German reputation for capacity. Baron Brainoff, a Muscovite with a heavy animal cast of countenance, theoretically accomplished in the Tartar tactics of thrust, run, and come again, which he displayed; but the arena was too contracted for their successful evolution, for he was overtaken and overthrown, his roach participating in his fall. His last encounter was with Baron von Wolfenstein, an Austrian knight with a powerful phlegmatic physique of vis inertia. At the start he placed his lance in rest over the carapace of his roach with the hopeful expectation of finding his opponent impaled thereon after the course had been run. When, from a defect in his calculation of his foe’s condescension, he found himself a prostrate companion with his steed, he did not exhibit in his movements the least symptom of chagrin, although saluted with the derisive jests of the democratic plebs, who appeared to enjoy with intense satisfaction the privilege of jousting their superiors with revilings, when temporarily reduced to their own groveling level. After a leisurely survey of his situation he slowly, by easy stages, regained his upright position without the proffered aid of the beadles; then with sluggish movements unlaced his beaver, and raising his visor, showed a face wreathed in torpid smiles that seemed to have had their rise from the recognition of the scoffing taunts as plaudits for the execution of some knightly achievement that had escaped his memory. This innocent act of mazy stupidity was taken by the spectators as a witty assumption in burlesque of victory, and vividly impressed with his supposed humorous aptness they made the welkin echo with their shouts of applause, until he had bowed himself out of the lists. Count Marceroni, by this democratic misapprehension of cause and effect, was completely robbed of the merited zest due to his adroit exhibition of skill in the precise use of weapons, and the Austrian Baron, the least worthy of his antagonists, was established as the prime favorite of the worshipful gods. Turning to the tribune a look of inquiry, I observed with surprise that his face, for the first time, was suffused with a pleased expression. In explanation, he said that the scene I had just witnessed was a truthful exposition of the source from which a majority of the Gigas and Animalculans derived their reputations for wisdom, wit, and invention; in truth, he continued, musingly, you can take it as a fair demonstration of the substance of their living realities. Embracing the opportunity, he again advised us not to let our Manatitlan natures interpose their sensitive perceptions for the gratuitous bestowal of praise or pity, as they would serve to mar the relish of comical effects afforded by the hap-hazard novelties in store from the heterogeneous imitations of Giga habits and customs.