setting at naught, like him, the decencies of
social intercourse, were to raise the curtain which happily conceals His
private life from general ridicule, not to say from general execration?
What, if we were even to point out, and comment on, facts and
circumstances, which are publicly notorious, and beheld by every one
but our mole-eyed contemporary--what if we were to print the following
effusion, which we received while we were writing the commencement of
this article, from a talented fellow-townsman and correspondent?

'"LINES TO A BRASS POT

'"Oh Pott! if you'd known
How false she'd have grown,
When you heard the marriage bells tinkle;
You'd have done then, I vow,
What you cannot help now,
And handed her over to W*****"'

'What,' said Mr. Pott solemnly--'what rhymes to "tinkle," villain?'

'What rhymes to tinkle?' said Mrs. Pott, whose entrance at the moment
forestalled the reply. 'What rhymes to tinkle? Why, Winkle, I should
conceive.' Saying this, Mrs. Pott smiled sweetly on the disturbed
Pickwickian, and extended her hand towards him. The agitated young
man would have accepted it, in his confusion, had not Pott indignantly
interposed.

'Back, ma'am--back!' said the editor. 'Take his hand before my very
face!'

'Mr. P.!' said his astonished lady.

'Wretched woman, look here,' exclaimed the husband. 'Look here,
ma'am--"Lines to a Brass Pot." "Brass Pot"; that's me, ma'am. "False
SHE'D have grown"; that's you, ma'am--you.' With this ebullition of
rage, which was not unaccompanied with something like a tremble, at the
expression of his wife's face, Mr. Pott dashed the current number of the
Eatanswill INDEPENDENT at her feet.

'Upon my word, Sir,' said the astonished Mrs. Pott, stooping to pick up
the paper. 'Upon my word, Sir!'

Mr. Pott winced beneath the contemptuous gaze of his wife. He had made
a desperate struggle to screw up his courage, but it was fast coming
unscrewed again.

There appears nothing very tremendous in this little sentence, 'Upon my
word, sir,' when it comes to be read; but the tone of voice in which it
was delivered, and the look that accompanied it, both seeming to bear
reference to some revenge to be thereafter visited upon the head of
Pott, produced their effect upon him. The most unskilful observer could
have detected in his troubled countenance, a readiness to resign his
Wellington boots to any efficient substitute who would have consented to
stand