servedly, and also undeservedly. Oh, unhappiest Advocate of Arras, wert thou worse than other Advocates? Stricter man, according to his Formula, to his Credo, and his Cant, of probities, benevolences, pleasures-of-virtue, and such like, lived not in that age. A man fitted, in some luckier settled age, to have become one of those incorruptible barren Pattern-Figures, and have had marble-tablets and funeral-sermons! His poor landlord, the Cabinetmaker in the Rue Saint-Honoré, loved him; his Brother died for him. May God be merciful to him, and to us!"

The reader will see in the above extracts most of the faults, and a few of the merits, of this book. He need not be told that it is written in an eccentric prose, here and there disfigured by grotesque conceits and images; but, for all this, it betrays most extraordinary powers-learning, observation, and humour. Above all, it has no CANT. It teems with sound, hearty philosophy (besides certain transcendentalisms which we do not pretend to understand), it possesses genius, if any book ever did. It wanted no more for keen critics to cry fie upon it! Clever critics who have such an eye for genius, that when Mr. Bulwer published his forgotten book concerning Athens, they discovered that no historian was like to him; that he, on his Athenian hobby, had quite outtrotted stately Mr. Gibbon; and with the same creditable unanimity they cried down Mr. Carlyle's history, opening upon it a hundred little piddling sluices of small wit, destined to wash the book sheer away; and lo! the book remains, it is only the poor wit which has run dry.

We need scarcely recommend this book and its timely appearance, now that some of the questions solved in it seem almost likely to be battled over again. The hottest Radical in England may learn by it that there is something more necessary for him even than his mad liberty-the authority, namely, by which he retains his head on his shoulders and his money in his pocket, which privileges that by-word "liberty" is often unable to secure for him. It teaches (by as strong examples as ever taught anything) to rulers and to ruled alike moderation, and yet there are many who would react the same dire tragedy, and repeat the experiment tried in France so fatally. "No Peers-no Bishopsno property qualification--no restriction of suffrage." Mr. Leader bellows it out at Westminster and Mr. Roebuck croaks it at Bath. Pert quacks at public meetings joke about hereditary legislators, journalists gibe at them, and moody starving labourers, who do not know how to jest, but can hate lustily, are told to curse crowns and coronets as the origin of their woes and their poverty,—and so did the clever French spouters and journalists gibe at royalty,

until royalty fell poisoned under their satire; and so did the screaming hungry French mob curse royalty until they overthrew it and to what end? To bring tyranny and leave starvation, battering down Bastilles to erect guillotines, and murdering kings to set up emperors in their stead.

We do not say that in our own country similar excesses are to be expected or feared; the cause of complaint has never been so great, the wrong has never been so crying on the part of the rulers, as to bring down such fearful retaliation from the governed. Mr. Roebuck is not Robespierre, and Mr. Attwood, with his threatened legion of fiery Marseillois, is at best but a Brummagem Barbaroux. But men alter with circumstances; six months before the kingly dechéance, the bitter and bilious advocate of Arras spake with tears in his eyes about good King Louis, and the sweets and merits of constitutional monarchy and hereditary representation: and so he spoke, until his own turn came, and his own delectable guillotining system had its hour. God forbid that we should pursue the simile with Mr. Roebuck so far as this; God forbid, too, that he ever should have the trial.

True; but we have no right, it is said, to compare the Republicanism of England with that of France, no right to suppose that such crimes would be perpetrated in a country so enlightened as ours. Why is there peace and liberty and a republic in America? No guillotining, no ruthless Yankee tribunes retaliating for bygone tyranny by double oppression? Surely the reason is obvious-because there was no hunger in America; because there were easier ways of livelihood than those offered by ambition. Banish Queen, and Bishops, and Lords, seize the lands, open the ports, or shut them (according to the fancy of your trades' unions and democratic clubs, who have each their freaks and hobbies), and are you a whit richer in a month, are your poor Spitalfields men vending their silks, or your poor Irishmen reaping their harvests at home? Strong interest keeps Americans quiet, not Government; here there is always a party which is interested in rebellion. People America like England, and the poor weak rickety republic is jostled to death in the crowd. Give us this republic to-morrow and it would share no better fate; have not all of us the power, and many of us the interest, to destroy it?

FASHNABLE FAX AND POLITE ANNYGOATS

M

BY CHARLES YELLOWPLUSH, ESQ.

No.

GROSVENOR SQUARE: 10th October. (N.B. Hairy Bell.)

Y DEAR Y.-Your dellixy in sending me "My Book "* does you honour; for the subjick on which it treats cannot, like politix, metafizzix, or other silly sciences, le criticised by the common writin creaturs who do your and other Magazines at so much a yard. I am a chap of a different sort. I have lived with some of the first families in Europe, and I say it, without fear of contradistinction, that, since the death of George the IV., and Mr. Simpson of Voxall Gardens, there doesn't, praps, live a more genlmnly man than myself. As to figger, I beat Simpson all to shivers; and know more of the world than the late George. He did things in a handsome style enough, but he lived always in one set, and got narrow in his notions. How could he be otherwise? Had he my opportunities, I say he would have been a better dressed man, a better dined man (poor angsy deer, as the French say), and a better furnitured man. These qualities an't got by indolence, but by acute hobservation and foring travel, as I have had. But a truce to heggotism, and let us proceed with bisness.

