"How can you tell that?"

·

the

"Lord love you, sir, I can tell it by the look on 'em ; I've had hundreds o' parrots in my time. I'll just tell you how it ware. You must know that in a ship I was in, the skipper couldn't abide a monkey, and wouldn't allow a single one aboard-one of the wonders o' Natur' not to like a monkey, but so it ware. Well-in revenge for not allowing us to have monkeys, he let us have as many parrots as ever we liked. I had got five to my own share, meaning to bring 'em home,for you see I cultivated 'em to sell. Well-three on 'em died; of the other two, I got one in Afriky and t'other on the Spanish Main. I got that in change for two pound o' baccy--that ware his origin. Ah! that ware the bird! There warn't a man aboard as had got more brains in his head than that parrot,-as true as I'm telling you, sir. But the birds as come from the Spanish Main beats all the others clean. Why, he'd sing out Pipe down hammocks,' Pipe for grog,' Turn up the hands,'-I'm blest if I haven't seen the chaps come scampering up hatchways at that. But that warn't all: there warn't an order that he had heard guv by the officers, from the first letenant down'ards, that he couldn't repeat it; he were more like a human creetur than a bird; and I've sometimes thought, if they had but tried him, he could ha' sailed the ship-hows'ever that wouldn't ha' been quite according to the Articles of War, and so they didn't. To be sure, besides all that, he would now and then say something that warn't very purlite; but then he meant no harin, and that's how I look at it. As to t'other parrot that's to say the Afriky parrot-never an improper word comed out of his mouth: he ware purlite, and uncommon genteel into the bargain; but then he ware precious stupid! He could only say one thing-only one, that's the blessed truth-he had only one speech to his back, like. Whatever Spanish Main used to say, if it were only 'Helm a-port,' or 'Reef topsails,' Afriky would sing out, 'Don't be so wulgar-I'm shock'd at you!" Well-now only see the upshot on it. When we came into Plymouth to be paid off, the skipper guv me fifteen guineas for the clever bird, while nobody wouldn't buy the genteel parrot at no price. So as I couldn't get nothing for it, and, moreover, had promised to bring my poor old mother home a parrot, why I guv it to she."

Now, had the African parrot thought less of the gentility of the tunes. he should dance to, not only would he have been a much more agreeable member of society, but he would have added considerably to his own personal comfort; whilst, also, he might possibly have achieved a much more respectable station in life than that to which he was ultimately consigned.

P*.

EDINBURGH ALE:

"My dear Editor,

A FRAGMENTARY Ode.

"In looking over some papers last evening, I discovered the following lines, which I would fain consider worthy of preservation. They are the production of my valued friend, Mr. Bob Whyte, of whom your readers have already had some account. I took them down in short-hand from his lips one evening, at the sign of 'The Labour in Vain,' in the city of Soandso, shortly before we both left the medical school there. From some unsteadiness of hand, the stenography is not so clear as what I used to produce at lecture, and several of the lines on that account cannot, I am afraid, be deciphered-a fact which occasions here and there among them a hiatus valde deflendus,' as Swift would say.

"I regret exceedingly, Mr. Editor, that I could not present this 'singularly beautiful and original poem' in a more complete state to your readers. I trust, however, that what has been preserved will give them a favourable idea of my friend Mr. Whyte's genius,

One morning in winter as homeward I toddled,
I stumbled by chance o'er a jolly good soul,

And as I was pretty considerably fuddled,

I happed in the kennel beside him to roll;
With his back to a lamp-post, his legs in the gutter,
His hat o'er his eyes, and his coat minus tail;
My soul he entranced by the strains he did utter,
As thus he was chanting the glories of Ale:

THE ODE.

Of All-puissant Barleycorn and Mighty Malt descendant,
I bid thee hail, O sovran ALE, of amber hue resplendent;
In reverent guise, I veil mine eyes, before thy mystic seat,
And prostrate low, my senses throw, an offering at thy feet.

'When first I felt thy mighty power, and owned thy sway divine,
Twas with a wight of talents bright, an ancient chum of mine,
A student eke in mystery of noble medicine.

