"Allah! Allah! where are we?"

Where was Babali indeed? Above, the heavens; below and all around, a desert-arid, wide. Babali had lost his way. He retraced his steps, walked back again, diverged to the right, to the left; went north, south, east, and west, all to no purpose; he could not find the right track. Bewildered, exhausted, panting, the nascent morn found him lying on the ground, his head resting on a mound of sand. Babali's hands were clasped, his travel-soiled and torn brodequins scarcely held to his feet, bleeding, sore. The blood had flown to his head, his lips were swollen, his tongue was parched, his eyes distended and fixed. There was a guttural sound in his throat-Babali was choking. Then he experienced a spasmodic sensation; his head rolled off the mound, and struck heavily on the ground, face downwards. He bled profusely at the nose, and this fortunate circumstance saved him. He sat up, gathered in his knees, and joined hands around them.

"Oh, if I had but a donkey!" he exclaimed.

"Allah is merciful," said a deep voice behind him.

Babali pirouetted in the direction of the sound, and beheld a fat gentleman, with a long beard and many tails, leading an ass with a foal en

croupe.

Now this fat gentleman happened to be a pacha, who was taking an early ride, and it chanced that the animal he rode, being enceinte, littered on the way. This sorely perplexed the worthy man, who valued his new-got treasure, so he placed it on its parent's back, and was fain himself to lead the elder beast.

Babali, believing in the interposition of a kind Providence, prepared to take his place by the side of the youngest member of the party, but the pacha, with a nervous hand, grasped him by the broadest part of his pantaloon, and held him back.

"Ah, dog! what wouldst thou? Art mad, to think of bestriding this poor ass. Take thou the foal on thine own shoulders and relieve the dam, or by Mohammet thou livest not to see to-morrow's sun." Aghast, terrified, Babali staggered back.

Highness!" he cried, "I am worn out with travel-I can scarcely stand-dim shadows flit before mine blind man. eyes; 'pity the poor "Pity me no pities!" answered the pacha. "On with you; why 'tarry yet awhile ?”

Now it was known far and near, that when the pacha quoted from the North Land savages it was no joking matter, and Babali fearing to provoke his ire shouldered the young ass and staggered onwards, as best he could, at the pacha's heels. In due time they reached the city, and having set down his burden at the pacha's door, the latter rewarded him for his pains and great suffering with a kick in his breech, adding:

"Babali, oh thou fool! When thou callest upon Allah to send thee an ass, ask for a donkey that thou canst ride."

Poor Babali made the best of his way home, where he found his wife standing on the threshold of the door. He had strength enough left to throw himself into her arms, from whose embrace he was removed to be lain upon his bed, from which he did not rise for many days.

It was a fine night, just such another as that which introduced Babali to the reader. He was convalescent, and had gone out to breathe the

soft night air. Babali's cheek was pale, and step somewhat unsteady, yet he felt a strong inclination to roam.

"If I had but a donkey that I could ride!" he ejaculated, as he emerged upon the square.

“Babali, as I live!" exclaimed some one who heard the wish.

"That's true, friend Mustapha," rejoined Babali.

"Methought I heard thee wish thou hadst a donkey?" continued Mustapha.

"Verily thou heardest aright."

"And whither wouldst thou go?" inquired Mustapha.

"Merely a-roaming."

"Listen to me, friend," said Mustapha, falling into Babali's step, and walking by his side. "Thou art a dreamer, and passest thy life in vain endeavours to unravel the mysteries which encompass us on every side, hoping to obtain a solution which will remove the veil from before the eyes of thy fellow-men. Hast thou never heard of that North Land compounder of drugs, whose wise maxim it was that where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise?' If a patient recovered, it was attributed to the virtue of his pills; if the patient died, it was that his time had come. Those there were who would know of what the pills were made, and then they lost all faith, and were never saved. Take my advice: accept the world and its anomalies as it is. Thy measure of life is threescore and ten. It will soon come round, friend; think of that, and let not the reflection intrude on thee at the eleventh hour that thy life has been a dream."

But Babali heeded him not; his eyes were raised to the canopy of heaven; his whole soul was absorbed in its contemplation.

