To illustrate:--When a lovely girl, all warmth and confidence, steals on tiptoe from her lonely chamber, and, lighted by the moon, when "pa's" asleep, drops from the balcony into the arms of some soft youth, as warm as she, who has been waiting to whisk her off to Hymen's altar--that is generally understood as [Illustration: AN ATTACHMENT IN FACT.] When an ugly "bum," well up to trap, creeps like a rascal from the sheriff's-office, and with his _capias_ armed, ere you are half-dressed, gives you the chase, and, as you "leg" away for the bare life, his knuckles dig into the seat of your unmentionables, gripping you like a tiger--that indeed is _une autre chose_, that is [Illustration: AN ATTACHMENT IN LAW.] When you remark a round, rosy, jolly fellow, shining from top to toe, "philandering" down Regent-street, with a self-satisfied grin, that seems to say, "Match me that, demme!" and casting looks of pity--mellowed through his eye-glass--on all passers, you may fairly conclude that that happy dog has just slipped into [Illustration: A BOND-STREET SUIT.] But when you perceive a gaunt, yellow spectre of a man, reduced to his last _chemise_, and that a sad spectacle of ancient purity, starting from Lincoln's-Inn, and making all haste for Waterloo-bridge, the inference is rather natural, that he is blessed with [Illustration: A SUIT IN CHANCERY.] It being dangerous to take too great a meal at a time, and PUNCH knowing well the difficulty of digesting properly over-large quantities of mental food, he concludes his first lecture on L--A--W. Whether he will continue here his definitions of legal terms, or not, time and his humour shall determine. * * * * * A DRESS REHEARSAL. Lord Melbourne, imitating the example of the ancient philosophers, is employing the last days of his political existence in composing a learned discourse "On the Shortness of Ministerial Life." To try the effect of it, his lordship gives a _full dress_ dinner-party, immediately after the meeting of Parliament, to several of his friends. On the removal of the cloth, he will read the essay, and then the Queen's intended speech, in which she civilly gives his lordship leave to provide himself with another _place_. Where, in the whole range of history, could we meet with a similar instance of magnanimity? Where, with such a noble picture--of a great soul rising superior to adversity? Seneca in the bath, uttering moral apophthegms with his dying breath--Socrates jesting over his bowl of hemlock juice--were great creatures--immense minds; but Lord Melbourne reading his own dismissal to his friends--after dinner, too!--over his first glass of wine--leaves them at an immeasurable distance. Oh! that we had the power of poor Wilkie! what a picture we could make of such a subject. * * * * * THE DRAMA. VAUXHALL GARDENS.