And thus to me, one night quoth he, in soul-arousing lingo,
"Where Hen and Hatchet' swing sublime, right quickly let us in go;
Than dust more dry, in sooth am I-I'll have a pint, by jingo!"

But who of all the bards whom e'er, or muse, or drink inspired,
Could sing the rapturous thrill that then my virgin senses fired,
As down I sent, in ravishment, the talismanic fluid,
Celestial essence!-in the shades of old Edina brewed?

At first o'er all my soul did fall a calm, serene and holy,
At peace with all the world I was, and pallid Melancholy
To rosy Joy resigned the heart she erst had governed solely;

Blythe was my smile-my head the while upon my shoulders danced,
And sparklings bright, of golden light, around my forehead glanced,
And wreathy mists of roseate hue through all the chamber floated,
Whilst through my ears, the pulses flew, of arteries carotid.

Then all his store full flowing o'er, of jest and jocund story,
Of intrigue sly, or venture high, in field of love or glory,
My noble chum, in accents rum, unlocked, and still the more he
Flung all its riches on my ear, the foam-cap, white and hoary,
Sank downward, downward in my cup, and still my frantic roar aye,
Sang honour to bis sallies bright and pungent oratory.

Then o'er the board, with one accord, we crossed and locked our hands,
And pledged a friendship without end, that yet unblemished stands,
Though, severed far, we sojourn now in sea-divided lands.

And many a golden prospect then, our glowing fancies drew,
And many a warm and cordial word across the table flew,

As all the secrets of my soul I poured into his ear,

And of his inmost heart, the whole most cherished thoughts and dear,
All patent to my freest gaze, in turn he made appear.

Then all my cares and all my fears-for though but yet a boy,

Oh, deem me not unused to sorrow-fancy not, that joy

Had danced me through a vale of flowers, or made my early morn,

A balmy or a cloudless dawn. Alas! the jagged thorn

Pierced deep beneath the garland bright my youthful brows had worn,
And from the abyss of disappointment, poverty, and scorn,
The ghastly forms of hideous Doubt, or even dread Despair,
Upon my spirit more than once had bent their fearful glare—

But cares and fears, and wants and woes, from out my swimming head—
Neglect of friends, and hate of foes, at once affrighted fled,
And joy most perfect and supreme, and bliss even more complete
Than rapture of a bridegroom's dream assumed the vacant seat.
Then healths were quaffed of damsels bright, and still as down I toss'd
Draught after draught of liquid light, my tongue its rudder lost,

I screamed, and laughed in mad delight

Here my pen would seem to have carried away its rudder also, for the short-hand appears a mere series of unmeaning scratches. After a few lines, however, comes one a little plainer.

Words to crush no more were able through my crowded throttle,

which I presume must have rhymed to "bottle."

In some lines more he goes on to say how in this speechless and unspeakable condition, he raised his eyes to the jet of gas that illumined the apartment-I can then decipher very clearly the following passage:

But guess my botheration.
Where erst was one, a thousand shone-a blinding constellation.
I could not look upon the light, I peered into my cup-
A draught was there, of aspect rare-I snatched and drank it up.
A moment and I felt a cloud upon my soul descending,

My thoughts and senses to enshroud in deep oblivion, wending.
But still it was as one of those that load the western heaven
With masses huge of purple, gold, and crimson glory, even
Up to the very zenith, when the red sun slow retiring
Unto the world bids good-night, and leaves the world admiring.

After the above sublime bit of descriptive I regret to say that there

are three lines irretrievably lost The ODE thereafter proceeds:

Their master-will my limbs denied, and senseless, powerless hung
Unto my frame, from side to side that slowly reeling swung.

I could not keep my eyelids wide, whilst in my head there rung
A chaos thick of queerest sounds in strange confusion, seeming

Like gongs and bells, and punished hounds, and prima donnas screaming.
Nor less bewildered was my mind, it seemed to seethe and bubble ex-

Actly like a frothy vat of strong fermenting XX.

At length from out the yeasty mass the thoughts evolved were
That one-my very friend, alas !-calumniated her,

Whose golden hair I joyed to wear the closest to my heart.

