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CHAPTER XV.

---

“LITERARY GAZETTE” TO THE CLOSE OF 1817.

A spotless leaf; but thought, and care, And friends, and foes—in foul and fair— Have “written strange defeature” there.

And Time, with heaviest hand of all— Like that fierce writing on the wall— Has stamp’d sad dates he can’t recall.

Disjointed members—sense unknit— Huge reams of letters—shreds of wit— Compose the mingled mass of it.—Charles Lamb.

In my thirtieth number a manuscript narrative of Captain Tuckey’s voyage to the Congo, which had been procured for me by a friend, at no very great cost, was begun, and turned out one of those incidents in newspaper progress which give them an upward tendency in a ratio that can hardly be accounted for. Their rapid rise from such causes is often inexplicable; their decline is generally a slower process. The “Sun” and “Courier” were nearly equal in repute and circulation when the treason and execution of Colonel Despard occurred. The “Courier” made a striking effort to get all the particulars, and publish the earliest account of every circumstance to the very death; and from that date it rose in circulation, at the expense of the “Sun,” which declined. In all respects the journals were comparatively the same as before; but the public impulse was given, and

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there was no use in trying to stem it, unless another chance might occur to turn the tide by a similar fortunate exertion. On the return of Parry’s Arctic expedition, I had the privilege of boarding the ships as they came up the river,—collected all the intelligence I could, and on the Saturday, (by tremendous labour, extending over sixty hours without sleep,) I presented the public with a good account of the voyage, about which “all the world” was so interested. The sale of the Gazette was lifted above five hundred by that effort, which, please to observe, in these piping times of shilling sheets, was equal to about a thousand pounds a year, besides the upward hoist and improved expectances. I have known the success or failure of many publications depend upon what one would think trivial matters of this kind; therefore I would say that the “wide-awake” principle and system is absolutely essential to journalist prosperity. Sleeping will not do.

My publication of the Congo narrative was, however, attended by some—I would say, to me—rather distressing than merely annoying consequences. It led to an angry misunderstanding between me and Sir John Barrow, for whom my regard and respect was always of a high order. He supposed that the Admiralty orders against making public the particulars of a Government expedition, were violated by some officer who was in duty bound by them; and his resentment was warm. He suspected one individual, and pointed his ire against him and his claims, which merged in a widow and children, for he fell a victim to the climate. At the time, I was utterly ignorant of the original source of my information, and indignant at its publication affecting the interests of any supposed informant; and thus Sir John Barrow and I had a hearty quarrel. Ultimately I discovered that the Secretary of the Admiralty was wrong in his

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suspicion, and I informed him of the fact, which put matters right and absolved the presumed offender. Our agreement was adjusted, but, for a while, we were not so cordial as before, as, in truth, the “Literary Gazette” numbers injuriously anticipated the novelty of one of Murray’s customary quartos, and was resented accordingly. But time restored the friendly relations between Barrow and me; and few, out of the circle of his own near relatives, admired or regretted him more than I did when he was taken away in the fulness of years and honourable and well-earned public estimation. My informant turned out to be an inferior captain’s or purser’s clerk, who had nothing—not even an implied assent—to restrain him within the rules of the service.

My commencement with the “Gazette” was also much and effectually aided by the powerful contributions of my friends Dr. Croly, Mr. Richard Dagley, and Mr. William Carey, a man of great judgment in the Fine Arts and an able writer. Mr. Dagley was an artist, whose information and taste in all that regarded the Arts, as well as his general talents, poetic fancies, and playful humour, were devoted to my work till the day of his death; for many years in conjunction with Walter Henry Watts,* and of both of whom I shall have much to say as I proceed. Of the value of the co-operation of an author so distinguished as Dr. Croly—happily continued to me during a long period of intimate intercourse, as occasion offered—I need not speak; and of a similar nature was the assistance I derived from Mr. Carey, from whom the

* The first volume of the Annual, Biography, and Obituary, by Mr. Watts, was published by Messrs. Longman this year, and the work was long continued by his able and honest pen. His other publications on the Arts, &c, were all equally honourable to his heart and head.

