthur.

Mag. Vas he never lock'd up in the vatchus ?

Wit. Not never but once, my lorthur; and that ere vos for a shindy, vhen ve vos both lushy.

Mag. Vot else does you know?

Wit. Vy, as this here, my lorthur-if he goes to the mill, they von't make him vork hard.

Mag. Am you nothing else to show? Did he not never do no great nor mag-nanny-mous action ?

Wit. Do any who, my lorthur? Ye-Yes. He twice floored his old grandmother, and twice put his old blind father into a vater butt!

Mag. Am there any more vitnesses?

Bill. Your Vorship, I feels as if I had the barnacles on, or stood in the stocks, to stand here and listen to yarns about a carrotter, and all that ere. If you doesn't think I'm a trump, vy its no more use than taking coals to Newcastle to patter here. Mag. Gennemen, is your opinion still unshook'd? Prisoner, what am you to say vy the full penalty of forty hog should not be levelled a top on you? If you is got nothing to offer, now is the time to launch out.

Bill. In a moment, your vorship-in a moment. [Blowing his nose.] Damn it, my nose is rather troublesome. Your vorship, I had been three months to the mill for a 'sault, and my donkey-as good a von to go as ever was seen-had not done no work all that ere time. I had come home as frisky as a fly in a treacle-pot. I found Sarah—that's my voman, your vorshipwith all her toggery up the flue, but rummy all other rags. Vell, your vorship, I inwited my pals to a bit of a blow out, and vhen ve vos all as merry as a lot o'chummies on a May day, there comes in a cove to say there vos a glut o' mackerel down at the Gate. I hampered my moke, and set off vi' the bags to lay in a dollop. I hadn't got furder nor the t'other side o' Smiffel, vhen my donkey got his leg in a plug-hole. I ups vi' my bit of ash-[shewing a stick about the size of a rolling pin]-run up to him, and velted away on his behind as long as I vos able; vhen up comes a covee, and begins to preach a sarmint about cruelty to the hanimal. I never stowed it-never

stopped. Vould any o' your vorships? Jolly good luck to you and your vomen, says I! Vould any o' your vorships ha' struck a donkey, as if you'd been going to kill a flea or a bug? No, you vouldn't! You'd ha' done as I did. And vot did I? vy, I vopp'd the donkey like a sack! and had your vorship been the donkey you're ass enough-so help me tatur, I'd ha' done it.

THE FELON.

OH! mark his wan and hollow cheek,
And mark his eye-balls glare:

And mark his teeth in anguish clench'd,

The anguish of despair:

Know, since three days, his penance borne,

Yon felon left a jail ;

And since three days no food has pass'd
Those lips so parch'd and pale.

"Where shall I turn?" the wretch exclaims;
"Where hide my shameful head?

How fly my scorn? Oh! how contrive

To earn my honest bread!

This branded hand would gladly toil;

But when for work I pray,

Who sees this mark- A FELON!' cries,

And loathing turns away.

"This heart has greatly err'd, but now
Would fain revert to good;

This hand has greatly sinn'd, but yet
Has ne'er been stain'd with blood.

For work, or alms, in vain I sue;
The scorners both deny:

I starve! I starve !-then what remains?
This choice-to sin or die!

"Here virtue spurns me with disdain !
Here pleasure spreads her snare;
Strong habit drags me back to vice,
And urged by fierce despair,

I strive while hunger gnaws my heart,
To fly from shame in vain.

World, 'tis thy cruel will! I yield,
And plunge in guilt again.

"There's mercy in each ray of light
That mortal eyes e'er saw;
There's mercy in each breath of air

That mortal lips e'er draw!
There's mercy both for bird and beast
In God's indulgent plan;

There's mercy in each creeping thing-
But man has none for man!

"Ye proudly honest! when ye heard
My wounded conscience groan,
Had generous hand or feeling heart
One glimpse of mercy shown,

That act had made, from burning eyes,
Sweet tears of virtue roll;

Had fix'd my heart, assur'd my faith,

And heav'n had gain'd a soul.”

ON SATIRICAL WIT.

-TRUST me, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, which no after wit can extricate thee out of. In these sallies, too oft I see, it happens, that the person laughed at considers himself in the light of a person injured, with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and when thou viewest him in that light too, and reckonest upon his friends, his family, his kindred, and allies, and musterest up with them the many recruits which will list under him from a sense of common danger; 'tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.

I cannot suspect it in the man whom I esteem, that there is the least spur from spleen or malevolence of intent in these sallies. I believe and know them to be truly honest and sportive; but consider, that fools cannot distinguish this, and that knaves will not; and thou knowest not what it is, either to provoke the one, or to make merry with the other : whenever they associate for mutual defence, depend upon it they will carry on the war in such a manner against thee, my dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy life too.

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Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set right. The fortunes of thy house shall totter

thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it-thy faith questioned-thy works belied-thy wit forgotten-thy learning trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, CRUELTY and COWARDICE, twin ruffians, hired and set on by MALICE in the dark, shall strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes; the best of us, my friend, lie open there, and trust me when to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an innocent and an helpless creature shall be sacrificed, it is an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with.

THE SEVEN AGES OF WOMAN.

THE world's a stage-and man has seven ages,
So Shakspeare writes, king of dramatic sages;
But he forgot to tell you in his plan,

That Woman plays her part as well as Man.

First, how her infant heart with triumph swells,

When the red coral shakes its silver bells !

She, like young statesmen, as the rattle rings,
Leaps at the sound, and struts in leading strings.

Next, little Miss, in pin-a-fore so trim,
With nurse so noisy-with mamma so prim-
Eager to tell you all she's taught to utter,
Lisps as she grasps the allotted bread and butter;
Type of her sex-who, though no longer young,
Holds every thing with ease, except the tongue.

A School Girl then, she curls her hair in papers,
And mimics Father's gout and Mother's vapours;
Tramples alike on custom and on toes,

And whispers all she hears to all she knows:
"Betty," she cries, "it comes into my head,

Old maids grow cross because their cats are dead;
My governess has been in such a fuss,

About the death of our old tabby puss;

She wears black stockings-ha! ha!-what a pother,
'Cause one old cat's in mourning for another!"
The child of nature-free from pride and pomp,
And sure to please, though nothing but a romp.

Next riper Miss, who, nature more disclosing,
Now finds some tracts of art are interposing;
And with blue laughing eyes behind her fan,
First acts her part with that great actor-Man !

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