his Highness's hands; he demolished the microscope at a blow,
and flung the geological hammer out of the window.

"Come along," he said. "No! drop that trash--every article of it, or
else you'll be experimenting again. Come along!"

They went away together, leaving my office littered with broken glass
and sea-shells. With some astonishment I followed through the
warehouse to the street; they had entered a carriage and were driving
rapidly away. The next morning's paper explained the whole occurrence
in the following paragraph:

"_Much Learning hath made him mad._--Yesterday noon an elderly lunatic,
named Robert Jones, committed suicide by leaping over the parapet of
London Bridge. He was in the custody at the time of Dr. Stretveskit, the
celebrated keeper of the Asylum for Monomaniacs. He had been at large
some days, and was traced to several publishing-houses, whither he had
gone to contrive the publication of some insane vagaries. He was finally
overhauled at the office of Spry, Stromboli & Co., and placed in a
carriage; but seizing a favorable moment when travel was impeded upon
the bridge, he burst through the glass door and cleared the parapet at a
bound. Jones was an adventurous and dangerous character. Some years ago
he set fire to the Shrimpshire Asylum, where his family had confined
him, and went abroad upon a whale-ship; but meeting with an accident, he
underwent the process of trepanning and came home more crazy than
before. At one time he attempted to drown his mother, in furtherance of
some strange experiment; but it was thought at the date of his death
that he was recovering his wits. Among his delusions was a strange
one--that he had been made viceroy over all the fishes. His body has not
been recovered."

I read the last sentence with a thrill. My late visitor might even now
be presiding at some finny council; and as I should have occasion to
cross the sea some day, an untimely shipwreck might place me in closer
relations with him. I determined, therefore, to print the manuscript
which remained in my hands. May it appease his Mightiness, the King of
the Fishes!

THE CIRCUIT PREACHER.

His thin wife's cheek grows pinched and pale with anxiousness intense;
He sees the brethren's prayerful eyes o'er all the conference;
He hears the Bishop slowly call the long "Appointment" rolls,
Where in His vineyard God would place these gatherers of souls.

Apart, austere, the knot of