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If I could but for five minutes, take from the author of the Waverley Novels, that pen so pencil-like in pourtraying the minutest parts of ancient attire, I would describe the body clothes of this matron of Mary-le-bone; but as my pictures are only sketches, and dabs of the pound-brush, I content myself with saying, that the several dresses and decorations of her person were in keeping with the machinery of her head and at a certain hour of each day, she threw over her rustling habiliments a thin snow white linen wrapper (tied at precise intervals, with strings of the same colour) which descended from her throat to her ancles. In this costume she was daily wont to mount herself upon an elevated stool, near a wide fire-place, to preside over the urchins of her husband's academy, while they ate their dinners; which ceremony was performed in the hall of the mansion-an old rambling house, allied to the Gothic-at long tables covered with cloths, most accurately clean, and with wholesome boiled and roast most excellently cooked. It was certainly not a display of the sublime and beautiful, but it was a scene of the pompous and the pleasing, when this comely old hen sat in state, watching over the merry brood of chickens under her care. Nothing could be better, than her whole arrangement of this puerile refractory, nothing better than the taste and judgment with which she restrained the clamour, but allowed the mirth, of the boys, during the repast, and for the repast itself—Oh! what batter puddings!

AN OXONIAN'S ARRIVAL AT THE UNIVERSITY IN THE YEAR 1830.

THE retainers in my establishment, at Oxford, were a scout and a bed-maker; so that, including myself, I might have said with Gilbert" my company is but small, we are but three." There was this difference, indeed, between Captain Gilbert and myself— he insisted on dividing booty with his gang, but I submitted to be robbed by my adherents. My two mercenaries, having to do with a perfect green-horn, laid in all the articles for me which I wanted -wine, tea, sugar, coals, candles, bed and table linen, with many useless et cætera, which they told me I wanted, charging me for every thing full half more than they had paid, and then purloining from me full half of what they had sold. Each of these worthy characters, who were upon a regular salary, introduced an assistant (the first his wife, the second her husband), upon no salary at all; —the auxiliaries demanding no further emolument than that which arose from their being the conjugal helpmates of the stipendiary despoilers. Hence I soon discovered the policy of always employing a married scout, and bed-maker, who are married to each other; for, since almost all the College menials are yoked in matrimony, this rule consolidates knavery, and reduces your minage to a couple of pilferers, instead of four. Your scout it must be owned, is not an animal remarkable for sloth; and when he considers the quantity

of work he has to slur over with small pay, among his multitude of masters, it serves, perhaps, as a slave to his conscience, for his petty larcenies. He undergoes the double toil of boots at a wellfrequented inn, and a waiter at Vauxhall, in a successful season. After coat brushing, shoe cleaning, and message running, in the morning, he has upon an average, half a dozen supper parties to attend, in the same night, and at the same hour;--shifting a plate here, drawing a cork there ;-running to and fro, from one set of chambers to another;—and almost solving the Irishman's question of "how can I be in two places at once, unless I was a bird."

The bed-maker whom I originally employed was rather more rapacions than her sister's harpies; for before she commenced the usual depredations upon me, she had the ingenuity to rob me of that which did not enrich her, and made me very uncomfortable indeed! The article of which she contrived to despoil me was neither more nor less than a night's sleep. This aforesaid theft was committed, as the deponent hereby setteth forth, in manner and form following:-My spirits had been flurried during the day, from the revolution of my state; launched from the School Dock, into the wide ocean of a University; matriculated by the ViceChancellor, in the morning-left by my father at noon-dining in the Hall, at three o'clock, unknowing and almost unknown-informed that I must be in the Chapel, next day, soon after sun-rise -elated with my growing dignity-depressed by boyish mauvias honte-among the Sophs, dreading College discipline-forestalling College jollity-ye Gods! what a conflict of passion does all this create in a booby boy! I was glad on retiring early to rest, that I might ruminate, for five minutes over the important events of the day, before I fell fast asleep. I was not then in the habit of using a night lamp, or burning a rush-light; so having dropped the extinguisher upon my candle, I got into bed, and found to my dismay, that I was reclining in the dark, upon a surface very like that of a pond in a hard frost. The jade of a bed-maker had spread the spickspan new sheeting over the blankets, fresh from the linendraper's shop; unwashed, unironed, unaired, with all its imperfections on its head.

Through the tedious hours of an inclement January night, I could not close my eyes; my teeth chattered, my back shivered; I thrust my head under the bolster; drew up my knees to my chin; it was all useless; I could not get warm; I turned again and again; at every turn a hand or a foot touched upon some new cold place; and at every turn the chill glazy clothwork crepitated like iced buckram. God forgive me, for having execrated the authoress of my calamity !-but I verily think that the meekest of Christians who prays for his enemies, and for mercy upon all "Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics," would in his orisons, in such a night of misery, make a specific exception against his bedmaker. I rose betimes languid and feverish, hoping that the

customary morning oblations would somewhat refresh me, but on taking up a towel, I might have exclaimed with Hamlet "Ay there's the rub !"--it was just in the same state as the linen of the bed, and as uncompromising a piece of huckaback of a yard long, and three quarters wide, (I give the usual dimensions) as ever presented its superficies to the skin of a gentleman. Having washed and scrubbed myself in the bed-chamber till I was nearly flayed with friction, I proceeded to my sitting-room, where I found a blazing fire, and a breakfast very neatly laid out; but I again encountered the same rigour! The tea equipage was placed upon a substance which was snow white, but unyielding as a skin of new parchment from a law stationer's; it was the eternal unwashed linen! and I dreaded to sit down to hot rolls and butter, lest I should cut my shins against the edge of the table cloth.

