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Or gives her credit for greater might

Than the Powers of Darkness confer at night
On that other old woman, the parish Charley!

Ay, now's the time for a Witch to call
On her Imps and Sucklings one and all-
Newes, Pyewacket, or Peck in the Crown
(As Matthew Hopkins has handed them down),
Dick, and Willet, and Sugar-and Sack,
Greedy Grizel, Jarmara the Black,
Vinegar Tom and the rest of the pack—
Ay, now's the nick for her friend Old Harry
To come "with his tail" like the bold Glengarry,
And drive her foes from their savage job
As a mad Black Bullock would scatter a mob
But no such matter is down in the bond;
And spite of her cries that never cease,
But scare the ducks and astonish the geese,
The Dame is dragg'd to the fatal pond!

And now they come to the water's brim-
And in they bundle her-sink or swim;

Though it's twenty to one that the wretch must drown,
With twenty sticks to hold her down;

Including the help to the self-same end,
Which a travelling Pedlar stops to lend.
A Pedlar!-Yes!-The same !-the same!
Who sold the Horn to the drowning Dame!
And now is foremost amid the stir,

With a token only reveal'd to her;

A token that makes her shudder and shriek,
And point with her finger, and strive to speak-
But before she can utter the name of the Devil,
Her head is under the water-level!

MORAL.

There are folks about town-to name no names-
Who much resemble that deafest of Dames;

And over their tea, and muffins, and crumpets,
Circulate many a scandalous word,

And whisper tales they could only have heard
Through some such Diabolical Trumpets!

NOTE.

The following curious passage is quoted for the benefit of such Readers as are afflicted, like Dame Spearing, with Deafness, and one of its concomitants, a singing or ringing in the head. The extract is taken from "Quid Pro Quo; or, A Theory of Compensations. By P. S." (perhaps Peter Shard), folio

edition.

"Soe tenderly kind and gratious is Nature, our Mother, that She seldom or never puts upon us any Grievance without making Us some Amends, which, if not a full and perfect Equivalent, is yet a great Solace or Salve to the Sore. As is notably displaid in the Case of such of our Fellow Creatures as undergoe the Loss of Heering, and are thereby deprived of the Comfort and Entertainment of Natural Sounds. In lew whereof the Deaf Man, as testified by mine own Experience, is regaled with an inward Musick that is not vouchsafed unto a Person who hath the compleet Usage of his Ears. For note, that the selfsame Condition of Boddy which is most apt to bring on a Surdity, namely, a general Relaxing of the delicate and subtile Fibres of the Human Nerves, and mainly such as belong and propinque to the Auricular Organ, this very Unbracing which silences the Tympanum, or drum, is the most instrumental Cause in producing a Consort in the Head. And, in particular, that affection which the Physitians have called Tinnitus, by reason of its Resemblance to a Ring of Bells. The Absence of which, as a National Musick, would be a sore Loss and Discomfort to any Native of the Low Countryes, where the Steeples and Church-Towers with their Carillons maintain an allmost endlesse Tingle; seeing that before one quarterly Chime of the Cloke hath well ended, another must by Time's Command strike

up its Tune. On which Account, together with its manye waterish Swamps and Marshes, the Land of Flandres is said by the Wits to be Ringing. Wet. Such campanulary Noises would alsoe be heavily mist and lamented by the Inhabitants of that Ringing Island described in Rabelais his Works, as a Place constantly filled with a Corybantick Jingle Jangle of great, middlesized, and little Bells: wherewith the People seem to be as much charmed as a Swarm of Bees with the Clanking of brazen Kettles and Pans. And which Ringing Island cannot of a surety be Barbadoes, as certain Authors have supposed, but rather our own tintinnabulary Island of Brittain, where formerly a Saxon could not soe much as quench a Fire or a Candle but to the tune of a Bell. And even to this day, next to the Mother Tongue, the one mostly used is in a Mouth of Mettal, and withal so loosely hung, that it must needs wag at all Times and on all Topicks. For your English Man is a mighty Ringer, and besides furnishing Bells to a Bellfry, doth hang them at the Head of his Horse, and at the Neck of his Sheep-on the Cap of his Fool, and on the Heels of his Hawk. And truly I have known more than one amongst my Country Men, who would undertake more Travel, and Cost besides, to hear a Peal of Grandsires, than they would bestow to look upon a Generation of Grandchildren. But alack! all these Bells with the huge Muscovite, and Great Tom of Lincoln to boot, be but as Dumb Bells to the Deaf Man: wherefore, as I said, Nature kindly steps in with a Compensation, to wit a Tinnitus, and converts his own Head into a Bellfry, whence he hath Peals enow, and what is more without having to pay the Ringers."

