he had lost three teeth. He had at first some thoughts of having his poor relation tried for murder; but being naturally of a merciful disposition, he only sent him to jail on account of some unpaid debt, leaving him there to enjoy the comfortable reflection that his wife and children were starving at home. A dentist soon supplied the invalid with three teeth, which he had pulled out of an indigent poet's head at the rate of ten stivers a-piece, but for which he prudently charged the rich merchant one hundred dollars. The doctor, upon examining his leg, recollecting that he was at that moment rather in want of a subject, cut it carefully off, and took it away with him in his carriage, to lecture upon it to his pupils. So Mynheer Von Wodenblock, considering that he had been hitherto accustomed to walk, and not to hop, and being, perhaps, somewhat prejudiced in favour of the former mode of locomotion, sent for our friend at the canal basin, in order that he might give him directions about the representative with which he wished to be supplied fo. his lost member.

The artificer entered the wealthy burgher's apartment. He was reclining on a couch, with his left leg looking as respectable as ever, but with his unhappy right stump wrapped up in bandages, as if conscious and ashamed of its own littleness. "Turningvort, you have heard of my misfortune; it has thrown me into a fever, and all Rotterdam into confusion; but let that pass. You must make me a leg; and it must be the best leg, sir, you ever made in your life." Turningvort bowed. "I don't care what it costs," Turningvort bowed yet lower, "provided it outdoes everything you have yet made of a similar sort. I am for none of your wooden spindleshanks. Make it of cork; let it be light and elastic; and cram it as full of springs as a watch. I know nothing of the business, and cannot be more specific in my directions; but this I am determined upon, that I shall have a leg as good as the one I have lost. I know such a thing is to be had, and if I

get it from you, your reward is a thousand guineas." The Dutch Prometheus declared, that, to please Mynheer Von Wodenblock, he would do more than human ingenuity had ever done before, and undertook to bring him, within six days, a leg which would laugh to scorn the mere common legs possessed by common

men.

This assurance was not meant as an idle boast. Turningvort was a man of speculative as well as practical science, and there was a favourite discovery which he had long been endeavouring to make, and in accomplishing which, he imagined he had at last succeeded that very morning. Like all other manufacturers of terrestrial legs, he had ever found the chief difficulty, in his progress towards perfection, to consist in its being apparently impossible to introduce into them anything in the shape of joints, capable of being regulated by the will, and of performing those important functions achieved under the present system by means of the admirable mechanism of the knee and ankle. Our philosopher had spent years in endeavouring to obviate this grand inconvenience; and though he had undoubtedly made greater progress than anybody else, it was not till now that he believed himself completely master of the great secret. His first attempt to carry it into execution was to be in the leg he was about to make for Mynheer Von Wodenblock.

It was on the evening of the sixth day from that to which I have already alluded, that, with this magic leg carefully packed up, the acute artizan again made his appearance before the expecting and impatient Wodenblock. There was a proud twinkle in Turningvort's grey eye, which seemed to indicate that he valued even the thousand guineas, which he intended for Blanche's marriage portion, less than the celebrity-the glorythe immortality, of which he was at length so sure. He untied his precious bundle, and spent some hours in displaying and explaining to the delighted burgher the number of additions he had made to the internal

machinery, and the purpose which each was intended to serve. The evening wore away in discussions concerning wheels within wheels, and springs acting upon springs. When it was time to retire to rest, both were equally satisfied of the perfection of the work; and, at his employer's earnest request, the artist consented to remain where he was for the night, in order that, early next morning, he might fit on the limb, and see how it performed its duty.

Early next morning all the necessary arrangements were completed, and Mynheer Von Wodenblock walked forth to the street in ecstasy, blessing the inventive powers of one who was able to make so excellent a hand of his leg. It seemed indeed to act to admiration-in the merchant's mode of walking there was no stiffness, no effort, no constraint. All the joints per

formed their office without the aid of either bone or muscle. Nobody, not even a connoisseur in lameness, would have suspected that there was anything uncommon, any great collection of accurately adjusted clockwork, under the full, well-slashed pantaloons of the substantial-looking Dutchman. Had it not been for a slight tremulous motion occasioned by the rapid whirling of about twenty small wheels in the interior, and a constant clicking, like that of a watch, though somewhat louder, he would even himself have forgotten that he was not, in all respects, as he used to be, before he lifted his right foot to bestow a parting benediction on his poor relation.

