John Archibald Murray got a slice, but it was from the side upon which the article had lain for some time, and thus it is said to be somewhat musty. Jeffrey got a choice cut, but he is said to have carried it so long in his breeches-pocket, among slips of the Review, that it is as hard as granite. Cockburn got a large piece out of the very middle, but he is reported as having stuck it over so thickly with sugar-plums, that the original owner would have great difficulty in knowing it. The kissing-crust, and a dainty crust it is, fell to the share of John Clerk, but John is said to have soaked it so much in butter, that delicate stomachs are unable to bear it. After such a distribution, it seems exceedingly doubtful whether the whole can be again reunited; and while one laments the cutting up of the thing itself, one is amused at the more slender Whiglings, who run about showing, boasting, and smacking the waste-paper in which it was originally wrapped up. There is another species of legal pun, which first came to maturity under M’Queen, of Braxfield. This may be styled the pun _ad hominem_, and is calculated to depress the spirits in the same ratio as the other is calculated to raise them. While I was in the Athens it was by no means common in the Parliament-House, but I was told that it forms a standard dish at all loyal and official feasts, and that upon ordinary occasions it lies in Blackwood’s shop for the inspection of the curious. The learned pun is of several kinds, according to the class by whom it is used. That which was brought to perfection by Professor Hill was a sort of polyglot. For instance, in order to indicate learning, and wit, and tea, the Professor inscribed his tea-chest with the word “_doces_,” and when upon a cold winter day, one of his students kept bawling “_claude ostium_;” so loud as to give annoyance, the Professor turned upon him with “_claude os tuum_,” which gained him more admiration with the Athenians than if he had rivalled Porson himself. None of those kinds of punning are, however, to be regarded as purely Athenian. They were all invented or improved by strangers; and if one wishes to become acquainted with the genuine Athenian pun in all its simplicity, one must seek it at those coteries of small philosophers and blue-stockings, which are found at Athenian suppers, more especially on Sunday evenings, for it is by much too delicate and weakly a thing for lasting even till the day following.