it gave rise to, and I was struck with apprehension lest my thoughts, words, actions, even to the dye of my beard, would be carefully registered therein day by day, the moment I set my foot on English ground, if I did not take great precautions against such an evil. I therefore determined to keep myself as much unknown as possible; and, to that effect, resolved to leave Constantinople without seeing the ambassador of the King of England, who was residing there: and to make my way to the foot of his king's throne with all the best haste I could.

In consequence of what I had heard from the Franc merchant, and from all I had seen with my own eyes, I collected all my certainty into a heap, and became quite satisfied that the madness for which all Francs are celebrated, and particularly the English, was now beginning to be fully developed, and, strange to say, that the Turks, a nation so unchanged since the days of Seljuk, so fixed in destour, or custom, tied down by ancient habit, -the Turks themselves were no longer the same; the English disorder, Reform, had crept in amongst them, and had committed woful ravages. The Sultan himself took the lead; and it was now a question solemnly discussed among the elders and ulemah, whether heaven had come down to earth amongst them, or whether earth had descended into hell. Some asserted one thing, some another. Those who were for heaven said, "Thank Allah, our souls are now becoming as free as our chins. Where are now those odious beards that used to wave about the ends of our faces like long grass on the mountain top; that took toll of every mouthful of food that went into our mouths; that required more washing and dyeing than a Franc's shirt; and that gave a handle to our enemies without being of use to ourselves

where are they? Swept for ever from the faces of the sons of Islam, and swimming through the currents of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. And where are now those great, those awful, those capacious breeches, that could include within their folds as many legs as would serve a whole company of soldiers, instead of one pair of legs, which were eternally playing at hide-andseek among their immense involutions? They are gone for ever. The saving to the Bab Homaioon-the gate of splendour-and to the treasury of the great blood-drinker, in broad-cloth alone, will be worth ten thousand fighting men per annum, let alone the inconvenience to the individuals. And because we change the fashion of our clothes, does it follow that we change that of our faith, as our enemies would have us to do? No. We can kneel down on our praying-carpets as often and as easily in our tights, as we before did in our slacks. And although smooth chins may be common to unbelievers, yet it is certain that the paradise of Mahomet is as open to the shaved as it is to the hairy."

On the other hand, those who were of the Jehanum faction insisted that the whole dignity and consequence of the Turkish

empire had been sacrificed with the beards of its subjects; that, from looking a nation of sages, they had been turned into a nation of monkeys; and that although the rage of innovation had hitherto only seized the capital, yet, so it was once argued, when once it was known in the provinces that its emperor, the vicegerent of Allah upon earth, had cut off his beard, it was likely that the whole of the population would do so likewise, and thus universal degradation would ensue!

Then, as for the tight trousers which had been introduced, what lover of decency would now venture to show his person in the nakedness of unprotected legs, like the unblushing Francs? People might revile the Janissaries; but at all events, they were decently clad men, wearing as much cloth and muslin about their dress as would clothe a whole orta of the poor starvinglooking individuals of the new nizam. It might be very well to say, that the faith of the heart did not change with the cut of one's clothes; but it was plain that when once reform began, it was impossible to say where it might stop; and true Mussulmans might perhaps soon have to deplore its terrible effects, by seeing their wives walk about without veils, with their faces exposed to the gaze of man. The unclean beast would ere long be eaten with impunity from one end of the celestial empire to the other; whilst all the holy Prophet's injunctions against wine would be entirely set at nought; all to follow the example of unclean, faithless, and corrupt Francs, upon whom be all curses poured!

Such were the subjects which I daily heard discussed among the Turks, and every word which entered into my ears, only confirmed the reports which had reached my own country. I therefore consulted with my friend the Franc merchant upon the easiest mode of getting to England, quickest in point of conveyance, and the most eligible in point of secrecy. He recommended me to go by land, and first to proceed to the capital of the Nemseh, or Germans, ascending the Balkan, descending into the plains of Wallachia, by first crossing the Danube, and then making my way to another chain of mountains called Karpathos; which having crossed, I should soon find myself among the Majar, and then all in good time, meeting the Danube again, I should reach Vienna. This seemed mighty easy to the Franc merchant, but to me it appeared very much like scaling the six heavens to get at the seventh. However, I was on the Shah's business; and therefore, putting my firm faith in Allah, I allied myself with a party of Greek merchants, who were proceeding into Germany upon matters of business. We resolved to set off as soon as we should hear that no recent robberies had taken place on the road.

