His lordship's tumble was not of much longer duration ;—he was out about six months, during which time

paper world beyond question, it pleased the Fates to bring the war to an end in 1815. And what are newspapers now, to what they were then? Treadmills, sir, compared with the former pleasure gardens. Why, when the war raged-raged, do I say?— when the war sported, newspapers wrote themselves. What had an

editor to do, but to slip his scissors into the Gazette-and Extraordinary Gazettes were in those days as plenty as blackberries-and whip out of it whole pages of matter at a time. And what matter, Tobias! God help your head! do not think that what you now read in gazettes is to be compared with what was the reading in similar works when I was

"Calidus juventa, Consule Planco,"

and then

10. Earl Grey was prime minister, and Lord Palmerston had a place.

11. Lord Melbourne was prime minister, and Lord Palmerston had a place.

Peel came in for three or four months, and then Palmerston had no place; but soon returned—

12. Lord Melbourne, purged of Brougham, as prime minister, and Lord Palmerston had a place.

Had a place, do I say? has a place. What's that Terence says, Filium habeo, Menedeme; ah! quid dixi habeo? I am not at all sure that the quotation is correct, Tobias, because the last copy of Terence I had, is gone the way of all Terence's ad avunculos. You understand Latin; namely, that of principal secretary of state for the foreign department.

Albany Fonblanque has published a book called "England under seven Administrations." What is that to the work which the noble viscount might publish" Palmerston under twelve Administrations?" Such an example of consistency, I maintain, is scarcely to be matched in history.

Therefore, shall Lord Palmerston receive no marks of contumely from me; and as for the ruin of England, I am aware that, like a female friend of the late Duke of Queensberry, Britannia takes a great deal of ruining. No, Tobias, my sorrows are much more practical. For the peace of the general world, perhaps, but for the plague and annoyance of the news

it,

"In my hot youth, when George the Third was king,"

or better still, in MS. penes me,

"In my hot youth, when on the ocean drench

Lord Nelson thunder'd-and in the field or trench

The Duke of Wellington squabash'd the French."

What have we in the gazettes now but a small handful of promotions in the army or navy, putting us perversely in mind of better times; a grudging and beggarly brevet; lots of dissolutions of partnerships, bankruptcies, dividends, certificates, sequestrations, declarations of insolvency, [by the way, if you are writing on the Opposition side, keep your eye sharp upon these departments of the Gazette, for you can always, if they happen to swell considerably, bring them up as proofs of the desperate state of the country, which it is unnecessary for me, at this period of our correspondence, to say, must be always attributed to the direct and infernal agency of the existing Administration. Observe, in passing, that you are always to describe bankrupts as ill-used individuals, men of the utmost solvency, the most prudent conduct, and the most undeniable principles, just as the police reporters designate all ladies of that "certain" kind, which, in conversation, we are content to leave uncertain," as

interesting, though unfortunate, females;" announcements of promotions, or choppings and changings of robbing statesmen and jobbing lawyers; now and then a peer by the virtue and for the cause of the pitchfork; Ebenezer Snooks, or Joshua Pelew-islands, or Snufflebag Six-andeightpence, of Manchester, Liverpool, or Birmingham, turned into a knight, -Sir Ebenezer, Sir Joshua, Sir Snufflebag; a license granted to the nosoap-and-water primitive sand-thesugar-pick-a-pocket body of believers, to allow persons to commit fornication by Act of Parliament, and other things of that kind. Excellent all in their way-excellent all; the last particularly, for it has contributed to put various shillings into the hands of various worthy and pious men, to whom that ceremony-not of marriage, but payment was peculiarly refreshing.

But, Tobias, where is the fighting? You will tell me it is in India. Heaven forefend that I should undervalue India ;-if this letter of mine by any accident falls into the hands of Scotchmen, I should be ruined for ever, were I to do so.

