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PLATE II.

WING'D AND ON THE WING.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY D. CUNLIFFE.

Sweet Auburn's bard, the village pride-
For something new being rather press'd-
Affirm'd affection true and tried

Could only warm the turtle's nest.
By this, to plodding, prosy eyes,
Poem of fiction strong may smack:
Don't Cupid breathe his warmest sighs
In dearest ducky-Quack, quack, quack!

The morn was clear, the breeze was keen
That whistled o'er the Lincoln fen,
When Sol, just peeping forth, was seen
To watch the ways of ducks and men ;
And none, of all that marshy race
Who came across him in his track,

Look'd half so cozey as a brace

Who lisp'd their loves in Quack, quack, quack!

The gallant, gay in green and gold-
The lady, neat in Quaker brown:
A mallard, worthy artist's mould-
A duck, the carriage up to Town.
Alas! that man, empower'd by law,
Such happiness should e'er attack.
Hark! hush!-By Jove! a spaniel's paw-
And up they hurry-Quack, quack, quack!

Higher and higher up they soar,
While hope increases as they rise;
It cannot be there's hope no more—
The darling little ducky dies.
That savage keeper few can shirk-
Just at the nick you heard the crack;
Morrison's pills in vain would work,
To save another Quack, quack, quack!
And shall he go, or shall he stay?
Desert his chosen in her need?
Perish the thought!-ere he'll away,

His heart of hearts' best blood shall bleed.

I say, my friend, don't feign "the slows❞—
There's t'other barrel at your back.
The hint's enough; straight off he goes
Forsaking little Quack, quack, quack!

Over the lake at Kensington
A mallard now in safety sails,
Free of the gardens, court, the Ton-
Free from Fortune's grievous gales;
A knowing cast (delivered he,

From scenes that care or comfort lack)
Where dogs and slaves in livery

Are stay'd from hunting Quack, quack, quack!

LEATHERLUNGS THE "LEG."

BY THE EDITOR:

CHAP. IV. THE FLOW OF SOUL AND THEORY.

"I fain would please you, if I knew with what :
Tell me which knave is lawful game-which not?"

POPE.

I did not again foregather with my friend for a week or so, and then it was certainly against my will. One evening I happened to stroll into the Cirque Olympique (why have they nothing like it in London?) and in a box near that which I had entered sat Leatherlungs. I was in hopes he would have continued where he was, but to my annoyance he rose on seeing me, and made bodily towards where I was. As he is not the sort of person to beat about the bush before he unkennels his purpose, he began at once :

"So I see you are giving in the Sporting Review what you are pleased to call my 'confessions.' Well, there's no great harm in that and I shan't hesitate to tell the truth, though it should shame the devil."

"I shall be glad to hear you," I observed, "but this is not so convenient a confessional as might be desired. A box of Lopez's of some maturity has just reached me: to-night, at eleven, I shall be glad to give you a posy, and something to moisten it with." This was a hard one; but isn't it the business of a "leg" to move?

Why do they always give you a supper at an English hotel, that lurks in your constitution for the rest of the twelvemonth? We had half a dozen dishes this evening from Meurice's artiste, that left no more memory behind them on the following morning than does a

statesman's promise. Leatherlungs, as he practically expressed it, "pitched into the flummery extensively," and having constructed a beaker of brandy and Seltzer water, forthwith the steam was up, and he went ahead.

"So far as public play goes," remarked my "philosopher and friend," giving his Lopez a long pull and a strong pull to establish its combustion, and the same to his goblet to test its quality; "so far as public play goes, Jack Frenchman has the wall of us— -at present: but he didn't need to make such a fuss about it. It's not so long since Roulette regularly every night bowled out' half a score or more in the Palais Royal. And the worst of it was, the very women played: they'd stake everything at once; heads or tails-this world or t'other: win the coup, or a jump from the Pont Neuf. It seemed all one to the most of them. When I was here six or seven years ago, I never passed the Morgue that there wasn't a woman stretched there -faugh! It makes me sick to think of it. Wretches-with the rouge and white lead dabbled over cheek and brow: chaplets of roses amid their long, dank, streaming hair: eyes of stone starting from their sockets; and hands clenched and writhed with their last agony. I remember once reading a passage in some poem, which drew this frightful picture with horrid truth."

