A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS.

HERE'S some is born with their legs straight by natur
And some is born with bow-legs from the first-
And some that should have grow'd a good deal
straighter,

But they were badly nursed,

And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs
Astride of casks and kegs.

I've got myself a sort of bow to larboard
And starboard,

And this is what it was that warp'd my legs :

'Twas all along of Poll, as I may say,
That foul'd my cable when I ought to slip;
But on the tenth of May,

When I gets under weigh,

Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship,
I sees the mail

Get under sail,

The only one there was to make the trip.
Well, I gives chase,

But as she run

Two knots to one,

There warn't no use in keeping on the race!

Well, casting round about, what next to try on,
And how to spin,

I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion,
And bears away to leeward for the inn,
Beats round the gable,

A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS.
And fetches up before the coach-horse stable.
Well, there they stand, four kickers in a row,
And so

I just makes free to cut a brown 'un's cable.
But riding isn't in a seaman's natur;
So I whips out a toughish end of yarn,
And gets a kind of sort of a land-waiter
To splice me, heel to heel,

Under the she-mare's keel,

And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn!

My eyes! how she did pitch!

And wouldn't keep her own to go in no line,
Tho' I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-line,
But always making lee-way to the ditch,
And yaw'd her head about all sorts of ways.
The devil sink the craft!

And wasn't she trimendous slack in stays!
We couldn't, no how, keep the inn abaft!
Well, I suppose

We hadn't run a knot-or much beyond-
(What will you have on it ?)--but off she goes,
Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond!
There I am! all a-back!

So I looks forward for her bridle-gears,
To heave her head round on the t'other tack;
But when I starts,

The leather parts,

And goes away right over by the ears!

What could a fellow do,

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Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes,
But trim myself upright for bringing-to,

And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows,
In rig all snug and clever,

Just while his craft was taking in her water?
I didn't like my burth though, howsomdever,

Because the yarn, you see, kept getting taughter.
Says I—I wish this job was rayther shorter !
The chase had gain'd a mile

A-head, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking:
Now, all the while

Her body didn't take, of course, to shrinking.
Says I, she's letting out her reefs, I'm thinking;
And so she swell'd, and swell'd,

And yet the tackle held,

"Till both my legs began to bend like winkin.
My eyes! but she took in enough to founder !
And there's my timbers straining every bit,
Ready to split,

And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder!

Well, there-off Hartford Ness,

We lay both lash'd and water-logg'd together,
And can't contrive a signal of distress.
Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather,
Tho' sick of riding out, and nothing less;
When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn :
"Hollo!" says I, come underneath her quarter!"
And hands him out my knife to cut the yarn.
So I gets off, and lands upon the road,
And leaves the she-mare to her own consarn,
A-standing by the water.

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If I get on another, I'll be blow'd!

And that's the way, you see, my legs got bow'd!

T must have been the lot of every whist-player to observe a phenomenon at the card-table, as mysterious as any in nature,-I mean the constant recurrence of a certain trump throughout the night-a run upon a particular suit, that sets all the calculations of Hoyle and Cocker at defiance. The chance of turning-up is equal to the Four

R

Denominations.

They should alternate with each other, on the average; whereas a Heart, perhaps, shall be the last card of every deal. King or Queen, Ace or Deuce, still it is of the same clan. You cut-and it comes again. "Nothing but Hearts!"

The figure herewith might be fancied to embody this kind of occurrence; and, in truth, it was designed to commemorate an evening dedicated to the same red suit. I had looked in by chance at the Royal Institution: a Mr Professor Pattison, of New York, I believe, was lecturing, and the subject was"Nothing but Hearts!"

Some hundreds of grave, curious, or scientific personages were ranged on the benches of the theatre;-every one in his solemn black. On a table in front of the Professor, stood the specimens hearts of all shapes and sizes-man's, woman's, sheep's, bullock's-on platters or in cloths-were lying about as familiar as household wares. Drawings of hearts, in black or blood-red, (dismal valentines!) hung around the fearful walls. Preparations of the organ, in wax or bottled, passed currently from hand to hand, from eye to eye, and returned to the gloomy table. It was like some solemn Egyptian Inquisition-a looking into dead men's hearts for their morals.

The Professor began. Each after each he displayed the samples; the words "auricle" and "ventricle" falling frequently on the ear as he explained how those "solemn organs" pump in the human breast. He showed, by experiments with water, the operation of the valves with the blood, and the impossibility of its revulsion. As he spoke, an indescribable thrilling or tremor crept over my left breast-thence down my side-and all over. I felt an awful consciousness of the bodily presence of my heart, till then nothing more than it is in song-a mere metaphor-so imperceptible are all the grand vital workings of the human frame! Now I felt the organ distinctly. There it was !-a fleshy core-aye, like that on the Professor's plate-throbbing away, auricle, and ventricle, the valve allowing the gushing blood at so many gallons per minute, and ever prohibiting its return!