Here

"All Caledonia waste and wild, Fit nurse for many a writer child,” would be in arms against me. let me diverge for a moment. [We must decline publishing the remarks of this writer concerning Scotland, as We they are exceedingly illiberal. fall back on the national motto, "Nemo me (or we should perhaps, in editorial phrase, say nos,) impune lacessit," which signifies, "Nobody shall insult Scotland in Blackwood's Magazine." Besides, we sell 8500 copies in India. We therefore cut out the immediately succeeding sentences. The letter proceeds to say,] Cabul, good-Herat, excellent-Khelat, famous. All the march of the army, splendid. Who denies it? At least I cannot find any one who does; nor, with all my experience, can I conceive why any body should have any reason whatever for saying one word against the Indian, or, as you call it when you wish to make a long word towards filling up a line, the IndoBritish army. I think on the whole that they should be praised; but that is nothing to the purpose. There is nobody to abuse them, and therefore, not being matter of controversy, they

are of no use to us of the broadsheet. I know that among Indians, Mulligatawneys, Quihis, or other remarkble castes in Brahminical history, you cannot sit down a moment without being told that India is lost-that the direction

No-here I am wrong, because the gentlemen in the direction are a remarkable exception to this matter of communicability as to the consummation of Indian combustibility-excuse the alliteration, for they never say a word about it at all. Ödd as it must appear to you, Tobias, I dined with a director the other day, and when I asked him what was the progress of affairs in China, he answered with much dignity," Sir, I am not aware, officially, that such a place as China

exists."

But to supply my broken sentence. I was proceeding to observe, that all Indians, especially those who call themselves Old Indians, declare that India is lost, and that the directors have lost it. In every new war in the East, the natives of the Oriental club, situate by the refreshing margin of the streams of Shepherd Street, hold out that we are done. Every body, Mahometan, Brahmin, Burman, Pindaree, Affghan, Thug, Hill Cooley, whoever may turn up, is to beat us. Observe with what exactitude every "correspondent from India" remarks that nobody but himself knows what India is.

We

I do not deny the value of this, in a certain sense, and I am well aware that it passes current at Ibbotson's Hotel as vast philosophy; but it hardly interests that noble community called the reading public. What can you make of Hindoo affairs? I know that in places where Indians do congregate, we hear a vast clamour about personages of various names of Oriental sound, terrific to the waiters. listen astounded to the three-faced doings of the Great Ram-bam-jerrygo-dam-berry-ho-tom-too-tun-hooflam-bang, when a Rajah or Nawaab, (in my youth they used to call these chaps Nabob,) or Shah or Kamram, (I think that is a word of new impor tation,) or Ameer, or Mirza, or Lama, or Tharawaddie, or Mandarin, is to chop us off as if we were no better than grass prepared for the déjeuner of Nebuchadnezzar, many years ago King of Babylon. But I do not see

where you are to write leading articles on this peculiar tack, and that you know, Tobias, is the only point on which I am at present lecturing.

I suppose Lord Keane and Dost Mohammed, Shah Soojah and Sir William Macnaughton, Captain Thomson and Runjeet Sing, and all per. sons concerned, have done their duty. So I take it that General Perowski, in his march upon Khiva, has made a demonstration worthy of regard. With respect to Circassia, it is to be imagined that the war is going on there satisfactorily. Whether Mehemet Ali and the Sultan have settled their differences, I am not aware-nor do I exactly recollect if Khosrew Pacha has been hanged, like the late Mons. Courvoisier, valet of Lord William Russell. I read, two or three days ago, that Lisbon had been swallowed up in an earthquake; but what the date was, whether it was the earthquake of 1759, or one that occurred last week, I did not stop to enquire. Of Spain, I perceive that occasional mention is made, accompanied with some anxiety on the Stock Exchange; but, on enquiry in other quarters, I do not find any trace of its existence. There's a boundary question, I believe, going on between us and the Yankees, and we occasionally hear of such places as Mexico, Peru, the Equator, Chili, and all that sort of thing.

Well! they are, I suppose, all right in their way but they cannot be made permanent stuff for articles. There are only two points on which I have to advise you. There are, first, Louis Philippe,

and the other is the Emperor Nicholas -difficult-difficult-but *

This is altogether a different matter. I must go back to my original ground of lament. What is all this to the days bygone? You have something now to write upon-else your occupation is gone; but you must write-you, even you, Tobias, otherwise the paper looks naked and disarmed. God be with the days when we could print in letters as tall as the monument,

GLORIOUS VICTORY! What had we to say then? What, but "It is with feelings not to be described that we call the attention-but that indeed is not needed- of our readers, to the glorious intelligence

which will be found below. Feeling that any preface of ours would only impatiently detain the impatient public from the glorious intelligence, which it is our glorious lot to lay before them, we shall not add another word."