Up to my feet in frantic heat I sprang with sudden start,

To dash the slanderer to the ground-no more,-my limbs unable
To bear their burden, yielded, and I dropped beneath the table.
But who may say or who may sing the glories unto which
Up soared my soul on clogless wing, from every sense, and each
Dull trammel of the body free,-

EPODE.

In heart stirring accents of heavenly poesy,

Thus far the minstrel had woven his lay,
When two of dim night's pale guardians, lo! I see-
Spectre-like toward us wending their way.

Shrieking the hour, they came up and held low their
Lights as a stern look our phizzes they cast to.
"Why, this is a rum start," quoth one to the other,

"If them 'ere young chaps arn't muzzy I'm-" "Past two!" Into a wheelbarrow they speedily bundled us,

Our heads to the front and our feet to the rear,

And gaily along to the watchhouse they trundled us,
Blubbering together in sympathy queer.

Their captives before the old beak they next day bore,
And after a yarn about folly and sin he
Predestined the bard to a month of hard labour,
While I, by the mass, had to fork out a guinea.

RECEIPT FOR A NOBLEMAN.
WOULD Ve make a noble Man,
I will tell ye how ye can:-
Take a monarch of an hour,
Ready to resign his power,
And a peer that hates his ermine,
And a Russ that hath no vermin,

And a Frenchman that ne'er boasted,

And a hero not yet toasted,

And a Benthamite complete,

Without hardness or conceit :

Take a courtier that ne'er lied,
And a cornet without pride,
And a player without rant,
And a parson without cant,
And an alderman a-running,
And a beggar without cunning,
And an orator and poet,

Full of genius and not know it :-
Take them, and with care and pains,
From each head extract the brains :
Mix them well;—and ye may then
Make a hundred noble men.

A MODEST DEFENCE OF THE CUSTOM-HOUSE FRAUDS.

HERE'S a clatter and a coil, and a puritanical upturning of eyes, and a horrified heaving of the humeral bones, at the fraudulent practices of those landing-waiters, tradesmen, and others, who have merely been exemplifying Dryden's lines

Customs to steal is such a trivial thing,

That 'tis their charter to defraud their king.

But even if theirs were a legal offence instead of a charter, might they not plead that they do not come within the statute, inasmuch as they have not cheated any king, but the queen.

we

"I have not committed perjury," said an arraigned party; are forbidden to bear false witness against our neighbours, but I have borne false witness for my neighbour.'

Tell not me that this is chicanery and quibbling; object to the use of sophistry, indeed! What! was Mr. Gully, the quondam prizefighter, deemed an unworthy member of parliament because, as it was illiberally urged by one of his opponents, his arguments would naturally be so-fistical? Shall we sanction pettifoggers and special pleaders, whose profession it is to discover and to practise modes by which the law may be evaded, justice defeated, the widow and the orphan impoverished, and themselves enriched; and shall we pour forth the phials of our wrath upon their humble imitators in Thames-street, because they wear no black gowns, and are not admitted as regular practitioners in the courts of legal trickery? If we want proof of the adage that one man may steal a horse while another may not look over the hedge, we shall find it in comparing the recognised frauds of customs with the much vituperated Customs' frauds.

How can these tide-waiters be said to have cheated government, when it is palpable that they were not held under any governmentthat the commissioners forgot their commission-that their nominal comptrollers exercised no control over them? A bishop (episcopos) is literally an overseer, instead of which it is notorious that some of them are overlookers of their duties, and blind to the state of their diocese, though they call it their see.

Tide-waiters are overseers of the customs duties, therefore it is their duty to overlook the customs. This is precisely what they have done in particular instances; this is the whole head and front of their offending; and yet what a rabid outcry against these poor fellows looking! over the hedge, while the horse-stealer is allowed to ride quietly away.

Custom, say the Jurists, is unwritten law, and a practice may be termed a custom when it can be proved to have lasted for a hundred years. Now, can any man doubt that the custom of defrauding the Customs has endured more than a hundred years? Then the practice has become a law, and for observing this law, which, it seems, is one of our time-revered institutions, and a profitable proof of the wisdom of our ancestors, landing-waiters and tradesmen are to be prosecuted and punished. Monstrous injustice!!

Poor Theodore Hook used to say that nothing changed so much in