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receptacle of all the philosophy and literature of Germany. magna sonaturum !" "Vox et nihil præterea.

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North. When he writes again in the London Magazine, it will be well worth half-a-crown. By the way, Tickler, what do you think of the Continuation of Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets in that periodical?

Tickler. Mere quackery.* Why, the compiler manufactures a life of this and that poet from materials in every body's hands, and then boldly calls it "A Continuation of Dr. Johnson's Lives," &c. There seems no attempt to imitate his style at all. According to this notion, every thing that comes after another is a continuation of it. Is this quackery, or is it not, North?

North. I see no harm in a little quackery; all we editors are quacks. I acknowledge myself to be a quack.

Tickler. Ay, here carousing over Ambrosia and Nectar. But would you, publicly?

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North. Yes; on the top of St. Paul's-or in my own Magazine, that is, before the whole universe.—Buller, what are you about? Buller. Mr. North, have you seen a new periodical called the Album ?

North. I have; it promises well. The editor is manifestly a gentleman. The work is on beautiful paper, admirably printed, and the articles are well written, elegant and judicious. I think that in all probability the next number will be better. The editor has not attempted to make a splash-dash-flash all at once; but he has stuff in him, I know that, and so have some of his coadjutors. I know him and them extremely well; I pat them on the back, bid them be good boys, and always speak truth, and they will have nothing to fear.

Tickler. Nothing amuses me more than to see Magazines-which, after all, are not living beings, but just so many stitched sheets of letter-press, going to loggerheads and becoming personal. Up jumps Ebony's Magazine, and plants a left-handed lounge on the breadbasket of Taylor and Hessey's. That periodical strips instanter, a ring is formed, and the numbers are piping hot as mutton-pies. Can of Northamptonshire; Talfourd, then the undistinguished, but future author of "Ion ;" Wainwright, whose nom de plume was "Janus Weathercock," whose crimes subsequently supplied real tragic incidents, on which Bulwer founded his domestic romance-full of tragic interestcalled " Lucretia; or the Children of Night!" I think, too, that Haydon sometimes wrote for The London, which gave etchings from his pictures of Christ's Agony in the Garden, and the Entry into Jerusalem. With such an array of contributors, the London Magazine should have flourished. In the words of the Irish Keeners, when they apostrophize the departed whose remains lie cold before them, we might ask, "Ah, why did you die ?"-M.

* To continue Johnson's Lives of the Poets might have been "mere quackery," in North's opinion, but the Continuator was the Rev. Henry Francis Cary, the Translator of Dante, of the Odes of Pindar, and of the "Birds of Aristophanes."-In the last London edition of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, beautifully illustrated, the continuation by Cary has been incorporated, and gives additional value to a work, which, with many faults (for Johnson had numerous literary and personal prejudices), is one of the most remarkable books in the English language, not having been commenced until the author was seventy years old!-Cary died in 1844.-M. † It was edited by Charles Knight (assisted, I believe, by Charles Ollier, author of "Inesella") and was short-lived.-M.

any thing be more ridiculous? Colburn's Magazine, on the other hand, is a Corinthian, and won't show fight. All I mean is, that Magazines ought not to quarrel; there are snuff-dealers and pastrycooks enow for us all; and a sale will be found for us all at last.

North. Who the devil is more pugnacious than yourself, Tickler? Why, you lay about you like a bull in a china shop.

Tickler. Not at all. I have serious intentions of turning Quaker. If not certainly a clergyman. Quakers and parsons may be as personal as they choose. The same man might then either give or take the lie direct, who would, as a layman, have boggled at the retort

courteous.

North. What is the world saying now about me, do you think, my Tickler?

Tickler. They flatter you so in all directions, that you must become a spoiled child. A few weeks ago I met an elderly young woman in a coach going to Glasgow, who could not speak of you without tears. She said you were the most pathetic man she had ever read. The coach was crowded-there were seven of us inside, for we had kindly taken in a grazier during a hail-storm near Westcraigs, and there was not a single dissentient voice.

