hope of the old gentleman's seeing the error of his ways, and forsaking auction-marts for more legitimate places of barter, especially as I find all Mrs. Tittlebrat's taunting tautology stifled at the bare notion of a Custom-house sale, and that when bargains take the form of cambric and French silks, she has not the slightest repugnance to countenance the buying of them. If conviction ever comes, it will be at his last "bidding, when he finds himself "knocked down" at "next to nothing," positively "going," and indirectly, by the ivory hammer of the auctioneer; for though it is said that most individuals ride their hobbies to death, in my uncle's case the probabilities are, that this consummation will be reversed, and his hobby prove the death of him. Already repeated breaches of trust on the part of his (un)easy chair, and a want of stamina in other articles, has gone near to occasion him compound fractures and broken limbs, and only the other day, sciatica obliging him to have recourse to an invalid chair, it had like to have proved his chariot to immortality. He has taken lodgings within a stone's throw of the "Vale of Health," and having a mind to visit Primrose Hill this vernal weather, made his first essay on Hampstead Heath, and while being drawn up one of the gentle eminences that diversify it, the back of the machine (I need not say it was a bargain) unfortunately giving way, precipitating him into the midst of one of those pools that lie amongst them. He was dragged out in a state of duckweed and great confusion, and has, for the present, abandoned his bargain of a Bath chair.

THE DAHRA MASSACRE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "RICHELIEU IN LOVE," THE PROHIBITED COMEDY.

LIGHTNINGS! where streamed ye?-Thunders! were ye thence
Busied in hell, when this worst deed was done

Which the blind night heard whitening o'er, and whence
Back into darkness shrunk the shuddering Sun!

Murder, Oh, murder! shriek all earth as one,

For silence shares the guilt, and see they pile
Forests to feed the flames which circle in
The dusky heroes' brave despair, and smile
To hear the maddening uproar's dying din,—
Multiplying Cain's primeval sin,

Whose fratricidal phantom with them watched,
Bristling his blood-red locks to hear the roar
Of human and brute bellowings, where scotched,
Trampled and pierced, boiled in their living gore,
The granite furnace raged-till suffering could no more!
Oh, ever on the day of Waterloo,

Merciless France! thy feats like this perform,

So shall all Time thrice bless Her who o'erthrew
Thy might inhuman, in that world-tossed storm!
Smile on, base Policy, and win thy meed,

But with one voice shout, shamed Humanity!
MONSTERS, YE ARE NOT MEN!-a cursed deed

Is yours, and cursed may the fruitage be!

In fire-simooms those ashes rise and sweep

Your legions from the sands their bloody hands would keep!

A TALE OF LONDON IN MODERN TIMES.

“THANK heavens, the session is nearly over," exclaimed Theophilus, as he cast the morning newspaper from him, and threw himself back

in his chair.

Gracious powers! "How sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought" is that forehead upon which he begins stirring his long, disordered hair! Fate it seems has placed upon this young man's shoulders the cares of state. Ah! why thus early is he made to groan beneath a burthen intended only for maturer years and sterner natures? Yet why should it not be so? Was not William Pitt prime minister of England at five-and-twenty? and Theophilus is nearer thirty!

It is in vain to speculate upon the amount of care which possesses the mind of Theophilus; much less to imagine what comparison it bears to that which the great Pitt had to compass. They live in different ages, and under a totally different state of things. There were no railways in Pitt's time; he had not, as Theophilus has, twenty thousand miles of rail round his neck, with twenty millions of premiums trembling in the balance, dependent upon his skilful movements.

His lips are now compressed; his brow is knit as he studies in silent intentness a large square thin piece of paper, covered with names and figures, being, in fact, the return list of killed and wounded-in other words, the share list of the preceding day.

"Confound them!" he again exclaimed, "nothing seems to move them one way or the other. We get earlier intelligence-killing more horses, and paying for more overturned apple-women than any body in the city-we get the earliest intelligence, act upon it with promptness, and yet nine cases out of ten the market seems to go the wrong way. Losing a preamble, or being thrown out upon a datum really appears to do the shares good; whilst, on the other hand, when a line gets its bill it is sure to lose its friends and its premium. They say the market has been "over-bulled" in anticipation of the result, but I must say I think the cursed jobbers (Theophilus never swore except at the jobbers)-the infernal jobbers are confoundedly overbearing, and I should like amazingly to put them once more in the hole, and

And smoke them like a pack of Algerines, à la Peletier, my boy," cried Jack Jobbings, suddenly entering the room. Well, my good fellow, "he continued, "how goes the war; what's the aspect of affairs to-day?" "Not much of importance-in fact, nothing seems of importance now the market is not kind, it will not answer."

