EXTRAORDINARY is the mind of man! He sails in mid-air; he compasseth the globe; he blunts the lightning; he writeth _Hamlet_, _Paradise Lost_, the _Principia_, and he chaineth a flea by the leg. He maketh the strong elephant to bend his joints, and he subdueth a flea, if not to “hew wood,” at least to draw water. These, the later triumphs of the human essence, are now on exhibition somewhere in that long ark for modern monsters, Regent Street! Yes, the “Industrious Fleas” at once delight and shame fashionable idlers, sending them to their beds to ruminate on the sagacity of the living world about them. We love a monster as much as ever did _Trinculo_; hence we have been bitten; that is, we have made acquaintance with the “Industrious Fleas.” Let us shortly enumerate their separate capabilities. One flea, a fine muscular fellow, worthy, did fairies die, to be mourning coach horse at the funeral of Queen Titania (how long since the fairies had a coronation!), draws a very splendid carriage, constructed from the pith of elder. He curvets, and bounds, and shows his blood (he must have been fed in some royal stable—he has surely fattened on kings) with the proudest royal coach-horse, on—as they say at public dinners—“the proudest day of its life.” Having seen its legs, we shall think more seriously of the kick of a flea ever after. Then, to talk of a “flea bite,” as a proverb for a wife—a mere nothing; let those who speak thus vainly contemplate the terrible proboscis of the aforesaid chariot flea, and then think of the formidable weapon, plunged through one’s tender skin, and sucking up by quarts (we saw, we looked through a microscope) our hearts’ best blood! To go to bed appears no wonder, but to be able to rise again after what we have beheld, seems to us a daily miracle! To proceed. Another of the “industrious” takes the air with a chain and a weight to his leg, the wonder consisting in its resignation to its destiny. A third flea, also manacled, draws water. A fourth flea has a more awful duty—to bear Napoleon Bonaparte, late of France, but now of St Helena—there he is, the victor of a hundred fights, majestically seated on flea back. An enthusiastic Frenchman may, if he have good eyes, see in the miniature emperor, the sallow, thoughtful face, the “brassy eye” (_vide_ Haydon’s account) of the original despot—could the figure take snuff, the illusion would be perfect. Two other fleas, soldiers, fight a desperate combat, affording in their proper persons a triumphant refutation to the celebrated dogma of the philosopher, that “fleas are not lobsters.” We understood from the _Cicerone_ that their deadly enmity was excited towards each other by a mutual tickling. We were also informed that one of the fleas (“epicurean animal!”) had the honour to sup off the hand of the Princess Augusta. This fact was shamefully hushed up by the magas of the _Court Circular_, else how would it have astonished the world to have read that “last night Her