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two following letters illustrate the spirit of our earliest connection:—

And even within my first few months my pages were enriched by the productions of Crabbe, Miss Mitford, Neale, Gaspey, Mrs. Rolls, Howard, R.A., Wilkins, architect, and others, whose writings in verse and prose largely helped to stamp a sterling and popular character upon the publication,

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and establish it in growing esteem. It was especially strong in treating of the Fine Arts, which had hitherto been so strangely neglected by the Press, and a love for which prompted me to use my every effort to procure their competent and ample illustration. The date of the following note, besides tickets to attend and report the Academy lectures, will show how soon these efforts were begun:—

It was in the same way, as will appear in the sequel, that I gradually succeeded in opening up the previously closed sources of intelligence in the various walks of literature and science; and obtained for the public ready access to that intelligence so common now, but which, up to the time of the “Literary Gazette,” had either been unsought or inaccessible. My personal acquaintance with the leading men of the period, and, I may add, my own

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standing and estimation in the world, were the means of obtaining such facilities for the regular dissemination of every species of useful and entertaining knowledge congenial to the design of my journal as had never before been attempted. The importance of these services was gradually felt; and the present highly improved system of our periodical literature may, in great measure, be traced and attributed to the pioneering of so humble an individual as myself.

Meanwhile the interesting Congo Voyage, accompanied by woodcuts, and David Hume’s original letters, kept on a series of popular attraction.

At a small evening party given by Dr. (then Mr.) Croly, I had the pleasure of first meeting the celebrated French tragedian, Talma; and it was a night to be recorded for its dramatic and literary enjoyment. Talma was in great force (as it is called), and gave us his opinions in the frankest and most emphatic manner: speaking English, acquired during his younger residence in the country, with very little of foreign accent, and that little only contributing to add a degree of piquancy to his remarks. Of John Kemble he was an enthusiastic admirer, whilst of Kean he spoke slightingly, as deficient in comprehensive intellect and dignity. To show this, and illustrate the truth of his appreciation of the English stage, he recited several passages from our great dramatists, and among the rest, Hamlet’s celebrated soliloquy—“To be or not to be, that is the question!” In some lines he imitated the peculiarities of our actors, but there was in the whole a peculiarity of his own— a French peculiarity in tone and action, which rendered the exhibition most original and entertaining. His public recitations, in union with Madame Georges, could afford no idea of the delights of this private treat.

In September I became the depository and exponent of

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Mr. Wilkins’ views of the topography of Athens, on which a spirited controversy ensued between him and Mr. Barrow. Mr. Wilkins and I thenceforward carried on an amicable correspondence, till my earnest opposition to the site, architecture, and building of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, the perpetration of which unseemly job I in vain endeavoured to prevent, brought on a fracas and complaints and hostilities of a rather bitter description.

China, Japan, and New Zealand, still countries of much curiosity and interest, were copiously brought forward by reviews and extracts from the works of Mr. (now Sir Henry) Ellis, the Russian Captain Golownin, and Mr. J. L. Nicholas; and it may be conceded that such features are the best proofs of the utility of publications of this class.

I observe from a letter from Fife House, and signed “R. Willimott,” that I had been seeking some Government employment this autumn, which Lord Liverpool, however, did not bestow upon me; and I was consequently left to very narrow resources in my quiet and pretty residence, Rose Cottage, Old Brompton, whither I had removed from a short abode in Little Chelsea, whilst the cottage was getting ready. At Little Chelsea, however, at my first occupancy, my proximate neighbour was the exiled Princess of Condé, with whom the Duchess d’Angouleme frequently stayed. The establishment was upon a very moderate scale, and the daughter of the murdered king of France dressed little better than a milkmaid, which rank indeed she much resembled in her form, and walking about in thick-soled boots. She looked well in health, but had no appearance of gaiety, or good spirits; nor was it melancholy, but I may picture it as a kind of gentle and subdued reserve, which communicated a grave and serious air to her countenance and demeanour. I was several times admitted to call,

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on immaterial matters connected with the neighbourhood, and am thus able to paint my slight sketch from the original.

But I have a remarkable anecdote to append to this notice, which I think eminently characteristic of the individual who is now playing the highest role in the French nation, viz., the President, Prince Louis Napoleon. During his last residence in London, he was one of a chiefly literary party who spent a charming day with Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, at his villa on the Thames above Fulham; and at which Mr. Disraeli, Count D’Orsay, Mr. George Bankes, Mr. Fonblanque, “assisted,” and which was also graced by the presence of accomplished and distinguished ladies. Among the diversions of the déjeûner, everybody strolling about the grounds and doing what they listed, I had the honour to be taken into a wherry by the Prince, and rowed for half an hour upon the river by him. It must be confessed that he caught crabs, and did not exhibit so much skill as to afford me a presentiment that he would so soon, or ever, scull himself into the position of despotic ruler over thirty millions of people! In short, I was rather glad when I got out of the boat and found myself once more on the lawn, or terra firma.

