Pensively and profoundly was I meditating, seated one evening upon a stone bench in Guildhall, when, as the gathering gloom invested the solemn faces of Gog and Magog, rendering them mysteriously dim and indistinct, methought I saw them slowly shut their eyes, nod their heads, fall asleep, and actually begin to snore. Never did I hear any thing more sonorously grand and awful than that portentous inbreathing of Gog and Magog, resounding through the Gothic vastness of Guildhall; but, behold! how omnipotent is the dreaming imagination! I myself had been dozing; the sound of my own nose, transferred by a metonymy of the fancy to the nostrils of those wooden idols, had become, as it were, the living apotheosis of a snore, which had subdued me by its sublimity. Most fortunate was it that I awoke; for, on attentively inspecting the faces of the figures, I saw them working and writhing with all the contortions of the Pythoness or the Sibyl, labouring in the very throes of inspiration, struggling with the advent of the prophetical afflatus. At length their lips parted, when, in a low, solemn voice, that thrilled through the dark, deserted, and silent hall, they poured forth alternately the following vaticinal strain, each starting and trembling as he concluded:-- "From Bank, Change, Mansion-house, Guildhall, Throgmorton, and Threadneedle, From London-stone, and London wall, When City housewife's wheedle To Brunswick, Russell, Bedford Squares, And Portland-place, their spouses, Anxious to give themselves great airs Of fashion in great houses, Then Gog shall start, and Magog shall Tremble upon his pedestal." "When merchant, banker, broker, shake In Crockford's club their elbow, And for St. James's clock forsake The chiming of thy bell, Bow: When Batson's, Garraway's, and John's, At night show empty boxes, While cits are playing dice with dons, Or ogling opera doxies; Then Gog shall start, and Magog shall Tremble upon his pedestal." "When city dames give routs and reels, And ape high-titled prancers, When City misses dance quadrilles, Or waltz with whisker'd Lancers; When City gold is quickly spent In trinkets, feasts, and raiment, And none suspend their merriment Until they all stop payment, Then Gog shall start, and Magog shall Tremble upon his pedestal." I was reflecting what dire calamities would fall upon the doomed City, since the era of luxury, corruption, and desertion, thus denounced, had now manifestly arrived, and Gog and Magog were actually starting and trembling upon their pedestals, when the hall-keeper, shaking me by the shoulder, exclaimed--"Come, Sir, you musn't be sleeping here all night! Bundle out, if you please, for I am just going to shut the great gates!"--_New Monthly Mag._ * * * * * THE GATHERER. A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.--SHAKSPEARE. MODERN SALAMANDER.