SCRAPS FROM OUR NOTE BOOK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 68, 29 May 1869, Page 5

SCRAPS FROM OUR NOTE BOOK.

0 No. XXX— MUSINGS IN BED. The cold weather has set in ; the more sensible portion of the animal creation, including bears and dormice, have gone into winter quarters ; and Augustus Muggius is not too proud to follow their examples. He has retired beneath the blankets, and the crowded streets of Lawrence or the gilded saloons of the " Shamrock " will no longer be gladdened by his presence. "To bed, but not to sleep," as the inspired bard, the Swan of Avon, the glorious Will — iv short Shakespeare whom you and every play-house bill Term the divine, the matchless — what you will, beautifully remarks in the third volume of his " Hymns for the Infant Mind." Indeed, Augustus resembles the Bourbon Kings of France — lo whom he is distantly related — who, whenever they intended some particularly audacious stroke of policy, held a " Bed of Justice." In like manner, when he contemplates some glorious exercise of his unparalleled genius, he retires to a couch of softest down, consisting of equal parts of chaff and old "exchanges." With his mighty head reclined on a bundle of well-worn raiment and two pair of boots, the priceless dudheen between his coral lips, he lies and muses on the fate of empires and the price of grog._ His far-famed note-book lies by his side, in which he enters the result of his profound cogitations ; and a peep into the arcana of its closely written pages is, for the small charge .of sixpence, allowed to the readers of the Tuapeka Times. Unfortunately, Augustus has not been himself of late — a severe attack of jaundice, brought on by reading the Provincial Treasurer's balance sheet for IS6B-69, has prostrated his energies and dulled his imagination. Eor he is not partial to figures unless they belong to young ladies ; and a question of simple addition appals him more than an attack of lumbago. Still, he on one occasion displayed his greatness of soul by overcoming this antipathy, and actually practised the art of book-keeping for six months. His success was surprising, and would have received the approbation it deserved, but for a trifling transposition of the debit and credit side. The result was that poor Muggins found himself incarcerated in the Queen's Bench, while a balance of several million sterling was shown on the credit side of his ledger. No wonder such an instance of the want of appreciation shown genius disgusted him, and he retired from commercial life, and accepted a literary appointment as poet to Messrs. Day and Martin. Often the listener may hear him murmur, in tones of the deepest pathos, the beautiful lines from Milton's "II Penseroso "—" —

llu 7< ipl cation is .i vexnfion, Divisio i's quire as bad ; The vine of three it puzzles me, And fi-jct'ons drive me mad.

well ]£ay we all join in tbe Mugginian. prayer — " Heaven pity all Chancellors of Exchequer, treasurers, anc l teachers' of arithmetic, wherever their lot may be cast."