figure in a picture-window, with a cocked hat and sword too big for Goliath of Gath, however well he may appear in a gazette, or in an epic poem. But that propensity of our nature, which leads us to make mirth out of moral obliquity, to consider distress and misery, in their concrete appearance, as highly amusing affairs, and to turn human vice and sorrow, (as the French tutor complains, in one of Matthews's exhibitions,) "into ridiculousness," can only be ascribed to Adam's fall, wherein, as the primer properly observes,

"We sinned all."

It is, to be sure, after all, rather a funny sight, to see a young, or an old gentleman, brought up at sunrise in the morning, before the worshipful, courteous, and amiable magistrates, who preside over the nocturnal and diurnal morals of a large city. Refreshed by slumber, and wide awake by turning out of his dormitory at so early and healthy an hour, gently breathed and exercised by his walk to the tribunal, the modern prætor seats himself in his chair, with a countenance full of smiles, a voice mellifluous as the lark's saluting the morn, and an insinuating manner, the charms of which cannot be expressed. (At least, so we are told. We are ready to make affidavit, that we have never been in the watch-house, except on works of necessity or mercy.) But then those who have been out a-larking, after the solemn noon of night; who have been fatigued by their peripatetic exercises; who have, perhaps, stimulated a little beyond the measure of prudence, and have then been compelled to invoke "nature's sweet_restorer, balmy sleep," in an attitude almost any how-on a bench, or in a dark corner-what an awkward squad they compose! They have been very naughty, and we ought to be sorry and ashamed for them. But they cut such a droll figure, from crown to toe, that we feel, for the moment, as if it were more natural to laugh than to shed tears. Their beavers are knocked into divers representations of solids, unenumerated in the eleventh book of Euclid. Their locks are in no wise Cesarean, but resemble rather those of Absalom, after he was hauled down from his state of dependency. Their eyes are not "in a fine frenzy rolling," but like the sun at the same probable hour, are struggling through clouds and mist, squinting a few slant, occasional beams, as if in search of what may be visible. A little comm. sap. et aqua. font. would certainly be a good prescription for the improvement of their complexions. Then consider their gait, and the management of their several members. A leader charging at the head of his squadron; a great VOL. II.

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orator advancing to address the conscript fathers, or the more illustrious populace, whom they are supposed to represent; a gallant, leading the lady of his love to join in the graceful measures of the mazy dance-would either of them, think ye, walk o' this fashion?* Next take a survey of their drapery. Contemplate the existing condition of their apparel, which may have been bright and glossy enough, when they first sallied forth on the ramble which terminated in this disagreeable restriction on their locomotive faculties. However gaudy it may have been, it is now every thing else but neat.

How they have got into this pickle, is of very little consequence. The only important question is, how they shall get out of it, without attracting too much observation. The innocent and the guilty are in a similar predicament. Many, and perhaps most, of these detenus, if asked what brought them there, might probably adopt, with truth and candour, the answer of Tom Moore of Fleet Street's magpie. But they must give bonds, and pay the fees for their delightful night's rest, as well as the others, who have, perhaps, broken the peace of the people, and violated their dignity.

These cases, however distressing and uncomfortable to the parties most immediately interested, are apt to excite risibility among the by-standers. But when it is an affair of irregular appropriation, either fraudulent or forcible, that is to say, of petit or grand larceny, burglary, or highway robbery, the business, one would think, must assume a more serious aspect. We should suppose it proper to turn Momus out of court, with all his quips and cranks, "i vezzi e i giochi," before awful Nemesis uplifted her scales. But such is not always the case in criminal proceedings, either as regards the accused, whether innocent or guilty-the judges who are to pass sentence, or the advocates who are to discuss the law and facts. "Even the scaffold" has "echoed with the jest," of which there are illustrious instances. Socrates proposed sacrificing to Esculapius, a few hours before his death. Sir Thomas Moore was facetious in the tower. Sir Walter Raleigh, and Anna Bullen, were quite pleasant in making arrangements for their decapitation. And to descend from Tower-hill to Tyburn, the more vulgar subjects of penal jurisprudence have frequently a natural or assumed waggery, a delightful "recklessness," as Mr. Cooper would say, about the distinctions between meum and tuum, and the rights and duties of individuals, (as defined in

*The original passage is equally appropriate" Think ye, Alexander smelt o' this fashion ?"

the treatises of moral philosophy, and in the statutes,) or a particular idiom, which gives an amusing air to their improprieties, and in some measure softens the naked atrocity of their outrages. Learned judges have condescended to humour the joke; and Joe Miller furnishes many excellent bon-mots, committed beneath the black-cap of judgment, for the benefit of those to whom the bellman was so soon to chant his pious and admonitory verses

"And when St. 'Pulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,

The Lord have mercy upon your poor souls."

We have all heard with what gout that excellent new joke is cracked monthly at the sessions, when the treading-mill is recommended to the malefactor as an agreeable divertimento, a fine exercise, and a healthy amusement, in the intervals of his more sober occupation of picking oakum, or weaving penitentiary striped cloth. As the object of punishment is as much the example it holds up to others, as the reformation of the criminal, particularly in those cases where the latter is to be hanged, all this pleasantry may not be amiss. It is gilding the pill which the culprit must swallow for the good of the community. While stern Justice marches onward with swift and equal step, it is strewing her pathway with flowers. And after all, a moralist, like Hamlet, might find little to choose between Jack Sheppard in his cart, and Julius Cæsar in his triumphal chariot. This is certainly a more rational and decorous practice than that in which some well-meaning people seem inclined to indulge in our country, of canonizing felons as martyrs ; making their walk to the place of execution a public mourning procession; their gradus ad patibulum a Jacob's ladder, and their legal exit from the world (we speak not rashly nor unadvisedly) almost a vicarious suffering, for the benefit of the particular congregation, to whose tenets the culprit had happened to be supposed to be converted.

