CONTENTS OF THE SECOND PART The Ill-Humorist; or, our Recantation The Robertses on their Travels. By Mrs. Trollope PAGE 83, 255 The Bit of Preferment. By the Author of " Peter Priggins" Recreations in Natural History. Nos. XXII., XXIII. Elephants. Parts II., III. Deceased People whom we meet Daily. By Laman Blanchard, Esq. Mrs. Hope, the Fortune-Teller. A new Song. By James Kenney, Esq. 123 The Beauty of Brighton. By John Poole, Esq. The Polka; or, the Bohemian Girl to her Lover. A National Ballad Recollections of the Author of " Vathek." By Cyrus Redding, Esq. Lights and Shades in the Life of a Gentleman on Author of "Stories of Waterloo." Nos. I., II, III. . Unpossessed Possessions. By Horace Smith, Esq. Finishing with a Dinner. By the Author of "Peter Priggins” Coningsby; or, the New Generation. By B. D'Israeli, Esq., M.P. The Emperor Nicholas, his Nobles, Serfs, and Servants Le Peuple Souriquois; an Historical Sketch. By a Mouse. Campbell's Funeral. By Horace Smith, Esq. The Tower of the Caliph Nick Croxtead, the Law-Evader. By the Author of " Peter Priggins" La Maison Maternelle Historic Fancies People who "always keep their Word." By Laman Blanchard, Esq. 549 The Art Exhibition in Westminster Hall (for JUNE): Narrative of the Voyages and Services of 266 to 278 (for JULY): Excursion through the Slave States, Fine Arts: Mr. Harding's Ancient Historical Picture 422 424 (for AUGUST): Sydney Morcom-Impressions and I 1197 THE ILL'HUMORIST; OR, OUR RECANTATION.0" 10 2901712 ba8 291Oh, I am stabbed with laughter o [A voluntary confession le ban 4141 protei confession of error has always a certain recommendation with it. We therefore trust that the discovery we have made, and the acknowledgment we here give of the fault we have fallen into respecting the "Humor" in which we have written, will be properly appreciated by a discerning public.-EDITOR.] We are weary of good humor, heartily tired of mirth we are resolved in short, to be comical no more. The Tragic Muse shall have us all to herself. The Blue Devils take us! A B⠀⠀ For all man's life me-seems a tragedy 66 There shall be no more cakes and ale" if we can help it. Our part in future shall be with virtue and Malvolio; we mean to give Sir Andrew Ague-cheek warning, and clasp Sir Andrew Agnew to our heart. If there shall be any more ale, it shall be "bitter ale," and our cup shall be that of Tantalus. The grievances of Englishmen are, in sad earnest, the dearest privileges] they possess. Our patriots of former days committed a grievous blunder in bringing in their Bill of Rights. A Bill of Wrongs would have been infinitely more popular, and immeasurably more in unity with the tastes and feelings of the country. The true rights of a Briton are his wrongs, for he is never so pleased as when he is afflicted, and never so discontented as when cause for grumbling he has none. Dogberry was a genuine son of Albion, albeit the great dramatist, in his caprice, claps us down that pink of constables in the streets of Messina. With what satisfaction and vain-glory does he not describe himself as "a man who has had his losses!" The losses of many a man are worth his profits told ten times over. What he gains subjects him to envy, increases his cares, augments his responsibilities and temptations; but what he loses (in addition to all the moral benefits resulting from the abstraction of so much filthy lucre,) has the enormous advantage of furnishing him with a good casus belli with the world, and a fair quarrel with the lady of the ever-spinning wheel. * Spenser's "Tears of the Muses.” May.-VOL. LXXI. NO. CCLXXXI. B Can there be a better proof of the prevailing fashion for grievances, than the precarious hold which reformers have had in all ages upon the affections of their fellow-citizens? The love of abuses springs from the love of having something to abuse. To be abusing somebody or something the live-long day, is an enjoyment not to be dispensed with by those who have once tasted it; and the abuse highest in favour is that which comes in our way most frequently, and affords us the greatest number of occasions for exhibiting our spleen. We have known a man keep a three-legged stool in his study, for no earthly purpose but to knock his shins against and swear at. Upon the same principle many people keep cats and dogs in their houses, that they may have something to execrate for every broken saucer, and to cuff and kick whenever they meet it on the stairs. This is the true reason that pets are often the most odious creatures of their species; the animal is maintained at considerable expense, expressly because it is mischievous and detestable, thus providing us with a perennial theme for vituperation, and the exercise of our irascible dispositions. Nay, we often see this system extended to the human race, and servants and other dependants retained in an establishment, purposely to keep the temper of the master or mistress up to the boiling point. This is the use of a Smike to a Squeers. Smike was a well-conditioned simpleton; but many a mischievous and incorrigible brat escapes expulsion from school, because he ensures some epicure of a pedagogue the daily exercise of his verberose propensities. An urchin of this description is the schoolmaster's pet-boy; not all the good scholars in the academy afford him half the satisfaction which he derives from this one incorrigible favourite. This pleasure to be found in pain, this good in evil, this source of joy discoverable in the very stream of sorrow, is precisely what is figured by the diamond in the reptile's head. Sweet are the uses of adversity; Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Discontent is the jewel of adversity; tears are literally pearls; and there is no gold to be compared to the "gold of affliction," as a celebrated impost in the Lower Empire was appropriately designated. Why is Ireland, for example, called the First flower of the earth, And first gem of the sea, but because she is always in tribulation, and for ever in the dumps? Her true emerald is her distress; robbed of that she would be robbed of her reputation, and reduced to poverty indeed. A "good distress" makes the fortune of a tragic poet, and in this respect most men resemble the priests of Melpomene; they love a "good distress" prodigiously. It is evident from the wild schemes and impracticable objects that we are continually proposing, or in quest of, that we actually seek to be disappointed, knowing how sweet it is to talk of blighted hopes and rail at Fortune. How often do we not subscribe to mad speculations, and invest every shilling of our capital in the airiest bubbles, seemingly out of an abstract love of ruin. A ruined fortune would seem to be as attractive as the ruin of an abbey or a castle in a landscape. In like manner we expect impossibilities from our children, |