Ho who mounts the ladder of life, treading step by step upon the identical footings marked out, _may_ live in a provincial town. When we want to drink spa waters, or vary the scene, we now visit watering-places; but rather than force me to live at one again, "stick me up," as _Andrew Fairservice_ says, in _Rob Roy_, "as a regimental target for ball-practice." We have long ceased to live in Pumpington. Fleeting are the tints of the rainbow--perishable the leaf of the rose--variable the love of woman--uncertain the sunbeam of April; but naught on earth can be fleeting; so perishable, so variable, or so uncertain, as the popularity of a provincial reputation. _Monthly Magazine._ * * * * * LONDON LYRICS. * * * * * JACK JONES, THE RECRUIT.--A HINT FROM OVID. Jack Jones was a toper: they say that some how He'd a foot always ready to kick up a row; And, when half-seas over, a quarrel he pick'd, To keep up the row he had previously kick'd. He spent all, then borrow'd at twenty per cent. His mistress fought shy when his money was spent, So he went for a soldier; he could not do less, And scorn'd his fair Fanny for hugging brown Bess. "Halt--Wheel into line!" and "Attention--Eyes right!" Put Bacchus, and Venus, and Momus to flight But who can depict half the sorrows he felt When he dyed his mustachios and pipe-clay'd his belt? When Sergeant Rattan, at Aurora's red peep, Awaken'd his tyros by bawling--"Two deep!" Jack Jones would retort, with a half-suppress'd sigh, "Ay! too deep by half for such ninnies as I." Quoth Jones--"'Twas delightful the bushes to beat With a gun in my hand and a dog at my feet, But the game at the Horse-Guards is different, good lack! Tis a gun in my hand and a cat at my back." To Bacchus, his saint, our dejected recruit. One morn, about drill time, thus proffer'd his suit-- "Oh make me a sparrow, a wasp, or an ape-- All's one, so I get at the juice of the grape." The God was propitious--he instantly found His ten toes distend and take root in the ground; His back was a stem, and his belly was bark, And his hair in green leaves overshadow'd the Park. Grapes clustering hung o'er his grenadier cap, His blood became juice, and his marrow was sap: Till nothing was left of the muscles and bones That form'd the identical toper, Jack Jones. Transform'd to a vine, he is still seen on guard, At his former emporium in Great Scotland-yard; And still, though a vine, like his fellow-recruits, He is train'd, after listing, his ten-drills, and shoots. _New Monthly Magazine_. * * * * * THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF _NEW WORKS_. * * * * * THE JUVENILE KEEPSAKE,