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The name I bear should make each scoundrel nervous ;
"Tis ANTI-HUMBUG-at your humble service;
So, without further preface, grave or funny,
All that I want 's-precisely just your money!
And pay not of that same one single particle,
Unless you think we furnish "a good article."
The gentlemen, who yawn in pit and boxes,
Shall find some sport, unkennelling state-foxes;
The "blues" in boddices or pantaloons,
Some porridge for their literary spoons ;
The ladies, with whom bon ton 's still a passion,
Shall gaze, bright-eyed, upon the page of fashion;
The very snobs, too, in the shilling gallery,
May club their pence for frolic, fun, and raillery.
Then monthly to our Raree-Show resort;
And, if you don't, why, Cocknicé, "you 'ort."

The curtain rises amidst thunders of applause, and discloses the entire Dramatis Persone arrayed in a most effective groupe in front of a splendidly executed scene, representing the approaching royal nuptials, and inscribed with a cipher, in which the

initials of Victoria and Albert are most felicitously combined, two little Cupids, with wings outspread, encircling them with a chain of roses, and the whole surrounded by the insignia of the order of the garter, in the following manner :-

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The following NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM was then sung in chorus

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THE DIURNAL REVOLUTIONS OF DAVIE DIDDLEDOFT, During the Course of his Initiation into the Mysteries of London Life,

BY SIR TICKELEM TENDER, Bart.

CHAPTER I.

Unavoidable Personalities-Wonders of the Wen, and a Night at "the House of Uncommons."

As, after the fashion of the most approved Epic Poets, it is my desire to hurry at once "in medias res ;" the tedious details of packing up leather portmanteaus, and carpetbags, and very tender bandboxes, being not less fatiguing and uninteresting before setting out on a commonplace journey in life, than a similar process of disposal applied to the lumber of preliminary narration in embarking on a tale of fiction, whether in prose or in rhyme, strapping up and labelling the hero's father and mother, his grandfathers and grandmothers, and all his maiden aunts and cousins, from the first to the fortieth remove-I shall refer my readers for the genealogy of my hero, and the achievements and blazonry of the very extensive family of the DIDDLEDOFTS, to the Herald's Office.

David, the subject of the "owre true tale" which follows, was the younger son of a respectable, though not a wealthy, "Glasgie" merchant, whose warehouse overlooked the Broomielaw; and having, whilst prosecuting his classical studies at the University of his native "toun," displayed a more than ordinary share of ability, his hexameters being pronounced by the professor" in litteris humanioribus" to be quite inexcaptionable, and rewarded with the sessional prize, (it is true that the professor was a "Heeland cousin" of David's mother), the flushed and laureate scholar-for such he deemed himself on the strength of his well-thumbed "Gradus ad Parnassum"-upon concluding his academical course with a Bachelorship of Arts, and thereupon astonishing his fellowtownsmen, and, as he further believed, delighting the entire British empire with six translations from the first and second books of Horace's Odes, which appeared, with

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"Remote conclusion in a jump,"

as many have done before with about as much reason, and as many more will, it is presumed, continue to do till the world's end, that the first metropolis of the habitable globe was the sole fitting sphere for the gyrations of his genius. In that mighty literary Atlantis, he judged that a scholar of his high pretensions could not fail of realising wealth and fame, as so many of his less gifted countrymen had done before; that, while the process of scraping up wealth was both slow and toilsome at home, pearls were to be picked up from the Westminster puddle, and diamonds from the metropolitan mud; that chained to the Broomielaw, like a slave to the oar, his "noble rage was wofully repressed-the stature of his fame most cruelly curtailed-his intellectual greatness unworthily circumscribed-his aspirations for the glitguineas intolerably tering splendour both of glory and of

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Cabined, cribbed, confined," and accordingly, turning a deaf ear to the remonstrances of his friends, and treating with ill-concealed contempt his father's proposition, that he should follow the example of his elder brother, and have a stool set for him at the counting-house desk, he set out for London one fine morning, in the year of Redemption 183-, with £30 in his pocket, together with some waste paper, which was dignified with the name of "recommendatory letters;" having previously lustily vowed (so strong was his confidence of success) never to draw on his father to the amount of one additional "baubee;"

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"An' Charley Grant that wasnoo ma Lor' Glenelg!"

"An' his brither, the Commissioner-gen'ral!"

"An' Bab Stuart, that's nae great things ava, he's a Laird of the Treas'ry. Hoot, man, you maun be a Secr❜tary of State!"

"An' Jock Campbell, the Atterny Gen'ral. He's made a Knicht, and his son'll be a Peer. A cleeverer chiel' micht mak' himsel' baith!" "An' Earl Minto!" "An' Fox Maule!" "An' Ferguson, too!" "An' Bab Macaulay !"

Such was the family chorus that sounded in David's ears, just as he had taken his departure.

"Dinna fash yersels!" was David's proud reply as he turned round sharp upon his heel, cracked his fingers, and cut a caper, "there's mair fish in the sea than ever was caucht in Brougham's or Bab Macaulay's net!"

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"You maun write till me, Davie, frae Windsor Castle, said his younger sister.

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David said nothing but he thought it extremely probable. Even the Queen's hand was not altogether unattainable. But this was a secret which remained locked in his own breast.

The drolleries of steam navigation have been so often described, that I shall not dwell upon the events of my friend David's passage from Newhaven to Hull, and from Hull to St. Katherine's Dock; but shall substitute some account of the peculiarities of his person and cha

racter.

