y Faukes of Denmark, and
but for the vent he discovered in a cranny near Elsinore enabling him to
take a peep at the "glimpses of the moon," would doubtless have blown
the crown prince, and all his court into the air, and thus have rendered
unnecessary our late expedition for that purpose.

I find nothing upon which to animadvert till the re-entry of the ghost.
He has evidently something upon his mind, which he wishes to
communicate; but with the heart of a lion shows that he also possesses
the fears of that royal beast, for upon the crowing of the cock (a sound
most injudiciously omitted, since the death of the bantam Roscius) the
spirit evaporates as quickly as from a glass of champagne, in the
drinking of a health.

_Mar._ Shall I strike at it with my _partisan_?

Here performers, who move like blind asses in the manager's mill,
usually raise the right arm, as though partisan meant the instrument in
their grasp. O lame and impotent! As if a little bit of a truncheon
could bruise a ghost! What says Ossian, speaking of a ghost? "The dim
stars twinkled through his form." A plain proof of his want of
substance. So of Pope's sylph:

Fate urg'd the shears and cut the sylph in twain;
But airy substance soon unites again.

Some fanciful persons will have it that partisan signifies companion, as
though Marcellus should say, "shall I strike at it with the assistance
of Bernardo?" Listen to the real original meaning:

_Mar._ Shall I strike at it with my _parmesan_?

In plain English, "shall I throw a cheese at its head?" This agrees with
what was before advanced relative to beef, and shows that the sentinels
of those days antedating the couplet in the Bath Guide,

He that would fortify the mind,
The belly first must fill,--

never mounted guard without a havresack well stuffed with eatables.

* * * * *

_Coffee and Chocolate._

Coffee is the seed of a tree or shrub of the jessamine species,
originally a native of Arabia, but now thriving in the West Indies,
where it is become an important article of English commerce.

The flower is yellow, and the berry juicy, containing two seeds: these
when gathered have a ferinaceous bitter taste, but are wholly without
that peculiar smell and flavour imparted to them by fire, and for which
an infusion or decoction of them is so much admired.

This fashionable beverage, almost a necessary of life to the merchant,
the po