cessary to emancipate myself, and I have the pleasure to inform you, that after innumerable difficulties and delays, from the ignorance of some and the ridicule of others, I have succeeded in establishing a Blue-stocking Society in Houndsditch, which, if I am not much mistaken, will eventually rival the most celebrated literary associations that have been formed from the days of Pericles down to those of Lorenzo de' Medici and Dr. Johnson. Considering the soul to be of no sex, I have admitted males of undoubted genius into our club, and we can already boast of several names that only want the means and opportunity to become immortal. The hitherto Boeotian realm of Houndsditch begins to be fertile in classical and Attic associations. The Sugar-baker's upon Tower Hill we have consecrated to Grecian reminiscences as the Acropolis, and the Smoking-room upon its roof is hallowed to our eyes as the Parthenon; the Tower is our Piræus, and the houses on each side of the Minories are the long walls; Aldgate Pump is the Grotto of Pan; Whitechapel Church is the Ceramicus; the East India Company's Warehouses in Leadenhall-street are the Temple of Theseus; the extremities of Fenchurch-street are the Propylæa; and the Synagogue in Duke's-place the Odeum. Thus you see, Sir, we are upon classic ground in whatever direction we move; while, to complete the illusion, we have named the great kennel leading to Tower-hill the Ilyssus, and I am credibly assured it is quite as large as the original. Our Academus, a room which we have hired in Houndsditch, is planted with pots of geranium and myrtle, to imitate the celebrated garden

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 impressive 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