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the very effort mars the design. Quoters, strainers after points and antitheses, are any thing on the face of the earth, but agreeable and it often occurs, that when even men of wit and celebrity are brought together for the express purpose of "making a charming day of it," mutual apprehension and mutual effort render the society as dull as a Methodist meeting.

To be simple and natural, on the other hand, goes far; and it is not unusual to find even aged females (those synonymes for bore, among the half-witted,) extremely agreeable, upon no other fund than this simplicity and a little good sense.

One source of the agreeable is sympathy. A noisy, obstreperous, story-telling, song-singing invader of ears, is deemed agreeable in the club, of which he is the centre; and a prosing, long-winded follower of the doublings of a hare, the patient historiographer of the day's labour of a pointer-are good company in the society of country-squires. To this cause we must attribute the rarity of agreeability among the cultivators of abstruse science and among men of high-toned character, who have little in common with the mass of mankind, and whose thoughts, habitually turned inward, are incapable of external demonstration, except on great occasions.

For a somewhat similar reason, mothers of large families are uniformly deficient in the agreeable, being wholly pre-occupied with the cares and delights of maternity, and absorbed in contemplation of the great qualities of Tommy, or the budding beauties of the infant Jane.

The scarcity of agreeability exalts it in our estimation above far more important attributes. For, to be agreeable, implies, of necessity, no virtue, if it be not that of good-nature; and a very agreeable creature may be a downright villain. Whatever value we may set upon the higher qualities of head or heart, we are still more intolerant of dulness than of vice, and prefer too often an agreeable companion to a true friend

"Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico,"

says Horace; and in so saying bears involuntary testimony to the triumph of the agreeable over the estimable.

Agreeability is a quality eminently dependent upon civilization. Our ancestors knew not the thing; and were obliged to employ professional jesters, mummers, and morrice-dancers, to help them through their long winter's evenings, and to pass their Christmas for them in cheerfulness. The youth of both sexes find agreeability in their own animal spirits, in their young hopes and desires: a ball, or a small game, finds them in full employment. Infancy, therefore, (both in society and in individuals) is not fastidious-but as life and society advance, men become intolerant, demand more intellectual excitement, and are more prone to retire from the world to the bosom of the select few, who happen to be congenial with their own habits and propensities*. It is in France alone that old men retain their faculty of pleasing and being pleased to the last. This is an endowment which results much from temperament; but something likewise must be attributed to the smaller pressure of the cares of life, and to the diminished necessity for great

Those who live most in the world, complain the most of its stupidity, insomuch that ennui has become the tone of good society.

exertions in the mere attainment of subsistence. An Englishman's mind and temper are early worn out by his excessive effort to maintain his place in society; and the intellectual machine is destroyed, long before the failure of the digestive and circulating organs fit the body for the grave. "They manage these things better in France ;" and the French are accordingly a more social and entertaining people.

But it is high time to have done. This paper was intended to be "agreeable," but the influence of a country Christmas has prevailed. Beginning in fun and ridicule, the subject has conducted itself, like all other human subjects,-" to the grave." If, however, the reader should be tired of this our "country Christmas," he will afford an additional instance of the truth it has been attempted to illustrate and he has this advantage over the invited guest-that he can cut whenever he pleases, without the trouble of a formal apology, or the necessity for a lying excuse, to his humble servant, M.

THE WHITE ROSE.

Or the Lament of the Year 1745.

Он, thou pale, snowy rosebud, though rent and laid low
By the rude hand of Power in the day of despair,
Yet thou still in the breasts of the loyal shalt blow,
Full as lovely, as fragrant, as fresh, and as fair.
Though our bosoms no longer may glow with the dream
Of royalty righted, and exiles restored,

Yet still they may swell with the rapturous theme

Of the faith they long cherished, the prince they adored;
And still they in silence may weep o'er the woes
Endured by the chieftains who bore the white rose.

With that deep thrilling interest, where pleasure and pain
Contend in the bosom and struggle for sway,

We muse on the emblem of Loyalty vain,

And sigh o'er its fall on Culloden's dark day:
Yet the cloud that o'ershadowed the dawning so bright,
And obscured with its darkness the valley and heath,
With the beam of the meteor flashed radiance and light,
And illumed with its splendour the pale field of death,
And bright o'er the fallen its lustre arose,
And hallowed their sufferings, their valour and woes.

