That forty thousand lives could Henry, too, hath here his part;

Half the blood which there was By More, the learned and the good,

As we can hardly flatter ourselves with the notion that we have many very juvenile readers, we must hold ourselves excused from quoting any specimens of the food for the young idea' presented in the Christmas Box. As at children's balls, however, it is not unusual to have a side-table, where mammas and aunts are treated with grilled pullets and mulled wines, while the juvenile guests rejoice themselves over the more conspicuous array of jellies and syllabubs, so Mr. Croker has found room in his tiny pages for a few pieces both of prose and verse, which we might very safely offer to the gravest of the reading public. For example, there is a song on the hero of Killykrankie, by Sir Walter Scott, which, we doubt not, will be almost as popular as any song he ever wrote:

To the Lords of Convention, 'twas Clavers who spoke,

Ere the king's crown go down, there are crowns to be broke;
So each cavalier, who loves honour and me,

Let him follow the bonnet of bonnie Dundee.
Come, fill up my cup, come fill up my can,
Come, saddle my horses, and call up my men;
Come, open the West-port, and let me gae free,
And its room for the bonnets of bonnie Dundee.
Dundee he is mounted-he rides up the street,

The bells are rung backwards, the drums they are beat;
But the provost, douse man, said, "Just e'en let him be,
The town is weel quit of that dei'l of Dundee."

Come, fill up, &c.

As he rode down the sanctified bends of the Bow,
Each carline was flyting and shaking her pow;

But some young plants of grace-they look'd couthie and slee,
Thinking-Luck to thy bonnet, thou bonnie Dundee.

Come, fill up, &c.

With

With sour-featured saints the Grass-market was pang'd,
As if half the west had set tryste to be hang'd;

There was spite in each face, there was fear in each ee,
As they watch'd for the bonnet of bonnie Dundee.

Come, fill up, &c.

These cowls of Kilmarnock had spits and had spears,

And lang-hafted gullies to kill cavaliers ;

But they shrunk to close-heads, and the causeway left free,
At a toss of the bonnet of bonnie Dundee.

Come, fill up, &c.

He spurr'd to the foot of the high castle rock,
And to the gay Gordon he gallantly spoke-

"Let Mons Meg and her marrows three vollies let flee,
For love of the bonnets of bonnie Dundee."

Come, fill up, &c.

The Gordon has ask'd of him whither he goes-
"Wheresoever shall guide me the spirit of Montrose ;
Your Grace in short space shall have tidings of me,
Or that low lies the bonnet of bonnie Dundee.

Come, fill up, &c.

"There are hills beyond Pentland, and streams beyond Forth,
If there's lords in the Southland, there's chiefs in the North h;
There are wild dunnie-wassels, three thousand times three,
Will cry hoigh! for the bonnet of bonnie Dundee.

Come, fill up, &c.

"Away to the hills, to the woods, to the rocks,

Ere I own a usurper, I'll couch with the fox;

And tremble, false Whigs, though triumphant ye be,
You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me.”
Come, fill up, &c.

He waved his proud arm, and the trumpets were blown,
The kettle drums clash'd, and the horsemen rode on,
Till on Ravelston-craigs and on Clermiston lee
Died away the wild war-note of bonnie Dundee.
Come, fill up my cup, come, fill up my can,
Come, saddle my horses, and call up my men;
Fling all your gates open, and let me gae free,
For 'tis up with the bonnets of bonnie Dundee.'

That celebrated wit and humourist of our day, Mr. Theodore Hook, has supplied the same juvenile Souvenir with an effusion in verse, which, that our quotations may end gaily, we shall take the liberty of transcribing.

Cautionary Verses to Youth of both Sexes.

'My readers may know that to all the editions of Entick's Dictionary, commonly used in schools, there is prefixed "A Table of Words that are alike, or nearly alike, in Sound, but different in Spell

ing

ing and Signification." It must be evident that this table is neither more nor less than an early provocation to punning; the whole mystery of which vain art consists in the use of words, the sound and sense of which are at variance. In order, if possible, to check any disposition to punning in youth, which may be fostered by this manual, I have thrown together the following adaptation of Entick's hints to young beginners, hoping thereby to afford a warning, and exhibit a deformity to be avoided, rather than an example to be followed; at the same time showing the caution children should observe in using words which have more than one meaning.

