place of a vast copper in some warehouse, because when we live in the country we shall brew our own beer. Of this life I have long been weary, but know not how to change it; all the married men whom I consult, advise me to have patience; but some old bachelors are of opinion, that since she loves sales so well, she should have a sale of her own; and I have, I think, resolved to open her hoards, and advertise an auction. I am, Sir, your humble Servant, PETER PLENTY. Epigrams. On a Gentleman who expended his Fortune in Horse Racing. John run so long, and run so fast, On a TALKATIVE OLD WOMAN. Sure age to Sylvia has not been unkind, Not one tooth left,-her tongue is left behind; Those gone,-this left, the reason Critics Epitaphs. IN HAWKESBURY UPTON CHURCH, GLOUCESTER. Our life is but a winter's day; Some only breakfast, and away; Others, to dinner stay, aud are full fed; The oldest man but sups and goes to bed. Large is his debt who lingers out the day, Who goes the soonest, has the least to pay. ON JOHN GABRIEL STEDMAN, In Bickley Church Yard, near Tiverton, written by himself, and at his own desire placed over his tomb. This Stedman leaves to you ;— ON GEORGE BENT, Of Crediton, who died on the 19th of May last, aged three Years and two Months; a child whose early virtues and serene disposition gave to his afflicted Parents a bright, but delusive promise of future excellence. "Thou wert so like a form of light, That heaven benignly called thee hence, Ere yet the world could breathe one blight O'er thy sweet innocence: And thou, that brighter home to bless, Humour. THE HUMOROUS MAN. [Continued from page 153.] He is a polite man, though a wit; which is not what wits usually are; they would rather lose a life than a joke. I have heard him express his detestation of those wits who sport with venomed weapons, and wish them the fate of Laertes, who, in his encounter with Hamlet, got his weapon changed, and was himself wounded with the poisoned foil he had designed for his antagonist. I mean by saying he is a polite man, that he is naturally, not artificially, polite; for the one is but a handsome, frank-looking mask, under which you conceal the contempt you feel for the person you seem most diligent to please; it is a gilt-edged envelope to a blank valentine; a shell without a nut; a courtezan in a fair Quaker's chaste satinity and smooth sleekness; the arch devil in a domino;-the other is, as he describes it, taking the hat and cloak of your heart off, and standing uncovered and unconcealed in the presence of worth, beauty, or any one amiable quality. dered away a gentlemanly income of oaths, and then have sworn by private subscription; an absent man had he been present, would perhaps have thrown his young son and heir, or his gold watch and seals, at her; another perhaps his wig;-he contented himself with saying, "I have two or three doubts (which I shall put forth as much in the shape of a half-crown pamphlet as possible) as to the propriety of your couduct in eating my mutton;" and then he brushed her of with his handkerchief, supped on half a French roll and a gooseberry, and went happy to bed. Some of his jokes have a practicability about them; but they neither have the quarter-staff jocoseness of Robin Hood, that brake heads let them be never so obtuse and profound; nor the striking effect of that flourishing sprig of the green Isle, that knocks down friend and foe with a partiality truly impartial. He is no respecter of persons: the beggar may have a joke of him, (and something better), though they do not happen to apply exactly "between the hours of eleven and four." Those handmaids of Pomona, who vend her fruits about our streets, seem, by their voices, to be legitimate daughters of old Stentor; In short, he is a humane man; and more especially shall I specify those damhumanity is your only true politeness. sels who sell walnuts. To one of these I have seen him ridicule that politeness our humourist once addressed himself" to which contents itself with bowing and the effect following:"-Pray, Mrs. Jones, back-bending, very humorously. In will you crack me fifty walnuts with the walking through his garden, a tree or tall same voice you cry them with." flower, touched by the passing wind, bowed its head towards him: his hat was off, and the bow was returned with an old school ceremoniousness and etiquette that would, perhaps, have cured Lord Chesterfield, that fine polisher of exteriors, of some of his hollow-nutted notions of manners. In this spirit, I saw him bow very profoundly to the giants, as he passed bySt. Dunstan's church. He had asked his friend Hobbes or Dobbs (I know not which) what was the hour? Before Hobbes could reply, the giants had informed him: "Thank you, gentlemen," said he, bowing to them with a graceful humour. I have said he is a humane man. He once detected an unintimate cat picking his cold mutton, "on a day, alack the day!" for he was then too poor to spare it well. Some men would have thrown a poker at her; others would have squan At dinner, there is purposely but one glass on the table; his lady apologizes for her seeming negligence; "Time my dear hath no more than one glass; and yet he contrives to see all his guests under the table-kings, lord mayors, and pot boys." If he lends you a book, for the humour of the thing, he will request you, as you love clean shoes on a lord mayor's day, to make no thumb-and-butter references in the margin; and will, moreover, ask you whether you have studied that modern "art of book keeping," which has superseded the "Italian method," viz. of never returning the books you borrow? He has a very ingenious mode of putting names and significations on what he calls the brain-rack, and dislocating their joints into words: thus tortured and broken into pieces, Themistocles loses his quality, but increases his quantity, and becomes the Miss Tokeleys; the Cyclades, by the same disorder, become sick ladies; a" delectable enjoyment" is a deal-legged table pleasure; &c. &c. pun without end. These are what he denominates punlings. For his puns, they fall as thick from him as leaves from autumn bowers. Sometime since, he talked of petitioning for the office of pun-purveyor to his Majesty; but ere he had written " and your petitioner shall ever pun," it was bestowed on the yeoman of the guard. He still, however, talks of opening business as pun-wright in general to his Majesty's subjects, for the diffusion of that pleasant small ware of wit; and intends to advertise" puns wholesale, retail, and for exportation. N. B. 1.