On the return to town, the Prince was courteous enough to give me a seat in his open carriage, and we happened to come by the road through Little Chelsea; our conversation having turned on an idea propounded by Mr. Bankes, that the vessel which brought the remains of Napoleon from St. Helena, might produce a prodigious effect if the sails were painted with armorial bearings and other emblems, such as the History of England recorded of the ship of the great Earl of Warwick! This strange proposition was received with more than the Prince’s usual taciturnity, but, in passing by the quondam abode of the royal Bourbons,

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when I incidentally pointed out the house, I found that I had at once awakened extraordinary emotions. He questioned me, again and again, about every particular I could remember; and, not content with my first answers, repeated the same inquiries, apparently with an increase of wonder and interest. It was as if he could not bring himself to believe that the true ancient regal race of France could have dwelt in so humble a tenement; it was, in short, an involuntary tribute of the soul, paid to legitimacy. Proud as he was of his own blood, and ambitious of restoring it, in his own person, to the utmost pinnacle of power, he could not help feelings allied to those of the parvenu; and I rarely met him on future occasions, that he did not, if opportunity served, recur to the subject.*

But to return to my narrative. Anno Domini 1817 wore away, and with it the poor fund with which I had got out of the thraldom of the “Sun;” so hateful to a disposition like mine. As I have been reproached with extravagance, I will pause for a moment at this point, to state my position. By the failure of Messrs. Whitehead’s bank, and the loss I sustained in my compromise with Taylor, I was thrown much behind-hand with the world; and above three years elapsed before the “Literary Gazette” furnished enough of profit for even the most economical subsistence; the past was unfortunate, the present pinching, and the future only cheered by Hope. In fact, I was so encumbered, that it would have been far wiser and better to have appeared in the Government “London Gazette,” than in Colburn’s “Literary;” but who, with principles of integrity, and confidence in their capacity to improve their condition, could ever reconcile themselves to such a step, till too late to

* See Postscript at the end of the volume.

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benefit them? The crafty and experienced know how to stop in time, with little hurt, and start fair again; whilst the well-meaning and uninitiated struggle on to ruin and reproach. From this time, during a large portion of my life, I paid thirty or forty shillings for every pound, and got plentifully belied and abused by my unsatiated plunderers.

Heaven knows, I had law actions enow, and not so amusing as one I was threatened with for refusing to insert a dissolution of partnership; the advertiser having mistaken my Gazette for the official organ conducted by my friend Robert Clarke, and insisting on my printing the notice, under the heaviest of penalties; and Clarke, in his turn, had a more laughable communication, which was intended for me, in the shape of a letter from Yorkshire desiring him to insert among his Extraordinary Gazette news the birth of a child in that county, with six fingers on its hands and six toes on its feet, and other phenomena exceedingly interesting to its astonished parents. It was handed over or placed at the feet of its rightful owner, and I think I did print it among my varieties.

To finish this year, as far as I am concerned, I will add two of my own sportive contributions in the months of August and October. The first is a letter to myself.

“My dearest Friend,

“Though this is the first letter I ever wrote to you, I trust you will excuse the familiarity of the address, and the more especially as I can assure you it can boast of greater truth than most ‘dears’ at the top of epistolary correspondence. But I hear you exclaim, Why take the trouble of writing to me, since you may at any private time let me know what you desire in person? To this my answer is, that I am of opinion a formal and public communication will

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have more weight on your mind; and since I don’t grudge the trouble, you need not grudge the postage between us.

“To come to the point, then, I am credibly informed and believe that you have undertaken the responsible office of editing the ‘Literary Gazette;’ purporting to fill a chasm in the overstocked periodical literature of this scribbling era, and to lay as it were a moving panorama of the learning, arts, sciences, political history, and moral and intellectual and ornamental advance of the age continually before your readers, ‘Audentes fortuna juvat!’ but, my good fellow, the strength of Hercules, united to the talents of the admirable Crichton, and the calculating powers of the American boy, would not suffice for the execution of so vast a task. I am afraid you have over-rated your capabilities, as my talkative friend in the Chapter Coffee-house calls them. Nay, even if you possess the allies you muster on the parade of your prospectus, will the confederation be firm and united in the field of the work? Can you trust in your regulars, and rely on your volunteers? If not, the Lord have mercy on your soul, for you will soon have a host of enemies. Ah! Mr. Editor! Mr. Editor! I am afraid you have not well considered either your difficulties or your dangers, ‘Ira quæ tegitur nocet;’ but comfort ye! this is only one-half of your troubles. You review new books forsooth; every censure makes an author and his partisans your foes. You criticise the drama; have you forgotten, or did you never attend to what Shakspeare says of the players’ good words, ‘After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.’ You will be pilloried in a farce, caricatured by Matthews, and transfixed by as many thousand shafts of ridicule as the wit of modern dramatic writers can supply. You also criticise the arts: artists are even more irritable