SONNET TO A FOG.

(WITH A CRITICAL NOTE.)

BY EGERTON WEBBE.

HAIL to thee, Fog! most reverend, worthy Fog!
Come in thy full-wigg'd gravity; I much
Admire thee:-thy old dulness hath a touch
Of true respectability. The rogue

That calls thee names (a fellow I could flog)
Would beard his grandfather, and trip his crutch.
But I am dutiful, and hold with such

As deem thy solemn company no clog.

Not that I love to travel best incog.

To pounce on latent lamp-posts, or to clutch
The butcher in my arms, or in a bog

Pass afternoons; but while through thee, I jog,
I feel I am true English, and no Dutch,

Nor French, nor any other foreign dog

That never mixed his grog

Over a sea-coal fire a day like this,

And bid thee scowl thy worst, and found it bliss,
And to himself said, "Yes,

Italia's skies are fair, her fields are sunny;

But, d-n their eyes! Old England for my money."

"And do you call this a sonnet, sir?" I hear some reader say, with his fingers resting on the twentieth line: "I hope I know what a sonnet is; why, sir, sonnet is the Greek for fourteen, to be sure; and your lines must always count just two over the dozen, or you make no sonnet of it; everybody knows this same."

Have patience, good reader, while I proceed to convict thee of impertinence. No man is so happy of an occasion of correcting others as he who has recently learnt something. Now, behold! I have recently learnt this, that the Italian poets, when they want to be funny, and at the same time to sonnetteer, (new verb,) outrage the gentle proportions of Poetry's fairest daughter-her whose delicate form took captive the soul of Petrarch-by ignominiously affixing to her hinder parts that always unseemly appendage-a tail, which is no less a tail, and therefore no less disgraceful to her who wears it, for being called in the more tourtly language of those original conspirators, coda (from Latin cauda, observe;-see your dictionary). This have I learnt, astonished reader, by poking into the Parnasso Italiano, as you may do, and there, beholding these prodigious baboon sonnets in full tail,-for verily they resemble not the true birth more than monkeys resemble men, and that is as much as to say they do resemble them-in such a manner as to make you laugh at the difference. But herein those Italian conspirators, who hatched the infernal plot, gained their end; they diverted their readers at the expense of poetical decency. Now, however, seeing that this second ("caudatus") species of the sonnet has a real and lively existence in the land that gave it birth; and seeing that we have freely imported from that land the other, the non-caudatus, species, (for I suppose all young ladies and gentlemen know to what country they are indebted for the fourteen-lined happiness,) it seems but fair that we should improve our national stock by bringing over the later breed, and applying it to the same uses as our neighbours.

The above is the first avowed specimen of the tailed sonnet, I believe, that has ever appeared in English; and I hope it may operate as a useful example to better poets, and induce them to clap tails continually to their sonnets, whenever they intend fun.* I say it is the first avowed specimen, because there exists one (unsuspected) among the poems of no less a man than John Milton, who found nothing admirable in any language but he quickly transplanted it. That most accomplished of modern poetical critics, Leigh Hunt, was the first who discovered the fact, and gave the alarm to Milton's editors; he showed very clearly that that short poem, "On the New Forcers of conscience under the Long Parliament," which is always published, ignorantly, among the miscellaneous pieces, is neither more nor less than a comic sonnet with the Italian tail to it. If the reader will take the trouble to look into his Milton, he will find that this poem down to the line,

"Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent," forms a regular fourteen-liner; then comes the little adjunct,-" That so the parliament,"-which, rhyming with the foregoing, gains the right of introducing a new couplet; then another, rhyming with that, and leading to a second supernumerary. In this manner the Italian poets link on couplet after couplet without end, and you may see some of their sonnets with tails stretching through several pages; nay, for aught I know, you might have a sonnet in two volumes octavo, without exceeding your licence. But it must always be constructed on the above plan, with links of a like thickness. By the by, it is surprising that the late editors of Milton's poems-men professedly conversant with Italian literature-should still persist in placing this comic sonnet among the "miscellaneous pieces," after the error has been pointed out to them!

