laims the cockney, with dilated optics, "this is fine--why
that 'ere fish is worth a matter of a shilling in London--Do tell me how
you cotched him."

"With a hook!" replied the boatman.

"To be sure you did--but why did'nt he bite mine?"

"'Cause he came t'other side, I s'pose."

"Vell, let me try that side then," cries the tyro, and carefully changes
his position.--"Dear me, this here boat o'yourn wobbles about rayther,
mister."

"Nothing, sir, at all; it's only the motion of the water."

"I don't like it, tho'; I can tell you, it makes me feel all over
somehow."

"It will go off, sir, in time; there's another," and he pulls in another
wriggling fish, and casts him at the bottom of the boat. "Well, that's
plaguey tiresome, any how--two! and I've cotched nothin' yet--how do you
do it?"

"Just so--throw in your hook, and bide a bit--and you'll be sure, sir, to
feel when there's any thing on your hook; don't you feel any thing yet?"

"Why, yes, I feels werry unwell!" cries the landsman; and, bringing up
his hook and bait, requests the good-natured boatman to pull for shore,
'like vinkin,'--which request; the obliging fellow immediately complies
with, having agreeably fished at the expense of his fare; and, landing
his whitings and the flat, laughs in his sleeve at the qualms of his
customer.

But there is always an abundant crop of such fools as he, who pretend to
dabble in a science, in utter ignorance of the elements; while, like
Jason of old, the wily boatman finds a sheep with a golden
fleece,--although his brains are always too much on the alert to be what
is technically termed--wool-gathering. Some people are desirous of
seeing every thing; and many landsmen have yet to learn, that they may
see a deal, without being a-board!

ANDREW MULLINS.--AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER I.--Introductory.

"Let the neighbors smell ve has something respectable for once."

There is certainly no style of writing requiring so much modest assurance
as autobiography; a position which, I am confident, neither Lord
Cherbury, nor Vidocq, or any other mortal blessed with an equal
developement of the organ of self-esteem, can or could deny.

HOME, ("sweet home,")--in his Douglas--gives, perhaps, one of the most
concise and concentrated specimens extant, of this species of
composition. With what an imposing air does his youthful hero blow his
own trumpet in those well-known lines, commencing,

"My name is Norval