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than the ‘irritabile genus vatum;’ you will look well on a signpost. You have sketches of society and manners; venture not to censure or reprove, or there will be no society for you, and your manners may be practised in solitude. Your very negatives will embarrass and plague you as much as your positives. You avoid politics; but I hear as many condemn this abstinence as a blank in your publication, as approve it for keeping out debasing humours. Every pseudo-poet, whose unfledged muse you affront by not admitting her eyases to your nest, will hold you in mortal hatred. If your literary intelligence is not a string of puffs, publishers will abominate as much as authors abhor you. They will print against you gratis (a rare practice with them) all that revenge will write, and you had better be broiled like St. Bartholomew than endure these tortures. If you do not compose panegyrics on the wholesome common place of ‘de mortuis nil nisi bonum,’ abstain, as you value your miserable life, from biography: though the evil that men do lives after them, there would be no discretion, which is the better part of valour, in allowing its vitality in your pages. In fine, your case is desperate, and if one bard exclaimed

“‘Ah me! what perils do environ The man who meddles with cold iron,’

you may with greater truth add in agony—

“‘Ten thousand greater perils diddle The ass who doth with goose-quill meddle.’

“I remember, and well may you, a sorrowful sight—a hive of bees, with an infernally mischievous Queen Semiramis at their head, took it into their fancy to form a settlement on the jowl of an honest, unsuspecting mastiff, who was

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lying asleep in the sun, dreaming no doubt ubi mel ibi apes; but he was dreadfully mistaken, for the Philistines were soon upon his capital, where there was no honey. The poor dog howled, shook his ears, scampered, rolled, foamed, and maddened; but in vain! the pestilent tormenters were irremoveable. His cries availed not; they filled his mouth, and choked his throat; his efforts were fruitless—they blinded his eyes, and clustered round his brain, and stung him to distraction. You and I alone saw, and pitied, and tried to save him; but, alas! our work of pain and danger was not crowned with the success due to our humanity. It is true, we drowned off the persecutors, but at the same time we almost drowned the persecuted; and when at last he was freed from his hellish periwig, the torments it had bequeathed, like the shirt of Nessus, were so intolerable, that it was mercy which sped the mortal bullet through the heart of the victim. Need I apply this remembrance of our early life to you, in whose fate I take so warm an interest? No! I leave it to yourself, who are just as able to feel as I am to enforce its appositeness. I have only to assure you, that if, in spite of my warning, you determine to persevere in your mad attempt, you shall have my best aid, and the ardent co-operation of my friends. But oh! my dear sir, be otherwise advised.

“‘Vive sine invidiâ, mollesque inglorius annos Exige,’

“You will then be happy with one another, for you may be assured that,

“I am,
“Your sincere friend,
“And unchangeable well-wisher,

“THE EDITOR OF THE LITERARY GAZETTE.

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“P.S. I desire my best compliments may be presented to Tom and Dick. I hope you have succeeded, as indeed you ought, with Aldeborontiphoscophornio; but this is no time for private matters. Adieu.

“E. L. G.”

The second is a historical sketch of the Enneabionians, a newly-discovered nation in the interior of New Holland.

“‘Long were to tell What I have seen——’

“One day in summer, being determined to visit my friend C——, at Richmond, I took a seat in the stage-coach at the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, selecting, after minute inquiries, the most steady coachman, as is my general rule, by which, though I have travelled as much as a thousand miles within the last ten years, I have only been overturned fifty-four times, videlicet:—

By the linchpin’s being loose	5 times.
By the wheel breaking	1
By driving against posts	3
By driving into ditches	3
By the axle-tree breaking	2
By anti-attrition	6
By horses foundering	11 1/2
By horses running away	1/2
By racing, and against other coaches	22
	———
	54 times.

“This I note (as all travellers ought to convey useful information) for the benefit of the public, that others, by imitating my prudence, may escape those severe accidents which are so common, and journey as much as I have done with no greater injuries than have be-

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fallen me; that is, a collar-bone dislocated, a leg and arm broken, ancle sprained, eight or nine contusions on the head,* and but slight bruises over all the rest of my body.

