SYL.--Willingly, and according to the system of the great Linnæus. Antennæ or horns he had none, thus differing from the common locust, but in lieu thereof, sundry bunches and tufts of coarse red hair; eyes brown, and tending inwards towards the proboscis or snout. Two fore-legs or arms terminating in ten palpi or feelers, and the same number of toes or claws on the hinder feet. On grasping truncus, or the trunk, it was cased in a loose skin resembling corduroy, the same being most curiously furnished with sundry bags or pouches, into which, like the provident pelican, it stuffed the forage it had collected from the trees. CIV.--With submission, Sylvanus, to your better judgment, I should have taken this same Locust, from your description, to have been actually a mere human boy. SYL.--Between ourselves, he was--though of what nation or parentage I know not. To use his own heathenish jargon, he was doing “a morning fake on the picking lay for a cove wot add a tea-crib in the monkery.” CIV.--A strange gibberish, but I do remember that Peter the Wild Boy was wont to discourse in the same uncouth fashion. Poor savage of the woods! I do feel for his pitiful estate; but what could move him to pluck off all-the green emeralds of the Forest? SYL.--To make sham Hyson and mock Souchong. Even in June you would have deemed it was November, there were so many ragged Guys collecting gunpowder. Oh, Civis, thou hast no notion of the tea-trade that hath been carried on in these parts. Many times I have believed myself to be dwelling in Canton, and that my name was Hum. Thrice I have caught myself marvelling at the huge feet of Mrs. S., and have groped behind my nape for the national pigtail. CIV.--Sylvanus, spare me. I have but one green week in the year, and here it is all blotted out of the calendar. I pray you do not jest with me. What hath become of the leaves of yon sycamore? SYL.--Plucked by a Blackamoor, who preferred it to the climbing of chimneys. CIV.--And yonder Ashes, which I could mourn for in appropriate sackcloth? SYL.--Stripped by the select young gentleman of Seneca-house, who left the politer branches of education for the purpose. Scholars, you know, will play truant gratis, and these had the opportunity of performing it at twopence the hour. One Saturday they did turn their half-holiday into a whole one, and were found by the geographical master picking Chinese Pekoe and Padre on the sloe bushes and willows of Peckham Rye. CIV.--Oh, my Sylvanus, such then is the cause of the desolation I survey. To think that I may have myself helped to swallow the verdure that I should now be sitting under. That the green Druidical leaves, instead of clothing the Dryads, should be assisting in the sweeping of my own Kidderminster carpets! SYL.--Verily so it is. The great god Pan is dead, and Pot will reign in his stead.