frequented by Doctor TEUFELSKOPF.  We have seen the calculation very beautifully illuminated on ass’s skin, and at this moment deposited in the college of Heligoland.  It is not generally known that the Doctor died in this country; lustily predicting, however, that after a nap of a score or so of years he would return to this life in an entirely new character.  The Doctor has kept his word.  HERR VON TEUFELSKOPF, as Sir THOMAS BROWNE says, is “lived over again” in Sir ROBERT PEEL!

It is impossible to reflect upon the enlarged humanity of Sir ROBERT—­for though, indeed, he is no other than the old German quack revived, we will not refuse to him his new name—­toward the sufferers of Paisley, without feeling that the fine spirit of finesse which made the reputation of the student of the Black Forest has in no way suffered from its long sleep; but, on the contrary, has risen very much refreshed for new practice.  The Doctor never compassed so fine a sleight as Sir ROBERT when lately, playing the philanthropist, he struck his breeches’ pocket with a spasm of benevolence, and pulled therefrom—­fifty pounds!  Only a few weeks before, Sir ROBERT had sworn by all his list of former cures, that he would clothe the naked and feed the hungry, if he were duly authorised and duly paid for such Christian-like solicitude.  He is called in; he then prorogues Parliament to the tune of “Go to the devil and shake yourself,” and sits down in the easy chair of salary, and tries to think!  Disturbed in his contemplations by the groans and screams of the famishing, he addresses the starving multitude from the windows of Downing-street, telling them he can do nothing for them in a large way, but—­the fee he has received to cure them can afford as much—­graciously throwing them fifty pounds from his private compassion!  As a statesman he is powerless; but he has no objection to subscribe to the Mendicity Society.

It is an old hacknied abuse of NERO, that when Rome was in flame he accompanied the crackling of doors and rafters with his very best fiddle.  We grant this showed a want of fine sympathy on the part of NERO; there was, nevertheless, a boldness, an exhibition of nerve, in such instrumentation.  Any way, it leaves us with a higher respect for NERO than if he had been found playing on the burning Pantheon with a penny squirt.  His mockery of the Romans, bad as it was, was not the mockery of compassion.

“I will make bread cheap for you,” says Sir ROBERT PEEL to the Paisley sufferers; “I will not enable you to buy the quartern loaf at a reduced rate by your own industry, but I will treat you to a penny roll, at its present size, from my own purse.”  Whereupon the Tories clap their hands and cry, “What magnanimity!”

What should we say if, on another Pie-lane conflagration of London, the Minister were to issue an order commanding all the fire-offices to make no attempt to extinguish the flames, and were then to exclaim to the sufferers, “My friends, I deeply sympathize with you; but the Phoenix shall not budge, the Hand-in-Hand mustn’t move a finger, the Eagle must stay where it is; nevertheless, there is a little private fire-engine of my own at Tamworth; you are heartily welcome to the use of it, and pray heaven it may put this terrible fire out, and once more make you snug and comfortable.”