The Professor proceeded to enlarge on the important office of the great functionary, and the vital engine seemed to dilate within me, in proportion to the sense of its stupendous responsibility. I seemed nothing but auricle, and ventricle, and valve. I had no breath, but only pulsations. Those who have been present at anatomical discussions can alone corroborate this feeling-how the part discoursed of, by a surpassing sympathy and sensibility, causes its counterpart to become prominent and all-engrossing to the sense; how a lecture on hearts makes a man seem to himself as all heart; or one on heads causes a Phrenologist to conceive he is "all brain." Thus was I absorbed :-my "bosom's lord" lording over everything beside. By and bye, in lieu of one solitary machine, I saw before me a congregation of hundreds of human forcing pumps, all awfully working together-the palpitations of hundreds of auricles and ventricles, the flapping of hundreds of valves! And anon they collapsedmine-the Professor's-those on the benches-all! all!-into one great auricle-one great ventricle-one vast universal heart! The lecture ended-I took up my hat and walked out, but the discourse haunted me. I was full of the subject. A kind of fluttering, which was not to be cured even by the fresh air, gave me plainly to understand that my heart was not "in the Highlands," nor in any lady's keeping-but where it ought to be, in my own bosom, and as hard at work as a parish pump. I plainly felt the blood-like the carriages on a birthnight-coming in by the auricle, and going out by the ventricle; and shuddered to fancy what must ensue either way, from any "breaking the line." Then occurred to me the danger of little particles absorbed in the blood, and accumulating to a stoppage at the valve,-the "pumps getting choked," a suggestion that made me feel rather qualmish, and for relief I made a call on Mrs WThe visit was ill-chosen and mistimed; for the lady in question, by dint of good-nature, and a romantic turn-principally estimated by her young and female acquaintance—had acquired the reputation of being "all heart." The phrase had often provoked my mirth, but, alas! the description was now over true. Whether nature had formed her in that mould, or my own distempered fancy, I know not-but there she sate, and looked the Professor's lecture over again. She was like one of those games alluded to in my beginning" Nothing but Hearts!" Her nose turned up. It was a heart-and her mouth led a trump. Her face gave a heart-and her cap followed suit. Her sleeves puckered and plumped themselves into a heart-shape-and so did her body. Her pincushion was a heart-the very back of her chair was a heart-her bosom was a heart. She was "all heart" indeed! IS very hard, when men forsake But certain rogues will come and break II. "Tis hard we can't give up our breath, And to the earth our earth bequeath, Without Death Fetches after death, Who thus exhume us! And snatch us from our homes beneath, III. The tender lover comes to rear The mournful urn, and shed his tear- Alack alack! The while his Sacharissa dear Is in a sack! IV. 'Tis hard one cannot lie amid The mould, beneath a coffin-lid, But thus the Faculty will bid Their rogues break thro' it! If they don't want us there, why did They send us to it? V. One of these sacrilegious knaves, Behaving as the goul behaves, 'Neath churchyard wall Mayhap because he fed on graves, Was named Jack Hall. VI. By day it was his trade to go With emblems suitable, He stood with brother Mute, to show That life is mutable. VII. But long before they pass'd the ferry, The bodies off in ;) In fact, he let them have a very Short fit of coffin. VIII. Night after night, with crow and spade, On corses of all kinds he prey'd, A perfect corsair ! IX. At last-it may be, Death took spite, The churchyards round; And soon they met, the man and sprite, In Pancras' ground. X. Jack, by the glimpses of the moon, Of night and lonely; XI. Anon he gave his spade a swing Aloft, and kept it brandishing, |