thousand pounds; Bonus the broker had hinted as much to the old slopseller in the bow-window of Batson's, while they were eyeing "the learned in the law" in the act of crossing Cornhill to receive his dividends. Hence may be derived the annual turtle and turbot swallowed by "my uncle the Sergeant" in Savage-gardens: hence Mrs. Culpepper's high approbation of the preacher at the Temple Church: and hence her horse laugh at the Sergeant's annually repeated jest about "Brother Van and Brother Bear." As far as appearances went, Plutus was certainly_nearing point Culpepper: Nicholas Nethersole, Esq. Sergeant-at-law, was pretty regularly occupied in the Court of Common Pleas from ten to four. A hasty dinner swallowed at five at the Grecian, enabled him to return to Chambers at halfpast six, where pleas, rejoinders, demurrers, cases, and consultations occupied him till ten. All this (not to mention the arrangement with the bar-maid at Nando's) seemed to ensure a walk through this vale of tears in a state of single blessedness. "I have no doubt he will cut up well," said Culpepper to his consort. "I have my eye upon a charming villa in the Clapham Road: when your uncle the Sergeant is tucked under a daisy quilt, we'll ruralize: it's a sweet spot: not a stone's throw from the Swan at Stockwell!" Such were the Alnascar anticipations of Mr. Jonathan Culpepper. But, alas! as Doctor Johnson said some forty years ago, and even then the observation was far from now, "What are the hopes of man!" Legacy-hunting, like hanting of another sort, is apt to prostrate its pursuers, and they who wait for dead men's shoes, now and then walk to the church-yard barefooted. Mr. Sergeant Nethersole grew fat and kicked: he took a house in Tavistock-square, and he launched an olive-coloured chariot with iron-grey horses. There is an office in Holborn where good matches are duly registered and assorted. Straightway under the letter N. appears the following entry, "Nethersole, Nicholas, Sergeant-at-law, Tavistock-square, Bachelor, aged 59. Income 3500l. Equipage, olive-green chariot and iron-grey horses.-Temper, talents, morals,-blank!" That numerous herd of old maidens and widows that feed upon the lean pastures of Guildford-street, Queen-square, and Alfred-place, Tottenham-courtroad, was instantly in motion. Here was a jewel of the first water and magnitude, to be set in the crown of Hymen, and the crowd of candidates was commensurate. The Sergeant was at no loss for an evening rubber at whist, and the ratifia cakes which came in with the Madeira at half-past ten, introduced certain jokes about matrimony, evidently intended as earnests of future golden rings. The poet Gay makes his two heroines in the Beggar's Opera, thus chaunt in duet: Νο A curse attends that woman's love Who always would be pleasing? And in all cases where the parties are under thirty, Polly and Lucy are unquestionably right. young woman can retain her lovers long if she uses them well. She who would have her adorer as faithful as a dog, must treat him like one. But when middle aged ladies have exceeded forty, and middleaged gentlemen have travelled beyond fifty, the case assumes a different complexion. The softer sex is then allowed, and indeed necessitated to throw off a little of that cruelty which is so deucedly killing at eighteen. What says the Spanish poet 7 Cease then, fair one, cease to shun me, All that rigour gives me peace. Accordingly it may be observed that women make their advances as Time makes his. At twenty, when the swain approaches to pay his devoirs, they exclaim with an air of languid indifference, "Who is he?" At thirty, with a prudent look towards the ways and means, the question is, "What is he ?" At forty, much anxiety manifests itself to make the Hymeneal selection, and the query changes itself into" Which is he?" But at the ultima Thule of fifty, the ravenous expectant prepares to spring upon any prey, and exclaims, "Where is he?" Be that as it may, the numerous candidates for a seat in Sergeant Nethersole's olive-green chariot gradually grew tired of the pursuit, and took wing to prey upon some newer benedict. Two only kept the field, astride of Mr. Justice Blackstone: Propertius lolled indolently against Bacon's Abridgment, and "the industrious Giles Jacob could not keep his two quartos together from the assurance of one Wailer, who had taken post between them. In short, the Sergeant was in love! Still, however, I am of opinion, that " youth and an excellent constitution," as the novelists have it, would have enabled the patient to struggle with the disease, if it had not been for the incident which I am about to relate. The home circuit had now commenced, and Sergeant Nethersole had quitted London for Maidstone. Miss Jennings relied with confidence upon the occur. rence of nothing particular till the assizes were over, and in that assurance had departed to spend a fortnight with a married sister at Kingston-upon-Thames. Poor innocent! she little knew what a widow is equal to. Frances Jennings, spinster, and Amelia Jackson, widow; both of whom hovered on the verge of forty. "It appears to me," said Miss Jennings to a particular friend in Bedford-place, "that Mrs. Jackson does not conduct herself with propriety: she is never out of Mr. Nethersole's house, and jangles that old harpsichord of his with her Love among the Roses,' till one s head actually turns giddy."