The pursuit of his calling appears to have an influence upon his manners, speech, and dress. Of all the days in the week, Saturday is the choicest for seeing him to the best advantage. His hatless head, shining with grease, his cheeks as ruddy as his mutton-chops, his sky-blue frock and dark-blue apron, his dangling steel and sharp-set knife, which ever and anon play an accompaniment to his quick, short--"Buy! buy!" are all in good keeping with the surrounding objects. And although this be not _killing_ day with him, he is particularly winning and gracious with the serving-maids; who (whirling the large street-door key about their right thumb, and swinging their marketing basket in their left hand) view the well-displayed joints, undecided which to select, until Mr. Butcher recommends a leg or a loin; and then he so very politely cuts off the fat, in which his skilful hand is guided by the high or low price of mutton fat in the market. He is the very antipode of a fop, yet no man knows how to show a handsome _leg_ off to better advantage, or is prouder of his _calves_. In his noviciate, when he shoulders the shallow tray, and whistles cavalierly on his way in his sausage-meat-complexioned-jacket, there is something marked as well in his character as his _habits_, he is never _moved_ to stay, except by a brother butcher, or a fight of dogs or boys, for such scenes fit his singular fancy. Then, in the discussion of his bull-dog's beauties, he becomes extraordinarily eloquent. Hatiz, the Persian, could not more warmly, or with choicer figure, describe his mistress' charms, than he does Lion's, or Fowler's, or whatever the brute's Christian name may be; and yet the surly, cynical, _dogged_ expression of the bepraised beast, would almost make one imagine he understood the meaning of his master's words, and that his honest nature despised the flattering encomiums he passes upon his pink belly and legs, his broad chest, his ring-tail, and his tulip ears!--_Absurdities, in Prose and Verse._ * * * * * CONFIDENCE AND CREDIT. (_For the Mirror._) The day was dark, the markets dull, The Change was thin, Gazettes were full, And half the town was breaking; The _counter-sign_ of Cash was "_Stop_!" Bankers and bankrupts shut up shop, And honest hearts were aching. When near the Bench my fancy spied A faded form, with hasty stride, Beneath Grief's burden stooping: Her name was CREDIT, and she said Her father, TRADE, was lately dead, Her mother, COMMERCE, drooping. The smile that she was wont to wear Was wither'd by the hand of care, Her eyes had lost their lustre: Her character was gone, she said, For she had basely been betray'd, And nobody would trust her.