“’And then came the speeches; Lord Hunter was fine—­
  Lord Wood, finer still—­Lord Thompson, divine,
    The sheriffs were Ciceros a-piece;
  Lord Crowther was sick, though he managed to eat
  What, if races were feasts, would have won him the plate;
    But he tossed off a bumper to Greece.

  “’Then all was enchantment—­all hubbub and smiles—­
  The wit of Old Jewry, the grace of St. Giles,
    The force of the Billingsgate tongue: 
  Till the eloquent Lord Mayor demanding ’Who malts?’—­
  The understood sign for beginning the waltz—­
    In a fright through the ceiling I sprung.’”

Monthly Magazine.

* * * * *

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A LANDAULET.

(Concluded from page 302.)

It happened to be a dull time of year, and for some months my wheels ceased to be rotatory:  I got cold and damp; and the moths found their way to my inside:  one or two persons who came to inspect me declined becoming purchasers, and peering closely at my panels, said something about “old scratch.”  This hurt my feelings, for if my former possessor was not quite so good as she might have been, it was no fault of mine.

At length, after a tedious inactivity, I was bought cheap by a young physician, who having rashly left his provincial patients to set up in London, took it into his head that nothing could be done there by a medical man who did not go upon wheels; he therefore hired a house in a good situation, and then set me up, and bid my vendor put me down in his bill.

It is quite astonishing how we flew about the streets and squares, acting great practice; those who knew us by sight must have thought we had a great deal to do, but we practised nothing but locomotion.  Some medical men thin the population, (so says Slander,) my master thinned nothing but his horses.  They were the only good jobs that came in his way, and certainly he made the most of them.  He was obliged to feed them, but he was very rarely feed himself.  It so happened that nobody consulted us, and the unavoidable consumption of the family infected my master’s pocket, and his little resources were in a rapid decline.

Still he kept a good heart; indeed, in one respect, he resembled a worm displayed in a bottle in a quack’s shop window—­he was never out of spirits!  He was deeply in debt, and his name was on every body’s books, always excepting the memorandum-books of those who wanted physicians.  Still I was daily turned out, and though nobody called him in, he was to be seen, sitting very forward, apparently looking over notes supposed to have been taken after numerous critical cases and eventful consultations.  Our own case was hopeless, our progress was arrested, an execution was in the house, servants met with their deserts and were turned off, goods were seized, my master was knocked up, and I was knocked down for one hundred and twenty pounds.