of the original; and one of our members, who is a stationer, having made us a present of a thick new commercial ledger, that odious endorsement has been expunged, and the word ALBUM substituted in large letters of gold. From this sacred volume, destined to preserve the contributions of our associates, I propose occasionally to select such articles as may stamp a value upon your Miscellany, and at the same time awaken the public to a due sense of the transcendant talents which have been coalesced, principally by the writer of this article, in the composition of the Houndsditch Literary Society.

Young as our establishment is, it is so opulent in articles, that the very fertility renders selection impossible, and I must, after all, open the volume at random, and trust to the Sortes Hounditchianæ. It expands at a sonnet by Mr. M'Quill, a lawyer's clerk, possessing, as you will observe, a perfect knowledge of Latin; and though the subject be not very dignified, it is redeemed, by his delicacy of handling and felicity of diction, from that common-place homeliness with which a less gifted bard would have been apt to invest it. He catches ideas from his subject by letting it go, and in a vein at once facetious and pathetic-but I will detain you no longer from his beautiful

SONNET

To a Flea, on suffering it to escape.

Thou lightly-leaping, flitting Flea! who knows
Thou art descended from that sire who fell
Into the boiling water, when Sir Joseph
Banks maintain'd it had a lobster's shell ?—

Here, Jemmy Jumps, thou mak'st no stay; so fly ;
Shouldst thou re-bite-thy grandsire's ghost may rise,
Peep through the blanket of the dark, and cry

66

Hold, hold," in vain :-thou fall'st a sacrifice!—

The bard will weep; yes, fle-bit, he will weep,
Backbiter as thou art, to make thy sleep

Eternal, thou who skippest now so gaily;
But thou 'rt already old, if the amount
Of thine intercalary days we count,

For every year with thee is Leap-year.-Vale!

The next unfolding of our richly-stored repertory developes the most important communication we have hitherto received, being a serio-comic poem by Mr. Schweitzkoffer, (the son of the great sugar-baker who owns the Acropolis,) entitled "The Apotheosis of Snip." Its hero is a tailor, (there's an original idea!)—its unity is preserved by dividing it into nine cantos; the supernatural machinery is conducted by Atropos, who holds the fatal shears, and Vertumnus, the god of cabbage; and the victim of Michaelmasday, instead of the bird Minerva, is invoked to shed a quill from its pinion, and inspire the imagination of the poet. Mr. Schweitzkoffer appears to me destined to assume a rank superior to Rabelais, and at least equal to Butler; but as I propose to make copious selections from his facetious epic, I leave your readers to decide what niche he ought to occupy in the Temple of Immortality. In the following description of morning in London, he appears to have Marmion in his eye; but without any servile imitation, he has contrived to unite an equally graphic fidelity of delinea

tion, with a more sustained illustration and impres sive sentimentality than are to be found in the admired original:

Day rose o'er Norton Falgate high,
And Sol, like Tom of Coventry,

On many a nude was peeping ;-
The chimneys smokeless and erect,
And garret windows patch'd and check'd,
The prentice-rousing ray reflect;

While those within them sleeping

Reflect- -that they must stretch their legs,
And bundle out, and stir their pegs,
Or else, as sure as eggs are eggs,
Their masters, strict and wary,
With rattling bells will overhaul 'em,
Or, may be, rise themselves to call 'em
Up with a sesserary !—

Pendant on dyer's pole afloat,
Loose pantaloon and petticoat
Seem on each others charms to doat,
Like lovers fond and bland;

Now swelling as the breezes rise,
They flout each other in the skies,
As if, conjoin'd by marriage ties,

They fought for th' upper hand.-
Beneath with dirty face and fell,
Timing his footsteps to a bell,

The dustman saunter'd slowly,

Bawling "Dust-O!" with might and main,

Or humming in a lower strain,

"Hi-ho, says Rowley!”—

Now at shop-windows near and far

The prentice-boys alert

Fold gently back the jointed bar,

Then sink the shutter with a jar
Upon the ground unhurt;

While some, from perforated tin,
Sprinkle the pavement with a grin
Of indolent delight,

As poising on extended toe,

Their circling arm around they throw,

And on the stony page below

Their frolic fancies write.-
What poems praised and puff'd, have just
Like these kick'd up a mighty dust,
But wanting the impressive power
To stamp a name beyond the hour,
Have soon become forgotten, mute,
Effaced, and trodden under foot!-

In future communications I shall send you some more tid-bits from our feast of intellect; but, as we have a meeting this evening to ballot for the admission of Miss Caustic, the apothecary's daughter (whom I mean to blackball), I have only time to add that I have discarded my baptismal name of Harriet, as inappropriate and unclassical, and shall henceforth acknowledge no other appellation than that of Hebe Hoggins.

HARRY HALTER THE HIGHWAYMAN.

I've cast your Horoscope-your natal star

Is Ursa Major-a most hanging sign. OLD PLAY.

THE indefatigable author of the Scottish novels, and his innumerable imitators, have not only commemorated all the reevers, robbers, borderers, blackmail

men, brigands, rebels, outlaws, cut-throats, and other heroes of Scotland, but have begun to make incursions into England; while another set have landed upon the shores of Ireland, where they bid fair to reap an abundant harvest of riot and robbery. It is really scandalous, that the citizens of London should not have availed themselves of their rich records of rascality to immortalize some of their more celebrated felons; but, with the exception of the Newgate Calendar, an imperfect and obscure publication, I am not aware of any attempt to do proper justice to these characters, beyond the very simple process of hanging them. This desideratum in literature I purpose to supply by a series of traditional or recorded tales, wherein, according to established usage, I shall introduce frequent dialogues, imitations of the old ballads, songs, and other poems; and have made such arrangements, that every one shall contain a crazy, doting semi-prophetic old crone, upon whose fatuous auguries the whole plot shall be forced to depend. I need not more fully develope my mode of treatment, since I enclose you, as a specimen, the tale of

HARRY HALTER THE HIGHWAYMAN.

In the whole populous range of Dyot-street, St. Giles's, and Seven Dials, it would have been impossible to find a more dashing youth, or one who at once illustrated and defied the dangers of his profession with a look of more resolute slang, than Harry Halter the Highwayman. Sixteen-string Jack, with the

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