A joke is now and then ventured, at the expense of conventional fallacies. In the Prosody the word " respectable" occurs as an example of a rule relating to Accent. The artist seizes the opportunity to give a cut of, or rather at,

It were unjust to pass unnoticed the delicacy with which public attention is called, on fitting emergencies, to existing improprieties, abuses, or evils. We meet, in the Prosody, with a description and exemplification of the several kinds of English verse. Among these (for the sake of completeness), that peculiar sort of measure entitled doggrel is included. This, it is observed, is a metre very appropriate to such subjects as "Love and Murder," and the observation is illustrated by a cut, of which we can only say, that we wish we had room for it.

We could willingly have protracted still further our notice of this interesting, instructive, scientific, moral, reprehensive, admonitoryin one word, comprehensive work; but "space and time cannot be annihilated even to make writers happy." For this reason, once more (disinterestedly) recommending every one who can afford it to buy the book which we have been reviewing, we shall now bring our critical labours to an end.

A SAILOR'S TRIP UP THE RHINE.

BY CAPTAIN CHAMIER, R.N.

Ar the Belgian frontier the douaniers behaved civilly. The examination was not more rigid than was requisite, and they turned over the contents of the carriage with considerate hands. I recollect when at Cronstadt having all my wardrobe tossed about the room, and being told to pack them up again as soon as I could, as the space was wanted for another victim's haberdashery!

However, I never grumble; I am one of Nature's good-tempered fellows; I take everything as it comes, and never say or act hastily; but in vain I have bestowed time and patience upon Scamp. No sooner did the man in office show his nose at the carriage window, than Scamp endeavoured to bite it. If the officer had mistaken Cayenne pepper for snuff, he could not have tossed his head with more celerity; at the same time growling out something in Flemish which was never manufactured in a drawing-room. Scamp maintained his post at the window, in spite of being called a scélérat, a vaut rien, a sacré chien; he bore it all bravely until they called him an "animal," upon which he shrank down, and silently confessed his degradation. There was no fear of his being seized, however much they might condemn him, and my little black and tan, something like the devil in fire-coloured inexpressibles, was admitted into Belgium.

I now got sight of Ostend, and made the high sand-hills about three o'clock. The very sight of the town was enough for me, and more than enough for my wife. We tumbled out for a minute at the Hotel de la Cour Imperiale; left the carriage under the care of my host; who detained me so long in eliciting particulars concerning Boulogne that I nearly lost my passage by the railroad; on which shipped myself and companions, dog, and portmanteau, and steamed up a gallop for Brussels.

Blessings upon the inventors of steam-engines and rail-roads! Hero of Alexandria, when he (150 B.C.) invented his horizontal steam wheel, never imagined how the power might be applied to other wheels, and now, under the management of skilful engineers, with care and vigilance from all concerned, a man may be whisked to Brussels-a distance of one hundred and five miles-in five hours, for the clock struck nine as I left the railroad in the Belgian capital. I do not know anything more dangerous, excepting children playing with gunpowder or aquafortis, than for an ignorant person to assume a knowledge of paintings. I was skating through the Prince of Orange's palace with a pair of list shoes on the glassy floors, accompanied by all my household but Scamp, when I espied a portly lady, with a coloured petticoat and slovenly garb, accompanied by a lanky girl, pushing by us with aristocratic dignity, and gaining the place nearest the guide, who, by the by, might stand a chance of meeting the fate of Tom Pepper if ever he goes to the next world.

The old lady took out a pair of gold spectacles, and, standing before the famous picture of the Holy Family, declared it a most magnificent Raphael. She ran on with feminine fluency upon her

knowledge of the various schools, when the guide requested her to raise her spectacles. She looked higher. "Look on the frame, madam." Alas! it was a Rubens! Any one else would have been silent after this modest rebuke; but she, with uncommon good generalship, declared it was a Raphael, and maintained her point. She vowed that the portrait called Diana of Poictiers was a Carlo Dolce, and endeavoured to annihilate the guide with a sneer when he declared it to be a Perugino. Thinks I to myself, silly vanity might gain a valuable hint from this old fool's pompous ignorance.