"No," said Jack, "it's grown rusty and obstinate; jaded. They're frightened, sir! And to say truth, it must be confessed they have been worked pretty smartly occasionally. By the way, that favourite line of yours, that you've stuck to so valiantly, and "continued " upon over so many accounts--"

"Yes, the Squabash Valley; a most valuable line I always considered it,-gradients and works easy, and the population immense; but what of that? I've

"You've made your fortune, my boy! I have it from a private source. The government opposition is withdrawn, and they will get their bill."

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Hang the government opposition, and the bill too!—You don't say so!" exclaimed Theophilus."

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Fact!-read for yourself. Why, what's the matter?" added Jack, astonished at the earnestness of Theophilus.

This is too hard!-You know I have been a bull' of these horrid scrip all through the spring-bought them at eight, stuck to them down to three-to say nothing of "continuations;"-confound my illfortune,-tired out at last, and on the best information, I closed them all only yesterday, and turned a bear'!"

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What a bore! You have been done, deceived! But you may yet be in time to buy them back again. The news may not be out. Let's take a cab and be off to the city."

"I can't," said Theophilus. "I must go to the Committees. One or two most important points. But do you do it for me-buy me back double the number-say 600; but I say-don't do it at Popps, for I don't want the whole set there to know everything I do. Go to Touch-and-go's. I suppose I must go as high as 31 or 33?" "It shall be done, my boy-consider yourself a bull' of Squab

ashes in half an hour's time.'

And the friends parted, each to their several stations in the grand field of speculation.

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Consider myself a bull! I begin to consider myself an ass!" muttered Theophilus, with a sort of chuckle between a grunt and a laugh as he hurried along the street, and jumped into the "first cab," which drove him off as if by instinct towards Westminster, without waiting to be told.

"How

Yes! a confounded ass!-No rest by day,-no sleep by night. I go about like a hunted dog!" and he nearly kicked the bottom of the cab out, which brought to his recollection where he was. ever, I've a great mind to stop where I am, and let things take their chance-if I am to be ruined I must-I've a great mind," and he thrust his head through the window; but he did not call to the driver to stop-the words stuck in his throat, so he drew in his head again, and flung himself back in the corner of the vehicle.

Leaving our hero to his ruminations, let us briefly tell the reader a little of his previous career. Theophilus Smith was an only son; his father, an extensive hide and tallow merchant, died whilst he was at Cambridge, leaving him sole successor to his business. Theophilus, however, had "a soul above leather," and a natural warmth of heart, which disposed him to entertain himself and his friends, so that his father's grease pots were melted gradually down to supply the hospitable board. At length, however, the business was given up for good, just as it was about to give up Theophilus as good for nothing; and he retired from the city, a gentleman at large, and took up his abode in lodgings near his mother's house in square. A cab, two saddle horses and a tiger completed his establishment, and a club immediately afforded him the status he aspired to in the "fashionable world." His life for a time was a model of regularity, and blissful repose. From May till August the park saw him daily driving or riding like the best of them. He dined at " the club" four days in the week, (he swore by the cook thereof) occasionally at Blackwall or Richmond; on Sunday according to old custom, he dined at his mother's, for he was not an undutiful lad. The opera, the French

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plays, and now and then a soirée dansante, or small tea party, filled up his happy life during the season." The races, Epsom, Ascot, Goodwood, &c., he went to as a matter of course, though to say the truth he never betted at them beyond a "tenner;" for it was more for the champagne, and the dust and the excitement of the thing that he went. Finally, the first of September always saw him with his dog and gun; and occasionally during the hunting season he donned the scarlet without doing it dishonour.

All this time, we say, Theophilus was as happy as he could be. He knew nothing of the city except from memory, and cared less. Above all he knew nothing of the share market, and if he had given it a thought would as soon have gone into it, as to the odious hide and tallow market which he had so unceremoniously cut. In truth he travelled per rail, as he would by a stage coach, if such a thing were now in existence, and troubled his head no more about the concerns of the one than of the other. Little dreamed he, as he was whisked along the line, whistling as he went, to pay a long promised visit to one of his father's old city friends, that within a month he would have become a proprietor himself in almost every railway in Europe!

