charms to the orchestra, and red-fire and crackers have become absolutely essential to harmony. Acting upon this principle, Signor Venafra gave (we admire the term) a fancy dress ball at Drury-lane Theatre on Monday evening last, upon a plan hitherto unknown in England, but possibly, like the majority of deceptive delusions now so popular, of continental origin. The whole of the evening’s entertainment took place in cabs and hackney-coaches, and those vehicles performed several perfectly new and intricate figures in Brydges-street, and the other thoroughfares adjoining the theatres. The music provided for the occasion appeared to be an organ-piano, which performed incessantly at the corner of Bow-street, during the evening. Most of the élite of Hart-street and St. Giles’s graced the animated pavement as spectators. So perfectly successful was the whole affair—on the word of laughing hundreds who came away saying they had never been so amused in their lives—that we hear it is in agitation never to attempt anything of the kind again.

DONE AGAIN.

Dunn, the bailless barrister, complained to his friend Charles Phillips, that upon the last occasion he had the happiness of meeting Miss Burdett Coutts on the Marine Parade, notwithstanding all he has gone through for her, she would not condescend to take the slightest notice of him. So far from offering anything in the shape of consolation, the witty barrister remarked, “Upon my soul, her conduct was in perfect keeping with her situation, for what on earth could be more in unison with a sea-view than

A CUTTER ON THE BEACH?”

It is well known that the piers of Westminster Bridge have considerably sunk since their first erection. They are not the only peers, in the same neighbourhood that have become lowered in the position they once occupied.

ASSERTION OF THE UNINTELLIGIBLE.

OR, “A KANTITE’S” FLIGHTS AT AN EXORDIUM.

FLIGHT THE FIRST.

He who widely, yet ascensively, expatiates in those in-all-ways-sloping fields of metaphysical investigation which perplex whilst they captivate, and bewilder whilst they allure, cannot evitate the perception of perception’s fallibility, nor avoid the conclusion (if that can be called a conclusion to which, it may be said, there are no premises extant) that the external senses are but deceptive media of interior mental communication. It behoves the ardent, youthful explorator, therefore, to ——, &c. &c.

FLIGHT THE SECOND.

In the Promethean persecutions which assail the insurgent mentalities of the youth and morning vigour of the inexpressible human soul, when, flushed with Æolian light, and, as it were, beaded with those lustrous dews which the eternal Aurora lets fall from her melodious lip; if it escape living from the beak of the vulture (no fable here!), then, indeed, it may aspire to ——, &c. &c.

FLIGHT THE THIRD.

If, with waxen Icarian wing, we seek to ascend to that skiey elevation whence only can the understretching regions of an impassive mutability be satisfactorily contemplated; and if, in our heterogeneous ambition, aspirant above self-capacity, we approach too near the flammiferous Titan, and so become pinionless, and reduced again to an earthly prostration, what marvel is it, that ——, &c. &c.

FLIGHT THE FOURTH.

When the perennial Faustus, ever-resident in the questioning spirit of immortal man, attempts his first outbreak into the domain of unlimited inquiry, unless he take heed of the needfully-cautious prudentialities of mundane observance, there infallibly attends him a fatal Mephistophelean influence, of which the malign tendency, from every conclusion of eventuality, is to plunge him into perilous vast cloud-waves of the dream-inhabited vague. Let, then, the young student of infinity ——, &c. &c.

FLIGHT THE FIFTH.

Inarched within the boundless empyrean of thought, starry with wonder, and constellate with investigation; at one time obfuscated in the abysm-born vapours of doubt; at another, radiant with the sun-fires of faith made perfect by fruition; it can amaze no considerative fraction of humanity, that the explorer of the indefinite, the searcher into the not-to-be-defined, should, at dreary intervals, invent dim, plastic riddles of his own identity, and hesitate at the awful shrine of that dread interrogatory alternative—reality, or dream? This deeply pondering, let the eager beginner in the at once linear and circumferent course of philosophico-metaphysical contemplativeness, introductively assure himself that ——, &c. &c.

FINAL FLIGHT.

As, “in the silence and overshadowing of that night whose fitful meteoric fires only herald the descent of a superficial fame into lasting oblivion, the imbecile and unavailing resistance which is made against the doom must often excite our pity for the pampered child of market-gilded popularity;” and as “it is not with such feelings that we behold the dark thraldom and long-suffering of true intellectual strength,” of which the “brief, though frequent, soundings beneath the earthly pressure will be heard even amidst the din of flaunting crowds, or the solemn conclaves of common-place minds,” of which the “obscured head will often shed forth ascending beams that can only be lost in eternity;” and of which the “mighty struggles to upheave its own weight, and that of the superincumbent mass of prejudice, envy, ignorance, folly, or uncongenial force, must ever ensure the deepest sympathy of all those who can appreciate the spirit of its qualities;” let the initiative skyward struggles towards the zenith-abysses of the inane impalpable ——, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c.

Dramatic Authors’ Theatre, Sept. 16, 1841.

HUMANE SUGGESTION.

MASTER PUNCH,—Mind ye’s, I’ve been to see these here Secretens at the English Uproar ’Ouse, and thinks, mind ye’s, they aint by no means the werry best Cheshire; but what I want to know is this here—Why don’t they give that wenerable old genelman, Mr. Martinussy, the Hungry Cardinal, something to eat?—he is a continually calling out for some of his Countrys Weal, (which, I dare say, were werry good) and he don’t never git so much as a sandvich dooring the whole of his life and death—I mention dese tings, because, mind ye’s, it aint werry kind of none on ‘em.

I remains, Mr. PUNCH, Sir, yours truly,

DEF BURKE,

HIS MARK.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE STATUE OF GEORGE CANNING AND SIR ROBERT PEEL.

The new Premier was taking a solitary stroll the other evening through Palace-yard, meditating upon the late turn which had brought the Tories to the top of the wheel and the Whigs to the bottom, and pondering on the best ways and means of keeping his footing in the slippery position that had cost him so much labour to attain. While thus employed, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his hands buried in his breeches-pockets, he heard a voice at no great distance, calling in familiar tone—

“Bob! Bob!—I say, Bob!”

The alarmed Baronet