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THE “WEIGHT” OF ROYALTY.—­THE SOCIAL “SCALE.”

The Prince of Wales it is allowed upon all hands is the finest baby ever sent into this naughty world since the firstborn of Eve.  At a day old he would make three of any of the new-born babes that a month since blessed the Union bf Sevenoaks.  There is, however, a remarkable providence in this.  The Prince of Wales is born to the vastness of a palace; the little Princes of Pauperdom being doomed to lie at the rate of fifteen in “two beds tied together,” are happily formed of corresponding dimensions, manufactured of more “squeezeable materials.”  There is, be sure of it, a providence watching over parish unions as well as palaces.  How, for instance, would boards of guardians pack their new-born charges, if every babe of a union had the brawn and bone of a Prince of Wales?

However, we could wish that the little Prince was thrice his size—­an aspiration in which our readers will heartily join, when they learn the goodly tidings we are about to tell them.

We believe it is not generally known that Sir PETER LAURIE is as profound an orientalist as perhaps any Rabbi dwelling in Whitechapel.  Sir PETER, whilst recently searching the Mansion House library,—­which has been greatly enriched by eastern manuscripts, the presents of the late Sir WILLIAM CURTIS, Sir CLAUDIUS HUNTER, and the venerable Turk who is Wont to sell rhubarb in Cheapside, and supplied dinner-pills to the Court of Aldermen,—­Sir PETER, be it understood, lighted upon a rare work on the Mogul Country, in which it is stated that on every birth-day of the Great Mogul, his Magnificence is duly weighed in scales against so much gold and silver—­his precise weight in the precious metals being expended on provisions for the poor.

Was there ever a happier device to make a nation interested in the greatness of their sovereign?  The fatter the king, the fuller his people!  With this custom naturalised among us, what a blessing would have been the corpulency of GEORGE THE FOURTH!  How the royal haunches, the royal abdomen, would have had the loyal aspirations of the poor and hungry!  The national anthem would have had an additional verse in thanksgiving for royal flesh; and in our orisons said in churches, we should not only have prayed for the increasing years of our “most religious King,” but for his increasing fat!

It is however useless to regret forgotten advantages; let us, on the contrary, with new alacrity, avail ourselves of a present good.