Another animal _sui generis_, occasionally visible about the same cock-crowing season, is the parliamentary reporter, shuffling to roost, and a more slovenly-looking operative from sunrise to sunset is rarely to be seen. There has probably been a double debate, and between three and five o'clock he has written "a column _bould_." No one can well mistake him. The features are often Irish, the gait jaunty or resolutely brisk, but neither "buxom, blithe, nor debonnair," complexion wan, expression pensive, and the entire propriety of the toilette disarranged and _degagée_. The stuff that he has perpetrated is happily no longer present to his memory, and neither placeman's sophistry nor patriot's rant will be likely in any way to interfere with his repose. Intense fatigue, whether intellectual or manual, however, is not the best security for sound slumber at any hour, more particularly in the morning. Even at this hour the swart Savoyard (_filius nullius_) issues forth on his diurnal pilgrimage, "remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," to excruciate on his superannuated hurdy-gurdy that sublime melody, "the hundred and seventh psalm," or the plaintive sweetness of "Isabel," perhaps speculating on a breakfast for himself and Pug, somewhere between Knightsbridge and Old Brentford. Poor fellow! Could he procure a few bones of mutton, how hard would it be for his hungry comprehension to understand the displeasure which similar objects occasioned to Attila on the plains of Champagne! Then the too frequent preparations for a Newgate execution--but enough of such details; it is the muse of Mr. Crabbe that alone could do them justice. We would say to the great city, in the benedictory spirit of the patriot of Venice,--_esto perpetua!_ Notwithstanding thy manifold "honest knaveries," peace be within thy walls, and plenty pervade thy palaces, that thou mayest ever approve thyself, oh queen of capitals, "Like Samson's riddle in the sacred song, A springing sweet still flowing from the strong!" _Blackwood's Magazine_. * * * * * THE SKETCH-BOOK. * * * * * SCOTTISH SPORTING. _From the letters of two sportsmen; with recollections of the Ettrick Shepherd._ (_For the Mirror_.)