Skelton's " Anatomy" (or Skeleton's, which, I presume, is his real name) is a work which has been long wanted in the littery world. A reglar slap-up, no-mistake, out-an-out account of the manners and usitches of genteel society, will be appreciated in every famly from Buckly Square to Whitechapel Market. Ever since you sent me the volum, I have read it to the gals in our hall, who are quite delighted of it, and every day grows genteeler and genteeler. So is Jeames, coachman; so is Sam and George, and little Halfred, the sugar-loafed page:- all 'xcept old Huffy, the fat veezy porter, who sits all day in his hall-chair, and never reads a word of anythink but that ojus Hage newspaper. "Huffy,"

* 66

'My Book; or, The Anatomy of Conduct." By John Henry Skelton London: Simpkin & Marshall, 1837.

I often say to him, "why continue to read that blaggerd print? Want of decency, Huffy, becomes no man in your high situation : a genlman without morallity, is like a liv'ry-coat without a shoulder-knot." But the old-fashioned beast reads on, and don't care for a syllable of what I say. As for the Satrist, that's different I read it myself, reg'lar; for it's of uncompromising Raddicle principils, and lashes the vices of the arristoxy. again I am diverging from Skeleton.

:

But

Be

What I like about him so pertiklerly is his moddisty. fore you come to the book, there is, fust, a Deddication; then, a Preface; and nex', a Prolygomeny. The fust is about hisself; the second about hisself, too; and, cuss me! if the Prolygolygominy an't about hisself again, and his schoolmaster, the Rev. John Finlay, late of Streatham Academy. I shall give a few extrax from them:

"Graceful manners are not intuitive: so he, who, through industry or the smiles of fortune, would emulate a polite carriage, must be taught not to outrage propriety. Many topics herein considered have been discussed, more or less gravely or jocosely, according as the subject-matter admitted the varying treatment. I would that with propriety much might be expunged, but that I felt it is all required from the nature of the work. The public is the tribunal to which I appeal: not friendship, but publie attestation, must affix the signet to 'My Book's' approval or condemnation. Sheridan, when manager of Drury, was known to say, he had solicited and received the patronage of friends, but from the public only had he found support. So may it be with me!"

There's a sentence for you, Mr. Yorke!* We disputed about it, for three-quarters of an hour, in the servants' hall. Miss Simkins, my Lady's feel de chamber, says it's complete ungramatticle, as so it is. "I would that," &c., "but that," and so forth what can be the earthly meaning of it? "Graceful manners," says Skeleton, "is not intuitive." Nor more an't grammar, Skelton; sooner than make a fault in which, I'd knife my fish, or malt after my cheese.

As for "emulating a genteel carriage," not knowing what that might mean, we at once asked Jim Coachman; but neither he nor his helpers could help us. Jim thinks it was a baroosh; cook says, a brisky; Sam, the stable-boy (who, from living chiefly among the hosses and things, has got a sad low way of talking), said it was all dicky, and bid us drive on to the nex' page.

* Oliver Yorke was the well-known pseudonym of the editor of Fraser's Magazine.

"For years, when I have observed anything in false taste, I have remarked that, when My Book' makes its appearance, such an anomaly will be discontinued; and, instead of an angry reply, it has ever been, What are you writing such a work?' till at length, in several societies, 'My Book' has been referred to whenever une méprise has taken place. As thus: "My Book” is, indeed, wanted; or, 'If "My Book" were here;' or, We shall never be right without "My Book";' which led me to take minutes of the barbarisms I observed. I now give them to the world, from a conviction that a rule of conduct should be studied, and impressed upon the mind. Other studies come occasionally into play; but the conduct, the deportment, and the manner are ever in view, and should be a primary consideration, and by no means left to chance (as at present), whether it be good, or whether it be evil.'

"Most books that have appeared on this vital subject have generally been of a trashy nature; intended, one would imagine—if you took the trouble to read them-as advertisements to this trade, or for that man, this draper, or that dentist, instead of attempting to form the mind, and leaving the judgment to act.

"To Lord Chesterfield other remarks apply: but Dr. Johnson has so truly and so wittily characterised, in few words, that heartless libertine's advice to his son, that, without danger of corrupting the mind, you cannot place his works in the hands of youth.

"It should ever be kept in our recollection, that a graceful carriage-a noble bearing, and a generous disposition to sit with case and grace, must be enthroned in the mind's eye' on every virtuous sentiment."

There it is, the carriage again! But never mind that to the nex' sentence it's nothink: "to sit with ease and grace must be enthroned in the mind's eye' on every virtuous sentiment!" Heaven bless your bones, Mr. Skeleton! where are you driving us? I say, this sentence would puzzle the very Spinx himself! How can a man sit in his eye? If the late Mr. Finlay, of Streatham Academy, taught John Henry Anatomy Skeleton to do this, he's a very wonderful pupil, and no mistake! as well as a finominy in natural history, quite exceeding that of Miss Mackavoy. Sich peculiar opportunities for hobservation must make his remarks really valuable.*

Well, he observes on every think that is at all observable, and * I canot refrain from quattin, in a note, the following extract, from page 8:

"To be done with propriety, everything must be done quietly. When the cards are dealt round do not sort them in all possible haste, and, having performed it in a most hurried manner, clap your cards on the table, looking