Then followed four columns of some such stuff as the Nile, or Copenhagen, or Trafalgar, or Talavera, or Salamanca, or Badajoz, or Ciudad Rodrigo, or San Sebastian, or Thoulouse, or Waterloo, or the march upon Moscow, or the occupation of France

or

But no matter-see the Annual Register. Now, when these things were going forward in the world, who cared a farthing what else a newspaper contained, if it gave them? I repeat it, in those glorious days a newspaper wrote itself. May I not then be sad of soul, when I find that, instead of filling papers with deeds of others, we are obliged to stuff them with words of our own. China, you will say, may do something-no-it is only a tempest in a tea-cup. Not that China is not a fine thing to write aboutthere's the Opium question--elegant on both sides; read Warren-he floors the humbug that opium has any thing to do with the quarrel. There you have every thing that can be said on that side; read piety, morals, poison, corruption of innocent empire-all excellent. But fighting there will be none. That Lin, the Chief Commissioner, writes well, and in a capital style, cannot be denied. I wish that we had more of the Lin style among ourselves; but between ourselves, Tobias, I fear that our most eminent political authors imitate more the swagger than the energy of that most original of writers. If he be obliged to fly from China, I hope he'll come to London, for he would be well worth ten guineas a-week to the — or any other comatose and moribund journal.

I am about to

Here the handwriting of the venerable senior begins to be so indistinct, that it cannot be deciphered by We sup any average compositor. pose that, like all "laudatores temporis acti," he was led away by his antiquated feelings. Whether we shall publish any more of this correspondence, which has by the merest accident fallen into our hands, is a matter of consideration. But as our readers may perhaps be

Napoleon Buonaparte, or Bonaparte -for it is spelt both ways. I am distracted-distracted. I do not know what I am writing-indeed, many persons have said the same of my printed compositions-but-Sarah-SallySal-Sal! Is this the conduct-is this the-the-the-I have not got a word. And is she then false?-but I will not, or shall not, or whatever is the best grammar, for I do not think it is decided—whatever it is, will not, or shall not-it is no use to go on. Of all the old ruffians I ever knew-RUFFIANSI underline it. No matter. What he says is true-but

DEAR CHRISTOPHER,-Having been lately invited to become vice-patron of a Total Abstinence Society, by some well-meaning people whose knowledge of my habits, and my peculiar fitness for that office, must have been derived from sources highly flattering to myself, and the authenticity of which was probably never questioned, I have been induced to turn over in my mind the great question of totalism-by which I mean totality in all its branches, whether of abstinence or of tea. In order to ascertain the effects of undiluted water, taken inwardly, upon such constitutions as mine, I have even made myself the subject of a series of experi ments. As the object I had in view was to benefit society at the least possible inconvenience to myself, it occurred to me that the virtue of the pure element (as it used to be called before it was analysed by philosophers and microscopes) might be well enough tested on the omeopathic principle, that is, by being taken in infinitessimally small doses; and I am bound to admit, so far as my own case is concerned, that water is at least a perfectly harmless fluid, and not very unpleasant; provided that, immediate ly after imbibing it, the mouth and throat be rinsed with a little cognac; and perhaps other people may be able to refrain from swallowing their gargle. Of course, this is only a step towards qualifying one's-self for going the entire hog, and taking the

pledge of Father Matthew; but my own maxim is pedetentim tamen A very sudden conversion is always likely to be followed by a relapse; and I am determined that nobody shall be able to reproach me with precipitation in the matter.

I shall much meditate this thing, I promise you, and read many tracts and hear many fathers upon the subject, before I become a thorough proselyte. Great, indeed, would be my satisfaction, Mr North, to have the benefit of your advice, and more especially of your example. To learn that you had at length repudiated those maxims of "wise old Phocylides," and become a tea-totaler in your old days, would have greater influence with me than a dozen Pindaric odes on the surpassing excellency of water. But, perhaps, it is too much to expect a man at your time of life to renounce inveterate habits of tippling. In the mean time, having unfortunately not taken the precaution to confine my reading and investigations to one side of the question only, I am agitated by a sea of doubts; and such of my friends as watch me narrowly are able to detect little inconsistencies in my conduct, which are entirely owing to the impar tiality with which I balance the conflicting arguments upon this intricate subject. It is alleged, for instance, that I am a tea-totaler in theory but not in practice that the thin potations which I am in the occasional habit of prescribing for others, do not, by