POSTURE MASTERS.

It is now a-days extremely common to style the tumble-down-dick exploits or posture masters, balancers, conjurers, &c. an art.  To ridicule such an abuse of the term by applying it to mere adroitness, skill in trifles, and labour-in-vain performances, Quinctilian gives us this merry instance—­“Qualis illius fuit, qui grana ciceris ex spatio distante missa, in acum continue, et sine frustratione inserebat; quem cum spectasset Alexander, donasse eum dicitur leguminis modio—­quod quidem praemium fuit illo opere dignissimum.”  Translation—­Of this kind of art, was his, who, standing at a certain distance, could continually, without missing, stick a small pea upon the point of a needle; which when Alexander had witnessed, he ordered him a bushel of that grain for his trouble, a reward quite adequate to such an exploit.  We have a similar story related, I think, of Charles II.:  a posture master climbed up Grantham steeple, and then stood on his head upon the weathercock.  The facetious monarch, after witnessing his ascent, told him he might forthwith have a patent that none should do the like but himself.

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TO MAKE BUBBLE AND SQUEAK.

Published by request of the gentlemen of both Universities.

First—­Take of beef, or mutton, or lamb, or veal, or any other meat, two pounds and a half, or any other quantity; be sure to keep it in salt till the saline particles have locked up all the animal juices, and rendered the fibres hard of digestion; then boil it over a turf or peat fire, in a brass kettle, covered with a copper lid, until it is over much done.

Second—­Take a large turned cabbage, and boil it in a bell metal pot until it is done enough, or (if you think proper) too much.

Thirdly—­Slice the meat, and souse that and the cabbage both in a frying pan together, and let them bubble and squeak over a charcoal fire for half an hour, three minutes, and two seconds.

Lastly—­Devour the whole, which will not weigh more than four pounds, for a quantum sufficit; drink six pints of good, fat ale; sit, smoke, sleep, snore, and forget your book.

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ADVERTISEMENT.

In defence of the two Universities.

We can assure the public that the malicious report of the Greek language being expelled from the abovenamed seats of Minerva, is entirely without foundation; there being, at this moment, many thousand volumes written in that tongue, actually extant, and quite unmolested in the several libraries.

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HONEST PREJUDICES,

Or bona fide extracts from celebrated authors.