The work we've just finished went off very well; It was set out with _plates_, such as Finden, or Heath, If even their professional feelings rebel, Must praise on account (not in spite) of their teeth. Though by Fraser cut up, and by Murray reviewed, Lovegrove's articles all fit insertion have found. We have cleared off our boards, but as business is good, We keep wetted for use, and for pleasure unbound. But here not for pleasure alone are we stored Like holiday tomes in our gilding so bright; Some care 'tis our duty and wish to afford In the moment of need to a less lucky wight, Whose title is lost, and whose covers are torn, When the moth has gnawed through, dust or cobwebs surround, And to lift on the shelf our poor brother forlorn, As a much damaged old folio treasured by Lowndes. Though his back stock of life may perchance weigh him down, By our aid may the old heavy pressure be moved, And new-titled we start him again on the town, As a second edition revised and improved. And for dealings like this a commission will find, And that of a date that the primest is given, The commission is--Strive to do good to mankind, And the place of its dates is no other than Heaven. I won't keep the press waiting--my copy is gone, Having finished a lay which Bob Fisher, perhaps, May out of the head of old Caxton call one, If not of his _Drawing_, yet _Dining-room Scraps_; But as we all still think of Tom Talfourd's bill, After sixty years' date, I respectfully beg, As a knight of the quill, here to offer for _nil_, My right in this song as a present to Tegg. W. MAGINN. WHAT A HEART-BREAKING SHOP But what were even gold and silver, precious stones and clockwork, to the bookshops, whence a pleasant smell of paper freshly pressed came issuing forth, awakening instant recollections of some new grammar had at school, long time ago, with 'Master Pinch, Grove House Academy', inscribed in faultless writing on the fly-leaf! That whiff of russia leather, too, and all those rows on rows of volumes, neatly ranged within: what happiness did they suggest! And in the window were the spick-and-span new works from London, with the title-pages, and sometimes even the first page of the first chapter, laid wide open: tempting unwary men to begin to read the book, and then, in the impossibility of turning over, to rush blindly in, and buy it! Here too were the dainty frontispiece and trim vignette, pointing like handposts on the outskirts of great cities, to the rich stock of incident beyond; and store of books, with many a grave portrait and time-honoured name, whose matter he knew well, and would have given mines to have, in any form, upon the narrow shelf beside his bed at Mr. Pecksniff's. What a heart-breaking shop it was!--C. DICKENS. _Martin Chuzzlewit._