were so much in fashion), and "Blue bonnets over the border!" Nothing in the ancient literature of England has given the commentators more trouble than the endeavour to detect a meaning in this latter ode, as at first sight it would appear to be. The erudite Gallic antiquarian, M. de la Conjecture, supposes it to be a squib on the literary pretensions of the fair sex, in the same spirit as "Les precieuses ridicules" of Moliére, upon the assumption, which we believe to be correct, that the appellation of "blue stockings" (and, by a parity of reasoning, blue bonnets) was generally applied, about that period, to such members of the female community as (rare exception!) were instructed in the art of writing. We, however, incline to the belief

a powerful political party. We certainly find it recorded in the ancient chronicles that one Melbourne was the "principal Wig" at the Court of Queen ALEXANDRINA VICTORIA, whose lengthened reign, extending over the greater part of a century, was so prodigal of blessings to the British Empire, eclipsing even the glories of Elizabeth, and who, aided thereto by the statesmanlike qualities of her illustrious consort, ALBERTUS MAGNUS, successfully resisted those Russian intrigues which transferred to the Czar so large a portion of her dominions in the reign of one of her

successors. We incline to the belief that

this Melbourne, who is described as "principal Wig," was merely the Queen's perfumer, as well as ear-wigger and probably Master of the Revels, or Poet Laureate to the Court. Before we dismiss this subject, we must record the impossibility of our concurrence in M. de la Conjecture's hypothesis, that the terms "Tory," "Conserve," and "Radical, "were the designations of conflicting parties in the state, inasmuch as upon consulting the highest philological authorities, we find that "Tory" meant robber, "Conserve" a sweet preparation of fruit, and "Radical" any edible root, query, parsnip or potato? We incline to the latter, inasmuch as a great disturber of those days, named Connell or O'Connell, described as the "leading Radical," is believed to have come over from that now desert tract, called Ireland, upon which the

potato-plant is found still to flourish (its only production) in wild exuberance. As to state parties, generally, in those days, we have diligently consulted every authentic historical record, and can find no trace of any but the "Ins" and "Outs," whose constant struggles for place embroiled the country in the memorable fourteen years civil war.

that the passage is erroneously printed, and that for "blue bonnets" we should read "blue bottles"-no very strained emendation; and then the passage might be interpreted to involve either an entomological description of that peculiar species of fly which is termed the "blue bottle," or a bacchanalian effusion, in praise of a liquor very plentifully produced at that period in the Highlands of the ancient Caledonia, now annexed to the Czar's dominions, called "wisk," or "wisk-eye," which, from its resemblance to that excellent and very ancient spirituous beverage, yclept gin-popularly known as "blue ruin," might very naturally have the same quality of colour predicated of it by an imaginative poet, and hence, by an easy metonymic transition, the bottle might likewise be termed "blue"-Contentor pro contento. However this be, we certainly very much incline to Dr. Dusty's theory (at the same time begging to be distinctly understood as not altogether excluding Professor Von Schwartzenbüngler's drunken hypothesis) and infer that this Byrne, or Byron, or Burns-leaving it to the reader's option to choose any of these names he pleases-had fasted throughout the whole of the previous Lent on biscuits and soda-water (a practice to which he alludes in a letter which is preserved), and consequently had his temper much soured -a supposition which will most satisfactorily account for the rabid misanthropy which abounds in such portions of his works as we have taken the trouble to dip into, and which not only gives colour to the inference, but proves to demonstration, not that he had an inclination to obesity (Kommin Sensin's absurd theory), but that he was a rigid Roman Catholic, as his praise of the ancient temple of St. Peter at Rome (now a heap of ruins), which he calls the "Holy of Holies," and his hatred of the Established Church, clearly deducible from a passage where he speaks of a Forty-Parson power of Hypocrisy," sufficiently attest.

We had set out with the purpose of saying a few words as to the antiquity and usefulness of the office of

Coroner, as well as in respect to Phrenology, considered as one of the occult sciences. But the length to which our prefatory philological dissertation has run, induces us to omit them for the present, as well as the eulogium which we had prepared of the distinguished individuals to whom, by their specially conceded permission, this paper is dedicated, and proceed at once to our story.

son.

