a figure creep,
Like a man that is walking in his sleep,
Or a watchman on his beat.

A lantern, dangling in the wind,
He bore, and his shaggy and thick
Great-coat was one of the dread-nought kind,--
What seem'd his right hand trail'd behind
The likeness of a stick.

The sky with clouds became o'ercast,
And it suddenly set to raining,--
And the gas-lights flicker'd in the blast,
As that thing of the lantern and dread-nought past,
And I heard him thus complaining--

"A murrain seize--a pize upon--
Plague take--the New Police!
Why couldn't they do with the ancient one,
As ages and ages before have done,
And let us remain in peace?

"No more, ah! never more, I fear,
Will a perquisite, (woe is me!)
Or profits, or vails, the Charley cheer;
Then, alas! for his tender consort dear,
And his infant progeny!

"Farewell to the freaks of the jovial spark,
Who rejoiced in a gentle riot,--
To the midnight spree, and the morning lark,
There'll never more be any fun after dark,
And people will sleep in quiet.

"No more shall a Tom or a Jerry now
Engaging in fisty battle,
Break many heads and the peace;--for how,
I should like to know, can there be a row,
When there is ne'er a rattle?

"One cry no more on the ear shall grate,
Convivial friends alarming,
Who straightway start and separate,
Blessing themselves that it is so late;--
To break up a party is charming!

"But our ruthless foe wilt be punish'd anon;--
Bundled out without pity or parley,
His office and occupation gone,
Lost, disgraced, despised, undone,
Oh! then he'll remember the Charley."

Just then I beheld a Jarvey near,
Which on the spot presenting,
I scrambled in like one in fear
With a ghost at his heels, or a flea in his ear,
And he was left lamenting!

_Blackwood's Magazine._

* * * * *

GOOD AND BAD STYLES OF LIVING.

Good style of living consists in having a mansion exquisitely fitted
up with all the expensive bijouterie compatible with true elegance,
yet avoiding the lavish superabundance of gimcrackery which borders
on vulgarity; comely serving men in suitable liveries, all so well
initiated into the mysteries of their respective duties, that a guest
could imagine himself in a fairy palace, where plates vanish without
the contamination of a mortal finger and thumb, and gla