SHEPHERD.

When death has them flat,
I’ll stitch on my weepers,
Put crape around my bat,
And a napkin to my peepers! 
Fal de ral, de ral, &c.

NORTH.

Your words go to my heart,
I hear the death-owl flying,
I feel death’s fatal dart—­
By jingo, I am dying! 
Fal de ral, de ral, &c.

COLONEL O’SHAUGHNESSY.

See him, how he lies
Flat as any flounder! 
Blow me! smoke his eyes—­
Death ne’er closed eyes sounder! 
Fal de ral, de ral, &c.

         DELTA.

Yet he can’t be dead,
For he is immortal,
And to receive his head
Earth would not ope its portal! 
Fal de ral, de ral, &c.

O’DOHERTY.

Kit will never die;
That I take for sartain! 
Death “is all my eye”—­
An’t it, Betty Martin? 
Fal de ral, de ral, &c.

    MODERN PYTHAGOREAN.

  Suppose we feel his arm—­
    Zounds’ I never felt a
  Human pulse more firm: 
    What’s your opinion, Delta? 
      Fal de ral, de ral, &c

CHARLES LAMB.

Kit, I hope you’re well,
Up, and join our ditty;
To lose such a fine old fel-
Low would be a pity! 
Fal de ral, de ral, &c.

NORTH.

Let’s resume our booze,
And tipple while we’re able;
I’ve had a bit of a snooze,
And feel quite comfortable! 
Fal de ral, de ral, &c.

MULLION.

Be he who he may,
Sultan, Czar, or Aga,
Let him soak his clay
To the health of Kit and Maga! 
Fal de ral, de ral, &c.

OPIUM-EATER.

Search all the world around,
From Greenland to Malaga,
And nowhere will be found
A magazine like Maga! 
Fal de ral, de ral,
Iram coram dago;
Fal de ral, de ral,
Here’s success to Maga!

Blackwood—­Noctes.

* * * * *

NOTES OF A READER.

KNOWLEDGE FOR THE PEOPLE; OR, THE PLAIN WHY AND BECAUSE.

PART III.—­Origins and Antiquities.

This contains the Why and Because of the Curiosities of the Calendar; the Customs and Ceremonies of Special Days; and a few of the Origins and Antiquities of Social Life.  We quote a page of articles, perhaps, the longest in the Number:—­

Cock-fighting.

Why was throwing at cocks formerly customary on Shrove Tuesday?

Because the crowing of a cock once prevented our Saxon ancestors from massacreing their conquerors, another part of our ancestors, the Danes, on the morning of a Shrove Tuesday, while asleep in their beds.

This is the account generally received, although two lines in an epigram “On a Cock at Rochester,” by the witty Sir Charles Sedley, imply that the cock suffered this annual barbarity by way of punishment for St. Peter’s crime, in denying his Lord and Master—­