-"I will mention it to you in confidence," said Mrs. Jackson, on the very same day, to another particular friend at the Bazaar in Soho-square, "I don't at all approve of Miss Jennings's going on in Tavistock-square: she actually takes her work there: I caught her in the act of screwing her pincushion to the edge of Sergeant Nethersole's mahogany table-what right has she to net him purses?" The contest of work-table versus harpsichord now grew warm: betting even: Miss Jennings threw in No sooner had the Sergeant departed in a crimson purse and the odds were in her favour: his olive-green chariot, drawn by a couple of post'the widow Jackson sang, By heaven and earth I horses, than the widow Jackson, aided by Alice love thee," and the crimson purse kicked the beam. Green, packed her portmanteau, sent for a hackneyThe spinster now hemmed half-a-dozen muslin cra- coach, and bade the driver adjourn to the Golden vats, marked N. N. surmounted with a couple of cross, Charing-cross. There was one vacant seat in red hearts: this was a tremendous body blow; but the Maidstone coach: the widow occupied it at the widow, nothing daunted, drew from under the twelve at noon, and between five and six o'clock in harpsichord a number of the Irish Melodies, and the afternoon was quietly dispatching a roasted fow! started off at score with " Fly not yet, 'tis now the at the Star inn, with one eye fixed upon the egghour." This settled the battle at the end of the sauce, and the other upon the Assize Hall opposite. first stanza;, and I am glad it did, for really the The pretext for this step was double: the first count widow was growing downright indecent. alleged that her beloved brother lived at Town MalAbout this time Love, tired of his aromatic sta-ling, a mere step off, and the second averted an tion " among the roses, of all places in the world eager desire to hear the Sergeant plead. On the began to take up his abode among the dusty Law evening which followed that of the widow's arrival. Books in the library of Mr. Sergeant Nethersole's the Sergeant happened not to have any consultation chambers. Certain amatory worthies had long slept to attend; and, what is more remarkable, happened on the top shelf, affrighted at the black coifs and to be above the affectation of pretending that he had. white wigs of the legal authors, who kept "watch He proposed a walk into the country: the lady con and ward" below, in all the dignity of octavo, quar-sented they moralised a few minutes upon the hie to, and folio. But now, encouraged thereto by the jacets in the church-yard, and thence strolled into aforesaid Sergeant, they crept from their upper gal- the adjoining fields where certain labourers had lery, and mixed themselves with the decorous compiled the wooden props of the plant that feeds, or pany in the pit and boxes. One Ovidius Naso, ought to feed, the brewer's vat, in conical (quære, with his Art of Love in his pocket, presumed to conical) shapes, not unlike the spire of All Saints shoulder Mr. Espinasse at Nisi Prius: Tibullus got Church in Langham-place. The rain now began to fall: one of these sloping recipients stood invitingly open to shelter them from the storm: "Speluncam Dido dux et Trojanus." Ah! those pyramidal hoppoles! The widow's brother from Town Malling was serving upon the Grand Jury: his sister's reputation was dear to him as his own: "he'd call him brother, or he'd call him out," and Nicholas Nethersole and Amelia Jackson were joined together in holy matrimony. order for half an hour's time; and then plead a justification! We did so, and then gave the coachman notice of set off, entering the vehicle with a heydamme sort of aspect, plainly denoting to the two impatient insiders, that if there was any impertinence in their Bill, we would strike it out without a refer ence to the Master. The scheme took, and before we reached St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, egad! they were as supple as a couple of candidates for the India direction. Now that case, my dear, must govern this. Don't say a civil word to the Culpeppers about our marriage; if you do, there will be no end to their remonstrances: leave them to find it out in the Morning Chronicle." The widow Jackson, now Mrs. Nethersole, was a prudent woman, and wished, as the phrase is, to have every body's good word. It was her advice that her husband should write to his niece, Mrs. Culpepper, to acquaint her with what had happened. She had in fact drawn up a letter for his signature, "This is a very awkward affair, Mrs. Culpepper," in which she tendered several satisfactory apologies said that lady's husband, with the Morning Chronifor the step, namely, that we are commanded to in-cle in his hand. “Awkward?" echoed Mrs. Culcrease and multiply: that it is not good for a man to pepper, "it's abominable: a nasty fellow; he ought be alone: but chiefly that he had met with a wo- to be ashamed of himself! And as for his wife, she man possessed of every qualification to make the is no better than she should be!"