As for the question-why a tail should be ridiculous ?-it seems to me one of considerable intricacy, and of the highest interest. Yes, Mr. Editor, why should tails be ridiculous? Coat-tails, pig-tails, all tails whatsoever, are found to touch us with a sense of the jocose; nay, your comet's tail itself is only a kind of terrific absurdity. I say, therefore, without fear of contradiction, that there subsists in this question a deep psychological truth, which demands the exploring hand of philosophy; and if no better man will take the hint,-why, Mr. Editor, I think I must myself present you, another time, with my ideas on this subject, handling the matter in the Aristotelian mode, and dividing my tails into heads.

With respect to the tail of a comic sonnet, it may be briefly remarked, that its comicality (of course I speak with reference to the Italian models) arises in a great measure from the stumbling of the little line, which always comes limping after the long one, as if something were forgotten to be said in it, which the little one thus breathlessly comes to adjoin; and then a succession of these quasi oversights makes us laugh, alternately at the seeming blunder and at the funny haste with which it is redressed. Or it is like an orator in his cups, speaking fairly enough his prepared speech; but then-encouraged by applause-spoiling all with drunken additions extempore.

I understand that the distinguished writer mentioned below as having first pointed attention to Milton's comic sonnet, had also in MS. some specimen of his own composing.

HANDY ANDY.-No. III.

SQUIRE EGAN was as good as his word. He picked out the most suitable horsewhip for chastising the fancied impertinence of Murtough Murphy; and as he switched it up and down with a powerful arm, to try its weight and pliancy, the whistling of the instrument through the air was music to his ears, and whispered of promised joy in the flagellation of the jocular attorney.

"We'll see who can make the sorest blister," said the squire. "I'll back whalebone against Spanish flies any day. Will you bet, Dick?" said he to his brother-in-law, who was a wild helter-skelter sort of fellow, better known over the country as Dick the Devil than Dick Dawson.

"I'll back your bet, Ned."

"There's no fun in that, Dick, as there is nobody to take it up." Maybe Murtough will. Ask him before you thrash him: you'd better."

"As for him," said the squire, "I'll be bound he 'll back my bet after he gets a taste o 'this;" and the horsewhip whistled as he spoke. "I think he had better take care of his back than his bet," said Dick, as he followed the squire to the hall-door, where his horse was in waiting for him, under the care of the renowned Andy, who little dreamed the extensive harvest of mischief which was ripening in futurity, all from his sowing.

"Don't kill him quite, Ned," said Dick, as the squire mounted to his saddle.

"Why, if I went to horsewhip a gentleman, of course I should only shake my whip at him; but an attorney is another affair. And, as I'm sure he'll have an action against me for assault, I think I may as well get the worth o' my money out of him, to say nothing of teaching him better manners for the future than to play off his jokes on his employers." With these words, off he rode in search of the devoted Murtough, who was not at home when the squire reached his house; but, as he was returning through the village, he espied him coming down the street in company with Tom Durfy and the widow, who were laughing heartily at some joke Murtough was telling them, which seemed to amuse him as much as his hearers.

“I'll make him laugh at the wrong side of his mouth," thought the squire, alighting and giving his horse to the care of one of the little ragged boys who were idling in the street. He approached Murphy with a very threatening aspect, and, confronting him and his party so as to produce a halt, he said, as distinctly as his rage would permit him to speak, "You little insignificant blackguard, I'll teach you how you 'll cut your jokes on me again; I'll blister you, my buck!" and, laying hands on the astonished Murtough with the last word, he began a very smart horsewhipping of the attorney. The widow screamed, Tom Durfy swore, and Murtough roared, with some interjectional curses. At last he escaped from the squire's grip, leaving the lappel of his coat in his possession; and Tom Durfy interposed his person between them when he saw an intention on the part of the flagellator to repeat his dose of horsewhip.