“Alas! what loads of food I see,
  What Turbots from the Zuyder Zee,
  What Calipash, what Calipee,
    What Salad and what Mustard: 
  Heads of the Church and limbs of Law,
  Vendors of Calico and Straw,
  Extend one sympathetic jaw
    To swallow Cake and Custard.

  “Thine armour’d Knights their steeds discard’
  To quaff thy wine ‘through helmet barr’d,’
  While K.C.B.’s, with bosoms starr’d,
    Within their circle wedge thee. 
  Even now I see thee standing up,
  Raise to thy lip ‘the loving cup,’
  Intent its ruby tide to sup,
    And bid thy hearers pledge thee.

  “But, ah! how fleeting thy renown! 
  Thus treading on the heel of Brown;
  How vain thy spangled suit, thy gown
    Intended for three waiters: 
  Ere Lansdowne’s speech is at an end,
  I see a board of lamps descend,
  Whose orbs in bright confusion blend,
    And strew the floor with splinters.

  “Their smooth contents spread far and near,
  And in one tide impetuous smear
  Knight, Waiter, Liveryman, and Peer: 
    Nay, even his Royal Highness
  The falling board no longer props,
  Owns, with amaze, the unwelcome drops
  And, premature anointment, swaps
    For oozy wet his dryness.

  “Fear shrieks in many a varied tone,
  Pale Beauty mourns her spotted zone,
  And heads and bleeding knuckles own
    The glittering prostration. 
  Behold! thou wip’st thy crimson chin,
  And all is discord, all is din;
  While scalded waiters swear thee in
    With many an execration.

  “Yet, Lucas, smile in Fortune’s spite;
  Dark mornings often change to bright;
  Ne’er shall this omen harm a wight
    So active and so clever. 
  How buoyant, how elastic thou! 
  With a lamp halo round thy brow,
  Prophetic Magog dubs thee now
    A Lighter man—­than ever.”

New Monthly Magazine.

* * * * *

ROYAL APPETITES.

Charles XII. was brave, noble, generous, and disinterested,—­a complete hero, in fact, and a regular fire-eater.  Yet, in spite of these qualifications and the eulogiums of his biographer, it is pretty evident to those who impartially consider the career of this potentate, that he was by no means of a sane mind.  In short, to speak plainly, he was mad, and deserved a strait-waistcoat as richly as any straw-crowned monarch in Bedlam.  A single instance, in my opinion, fully substantiates this.  I allude to his absurd freak at Frederickshall, when, in order to discover how long he could exist without nourishment, he abstained from all kinds of food for more than seventy hours!  Now, would any man in his senses have done this?  Would Louis XVIII., for instance, that wise and ever-to-be-lamented monarch?  Had it been the reverse indeed—­had