In this shell of a palace there are some specimens of malachite, one in the shape of a vase, the other a table. The unblushing guide declared the table to be worth twelve thousand pounds, and the vase forty thousand pounds sterling. The largest malachite vase in the world in one piece is in Demidoff's house, 105, Rue St. Dominic, in Paris: this vase is only valued at ten thousand pounds. The large vase which stands in his malachite room would contain at least six of those to be found in the palace of the Prince of Orange, and is not valued at one quarter of this insignificant piece of workmanship. For malachite to be extremely valuable, it must be in one piece, as the stone chips off like slate in the working, and these small chips are usually veneered on wooden frames. When so veneered, which those both in the Prince's palace are, they cease to have that extraordinary value.

I was much struck with the appearance of St. Gudule, and went to examine it carefully. The first thing I saw surprised me; for I do not consider the people of Brussels either extra-religious, or remarkably superstitious. I saw affiché'd at the door that on the following morning, at ten o'clock, a mass was to be celebrated to the patron saint of cutaneous disorders, and that to all people so afflicted the bones of the saint would afterwards be shown. I would not have believed it possible in this enlightened age that such ridiculous superstitions could be practised or allowed unless I had seen it.

I do not intend to imitate the best guide of the place, Edward Cotton, late sergeant-major of the 7th Hussars, and run into a description of a battle which at this moment is fresh in the memory of those who gained it, and quite as fruitful of bitter hatred in those who lost it. I had been shown the church at Hougoumont, and the gate which Macdonald so well defended-that when a legacy was left to the bravest man in the army, the Duke of Wellington decided that he who defended that post was the man who best merited the reward. I had scanned the various names of persons, from that of Wordsworth to Smith, who had visited the scene of former desolation, and was busily employed robbing an orchard, which Cotton said the proprietor never censured, as he made more by his chapel than his apples, when I heard a well-known voice behind me. "Well, Spunyarn," said I, "you have come at last. Where have you been all this time?"

"Bless your honour! this morning, when I arrived at Brussels, I saw as many people as would have manned Exmouth's fleet in the war-time, all huddling, and scrambling, and pushing, to get to a big church. Thinks I, there may be a double allowance ordered today, and I'll see how they sarve out the provisions; so I gets into the thick of them; and there, to be sure, I began to think it was the

loplolly boy's bell that was ringing for the sick, for I never saw such a set of scoundrels in my life. Avaust heaving, shipmates!' said I, and I began to heave all aback, to get clear of the crowd; but I was too late. I was bundled neck and crop into a large building, but took advantage of an eddy-tide to sweep round a pillar, where I stood, and saw the performance. Your honour, it's as true as that you are there by the side of that little gentleman in a gold-laced scraper, and dingle-dangle to his button-hole" (this was Cotton, with his round cap, and Waterloo medai,) “that they never asked me to pay one farthing for seeing the show. First of all, when all hands were in the place, came round an ugly-looking chap, with a purser's bread-bag over him, and a kind of chimney-sweeper's brush in his hand; what does he do but he shakes this at everybody, and by and by he shakes it at me, and I felt some water on my face, and says I, 'thank you for that!' Then the performance be gan, and there was such a shouldering of candlesticks, and such a flinging about of smoke, that I began to think the three gentlemen in gold coats were trying a steam-engine; then came some music and some singing, but nothing like what your honour has heard on the forecastle of a night, when the wind was fair, and the ship was making a homeward course, and we used to sing,