North. Did the grazier entertain the same sentiments as the lady? Tickler. He said, with a smile that would have graced a slaughterhouse, that it was not the first Stot you had knocked down. The lady seemed to understand the allusion, and blushed.

North. Did you proceed to Glasgow?

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Tickler. Yes; I had been elected an honorary member of the "Oriental Club of the West.' I went to take my seat. They are a set of most admirable despots. We all sat cross-legged like Turks or tailors, as if Glasgow had been Constantinople. I will give you a description of us for your next Number.

North. Do so. But then the London people will say it is local. And why not? London itself is the most provincial spot alive. Let our Magazine be read in the interior of Africa, along with either, or both of the two Monthlies, and which will seem most of a cosmopolite to the impartial black population? Ebony. The London people, with their theatres, operas, Cockneys, &c., &c., are wholly unintelligible out of their own small town. The truth must be told themLondon is a very small insignificant place.* Our ambition is, that our wit shall be local all over the world.

Tickler. It is so. It is naturalized in all the kingdoms of the earth. What can John Bull mean by saying he does not understand many of your allusions? He is mistaken. John Bull understands every thing worth understanding-and therefore, his knowledge of Ebony is complete. But even if he did not, is it not pleasant some

* Yes!-particularly in 1854, with a population of 2,500,000.-M.

1822.]

JOHN BULL AND EBONY.

173

times to see things under a tender, obscure, and hazy light? John Bull's notices to correspondents I do not always thoroughly understand; but I read them with delight: and I never lay down a No. of his paper without repeating that wise saw of Hamlet, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy." North. It is not at all like John Bull to accuse us of laughing occasionally at the Quarterly Review, "because there has been a quarrel between Blackwood and Murray." What do we care about Blackwood or Murray? Not one sous. But when, how, why, or where did these mighty personages quarrel? I never heard of it before last Wednesday.

Tickler. Don't you recollect, North, some years ago, that Murray's name was on our title-page; and that, being alarmed for Subscription Jamie, and Harry Twitcher,* he took up his pen and scratched his name out, as if he had been Emperor of the West, signing an order for our execution? The death-warrant came down, but we are still alive.

North. I do indistinctly remember reading something to that effect in a Whig newspaper, but of course I supposed it to be a lie; but, if true, what then? Are we angry now with a gentlemanly person like Mr. Murray, for attempting to cut his own throat some years ago ? Too absurd a great deal.

Tickler. Certainly. John Bull himself knows that we laugh at the Quarterly Review, only when it is laughable. He knows we admire it, and say so, when it is admirable. Of all the periodicals now flourishing or fading, BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE IS THE MOST IMPARTIAL. Yes, its illustrious editor despises all the chicanery of the trade. Trojan or Tyrian, that is, Murray or Constable,-Longman and Rees, or Taylor and Hessey,-Richardson of Cornhill, or Öllier of Bond-street,-with you they are held in no distinction. Their good books you toss up to the stars, and their bad you trample down to Tartarus.

North. John Bull also says, that the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews are works of a higher class than Blackwood's Magazine. am truly vexed to differ from him here. They are works of an older, thicker, and heavier, but not of a higher class. A review is not necessarily a higher work than a magazine-any more than a magazine is necessarily a higher work than a weekly newspaper-or a weekly newspaper than a daily one. Genius, learning, and virtue, constitute the only essential difference between work and work; and in these, we never heard it whispered, that this Magazine is inferior to any work, living or dead.

* Sir James Mackintosh and Henry Brougham.-M

Tickler. John Bull may be right after all. He is an incomprehensible mortal.*

North. The John Bull newspaper is a chariot armed with scythes -the Morning Chronicle is a market cart, out of which a big empty turnip or cabbage keeps trundling ever and anon against honest people's legs; but a dexterous turn of the ankle shys it into the kennel, and no harm done.