Oh, still whilst our bosoms shall glow with the flame,
Which Heaven itself in its mercy inspired,
Shall awaken each thrill as it dwells on the fame
Of the heroes so loyal, devoted, admired.

And still the loved emblems of loyalty true

Shall honoured and blest in our bosoms remain,
And whilst its white blossoms we pensively view,
We behold no dishonour, or sully, or stain;

And ages to come shall admiring disclose,
The virtues and fame of the pure, snowy rose.

The Editor gives Jacobite poetry as a curiosity. He needs scarcely say that the name of his clan entitles him to abjure all attachment to the doctrine of "Monarchs restored."

HARRY HALTER THE HIGHWAYMAN.

I've cast your Horoscope-your natal star
Is Ursa Major-a most hanging sign.

OLD PLAY.

THE indefatigable author of the Scottish novels, and his innumerable imitators, have not only commemorated all the reevers, robbers, borderers, blackmailmen, brigands, rebels, outlaws, cut-throats, and other heroes of Scotland, but have begun to make incursions into England; while another set have landed upon the shores of Ireland, where they bid fair to reap an abundant harvest of riot and robbery. It is really scandalous, that the citizens of London should not have availed themselves of their rich records of rascality to immortalize some of their more celebrated felons; but, with the exception of the Newgate Calendar, an imperfect and obscure publication, I am not aware of any attempt to do proper justice to these characters, beyond the very simple process of hanging them. This desideratum in literature I purpose to supply, by a series of traditional or recorded tales, wherein, according to established usage, I shall introduce frequent dialogues, imitations of the old ballads, songs, and other poems, and have made such arrangements, that every one shall contain a crazy, doting semi-prophetic old crone, upon whose fatuous auguries the whole plot shall be forced to depend. I need not more fully develope my mode of treatment, since I enclose you, as a specimen, the tale of

HENRY HALTER THE HIGHWAYMAN.

In the whole populous range of Dyot-street, St. Giles's, and Seven Dials, it would have been impossible to find a more dashing youth, or one who at once illustrated and defied the dangers of his profession with a look of more resolute slang, than Harry Halter the Highwayman. Sixteen-string Jack, with the bunches of ribbons at his knees, and the ends of his neckcloth fluttering in the air of St. George's Fields, had a more swelling swagger, and Abershaw might carry in his face a more stubborn and insolent assurance of the gallows; but Harry, with his hat on one side, his quid in his left cheek, and his bludgeon in his right hand, contrived to associate such a real air of high birth and fashion, that it was impossible to distinguish him from the nobility and gentry with whom he was constantly intermingled at boxing-matches and cockpits. Even the Bow-street officers were sometimes deceived; and many a lord and member of parliament going to receive his dividends at the Bank, has been tapped on the shoulder, with a-" Come, come, Mr. Harry, this is no place for you-you 're nosed, so bundle off." The Wig and Water-Spaniel in Monmouth-street was his favourite haunt in London; none but " Booth's best" was ever dispensed from that savoury bar, which, not being above six feet square, was exactly big enough to admit Mrs. Juniper the fat landlady, a dozen or two of dram glasses, and a small net of lemons, which, with a delicacy of feeling that did her honour, she declined hanging from the roof, as customary, lest it should awaken any dangling presentiments in the minds of her guests. Here with his two friends Ned Noose and old Charley Crape, one of whom ultimately emigrated to Australasia, and the other, after being kept some time in suspense as to his final fate, was admitted of Surgeon's Hall,-Harry has sate behind many a pint of purl, arranging the plans

of innumerable burglaries which figure in the annals of those days, or singing the ballad of

Turpin and the Bishop.

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Upon the box he tied him then,

With the reins behind his back,
Put a pipe in his mouth, the whip in
his hand,

And set off the horses smack!
Then whisper'd in his black mare's

ear,

Who luckily wasn't fagg'd,
You must gallop fast and far, my dear,
Or I shall be surely scragg'd.
He never drew bit nor stopp'd to bait,
Nor walk'd up hill or down,
Until he came to Gloucester gate,
Which is the Assizes town.
Full eighty miles in one dark night,
He made his black mare fly,

And walk'd into court at nine o'clock
To swear to an Alibi.

A hue and cry the Bishop raised,
And so did Sheriff Foster,
But stared to hear that Turpin was

By nine o'clock at Gloucester.
So all agreed it couldn't be him,

Neither by hook nor crook;
And said that the Bishop and Chaplain

was

Most certainly mistook.

