* * * * *


ASMODEUS IN LONDON.

(_From the New Monthly Magazine_.)


I was alone with Sleep.

* * * * *

I woke with a singular sense of feebleness and exhaustion, and turning
my dizzy eyes---beheld the walls and furniture of my own chamber in
London. Asmodeus was seated by my side reading a Sunday newspaper--his
favourite reading.

"Ah!" said I, stretching myself with so great an earnestness, that I
believed at first my stature had been increased by the malice of the
Wizard, and that I stretched from one end of the room to the other--"Ah!
dear Asmodeus, how pleasant it is to find myself on earth again! After
all, these romantic wonders only do for a short time. Nothing like
London when one has been absent from it upon a Syntax search after the
Picturesque!"

"London is indeed a charming place,"--said the Devil--"all our
fraternity are very fond of it--it is the custom for the Parisians to
call it dull. What an instance of the vanity of patriotism--there is
vice enough in it to make any reasonable man cheerful."