AN AWFUL PIECE OF BUSINESS.

66

THE following awful epistle, threatens a total annihilation to all the good things that are in embryo, and which, once upon a time," we plumed ourselves would come within the sphere of the Magnet's attraction,

"MR. TOBIAS MERTON,

"I have a very heavy complaint to make against your Editorship; and although you may make light of it, it is of a more serious nature than you can properly imagine. You must know, Sir, when I first took you in, you appeared a grave, quiet sort of personage, such a one as a man might introduce to his family, and recommend as a proper example ; but of late you have completely changed your character, so that one can hardly think you are the same individual. You first commenced playing your pranks with Rosalie the girl of Venice, which gave my daughter bleared-eyes for a month afterwards, and cost me I don't know how much for ardent spirits to keep up my wife's animal spirits. The next day our beef was roasted too much; on enquiring the cause, I found that the cook had been reading Sally's Girl of Wennis. Dick and Thomas, my apprentices, smeared the ledger with their tears, and I myself was quite in a rage to find I had made a fool of myself. I don't see, Mr. Merton, what right you have to go and make people cry whether they like it or no, it is against the spirit of the British Constitution to restrain the liberty of the subject. I determined not to read any thing more of you till by accident I took you in** instead of the Mirror,++ that very clever and highly original miscellany. But hoping that you had grown better, as you had grown older, I opened the leaves, and got Dick to read aloud "the last of the Cockneys," hoping that it was the last joke that would be cracked on the subject. Dick had not gone far, before he set all the room in such an unseemly roar of laughter, that you would have thought there was a pair of leather breeches to be grinned for in a horse-collar. What vexed me most was, (though I was ready to knock J. H.H. down,) I could not help laughing as heartily as the rest, which I cannot help thinking is against all law,§§ to make people laugh whether

*Lucens non lucendo.-T. M.

+ We will take care how you do it a second time.

Tempus mutat rerum. Editors included.

§ A serious charge indeed! with a most interesting blush, we solemnly deny playing any pranks whatever with the lady.

Very candid indeed!-This is a heavy charge of nature's conscience; we should indeed have thought it impossible John Bull could ever confess to so unwise a step.

¶ We have always hitherto been complimented on the freedom of our man, ner in handling our subject.

** We trust our good friend would not take us in—by design.

++ No reflections, we beg, John.

# We are celebrated for improving on a farther acquaintance. Really, J. H. H. this is quite a crying nuisance.

they will or no: well, we all laughed so much, that at last not one of
us could speak, so we were obliged to wait till one of us had done, in
order to keep the jaws of the rest a-going. Poor Mrs. Bull went into
hysterics; and Gangrene and Clementina told each other, she looked
as red in the face as a turkey-cock after fighting. I went the following
day, and stated the case to my attorney, and he assures me I can indict
J. H. H. 66
for forcibly, and against the will, and without the consent or
desire of John Bull, causing, by divers charms, devices, stratagems, the
sides of me, the said John Bull, to ache; and then and there, with malice
aforethought, at the instigation of the d-, and not having the fear of
the law before his eyes, causing, and procuring the jaws of the said John
Bull to fall from and out of their natural situation, and then and there to
contort and deform the same for divers long spaces of time, (to wit,) for
the space of one hour, twenty-three minutes, and thirty-five seconds."
He moreover assures me, I can recover against your publisher, in an ac-
tion on the case for damages suffered by Mrs. Bull, by reason of your
putting her in fear of her life, by making her laugh immoderately, without
her leave or license. She is also determined to swear the peace* against
you. So therefore beware how you play these kind of tricks for the future.
"Your's,

JOHN BULL."

THE PATIENCE OF EPICTETUS.

THIS philosopher was, at one period of his life, a slave to Epaphroditus, a freedman of Nero's, and one of that Emperor's guards. His master one day in a frolic took hold of his leg, and gave it a violent wrench. Epictetus observing him to take a delight in this barbarous sport, which was repeated with increased violence, said with a smile, and free from any emotion, "If you do go on you will certainly break my leg." The brutal master was quite heedless of this admonition, and presently poor Epictetus's leg was broken, when the only remark that escaped him was, "Did I not tell you, Sir, that you would break my

leg?"

