of him. So far
from offering anything in the shape of consolation, the witty barrister
remarked, "Upon my soul, her conduct was in perfect keeping with her
situation, for what on earth could be more in unison with a sea-view than

[Illustration: A CUTTER ON THE BEACH?"]

* * * * *

It is well known that the piers of Westminster Bridge have considerably
sunk since their first erection. They are not the only peers, in the same
neighbourhood that have become lowered in the position they once occupied.

* * * * *

ASSERTION OF THE UNINTELLIGIBLE.

OR, "A KANTITE'S" FLIGHTS AT AN EXORDIUM.

FLIGHT THE FIRST.

He who widely, yet ascensively, expatiates in those in-all-ways-sloping
fields of metaphysical investigation which perplex whilst they captivate,
and bewilder whilst they allure, cannot evitate the perception of
perception's fallibility, nor avoid the conclusion (if that can be called
a conclusion to which, it may be said, there are no premises extant) that
the external senses are but deceptive _media_ of interior mental
communication. It behoves the ardent, youthful explorator, therefore, to
----, &c. &c.

FLIGHT THE SECOND.

In the Promethean persecutions which assail the insurgent mentalities of
the youth and morning vigour of the inexpressible human soul, when,
flushed with AEolian light, and, as it were, beaded with those lustrous
dews which the eternal Aurora lets fall from her melodious lip; if it
escape living from the beak of the vulture (no fable here!), then, indeed,
it may aspire to ----, &c. &c.

FLIGHT THE THIRD.

If, with waxen Icarian wing, we seek to ascend to that skiey elevation
whence only can the understretching regions of an impassive mutability be
satisfactorily contemplated; and if, in our heterogeneous ambition,
aspirant above self-capacity, we approach too near the flammiferous Titan,
and so become pinionless, and reduced again to an earthly prostration,
what marvel is it, that ----, &c. &c.

FLIGHT THE FOURTH.

When the perennial Faustus, ever-resident in the questioning spirit of
immortal man, attempts his first outbreak into the domain of unlimited
inquiry, unless he take heed of the needfully-cautious prudentialities of
mundane observance, there infallibly attends him a fatal Mephistophelean
influence, of which the malign tendency, from every conclusion of
eventuality, is to plunge him into perilous vast c