BOZ IN AMERICA.

SINCE the voyages of Columbus in search of the New World, and of Raleigh in quest of El Dorado, no visit to America has excited so much interest and conjecture as that of the author of "Oliver Twist." The enterprise was understood to be a sort of Literary Expedition, for profit as well as pleasure: and many and strange were the speculations of the reading public as to the nature and value of the treasures which would be brought home by Dickens on his return. Some persons expected a philosophical comparison of Washington's Republic with that of Plato; others anticipated a Report on the Banking System and Commercial Statistics of the United States; and some few, perhaps, looked for a Pamphlet on International Copyright. The general notion, however, was that the Transatlantic acquisitions of Boz would transpire in the shape of a Tale of American Life and Manners-and moreover that it would appear by monthly instalments in green covers, and illustrated by some artist with the name of Phiz, or Whiz, or Quiz.

So strong indeed was this impression, that certain blue-stockinged prophetesses even predicted a new Avatar of the celebrated Mr. Pickwick in slippers and loose trousers, a nankeen jacket, and a straw-hat, as large as an umbrella. Sam Weller was to re-appear as his help, instead of a footman, still full of droll sayings, but in a slang more akin to that of his namesake, the Clock-maker: while Weller, senior, was to revive on the box of a Boston long stage,-only calling himself Jonathan, instead of Tony, and spelling it with a G. A Virginian widow Bardell was a matter of course-and some visionaries even foresaw a

slave-owning Mr. Snodgrass, a coon-hunting Mr. Winkle, a wideawake Joe, and a forest-clearing Bob Sawyer.*

The fallacy of these guesses and calculations was first proved by the announcement of "American Notes for General Circulation," a title that at once dissipated every dream of a Clockcase, or a Club, and cut off all chance of a tale. Encouraged by the technical terms which seemingly had some reference to their own speculations, the money-mongers still held on faintly by their former opinions:-but the Romanticists were in despair, and reluctantly abandoned all hopes of a Pennsylvanian Nicholas Nickleby affectionately darning his mother-a new Yorkshire Mr. Squeers flogging creation-a black Smike-a brown Kate, and a Bostonian Newman Noggs, alternately swallowing a cocktail and a cobbler.†

Still there remained enough in the announcement of American Notes, by C. Dickens, to strop the public curiosity to a keen edge. Numerous had been the writers on the land of the stars and stripes—a host of travelled ladies and gentlemen, liberals and illiberals, utilitarians and inutilitarians-human bowls of every bias had trundled over the United States without hitting, or in the opinion of the natives, even coming near the jack. The Royalist, missing the accustomed honors of Kings and Queens, saw nothing but a republican pack of knaves; the High Churchman, finding no established church, declared that there was no religion-the aristocrat swore that all was low and vulgar, because there were no servants in drab turned up with blue, or in green turned down with crimson-the radical was shocked by the caucus, the enthralment of public opinion, and the timidity of the preachers—the metaphysical philosopher was disgusted with the preponderance of the real over the ideal the adventurer took fright at Lynch law, and the saintly abolitionist saw nothing but black angels and white devils. An impartial account of America and the Americans was still to seek, and accordingly the reading public on both sides of the Atlantic looked forward with anxiety

* With the wishes of these admirers of Boz we can in some degree sympathize for what could be a greater treat in the reading way than the perplexities of a squatting Mr. Pickwick, or a settling Mrs. Nickleby? † Not a horse and shoe-maker, but two sorts of American drink.

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