A REPROOF.

AND fear'st thou to wander
Alone with me now,
Lest words, growing fonder,
The truth should avow?

Nay, sure such a thought

Is as wrongful as vain;-
Can my eyes have left aught

For my tongue to explain?

G. N.

Lest the piece should be sworn against us, and thereby occasion a paper war, we most solemnly affirm, that our correspondent, J. H. H. is the true offender. Of a verity he had better "look to it."

THE DEJEUNE; OR, COMPANION FOR THE BREAKFAST TABLE.

No. II.-New Series.

ON THE FOLLY AND WICKEDNESS OF HAVING A LONG NOSE.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR.-The author of the following Jeremiad is (as the reader will not fail to perceive, from its eccentricity,) a confirmed hypochondriac. With infinite humour he possesses a nervous irritability that borders at times upon madness. We have heard of people in this alarming but ludicrous situation, who have actually fancied themselves tea-pots; one lady we ourselves remember, eno who, imagining that she was a grasshopper, leaped out of a two-pair of stairs window, and would have fallen a victim to her friskiness, had she not luckily alighted upon a dunghill. Dr. Rees mentions many similar cases of absurdity; but this of ours, we boldly place against all preceding ones. In short, "none but itself can be its parallel." Its author is a Mr. Drake Somerset, who left it at our office last Saturday, with a request that it might immediately be published.

A FEW years ago, (some ten thousand, says my old Cretan MSS.) the gods, goddesses, and godlings, met together on Mount Olympus, to con fer upon the creation of mankind. Jove opened the proceedings, by observing, among other things, that it was contrary to the will of fate that so beautiful a spot as the world should remain a wilderness, or that Tartarus should be without tenants, and concluded by proposing the creation of a few antediluvians. The resolution was of course acceded to, and Mercury was dispatched for some clay; but, during his absence, an altercation ensued, touching the shape into which these aforesaid mortals were to be moulded. My old family MSS. relates the legend at very laudable length, but I shall simply observe, that after Minerva had proposed an owl, Cybele a lion, and Juno a goose, the thunder-bearer cut shut short the argument by proposing himself as a model. He then commenced the workmanship, and set each deity his allotted task. Mercury moulded the clay, Apollo baked it, and Vulcan, with the foreman of the Cyclops for his assistant, chiselled it into shape. Thus man was formed. With respect to woman, the mode of creation was precisely the same, except that Jupiter, finding he had more clay left than he could turn to good account, resolved to enlarge her tongue: a hint with which his own wife furnished him.

In manufacturing man a few awkward accidents occurred. As the deities were powerfully refreshed (oh! call it not drunk,) with nectar, it was not to be expected that they would be over methodical in their work, and accordingly, in creating a politician, they forgot to put in a conscience. Another individual was made without brains: but then he was only an Alderman—the first upon record, so that the erratum was perfectly characteristic. But the worst mistake of, all was the circumstance of one individual being sent upon earth WITHOUT A NOSE. The fact is, that at the moment of his birth, Vulcan had mislaid his tongs, so that, in the hurry of business, the poor man's proboscis was overlooked.

The deficiency was discovered too late for amendment (false noses not being then in fashion,) but to atone for his neglect, Jupiter promised the sufferer that his posterity should progressively lengthen in that particular feature, until it attained a climax of enormity.

