To those who on the hills around
Beheld the flames from Drury's mound,

As from a lofty altar rise,

It seemed that nations did conspire
To offer to the god of fire

Some vast, stupendous sacrifice!
The summoned firemen woke at call,
And hied them to their stations all :
Starting from short and broken snooze,
Each sought his ponderous hobnailed shoes,
But first his worsted hosen plied;
Plush breeches next, in crimson dyed,
His nether bulk embraced;
Then jacket thick, of red or blue,
Whose massy shoulder gave to view
The badge of each respective crew,

In tin or copper traced.

The engines thundered through the street,
Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete,
And torches glared, and clattering feet
Along the pavement paced.
And one, the leader of the band,
From Charing Cross along the Strand,
Like stag by beagles hunted hard,
Ran till he stopped at Vin'gar Yard.
The burning badge his shoulder bore,
The belt and oil-skin hat he wore,
The cane he had, his men to bang,
Showed foreman of the British gang,
His name was Higginbottom. Now
"T is meet that I should tell you how
The others came in view:

The Hand-in-Hand the race began,
Then came the Phoenix and the Sun,
The Exchange, where old insurers run,
The Eagle, where the new;

With these came Rumford, Bumford, Cole,
Robins from Hockley in the Hole,
Lawson and Dawson, cheek by jowl,

Crump from St. Giles's Pound:
Whitford and Mitford joined the train,
Huggins and Muggins from Chick Lane,
And Clutterbuck, who got a sprain

Before the plug was found.
Hobson and Jobson did not sleep,
But ah no trophy could they reap,
For both were in the Donjon Keep

Of Bridewell's gloomy mound!
E'en Higginbottom now was posed,
For sadder scene was ne'er disclosed ;
Without, within, in hideous show,
Devouring flames resistless glow,
And blazing rafters downward go,
And never halloo "Heads below!"
Nor notice give at all.
The firemen terrified are slow
To bid the pumping torrent flow,

For fear the roof should fall.

Back, Robins, back! Crump, stand aloof!
Whitford, keep near the walls!
Huggins, regard your own behoof,
For, lo! the blazing rocking roof
Down, down, in thunder falls !
An awful pause succeeds the stroke,
And o'er the ruins volumed smoke,
Rolling around its pitchy shroud,
Concealed them from the astonished crowd.
At length the mist awhile was cleared,
When, lo amid the wreck upreared,
Gradual a moving head appeared,
And Eagle firemen knew

'T was Joseph Muggins, name revered,
The foreman of their crew.
Loud shouted all in signs of woe,

Did none attempt, before he fell,
To succor one they loved so well?
Yes, Higginbottom did aspire
(His fireman's soul was all on fire)

His brother chief to save; But ah! his reckless generous ire Served but to share his grave re! 'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams, Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke, Where Muggins broke before.

But sulphury stench and boiling drench,
Destroying sight, o'erwhelmed him quite,
He sunk to rise no more.

Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved,
His whizzing water-pipe he waved :
"Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps !
You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps!
Why are you in such doleful dumps?

A fireman, and afraid of bumps!

What are they feared on? fools! 'od rot 'em!" Were the last words of Higginbottom.

Interior of a Theatre described. - Pit gradually fills. The Checktaker. Pit full. The Orchestra tuned. —One fiddle rather dilatory. Is reproved and repents. Evolutions of a Play-bill. -Its final Settlement on the Spikes. The Gods taken to task -and why. Motley Group of Play-goers. Holywell Street, St. Pancras. Emanuel Jennings binds his Son apprentice - not in London- and why. - Episode of the Hat.

'TIS sweet to view, from half past five to six, Our long wax-candles, with short cotton wicks,

Touched by the lamplighter's Promethean art,
Start into light, and make the lighter start;
To see red Phoebus through the gallery-pane
Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane;
While gradual parties fill our widened pit,
And gape and gaze and wonder ere they sit.

At first, while vacant seats give choice and ease,
Distant or near, they settle where they please;
But when the multitude contracts the span,
And seats are rare, they settle where they can.

Now the full benches to late-comers doom No room for standing, miscalled standing room.

Hark! the check-taker moody silence breaks, And bawling "Pit full!" gives the check he takes; Yet onward still the gathering numbers cram, Contending crowders shout the frequent damn, And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, and jam.

See to their desks Apollo's sons repair,
Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair!
In unison their various tones to tune,
Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon;
In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute,
Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute,
Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp,
Winds the French horn, and twangs the tingling
harp;

Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in,
Attunes to order the chaotic din.

John Richard William Alexander Dwyer Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire; But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues, Emanuel Jennings polished Stubbs's shoes.

Give, half ashamed, a tiny flourish still.
Foiled in his crash, the leader of the clan
Reproves with frowns the dilatory man;
Then on his candlestick thrice taps his bow,
Nods a new signal, and away they go.

Perchance, while pit and gallery cry "Hats off!"

And awed Consumption checks his chided cough,
Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love
Drops, reft of pin, her play-bill from above:
Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap,
Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap;
But, wiser far than he, combustion fears,
And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers;
Till, sinking gradual, with repeated twirl,
It settles, curling, on a fiddler's curl;
Who from his powdered pate the intruder strikes,
And, from mere malice, sticks it on the spikes.
Say, why these Babel strains from Babel tongues?
Who's that calls "Silence!" with such leathern
lungs?

