Metropolitan Messenger. It had a magnetic attraction for all the sour and sorry failures whose reputation and income, however greatly in excess of their deserts, had not equalled their expectation. The Cave of Adullam could not have been more abundantly stocked with discontent. It is the custom of the ratés everywhere to attempt to prevent, or, if that be impossible, to decry success in others, in order to exalt themselves. The "Metropolitans" followed the example of many unillustrious predecessors, though it must, in justice, be added, that they would have been shocked to hear anyone impute to them a want of originality in their curious methods. In the counsels of these literary bravos, WILLIAM GRUBLET held a high place. At the University, where he had pursued a dull and dingy career of modified respectability, not much was thought or spoken of GRUBLET. If he was asked what profession he proposed to adopt, he would wink knowingly, and reply, "Journalism." It sounded well—it gave an impression of influence, and future power, and, moreover, it committed him to nothing. It is just as easy to say "Journalism," in answer to the stock question, as it is to deliver yourself over, by anticipation, to the Bar, the Church, or the Stock Exchange. Hundreds of young men at both our ancient Universities look upon Journalism as the easiest and most attractive of all the professions. In the first place there are no Examinations to bar the way, and your ordinary Undergraduate loathes an Examination as a rat may be supposed to loathe a terrier. What can be easier—in imagination—than to dash off a leading article, a biting society sketch, a scathing review, to overturn ancient idols, to inaugurate movements, to plan out policies? All this GRUBLET was confident of being able to do, and he determined, on the strength of a few successful College Essays, and a reputation for smartness, acquired at the expense of his dwindling circle of intimates, to do it. He took his degree, and plunged into London. There, for a time, he was lost to public sight. But I know that he went through the usual contest. Rejected manuscripts poured back into his room. Polite, but unaccommodating Editors, found that they had no use for vapid imitations of ADDISON, or feeble parodies of CHARLES LAMB. Literary appreciations, that were to have sent the ball of fame spinning up the hill of criticism, grew frowsy and dog's-eared with many postages to and fro.

In this protracted struggle with fate and his own incompetence, the nature of GRUBLET, never a very amiable one, became fatally soured, and when he finally managed to secure a humble post on a newspaper, he was a disappointed man with rage in his heart against his successful rivals and against the Editors who, as he thought, had maliciously chilled his glowing aspirations. His vanity, however,—and he was always a very vain man—had suffered no diminution, and with the first balmy breezes of success his arrogance grew unbounded. Shortly afterwards, he chanced to come in the way of CHEPSTOWE; he impressed the poet favourably, and in the result he was selected for a place on the staff of The Metropolitan Messenger, then striving by every known method to battle its way into a circulation.

It was at this stage in his career that I met GRUBLET. He was pointed out to me as a young man of promise who had a trenchant style, and had lately written an article on "Provincialism in Literature," which had caused some stir by its bitter and uncompromising attacks upon certain well-known authors and journalists. I looked at the man with some interest. I saw a pale-faced, sandy-haired little creature with a shuffling, weak-kneed gait, who looked as if a touch from a moderately vigorous arm would have swept him altogether out of existence. His manner was affected and unpleasant, his conversation the most disagreeable I ever listened to. He was coarse, not with an ordinary coarseness, but with a kind of stale, fly-blown coarseness as of the viands in the window of a cheap restaurant. He assumed a great reverence for RABELAIS and ARISTOPHANES; he told shady stories, void of point and humour, which you were to suppose were modelled on the style of these two masters. And all the time he gave you to understand, with a blatant self-sufficiency, that he himself was one of the greatest and most formidable beings in existence. This was GRUBLET as I first knew him, and so he continued to the end.

The one thing this puny creature could never forgive was that any of his friends should pass him in the race. There was one whom GRUBLET—the older of the two—had at one time honoured with his patronage and approval. No sooner, however, had the younger gained a literary success, than the sour GRUBLET turned upon him, and rent him. "This fellow," said GRUBLET, "will get too uppish—I must show up his trash"; and accordingly he fulminated against his friend in the organ that he had by that time come to consider as his own. This baseless sense of proprietorship, in fact, it was that wrecked GRUBLET. In an evil moment for himself he tried to ride rough-shod over CHEPSTOWE, and that temporary genius dismissed him with a promptitude that should stand to his credit against many shortcomings. GRUBLET, I believe, still exists. Occasionally, in obscure prints, I seem to detect traces of his style. But no one now pays any attention to him. His claws are clipped, his teeth have been filed down. He shouts and struts, unregarded. For we live, of course, in milder and more reasonable days, and the GRUBLETS can no longer find a popular market for their wares.

Only one question remains. How in the world can even you, oh respected SWAGGER, have derived any pleasure from witnessing the performances that GRUBLET went through, after you had persuaded him that he was a man of some importance? I do not expect an answer, and remain as before,

DIOGENES ROBINSON.

IN BANCO.—The stability of the concern having been effectually proved by the way in which the Birkbeckers got out of the fire and out of the trying pan-ic, and the ease with which they were quite at home to the crowds of callers coming to inquire after their health, should earn for them the subsidiary title of the Birk-beck-and-call Bank.

A GOOD BEGINNING.

Uncle Jack (Umpire). "LOVE ALL!"

Monsieur le Baron. "LOVE ALL? PARBLEU! JE CROIS BIEN! ZEY ARE ADORABLES, YOUR NIECES!"

PAN THE POSTER.

(A Modern Perversion of Mrs. Browning's powerful Poem, "A Musical Instrument.")

["We are presented just now with two spectacles, which may help us to take modest and diffident views of the progress of the species.... At home there is an utterly unreasonable and unaccountable financial panic among the depositors in the Birkbeck Bank, while in America the free and enlightened democracy of a portion of New York State has suddenly relapsed into primitive barbarism under the influence of fear of cholera."—The Times.]