The Sheriffs came next, and they gave in to the same whim and danced, and so did three Phrenologists who were in waiting to take a cast of the skull, and another old woman who had got upon the scaffold to be stroked on the neck for a wen. Though her dancing day was over, she hobbled her best, and so did a Jew who came up to haggle for the criminal’s clothes, and likewise an amateur in hangings, who meant to bid high for a piece of the rope. These all danced, and God knows how many more might have joined the corps de ballet, but for a certain leap that was leaped by the Lord Mayor, and which knocked the whim on the head. Now the Lord Mayor’s weight in the City, in mere flesh, was a matter of sixteen stone (on the 10th of November a little more) and his gold chain was seventy-five pounds, as good Troy weight as if Priam had weighed it himself. He had besides in his pocket, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in gold, ninety-five thousand pounds in silver, and five thousand seven hundred pounds in copper; moreover in his fob was an old family watch, formerly the clock of St. Dunstan, equal to ninety-five pounds and a half. Lastly, he carried on his person a huge bunch of keys, house keys, warehouse keys, shop keys, cellar keys, and particularly wine cellar keys, cupboard keys, and especially pantry keys, and above all the Master Key of the City, which at any old iron shop, would have been reckoned at a hundred pounds. Only think, my masters, when such a corporate body jumped, only think, I say, with what a confounding, astounding, crashing, smashing, flattening, pancake-making sole of a foot it would come down on any reptile short of a crocodile. No wonder, then, that Tony’s whim was completely atomised, obliterated, and annihilated, which it was so utterly, that if you were to search on the gallows to-morrow, with a solar microscope to help you, I don’t believe, on my soul, that you would find the least article or particle of the cuticle of [Illustration: A TARANTULA.] SONNET TO VAUXHALL. “The English Garden.”--MASON. The cold transparent ham is on my fork-- It hardly rains--and hark the bell!--ding-dingle-- Away! Three thousand feet at gravel work, Mocking a Vauxhall shower!--Married and Single Crush--rush;--Soak’d Silks with wet white Satin mingle. Hengler! Madame! round whom all bright sparks lurk, Calls audibly on Mr. and Mrs. Pringle To study the Sublime, &c.--(vide Burke) All Noses are upturned!--Whish--ish!--On high The rocket rushes--trails--just steals in sight-- Then droops and melts in bubbles of blue light-- And Darkness reigns--Then balls flare up and die-- Wheels whiz--smack crackers--serpents twist--and then Back to the cold transparent ham again! [Illustration: “A CHILD’S _call_ TO BE DISPOSED OF.”] ODE TO MR. MALTHUS.