Soon to the box-door came a Page, attired
In the Queen's proper liv'ry, all in style,
And in the name of Majesty required

One of the bracelets for a little while,
That by her eye she might the pattern take,
And order some of the exact same make.

Off went the sparkling bauble in a trice,
While her rouged cheeks with exultation burn,
As, bowing to the Royal party thrice,

She patiently expected its return;

But when the Queen retired, and none was sent,
Our Dame began to wonder what it meant.

A Lord in waiting soon confirm'd her fears:
"Oh, that pretended Page I've often seen,—
A noted sharper,—has been such for years.

Madam, you're robb'd,—he came not from the Queen :
I knew the rogue, and should have had him taken,
But that he slipp'd away, and saved his bacon."

Boiling with anger, Madam call'd her coach,
And drove to the Bureau de la Justice,
Where with loud tongue, and many a keen reproach
About the shameful state of the police,

She call'd upon the Provost for relief,

And bade him send his men to catch the thief.

Early next morn she heard the knocker's din;
Her heart beat high, with expectation big,
When lo! the Provost's Clerk was usher'd in,-
A formal consequential little prig,

Who, with a mighty magisterial air,
Hem'd! and began his business to declare.

"Madam, a man is brought to our Bureau,
On whom was found a Bracelet of great cost,

And we are all anxiety to know

Whether or not it is the one you lost;

Wherefore I'll take the other, if you please,
Just to compare, and see if it agrees.'

"Dear, Sir, I'm overjoy'd,-'tis mine, I'm sure;
Such a police as our's how few can boast!
Here, take the Bracelet-keep the rogue secure,
I'll follow you in half an hour at most;

Ten thousand thanks-I hope you'll trounce the spark,
Open the door, there, for the Provost's Clerk !"

O! how she chuckled as she drove along,
Settling what pangs the pilferer should feel;
No punishment appear'd to her too strong,
E'en should the wretch be broken on the wheel;
For what infliction could be reckon'd cruel,
To one who would purloin so rich a jewel?

Arrived at the Bureau, her joy finds vent:

"Well, Mr. Provost, where's the guilty knave? The other Bracelet by your Clerk I sent,

Doubtless it matches with the one you have; Why, then, outstretch your mouth with such surprise, And goggle on me thus with all your eyes?"

"La! bless me, Ma'am, you 're finely hoax'd-good lack! I sent no Clerk, no thief have we found out, And the important little prig in black

Was the accomplice of the page no doubt ;— Methinks the rascals might have left you one, But both your Bracelets now are fairly gone!"

PATENTS AND PROJECTS EXTRAORDINARY!

"Our victories only led us to farther visionary prospects; advantage was taken of the sanguine temper which success had wrought the nation up to." SWIFT.

WHAT pigmies in intellect, however gigantic in stature, were those old rebellious Carbonari, the Titans, with their clumsy expedient of piling Pelion upon Ossa, and their hopeful project of taking the skies by escalade! It is the moderns, with their diminutive bodies and Titanian intellects, piling up one discovery upon another, and bringing all matter under the dominion of mind, who have climbed up, as it were, into the heavens, detected all the laws, motions, and distances of the celestial bodies, and brought the whole system of the universe as much within the grasp of our apprehension as if it were as tangible as the planisphere upon our table, by which it is represented in epitome. Having found for our moral lever what Archimedes wanted for his material one-a basis, we have performed what he threatened, by raising the world. When Queen Elizabeth told Bacon that his house was too small for him, he replied-" It is your Majesty who have made me too big for my house:" we are all of us in the same predicament with respect to the earth wherein we dwell; the majesty of our minds has made it too narrow for our full expansion. This paltry sphere was well enough in the outset of our career, but we have penetrated into all its secrets,

analysed its composition, sifted, weighed, decompounded, exhausted, used it up, and conquered it, and have nothing left, but, like so many Alexanders, to sit down and blubber for a new one. Have we not rummaged and ransacked its uttermost corners, until the Row is reduced to the greatest difficulty in keeping up the annual supply of new travels? have we not mounted above the clouds in balloons, made our descent upon the earth in parachutes, like so many Apollos with umbrellas above our heads; drawn down electric fire from heaven, without incurring the punishment of Prometheus; sported beneath the waves in diving bells, and constructed subaqueous edifices with as much composure as if we were running up a coral palace for Amphitrite; crawled into the very bowels of the earth to extract its riches, by the assistance of Davy's wire-gauze lamp, more wonderful than Aladdin's; and sunk wells with as much perseverance as if we were digging to unkennel that fresh-water mermaid-Truth? By wielding the omnipotence of an impalpable vapour, we have acquired such a dominion over matter, that there is nothing too stupendous for the all-subjugating grapple of our machines, while we ean impel ponderous vessels through the waves, even against wind and tide, with the velocity of a thunderbolt-from coal and oil we have extracted a subtle gas, which, being conducted for miles through subterranean darkness, or brought to our doors and retailed by the pint or half-pint, supplies at will a perpetual light;-by means of the telegraph we can converse in a few hours with persons stationed at the dis

tance of a whole continent; and by the magic of writing we can not only conjure up a portrait of the minds of the ancients, by referring to their works, (so much more interesting than any copy of their bodily lineaments which might have been committed to the perishable records of paint or marble,) but we can eternize our own thoughts, sentiments, almost our very voices, and transmit them unimpaired to the latest posterity, when the evanescent frame from which they emanated shall be scattered in the air in the form of dust. Really, one's mind may be allowed to strut a little in the pride of its achievements-to parody the artist's " Ed io anche son' Pittore !" by exclaiming, "I, too, am a man !"-to look down with some contempt on its fleshly tegument, as upon a scurvy companion whom it only condescends to notice from certain ties of consanguinity; and even to consider the spacious earth itself as but a larger species of prison, or cage, from which we shall ultimately escape, and take our flight to enjoy in a nobler sphere a more exalted destiny.

If we are already prone to leap out of our materiality in the vain-glorious aspirations of the spirit, what shall restrain us within the bounds of moderation when all improvements now projecting shall have received their full accomplishment, and the new patents for which applications have been made shall have been practically developed? The company for realizing Dr. Darwin's suggestion of moderating the burning ardours of the torrid zone, by towing a large portion of the icebergs from the northern to the