“Owing to the precautions taken, we arrived safely at the end of Fulham Bridge, where it is deemed expedient to water the horses, lest they should resent the abnegation of their simple beverage, when the view of the Thames must convince them that there is no necessity to want. The driver, being more rational, is not in the habit of drinking water.

“While waiting for our second start, I could not help being witness of a scene of great cruelty. Several ruffianly boys were tormenting a poor cat, which seemed nearly dead from ill treatment before I had time to interfere in her behalf, and when I did, the young barbarians threw their victim into the river, and ran off to avoid punishment. I rejoiced to observe that their malice was disappointed. Puss, carried down by the stream, swam as if she had finished her education in one of the newest-fashioned Ecoles de Natation, and landed happily in a private ground below the bridge, and out of the reach of her persecutors. Here she licked herself dry, and began to gambol about as if

* It was upon one of these occasions that my witty companion, poor Punning, lost his life. His skull was fractured, and the surgeon at Launceston proposed the trepan. “Oh,” quoth Punning, “I have been trepanned already;” meaning into a “Fastfiier;” but the surgeon understood him literally, and, thinking it dangerous to repeat the operation without further advice, postponed it till too late. While the surgeon was consulting the physician, his brain became more affected than usual, and he died, deliriously repeating, “Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum Collegisse juvat, metaque fervidis Evitata rotis . . . . . . . . evehit ad Deos,”

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nothing had happened. ‘It is well for you,’ said I, as the coach drove on, ‘that you have nine lives.’

“The day was sultry, and the conversation within our vehicle as dry as the weather. My companions being also lusty, I was squeezed into a corner by a fat lady, whose pressure produced the soporific effect of shampooing* and, in many ways overcome, I had just dropped into a doze—into which the adventures of the cat were being rapidly transferred to human creatures—when the coach suddenly upset, and by a rattling concussion of my brain laid me along, insensible to external objects, but busy in developing those within. In short, my journey terminated, and my travels began. I found myself, after a stormy voyage, and tedious peregrinations, fairly set down in the interior of the Blue Mountains, and in the midst of an utterly unknown people in the centre of New Holland, called the Enneabionians, as their country bore the name Enneabionia. They were rather a dwarfish race, the tallest among them not exceeding four feet six inches in stature; and I thought, were they hostilely inclined, that I should be able to play a tolerable stick among them before they got me clown. But there was no occasion for apprehension; the inhabitants welcomed me as kindly as the Armatans did a ci-devant Lord Chancellor, who has taken to the allegorical circuit since he left off the Northern and Home, in travelling. It would be impertinent to dwell upon the hospitality of my reception, and the natural chain of events which gradually unfolded to my observation the character of this singular and interesting nation. They differed in appearance from other men only in one extraordinary feature, the mouth. I

“Vide Hawksworth, vol. ii., page 63, for an account of the soporific effects of tooge-tooge, or shampooing, as practised in Otaheite, the Tonga Islands, &c., &c.

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had seen strange phenomena among my fellow-creatures—feet of an inch-and-a-half in Chinese ladies, waists squeezed into inverted cones in English beauties, and ——s of enormous dimensions in Hottentot Venuses, but so wonderful a sight as an Enneabionian mouth it had not entered into my mind to conceive. Every man, woman, and child of this blessed nation has ten thin lips, occupying almost the whole allotment of their faces from their nostrils to the peaks of their chins. And what rendered this still more astonishing to me at first was, to observe that the real mouth appeared to be placed indifferently between any two of these labial conformations, from the highest to the lowest. I was not aware at that time that this neither arose from accident nor chance, but was indeed the consequence and index of the most important events in the lives of this people. Yet I soon perceived that great consequence was attached to this matter. The common salutations on meeting were, ‘I hope your lips open high;’ ‘How do you mouth?’ and their taking-leave and good wishes were of the same nature, such as, ‘Etua [their god] keep up your lips!’ ‘May your last lip never come!’ ‘Heaven close your under lips for ever!’ ‘High mouthing to you!’ ‘May your nose know your mouth ever, your chin never!’ &c., &c.; to divine the meaning of all which I was long sorely puzzled, as well as with their expressions of pity towards me, ‘Poor wretch, he has but one mouth!’ Not to keep my readers in suspense, I will inform them now, that this cluster of mouths is the necessary appendage, sign, and endowment of a race of individuals who really possess, as we idly allege of cats, nine lives. Yes, happy nation! little need they fear dangers and fatal accidents, with such a bank of vitality to repair the losses, and wastes, and perils of humanity. A forty-eight-pound shot through the body, only drops the mouth

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one lip lower, and each seems qualified to exclaim, with Sin in ‘Paradise Lost,’—

“But death and I Are found immortal.’

