hand."

"Thus, the old dame of Malvern, divining aright, our CHALLIS may ask, or
hint--"Please your Royal Highness, give a handle to my challice".

* * * * *

OBITUARY A LITTLE IN ADVANCE.

Died the other day, by Act of Parliament, that time-honoured old
nuisance, the City of London: very sincerely execrated by all who knew
it, its civic brethren alone perhaps excepted. Though sudden at last,
its death, by no means, was an unexpected one: for in the public
estimation it was known that the deceased had long been sinking. Among
the causes which chiefly led to its dissolution, we believe especial
prominence must be given to its fondness for good living. Its favourite
dish perhaps was turtle soup, of which its consumption was habitually
enormous. We believe it has been even known to devour as many as four
hundred quarts at a single dinner.

Gluttony, however, was not its only failing. Its love of "good things"
was by no means confined to those of the dinner-table: for its appetite
for venison was more than equalled by its thirst for wealth. We might
enumerate many acts of extortion by which its existence was rendered
infamous. The blackest of these however was, we think, its coal-tax; of
which its imposition was regarded as such, in more than one sense of the
substantive, being justly complained of, as a burning shame, by all who
suffered from it.

Another failing of the deceased was its utter want of taste--in
everything but what had emanated from the kitchen. Of this the strongest
instance was its strenuous upholding of Temple Bar: an ugly structure,
but for the keeping up of which people had to pay pretty handsomely. Nor
was its sense of smell less impaired, apparently, than that of taste: as
was shown especially by the strange degree of fondness it evinced for
Smithfield Market, although that place was continually in bad odour.

Throughout its existence, the deceased was extremely subject to fits--of
indiscretion--which it is thought materially impaired its constitution.
Perhaps the most distressing of these was that which annually recurred
on the 9th of November, when it experienced for hours a congestion of
its arteries, which seriously impeded its vital circulation. In some of
its later paroxysms, the deceased so far forgot itself as to betray a
slight attention to the Arts, to which it previously had maintained the
most complete indifference--except, indeed, to that which we now