FRENCH OPINIONS.

"ENGLAND,” says the Temps, "is a vast manufactory, a great laboratory, a universal countinghouse. France is a rich farm, tending to turn itself into a manufactory. Germany is an ill-cultivated field, because they are philosophers and not peasants who till it. Southern Italy is a villa in ruins. Northern Italy is an artificial prairie. Belgium is a forge. Holland is a canal. Sweden and

Denmark are carpenters' yards. Poland is a sandy heath. Russia is an ice-house. Switzerland is a châlet. Greece is a field in a state of nature. Turkey is a field fallow. India is a gold mine. Egypt is a workshop for apprentices. Africa is a furnace. Algiers is a nursery-ground. Asia is a grove. The Antilles are sugar refineries. South America is a store.

TOBY TOSSPOT.

BY GEORGE COLMAN THE YOUNGER.

ALAS! what pity 'tis that regularity
Like Isaac Shrove's is such a rarity!
But there are swilling wights in London town,
Term'd jolly dogs-choice spirits—alias swine,
Who pour, in midnight revel, bumpers down,
Making their throats a thoroughfare for wine.
These spendthrifts, whose life's pleasures run on
Dozing with headaches till the afternoon,
Lose half men's regular estate of sun,
By borrowing too largely of the moon.
One of this kidney, Toby Tosspot hight,
Was coming from the Bedford late at night:
And being Bacchi plenus-full of wine,
Although he had a tolerable notion
Of aiming at progressive motion,
'Twasn't direct-'twas serpentine.
He work'd with sinuosities along,

Like Monsieur Corkscrew worming through a cork:
Not straight, like Corkscrew's proxy, stiff Don
Prong, a fork.

At length, with near four bottles in his pate,
He saw the moon shining on Shrove's brass plate;
When reading, "Please to ring the bell,"
And being civil beyond measure—
"Ring it!" says Toby; "very well,
I'll ring it with a deal of pleasure."
Toby, the kindest soul in all the town,
Gave it a jerk that almost jerk'd it down."

He waited full two minutes-no one came:
He waited full two minutes more, and then
Says Toby, If he's deaf I'm not to blame;
I'll pull it for the gentleman again."
But the first peal woke Isaac in a fright,
Pale as a parsnip-bolt upright.

At length, he wisely to himself doth say,
Calming his fears,

"Tush! 'tis some fool has rung and run away"-
When peal the second rattled in his ears.
Shrove jumped into the middle of the floor,
And trembling at each breath of air that stirred,
He groped down-stairs, and open'd the street-door,
While Toby was performing peal the third.
Isaac eyed Toby fearfully askant,

And saw he was a strapper, stout and tall;
Then put this question: Pray, sir, what d'ye

want ? "

A WHEELING ARTICLE.

GOING to dinner the other day, we saw a little of "hired help," trusting everything to their fellow, about two years old, sitting in a wheel-management-his fences down, implements out of barrow and trying to wheel himself. It struck us repair, and land suffering from want of proper that many people in this world are often caught tillage-too proud or too lazy to take off his coat in the same act, and we shall always think here- and go to work-he's sitting in a wheelbarrow after, when we see a business man trusting every- trying to wheel himself. thing to his clerks, and continually seeking his own amusement—always absent from his countinghouse, yet expecting to get along-he's sitting in a wheelbarrow and trying to wheel himself.

When we see a professional man better acquainted with everything else than his profession, always starting some new scheme, and never attending to his calling, his wardrobe and his credit will soon designate him as sitting in a wheelbarrow and trying to wheel himself.

When we see a farmer with an over-abundance

When we see a mechanic run the length of a street every day to borrow a newspaper, and maybe have to wait ten or fifteen minutes before he can get it, we think that the time he loses would soon pay the subscription, and consider him sitting in a wheelbarrow and trying to wheel himself.

When we see a man busily engaged in circulat ing scandal concerning his neighbour, we infer that he is pretty deep in the mud himself, and is sitting in a wheelbarrow and trying to wheel himself.

A SUNNIT TO THE BIG OX.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DINING.
BY DOUGLAS JERROLD.

A GARDENER'S

THE REASON
WANTED:

THE reason why you may ask for "greens" at a
dinner-table, but on no account for "cabbage."

The reason why gentlemen, upon their healths being drunk, invariably feel it to be "the proudest moment of their life."

The reason why a cabman can't take his proper fare without grumbling.

CLIPPINGS.