"If I had but a donkey that I could ride!"

My

"Allah hears the prayer of his faithful servant," said Mustapha. ass has been at grass for the last month. Command thy friend, and it shall bear thee whithersoever thou wouldst go."

They had by this time reached Mustapha's dwelling, who took Babali by the arm and led him to the back of the premises, where there was an enclosed piece of ground whereon the donkey had enjoyed a month of rural freedom.

"An airing will stretch its legs," said Mustapha; "mount thou_him, therefore, and the spirit of the true Prophet attend and watch over thee." Babali did not require a second bidding, but accepted the offer at once, and in a few minutes was journeying without the city.

"I will not stray from the path," said Babali to himself; "but being on assback will indulge in a long ramble. There is no fear of my getting tired."

So saying, he slackened the rein on the donkey's back, letting him go his own pace, and gave himself up entirely to the study of the stars.

We are not quite sure that he had not made some satisfactory discovery, without the help of a telescope, tending to prove that the end of the world would be brought about by our running foul of one of the planets, when we should inevitably be split to pieces, not larger than those so-called thunderbolts which are occasionally picked up in the fields, but which never by any chance honour crowded cities with their presence. Babali's imagination had soared thus far above sublunary matters, when the cold

night air taking effect on his prominents, he was fain to remember that he still formed part and parcel of the known world; but he had derived such gratification from his ride, that his first impulse was to get off his ass, throw himself down on his knees, and offer up a prayer of thanks to the Prophet. Having thus solaced his exuberant spirit, he got on assback again, but, wonder of wonders! the beast would not stir. No, let him try what he would, patting, thumping, it was all to no purpose; the brute was steeled alike to coaxing and beating. He remembered the well-known strophe which the popular North Land poet addressed to his own donkey, deprecating in soul-stirring language the employment of rigorous measures in the event of his meeting with a stubborn animal, nobly insisting on "persuasion better than force;" and Babali repeated the original words in melodious strain to Mustapha's ass, but it was not to be charmed. Evidently Mustapha had not cultivated in the animal a taste either for poetry or music. Morning dawned, and found Babali a victim still to his companion's stubborn disposition. He had given up the struggle in despair, and sat down; but now he resolved to try again. Standing before the brute, he was endeavouring, with outstretched arm, to pull him along by the bridle. With fore feet stoutly planted, the brute stood firm as a rock, not to be moved. Babali rampant. Ass reposant. A loud laugh at his back caused Babali to start and turn his head : there, at his elbow, stood his old acquaintance the pacha, as before on assback, whilst at his side walked his aga.

"Holy Prophet! what ails his faithful servant ?" he asked.

"Highness," answered Babali, "'tis Mustapha's ass has brought me here the stubborn brute since noon of night has stood, and nought that I can do will move him."

The pacha chuckled. The aga stooped, and rubbed his hands between his knees.

"Aga," said the pacha.

66

Thy slave is here, O Sublime Essence of Truth." "Hast thou the bundle of thistles ?"

The aga made no reply, but from the spacious pocket of his pantaloon drew forth the required bundle, and presented it to the pacha, who got off his ass, and commanded the aga to take his place. Then bidding Babali stand on one side and keep his eyes open, he tied one end of a piece of string round the bundle of thistles, and the other end he fastened to his bamboo. Then getting astride the stubborn donkey's back, he rested the cane on its head, with the thistles dangling about an inch from its nose. No sooner did the beast feel the propinquity of the thistles, than it stretched out its neck, and bit at them; but with his cane, which he managed like a rudder, he first allowed them to bump up against its nose, and then thrust them out of its reach. Tantalised, teased, the ass, losing all patience, set off at a tremendous gallop in pursuit of provender which it was not destined to reach. Evidently the pacha's neck was in danger, so his faithful aga clapped heels to his ass, and both master and man had soon disappeared.

"Verily, verily," said Babali, as despondingly he bent his steps homewards," are our wishes ever realised, or, being realised, are we ever

satisfied ?"

EXTRACTS FROM THE COMMONPLACE-BOOK OF A
LATELY DECEASED AUTHOR.

DISTRUST A FOOL'S PRAISES.

