was a loving though a fearful creature) fed upon its words like the air they breathed: and the monarchs paused, for they knew their masters.

This is Printing by Steam.-It will be said that it is an allegory, and that all allegories are but fictions, and flat ones. I am far from producing it as a specimen of the poetical power now in existence. Allegory itself is out of fashion, though it was a favourite exercise of our old poets, when the public were familiar with shows and spectacles. But allegory is the readiest shape into which imagination can turn a thing mechanical; and in the one before us is contained the mechanical truth and the spiritual truth of that very matter of fact thing called a Printing Press: each of them as true as the other, or neither could take place. A business of screws and iron wheels is, or appears to be, a very common-place matter; but not so the will of the hand that sets them in motion; not so the operations of the mind that directs them what to utter. We are satisfied respecting the one by science; but what is it that renders us sensible of the wonders of the other, and their connection with the great mysteries of nature? Thought-Fancy

- Imagination. What signifies to her the talk about electricity, and suction, and gravitation, and alembics, and fifty other mechanical operations of the marvellous? This is but the bone and muscle of wonder. Soul, and not body, is her pursuit; the first cause, not the second; the whole effect, not a

part of it; the will, the invention, the marvel itself. As long as this lies hidden, she still fancies what agents for it she pleases. The science of atmospherical phenomena hinders not her angels from “playing in the plighted clouds." The analysis of a bottle of salt water does not prevent her from “tak-. ing the wings of the morning, and remaining in the uttermost parts of the sea." You must prove to her first, that you understand the simple elements, when decomposed; the reason that brings them together; the power that puts them in action; the relations which they have to a thousand things besides ourselves and our wants; the necessity of all this perpetual motion; the understanding that looks out of the eye; love, joy, sorrow, death and life, the future, the universe, the whole invisible abyss. Till you know all this, and can plant the dry sticks of your reason, as trophies of possession, in every quarter of space, how shall you oust her from her dominion?

THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS.

Elevation of society by this species of vehicle.-Metamorphosis of Dr. Johnson into an Omnibus.—His dialogue thereon with Boswell.-Various passengers in Omnibuses.—Intense intimacy with the face of the man opposite you.—Boys and young ladies.-Old gentlemen unable to pull up the glass.-Young gentlemen embarrassed with eating an orange.-Exhibition of characters and tempers.—Ladies obliged to sit on gentlemen's laps.-Last passengers at night.

ENOUGH has been said, in this quick and graphic age, respecting coachmen and cabmen, and conductors, and horses, and all the exterior phenomena of things vehicular; but we are not aware that an "article" has yet been devoted to the subject before us.

Come, then, our old friend Truth! do what thou canst for us. If thou dost not, we know, that with all our trying, we can do nothing for ourselves. Men will have nothing to do with our representations, though we paint for them the prettiest girl in the world,-unlike!

By the invention of the Omnibus, all the world keeps its coach!—And with what cheapness! And

to how much social advantage! No "plague with servants;"-no expense for liveries;-no coachmakers' and horse-doctors' bills;-no keeping one's fellow-creatures waiting for us in the cold nighttime and rain, while the dance is going down the room, or another hour is spent in bidding good-bye, and lingering over the comfortable fire. We have no occasion to think of it at all till we want it; and then it either comes to one's door, or you go forth, and in a few minutes see it hulling up the street,— the man-of-war among coaches,-the whale's back in the metropolitan flood,-while the driver is beheld sitting, super-eminent, like the guide of the elephant on his neck.

We cannot say much for the beauty of the omnibus; but there is a certain might of utility in its very bulk, which supersedes the necessity of beauty, as in the case of the whale itself, or in the idea that we entertain of Dr. Johnson, who shouldered porters as he went, and " laughed like a rhinoceros." Virgil metamorphosed ships into sea-nymphs. The Doctor, by a process not more violent, might be supposed transformed into a vehicle for his favourite London streets; and, if so, he would undoubtedly have anticipated the date of the present invention, and become an omnibus. His mouth seems to utter the word.

BOSWELL (in Elysium). "Sir, if you were living now, and were to be turned into a coach, what sort of coach would you become?"

JOHNSON (rolling about, and laughing with bland

contempt). "Sir, in parliamentary language, you are 'frivolous and vexatious;' but the frivolity surmounts the vexatiousness."

BOSWELL (tenderly). "Nay, sir, but to oblige an humble, and, I hope, not altogether undeserving friend."

JOHNSON. "Sir, where reply is obvious, interrogation is disgusting. Nay, sir (seeing the tears in Boswell's eyes), I would not be harsh or uncomplying; but do you not see the case at once? I should formerly have chosen to be a bishop's carriage perhaps, or a chancellor's, or any respectable lord's.”

BOSWELL (smiling). "Except a lord mayor's." JOHNSON (angrily). "And why, sir, should I not have been a lord mayor's? What have I done, that it should be doubted whether I would countenance the dignity of integrity and the universality of commerce?"

BOSWELL (in confusion). "Sir, I beg pardon; but to confess the truth, I was thinking of Mr. Wilkes."

JOHNSON. "And why, sir, think of Mr. Wilkes, when the smaller idea should be merged into the greater? when the great office itself is concerned, and not the pettiness of an exception? Besides, sir, Wilkes, though a rascal and a Whig, was a gentleman in manners, as well as birth (looking sternly at Boswell). He would not have made such a remark. -To be sure (relenting a little, and looking arch) he got drunk sometimes."

BOSWELL (interrupting). "Dear sir!—”