THE LANDGRAVE VON EPPENSTEIN was a very magnificent perPerched upon the summit of the principal amongst the Siebengeberge, his palatial mansion, entirely constructed of unblemished Italian marble, reared its beautiful proportions, in strict imitation of the ancient Parthenon; but its architectural dimensions, for a reason which shall presently appear, were seven-fold greater. The Landgrave's beautiful young bride, when-attended by her body-guard of 500 gentlemen (will our readers really believe that, in the ages of mock-modesty this would have been considered indelicate?) she divested herself of all her apparel, and bathed in the glorious stream which flowed majestically past the base of their air-built mansion, presented not to the gaze of the hoary river-god a whiter or more exquisitely moulded form than that which, from the columniated marble structure above, his bosom reflected in the clear light of morning. Selfconsuming coke, perfused with naptha and asphaltus, supplied the basaltic grates, and prevented one particle of smoke from sullying the purity of the edifice. A thousand silken-robed, ermine-shodden, and gold-cinctured domestics and retainers, whose tongues, by an indispensable caution, had been carefully removed by amputation, ministered to the wants and luxuries of this powerful potentate, whose dominions ex. tended for many a league on either side the castellated Rhine, bounded on one extremity by the Swiss frontier, on the other by the Züyder Zee.

Exhaustless wealth lay buried in the bosom of the interminable caverns with which the gentlemen engineers in the Landgrave's service-execut

ing, of course, the work which they had planned themselves, and. not permitted, as of old, to assume insolent airs, and delegate it to incompetent hodmen-had perforated Rolandseck to his very base, nay, far beneath, for public rumour (now, for the first time in earth's annals, not a liar) assigned to them an extension which not only under-tunnelled the bed of the river, but extended far into the bowels of France! But the Landgrave possessed three treasures, which, in his estimation (and it was neither vain nor ill-founded), far transcended the purchase-powers of the united treasuries of earth. These were his blooming bride, his rapid condor, "Pegasus," and his monstrostupendous air-balloon. We shall describe these treasures in succession.

HONORATISSIMATANTATREMENDA was the only daughter of the Imperial Czar, the most powerful of earth's monarchs, and she the richest dowered of virgins. The offshoots and clippings of the Czar's dominions were allotted to her for her bridal portion. Compared with the extent of his empire, they were insignificant, but, nevertheless, in themselves most considerable. They consisted of a thousand Indian cities, towns, and villages, including Madras, Bombay, and Trinchinopolis, with the most flourishing manufacturing towns in New Zealand, that unrivalled mart of commerce; to which were added, by way of makeweight, ̧ Gibraltar and Malta, and Scotland too was tossed into the scale with a contemptuous kick from the felt-shodden and leather-hatted potentate. (Our readers will scarcely credit, what, nevertheless, is the fact, that our besotted ancestors, in the obnubilated ages of mankind, exhibited the absolute reverse of this in their costume, cramping their corns, and that, too, before the infallible anticallosity emplastric anodyne was heard of, with unpliable hides, and judiciously proclaiming to posterity the value they set upon their miserable heads, by giving a greater amount of protection to their feet.) A trifle of additional negotiation also obtained from the Czar his

dominions in Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire, ceded to his predecessors at the peace of 3070, by the United States of America, through his monetary influence with the disinterested diplomatists of France. A hundred shiploads of rubles completed the magnificent dower. But the maiden herself was the richest prize of all. Powers of unmatchable loveliness, assist us to unfold her beauties ! Eyes of the deepest, most soulentrancing, celestial blue! Nose of the most accurate Phidian cut! Teeth, in the words of an ancient and venerable chronicler," like a flock of sheep returning from the wash," evenly white and more lustrous than pearl! a chin round as an apple, and indented by the finger of love! a cheek that would shame the peach; hair with which Cupid might have strung his bow! Add to all these, the sweetest of voices, the gentlest of dispositions, until she was properly roused, and then she was the concentrated essence of tornados and thunderbolts! the whitest and softest hand, and a figure that seemed to have been sculptured from a mountain of speckless alabaster, by some master genius, and then impregnated by a council of gods with life and life's best attributes-and then imagine that we are incapable dunces; and thence infer how far the Landgrave's bride must have surpassed all this!

