the moment they do so, coolly and steadily fire at the man whose pistol seems most to be directed towards you-present, sloping downwards, and rather below than at or above his chest: if you hit him, he will be disabled, although his life may be spared. If he fires at and misses you, drop as if wounded into the bottom of the carriage, and before he or they have recovered from their guilty surprise, you may, whilst lying at the bottom, shoot one or two of the footpads near the door; and the horses, probably startled by the firing, or urged by the driver, may knock down those near their heads; if so your carriage should start off, remain at the bottom of it, for if any of the gang fire at the back of the carriage-as was done by the noted Jerry Abershaw, who killed some gentlemen that way, you are less likely to be hit than if you place yourself on the

seat.

In an open four-wheeled carriage these modes, it is allowed, are more difficult-in a gig more so still-indeed some of them impossible-but genius and presence of mind will enable the Stopped to adapt his conduct to the peculiar circumstances of each case as it occurs, and to strew the high-road with footpads. But suppose you have taken "one, and why not two prisoners," how are you to convey them to headquarters? Suppose you gained the night single-handed and on foot. Why, then, you must play the Prussian corporal. "They either make the men themselves (taken in battle), and a pistol pointed at a footpad would make him do it or the corporals, cut off all the buttons from the waistband of the prisoners' small-clothes, and they slit the waistband down the hind part besides, taking away the braces also. This compels the fellows in marching to hold up their small-clothes with both their hands, an attitude which precludes their attacking, and impedes their running away."

We find that we have reached the limits set to this article, and grieve that it is not now in our power to show how persons falling into the water may, though they cannot swim, easily save themselves from drowning-how, with common coolness, any man may escape from a house on fire, and carry with him at least one woman; and how you may kill or capture any number of thieves who may have the rashness to enter your domicile at dead of night. But the truth is, we have given you but a glimpse of the contents of this library of useful and entertaining knowledge in one volume. Purchase it for it is cheap at 14s., with its numerous embellish

ments, by Mr Bonner and others, after designs by MESSRS G. AND R. CRUIKSHANK, ALKEN, HAGHE, FUSSELL, AND DE BERENGER.

One lesson, however, we must read you from the Baron, for the art it teaches is indispensable to the domestic comfort of every man moving in civilised life. "TO TURN A PERSON OUT OF A ROOM, at times may become necessary;" and how be best performed?

may

it

I shall state several ways of doing it, wherefore you can employ either, just as circumstances favour any particular mode. For example: if you perceive a favourable opportunity to seize the right hand of a troublesome person with your own right, do so, and, quickly lifting it, pass your left hand and arm under his right, to seize him by the collar with your left, fixing your antagonist's right elbow on your left arm at the same time. Now, by having placed the end of your own thumb upon the back of his right hand, you will have the power of twisting his hand outwards, and of pressing it downwards at the same time, your left arm becoming the fulcrum to his elbow, which giving him extraordinary pain, will raise him on his toes, and thus you can move him out of a room before you, so long as you keep his arms straight, and which you should not omit on any account. Or, seize a person by the collar of his coat, at the back of his neck, with one hand, and with the other lay hold of that part of his small-clothes, and just under his waistband, where they are roomy instead of tight; hoist him up by the latter hold, so as to bring him nearly on tiptoe, and, with a firm hold of his collar, push him forward, and off his balance, at the same time: to prevent himself from falling, he must move forward, and thus, by means of pushing and hoisting, you can easily steer him out of the room, or whichever way you please; you may, if he is of great weight, or you are afraid of his turning round to hit you, lay your own weight against his back, pushing him thus, as well as driving him on by the modes just stated.

VOL. VII.

2 B

MACAULAY'S LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME.

[DECEMBER 1842.]

A MAN of genius told us, a good many years ago, that ours is a mechanical age, and, in his own eloquent way, gave us some of his reasons for thinking so; but, unfortunately, few of his followers have much of his wit or wisdom, and all of them have so long kept repeating pragmatically his dicta, that, but for the love we bear him, we should have lost our temper with Thomas Carlyle. Thank Heaven, it is a mechanical age; but, thank Heaven, it is likewise an intellectual and imaginative age; as ages go-even a moral and religious age. Consider that the vital functions of our souls and bodies are still dependent on machinery not worked by steam. It seems but poor philosophy to believe that mind can suffer loss in its nobler faculties from its power over matter—that the discoveries and inventions of physical science enlarge not the sphere of our spiritual being. With what, out of ourselves, have we human beings been contending since the birth of time, but with the difficulties of nature? As we continue to conquer more and more of them, so much power is left free to be employed in the harder conquest over the evils inherent in our own hearts. Again, then, we say, thank Heaven, it is a mechanical age—a practical age-an age of Utilitarians. The earth, as if to shame the seers in our own time, has by knowledge been made more and more productive of necessaries, comforts, and luxuries, after her fertility was said to be exhausted; and the great law is now seen to be, that as civilisation advances, population creates subsistence. Meanwhile, has the soil of the soul become barren ?—and if so, from want of cultivation, or from having been overcropped?

