ove with the pastry.
And floating in Champagne, while Bow bells ring.
Those who are cautious are skinny and fretful,
Hunger, alas! naught but ill-humour brings;
I'd be an Alderman, rich with a net full,
Rolling in Guildhall, whilst old Bow bells ring.

What though you tell me that prompt apoplexy
Grins o'er the glories of Lord Mayor's Day,
'Tis better, my boy, than blue devils to vex ye,
Or ling'ring consumption to gnaw you away.
Some in their folly take black-draught and blue-pill,
And ask ABERNETHY their fate to delay;
I'd he an Alderman, WAITHMAN'S apt pupil,
Failing when dinner things are clearing away.

_Monthly Magazine._

* * * * *

A PROVINCIAL REPUTATION.

I once resided in a country town; I will not specify whether that town
was Devizes or Doncaster, Beverley or Brighton: I think it highly
reprehensible in a writer to be _personal_, and scarcely more venial do
I consider the fault of him who presumes to be _local_. I will, however,
state, that my residence lay among the manufacturing districts; but lest
any of my readers should be misled by that avowal, I must inform them,
that in my estimation _all_ country towns, from the elegant Bath, down
to the laborious Bristol, are (whatever their respective polite or
mercantile inhabitants may say to the contrary), positively,
comparatively, and superlatively, manufacturing towns!

Club-rooms, ball-rooms, card-tables, and confectioners' shops, are the
_factories;_ and gossips, both male and female, are the _labouring
classes_. Norwich boasts of the durability of her stuffs; the
manufacturers I allude to weave a web more flimsy. The stuff of tomorrow
will seldom be the same that is publicly worn to-day; and were it not
for the zeal and assiduity of the labourers, we should want novelties to
replace the stuff that is worn out hour by hour.

No man or woman who ever ventures to deviate from the beaten track
should ever live in a country town. The gossips all turn from the task
of nibbling one another, and the character of the _lusus naturae_ becomes
public property. I am the mother of a family, and I am known to have
written romances. My husband, in an evil hour, took a fancy to a house
at a watering-place, which, by way of distinction, I shall designate by
the appellation of _Pumpington Wells_: there we established ourselves in
the year 1800.

The _manufacturers_ received us with a