having poked out a few jaw-breaking words from the Dictionary, hurry to the invocation.

-Di cæptis (nam vos mutastis et illas

Adspirate meis; primoque ab origine and so forth

JACK STRAW, then, the eldest of our company, was born about the four thousand one hundred and forty fourth year (old style) from Deucalion's flood. His grandfather, in the hundred and fifty seventh generation, was a great friend of that celebrated ship-builder, but, having fallen out, one day, about some trifle or other, the latter refused to receive him into his barge, and he must inevitably have perished, had he not crept under a stack of straw, where he escaped with his life, at the expense of a good sousing. From this circumstance he derived his name, which has descended, together with all its appurtenances, in faithful succession, to the present family, which is now represented by the identical Jack Straw in question. This youth has acquired so strong a predilection for his own name, that he idolizes every thing connected with it. He wears a straw hat, lies on a straw mattrass, smokes a straw-mouthed cigar, sleeps in a straw night-cap, squats in a straw-bottomed chair, and chews a straw quid for whole days together. Nay-it is said that he carries a straw Amulet in his bosom; and in some of his surly moods, he even declares, that if they disembowel him before his death, they will find a bundle of undigested straw sticking in his gizzard!

Rum-fish the Second.

SIMON RUMFISH, or, RUMFISH THE SECOND, from whom our Society derived its appellation, is descended from his father, a cow-jobber by trade,

in the back grounds of Frankfort. For the last five and twenty years, he has been in the constant habit of administering smuggled spirits and frizzled oysters to his venerable sire. At length, having dreamed that he was born to be a great man, he had the hardihood to drug his old parent with five or six extraordinary kegs of whiskey, which made him snore away for a full hour. Meanwhile the graceless Vagrant dived to the farthest extremity of his breeches' pocket lugging forth the sum of 8 d. in Flemish Bank Notes, slily slipped it under the sleeve of his big coat, and whipped like lightning across the channel. The particulars of his voyage I leave for him to record, having already given a quantum suff of his singular character.

Peter Scuttle.

BORN, bred, and educated in the royal town of Flanagan, under the watchful eye of a superannuated Scotch domestic. PETER SCUTTLE, now in his 19th year, is one of those eccentric oddities, who are occasionally seen hopping along the street. and laughing like cart-horses at every pig-driver and bargeman that attracts their gaze. He is quite of the "old school," and never appears abroad, with

out a large, slouching, umbrella hat encircled by, at least, half a dozen hat-bands; his square-toed feet rammed into a tight pair of laced boots; and his limbs most ingeniously accommodated to a pair of velveteen pantaloons, reaching not more than three inches and a half below his left knee, and five barley-corns and three quarters below the right. From this latter circumstance, you might be led to conclude, that his stature increased daily, whereas, it is well known, that he has not advanced in height a single jot, since seven years last Patrick's day in the morning. It was on that very day, that his nurse exhausted a whole charger of vitriol on his head, either from design or accident, and it is much to be feared, that from this disasterous circumstance, the taylor will suffer no inconsiderable loss in the diminutive cut of his coat. With the exception of these few particulars, Peter bears so striking a resemblance to his jovial crony, Simon Rum-fish, that we may justly apply to them those lines of Pope :

Floves the senate, Hockley-hole his brother,
Like in all else as one egg to another.

Stephen Handicraft.

THIS is the sweetest, neatest, most compact, most good-humoured, and most dapper young lad, that ever blew his nose with his pocket-handkerchief. His parentage is uncertain, and all the information

that I have been able to obtain concerning him is, that he is not so old as his elder brother, who was almost frightened out of his coat and waistcoat, at the tremendous battle of Preston Pans. Our hero himself loves to shoulder the fire-lock; and often figures away with the rusty fragment of a musket, till all the crows in the parish assemble round him, cawing at his grotesque gesticulations. Sweet Stephen!-good Stephen!-if thy head were but a little better poised, and thy ears a little less similar to those of that naughty stubborn jade called a donkey, what a lovely, what a charming, prim little warrior thou wouldst make, fit to encounter all the four-footed vermin in his Majesty's dominions!

I intended, Mr. Editor, like an humble recluse, to have closed this splendid train with my own delectable character, but it has been insinuated to me, that it would be unbecoming for my personage to stand at the tail-end of such a list of worthies. shall, accordingly, reserve myself for a future letter, which "if I live and my mind hold," shall be forwarded to you, ere long, signed by

MR. EDITOR,

Your Criticiser General,

And Rum-fish President,

JONAS BRANDY.

I

THE SABINE BRIDES.

I saw their foemen near,

I saw the vengeful Sabine rear,
With fiery eye, the glittering spear,

In bristling ranks most terribly.

I saw the Roman bird that flew,
Aloft to Heaven's empyreal blue,
With lifted orbs as if to view,

Her sun of fame and Victory!

I saw each rival's eye on fire

With all the rage that wrongs inspire;
Each soul was panting with its ire

To charge its foeman speedily.

The trumpets sound! The chargers neigh,
In gold and purple trappings gay;

The ranks are clad in proud array

Of gold and azure panoply

Hark to the charge !—each battle blade

O'er every plume is fast displayed;

And every lance in rest is laid.

To charge its hated enemy.

Then furious rush each adverse band,
With flushing cheek and heavy hand,

As when along the desert sand,

The Siroc rushes rapidly.