66

Now to the distressing point. I, my public, am the descendant of that unhappy man. I am HE whose nose hath taken centuries to grow, and now bears upon its blushing front the honours of countless ancestors. With the accuracy of a Welshman, I have already traced my pedigree as far back as that Grecian, whose nasal celebrity, an epigram hath recorded, and who, it seems, married the lady mentioned in the Song of Solomon, whose nose was as the tower of Lebanon, which looketh towards Damascus," and have often heard my great grandmother (a gentlewoman in no wise given to romance,) confirm each circumstance of my descent. In the irritation of the moment, I have headed this narrative with "the folly and wickedness of having a long nose." And why? Trees, quoth an old philosopher, (and I have heard mine estimable friend Mr. Taylor repeat the proverb,) are best known by their fruits, and surely surely when the fruits of my apoplectical protuberance are contumely and malice, I may consider the cause as equal in "folly and wickedness," to the effect. Nay, I cannot even pass a day without engendering the most palpable instances of either offence. Strangers caricature and vilipend my deformity, and when they talk of having seen me, reverse the usual order of description in such terms as, "I met a nose, and a man walking behind it." Sometimes they advise me to tie it in a double knot: at others, to lend it for a bludgeon. So great, in short, is its notoriety, that the other day, Mr. William Charlton Wright proposed to me a treatise on Nosology, which I was to head with my own frontispiece.

Perhaps, as I have thus alluded to its inconveniences, the reader may require some description of my phenomenon. It forms then an equilateral triangle, verging to a point behind my eyes, and is so long that its extremity is out of sight. Bardolph's mountain was a hillock to it. In consequence, therefore, of its size, my mouth is always in shadow, and as ten thousand years have each added their benefactions, it has attained, in my person, its climax of predicted enormity. What, then, are the miseries of a Byron, compared to mine? All mankind join in sympathy with him, but who will feel for me? He may fly from the cause of his wretchedness, but mine always goes with me, and through life I am doomed to follow this polypetalous proboscis. And yet despite its circumference, I am by nature susceptible in my disposition, and have often titillated my enthusiasm by the idea of connubial happiness. I have sometimes hoped that the lustre of my soul might throw into shadow the lustre of my snout: that some damsel might be induced to compassionate my deformity, so that in due course we twain might become as one flesh. But, alas! I am a flower born to blush upon a barren bed. I shall propagate no more noses: even the breed must die with me.

As I walk along the streets, I monopolize all public astonishment. The school-boy avoids me as a monster, the old woman as a conjuror, and the very bailiff himself, instead of running after, runs away from

me. To terrify a bailiff! Conceive what a nose I must have. Even with my own servants I am an object of ridicule. If I ring the bell, they are sure (perdition seize their souls,) to see and to quit me with a grin. Not one of them ever stays with me a month. He would die of a risus hystericus if he did. In this distressing plight the blue. bottles that buzz about are my sole and constant companions. They swarm with affectionate familiarity around me; cultivate the acquaintance of my nose, and-but there flies one of them to the window. Hah! he is looking towards me, and I can tell by his face that he is buzzing a joke upon my misfortune. Damn him! I will crucify the scoundrel.

Forgive, my public, this exacerbation of a nervous temperament. I am no longer myself; the pride of manhood is crushed, for in the sensitive irritation of the moment, I fancy that I have become a laughingstock to the very vermin. "Me miserable! which way shall I fly?" Shall I go down into the great deeps? there too will my nose accompany me. Shall I take the wings of the morning, and flee unto the uttermost parts of the earth? thither will my nose flee also. How often, in the excess of sensibility, have I been tempted to exclaim with Shakspeare, "Oh, that this too, too stubborn flesh would melt;" and that thus melted down to orthodox dimensions, I might enjoy the novelty of peace. But no-such happiness is too perfect to be realized, and in the grave-in the cold grave alone, can my snout and myself find repose.

腐

MEMORY.

THERE are moments, when all that has floated away
On the current of years, to our vision comes back;
And the forms, which once danced in the warm summer-ray
Of our life, shine again in mortality's track.

'Tis Memory which gives to the spirit of man,

Half the joy that he feels, half the charms that invite;

Like the rainbow, it glorifies all in its

span,

And gilds e'en the tempest with colours of light.

'Tis the noblest of gifts that our reason can claim;

"Tis a spark from the fire which is burning above;

As a type of futurity's fulness, it came

From the Lord of the Heav'ns, and the Father of Love.

For what would our lot be if, whilst we possess'd,
In the joy of our fancy, the things we esteem'd,
Stern Fate should snatch from us the dearest and best,
As the trophies of war, to remain unredeem'd?