feet long, and drag it
backwards by the tip of the tail as if desperately afraid of it. Knowing
his snakes must be an exhaustible quantity, I proffered a second rupee
for another, taking care to keep between him and the snake-basket; which
he declined. But on turning round and giving him a chance to communicate
with his receptacle, he quickly presented himself with the assurance
that now he thought he knew where a serpent might be lodged. The Indian
servants all devoutly believed in his skill; but it is impossible not to
be ashamed of Europeans, who adorn their books with marks of similar
gullibility.--_Abridged from Tait's Edinburgh Mag._

* * * * *

Notes of a Reader

* * * * *

RECREATIONS IN THE LAW.

Gentle reader, we are not about to direct your notice to the Temple
Gardens, the olden feasts in our Law Halls--through which men ate their
way to eminence--nor to prove that looking to a Chancellorship is
woolgathering--nor to invite you to the shrubby groves of Lincoln's Inn,
or to promenade with the spirit of BACON in Gray's Inn. All these may be
pleasurable occupations; but there is mirth in store in the _study_ of
the Law itself, which is not "dull and crabbed as some fools (or knaves)
suppose."

In a recent _Mirror_, (No. 540) this may have been made manifest to the
reader in the Legal Rhymes, quoted by our correspondent, _W.A.R.;_[9]
but lo! here is a volume of evidence in "_The Cenveyancer's Guide;_" a
Poem, by John Crisp, Esq., of Furnival's Inn; in which the art of
Conveyancing is sung in Hudibrastic verse, and said in notes of pleasant
prose. Happy are we to see Mr. Crisp's volume in a third edition, since
we opine from this success the bright moments of relief which his Muse
may have shed upon the _viginti annorum lucubrutiones_ of thousands
of students. We have not space for quotations from the poem itself, in
which _Doe_ and _Roe_ figure as heroes, with their occasional
friend Thomas Stiles. We can only say their movements are sung with the
terseness and point which we so much admire in the great originals, so
as to make men acknowledge there is good in every thing. Our extracts
are from the Introduction and Notes. First is

A LEGAL GLEE.

"A woman having a settlement,
Married a man with none,
The question was, he being dead,
If that she had was gone.
Quoth _Sir John Pratt_, her settlement
Suspended d