We know not well how many years compose an age. And does it not, eagle-like, renew its youth? The present age

1 Lays of Ancient Rome. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

seems in its prime—yet we remember it holding its head high fifty years ago. To observe its, character truly, and to the life, you must be conversant with all it has said and done. Be not so foolish, we beseech you, as to imagine, for a moment, that it is dead when it is but asleep-that it is asleep when it is but silent. Then, surely, there is an allowable resting on its arms, in august repose, after victories won. The age may be thinking, and therefore still and mute, till, all of a sudden, it rises up, and speaks like the sea.

Never again, as ye love us, say that the age has no imagination. It is the age of genius. A more poetical age never flourished. Thought and passion are prevalent in its highest literature. It rejoices in its

"Serene creators of immortal things."

Some of the greatest lately dropped the body-some are preparing to follow-few will be seen ten years hence-probably not one; yet the nations, while they are yet weeping, forget their grief, and remember that nature lets not her sweet and solemn singers die, but has destined them a life here below to fade but with the stars.

But, haply, you hold that the age we have been speaking of is past. You see numbers of young men and women; and, regarding them collectively, you call them the present age. The old and elderly seem to you lingering survivors of a time, along with which they had better have departed in the course of nature-and, impatient of their stay, you would forget them if you could; or you say, their day is over, while another and brighter sky salutes the new sons of the morning. What say you, then, to them who call yours a mechanical age, and yourselves a generation of manufacturers? To refute them, produce your poets. Alas! of poets there are plenty-enow and to spare; but sad and strange to say, few will listen to the nightingales. In plain prose, poetry is declared a drug. The supply, it is averred, has outrun the demand. Oh, horror, there is a glut !-and Apollo shuts up shop, having appeared as apothecary in the Gazette-in the list of bankruptcies superseded!

Now, ours is a different opinion altogether on this matter. We assert there is no glut of the real commodity-the genuine article; but flimsy counterfeits of all the favourite patterns

have been so multiplied, that people are afraid to buy, and stand far aloof; and we need not dwell on prices in a marketplace, how spacious soever, which is peopled exclusively by sellers.

But leaving the consideration of the law of supply and demand to the political economists, let us look in the face of the Pensive Public, and say whether or no we discern there any symptoms of indifference or disgust to poetry and poets. She doth wear, we confess it, a somewhat sourish aspect; but on what poetry, and on what poets, may the melancholy maid be musing? On the Small-beer School, or haply, on that of Imperial Pop? These Schools insist on being heard at all hours, even on the most solemn occasions; and what, we ask, can be more unseasonable than the sudden clunk or crack of a cork, during a formal forenoon call, an evening conversazione, a marriage, or a funeral? The beer may, like that of Trinity, be a very pretty beer, but it ought to learn to take things quietly, and be less ambitious; seldom doth brown stout, in that obstreperous style, seek to burst on the world-Glenlivet Yet sometimes to such report doth the Pensive Public her ear not ungraciously incline; and, putting forth her lily hand, she lifteth to her rosy mouth that of the importunate blackamoor; when, lo and behold! the contents have vanished in froth, and she kisses a barmy deposit.

never.

But there is better poetry than the above to be had for love or money. Its cultivators "the primrose path of dalliance tread." They are "all for love and a little for the bottle"nature is the mistress they adore-and with a phial in the left hand, of rose-water or prussic acid, they seem, while inditing a sonnet, intent on suicide. They excel in the pathetic and the sweetly pretty; but some of the more highly gifted among them are addicted to delineations of the darker passions, and their forte is the intense. Keep that threne some inches further from your noses and eyes, or they will water as at the contact of a vinaigrette. Remarkable inconsistencies of genius! That threne was indited by a curled darling with pink cheeks, who has occasionally performed the part of a peristrephic image in the window of a friseur!

Where shall we place "the mob of gentlemen who write with ease?" They have no connection with the swell mob, though that incorporation has its poets too; but are persons of

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