“I will, however, draw a figure, to render this prodigious physical secret clear to the meanest capacity.

[Figure.]

“Suppose this an Enneabionian mouth with its ten lips. When a child is born its mouth is at No. 1, and all the lower lips are as it were hermetically glued together, as close as those of lovers; but should it be killed, either by the carelessness, overstuffing, or overlaying of its nurse (as is not more uncommon in Enneabionia than in England), the upper compartment instantly collapses, and No. 2 opens. Thus do the mouths shut and open in succession to the lowest, as lives are lost, till at last the term of fatalities brings down the account to No. 9, and the stroke of Death is final, and with his last lip’s close, the Enneabionian expires, or according to the phraseology of the country, ‘is chinned,’ if he be killed, or ‘chins,’ if he die a natural death. They laughed at me when I told them we had a phrase in our language, when a person is sorely distressed,

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saying ‘he is down in the mouth;’ but one of the greatest philosophers of Enneabionia entered into this subject with the devotion its importance merited, and before I quitted the country, published a treatise in two volumes folio, which proved as clearly as is usual under such circumstances, that Great Britain was originally an Enneabionian colony; but what I liked worst in this learned work, was an argument founded on the fitness of things, which went to show that these colonists must have been convicts, and that the return at present to Botany Bay was the natural consequence of a moral balance. Their funeral ceremonies are very curious; but I shall not stop to notice them at present, thinking it more eligible to give my readers some insight into the manners and habits inspired by the possession of such inestimable privileges.

“To do this, I cannot pursue a better course, than to describe an entertainment given by the chief persons of the town of Ninepins, to which, as a stranger, I was politely invited, and the company present on the occasion. It was astonishing to see with what assiduity the whole party attached themselves to the business of the table. Had I not had some faint idea of it from the manners of my own country, I should have supposed that the Enneabionians had no other care in life but to eat and drink. The anxiety with which they watched the removal of the covers, and the greediness with which they gobbled up the tit-bits of one dish after another, exceeds any belief which I may expect to obtain in this temperate country.* For two hours did they

* There was one clever rule observed here, which I note down for the benefit of my gormandising countrymen in London and elsewhere. Every person began by being helped to the dishes most distant from him, by this means reserving those more within his reach for the conclusion of the meal. Verbum sat., the Lord Mayor’s day will soon arrive!

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stuff and wallow, and I could only account for their intemperance, by knowing, that as they have but very imperfect notions of a future state, they place all their happiness in present sensual gratifications; and I also remarked that my companions had no time to lose, for wonderful to relate, with the exception of one man, who had a Up to come, they were all reduced to their last mouth, though several were young and middle-aged people.

“My expressions of surprise at this strange circumstance led the way to the after-dinner conversation, and it will be received as a proof of the politeness of this people, when I tell, that to gratify my curiosity, each individual in turn narrated the chief events of his life by which he was brought so low in the mouth.

“‘I am, as you perceive,’ said our entertainer, ‘a man of good fortune. Born to the inheritance of the largest estate in this parish, I was reared with the utmost care. I was the idol of father, mother, and all the household, yet what will appear most extraordinary, I lost six lives before I was six years old. Although my mamma was a fashionable lady, she resolved to set a bright example to mothers, and nurse me herself. Yet, as she could not wean herself entirely from her accustomed pleasures, I was frequently neglected, and died twice before she weaned me. Maternal duties and fashionable pursuits cannot assimilate. Terrified at my lipping, a nurse was hired for me, and one of the finest peasants on our estate was selected. She was healthy and good-natured, but she had a child of her own, and through their stolen interviews I was rendered so weakly, that I fell an easy victim, first to the Quugh-whu-u-u-Quugh (their name for the hooping-cough), and next, to the variolpogs. In my fifth year I was killed by a fall from my father’s favourite hunter, upon which his favourite groom placed me,