-"That may be," marriage state happy. Why, no, my dear," an- said the husband, "but we must give them a dinner swered the Sergeant, "with submission to you, (a notwithstanding.”—“ Dinner or no dinner," said the phrase prophetic of the fact) it has been my rule wife, "I'll not laugh any more at that stupid old through life, whenever I had done a wrong or a foolish story of his about Brother Van and Brother Bear.” deed (here the lady frowned), never to own it: ne- "Then I will," resumed the husband, "for there ver to suffer judgment to go by default, and thus may possibly be no issue of the marriage." Miss remain in mercy,' but boldly to plead a justification. Jennings, the outwitted spinster, tired two pair of I have a manuscript note of a case in point, in which horses in telling all her friends from SouthamptonI was concerned. In my youth I mixed largely street, Bloomsbury, to Cornwall-terrace, in the Rein the fashionable world, and regularly frequented gent's-Park, how shamefully Mrs. Jackson had bethe Hackney assemblies, carrying my pumps in my haved. She then drove to the Register-office abovepocket. Jack Peters (he is now at Bombay) and mentioned, to transfer her affections to one Mr. myself, went thither, as usual, on a moonshining Samuel Smithers, another old bachelor barrister, an Monday, and slept at the Mermaid. The Hackney inseparable crony of Nethersole's, whom, she opined, stage on the following morning was returned non est must now marry from lack of knowing what to do incentus, without giving us notice of set off; the with himself. Alas! she was a day too late: he had Clapton coach was therefore engaged to hold our that very morning married the vacant bar-maid at bodies in safe custody, and then safely deposit at Nando's. the Flower pot in Bishopsgate-street. Hardly had we saed out our first cup of Souchong, when the Clapton coach stopped at the door. Here was a demurrer! Jack was for striking out the breakfast, and joining issue with the two other inside passengers. But I said no; finish the muffins: take an When the honey-moon of Mr. Serjeant Nethersole was on the wane, My sprite, Popp'd through the key-hole swift as light, of his chambers, in order to take a survey of his 7 library. All was once more as it should be. Ovid bad quitted Mr. Espinasse, Tibullus and Mr. Justice Blackstone were two, Propertius and Lord Bacon did not speak, and, as for Giles Jacob, Waller desired none of his company. The amatory poets were refitted to their upper shelf, the honey-moon was over, and love no longer nestled in the Law Books. ON JOHN DENNIS, Should D-s print, how once you robb d your brother, Traduc'd your monarch, and debauch'd your mo ther; Say, what revenge on D- ALL HUMBUGS. When Stephen Kemble was manager at Newcastle, and the house was rather thin, no less a personage arrived in the town than prince Annamaboo, who offered his services for a very moderate consideration. Accordingly, the bills of the day announced, "that between the acts of the play, prince Annamaboo would give a lively representation of the scalping operation; he would likewise give the Indian war-whoop in all its various tones, the tomahawk exercise, and the mode of feasting at an Abyssinian banquet." The evening arrived, and many people attended to witness these princely imitations. At the end of the third act his highness walked for ward, with dignified step, flourishing his tomahawk, and cut the air, exclaiming, "ha ha-ho ho!" next entered a man with his face blackened, and a piece gum; the prince with a large carving knife, commenced the scalping operation, which he performed in a style truly imperial, holding up the skin in token of triumphNext came the war-whoop, which was a combination of dreadful and discordant sounds: lastly, the Abyssinian banquet, consisting of raw beef-steaks; these of bladder fastened to his head with | he made into rolls, as large as his mouth would admit, and devoured them in a princely and dignified manner. Having completed his cannibal repast, he flourished his tomahawk, exclaiming, "ha ha-ho ho!" and made his exit. Next day, the manager, in the middle of the market-place, espied the most puissant prince of Annamaboo selling pen-knives, scissars, and quills, in the character of a Jew pedlar, "What!" said Kemble, "my prince, is that you? are not you a pretty Jewish scoundrel to impose upon us in this manner?" Moses turned round, and with an arch look replied, "Prince be d-d, I vash no prince, 1 vash acting like you-you vash kings, princes, emperor to-night, Stephen Kembles tomorrow; I vash humpugs, you vash humpugs, and all vash humpugs." SERMON ON MAN. Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upwards!— Job, chap. v. verse 7 I shall divide the discourse into, and consider it under, the three following heads: first man's ingress into the world; secondly his progress through the world; third and lastly, his egress out of the world. -And first, man's ingress into the world is naked and bare: secondly, his progress through the world is trouble and care; thirdly and lastly, his egress out of the world is-nobody knows where.. If we do well here, we shall be well there, I can tell you no more, if I preach for a year. NOSE AND EYES, To close. In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear, And your lordship, he said, will undoubtedly find, That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear, Which amounts to possession time out of mind. Then holding the Spectacles up to the courtYour lordship observes they are made with a straddle, As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short, Design'd to sit close to it, just like a saddle. Again, would your lordship a moment suppose, ('Tis a case that has happen'd, and may be again;) That the visage or countenance had not a Nose, Pray who would or who could wear Spectacles then? On the whole it appears-and my argument shows, With a reasoning the court will never condemn, That the Spectacles plainly were made for the Nose, And the Nose was as plainly intended for them. Then, shifting his side, (as a lawyer knows how,) He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes; But what were his arguments few people know, For the court did not think they were equally wise. So his lordship decreed, with a grave solemn tone, Decisive and clear, without one if or but, That, whenever the Nose put his Spectacles on, By day-light or candle-light-Eyes should be shut! COWPER. THE OLD SOLDIER. I was born in Shropshire, my father was a labourer, and died when I was five years old; so I was put upon the parish. As he had been a wandering sort of a man, the parishioners were not able to tell to what parish I belonged, or where I was born, so they sent me to another parish, and that parish sent me to a third. I thought in my heart, they kept sending me about so long, that they would not let me be born in any parish at all; but, at last, however, they fixed me. I had some disposition to be a scholar, and was resolved, at least, to know my letters, but the master of the workhouse put me to business as soon as I was able to handle a mallet; and here I lived an easy kind of life for five years. I only wrought ten hours in the day, and had my meat and drink provided for my labour. It is true, I was not suffered to stir out of the house, for fear, as they said, I should run away; but what of that? I had the liberty of the whole house, and the yard before the door, and that was enough for me. I was then bound out to a farmer, where I was up.both early and late; but I ate and drank well, and liked my business well enough, till he died, when I was obliged to provide for myself; so I was resolved to and seek my fortune. go In this manner I went from town to town, worked when I could get employment, and starved when I could get none; when happening one day to go through a field belonging to a justice of peace, I spied a hare crossing the path just before me; and I believe the devil put it in my head to fling my stick at it--Well, what will you have on't? I killed the hare, and was bringing it away in triumph, when the justice himself met me; he called me a poacher and a villain, and collaring me, desired I would give begged his worship's pardon, and began to give a an account of myself. I fell upon my knees, full account of all that I knew of my breed, seed. and generation; but, though I gave a very good account, the justice would not believe a syllable I had to say; so I was indicted at sessions, found guilty of being poor, and sent up to London to Newgate, in order to be transported as a vagabond. People may say this and that of being in jail; but, for my part, I found Newgate as agreeable a place as ever I was in all my life. I had my belly full to eat and drink, and did not work at all. This kind of life was too good to last for ever; so I was taken out of prison, after five months, put on board a ship, and sent off, with two hundred more, to the plantations. We had but an indifferent passage, for, being all confined in the hold, more than a hundred of our people died for want of sweet air; and those that remained were sickly enough, God knows. When we came ashore we were sold to the planters, and I was bound for seven years more. As I was no scholar, for I did not know my letters, |