A SAYING OF MY UNCLE'S.

WHAT is the relation of a member of Parliament to a Pawnbroker? -The same as that of any man who gives pledges and spouts.

ROUGE ET NOIR.

PORT wine to day, black draught to-morrow.

DOGMA, BY A D. D.

OLD port with a crust, is meat and drink.

IT is said that a fast young gentleman of this town heats his shaving water by "the fire of his own genius."

A QUEER looking customer inserted his head into an auction store, and looking gravely at the "knight of the hammer," inquired "Can I bid, sir ?" "Certainly," replied the auctioneer," you can bid." Well, then," said the wag, walking off, "I bid you

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good night."

SOME one was asked-"What works he had in the press ?" he replied "Why the History of the Bank, with notes; the Art of Cookery, with plates; and the Science of Single-stick, with wood cuts."

A PERSON meeting an old man with silver hairs, and very black whiskers, asked him- -"How it happened that his beard was not so grey as the hair of his head." Because," said the old gentleman, "it is twenty years younger."

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WILLIS, in speaking of the West Indies, says " The fields of sugar canes are so unprovided with fences, that all a wayfarer has to do, when he wants refreshment, is to cut a stick and suck." Dobbs, who has tried it on, says-" The better way is, to suck and cut stick, especially if the overseer keeps a bull dog.".

THE DRUNKARD'S CHARACTER,

FROM a volume of pamphlets, lettered "Miscellaneous Sheets," presented by George III. to the British Museum, (the date is 1646):—“ A drunkard is the annoyance of modesty; the trouble of civility; the spoil of wealth; the distraction of reason. He is the only brewer's agent; the tavern and alehouse benefactor; the beggar's companion; the constable's trouble. He is his wife's woe; his childrens' sorrow; his own shame. In summer he is a tub of swill, a spirit of sleep, a picture of a beast, and a monster of a man."

BIOGRAPHY OF MAN.

But not alike to every mortal eye

Is this great scene unveil'd for since the claims
Of social life to diff'rent labours urge

The active powers of man, with wise intent
The hand of nature on peculiar minds
Imprints a diff'rent bias, and to each
Decrees its province in the common toil.

To some she taught the fabric of the sphere,
The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars,
The golden zones of Heaven: to some she gave
To weigh the moment of eternal things,
Of time and space, and fat's unbroken chain
And wills quick impulse: others by the hand
She led o'er vales and mountains.

AKENSIDE.

GOLDSMITH'S REMARKS ON THE PRESS-1674. THE success of the comedy of She Stoops to Conquer, produced a most illiberal personal attack on the author in one of the public prints:

"Lest it may be supposed that I have been willing to correct in others an abuse of which I have been guilty myself, beg leave to declare, that in my life, I never wrote or dictated a single paragraph, letter, or essay, in a newspaper, except a few moral essays under the character of a Chinese, about ten years ago, in the Ledger; and a letter, to which I signed my name, in the St. James's Chronicle. If the liberty of the press, therefore, has been abused, I have had no hand in it.

"I have always considered the press as the protector of our freedom-as a watchful guardian capable of uniting the weak against the encroachments of power. What concerns the public, most properly admits of a public discussion. But of late, the press has turned from defending public interests to making in-roads on private life; from combating the strong, to overwhelming the feeble. No condition is now too obscure for its abuse, and the protector is become the tyrant of the people. In this manner the freedom of the press is beginning to sow the seeds of its own dissolution; the

great must oppose it from principle, and the weak from fear, till, at last, every rank of mankind shall be found to give up its benefits, content with security from its insults.

"How to put a stop to this licentiousness, by which all are indiscriminately abused, and by which vice consequently escapes in the general censure, I am unable to tell. All I could wish is, that as the law gives us no protection against the injury, so it should give calumniators no shelter, after having provoked correction. The insults which we receive before the public, by being more open, are the more distressing; by treating them with silent contempt, we do not pay a sufficient deference to the opinion of the world; by recurring to legal redress, we too often expose the weakness of the law, which only serves to increase our mortification by failing to relieve us. In short, every man should singly consider himself as a guardian of the liberty of the press, and as far as his influence can extend, should endeavour to prevent its licentiousness becoming at last the grave of its freedom."

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THE colours at most of the Irish elections were black and blueworn principally on the legs and arms of the contending parties. -Punch.

A LATE writer thinks the nightingale a very over estimated vocalist. "His reputation he owes to his eccentricity in singing at midnight, when nobody would think of making melody except darkies, and medical students practising on the trombone." This is a new view of the question, and it may be the correct one.

HOBBES' PHILOSOPHY.-How to make Pot-boil.

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