He who, in quest of quiet, "Silence!" hoots,
Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes.

What various swains our motley walls contain!Fashion from Moorfields, honor from Chick Lane;

Up as a corn-cutter, -a safe employ;
In Holy-well Street, St. Pancras, he was bred
(At number twenty-seven, it is said),
Facing the pump, and near the Granby's Head ;
He would have bound him to some shop in town,
But with a premium he could not come down.
Pat was the urchin's name,
Fonder of purl and skittle grounds than truth.
- a red-haired youth,

Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe, The Muse shall tell an accident she saw.

Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat, But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat: Down from the gallery the beaver flew, And spurned the one to settle in the two. How shall he act? Pay at the gallery-door Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four? Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait, And gain his hat again at half past eight ? Now, while his fears anticipate a thief, John Mullens whispers, "Take my handkerchief." Thank you," cries Pat; "but one won't make a line."

"Take mine," cried Wilson; and cried Stokes, "Take mine."

A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties,
Where Spitalfields with real India vies.
Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted clew,
Starred, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue,
Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new.
George Green below, with palpitating hand,
Loops the last kerchief to the beaver's band,
Upsoars the prize! The youth with joy unfeigned
Regained the felt, and felt what he regained;
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat
Made a low bow, and touched the ransomed hat.
JAMES SMITH.

THE CATARACT OF LODORE.

DESCRIBED IN RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY.

"How does the water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word,

There first came one daughter,
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water

Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store;
And 't was in my vocation

For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate

To them and the King.

From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;

Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,

And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,

Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,

And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,

And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;

And glittering and frittering,

And gathering and feathering,

And whitening and brightening, And quivering and shivering, And hurrying and skurrying,

And thundering and floundering;

Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,

And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering;

Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting, Delaying and straying and playing and spraying, Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,

Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling, And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,

And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,

And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,

BY THE HON. EDWARD E-, OF BOSTON.

PONDEROUS projectiles, hurled by heavy hands,
Fell on our Liberty's poor infant head,
Ere she a stadium had well advanced

On the great path that to her greatness led; Her temple's propylon was shatter-ed ;

Yet, thanks to saving Grace and Washington, Her incubus was from her bosom hurled; And, rising like a cloud-dispelling sun, She took the oil with which her hair was curled To the "hub" round which revolves the grease world.

This fine production is rather heavy for an "anthem," and contains too much of Boston to be considered strictly national. To set such an "anthem" to music would require a Wagner; and even were it

populace:

We now come to a

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY JOHN GREENLEAF W.

My native land, thy Puritanic stock
Still finds its roots firm bound in Plymouth Rock;
And all thy sons unite in one grand wish, -
To keep the virtues of Preserv-ed Fish.

Preserv-ed Fish, the Deacon stern and true, Told our New England what her sons should do; And, should they swerve from loyalty and right, Then the whole land were lost indeed in night.

The sectional bias of this "anthem "renders it unsuitable for use in that small margin of the world situated outside of New England. Hence the above must be rejected. Here we have a very curious

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY DR. OLIVER WENDELL H.

Norsemen,

Once there went forth young Ursa to gaze at the heavens,

Ursa, the noblest of all Vikings and horsemen.

Musing he sat in his stirrups and viewed the horizon,

Its growth a source of wonder far and near.

To love it more, behold how foreign shores
Sink into nothingness beside its stores.
Hyde Park at best— though counted ultra grand-
The "Boston Common" of Victoria's land-

The committee must not be blamed for rejecting the above after

manner;

college of surgeons or a Beacon Street tea-party. Turn we now to a

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY N. P. W.

ONE hue of our flag is taken

From the cheeks of my blushing pet, And its stars beat time and sparkle Like the studs on her chemisette.

Its blue is the ocean shadow

That hides in her dreamy eyes, And it conquers all men, like her, And still for a Union flies.

Several members of the committee find that this "anthem" has too much of the Anacreon spice to suit them.

We next peruse a

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY THOMAS BAILEY A. 誓

THE little brown squirrel hops in the corn,
The cricket quaintly sings;
The emerald pigeon nods his head,

And the shad in the river springs;
The dainty sunflower hangs its head
On the shore of the summer sea;
And better far that I were dead,

If Maud did not love me.

I love the squirrel that hops in the corn,
And the cricket that quaintly sings;
And the emerald pigeon that nods his head,
And the shad that gayly springs.

I love the dainty sunflower, too,

And Maud with her snowy breast;

I love them all; but I love - I love -
I love my country best.

This is certainly very beautiful, and sounds somewhat like Teanyson. Though it may be rejected by the committee, it can never lose its value as a piece of excellent reading for children. It is calculated to fill the youthful mind with patriotism and natural history, beside touching the youthful heart with an emotion palpitat ing for all.

We close the list with the following:

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY R. H. STOD

BEHOLD the flag! Is it not a flag?
Deny it, man, if you dare!
And midway spread 'twixt earth and sky
It hangs like a written prayer.

Would impious hand of foe disturb

Its memories' holy spell,

And blight it with a dew of blood?

Ha, tr-r-aitor! . . . . It is well.

R. H. NEWELL. (ORPHEUS C. KERR.)