At the period of the commencement of this tale--which shall partake more of the varying hues and constantly shifting combinations of a kaleidoscope, than of the sobriety of a pair of horn spectacles, or the narrow scope of a camera; which shall

rival the classic Epopoia only in its episodes, and incline more to Willo'-the-wisp vagrancy than to Aristotelic propriety-David Douglas Diddledoft, for such was the melodious euphony of his genuine baptismal names, had just completed his twentieth year. In height he was five feet ten inches, or thereabouts, raw-boned, long in the neck, flat-chested, rather in-kneed, somewhat fiddle-backedaltogether waistless, like most growing youths, mutton-fisted, and footed like a finnon-haddock-that favourite "relish" at a Scottish breakfast. The natural boniness of his aspect was enhanced by his amazing thinness. Yet uncouth as was this figure to the least practised eye, its awkwardness was more attributable to youth, inexperience, and that "slinging". gait which is so common to scholars, than to any positive deformity; and the eye of an artist, drill-sergeant, or fashionable coat-builder, would, after a careful inspection, pronounce that even David's figure was not altogether hopeless, but might, when filled up, in time become presentable.

My friend Davie's lineaments are not so easily described. He was at that precise period of life when the character is least distinctly formed, and the facial expression least decidedly pronounced; when the human being is in a sort of chrysalis state-emerging from the boyish condition into manhood-a species of middle term between mawkish adolescence, and whiskered assurance. His eyes were grey and small, but twinkling with a reasonable share of intelligence-intelligence, not cunning, that meanest and most despicable of qualities. His eyebrows, which were bushy, were of a very light colour, and to say that they were "white," would not be much of an exaggeration. His hair was of that dubious shade which may be pronounced red, or auburn, according to the disposition of the beholder (as mediocre bantlings of the presswhen brought to the baptismal font of criticism, may be "pshawed," or dubbed " capital"-lauded or vilified, with the utmost convenience, according to the state of the reviewer's digestive organs); David was himself

convinced that his locks, with which he took no small pains, were precisely of that golden hue which the poets of ancient Greece and Rome so highly commended, the "flavam religas comam" of Horace, and the "sun-bright tresses" with which Zeuxis and Apelles ever decorated their choicest representations of the Paphian Goddess. The mother and

sisters of David were of the same opinion, though not so decidedly pronounced; and, whether it was with a view to enhance their beauty, or to subdue a remotely suspected tendency to that reddish tinge, which is so universally hated by Scotchmen, because it is so universally attributed to them as a national characteristic, he regularly visited them each morning with an application of soap and water-more regularly indeed than either his face or his hands; and they thereupon shone throughout the day with a peculiar lustre, wearing very much the appearance of having been laid down over his cheeks and forehead with a flat-iron-like the chevelure of very many of his compatriots, -and unfortunately concentrating thereby a more marked attention from the passing spectators; while, untrimmed and "unkempt" behind the operations of his toilet being confined to those parts which fell under his own immediate observations-they hung over his coat collar, rivalling those of the hero of one of the most popular tales of the last century, like a pound of mouldy

candles.

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My friend Davie's nose had neither the Roman hook, nor the Grecian straightness-neither the Gallican affinity in colour, form, and softness, to a pudding, nor the Irish defiance of all proportions-it was neither a bottle-nose, nor a nose sharp as a pen," nor a nose simial, nor yet a nez rétroussé. As I can assign it no order, if I must define its build, I should that it was a gothic strucsay ture, with wings; and having thus disposed of that remarkable promontory-having doubled the Cape Horn of Davie's countenance, I shall complete my description of his exterior man, by stating, that to rather high cheek-bones must be added a mouth,

at the aspect of which a sensitive trencher might well have trembled, and that sprouting whiskers of the foxiest hue led to two good-sized ears, sticking bolt upright, and wear.. ing almost without intermission a tinge as red as his whiskers.

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Ďavie's dress was of a very aboriginal cut. In the pride of learning and self-attributed genius, Davie had a thorough contempt for what he called in latin, the "Persicos apparawtus," and in English, the "paraphernawlya of foappery." Accordingly, his garments were constructed as heaven and a by-street "work-forhalf-nothing" tailor pleased. The formality of admeasurement had not been altogether dispensed with; but the snip having been drunk when he recorded the superficial inches," and having shortly after lit his pipe with the document, whether through accidental neglect, or utter indifference, I never could positively learn, Davie's body-coat (so styled by courtesy) fitted his body as a sentry-box would fit "a little duck-legged drummer" mounting guard. Round the neck, it presented very much the appearance of a horse-collar, and, while the waist stuck out several inches behind, the tails lapt over each other in the exact figure of the letter X. His head being unusually large, and Davie being obstinately bent upon going to no higher price than a four-and-ninepenny," but one "tile" in the Glasgow hatter's establishment could be found to fit him, and this was of a most peculiar shape, being excessively low in the crown, and extravagantly broad in the rim. It was the very beau ideal of a fitting "Golgotha" for a Puritan preacher; and Davie, the moment he caught its reflection in the glass, conceived a most passionate liking for it, believing that it could not fail of conferring upon him a look of gravity and learning. In the rest of his toilette there was nothing remarkable, with the exception of a pair of tartan trowsers, with which (so ardent was his nationality) no one could prevail on him to part; and here again, despising the minutiæ of modern "buckishness," he dispensed with the aid of straps, the

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