Our admiration of the boldness with which these men have faced their fate
is mingled with the deepest regret that the prime conspirators are safe in
Paris; that one sits in derision of justice on fellow criminals--on men
whose crime may have some slight extenuation from ignorance, want, or
fancied cause of revenge; that the other, with the surpassing meekness of
Christianity, goes to mass in her carriage, distributes her alms to the
poor, and, with her soul dyed with the blood of the young, the chivalrous,
and the brave, makes mouths at Heaven in very mockery of prayer.

We once were sufficiently credulous to believe in the honesty of
LOUIS-PHILIPPE; we sympathised with him as a bold, able, high-principled
man fighting the fight of good government against a faction of
smoke-headed fools and scoundrel desperadoes. He has out-lived our good
opinion--the good opinion of the world. He is, after all, a lump of
crowned vulgarity. Pity it is that men, the trusting and the brave, are
made the puppets, the martyrs, of such regality!

As for Queen CHRISTINA, her path, if she have any touch of conscience,
must be dogged by the spectres of her dupes. She is the Madame LAFFARGE of
royalty; nay, worse--the incarnation of Mrs. BROWNRIGG. Indeed, what
JOHNSON applied to another less criminal person may be justly dealt upon
her:--"Sir, she is not a woman, she is a speaking cat!"

Q.

* * * * *

[Illustration: PUNCH'S PENCILLINGS.--No. XX.

THE RECRUITING SERGEANT.

"LIST, WAKLEY! LIST!--"--_New Shaksperian Readings_.]

* * * * *

HIS TURN NOW.

"They say the owl was a baker's daughter."
"Oh, how the wheel becomes it."--SHAKSPEARE.

That immense cigar, our mild Cavannah, has at length met with his deserts,
and left the sage savans of the fool's hotbed, London, the undisturbed
possession of the diligently-achieved fool's-caps their extreme absurdity,
egregious folly, and lout-like gullibility, have so splendidly qualified
them to support.

This extraordinary and Heaven-gifted faster is at length laid by the
heels. The full blown imposition has exploded--the wretched cheat is
consigned to merited durance; while the trebly-_gammoned_ and unexampled
spoons who were his willing dupes are in full possession of the enviable
notoriety necessarily attendant upon their extreme amount of unmitigated
folly.

This egregious liar and finger-post for thrice inoculated