boogee and my sanctified brethren, I do not see the right by which we, being only men like themselves, are, in a country of liberty, to control our fellowcreatures in their recreations and amusements; seeing, that if they are to go to perdition for doing that, which has been ordinarily done in Great Britain for the last four or five centuries, we are to conclude that all our forefathers have forfeited their hopes of happiness hereafter, because the system of Hum-Fumism did not exist; which reflection is not only melancholy, but, as I am bound to trust, not founded in fact. Moreover, sir," added the brother, addressing himself to the most venerable Gamboogee, "your lordship must know, that in Roman Catholic countries the Sunday is universally a day of gaiety; that dances, and even plays, are performed on that day; and since, I believe, many of the great Hum-Fums who now hear me, voted in another place in favour of the Roman Catholics, they should be cautious, while they cry for the admission of such levities with one breath, not to condemn, with another, to eternal punishment the Protestants, who, although it must be confessed they contrive, even in these times of distress, to enjoy themselves on Sundays, confine themselves to a walk or drive into the country, with their wives and children, and a harmless regale of their pipes and their pots, their buggies and their bottles, or their carriages and their claret, as the case may be-"

"Harmless!" said the great Hum-Fum, the buckles of his wig standing on end.

"And I doubt much," continued the former member, whether the very proceedings we are about

to adopt will not sicken those of moderately pious lives, and-"

"Sicken, sir!" interrupted the great Hum-Fum, "look at the navy, sir! Do you not perceive that the blessed institution, the Bethel Union, of which Master Phillips and myself are the main props, has taken the navy under its care, that we are to control the pleasures of the sailors, to correct their propensities, dock them of their girls and their grog, and allowance them even, in pig-tail. If this experiment succeed, if the navy submit to this most proper control and purification, why should not the army, and the laity generally submit to it too? What did Oliver Cromwell do, sir? Had not he a preaching army ?"

Here a considerable noise of coughing took place; for, though the ultra Hum-Fums were too much involved in zeal to think of analogies, the designing and radical Hums, who had merely joined the Society for political purposes, felt that the mention of old Noll might throw the more moderate into a train of thoughts for which they had not as yet been sufficiently prepared.

The confusion caused the great Gamboogee to cease; when a servant entered and whispered his lordship. What the communication was we were unable to learn, as an adjournment was immediately moved and carried. The fact is-dinner was ready.

LOTTERIES NOT ABOLISHED.

ARE lotteries over, abolished, suppressed!
Is the wheel of Dame Fortune for ever at rest!
Shall we never more feel a pecuniary wish,
Puff'd up by the florid inflations of Bish?
The Government wills it! the dark deed is done,
And Goodluck and Co.'s occupation is gone!
Yet hold!-does Government really suppose
That lotteries end when their lotteries close?
The lords of creation too surely will find
That life's greatest lottery lingers behind.

The first is the "Great Matrimonial Plan;"
Mammas are contractors, inveigling man,
With smiles, sensibility, ringlets, and ruffs,
Which serve them instead of advertisement puffs;
Yet still in the papers we frequently find,
A puff of the proper old lottery kind.

For instance the Post very properly tells,
The newest arrivals, the last T. T. L.'s,
The scheme of delight in the very best set,
The dinners, the déjeûners à la fourchette;
The issue of cards for particular days,
The mansions thrown open in elegant ways;
The liveried lacqueys, the or-molu lustres,
The suites of apartments, exotics in clusters;
And when the fair hostess is lauded enough,
Oh! then come the daughters, the cream of the puff!

In all of the streets, and in all of the squares,
Contractors exhibit their tickets and shares;
They hang out their numbers by night and by day,
At Kensington-gardens, park, opera, play;
VOL. II.

P

Enumerate boldly to riches, and rank,

Their prizes-but, breathe not the name of a blank!

Bish used to print paragraphs artfully penn'd---
We saw not his aim till we read to the end-
“Great news from abroad!”—“A suspicion of treason!"
"A mermaid exhibiting just in the season!"
Through foreign news, mermaid, or radical plotter, he
Always contrived to get round to the lottery.

And thus in the scheme hymeneal, 'tis right
To keep the ulterior aim out of sight:
A party of pleasure, a season at Bath,
A snug téte-à-téte in a shadowy path,
A seat in the carriage, a place in the box-
Attention to taste in caps, bonnets, and frocks-
The praises of Anna-" there can't be a better, a
Girl unaffected-accomplished "-et cetera.

The crisis approaches-the die must be cast-
We come to the day of the drawing at last;
The choice which adds roses or nettles to life-
The close of the lottery-who is Lot's wife?
Oh! suffer her not to look blank, if you 're wise—
And you're lucky indeed, if she turn out a prize.

ON A RECENT CONTEST.

"Solatia Victis."

POOR Gaynor's a loser!

That such a good bruiser

In time will astonish us-nothing is plainer

Tho' Sharp is no flat,

Yet, no matter for that,

Had Gaynor been Sharp, Sharp had not been Gainer.

St. James's Place, Dec. 8, 1826.

FISHING.

PREJUDICE and fashion together are most imperious tyrants in modern society. There are certain points established, certain axioms laid down, and the nine people out of ten who never think for themselves take everything upon credit, and implicitly fall into the regulated course of opinion generally held, without stopping to inquire whether it happens to be just or unjust, tolerably right, or entirely wrong.

Amongst other established things are the kindness and amiability of honest Master Isaack Walton-the which are recorded even in the catalogue of the present Exhibition at Somerset House-his gentle mind, his tender heart, and the inoffensiveness of his great pursuit, are proverbial: everybody speaks in raptures of the purity and simplicity of the fisherman's life, and, above all, of the life of that particular fisherman, Walton.

Now, with respect to fishing, in the abstract it is, in fine weather, a very agreeable sport; one sees with pleasure, in the season, plump patience in a punt dozing over a float, activity in a plush-jacket whipping a river in spite, or dull matter-of-fact squatting by the side of a hole with a bundle of worms, bobbing for eels; but although these, innocent as they may be, involve something like barbarity, touching the impaling of the said worms, they are kindnesses compared with what Walton, the tender-hearted, did himself, and wrote a book to teach others to do after him.