"WHY did you set your cup of tea on the chair, Mr. James?" asked a worthy landlady one morning at breakfast. "It is so very weak, ma'am," replied Mr. James, "I thought I would let it rest."

A POET was once walking with M. Talleyrand in the street, reciting some of his verses. Talleyrand, perceiving at a short distance a man yawning, pointed him out to the poet, saying, "Not so loudhe hears you."

A NERVOUS man, whose life was made miserable by the clattering of two blacksmiths, prevailed upon each of them to remove, by the offer of a liberal pecuniary compensation. When the money was paid down, he kindly inquired what neighbour. hood they intended to remove to. Why, sir," replied Jack, with a grin on his phiz, "Tom Smith moves to my shop, and I move to his."

66

school men. Look at our poets. There's Byron, he was a Harrow boy." "Yes," interrupted Landseer, "there's Burns, he was a ploughboy."

ANY one would suppose that the employment of sewing was the most peaceful and quiet occupation in the world, and yet it is absolutely horrifying to hear ladies talking about stilettos, bodkins, gatherings, surgings, hemmings, gorings, cuttings, whippings, lacings, cuffings, and battings.

A NOBLEMAN, extremely rich but a miser, stopping to change horses at Athlone, the carriage was surrounded by paupers imploring alms, to whom he turned a deaf ear, and drew up the glass. A ragged old woman, going round to the other side of the carriage, bawled out in the old peer's hearing, "Please you, my lord, just chuck one tinpenny out of your coach, and I'll answer it will trait all

A STORY is told of a man living out West who your friends in Athlone." completes eight pair of large boots every day. An editor says, "It would be considered small doings in this city. There is a ladies' shoemaker down in the swamps who, as fast as he finishes a boot, throws it over his shoulder into a box behind him. He keeps one in the air all the time, and don't half try."

IN the bull-fighting days. a Wednesbury blacksmith, who was rearing a bull-pup, induced his old father to go on all-fours and imitate the bull. The canine pupil pinned the old man by the nose. The son, disregarding the paternal roaring, exclaimed, "Hold him, Growler boy, hold him!-Bear it, feyther,

bear it! it'll be the making of the pup."

A TRAVELLER was lately boasting of the luxury of arriving late, after a hard day's journey, to partake of the enjoyment of a well-cut ham and the left leg of a goose. "Pray, sir," said a gentleman, "what is the peculiar luxury of a left leg p" "Sir," said the traveller, "to conceive its luxury, you must conceive that it is the only leg that happens to be left."

JONES has discovered the respective natures of a distinction and a difference. He says that " а little difference" frequently makes many enemies, while "a little distinction" attracts hosts of friends

to the one on whom it is conferred.

ACCOMPANYING a Noah's ark, fresh from Germany, and on sale in our toy-shops, is a catalogue of the inmates thereof, in German, French, and English. Amongst them we find "two mices, two sheeps;" but, best of all, "eight men, viz., four

men and four wives."

TO DESTROY FLIES.-Get a four-horse power engine; put it in the back kitchen; run shafting in every room, connected with the engine aforesaid by belting. On the shafting place fly- wheels, smear the wheels with treacle, and set the engine going. The flies, being attracted by the treacle on the fly-wheels, will light on them, and the wheel revolving rapidly, they will be whirled off. Have a boy under each wheel with a bat, and let him smite them as they fall, and before they have time to recover from their dizziness. A smart boy has been known to kill fifty a day.

"MANY of our modern criticisms on the works of our

elder writers," says Coleridge, "remind me of the
connoisseur who, taking up a small cabinet pic-
ture, railed most eloquently at the absurd caprice
of the artist in painting a horse sprawling.
cuse me, sir,' replied the owner of the piece, 'you
hold it the wrong way; it is a horse galloping."

Ex

WHEN young Hodge first came up to town, his father told him it would be polite, when being helped at dinner, to say to the host, "Half that,

if

dinner to which he was invited a sucking-pig was you please.' It so happened that at the first knife to the young porker, asked, "Well, Mr. one of the dishes. The host, pointing with his Hodge, will you have this, our favourite dish, or haunch of mutton?" Upon which, recollecting his lesson, he replied, "Half that, if you please."

ing Douglas Jerrold, and pouring long, pointless A PROSY old gentleman was in the habit of meetstories into his ears. On one occasion Prosy related a lengthy account of a stupid practical joke, concluding with the information, "he really thought he should have died with laughter." Jerrold: "I wish to goodness you had!"