—A liberal allowance made to captains, and gentlemen going to the East or West Indies. Hooks, Peakes, and Pococks, supplied on moderate terms. Worn-out sentiments and clap traps taken in exchange. N. B. 2. May be had in a large quantity, in a great deal box, price five acts of sterling comedy, per packet; or in small quantities, in court-plaister-sized boxes, price one melo-drama and an interlude, per box.-N. B. 3.-The genuine are sealed with a Munden grin; all others are counterfeits. Long live Apollo !" &c. &c. His wit is what he describes the true wit to be it is brilliant and playful as a fencing-foil; it is as pointed too, and yet it hurts not; it is as quick at a parry, and as harmless at a thrust. But it were a vanity in me to attempt to pourtray my humourous friend, so that all who run may know him. His likeness cannot be taken you might as well hope to paint the camelion of yesterday by the camelion of to-day; or ask it as a particular favour of a flash of lightning to sit for a whole-length portrait: or Proteus to stand while you chiselled out a personification of Immutability. He is ever changing, and yet never changed. I cannot reflect back, by my dim mirror, the "flashings and out-breakings of his fiery mind," when he is in what he terms "excellent fooling" (but it is to my thinking, true wisdom); sparkle follows sparkle, as spark followed spark from the well-bethumped anvil of pattenfooted Vulcan. I give up the attempt. This is the humourous, and therefore happy man. Dost envy him, thou with the rugged brow, and pale, dejected cheek? When Fortune frowns at thee, do thou laugh at her: it is like laughing at the threatnings of a bully,-it makes her think less of her power over thee. Wouldst thou be such a man, one-hearted Selfishness, who hast no sympathy with the suffering, no smile with the happy? Feel less for thyself, and more for others, and the happiness of others shall make thee happy. As he has walked up the hill of life with an equal pace, and without any breathless impatience for, or fear at, the prospect beyond, and the journey has been gentle and serene, so, I have no doubt, will be the end of it. Wishing him, and all who contribute to the happiness of their fellow-men, either by good humour, or goodness of any kind, the same silent conclusion to a noiseless life, I shake his and their hands; and, while the journey lasts, may they have May for their weather, and as many flowers for the roadside as Flora can afford to those who will stoop for them: and inns of pleasantness and joy, at which to soC. W. journ, &c. &c. Impromptus. On reading "No Thoroughfare," written over a Passage, which had been for many years open to the Public. What, stop folks on the public way! "Tis next to robbery I declare; And palliate it as they may, No one can term it thorough fair. On reading that Captain PARRY embarked on-board the "FURY" Discovery Ship early in Passion Week. Parry's Rage for discovery exceeds all, no doubt, [out; For both Captain and Crew in a Fury set But still some excuse will appear for this freak, When we learn the affair took place in Passion Week. On the success of "UNDINE," produced at A kindred spirit generous rouses, REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF LONGEVITY. AN old Scotchman of the name of Ferguson, lived at a small village about 6 miles from Canterbury, of the name of Dunkirk, of the remarkable age of 124 years. A friend of mine went to see him in the month of August, 1818; he was born in Lanarkshire; was a schoolboy in the reign of Queen Ann, perfectly remembers Queen Ann, and had seen the Duke of Marlborough, could repeat several interesting anecdotes of Queen Ann and Marlborough; when he was very young entered in the Glasgow Greys (now the Scotch Greys), served several Campaigns, was very dissipated in his youth; married a wife in Canterbury, during his serving as a soldier in the above regiment; he obtained his discharge being too old, and worked labouring work in perfect health untill he was 110, and then was beginning to decay; kept his bed for the last 5 years, but never had any attacks of sickness, but was fairly worn out with the decay of nature; he retained his faculties perfect until the last moments, and kept by him as relics of his former life, his carbine and sword, which had served him in his youth; he died about the 15th of August, 1818. A few moments before his death, he asked for a little broth, which was his principal support; he swallowed a few mouth-fulls, and laid back upon his pillow, and expired without a groan. THE following curious advertisement, not inapplicable at present to some perConcord (New Hampshire, America) sons in this country, has appeared in a Paper :-- "Whereas 1, Daniel Clay, through miirepresentation, was induced to post my wife, Rhoda, in the Papers: now beg leave to inform the public that I have again taken her to wife, after settling all our domestic broils in an amicable manner; so that every thing as usual, goes on like clock work." Divorc'd like scissars rent in twais, They'll make the old shears cut. CHARLES THE FIRST.---The sheet, which received the head of Charles I. after its decapitation, is carefully preserved along with the communion plate in the church of Ashburnham, in this country; the blood, with which it has been almost entirely covered, now appears nearly black. The watch of the unfortunate monarch is also deposited with the linen, the movements of which are still perfect. These relics came into the possession of Lord Ashburnham, immediately after the death of the King. THE Commissioners under the New Street Act have allotted a piece of ground in the Regent's Park, opposite the Crescent, Portland Place, for those unwise. persons who, without adequate cause, engage in Duels. The place is indicated by a board, upon which is inscribed:"Rubbish may be shot here." THE GREAT AGE OF HENRY JENKINS, By Mrs. Anne Saville. WHEN I came first to live at Bolton. I was told several particulars of the great age of Henry Jenkins; but I believed Anthony Clark and Smirkson, taken 1665, at Kettering in Yorkshire, where Henry Jenkins, of Ellerton upon Swale, labourer, aged 157 years, was produced and deposed as a witness. Epitaph on a Monument erected at Bolton Blush not, marble, He was enriched Tho' the partial world Beheld and blessed it With a Patriarch's health and length of days; To teach mistaken man [rance, These blessings were entailed on tempeA life of labour, and a mind at ease. He lived to the amazing age of 169, Was interr'd here December 6, And had this justice done to his memory, |