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The Condor Pegasus" was a winged animal, worthy to be pressed by the magnificent seat of honour of the majestic Landgrave, and imbued, therefore, as a matter of course, with intellect by the action of the galvanic fluid upon a series of zinc plates. What further description is necessary, save to record the dimensions of the sagacious bird! When his wings were fully outspread at noon-day, total eclipse prevailed, and partial while they fluttered. The patent process of the "Eccaleobion," applied without intermission for a thousand years, to the continuation both of the Human and the Condor species in the Landgrave's family (whose escutcheon boasted 500, not the ex

ploded old standard of 15, quarterings), aided by the Landgrave's own experimental inquiry into the laws of the vital function, had produced in the person of that potentate an altitude of 700 feet, with a proportionate girth of waist, and thews and sinews to match, while in point of dimensions, it had converted the bird into a positive beast! Though the elixir vitæ had not as yet succeeded in solving the problem of terrestrial immortality, yet, aided by the disinterested exertions of the Standard of the Universe Life Assurance Provident Annuity and Equitable Reversionary Interest Joint Stock Company, it had extended the life of Von Eppenstein's immediate predecessors, as well as of the imperial czar, and of most others who were able to "pay the piper," to a period of a thousand years. The theorem of physical perfectibility had been conclusively demonstrated by the aid of the sublimated system of medical ethics, and realized by homœopathic treatment, specific solutions of atmospheric gases, and infitesimal doses of nectareous æther, combined and concentrated by means of the vacuum apparatus. In brief, the Ægis of life had been thrown around our exalted Humanity, and the euthanasia of indestructible health arrived at by the invaluable aid of the Gossian Gambogian Hygeiana. The Landgrave's eyesight had been for a short period impaired by the intense zeal with which he habitually prosecuted his recondite studies; but only to be raised to a degree of tenfold intensity by the unrivalled eye-preserving-construct

ed-on-unerring-principle spectacles, composed of the best Brazilian convex pebbles, double-jointed, of standard gold, and best black buffalo horn, glazed with the purest crystal, and acknowledged by oculists to be the most pellucid and perfect substance in nature.

The miracle of visionary perfection had been completed with the assistance of the Anti-Opthalmic Cataractian and Gutta Serena Grimgruffenoff eye snuff, which may be taken as freely as other snuff, with the most perfect safety and gratification

to the consumer, and was termed by Galen" the faculty's friend," and by Esculapius, the nurse's vade-mecum ;" and a slight defect of hearing was beautifully and beatifically removed by one application of the Solomonian Invisible Operative Voice-Conductor, not larger than an ancient seven-shilling piece, soft and easy as the wooing of a zephyr, when fixed into the cavity of the ear, and not more uncomfortable nor perceptible than having a piece of wool in its place! The name of physic was never once uttered except with execration, throughout the Landgrave's extensive dominions, and whenever any stray professor of that abominable Charlatanism, which in the gullible ages of mankind pretended to consideration and distinction, was caught lurking in the skirts of any town or village, he was with the utmost propriety handed instantaneously over to the public executioner, and afterwards dissected in derision, as were also all lawyers and concoctors of political harangues. The consequence was, as might naturally be expected, that the Landgrave's subjects were of all mankind the happiest.

The Condor, whose strength of back and wing were suited to the asportation of SO ponderous a rider, was the Landgrave's chosen steed, and he seldom made an excursion either to the planet Jupiter, or to the rings of Saturn, except upon this rapid aërial courser. For shorter trips, such as to the Moon or to Venus, he seldom caused his favourite Condor to be harnessed, leaving him usually to vegetate amidst his aviaries in Northumberland, until summoned by the aid of his ad-infinitum acoustic tube, or his patent galvanistic earth-embracing telegraph. When he went to the Moon for an airing, or to discover any of his lost property,* it was usually in his monster-balloon, the motion of which was easier, and therefore more fitted to promote digestion. This was the first aërial car constructed upon the recondite principle which

* According to Athenæus the moon was the receptacle of lost things.

evolves the centrifugal force to such a degree as just to overbalance the centripetal power. The secret was in the Landgrave's exclusive possession, for he had most judiciously silenced by decapitation the 8000 engineers who had taken part in the balloon's construction, for which unparalleled act of devotion to science he had received special votes of thanks from the distinguished savans of Owhyhee and Otaheite, as he had also from the Strasbourg Institute, in consideration of his splendid invention for the protection of the Rhine from incendiaries.