THOMAS DE YRIARTE, an old Spanish fabulist, describes a bear as pleased when his dancing was approved of by the ape, but relinquishing the exercise when the pig applauded, and concludes by drawing this moral:

Si el sabio, no aprueba malo,

Si el necio aplaude, peor.

Your work is bad if wise men blame,

But worse if lauded by a fool.

I never hear one fool praise another without thinking that the very bray of the ass is sweetest music to his kinsmen; and their conversation over their thistles doubtless turns upon its tone and richness.

ANTIPATHIES.

There are some persons so hateful to me, that I should turn away though I met them arm-in-arm with a seraph in the shining streets of heaven.

GOUT.

It is not every vice that has its badge as gluttony has in the flanneled limb, but this deadly sin ruddle-marks his followers like a butcher does his sheep. I never see a gouty foot limp up the pulpit stairs, but I expect anon to hear a thundering denunciation of epicurism. No wonder the Rev. denounces the sins of the flesh with such an even flow of pious Billingsgate, for every one talks on the subject with which he is most

conversant.

ASPIRATION.

"Aim high, my boy," my father used to say; "if you miss the sun you may hit the eagle. Better paint a bad cartoon than a good miniature. It is something to be even stupid on a large scale."

FAME.

The other day as I was rambling, after breakfast, through a leafy lane in Kent, I met three children seeking the haunt of an echo. How like man seeking fame! Fame! 'Tis but a footprint in the dew after all.

OUR POETS.

Shelley's heart leaps up into music like a fountain in one perpetual jet of liquid silver, ascending noiselessly, fading away in melody. Byron's poetry is fierce and fitful as a cataract. Wordsworth is like a mountain rivulet. Southey flows on calm and equable as a river. Shakspeare alone is the great weltering flood of brightness, crimson in perpetual sunset. Men copy St. Peter's, but they never reproduce the Pyramids. No one imitates Shakspeare.

Nov.-VOL. XCIX. NO. CCCXCV.

2 B

STYLE.

How differently men handle controversial matters. There's Johnson, with his two-handed sword, striking with the edge, while he pierces with the point, and stuns you with the hilt, hitting right and left with antithesis, and wielding the ponderous weapon as easily as you could a flail. Then there's Burke, with his glittering rapier, all rhetorical rule and polish according to school-passado, montanto, staccato-one, two, three, the third in your bosom. Then comes Macaulay, who runs in under your guard, and stabs you to the heart with the heavy dagger of a short epigrammatic sentence; Jeffery, who first kills then scalps; and Carlyle, who advances armed with an antique stone axe, with which he mashes his foes as you would drugs in a pestle and mortar.

НАВІТ.

'Tis only great minds who retain the freshness of perpetual boyhood. Wordsworth kept it eminently, but in him it occasionally sinks into second childhood. Habit deadens the intensest feelings. Hear a child's thoughts on the sea or the sky, and he'll talk better poetry than TennyIf an angel was caught in a man-trap to-morrow, and exhibited in London, he wouldn't draw a house in six months. Men flock to see a

son.

comet, but they never look up at the stars. Tell them there is a way to pluck those fires from heaven to light their factory, and they listen; but there they blaze, burning on, supplying their own gas, and needing no lighting, and who cares? I have often gone up the Strand, with my back to the west, about sunset, and seen every face that met me crimsoned as with the glare of a great conflagration, but no one looked up. There will be many men go to heaven without ever having known anything either of love or the pleasures of nature. When we get accustomed to heaven, we shall begin to criticise the very songs of the angels, and call that too sharp, and this a quarter of a note too flat. If dragons ever became numerous again, in a month they would be harnessed to the higglers' carts.

A TEST OF AFFECTION.

Was there ever yet a son who looked for five minutes at his dead father without thinking of the still sealed will?

MEDIOCRITY.

Mediocrity is, after all, the best thing in life. The tasteless commonplaces are the standards-bread and water, and good, dull, steady people. I'd as soon lodge over a powder-magazine as live with a genius. There's M, whose poems are like sparkling champagne at the first reading, and like a second day's claret at the next. I'd rather drink water than nectar for a continuance. Leaves are neither crimson nor gold colour, but plain sober green.