Though they drew forth as never-failing
A roar of laughter every time,

As if they were as new and prime
As those that we are now retailing.

To the Château in Languedoc,
Whole deputations

From the surrounding districts flock,
With odes, addresses, gratulations,
And long orations;

And, among others, the Préfet
Of Miroblais,

Famed for its annual Fair of Asses,
Began a speech which, by its dull
Exordium, threaten'd to be full

As long and dry as fifty masses.
Dupin, who saw his yawning master
Somewhat annoy'd by this disaster,
And thought it might be acceptable
To quiz the Bore, and stop his gabble,
Abruptly cried-" Pray, Mr. Mayor,
How much did asses fetch last Fair?"

"Why, Sir," the worthy Mayor replied,
As the impertinent he eyed-

"Small sandy ones, like you, might each
Sell for three crowns, and plenty too :”-
Then quietly resumed his speech,
And mouth'd it regularly through.

Rabelais and the Lampreys.

WHEN the eccentric Rabelais was physician To Cardinal Lorraine, he sat at dinner

Beside that gormandizing sinner,

Not like the medical magician,

Who whisk'd from Sancho Panza's fauces
The evanescent meats and sauces,
But to protect his sacred master
Against such diet as obstructs
The action of the epigastre,
O'erloads the biliary ducts,
The peristaltic motion crosses,
And puzzles the digestive process.
The Cardinal, one hungry day,

First having with his eyes consumed
Some lampreys that before him fumed,
Had plunged his fork into the prey,
When Rabelais gravely shook his head,
Tapp'd on his plate three times, and said—
"Pah!-hard digestion! hard digestion!"
And his bile-dreading Eminence,
Though sorely tempted, had the sense
To send it off without a question.

"Hip! Hallo! bring the lampreys here!" Cried Rabelais, as the dish he snatch'd;

And gobbling up the dainty cheer,
The whole was instantly dispatch'd.
Redden'd with vain attempts at stifling
At once his wrath and appetite,
His patron cried—” Your conduct's rude;
This is no subject, Sir, for trifling;
How dare you designate this food
As indigestible and crude,

Then swallow it before my sight?"

Quoth Rabelais, "It may soon be shewn
That I don't merit this rebuff:

I tapp'd the plate, and that you'll own,
Is indigestible enough ;

But as to this unlucky fish,

With you so strangely out of favour,

Not only 'tis a wholesome dish,

But one of most delicious flavour."

ON THE CHOICE OF A BURIAL PLACE.

"The House appointed for all living."

JOB.

MODERNS dedicate all their thoughts to the precarious abode from which they are liable to be ejected by the grim summoner Death, without a moment's notice to quit, while they are comparatively indifferent to that final resting-place which they may continue to occupy even unto the sounding of the last trump. The ancient Egyptians, on the other hand, have not constructed a single dwelling-house which has endured to our present times, while we are continually discovering not only individual tombs of incredible elaboration, but whole subterranean cities of the dead. Though we may smile at that vanity which, converting bodies into mummies, valuable for their bitumens and gums, entailed the destruction it meant to avert, we cannot withhold our respect from their funeral orations, one of which has been preserved entire by Porphyry. "When," says he, "they embalm their deceased nobles, they privately take out the entrails to be deposited in an ark or chest, which they hold up to the sun, and invoke that luminary, one of the Libitinarii making a prayer for the deceased, which Euphantus has translated out of the Egyptian language. O Lord, the Sun, and all the Gods who give life to men, receive me, and admit me into the society of the immortal ones; for as long as I resided

Bating the latter

in this world I religiously worshipped the God whom my parents showed me, and have always honoured those who begat my body; nor have I killed any man, nor have I defrauded any of what has been committed to my trust, nor have I done any thing which is inexpiable. Indeed, whilst I was alive, if I have sinned either by eating or drinking any thing which was not lawful, not through myself have I sinned, but through these,' (showing the ark and chest where the entrails were.) And having thus spoken, he casts it into the river, but the rest of the body he embalms as pure."doctrine, which savours somewhat of materialism, it must be confessed that this oration is strikingly sane and rational when compared with the general extravagance of their religious Creed. Their posthumous trial, too, of which so many representations are seen in hieroglyphics, by whose verdict the body of the wicked might be denied the rites of sepulture— an apprehension which, according to Diodorus Siculus, éven kept their Kings in awe, was a salutary institution which might be beneficially revived, if it were likely to operate on the Sovereigns at the next Congress of the Holy Alliance. In those barbarous ages we cannot marvel that the body of the deceased might be legally detained for debt; that the Greeks, who put money into the mouths of their dead for the ferryman Charon, and a cake of flour and honey into their hands to propitiate Cerberus, should have retained the same custom, is nothing wonderful; and indeed it is upon record that Cimon was obliged to

purchase from the creditors the body of his father, the celebrated Miltiades;-but that we, a Christian and enlightened people, should adopt this barbarism, and refuse so natural a right as that of sepulture for an offence so venial and conventional as that of debt, is indeed a somewhat startling inconsistency. It is currently believed that a Spanish ambassador of former days still lies in his coffin upon the marble floor of Westminster Hall, towards whom the common duties of religion and humanity have been unfulfilled, because he was found wanting towards society in the more important considerations of certain pounds, shillings, and pence!

In one respect, at all events, we have higher religious notions and a more exalted philosophy than our ancestors-we seek the preservation of the soul, not that of the body, Reason herself assuring us that it is a fond and foolish yearning to take heed for the worthless tegument, when the immortal spirit it enshrined has fled. Reason is a stout theorist, but very often a sorry practitioner: so we talk, but so we do not act. We cannot so easily forget this companion of our earthly pilgrimage-this sharer of our joys and sorrows-this body corporate, which constitutes our sole notion of identity and self. Few of us make a will without directing the place and manner of our interment: we conceive that we are gratifying those who have died before us by lavishing funeral honours their remains; we talk of the consolation of being laid with them in the tomb, of being gathered to our fathers, and of being rejoined by the children who

upon