A Dandy on a velocipede I saw in a vision sweet, Along the highway making speed, With his alternate feet. Of a bright and celestial hue Gleamed beauteously his blue surtout; While ivory buttons, in a row, Showed like the winter’s caverned snow, Which the breezy north Drives sweeping forth To lodge in the cave below: Ontario’s beaver, without demur, To form his hat did lend its fur: His frill was of the cambric fine, And his neckcloth starched and aquiline; And oh, the eye with pleasure dwells On his white jean indescribables; And he throws the locks from his forehead fair, And he pants, and pants, and pants for air; What is the reason I cannot tell, There is a cause――I know it well; Too firmly bound, too tightly braced, The corsets grasp his spider waist, Till his coat tails are made to fly Even from the back they glorify. Look again, he is not there―― Vanished into the misty air! Look again! do you see him yet? Ah no! the bailiff has seized him for debt, And to and fro, like a restless ghost, When peace within the grave is lost, He paces as far, as far he should, Within the bounds of Holyrood! WILLIAM MAGINN. 1821. ――――:o:―――― THE ANCIENT STORY. [The Lord Chief Justice seems to have “Tichborne on the brain,” and cannot permit even his convivial moments to pass without talking of him, and going in for his own justification. He has become the veritable Ancient Mariner of the judicial bench, who, whenever he gets an audience, is compelled to begin anew the ancient story.――“‘There was a case,’ quoth he.”――_South London Press._] It is an ancient Judge-in-Chief, And he stoppeth one in three; “By thy horsehair wig and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?” He holds him with his skinny hand, “There was a Case” quoth he. “Hold off!――unhand me, greybeard loon!” But still the tale must be. “The case was called, the usher bawled, ’Regina _v._ Cas_tro_; The work began, upstood the man Whom all as Claimant know. “Day after day, day after day, Into the box came he, And answers gave, the smiling knave, That posed the keen Q.C. “And lies were here, and lies were there, And lies were all about, Whispered and growled, and roared and howled, And still the case spun out. “Day after day, day after day, We stuck――no sense of motion, Until the speeches came, and words Flowed boundless as the ocean: “Till every tongue, through utter drought, Was withered at the root; The barristers were dry as if They had been choked with soot. “There passed a weary time; each throat Was parched, and glazed each eye; A weary time, a weary time―― And then my speech had I. “I charged the jury with a will, The Claimant I defied, No Tichborne he, and if not――who? ‘Orton,’ the jury cried.