beard came.
Pointing his index finger to the Natives,
Slowly he spoke, with measured voice and low:--
'They are the same, THE SAME! I've eaten them
In London, small and coppery; at Ostend,
A little better; and in the Condotti,
Yea, in the Lepre--'tis an eating-house
Frequented by the many-languaged artists
Of great imperial Rome. At Baiae: also
I've tasted that nice kind described by MARTIAL,
Who calls them ears of Venus;--there I've had 'em.
Also at Memphis--now I'm coming to it:
I've seen amid the desert sands of Egypt,
Exposed among the hieroglyphs, these Natives.
(The hieroglyphs, you know, are outward forms
Of things or creatures which unfold strange myths,
Read by the common eye in vulgar way,
But to the learned are types of truths gigantic.)
Thus unto you those oysters are but bivalves;
But unto me they're--P'raps you'll stand a dozen?'
'Well, I will, old hoss; it seems to me you need 'em!'
'Good! Then to me they are as hieroglyphs
Of our poor human state; as PLATO says,
"The soul of man, a substance different from
The body as the oyster from the shell,
Does stick to it, and is imprisoned in it.
Its weight of shell doth keep it down and force it
To stay upon its muddy bottom. So does
Man's body hold his soul in these dark regions,
Keeping it ever steadily from rising
To those superior heights where are abodes
More fitting its serene and noble nature."
Good as a quarter-dollar lecture. Boy! fork over.'
'Another "doz." to this old gentleman;
For I perceive he plainly hath it in him
To swallow down two dozen oysters' souls.
See what it is to be a philosopher!'

This is indeed finding sermons in 'shells.'

* * * * *

'Punning is a power,' according to somebody, and, like most power, is
sadly abused. Take, for illustration, the following specimen of the
'narrative pun:'

The reader knows that BYRON once punned on the word Bullet-in, and
was proud of it; distinctly proud, be it remembered. After which
comes the following:--

Some years ago it was summer time, and in the office of the
Philadelphia _Evening Bulletin_, one, as the French say, was
preparing the daily paper. Along Third Street streamed Shinners,
Bulls, Bears, and Newsboys,--in the sanctum, Editors wrote and
clipped,--proof rose up and down in the dumb waiter,--there was
the shrill scream of the whistle