To burlesque such a work as “Norma,” then, is to paint the lily, to gild refined gold, to caricature Lord Morpeth, or to attempt to improve PUNCH.  Yet the opportunity was too tempting to be wholly overlooked, and a hint having been dropped in one of our “Pencillings,” an Adelphi scribe has acted upon it.  An enlarged edition of the work may, therefore, now be had at half-price.  A heroine of six foot two or three in her sandals, with a bass voice, covers the stage with tremendous strides, and warbles out “her wood-notes” (being a Druidess she worships the oak) “wild,” with a volume of voice which silences the trombone, and makes the ophecleide sound asthmatic.  In short, the great feature is Mr. Paul Bedford.  The children he brings forward are worthy of their parentage. Pollio is made a most killing Roman roue by Mrs. Grattan; but Norma’s attendant does not speak Irish half so richly as the Covent-Garden Flavius.

But, above all, commend we Mr. Wright’s Adelgeisa.  It is a masterpiece; all the airs and graces of the prima donna he imitates with a true spirit of burlesque.  As to his singing, it astonished everybody, and so did the introduction of “All round my Hat,”—­a most unnecessary interpolation, for the original music is quite as droll.

* * * * *

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

FOR THE WEEK ENDING DECEMBER 18, 1841.

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THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE LONDON MEDICAL STUDENT.

12.—­OF THE COLLEGE, AND THE CONCLUSION.

[Illustration:  O]Our hero once more undergoes the process of grinding before he presents himself in Lincoln’s-inn Fields for examination at the College of Surgeons.  Almost the last affair which our hero troubles himself about is the Examination at the College of Surgeons; and as his anatomical knowledge requires a little polishing before he presents himself in Lincoln’s-inn Fields, he once more undergoes the process of grinding.

The grinder for the College conducts his tuition in the same style as the grinder for the Hall—­often they are united in the same individual, who perpetually has a vacancy for a resident pupil, although his house is already quite full; somewhat resembling a carpet-bag, which was never yet known to be so crammed with articles, but you might put something in besides.  The class is carried on similar to the one we have already quoted; but the knowledge required does not embrace the same multiformity of subjects; anatomy and surgery being the principal points.

Our old friends are assembled to prepare for their last examination, in a room fragrant with the amalgamated odours of stale tobacco-smoke, varnished bones, leaky preparations, and gin-and-water.  Large anatomical prints depend from the walls, and a few vertebrae, a lower jaw, and a sphenoid bone, are scattered upon the table.