Tickler. However, in sober seriousness, you are an almost universal favorite. You burn like a gas-light among oil-lamps. The affection felt for you is a mixture of love, fear, and astonishment,—three emotions that play into each other's hands. The sex regard you with a mixed passion, of which the fundamental feature is love. Fear is the chief ingredient in the ruling passion towards you of literary gentlemen under fifty-and with Grey Bennet,† and old women in general-astonishment.

Buller. (Yawning.) Would you like to marry an actress?
Tickler and North. Whom are you speaking to?

Buller. To any body.

Tickler. Not for my first wife. After a private spouse or two, I should not care for marrying a pretty young actress to rub my bald pate in my old age; at the same time, a man should consider his posthumous fame. Now, if your relict, before you are well warm in your grave, marry an Irishman forty years younger, and three feet broader across the back than you her late dearly beloved husband, your posthumous fame receives a blow that demolishes it at once irretrievably-that should be considered.

Buller. Why, I begin to get drowsy-was I snoring?
Tickler. Like a trooper. Ring the bell, my buck.

North. What's to pay?

Enter MR. Ambrose.

Mr. Ambrose. I beg you won't mention it. I am so happy to see Mr. Buller in Scotland again, that I cannot think of making any charge for a few hundred oysters, and a mere gallon of gin.

North. Assist me on with my great-coat-there-there-easyeasy. Now, my cane. Give me your arm, Ambrose-am I quite steady?

Mr. Ambrose. As steady as York Minster, sir.

[They vanish into thin air.

* In those days Theodore Hook was the presiding genius of the John Bull newspaper, and made it overflow with wit, satire, scandal, humor, Toryism, and dashing personalities.-M.

Henry Grey Bennett, an active liberal, represented Shrewsbury in Parliament for many years, but on the discovery of certain criminal practices, fled to Paris, where he died.-M,

No. III.-MAY, 1822.

SCENE I.-TIME-Six o'clock, P. M. SCENE-The Blue Parlor. To MR. NORTH, standing in the centre of the room, in full fig, Enter MR. TIMOTHY TICKLER.

North. Good day, sir; I'm glad I'm not to dine quite alone. I began to think nobody was coming.

Tickler. I beg your pardon, Mr. North, but I really had no notion it was so far in the day. I took my chocolate as usual about two, and then went out into the Meadows* and wandered about.

North. About what, you old rogue, you? But no apologies. I'm glad you've made your appearance at least.

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Tickler. I hope you'll excuse my gaiters, North; I had not the least idea you were to sport a regular blow-out to-day. I looked into the other room, and saw such a smash of covers—and you in your silk stockings too!-I suppose you've been sporting your ankles with the Commissioner.

North. Not I; but I expect several strangers to dinner, and an editor is nothing without black breeches, you know-but you need not say a word about your dress. Upon my honor, that's a most natty surtout and your spatterdashes, why they are quite the potato. For a contributor you are well enough-and, after all, there's no ladies in the party.

Tickler. What! not even Mrs. M'Whirter! I'll do well enough as I am for your Kempferhausens and Mullions, et hoc genus, if that's all the party.

North. That's not it quite either, Mr. Timothy. I expect two or three gentlemen you have never been in company with, and I believe the meeting will give pleasure on all sides-There's Sir Andrew Wylie for one.‡

Tickler. What! he of that Ilk ? Old Wheelie ?

*The Meadows lie south of Heriot's and George Watson's Hospital's, in Edinburgh, and, with Bruntsfield Links, extend to about 200 acres, which are open for the recreation of the inhabitants, by virtue of royal grants to the city. The national game of Golf is played on the fine open downs of Bruntsfield Links.-M.

† Mrs. M'Whirter, Odoherty's ancient Philadelphia flame, never honored The Noctes with her presence. Her last appearance was-in The Tent.-M.

Galt, in the novel of "Sir Andrew Wylie, of that Ilk," (equivalent to "of Wylie") had narrated the adventures of a poor Scottish lad who went to London to seek his fortune, and returned home with riches and rank.-M.

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