In vain he applied To the handle and tried,
  Somebody or other had locked it outside! 
  And the Duchess in agony mourn’d her mishap: 
  “We are caught like a couple of rats in a trap.”

    Now the Duchess’s page, About twelve years of age,
  For so little a boy was remarkably sage;
  And, just in the nick, to their joy and amazement,
  Popp’d the gas-lighter’s ladder close under the casement. 
    But all would not do,—­Though St. Megrin got through
  The window,—­below stood De Guise and his crew. 
  And though never man was more brave than St. Megrin,
  Yet fighting a score is extremely fatiguing;
    He thrust carte and tierce Uncommonly fierce,
  But not Beelzebub’s self could their cuirasses pierce: 
    While his doublet and hose, Being holiday clothes,
  Were soon cut through and through from his knees to his nose. 
  Still an old crooked sixpence the Conjurer gave him,
  From pistol and sword was sufficient to save him,
      But, when beat on his knees, That confounded De Guise
  Came behind with the “fogle” that caused all this breeze,
  Whipp’d it tight round his neck, and, when backward he’d jerk’d him,
  The rest of the rascals jump’d on him and Burked him. 
  The poor little page, too, himself got no quarter, but
  Was served the same way, And was found the next day
  With his heels in the air, and his head in the water-butt;

    Catherine of Cleves Roar’d “Murder!” and “Thieves!”
    From the window above While they murder’d her love;
  Till, finding the rogues had accomplish’d his slaughter,
  She drank Prussic acid without any water,
  And died like a Duke-and-a-Duchess’s daughter!

CHATTER OF A DILETTANTE
[Sidenote:  Horace Walpole]

The people are good-humoured here and easy; and, what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me.  One loves to find people who care for one, when they can have no view in it.

[Sidenote:  Horace Walpole]

As to “Hosier’s Ghost,” I think it very easy, and consequently pretty; but, from the ease, should never have guessed it Glover’s.  I delight in your, “the patriots cry it up, and the courtiers cry it down, and the hawkers cry it up and down.”

[Sidenote:  Horace Walpole]

There is a little book coming out that will amuse you.  It is a new edition of Isaac Walton’s “Complete Angler,” full of anecdotes and historic notes.  It is published by Mr. Hawkins, a very worthy gentleman in my neighbourhood, but who, I could wish, did not think angling so very innocent an amusement.  We cannot live without destroying animals, but shall we torture them for our sport—­sport in their destruction?  I met a rough officer at his house t’other day, who said he knew such a person was turning Methodist; for, in the middle of conversation, he rose and opened the window to