"Three Preachers, in three distant counties born, The Church of England's doctrines do adorn: Harsh Calvin's mystic tenets were their mark, Founded in texts perverted, gloomy, dark. _Butler_ in clearness and in force surpassed, _Maltby_ with sweetness spoke of ages past; Whilst _Marsh_ himself, who scarce could further go, With _Criticism's_ fetters bound the foe." This _punning_ morsel, of some _standing_ in the university, is scarce surpassed by Hood himself:-- THE THREE-HEADED PRIEST. Old Doctor Delve, a scribbling quiz, Afraid of critics' jibes, By turns assumes the various phiz Of three old classic scribes. Though now with high erected head, And lordly strut he'll go by us, He once made lawyers' robes, 'tis said, And called himself _Mac-robius_. Last night I asked the man to sup, Who showed a second alias; He gobbled _all my jellies up_, O greedy _Aulus Gellius_. On Sunday, arrogant and proud, He purrs like any tom-puss, And reads the Word of _God so loud_, He must be _Theo-pompus_. * * * * * MY BEEF BURNT TO A CINDER. The family of the Spintexts have, it appears, very lately put forth a _scion_, in the person of a learned divine, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who, being appointed a _Select Preacher_ in 1835, delivered a discourse of the extraordinary duration of an _hour and a half_! The present Father of the University and Master of Peter-house, Dr. Francis Barnes, upwards of ninety years of age, was one of the heads present. He sat out the first three quarters of an hour, but then began to be _fidgetty_. Another quarter of an hour expired,--the preacher was still in the _midst_ of his discourse. The Doctor (now become right down impatient,) being seated the lowest (next to the Vice-Chancellor) in _Golgotha_, or the "Place of Skulls," as it is called, he moved, first one seat higher (the preacher is still on his legs,) then to a third, then to a fourth, then to a fifth; and before the hour and a half had quite expired, he joined one of the junior esquire bedells at the top, to whom he observed, with that original expression of face for which he is so remarkable, "my beef is burnt to a cinder." * * * * * SHORT HAND WRITING WAS INVENTED BY A CANTAB, According to the first volume of the Librarian, published by Mr. Savage, of the London Institution; who says, that the first work printed on the subject was by Dr. Timothy Bright, of Cambridge, in 1598, who dedicated it to Queen Elizabeth, under the title of "An art of short, swift, and secret writing, by Character." * * * * * THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE LADIES.