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.

Our illumination on the christening of the Prince of Wales—­we at once, and in the most liberal manner, give the child his title—­has been generally scouted, save and except by a few public-spirited oil and tallow-merchants.  It has been thought better to give away legs of mutton on the occasion, than to waste any of the sheep in candles.  This proposition—­it is known—­has our heartiest concurrence.  Here, however, comes in the wisdom of our dear Sir Peter.  He, taking the hint from the Mogul Country, proposes that the Prince of Wales should be weighed in scales—­weighed, naked as he was born, without the purple velvet and ermine robe in which his Highness is ordinarily shown in, not that Sir PETER would sink that “as offal”—­against his royal weight in beef and pudding; the said beef and pudding to be distributed to every poor family (if the family count a certain number of mouths, his Royal Highness to be weighed twice or thrice, as it may be) to celebrate the day on which his Royal Highness shall enter the pale of the Christian Church.

We have all heard what a remarkably fine child his Royal Babyhood is; but would not this distribution of beef and pudding convince the country of the fact?  How folks would rejoice at the chubbiness of the Prince, when they saw a evidence of his bare dimensions smoking on their table!  How their hearts would leap up at his fat, when they beheld it typified upon their platters!  How they would be gladdened by prize royalty, while their mouths watered at prize beef!  And how, with all their admiration of the exceeding lustihood of the Prince of Wales,—­how, from the very depths of their stomachs, would they wish His Royal Highness twice as big!