that I have legal authority on my side, for the lad who opens the door at Mr. Adolphus’s chambers—with whom I am on terms of the closest intimacy—thinks as I do upon every great question of legal and constitutional policy. But this is “neither here nor there,” as my publisher told me when I asked him for the profits of my last book, and I shall therefore drop the subject.

In speaking of eminent publishers, I must not forget to mention Mr. Catnach, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for having been the first to introduce me to the literary career I have since so successfully followed. I believe I was the first who carried into effect Mr. Catnach’s admirable idea of having the last dying speeches all struck off on the night before an execution, so as to get them into the hands of the public as early as possible. It was, moreover, my own suggestion to stereotype one speech, to be used on all occasions; and I also must claim the merit of having recommended the fixing a man’s head at the top of the document as “a portrait of the murderer.” Catnach and I have always been on the best of terms, but he is naturally rather angry that I have not always published with him, which he thinks—and many others tell me the same thing—I always should have done. At all events, Catnach has not much right to complain, for he has on two occasions wholly repainted his shop-shutters from effusions of mine; and I know that he has greatly extended his toy and marble business through the profits of a poetical version of the fate of Fauntleroy, which was very popular in its day, and which I wrote for him.

I have never until lately had much to do with Pitts, of Seven Dials; but I have found him an intelligent tradesman, and a very spirited publisher. He undertook to get out in five days a new edition of the celebrated pennyworth of poetry, known some time back, and still occasionally met with, as the “Three Yards of Popular Songs,” which were all selected by me, and for which I chose every one of the vignettes that were prefixed to them. I have had extensive dealings both with Pitts and Catnach; and in comparing the two men, I should say one was the Napoleon of literature, the other the Mrs. Fry. Catnach is all for dying speeches and executions, while Pitts is peculiarly partial to poetry. Pitts, for instance, has printed thousands of “My Pretty Jane,” while Catnach had the execution of Frost all in type for many months before his trial. It is true that Frost never was hanged, but Blakesley was; and the public, to whom the document was issued when the latter event occurred, had nothing to do but to bear in mind the difference of the names, and the account would do as well for one as for the other. Catnach has been blamed for this; but it will not be expected that I shall censure any one for the grossest literary quackery.

ACTIVE BENEVOLENCE.

The success of the Polish Ball has induced some humane individuals to propose that a similar festival should take place for the relief of the distressed Spitalfields weavers. We like the notion of a charitable quadrille—or a benevolent waltz; and it delights us to see a philanthropic design set on foot, through the medium of a gallopade. A dance which has for its object the putting of bread in the mouths of our fellow-creatures, may be truly called

A-BUN-DANCE.

PUNCH’S STOMACHOLOGY.

LECTURE I.

Doctors Spurzheim and Gall have acquired immense renown for their ingenious and plausible system of phrenology. These eminent philosophers have by a novel and wonderful process divided that which is indivisible, and parcelled out the human mind into several small lots, which they call “organs,” numbering and labelling them like the drawers or bottles in a chemist’s shop; so that, should any individual acquainted with the science of phrenology chance to get into what is vulgarly termed “a row,” and being withal of a meek and lamb like disposition, which prompts him rather to trust to his heels than to his fists, he has only to excite his organ of combativeness by scratching vigorously behind his ear, and he will forthwith become bold as a lion, valiant as a game-cock—in short, a very lad of whacks, ready to fight the devil if he dared him. In like manner, a constant irritation of the organ of veneration on the top of his head will make him an accomplished courtier, and imbue him with a profound respect for stars and coronets. Now if it be possible—and that it is, no one will now attempt to deny—to divide the brain into distinct faculties, why may not the stomach, which, it has been admitted by the Lord Mayor and the Board of Aldermen, is a far nobler organ than the brain,—why may it not also possess several faculties? As we know that a particular part of the brain is appropriated for the faculty of time, another for that of wit, and so on, is it not reasonable to suppose that there is a certain portion of the stomach appropriated to the faculty of roast beef, another for that of devilled kidney and so forth?

It may be said that the stomach is a single organ, and therefore incapable of performing more than one function. As well might it be asserted that it was a steam-engine, with a single furnace consuming Whitehaven, Scotch, or Newcastle coals indiscriminately. The fact is, the stomach is not a single organ, but in reality a congeries of organs, each receiving its own proper kind of aliment, and developing itself by outward bumps and prominences, which indicate with amazing accuracy the existence of the particular faculty to which it has been assigned.

It is upon these facts that I have founded my system of Stomachology; and contemplating what has been done, what is doing, and what is likely to be done, in the analogous science of phrenology, I do not despair of seeing the human body mapped out, and marked all over with faculties, feelings, propensities, and powers, like a tattooed New Zealander. The study of anatomy will then be entirely superseded, and the scientific world would be guided, as the fashionable world is now, entirely by externals.

The circumstances which led me to the discovery of this important constitution of the stomach were partly accidental, and partly owing to my own intuitive sagacity. I had long observed that Judy, “my soul’s far dearer part,” entertained a decided partiality for a leg of pork and pease-pudding—to which I have a positive dislike. On extending my observations, I found that different individuals were characterised by different tastes in food, and that one man liked mint sauce with his roast lamb, while others detested it. I discovered also that in most persons there is a predominance of some particular organ over the surrounding ones, in which case a corresponding external protuberance may be looked for, which indicates the gastronomic character of the individual. This rule, however, is not absolute, as the prominence of one faculty may be modified by the influence of another; thus the faculty of ham may be modified by that of roast veal, or the desire to indulge in a sentiment for an omelette may be counteracted by a propensity for a fricandeau, or by the regulating power of a Strasbourg