in the bright fellowship of those who, whatever natural parts they may have possessed, are at the present moment indisputable dunderheads. My father's wisdom in this instance resembles a prophecy which requires the lapse of many years to show its perfection. But enough of this-let me turn to a subject which, as it is less serious, you will probably relish better. Tenui meditabor avená. Cigars are smoked here constantly, from morning till night, and by all classes, from the highest down to the lowest, old and young, black and white, excepting only ladies of respectability, who if they do indulge in a whiff, do so in private. Any of them with whom you are intimate, will not, however, scruple to light a cigar for you. It is paper cigars that are most used, although Havanas are plenty enough. The paper cigars (unlike the cigarites smoked in Spain, for which, I believe, any tobacco is considered good enough), are made of the best Virginian negro-head cut small, and rolled up in a diminutive piece of white paper, very thin, manufactured for the purpose, as common paper would soon kill you. Determined amateur smokers in London know something of the process. But it must possess some interest for the uninitiated. When you buy them they are already made up, but before smoking you must loose it out to roll the tobacco in your hand, and the putting the cigar up again is a thing of much adroitness and requiring considerable practice before you arrive at perfection. I used to consume them, like the Spanish residents, male and female, in prodigious quantities; but besides that still the paper is thought to be injurious, they stain the ends of your finger and thumb quite black, which made me give them up; although I prefer their flavour greatly to the finest Havana. I smoke about a dozen Havanas a day, which is considered very moderate. Young men generally spend their evenings here playing billiards or cards, during which the cigar is never out of their mouths, and brandy and water taken pretty freely. I have never joined them, that I did not leave them with a feeling of time misspent ; and if it were not necessary to keep up a degree of intimacy with them in order to avoid the disagreeable alternative of being voted a cross-grained, proud, and solitary animal, I should give a decided preference to the practice of sipping my matté and whiffing my Havana over a book at home. But I generally fly for relief to some Spanish family, where we dance, sing, and of course talk Spanish all the evening. The ladies are almost uniformly natural, easy, and the very reverse of prudish in disposition and manners. The officers of the vessels of war, French and Brazilian especially, visit them, and we sometimes spend very pleasant evenings. This has also its bad point, for one cannot help being attentive to whichever of the girls pleases him best, and they are such winning creatures, dance so gracefully, and speak to you so confidingly, and in so sweet a language, that one cannot help being muy Carinoso towards them; and the consequence of all this is, in short, that the next place you go to, you have the pleasure of hearing that in fifteen days you are to be married to Dolorescita, or Manelita, or Carlotila, or Carmencita, or whoever else she may be. This is not pleasant; but thanks to my English stomach, there are some Spanish habits that do not at all agree with it, such as spitting on the carpet, which is done by the fairest she among them. When becoming too tender with one of them, I find this a capital antidote. One discharge from the salival glands, no matter how stealthily performed, sends all the love to the right about, and turns my stomach besides. But, come now, do not glory too much in the nice delicacy of your English beauties. Consider the matter impartially, and confess that the immoderate use of the pocket-handkerchief is quite as offensive. The Spanish young ladies have begun to learn that this hawking and "voiding their rheum" on the floor is intolerably offensive to the English, as any Englishman, who marries amongst them, endeavours to banish the prac tice; and consequently they do not indulge it so much in our presence as in that of their paisanos. But sometimes an involuntary escapade will take place, as a more serious one will now and then arise even in your eminently moral society. Amongst the men this salival irregularity is habitual. By the way, I have seen Grisi do it on the boards of your Italian Opera, and in the Queen's presence. Perhaps she found it necessary to the perfection of her efforts as a cantatrice; nevertheless, how that nauseating act did mar in my estimation the effect of an otherwise unrivalled scena! Though I have set the conduct of the Spanish in opposition to that of the English damsels, with reference to the use of the pocket-handkerchief, you are not thence to conclude that they are destitute either of mouchoies or of noses. No; they possess this essential feature, despoiled of which Venus herself were a Gorgon, in very remarkable perfection, the usual regularity of its symmetric proportions forming no small item in the list of their charms. But when they resort to their handkerchiefs, they do it better than the English, and, thanks to their climate, are not so much troubled with colds in their heads, while on the contrary, -The blast of that tremendous horn is ever ringing in your English ears, where there are very young ladies present, and the consequence of their frequent exertion is that, in summer, a portion of the vaunted red is transferred from their cheeks to their noses; and in winter even distance cannot, "lend enchantment" to the blue with which this very prominent organ is bespread ! * ** In these countries England enjoys the reputation of great strength and wealth, and of a certain blunt and (in Spanish estimation) stupid ad herence to principle, which they do not appreciate further than to take advantage of it. But, strange to say, notwithstanding blockades and persecutions, gay, accomplished France is the great object of their admiration and imitation. The Spanish characters approach much nearer to theirs than to ours. Let not England sleep in blind security, nor plume herself so much on her superiority over the rest of the world as to be scornful of marking the progress which other nations are making. Farewell! "PARVA SCINTILLA SÆPE MAGNAM!" OR, SOME ACCOUNT OF STOCKDALE. THAT the world will be anxious to know something