"To England, when with favouring gale

The gallant ship up Channel steered ;"

but it was more like the last verse of Tom Bowling, when the singer had more water in his eyes than grog in his throat. When this was all over (and they gave us a good hour's singing) there was a general move; the gentlemen with the gold coats bowed and scraped to us all; the little youngsters, whose rigging hung about them like pursers' shirts on handspikes, and who had been ringing bells, and shying smoke at the gold-laced gentlemen, shouldered the candle, like the sentry on the gangway does his musket, when the Captain's going out of the ship; the loplolly-boy's bell was set a-ringing, and all hands started a-head to the back of the stage; and, as I had seen the play, I thought I might as well take something to drink before I parted company. Every one before me knelt down as they came up to a small nook, not half large enough for a jolly-boat to swing at her grappling, and the water-sprinkler gave them another taste from his brush, and each, as he or she passed on, touched an old bone, and muttered something which would have puzzled any one but a horse or a German to have understood. So, when I came up I knelt on one knee, said Grog, if you please, your honour,' and touched the leg-bone of a dead man. 'Here's a start!' thought I to myself; but before I could get the water-brush men to give me a drop, I was hurried on, and got out."

I beg leave shortly to introduce my old valued servant, Jack Spunyarn to my readers. Jack is the build of a milestone, about forty-five years of age. His tail had been docked, and the produce of his face considerably sheared; but he always wore a round jacket, long-quartered shoes, with a vast superfluity of ribbon therein; and, in spite of some modifications of his trim, and his rigging, no one could take him for anything but a sailor; he had seen a great deal of service, and had been my servant for twenty-five years. We all walked round to mount the hill on which stands the Lion,

but were interrupted in our intentions by a fat, portly, good-tempered looking man, who in vain endeavoured, as he grumbled, to make his face the index of his mind. "Torn from my native country," said he, "lugged over seas, jolted to death over railroads, clothes spoiled by the iron-dust, eyes inflamed for a week, face hot and burning for a month, bundled about from inn to inn like an old portmanteau, and, what for?-to come and see a lion stuck on a mound of earth on the Plains of Waterloo, when I could have seen just as good a one, with a longer tail, and gilt in the bargain, on the top of Goding's brewery near Waterloo-Bridge. I'm a miserable slave to the world's opinion, sir," said he, addressing me; "and because all the world come to see this lion, I am told I must see it."

When I had reached the top, I was very glad to take a seat, and as Spunyarn remarked, get a fresh cargo of wind. I confess I derived but little satisfaction from seeing a field covered with corn nearly ripe, and about as flat and uninteresting as any of the worst parts of Cambridgeshire, especially where no hedge intervenes to change or to beautify the scene.

Both Jack and myself soon gave over bothering our brains about that which we never could understand. Scamp tumbled down the mound in pursuing a bird; and the fat gentleman's dander was raised, as Sam Slick says, at the everlasting bother of a parcel of fellows, who had every relic, from an 18th shot to a musket-ball for sale, and every species of antiquity, from a mutilated eagle to an old rusty button.

"It's all nonsense from beginning to end," said the fat man. "Twenty-five years have passed since the battle, and the guide-book says that all these relics are humbugs. You'll find me obstinate. I won't buy one."

"And yet," said Cotton, "the earth frequently throws up musket balls; and often, as I walk across a newly-ploughed furrow, I pick up some that must have been fired on that day."

"You never put them there the day before you pick them up,” said Jack," of course?"

"You may talk to eternity," said the fat man," but you'll find me obstinate; I don't believe a word of the matter. And now, having seen Waterloo, I'll return to Brussels." And away he went grumbling, and wondering how he could have been such a fool as to leave his snug house in England to be pilfered by foreigners at every step, cheated at every hotel, gulled and cajoled by every adventurer. 66 But," said he aloud, "they will find me obstinate, and home I will go."

The comfortable beds at the Hotel Belle Vue soon gave us an opportunity of fetching up our leeway in regard to sleep; and the next morning I prepared to start for Liege by the railroad, taking leave of the dullest capital in Europe. On taking possession of our places in the first-class carriages, for the English somehow always pay the best prices, and try for the best places, I was much gratified at finding my fat friend of yesterday jammed into a corner intended for two persons, and evidently prepared to be displeased with everything but the society of the ladies. To them he paid great attention, and seemed to think with Byron, "A pretty woman is a welcome guest." He was a thorough specimen of that class who,