forte is architecture. He engaged to write an article on the modern Gothic edifices of England, which he would have done quite tastefully, that is, if he did it at all. He ought to have done it, for it would have afforded him an opportunity of serving our publisher, by praising most deservedly the splendid book on Fonthill, which John Rutter, the oily Quaker of Shaftesbury, who (proh pudor) has fallen in love with virtû and heraldry, has got up for your gratification, my Public. It is certainly one of the handsomest books in this department of literature, but Shafto has not written a line, of course. He also undertook, but that shall be done by somebody, to write a paper on Forensic Architecture. Have you seen the New Courts that are constructing at Westminster for your accommodation, my dear Public? Mr. Soane has a very philosophical notion of the open administration of justice;-the Public with him is an abstract idea;-you are all-pervading and omni-present ;your necessities are of the Mab-fashion; your

"chariot is an empty hazel-nut

Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub ;"

Your place, in a court of justice, is on

"Lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees ;"

You are

"In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the fore-finger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little attornies*,”.

Mr. Soane has made no provision for your material nature, except you are subpoenaed, and then you can only get into the witness-box. Mr. Soane may be a great metaphysician, but his notion of your comforts, my dear Public, and the notions of Mr. Elliston, are widely different.

Of all the men in the world that I judged I could best count upon, was Martin Danvers Heaviside. From his nature and habits I relied upon his sheet as confidently as I should calculate upon the payment of a government debenture. Plague take the unwieldy dog. He fancied that I once laughed at his iron style, and to be revenged, he executes an Essay on Public Education in this fashion, accompanying his crudity with three portentous words, "Hammer it out."

"Henry VIII. thought Lilly had put question of Gram. at restordered, that no other but Lilly should be received in schoolsCountry has adopted Henry's opinions, not only with respect to Lilly, but generally as to whole system of education established at that time.-Our Public Institutions for education conducted essentially on plans then in use. This is odd-à priori.-No other art

* Of this reading I shall speak anon.

or science in state it was then-Corporal punishment in schools established temp. Hen. VIII.-Manners of age sour and frowning.See Henry's Britain for description of manners of parents to their children-Brute force the only instrument of government-Prerogative of Kings and Fathers equally stern-Always a connexion between domestic and political goverment-Ascham-(vide life) represents Lady Jane Grey talking of "pinches, nips, and bobs" given to her by her father and mother-When young ladies were pinched, natural that boys should be flogged-Whipping of female offenders abolished by act of parliament-Birch as much in vogue as ever at Eton and Westminster-Strange how anxious we are to save all sentient beings, from felons to oxen, from the lash, except our own children. Quære. Do the floggers propose to correct vice or to inculcate fortitude? - The two ends opposite. Is the whole world better under severe punishment ?-Do we find the West Indian Negro working as hard under the lash, as the English Labourer in his freedom?-Can National Schools lay down the birch in safety, and does it continue necessary to the prosperity of the higher Institutions?—Are horses and dogs better trained by harshness or kindness? Is the son of an English gentleman the only animal who must be broke by brute force?-Latin and Greek, it is assumed, are revolting studies, and Johnson says a boy must be flogged into them. Are they so?-Then perish Latin and Greek. "Let the dead languages die, and be dd to boot," as Cobbett says."

Fie, Mr. Heaviside.My dear Public, I thus let you into the secret of Mr. Heaviside's mode of composition, to be revenged for his insufferable idleness. He might have made a capital article of these memoranda-but he is sulky.

N. B. Since I wrote this, I have received, in company with a conciliatory turkey, by the Bury St. Edmund's Coach, an article written by Mr. Heaviside, entitled "Recollections of Abraham Gentian, Esq." He is spending Christmas with his country friends, and, " flown with insolence and wine," has taken it into his head that he has a capacity for the funny. Poor man! You will set him right, my Public, But I shall not reject him. We must encourage these aspirants, and give you a sheet sometimes, where

"New-born Nonsense first is taught to cry."

Lastly, my dear Public, what may I say for Peregrine Courtenay? My honoured friend writes thus:

You can do without a Castle Vernon for this Number. Put her ladyship into a fever, or a steam-packet, or any thing else.

I shall do no such thing. Do without the article, I must: but I shall not scandalize our patroness. She is neither in or a steam packet." She is in her own fair castle, and there doth she

66

a fever

66

State in wonted manner keep,

We have had three or four delightful meetings, where the cloquence of Tristram, and the humour of Murray, and the bon-hommie of Montgomery, almost compensated for the loss of Vyvyan's laugh and Villars' sneer. But Peregrine has deserted his post, and I shall not presume to usurp his function. And now, my dear Public, that I have been charitably informing you of the sins of some of my friends, I must take the same freedom with myself, and detail to you a few of my own infirmities. I am a very hasty and indifferent writer, and occasionally a very heedless Editor. There were some woeful blunders in our last Number. The sin that is most heavy upon my conscience is that with which Montgomery has to charge me. There was an exquisite sonnet of his in the very last leaf of our Volume, marred, absolutely ruined, by my carelessness. His MS. addresses a lady thus :

"Thou hast the vision and the soul divine."

The lying types have it,

"Then least the vision and the soul divine."

What shall I say for this?-I fell asleep at midnight, on the 29th of September, over our last leaf; and Mr. Clowes' steam-press would not wait for my waking.