One only cause of anxiety had Theophilus at that time, and it originated simply in this,-that by the natural order of things incidental to young men about town, his expenses were always a trifle in advance of his quarterly dividends; and he had nothing more to look to till his mother's death; so that he was every day ruminating upon the possibility of economizing, and even one day went nearly so far as to send his hunter to Tattersall's. Would he had done so! old Rover would now have been alive, whereas in steeple-chasing over Westminster Bridge to the City, one fine day, he fell and broke his back, and is now gone to the dogs, whither some ill-natured people say his master will follow him if he does not take care.

But we anticipate. How Theophilus came to forsake the paths of idleness and peace for those of turmoil and business, may be briefly stated. Every man has his opportunity once in his life; Theophilus had his, and he seized it. It was when dining at this very old city friend of his father's, surrounded by half a dozen other citizens of credit and renown, that the whole conversation happened to turn upon the identical subject of railways. He listened at first out of mere politeness, but in the end heard matters that actually astonished him. He heard how men by merely writing letters got letters in return which they sold for hundreds and thousands of pounds; how a man had only got to buy a hundred Peddletons or Wriggletons to make a certainty of turning a cool thousand between them; how everything was going up, and the market most "healthy." He heard all this, aud gradually the idea came across his mind that he might do as well as others in this general faire fortune in which nobody lost.

He resolved to question his friend Jack Jobbings, who was a smart fellow, on the subject, the very next day. He did so, was confirmed in his apprehension, went boldly into the city, when by a mere word he became nominal proprietor of three hundred Wriggletons, which he sold next day at 4507. profit, minus the commission.

Theophilus was not a man to do things by halves. If one railway answered, why not they all? So not knowing one from another, he commissioned the broker to make him "a miscellaneous assortment,"

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which upon closing" on the account day answered pretty well, one paying the other, as it were, and leaving a small surplus.

Things went on charmingly in this way for some time; some pleasant little balance to receive on every account day; until Theophilus began to wonder why the brokers, seeing how easily things were done, did not make all these "operations" for themselves, instead of having to hand over the proceeds to almost total strangers.

At length a few severe blows taught him that there was something more in the matter than at first met the eye. Repeated disappointments of this kind, which melted down his previous gains, made him look rather anxious lest things should continue in this stream. He soon became convinced of that great truth, that "business is business, and must be attended to." He found his way to the fountain-head of information, the committee rooms at Westminster; he dived into their recesses; he scanned the faces of all; and now only was thoroughly awake to the mighty and anxious machinery by which his former gains had been by him unwittingly made. He trembled for the brink of ruin over which he had stood so long; and resolved to do nothing in future without a reason.

ment.

Upon this basis things went on for some time with obvious improveTheophilus actually passed his days between Westminster Bridge and Threadneedle-street; and his nights between sleeping and waking,-dreaming of what had been, what was to be, and what was not to be. He became, in short, a regular city man, and so completely habituated to the language of the Stock Exchange, that when a friend asked him one day how his mother was, who had been seriously indisposed, he could not better express his meaning than by saying, "A shade better, thank you-perhaps about a sixteenth!"

There he was, completely engrossed in the one pursuit. Exciting theme! Healthful recreation for body and mind! — occasionally a little damped by the appearance of the fortnightly balance, which was not always on the right side. But eels get used to skinning; and speculators get used to bleeding. The first loss or two startles them a little. The first insertion of the lancet makes them wince; but once the blood begins to flow in a full stream, it flows merrily, and the victim looks on with increasing indifference.

Victims! even so; for when Theophilus came to look calmly over his accounts, he found that with all his exertions, all his caution, he had lost just five thousand pounds, beside the gains he began the campaign with. Some of it must now be got back,-it was no longer working for fortune, but to avert ruin; and he worked the more desperately, as every day his case became more desperate, and the time for speculation became shorter. No wonder he "thanked Heaven the session was drawing to a close." If it lasted much longer, we really believe he would not have survived it.

Theophilus forcing his way through a very miscellaneous assembly, consisting chiefly of attorneys, clerks, and farmers, anxiously enquires, "How are the Squabashes?

"All right," is the reply, "Government have given their consent. Committee seem to have made up their minds. Two of them have been asleep, the chairman writing letters all the time. They're as safe as the Bank!"

The heart of Theophilus leapt within him. Thank God, he had got