Here it was, that on a dark and tempestuous night of November, when the wind struggling amid the thick-cluster'd chimneys of St. Giles's responded to the signal whistle of the thieves below, and the rain dashed with fitful violence against the windows of the private room in which they were stationed, that our hero and his companions arranged the plan of their attack upon Farmer Bruin's house, of Finchley Common. "I tell you," cried Harry, anxious to silence the objections of his comrades, "It's as lone and snug a dwelling as a man need wish to break into. I vas all over it once, and knows the rigs on 't. No alarmsno vatch—and as for the dog in the yard, we must physick him, that's all."

"And are you sure he keeps five hundred guineas in the bed-room??" enquired Noose.

"Psha, man! d'ye think I doesn't know vot's vot? Didn't he brag on it to his club at Barnet? Vill the vaiter told me so himself. Besides there's a silver tankard vorth twenty flimsies, and a gold sneezer." Vot men sleeps in the house?" said old Charley, with a thoughtful look.

"Only one spooney chap of a rustic, and old Bruin."

"Who isn't no flincher," resumed Charley.

"But we've our bulldogs and barkers, and arn't we three to two? -you're 'nation squeamish, Charley."

"I fears no man but the hangman," said Noose, scratching his neck; "but there's no call for us to be nabb'd and pull'd up."

"Never fear," exclaimed Harry, slapping him on the back, "you shall have many a bout yet at stand and deliver.

"But," said Charley enquiringly," if we has to stand at the Old Bailey, I should like to know who's to deliver us.”

"Betty Martin! never fear, man-you may live these three months yet-so cheer up, cheer up, my hearty."

"You're like a sparrow," mutter'd Crape, " you would cry chirrup if a chap was going up the gallows' ladder-Hush! hark! I heard some one snoring."

"Stuff," cried Harry, "you're always thinking of the watchman: we 're all snug."-" Zounds!" added Noose, making towards the door, "vot noise is that there?"-Here there was an audible snorting and rustling, as of some one awaking, and Harry suddenly drawing a pistol from his pocket, and seizing the solitary candle by which they had been sitting, rushed to the corner of the dim chamber, where, behind a low screen, he discovered a female figure, stretching and yawning in apparent emergence from a sound sleep.-" Ranting Moll, by Jingo!" he exclaimed, "the old drunken fortune-teller of Dog and Bear yard. What are you after here, you infernal- ? are you lurking for bloodmoney-do you mean to peach-have you heard our palaver ?-speak, you crazy old cat, or I'll pop my barker down your muzzle."

The figure whom he thus addressed, while he held his pistol hardly an inch from her mouth, was not calculated to awaken suspicions of any very treacherous intentions, for she bore an expression of mental fatuity, which it would have been difficult to divide between the triple claims of nature, sleep, and intoxication. Her cap was off, her dress disordered, her hair wildly spread over her haggard features, and her eyes, one of which was black from some recent contusion, were fixed upon Harry in a stolid, unmeaning stare. But suddenly her recollection and intellects seemed to flash upon her, her countenance lighted up with a sort of prophetic orgasm, her eyes, particularly the black one, glared with a preternatural lustre, and without offering to move the pistol she cried out in a harsh voice-" Away, away! I have heard nothing of your plots and plans; but he that fears leaves, let him not go into the wood-good swimmers at length are drowned. Thou art young, Harry; but green wood makes a hot fire--thy doom is fixed, spite of these knaves, thy companions. He that lies with the dogs riseth with fleas not a day passes but thou takest a step up Jack Ketch's ladder: punishment is lame, but it comes. Mark me, boy; I have read what the stars have written in the palm of thy hand-under the sign of the Bear wert thou born, and under that sign shalt thou perish. Stand aside he who spitteth against heaven, it falls in his face." So saying, she put on her cap, gathered up her garments, and with a wild look of inspiration, as of an ancient Pythoness, stalked out of the room.

"Bravo!" cried Harry, "bravo, ranting Moll!-Egad! it is as good as a tragedy."" Better," said Charley," for there's nothing to pay-but what did the old witch mean by your perishing at the sign of the Bear? There's the Black Bear in Piccadilly, as well as the White; but you never goes to neither."-" Mean," replied Harry, "there 's seldom much meaning comes out of the mouth, after fourteen or fifteen tosses of blue ruin have gone into it; and I warrant she hasn't had a drop less."

So

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