of the "spark" that has well nigh set all England in a flame, and kindled a combustion which throws the ancient practices of Swing completely in the shade; of the titmouse that has bearded the House of Commons, and caused many a sleepless night and toilsome day to the Lord Chief Justice, we take to be a position which needs no lengthened demonstration. We are therefore exceedingly gratified to be enabled to present our readers with some authentic particulars of the history of "the great first cause" of all this difficulty (as Mr. Serjeant Talfourd described him), "Great let me call him, for he conquered them!" John Joseph Stockdale is the son of a person named John Stockdale, VOL. I. who was for many years a bookseller and publisher in Piccadilly, and was rather eminent in his day. His shop was the resort of the high Tory party (as his neighbour Debrett's was of the Whigs), and Joseph was his assistant in the business. The father was reckoned "a very great bounce," and had the cognomen of "Bouncing Jack" accordingly. Joseph and his brothers were generally reputed to be worthy scions of so goodly a stock. One now drives, and for years has driven, the Tunbridge Wells coach. His mother was sister to Debrett, the Whig publisher. We do not believe that he is in the least related to Harriette Wilson, although it has been so rumoured. Joseph has tried many things in his day, but none appear to have answered. He is deficient in some qualities which are popularly E POLITICAL PORTRAITS.-No. I. COLONEL SLIPSLOP, M.P. FOR L-NC-N. ALL hail, immortal Sib! prescriptive roaster of Whigs, and undaunted protagonist of Toryism! Perpetrator of the most exquisite originalities, and spicer of the heaviest debates! How oft have the recorded "roars of laughter," which follow thy observations as infallibly as darkness succeeds to light, sprinkled with the contents of our tremulous teacup, and bespattered with our egg-cup's effluence the virgin purity of our breakfast cloth, thereby submitting it to a most disagreeable yolk! Thine are the "quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles," which supply our frugal board with "attic salt' each morning throughout the session. Thou art, in truth, the little Peel of thy party, whose office, as suiting thy military station, is to bring up the light artillery of parliamentary facetiæ; and not even Sir George Tinkler, with all his chronic array of elaborate puns, and prepared squibs and crackers, does half so much for his party. We must take thine appellative "Sib," for an abbreviation of " Sibilo," for verily thou dost hiss the Whigs with might and main, in season and out of season, as lustily as a hired claqueur in the shilling-gailery. "Or bear'st thou rather" Sib from Sybil, as typical of thy wisdom? However this be, thou art confessedly the minor PEEL-the Great Bear he, and thou the Lessershining athwart the darkness of involved and unintelligible midnight discussion-the very Pole-star of luminous attraction! The Division of the 27th January, with the "Glorious Majority" of 104, and the curtailment consequent thereupon of the Royal Consort's apanage have made thee a Minor Peel no longer. When did the Greater Peel obtain a majority of 104 over Ministers? What a pretty fellow he would think himself, if he could command a majority of only four on Sir J. Yarde Buller's motion! Sib! Thou hast eclipsed the triumphs of Peel, and the glories of the Great Captain himself! And henceforward do we proclaim that thy style militant, instead of Colonel, shall be Major (Major, as short for " 'Majority") Sib! Thou takest rank with Peel as Associate-Field-Marshal of the Tory phalanx; and Lemon Peel let us call thee, as denoting that thy running commentaries seldom lack acidity-this epithet cannot displease thee, for verily lemon contributes its quota to the flavour of the punch, which thou lovest so well! Nuts are cracked by gentlemen as well as monkies; and thine are the nuts, without which the wine of debate would lack all smack and savour. Thou art as a pleasant anchovy-toast, which, coming in towards the end of the night, gives such tone, and zest, and capacity of flavour to the flagging palate; or, liker still (and this metaphor will suit thee better, for it is of the genus military) to a devilled drumstick, a broiled kidney, or a bone of contention, most judiciously grilled! And here let us arrest our progress for one moment, to remark how admirably our friend GILLRAY THE YOUNGER hath hit off the Colonel's lineaments. Behold that capacious brow, thinly spread with the straggling antenna of the dark toupée-that portentous nose, with the high-ascending and rage-expanded nostril-the pale and quivering lipsthe bearded jaws and frontage of the homme de guerre-the energetic posture which he hath assumed, while he knuckles and hammers the table as with a ponderous mallet-the brilliant display of interminable chains, that somewhat Judaise his aspect-the flattened chest and straightened back, which betoken the advent of age-the significant “non sum qualis eram!" But what of that, since, as with indignant vehemence, he annihilates Lords J. Russell and Morpeth, the powers of his unrivalled oratory are still unimpaired; and -Cicero Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes, As we have seen him in the Capitol, Being crossed in conference with some senators! How closely, too, in all respects, does the description of Cassius apply to his aspect ! Thus, while on the one hand we can trace a close resemblance between him and the prince of rhetoricians, on the other we can find many points of contrast betwixt his character, and one of "the foremost men in all the world," combining, like him, in signal elevation, the three great qualities of statesman, orator, and soldier. Observe his lineaments, and judge whether the description be not perfection: Yond' Cassius hath a lean and hungry look; And, certes, our gallant colonel is dangerous and dreadful to ministers-aye Big as ten furies, terrible as h—1! Observe with what tremendous power he rolleth forth his invectives. See the lightning of his eye-the energy of his strong right arm-the enormous lorgnon, which he wields as if it were a battle-axe, or, more properly speaking, a field-marshal's telescope, and with the aid of which he discovers all the weak points of his adversaries. How Russell and the rest of them dread to be subjected to its unsparing scrutiny; how that colossal Cæsar |