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Head-combing he should find a hint of,
When scratching o'er those little pole-hills,
The faculties throw up like mole-hills ;-
A science that, in very spite

Of all his teeth, ne'er came to light,
For tho' he knew his skull had grinders,
Still there turn'd up no organ finders,
Still sages wrote, and ages fled,
And no man's head came in his head-
Not even the pate of Erra Pater,
Knew aught about its pia mater.
At last great Dr Gall bestirs him-
I don't know but it might be Spurzheim-
Tho' native of a dull and slow land,
And makes partition of our Poll-land;
At our Acquisitiveness guesses,

And all those necessary nesses
Indicative of human habits,

All burrowing in the head like rabbits.
Thus Veneration, he made known,
Had got a lodging at the Crown;
And Music (see Deville's example)
A set of chambers in the Temple;
That Language taught the tongues close by,
And took in pupils thro' the eye,
Close by his neighbour Computation,
Who taught the eyebrows numeration.

The science thus-to speak in fit
Terms having struggled from its nit,
Was seized on by a swarm of Scotchmen,
Those scientifical hotch-potch men,
Who have at least a penny dip,
And wallop in all doctorship,
Just as in making broth they smatter
By bobbing twenty things in water:
These men, I say, made quick appliance

And close, to phrenologic science;
For of all learn'd themes whatever,
That schools and colleges deliver,
There's none they love so near the bodles,
As analyzing their own noddles;

Thus in a trice each northern blockhead
Had got his fingers in his shock head,
And of his bumps was babbling yet worse
Than poor Miss Capulet's dry wet-nurse;
Till having been sufficient rangers

Of their own heads, they took to strangers',
And found in Presbyterians' polls
The things they hated in their souls ;
For Presbyterians hear with passion
Of organs join'd with veneration.
No kind there was of human pumpkin
But at its bumps it had a bumpkin ;
Down to the very lowest gullion,
And oiliest scull of oily scullion.
No great man died but this they did do,
They begg'd his cranium of his widow:
No murderer died by law disaster,
But they took off his sconce in plaster;
For thereon they could show depending,
"The head and front of his offending :
How that his philanthropic bump
Was master'd by a baser lump;
For every bump (these wags insist)
Has its direct antagonist,

Each striving stoutly to prevail,
Like horses knotted tail to tail!
And many a stiff and sturdy battle
Occurs between these adverse cattle,
The secret cause, beyond all question,
Of aches ascribed to indigestion,—
Whereas 'tis but two knobby rivals
Tugging together like sheer devils,

Till one gets mastery, good or sinister,
And comes in like a new prime-minister.

Each bias in some master nod is :-
What takes M'Adam where a road is,
To hammer little peebles less?
His organ of Destructiveness.

What makes great Joseph so encumber
Debate? a lumping lump of Number :
Or Malthus rail at babies so ?
The smallness of his Philopro.
What severs man and wife? a simple
Defect of the Adhesive pimple :
Or makes weak women go astray?
Their bumps are more in fault than they.

These facts being found and set in order
By grave M.D.s beyond the Border,
To make them for some few months eternal,
Were enter'd monthly in a journal,

That many a northern sage still writes in,
And throws his little Northern Lights in,
And proves and proves about the phrenos,
A great deal more than I or he knows:
How Music suffers, par exemple,

By wearing tight hats round the temple;
What ills great boxers have to fear
From blisters put behind the ear;
And how a porter's Veneration
Is hurt by porter's occupation;
Whether shillelaghs in reality
May deaden individuality;
Or tongs and poker be creative
Of alterations in th' Amative;
If falls from scaffolds make us less
Inclined to all Constructiveness:
With more such matters, all applying
To heads--and therefore headifying.

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AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR.

ND those were the only duels," concluded the major, "that ever I fought in my life."

Now the major reminded me strongly of an old boatman at Hastings, who, after a story of a swimmer that was snapped asunder by a "sea attorney" in the West Indies, made an end in the same fashion :-" And that was the only time," said he, "I ever saw a man bit in two by a shark."

A single occurrence of the kind seemed sufficient for the experience of one life; and so I reasoned upon the major's nine duels. He must, in the first place, have been not only jealous and swift to quarrel; but, in the second, have met with nine intemperate spirits equally forward with himself. It is but in one affront out of ten that the duellist meets with

a duellist a computation assigning ninety mortal disagreements to his single share; whereas I, with equal irritability, and as much courage perhaps, had never exchanged a card in my life. The subject occupied me all the walk homeward. through the meadows. "To get involved in nine duels," said I; "tis quite improbable ! "

As I thought thus, I had thrust my body halfway under a rough bar that was doing duty for a stile at one end of a field. It was just too high to climb comfortably, and just low enough to be inconvenient to duck under; but I chose the latter mode, and began to creep through with the deliberateness consistent with doubtful and intricate speculation. "To get involved in nine duels"-here my back hitched a little at the bar-"tis quite impossible."

I am persuaded that there is a spirit of mischief afoot in the world-some malignant fiend to seize upon and direct these accidents: for just at this nick, whilst I was boggling below the bar, there came up another passenger by the same path so seeing how matters stood, he made an attempt at once to throw his leg over the impediment; but mistaking the altitude by a few inches, he kicked me-where I had never been kicked before.

"By Heaven! this is too bad," said I, staggering through head foremost from the concussion; my back was up, in every sense, in a second.

The stranger apologised in the politest terms-but with such an intolerable chuckle, with such a provoking grin lurking about his face, that I felt fury enough, like Beatrice, to "eat his heart in the market-place." In short, in two little minutes, from venting my conviction upon duelling, I found myself engaged to a meeting for the vindication of my honour.

There is a vivid description in the History of Robinson Crusoe, of the horror of the solitary Mariner at finding the mark of a foot in the sandy beach of his Desert Island. That abominable token, in a place that he fancied was sacred to himself-in a part, he made sure, never trodden by the sole

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