TO anticipate mistake, the above title refers not to Thomas Haynes—or F. W. N.—or even any Publishers—but the original old Bailey. It belongs to a set of Songs composed during the courtly leisure of what is technically called a Juryman in Waiting—that is, one of a corps de reserve, held in readiness to fill up the gaps which extraordinary mental exertion—or sedentary habits—or starvation, may make in the Council of Twelve. This wrong box it was once my fortune to get into. On the 5th of November, at the 6th hour, leaving my bed, and the luxurious perusal of Taylor on Early Rising—I walked from a yellow fog into a black one, in my unwilling way to the New Court, which sweet herbs even could not sweeten, for the sole purpose of making criminals uncomfortable. A neighbour, a retired sea Captain with a wooden leg, now literally a jury-mast, limped with me from Highbury Terrace on the same hanging errand—a personified Halter. Our legal drill Corporal was Serjeant Arabin, and when our muster roll without butter was over, before breakfast, the uninitiated can form no idea of the ludicrousness of the excuses of the would-be Nonjurors,—aggravated by the solemnity of a previous oath, the delivery from a witness-box like a pulpit, and the professional gravity of the Court. One weakly old gentleman had been ordered by his physician to eat little, but often, and apprehended even fatal consequences from being locked up with an obstinate eleven; another conscientious demurrer desired time to make himself master of his duties, by consulting Jonathan Wild, Vidocq, Hardy Vaux, and Lazarillo de Tormes. But the number of deaf men who objected the hardness of their hearing criminal cases was beyond belief. The Publishers of “Curtis on the Ear” and “Wright on the Ear”—(two popular surgical works, though rather suggestive of Pugilism)—ought to have stentorian agents in that Court. Defective on one side myself, I was literally ashamed to strike up singly in such a chorus of muffled double drums, and tacitly suffered my ears to be boxed with a common Jury. I heard, on the right hand, a Judge’s charge—an arraignment and evidence to match, with great dexterity, but failing to catch the defence from the left hand, refused naturally to concur in any sinister verdict. The learned Serjeant, I presume, as I was only half deaf, only half discharged me,—committing me to the relay-box, as a juror in Waiting,—and from which I was relieved only by his successor, Sir Thomas Denman, and to justify my dulness, I made even his stupendous voice to repeat my dismissal twice over!

It was during this compelled attendance that the project struck me of a Series of Lays of Larceny, combining Sin and Sentiment in that melo-dramatic mixture which is so congenial to the cholera morbid sensibility of the present age and stage. The following are merely specimens, but a hint from the Powers that be—in the Strand,—will promptly produce a handsome volume of the remainder, with a grateful Dedication to the learned Serjeant.