heads, the warm hearts, the at first almost
incomprehensible but afterwards sonorous
and colloquial dialect, hight Newcastle or
Newcassel men, will remember what
prodigious wags these big Northcountrymen
were (and are). They will call to mind the
droll songs delivered in a patois which to the
Southerner would be Sanscrit; the jokes of
the pitmen, the facetious stories of Jemmy
this, and daft Andrew that. Who has
not read that delicious yearling of barbarous
humour, the Bairnsla Fouk's Annual? I
have a great respect for Tim Bobbin, for the
illustrious Pattie Natt, of Manchester, and
for the Lancashire humorists generally;
but for a pre-eminence in sober facetiæ, and
sly waggishness, I will decidedly back the
children of that coaly, merry town of the
high level bridge.

Histories and merriments, as the droll
contents of my little book are called by the
binder, for want of a better title, seem to
have been favourites in Newcastle, from time
immemorial. To the dozen or two little
duodecimo pamphlets of which the volume is
composed, there is not one to which a date is
affixed. They are all printed at Newcastle,
"in this present year; " but from internal
evidence, they would seem to have been
published at uncertain periods during the
last century. Moreover, they are all
decorated with wood-cut frontispieces, most
hideously barbarous in design and execution, but
entitled to reverence and respect, I think, as
the forerunners of that glorious revival of the
art of wood-engraving of which William
Bewick, of Newcastle, (and for his dry
humour see his vignettes and tail-pieces) was
the pioneer and champion.

Let us see what the merry men of
Newcastle have to say to us in the "Whetstone
for Dull Wits; a Posie of New and Ingenious
Riddles, to promote innocent mirth among
friends: "

                                QUESTION :
" Into this world I came hanging,
And when from the same I was ' ganging ' (Very
       canny this!)
I was bitterly battered and squeezed,
And then with my blood they were pleased."

A most villainous wood-cut, in black and
white blotches, is appended to this mysterious
question, representing a battlemented tower
on one side, a public-house and sign-post on
the other, and in the centre two men in
cocked hats, holding a long pole athwart a
machine strongly resembling a guillotine;
but the key to the " Whetstone " is as oil to
it, and refreshes our dull wits. Answer: "It
is a pippin pounded into cyder."

Another wood-cut, representing a blazing-
sun, perfectly black, but supposed by its
coruscating rays to be blazing like anything;
in the left-hand top corner a lattice window,
detached from any house or other edifice
whatsoever. Centre, a splodge of shovel form,
supposed to be a tree. Left centre, a lady-
costume of the period. Right centre, a
gentleman "toujours" with a cocked hat, which
is flying off towards the blazing sun.

                             QUERY:
      " Two calves and an ape
        They made their escape
        From one than is worse than a spright,
        They travelled together
        In all sorts of weather,
        But often were put a flight."

The answer is somewhat adumbrated:
"'Tis a man flying from a scolding wife. The
calves and the ape signifying the calves of
his legs, and the nape of his neck, which, by
travelling, were exposed to the weather."

      " A man and no man.
        Like Fury laid on
Sir, Green that was drowned in sour
        With Sir, white and black
        He stood to the tack
  Till all of them he did devour."

To this follows a woodcut, three latticed
windows " à l'ordinaire " our old friend in the
cocked hat, seemingly bewailing over a clothes-
basket, and on either side of him, and
considerably larger than his own person a pair
of shears and a pair of empty galligaskins.
Then comes this most libellous solution to
the query. Answer: " 'Tis a taylor at dinner,
with one dish of cucumbers served up
with pepper, salt and vinegar."

The unhandsome allusion to the sartorial
profession, and the mean insinuation that he
could not afford white pepper, are unworthy of
our otherwise genial friend.

            " It hath many eyes
              But never a Nose,
              When down from Skies
              Wind bitterly blows
              And likewise do fall
              Abundance of rain
              It faces them all
              And scorns to complain."

Curiously enough, our intimate acquaintance
the window is omitted in the illustration,
for the triumphant answer to the query
is, "a lattice window."

Many other queries are to be found in our
Whetstone. The querist is remarkably hard
in every convenient instance upon our useful
allies the tailors; he puts subtle queries as
to those whilom Newcastle favourites the
fighting cocks, men pelted in the pillory,
horncombs, weavers' shuttles, the " feenix
which is held to live six hundred years,"
and a " little beast in India called a cameleon."
The accomplished engraver too is
always up to the scratch with his little
man with the cocked hat; in one case where
he with that tricornered article of dress is
beating violently two other little men (without
cocked hats) who are lying on the ground,
all along in one piece, he is made to stand
for Samson wielding the jaw-bone of the
ass. We will conclude with two more queries
which are Newcastle all over, strong, active,
and determined.