'My little dears, who learn to read, pray early learn to shun
That very silly thing indeed which people call a pun:
Read Entick's Rules, and 'twill be found how simple an offence
It is, to make the selfsame sound afford a double sense.

good friends accept our greeting,

although from boar prepared: foul feeding be declared. and yet be pared again,

For instance, ale may make you ail, your aunt an ant may kill,
You in a vale may buy a veil, and Bill may pay the bill.
Or if to France your bark you steer, at Dover, it may be,
A peer appears upon the pier, who, blind, still goes to sea.
Thus one might say, when to a treat
'Tis meet that men who meet to eat should eat their meat when meeting.
Brawn on the board's no bore indeed,
Nor can the fowl, on which we feed,
Thus one ripe fruit may be a pear,
And still be one, which seemeth rare
It therefore should be all your aim
For who, however fond of game,
A fat man's gait may make us smile,
The farmer sitting on his stile no
Perfumers men of scents must be;
A brown man oft deep read we see,
Most wealthy men good manors have, however vulgar they;
And actors still the harder slave, the oftener they play:

until we do explain.
to speak with ample care;
would choose to swallow hair?
who has no gate to close;
stylish person knows:
some Scilly men are bright;
a black a wicked wight.

So poets can't the baize obtain, unless their tailors choose;
While grooms and coachmen, not in vain, each evening seek the Mews.
The dyer, who by dying lives, a dire life maintains ;
The glazier, it is known, receives his profits from his panes :
By gardeners thyme is tied, 'tis true, when spring is in its prime;
But time or tide won't wait for you if you are tied for time.
Then now you see, my little dears, the way to make a pun;
A trick which you, through coming years, should sedulously shun:
The fault admits of no defence; for wheresoe'er 'tis found,
You sacrifice the sound for sense; the sense is never sound.
So let your words and actions too one single meaning prove,
And, just in all you say or do, you'll gain esteem and love:

In mirth and play no harm you'll know, when duty's task is done;
But parents ne'er should let ye go unpunished for a pun.'

We

We suppose there are few who, having read some of these extracts, will refuse to join in the question, Why, when there are in the country men able and willing to contribute such things to literary pocket-books, there is no one production of this class which it is possible to point out as distinguished throughout for its literary excellence? Are the classics of our age to continue to see their beautiful fragments doled out year after year in the midst of such miserable and mawkish trash as fills at least nineteen pages out of every twenty in the best of the gaudy duodecimos now before us? It is admitted on every hand that there are few good painters among us, and very few good engravers; and it is admitted by all but the editors of the 'pretty pocket-books'* themselves, that there are not many good writers. Why should publishers of eminence go on year after year encouraging that busy mediocrity in letters, which even the humblest of their brethren would blush to patronize in the arts? Why should not some one bookseller make the endeavour at least to combine the efforts of a few of the masters, and present us with the result, undebased by any admixture of those vulgar materials, of which the utmost that can be said is, that fine prints, and a small sprinkling of true poetry are able to carry off a certain number of copies of the books they load and deform-in spite of them?

They are running a race that their German brothers of the trade have run before them, and in which, we beg leave to inform them, more publishers have been ruined than in almost any other literary speculation of modern times. Success under the present system depends on the merest chances-coming out a week or two sooner than a rival-at best, the luck of procuring leave to engrave some particular picture, or a few scraps from the portfolios of men of letters, who take no sort of interest in the works in which these are to be all but buried. These pocket-books are, in fact, ornamented annual magazines. Why should not the history of the monthly magazines afford sound hints as to the proper -we mean, of course, the ultimately profitable method of getting them up?

There is nothing so serviceable to the public as competition; but why should all the coaches take the very same road, when there are twenty that might conduct with equal certainty, and not very dissimilar speed, to the wished-for goal?

Why should not different publishers choose different departments, both of art and literature? Why should we not have an ornamented annual magazine of antiquities; another of natural history; a third of poetry; a fourth of biography; a fifth, perhaps,

* One of these gentlemen has given us, by way of embellishment,' fac-similes of the autographs of, we think, thirty living English poets. O fortunati nimium, sua si bona norint, Anglicola!