The Landgrave had ever exhibited the most sublime contempt of that antiquated invention-steam. Even quicksilver applied to purposes of locomotion he considered as somewhat ricoco. His pleasure yacht, the fastest sailer in the universe, was constructed from the outer shell of a gigantic sword-fish, whose adamantine horn, a hundred feet long, served of course for the prow, cutting the water with a velocity which, aided by high mercurial pressure upon the fins, flapping the waves so rapidly that their motion was quite unseen, enabled the Landgrave to breakfast on the same day at the Rheingau, and dine at Carabo-nagara-congo-slick, the ra-congo-slick, the ancient New York. Occasionally the Landgrave, for variety, would perform the same journey with still greater rapidity, mounted on his Pyrenean stilts, as the case might be, or progressing in his magical boots, at the rate of seventy leagues a stride! Although, in a liberal and enlightened spirit, unknown to the wealthy of old, with a view to support an undertaking denounced by the flippant as chimerical, yet demonstrated to his conviction as practicable, he had taken shares, at their first projection, in the two railways which are now in such active operation between the Earth and Moon, and the Earth and Jupiter, and in which æther has so completely, and with such beautiful propriety, superseded the use of steam and gases, quicksilver and spirits of wine, as a locomotive agent; he never by any chance went forth upon an excursion, either to survey

his territories, or to taste the lunar air, except, in the one case, upon his favourite Condor, from whose back he could readily investigate the busy haunts of men, and detect, with the powerful aid of his Wall-perforator Telescope, the malversations of his ministers and magistrates; and in the other, recumbent on æther cushions (steeped daily in moulten pearls for additional comfort), in the car of his majestic Balloon-Monstrosity. The Landgrave had thus his change of equipage, as ancient writers inform us was the case with the "studs" of our benighted forefathers, when the sublimities of modern discovery were neither nibbled at, nor dreamt of; when a man named Newton was worshipped for having given to the world his totally erroneous theory of gravitation; when another named

Watt was almost immortalised for attaining upon railways to the snail space of thirty miles an hour (!!), and ere the race of that once-prized, but to our mind utterly useless animal, the horse, was finally extinguished by starvation.

Of the splendour and dignity of the Landgrave's person it would be vain in us to attempt any description, further than to say that his brow was the sublimated seat of science (as fully demonstrated in his unrivalled philosophy of madness), and that his ample forehead towered in its breadth and elevation (in the words of his accomplished poet laureate)—

"An intellectual Alp, Clad with the all-untrodden snows of thought!"

His venerable beard descended from his chin a distance of more than 500 feet, till it swept the crystalline floors of his palace, transcending the Tayor of the ancient Grecian sage as immeasurably as did the Landgrave's learning. For the convenience of snuff-taking (that indisputable evidence of scholarship), his upper lip was shaven each morning with the steam-propelled Chinese Zephyr Pogotomon Razor, sharpened to an edge invisible to the most infitesimal microscope, by the marvellous Hone-dispensing Metalometer, while the hirsute excrement itself

was mollified beforehand, now with the incomparable Eucheirogeneion, and now with the priceless Rypophagon, by which shaving, hitherto a painful, is rendered quite a pleasurable and delightful operation, allaying the smarting irritability of the cuticle, producing a rich, creamy lather, whether used with soft, with hard, with sea, or with soda water! and, unlike all other soaps, will never, by no chance, dry on the face. Beware of felonious imposture! From the tip of the Landgrave's portentous nose, to which the Peak of Teneriffe was reckoned but a parvulous molecule, descended a second beard, resembling the Cataract of Niagara in the length and undulation of its graceful flow, and adding unutterable dignity to his aspect. It was the produce of a single application of the marvellous Columbian Balm, which gave such gloss and tenacity to his daughter's ringlets, and acquired for its scientific possessor the sobriquet of the grand Nose-ologist! Amongst the Landgrave's most intimate friends was an aged and illustrious man named VENERA-BILLY VON SQUINTER VON STARZEN, whose devotion to astronomical pursuits had induced him to part with all his patrimonial estates, and invest the proceeds in the most magnificent atelage of the observatory, which the entire of our solar system (not even excluding the most recently visited of our planets, the GEORGIUM SIDUS) can boast. He had fixed himself in solitary grandeur (save that his hours of unbending were shared with a beautiful maiden), on the summit of Chimborazo, where, with the aid of powerful lenses of his own construction, he had melted the miscalled "eternal" snows around, and converted the loftiest spot of all the earth into the most paradisaical. Steam-domestics, provided with innumerable valves and pistons, the produce of the Herr's unapproached mechanical genius, cooked Von Starzen's victuals, swept his saloon, composed his couch, and arranged each morning his 600 millions of papers, books, and implements. It was Von Starzen's boast that he had far out-topped the eleva