I have to apologize to Haselfoot, too; and I may as well have done with it, by allowing him to utter his complaints to you, my dear Public :

My good Frederic.

-

Can I forgive you for the punctual wounds you have inflicted on my sense in the last Number? In a set of stanzas near the end, you have, by the insertion of a semicolon, destroyed the sense of the three last lines in the composition. Read:

Half sound, half silence, to the listening ear

There comes a tingling murmur, &c.

In a sonnet which accompanies it, the same intrusion occurs. after "day." And what, in the name of Turnebues and George Burges, could have induced you, in the comparison of a sleepy young lady to a rose hanging its head in a shower, to substitute for the last, the unmeaning word "bower?" Pape! as Gifford says in his notes on Massinger.

My dear Haselfoot, you must not be angry about the semicolons-I will make a point in future of looking sharply after these matters. My compliments to the sleepy young lady; tell her I sympathized with her.

From these confessions, my good Public, you must not think that I am a supremely careless fellow. I will tell you of some errors that, but for my extraordinary vigilance, would have put us to far greater shame. Do you remember in the first canto of Tryamour, where Montgomery, quoting Keats, says "see his beautiful ode to a Grecian urn?". The witty

printers read him thus-" see his beautiful ode to a Grecian In Murray's most interesting treatise on the Heathen Philosophy you will find mention, in a passage referring to Esculapius, of the visible presence of the God in the form of a Snake"-the good compositor thought a God should appear in a more captivating shape, and therefore produced him in the form of a Drake." I have spared you a hearty laugh (forgive me, my public) at a "flagrant rose" at "oilfactory nerves"-and at "the aromatic principles of the English Constitution." I have spared Gerard, too, the misery of saying to Miss Christine T-t, "you've got your immorality"—instead of " your immortality"—or to Mrs. L, "don't call my rhymes immortal”—instead of “immoral.” The printers will suit him to a t when he wants to express the very reverse of what he means. My good friends of the press sent me in this very article a new reading of Shakspeare, which ought to be introduced into the next edition of Malone; and which I have suffered to remain, as it has made me witty in spite of myself:

"In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the fore finger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little attornies."

You will judge, my Public, that in the correction of the errors mentioned, and many unnamed, I have used some vigilance.

And now, my dear Public, that the new year is approaching-that you are enjoying yourself in every variety of pudding and pastime that the new Novel is speeding as fast as the winds will permit, to make the tea-table more attractive—that Rossini is coming to warm you, and Captain Parry to cool you-I trust you will sympathize with me. I am spending the merriest Christmas that proofs and devils will permit me to enjoy I am anticipating the delight you will feel in one of the best Magazines that was ever put to press-I am chuckling over the comparative ease with which I shall, after to-morrow, apply myself to the happy duty of editing a New Edition of Vol. I.-I am looking laughingly under my eyes at our publisher, who is regretting that we did not print an additional five thousand of No. III. to meet the innumerable demands from all parts of the civilized (Enter Publisher's Boy.) Boy. "St. Ronan's Well, Sir!"

Ed. "God bless the steam-packet."

Good night, my dear Public.

Your's ever affectionately,

(In the absence of Mr. Frederic Vernon)

29th December, 1823.

PATERSON AYMER.
Sub-Editor.

12

CONFESSIONS OF A DUELLIST.

I THINK Johnson is of opinion, that a man ought not to be stigmatized as a liar whose offence does not extend beyond a single falsehood. Perhaps, therefore, I am bearing too hard on myself in taking the name of duellist, for I never fought but once, and I am now (I was going to say thank God,) too old to be called again into the field.

I do not intend to write a sermon against the practice of fighting duels, nor a flippant essay in its praise. I am only going to tell my own story, which may, for aught I know, furnish grounds by which the advocates on either side will justify their own opinions. This, at least, is the usual consequence of offering facts to the attention of theorists.

I believe myself, as who does not, a man of peaceable demeanour. I set out in life with the determination never to give an insult however provoked-never to resent the conduct of others, unless offence was undeniably intended-and never to submit to an insult when the fact was clearly ascertained. By the aid of my two first rules, I passed over the period of youth without once finding it necessary to resort to my third. My tastes and pursuits, it is true, did not lead me much into society where I was in any great danger of quarrelling, and to this circumstance I owe perhaps as much as to my good rules. Be this as it may, I never received a challenge in my life, and I was married and a father before I had found it necessary to send one. At length, however, my hour came. A man of higher rank than myself thought proper to use language towards me which I had not provoked, and to which I could not submit without irretrievable degradation. I waited until the next day to give my opponent time for his passions to cool, and I then sent a friend to him to require an explanation. He refused to make the slightest atonement, but instantly referred my second to his own, and a meeting was appointed for the following morning.

I was walking, when my friend returned, in the Templegardens. It was a beautiful day in June; the spring, I recollect, had been late and cold, and we had but just begun to taste the enjoyments of summer-they were heightened by all the zest of novelty. Every object around me, animate and inanimate, spoke of peace and happiness. The verdure, even in the heart of London, had lost nothing of its freshness. The river was bright and sparkling, and the wherries shot down the tide, bearing their joyous cargoes gaily along.

The garden was crowded with groups of the young and