Criminal proceedings of all kinds always excite a strange interest in the public; and the practice of embellishing, as well as reporting them, has long been a source of profit to writers, and of amusement to readers, in Great Britain. Latterly, we have seen many forlorn attempts of the kind in our own daily prints. But the young gentlemen who essay to rival our transAtlantic brethren in this species of composition, are not at all up to the thing. Their reports are insufferably flat. If they will persist in perpetrating them, we recommend a small and select library to their serious perusal, as a preliminary course to qualify them for the undertaking, viz. the variorum editions of the

Newgate Calendar; Fielding's Classical History of Jonathan Wild; the Life of Bamfield Moore Carew, king of the Gipsies, with the glossary; the best modern editions of the Slang Dictionary; and as respectable a collection of reports as they can procure, up to and including the work, the title of which is at the head of our article. Should there be any of them more promising than there is present reason to expect, we would put them through a second and more refined course of reading, such as the miscellaneous and multifarious works of Pierce Egan, Blackwood's Magazine, ad libitum, and some portions of Sayings and Doings;" to which we would add, by way of giving them a taste of science and political economy, Colquhoun's Police of London and of the river Thames. With this initiation into style and technical terms, with their opportunities for observing what is droll about black and white convicts, if they could make no better fist of reporting than they do now, we should give them up in despair, and beg them to let the poor devils go to the bridewell, penitentiary, and state-prison, according to law, without such lame and impotent efforts to make their crimes or their misfortunes matters of merriment.

But we are too patriotic not to be willing to ascribe the dulness of our own police literature to another cause than the obtuseness of our reporters. We would fain believe that the morality of our nation is too strong to approve and cultivate, as yet, this habit, "miscendi seria ludo," of confounding the bad with the ridiculous, putting sin in masquerade, like the vice of the ancient mysteries, and turning the solemn drama of Justice into a farce. We hope it may long continue to be the case, and pray that none of our remarks may be maliciously or stupidly construed.

The reporter to the Morning Herald seems to be clever enough in his vocation; to be able to make the most of the peculiarities of all the candidates who make their appearance under the protection of the modern Dogberries, and to be a proficient in the language of flash, or of the fancy-a very ancient dialect, which, by its successively engrafting on the original patois of gipsies and pickpockets, the idioms of all the lower classes and conditions of society, and all strange abuses or quaintnesses of speech, has become exceedingly extensive, and even threatens innovation on regular and lawful language. We have observed a few of its scattering terms and phrases insinuating themselves into polite vocabularies; and it is to be feared, that when they have once sneaked into good company, they may put on a bold front, and refuse to be walked forth.

We shall make one or two selections from this volume, for the

*

benefit of those who have not the curiosity, or the patience, to read the whole. The latter we acknowledge to be our own

case:

"6 THE LOVES OF M'GILLIES AND JULIA COB.

"Mr. Robert M'Gillies was brought before the magistrates, to answer the complaint of Miss Julia Cob. Mr. Robert M'Gillies was a tall, stout, portly, middle aged, Scottish gentleman; and Miss Julia Cob, a diminutive Hibernian young lady, in a richly braided dark blue habit, smart riding hat, long black veil, and red morocco ridicule.

"Miss Julia Cob made a multitude of complaints, by which it appeared, that whilst she was living a gay and happy spinster, with her friends in Dublin, she was courted by Mr. Robert M'Gillies, whose card bore the initials "M. P." after his name; and she, conceiving that M. P. meant "Member of Parliament,” lent a willing ear to his honied words. That she afterward discovered his profession was the taking of likenesses, and that the M. P. meant Miniature Painter. That notwithstanding the disappointment of this discovery, she continued her affections towards him, and eventually consented to come with him to England-not as his wife, but as his friend pro tempore; for she could not think of taking up with a miniature painter for life. That they did come to England accordingly, and took up their rest in London: but from that period Mr. Robert M'Gillies became an altered man; he relinquished his M. P. profession, and lived entirely upon her means, spending almost his whole time in smoking and drinking, lying in bed with his clothes on, and amusing himself between whiles with tearing his and her garments in shreds and tatters. That at length her affection for him began to evaporate, and being,much impoverished by these vagaries of his, she determined 'to whistle him off, and let him down the wind to prey on fortune,' as Othello talked of doing by the gentle Desdemona. That in consequence of this determination she got herself acquainted' with another lover-not a Scottish and sottish soi disant M. P., but a real, unadulterated, and genuine Irish Mem. Par.-one who had taken a house for her in Norfolkstreet, Strand, furnished it fit for a princess to live in, and provided her with all things fitting for a lady in her situation. That Mr. Robert M'Gillies felt himself so dissatisfied at this new arrangement, that he forced his way into her new abode in Norfolk-street, turned her charwoman out of doors, broke her glasses, tore her clothes to ribbons, spat in her face seventeen times, and swore he loved her so that she should never live with any other jontleman till she was completely dead and done with. Nay, more-having done all this, he laid himself down on the best bed in the house, and taking out his pipe, began smoking away as he used to do at home; though she told him her new lover couldn't abide the smell of baccah.'

"Under these circumstances, Miss Julia Cob begged the magistrates to interpose the strong arin of the law between her and Mr. Robert M'Gillies. He was a strong, powerful man, she said, and she verily believed he would never let her go to her grave alive-a figure of speech which she afterward explained to mean-that she verily believed he intended to do her some grievous bodily harm-or, in other words, he intended to prevent her going to her grave in the natural way.

"The officers who took Mr. Robert M'Gillies into custody, stated that they found him-though in the middle of the day--stretched out at full