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to teach me to ride, and not six months after was frightened to death by a trick of the nurserymaid, who disguised her sweetheart as an infernal ill-looking ghost, lest seeing him in his proper shape, I should blab to my mamma. It was some consolation to me when I grew up, to learn that evenhanded justice visited this vestal, who became in due time the mother of the most monstrous and diabolical imp that was ever preserved in spirits in the academy of natural philosophy of Enneabionia. From this period I was tolerably lucky; but at nineteen, having been sent to the capital, I died from dissipation, and being not long after shot in a duel, arising out of a frolic adjourned from the Fum lobby of a theatre to a bagnio, I thought it high time to return to my paternal acres, and take especial care of my last lip, which I have now done for above sixteen years, and so comfortably (I am not married) that my only apprehension is told by the poet, when he says—

“‘How swiftly glide our flying years! Alas! nor piety, nor tears Can stop the fleeting day! Deep-furrowed wrinkles posting age, And death’s unconquerable rage Are strangers to delay.’

“‘Your history is not uninstructive,’ quoth the Vicar, taking up the story, ‘mine is more monotonous, and may be sooner told. By the accidents of childhood I died only twice; but the balance between us is made up by my decease four times during the four years I was at college; in the first instance, from contracting a malady respecting which I did not like to consult the doctor; in the second, from catching cold one night that I could not get in at my chamber window; in the third, from a disorder induced from want of exercise, while fagging for my degree; and

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in the fourth, (said he, looking hard at the Squire,) by a hard fall down-stairs, prepared for me with soft-soap by my pupil in revenge for an imposition, the recompense for which death was my present living.

“‘Some, raised aloft, come tumbling down amain, And fall so hard, they bound and rise again.’

“‘Since my induction I have died naturally of plethora and apoplexy, and have now only one life at the service of my patron and my parishioners.’ These last words he accompanied with a low bow round the room, which was acknowledged in a bumper toast by all present, and the physician next thus addressed us:—

“‘More fortunate than the generality of men,’ said he, ‘I arrived at years of maturity without the loss of a single life. At twenty-one I graduated regularly as a physician, and the lip of my birth-day was still open. What a prospect of immortality! I took the most rigid precautions to avoid every danger and every disease, But alas! in the early part of my life I was poor: it is a long and trying probation before our profession acquire a name, practice, a carriage, and wealth. My first life was sacrificed to a mere casualty. A slight indisposition which I felt alarmed me, and I prepared a medicine to take on going to bed; but unluckily sent it to a patient in a mistake, swallowing the strong drug I intended for his desperate case. They were of opposite natures, and we both lost a lip. Poor fellow! his was his last! This threw me into a lowness of spirits, and the terror which a knowledge of the human frame inspired in me when I was the least unwell, literally destroyed me three times by three separate nervous fevers, which anybody else would have escaped. Now, in the middle of my course, though yet young, I got into full practice; for the

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long preservation of my own lips had inspired much public confidence in my skill, which, once established, did not diminish with the number of my lives. I caught, however, a putrid fever in attending the Duke of Norris, which cost me one lip; another I lost, together with my left arm, as you see, through a slight puncture which I received in my little finger in opening the infectious body of Lord Cadaver; and a third closed from my being blown up while attending a chemical experiment of my friend Mr. Gasote. Thus reduced, in little more than ten years, to my penultimate lip, I thought it high time to settle for posterity, and accordingly married a sickly lady, but of very large fortune. She wedded me for my physic; I loved her for her riches; and we might have gone on as decently as can be expected in the marriage state, but that she sacrificed all her own and one of my lips to jealousy. Even my last would have gone with hers; for so desperate was this infatuated woman, that she mixed poison in our common cup, but on the first symptom I discovered the cause, and hastily administering an antidote to myself, I left to fate Mrs. ——.’ Here a fit of coughing abridged the few words which remained of the Doctor’s memoir.

“‘It is the immutable decree of Nature,’ said a fourth, who, from his loquacity, I before rightly conjectured to be the lawyer, ‘that man should die, and the modus quo he approximates that condition, if not to be may be called a condition, is of no consequence in the eyes of the eternal law. For the terms are convertible; and what is justice is law, and what is law is justice. Therefore no man has a right to complain * * ’ Here a tremendous yawn from the Squire, echoed from the contagious feeling of several of the party, interrupted the speaker; and I observed with astonishment that one or two of these otherwise polite

