kitten over-fed with new milk,—any state roguery is passed off as the greatest piece of single-minded honesty upon the mere strength of my character—if I may so say it, upon my legendary reputation. Now, as for you, though you are a lie, you are nevertheless not a bad-looking lie. You have a nice head, clean legs, and—though I think it a little impertinent that you should wear that tuft at the end of your tail—are altogether a very decent mixture of the quadrupeds. Besides, lie or not, you have helped to support the national arms so long, that depend upon it there are tens of thousands who believe you to be a true thing.

UNICORN.—I have often flattered myself with that consolation.

LION.—A poor comfort: for if you are a true beast, and really have the attributes you are painted with, the greater the insult that you should be placed here. If, on the contrary, you are a lie, still greater the insult to leonine majesty, in forcing me for so many, many years to keep such bad company.

UNICORN.—But I have a great belief in my reality: besides, if the head, body, legs, tail, I bear, never really met in one animal, they all exist in several: hence, if I am not true altogether, I am true in parts; and what would you have of a thick-and-thin supporter of the crown?

LION.—Blush, brother, blush; such sophistry is only worthy of the Common Pleas, where I know you picked it up. To be sure, if both of us were the most abandoned of beasts, we surely should have some excuse for our wickedness in the profligate company we are obliged to keep.

UNICORN.—Well, well, don’t weep. Take the pot.

LION.—Have we not been, ay, for hundreds of years, in both Houses of Parliament?

UNICORN.—It can’t be denied.

LION—And there, what have we not seen—what have we not heard! What brazen, unblushing faces! What cringing, and bowing, and fawning! What scoundrel smiles, what ruffian frowns! what polished lying! What hypocrisy of patriotism! What philippics, levelled in the very name of liberty, against her sacred self! What orations on the benefit of starvation—on the comeliness of rags! Have we not heard selfishness speaking with a syren voice? Have we not seen the haggard face of state-craft rouged up into a look of pleasantness and innocence? Have we not, night after night, seen the national Jonathan Wilds meet to plan a robbery, and—the purse taken—have they not rolled in their carriages home, with their fingers smelling of the people’s pockets?

UNICORN.—It’s true—true as an Act of Parliament.

LION.—Then are we not obliged to be in the Courts of Law? In Chancery—to see the golden wheat of the honest man locked in the granaries of equity—granaries where deepest rats do most abound—whilst the slow fire of famine shall eat the vitals of the despoiled; and it may be the man of rightful thousands shall be carried to churchyard clay in parish deals? Then in the Bench, in the Pleas—there we are too. And there, see we not justice weighing cobwebs against truth, making too often truth herself kick the beam?

UNICORN.—It has made me mad to see it.

LION.—Turn we to the Police-offices—there we are again. And there—good God!—to see the arrogance of ignorance! To listen to the vapid joke of his worship on the crime of beggary! To see the punishment of the poor—to mark the sweet impunity of the rich! And then are we not in the Old Bailey—in all the criminal courts! Have we not seen trials after dinner—have we not heard sentences in which the bottle spoke more than the judge?

UNICORN.—Come, come, no libel on the ermine.

LION.—The ermine! In such cases, the fox—the pole-cat. Have we not seen how the state makes felons, and then punishes them for evil-doing?

UNICORN.—We certainly have seen a good deal that way.

LION.—And then the motto we are obliged to look grave over!

UNICORN.—What Dieu et mon droit! Yes, that does sometimes come awkwardly in—“God and my right!” Seeing what is sometimes done under our noses, now and then, I can hardly hold my countenance.

LION.—“God and my right!” What atrocity has that legend sanctified! and yet with demure faces they try men for blasphemy. Give me the pot.

UNICORN.—Come, be cool—be philosophic. I tell you we shall have as much need as ever of our stoicism?

LION.—What’s the matter now?

UNICORN.—The matter! Why, the Tories are to be in, and Peel’s to be minister.

LION.—Then he may send for Mr. Cross for the oran-outan to take my place, for never again do I support him. Peel minister, and Goulburn, I suppose—

UNICORN.—Goulburn! Goulburn in the cabinet! If it be so, I shall certainly vacate my place in favour of a jackass.

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.

BACHELOR OF MEDICINE—FIRST EXAMINATION, 1841.

The first examination for the degree of bachelor of medicine has taken place at the London University, and has raised itself to the level of Oxford and Cambridge.

Without doubt, it will soon acquire all the other attributes of the colleges. Town and gown rows will cause perpetual confusion to the steady-going inhabitants of Euston-square: steeple-chases will be run, for the express delight of the members, on the waste grounds in the vicinity of the tall chimneys on the Birmingham railroad; and in all probability, the whole of Gower-street, from Bedford-square to the New-road, will, at a period not far distant, be turfed and formed into a T.Y.C.; the property securing its title-deeds under the arms of the university for the benefit of its legs—the bar opposite the hospital presenting a fine leap to finish the contest over, with the uncommon advantage of immediate medical assistance at hand.

The public press of the last week has duly blazoned forth the names of the successful candidates, and great must have been the rejoicings of their friends in the country at the event. But we have to quarrel with these journals for not more explicitly defining the questions proposed for the examinations—the answers to which were to be considered the tests of proficiency. By means of the ubiquity which Punch is allowed to possess, we were stationed in the examination room, at the same time that our double was delighting a crowded and highly respectable audience upon Tower-hill; and we have the unbounded gratification of offering an exact copy of the questions to our readers, that they may see with delight how high a position medical knowledge has attained in our country:—

SELECTIONS FROM THE EXAMINATION PAPERS.

ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

1. State the principal variations found in the kidneys procured at Evans’s and the Coal Hole; and likewise name the proportion of animal fibre in the rump-steaks of the above resorts. Mention, likewise, the change produced in the albumen, or white of an egg, by poaching it upon toast.

2. Describe the comparative circulation of blood in the body, and of the Lancet, Medical Gazette, and Bell’s Life in London, in the hospitals; and mention if Sir Charles Bell, the author of the “Bridgewater Treatise on the Hand,” is the editor of the last-named paper.

MEDICINE.

1. You are called to a fellow-student taken suddenly ill. You find him lying on his back in the fender; his eyes open, his pulse full, and his breathing stertorous. His mind appears hysterically wandering, prompting various windmill-like motions of his arms, and an accompanying lyrical intimation that he, and certain imaginary friends, have no intention of going home until the appearance of day-break. State the probable disease; and also what pathological change would be likely to be effected by putting his head under the cock of the cistern.