He walked along in the renovated buoyancy of his spirits, till he came in sight of the Stadt-House; and just at the foot of the flight of steps that lead up to the principal door, he saw his old friend, Mynheer Vanoutern, waiting to receive him. He quickened his pace, and both mutually held out their hands to each other by way of congratulation, before they were near enough to be clasped in a friendly embrace. At last, the merchant reached the spot where Vanoutern stood; but what was that worthy man's astonishment to see

him, though he still held out his hand, pass quickly by, without stopping, even for a moment, to say, "How d'ye do?" But this seeming want of politeness arose from no fault of our hero. His own astonishment was a thousand times greater, when he found that he had no power whatever to determine either when, where, or how his leg was to move. So long as his own wishes happened to coincide with the manner in which the machinery seemed destined to operate, all had gone on smoothly; and he had mistaken his own tacit compliance with its independent and self-acting powers, for a command over it, which he now found he did not possess. It had been his most anxious desire to stop to speak with Mynheer Vanoutern; but his leg moved on, and he found himself under the necessity of following it. Many an attempt did he make to slacken his pace, but every attempt was vain. He caught hold of the rails, walls, and houses, but his leg tugged so violently, that he was afraid of dislocating his arms, and was obliged to go on. He began to get seriously uneasy as to the consequences of this most unexpected turn which matters had taken; and his only hope was, that the amazing and unknown powers which the complicated construction of his leg seemed to possess, would speedily exhaust themselves. Of this, however, he could as yet discover no symptoms.

He happened to be going in the direction of the Leyden Canal; and when he arrived in sight of Mynheer Turningvort's house, he called loudly upon the artificer to come to his assistance. The artificer looked out from his window with a face of wonder. "Villain!" cried Wodenblock, "come out to me this instant! You have made me a leg with a vengeance! It wont stand still for a moment! I have been walking straight forward ever since I left my own house, and, unless you stop me yourself, Heaven only knows how much farther I may walk. Don't stand gaping there, but come out and relieve me, or I shall be out of sight, and you will not be able to overtake me."

The mechanician grew very pale-he was evidently not prepared for this new difficulty. He lost not a moment, however, in following the merchant, to do what he could towards extricating him from so awkward a predicament. The merchant, or rather the merchant's leg, was walking very quick, and Turningvort, being an elderly man, found it no easy matter to make up to him. He did so at last, nevertheless, and, catching him in his arms, lifted him entirely from the ground. But the stratagem (if so it may be called), did not succeed, for the innate propelling motion of the leg hurried him on along with his burthen at the same rate as before. He set him therefore down again, and stooping, pressed violently on one of the springs that protruded a little behind. In an instant the unhappy Mynheer Von Wodenblock was off like an arrow, calling out in the most piteous accents, "I am lost! I am lost! I am possessed by a devil in the shape of a cork leg! Stop me! for Heaven's sake, stop me! I am breathless,—I am fainting! Will nobody shatter my leg to pieces? Turningvort! Turningvort! you have murdered me!" The artist, perplexed and confounded, was hardly in a situation more to be envied. Scarcely knowing what he did, he fell upon his knees, clasped his hands, and with strained and staring eyeballs, looked after the richest merchant in Rotterdam, running with the speed of an enraged buffalo, away along the canal towards Leyden, and bellowing for help as loudly as his exhaustion would permit.

Leyden is more than twenty miles from Rotterdam, but the sun had not yet set, when the Misses Backsneider who were sitting at their parlour window, immediately opposite the "Golden Lion," drinking tea, and nodding to their friends as they passed, saw some one coming at a furious speed along the street. His face was pale as ashes, and he gasped fearfully for breath; but, without turning either to the right or the left, he hurried by at the same rapid rate, and was out of sight almost before they had time to exclaim, "Good gracious! was