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persons had composed themselves into the most convenient attitudes for sleep. The lawyer took the hint, and as he was not paid for prolixity, declared he would briefly state his own case. I know not how it was, however, but either overcome by the heat of the atmosphere, or some other cause, I fell into a confused slumber, and heard only the following broken passages: ‘Quarrelled about the cause in cross-examining, if witness looked east or west—lie direct—received my adversary’s shot in the back—fell mortally wounded, and no redress by action of battery—overheated by wearing my gown during the dog-days, while so fully employed in a crowded court—requested a silk one, for the sake of coolness—was refused—died broken-hearted. Caught the gaol distemper, in visiting the celebrated ——, to whose villanous deception I attribute the loss of my last lip, and I am only one remove from that mortal event on which a philosophising moralist may say of me, with our immortal bard,’ ‘Where be his quiddits now; his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel?’” Suiting the action to the word, our lawyer gave his neighbour such a rap over the head, as made it clearly a crown case, and ‘roused him like a rattling peal of thunder.’ The whole company started with the din, and a round of toasts ensued before a pale and care-worn-looking gentleman, whose vocation I had in vain attempted to divine, took up the thread of narration.

“‘It is well known,’ said he, ‘what services I have done my country, and all my reward is the closing of eight lips. What I was, and what lives I lost while young, is of no consequence; for it is not till man, mature and active, forms a part of the great social system, that he becomes of any account in the estimation of the statist or economist.’

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“‘Oho,’ thought I, ‘a politician!’ and I pricked up my ears, to learn how these wise men acted in Enneabionia.

“‘From seventeen to seven-and-twenty, I zealously advocated the liberty of the people against the encroachments of power. The mere possession of authority converted otherwise amiable individuals into incarnate fiends in my diatribes; and I raved for alterations which I declared would be improvements, and instanced the good effect of destroying all the first-born of Egypt, as a precedent for immolating all the rich and powerful among ourselves.

“‘The experiment was tried in the kingdom of Maniagal, and the horrors it produced made me a convert to the other side. For twenty years I devoted myself to the cause of our rulers; their measures I defended, their wars I justified, their errors I extenuated, their virtues I proclaimed, and their vices I excused, on the plea that whoever supplanted them would be more vicious. The midnight oil and my health wasted together, and several of my lives vanished in this drudgery. The thanklessness of office was my just reward. After six years’ daily attendance, the high behest of a trifling sub-secretary sealed my hopes, and threw me on my own resources, only instructed in this, that there is nothing so unproductive as political labours, on either side, after they are performed. Exhausted and chagrined, esteemed and neglected, praised for talents and steeped in poverty, I retired to this village, where the pursuit of literature is the chase which furnishes my humble board; if it is as scanty as that of the wild Indian, it is also as independent; and while I mourn, I laugh at the anxiety and fury with which I once mingled in the madness of party and the fray of faction.’

“‘I am,’ exclaimed a little fierce-looking man, whose tremendous mustachios had hitherto concealed from me that

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he had two lips remaining, ‘a soldier. Ever fearless of danger, I have fought in nineteen general battles, and actions innumerable, with the extinction of three lives added to four which were gone before I entered the army. Mine has been a career of hazard and peril; I never inquired why my sovereign or his ministers ever went to war, but, always praising them when they so determined, rushed into it most resolutely, with all my heart, and all my soul. In the first campaign with the Bonians, I was taken prisoner, and massacred in cold blood; and in the second fell gloriously on the field of Humdrum, bequeathing my exploits to history, which has never mentioned them. In the last short conflict with the pirates of Brenoo, I was unfortunately slain; but our victory imposed terms upon them, which they observed till we were out of sight.

“‘Cowards die many times before their death; The brave man only tastes of death but once,’

as is evidenced in your condition and in mine, who have more lives in store than any one of you, though I have never shrunk and cringed from my duties as a man.’

“There was yet the tale of a merchant, a farmer, a traveller, and a citizen to come; but the offensive language of the soldier, rendered presumptuous by his two lips, and the excitement of the company, who had not failed to drink deeply during this drama of story-telling, begat a quarrel of the most fatal kind.

“The Captain attempted to draw his sword, which so exasperated his opponents, that, in their resentment, they threw him down and literally beat him to death. My concern was succeeded by astonishment, when I saw his eighth lip suddenly close in an agony of pain, and his ninth as suddenly open in perfect serenity, Reduced to a level

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with his fellows, his intemperance and their resentment at once subsided; and I exclaimed with emotion, ‘Ah, gentlemen, I perceive, after all, such is the wisdom and goodness of Providence, that the poor wretch with only one life is just as happy as the Enneabionian with nine.’

“The struggle I made to deliver this sentiment with due effect, woke me from my trance, and I was astonished to find myself lying on Barnes Common, with an old woman throwing some ditch-water in the face of

“F. MUNCHAUSEN PINTO.”