"It was in Childe Harold," I said; "I have every line of it, truly, by heart. It is a passage to find its way to a heart of iron :

"""Tis open, never fails that sight of woe,

And crowds are rushing to that fearful dome,
And crowds are scatt'ring out subdued and slow;
They've seen to what complexion life may come !
'Tis narrow as the grave-a house of gloom:
And on the wall, with ooze and blood long dyed,
Are hung a spangled robe, a broken plume,
Dropping as fresh drawn from the river side;
And cold beneath them lies the lost-the suicide!
"A few rude boards are now her beauty's bed;
Her still and roseless face has now no veil,
But one long dripping lock across it shed;
Yet her wide eye looks living. O, the tale
Told there of reason that began to fail,

Of wild remorse; of the last agony,

When, wandering desperate in the midnight gale,
She flung to sighless heaven her parting cry;

Then in the dark wave plung'd, to struggle-and to die!

"The crowd pass on; the hurried trembling look,
That dreaded to have seen some dear one there,
Soon glanced; they silent pass. But in yon nook
Who kneels, deep shrinking from the oriel's glare,
Her forehead veil'd, her lip in quiv'ring prayer,
Her raised hands with the unfelt rosary wound?
That shrouded, silent statue of despair

Is she who through the world's delusive round

Had sought her erring child, and found-and there had found."

"Well, this much must be admitted by the worst wisher of Tattersall's: it owes its success to no meretricious attractions: there's neither wine, feasting, nor women to give it excitement or eclat. But it has changed greatly within a few years: it is not the mart for

I

business that it was-populous with handicraft men, bent on doing all they put their hands to artistically. Almost the last of the Romans was Crockford, for Crutch Robinson is but a very occasional visitor. There's nothing of the character about any of us now that distinguished your Blands and your Hallidays and your Wagstaffs and the like. Had you met one of these, eating birds' nests at Pekin with chop-sticks, you would have known he was a leg. Still you could hardly imagine three men less like in any one particular; nor any three less fitted for their profession. Jim Bland was shocking unprepossessing, and no mistake. He had the worst expression under the sun when he said nothing, and a thousand times worse when he spoke. Waggy's gone now; for which relief, no doubt, many thanks have been given, many a time and oft, since his secession. Halliday too, poor fellow, is no more. The less that's said about the

rest of it the better."

"Master Leatherlungs," I said, interrupting him, "you keep up a strong fire against the small deer: havn't you a cartridge heavy enough for the big wigs? There's as ugly a frequenter of the corner among the gentles as ever Old Bland was. Waggy is not the only one vainly inquired after in that neighbourhood, neither does Halliday's fate want a parallel in high places. It's inglorious satire that can venture no higher flight

"Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild.'

I'm afraid you are like Horace and Pope-too courtly to speak truth against society's anointed.' That's bad, and out of season. When Shakspeare wrote, it was the office of the stage to hold the mirror up to nature:' nobody goes to the play now, so the world can't see things in that glass. But that which the drama was, the press is. The influence of theatrical representations has not decreased more than the power of literature has grown into the ascendant. Lessons of life are not now learnt before the curtain, but in the closet. All who write should have this before them ever; and those who, like you, dictate-the mouth-pieces of experience."

"That's all very well," he resumed, "but it's easier said than done. I've got my bread to earn."

"To butter on both sides," I observed, "when you condescend to eat it toasted with your chocolate."

"Well then, to butter," he rejoined, "for which reason it's my interest to butter those who find me in it, and other necessaries of life."

"For instance, le petit rocher de cancalle," I suggested.

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Just so," he assented; "but don't put that into the book, or you'll put a spoke into my wheel. I like to live well, that's a fact, and I earn every bit I put between my lips-that's another. And this brings me to a matter that is personal, as regards yourself. For the last ten or dozen years you have kept up blazing away at the fraternity of which I am a member. I bear you no malice on that account: it's your occupation, as betting is mine. Every man to his station, and the cook to the fore-sheet,' as they say at sea. But I wonder, with your natural clear-sightedness-you see I can be can