double drums, and tacitly suffered my ears to be boxed with a common Jury. I heard, on the right hand, a Judge’s charge--an arraignment and evidence to match, with great dexterity, but failing to catch the defence from the left hand, refused naturally to concur in any sinister verdict. The learned Serjeant, I presume, as I was only half deaf, only half discharged me,--committing me to the relay-box, as a juror in Waiting,--and from which I was relieved only by his successor, Sir Thomas Denman, and to justify my dulness, I made even his stupendous voice to repeat my dismissal twice over! It was during this compelled attendance that the project struck me of a Series of Lays of Larceny, combining Sin and Sentiment in that melo-dramatic mixture which is so congenial to the cholera morbid sensibility of the present age and stage. The following are merely specimens, but a hint from the Powers that be--in the Strand,--will promptly produce a handsome volume of the remainder, with a grateful Dedication to the learned Serjeant. [Illustration: “DESCEND YE NINE.”] LINES TO MARY. (AT NO. 1, NEWGATE, FAVOURED BY MR. WONTNER.) O Mary, I believ’d you true, And I was blest in so believing; But till this hour I never knew-- That you were taken up for thieving! Oh! When I snatch’d a tender kiss Or some such trifle when I courted, You said, indeed, that love was bliss, But never owned you were transported! But then to gaze on that fair face-- It would have been an unfair feeling, To dream that you had pilfered lace-- And Flints had suffered from your stealing! Or when my suit I first preferr’d, To bring your coldness to repentance, Before I hammered out a word, How could I dream you’d heard a sentence, Or when with all the warmth of youth I strove to prove my love no fiction, How could I guess I urged a truth On one already past conviction! How could I dream that ivory part, Your hand--where I have look’d and linger’d, Altho’ it stole away my heart, Had been held up as one light-finger’d! In melting verse your charms I drew, The charms in which my muse delighted-- Alas! the lay I thought was new, Spoke only what had been _indicted_! Oh! when that form, a lovely one, Hung on the neck its arms had flown to, I little thought that you had run A chance of hanging on your own too. You said you pick’d me from the world, My vanity it now must shock it-- And down at once my pride is hurl’d, You’ve pick’d me--and you’ve pick’d a pocket. Oh! when our love had got so far, The bans were read by Dr. Daly, Who asked if there was any _bar_-- Why did not some one shout “Old Bailey?” But when you rob’d your flesh and bones In that pure white that angel garb is, Who could have thought you, Mary Jones, Among the Joans that link with _Darbies_?