In a half sportive, half melancholy mood, we record this description of the tragi-comedy of human life. To weep, like Heraclitus, might exalt us to philanthropists; to make the distresses of mankind a theme of derision would brand us as buffoons. Though inclining to the example of Democritus,--for life is too short seriously to grapple with the thousand absurdities that daily demand refutation,--we take the middle course. Far be from us the reproach of having no regard for our fellow-men, or pity for their errors! Every one views a subject according to his particular taste and disposition. * Some happy fancies can find “Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.” * To view Niagara's Falls one day A Priest and Tailor took their way; The Parson cried, while wrapt in wonder, And listening to the cataract's thunder, “Lord! how thy works amaze our eyes, And fill our hearts with vast surprise!” The Tailor merely made this note:-- “Lord! what a place to sponge a coat!” Such would draw a truth from a tumbler, and a moral from a mountebank! “Look through my glass,” says the philosopher, “Through mine” says the metaphysician. “Will your honour please to take a peep through my glass?” inquires the penny showman. The penny showman's glass for our money! We are not to be hoodwinked by high-sounding authorities, who, like Tom Thumb, manufacture the giants they take the credit of killing! Bernier tells us, that whenever the Great Mogul made a remark, no matter how commonplace, the Omrahs lifted up their hands and cried “Wonder! wonder! wonder!” And their proverb saith, If the King exclaims at noon-day, “It is night” you are to rejoin, “Behold the moon and stars!” Curious reader, picture to yourself a town-bred bachelor, with flowing wig, brocaded waistcoat, rolled silk stockings, and clouded cane, marching forth to take a survey of Bartholomew Fair, in the year 1701. Fancy the prim gentleman describing what he saw to some inquiring country kinsman in the following laconic epistle, and you will have a lively contemporary sketch of Smithfield Rounds. Cousin Corydon, Having no business of my own, * nor any desire to meddle with other people's, no wife to chin-music me, no brats to torment me, I dispelled the megrims by a visit to St. Bartholomew. * “A Walk to Smith-field; or, a True Description of the Humours of Bartholomew Fair. 1701.”