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of it; and even this would be at the hazard of its doing the very reverse, in adding to its infamy, eft xa estod to fnew aidt mi

Nevertheless, the case, we think, is not without hope. Dissec tion, as appointed by law, is hitherto a thing infamous, and confined to criminals; men in general are supposed to have a horror of it; they have certainly a horror of death, by one of the first laws of their nature; and in England as well as other countries there prevails a great objection to the chance of being disturbed in the grave. And yet, notwithstanding all this, it is no less certain that there are hundreds, and most probably thousands of men, who do not care twopence for the thought of what shall become of their dead bodies. We have heard more than one person say so, and we believe them. Now here perhaps is a want of imagination; but there may be great active goodness; and we do not see, why such persons should not be encouraged to bequeath themselves to the good of the community. Again, there may be no want of imagination on the side of sympathy with the living, and yet none of that sort of imagination, which forms the weak side of the poetical temperament. And above all, whether the example was furnished by a want of imagination on the one side, or an abundance of it on the other, we know not; but a voluntary thing of the sort did actually take place the other day, in the person of a professional gentleman, a member, we believe, of the Society of Friends, who made a regu Far disposal of himself in his will, and for the express purposes of science. Really, after all, if the legislature do anything in the business, we think they had better speak upon this hint. Give such bequests the sanction of esteem, and the character of reason→ ableness; and then all the other inducements, which might bring people into the measure, would be encouraged to have their full play. We know of nothing better to say, on our first view of the subject; and something upon it we could not help saying, on account of its great importance.

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As to criminals,-if the law turns its attention to that quarter and wishes to add to the list of available ones, we beg leave to propose the following:

All old bachelors, of a reasonable income, above forty.. omba All methodist-preachers, who talk of "this vile body" (the bodies to be had cheap, being, by their own account, worth so little.)

bodies are worth nothing being to be held vexatious, notwithstanding what the widows may say in confirmation of it).

Item, all those who have helped to make the national debt what it is, leaving their children to pay for it; because this is the only mode of proving they did it for their good.

Furthermore, all persons who have contributed nothing to the common good by some sort of personal service. (Here will be a fine crop of specimens, barring the gout).

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THE DRAWING-ROOM AND THE DUCHESS OF
ST. ALBANS.

"YESTERDAY," saith the Court Newsman, speaking of Wednes-
day last, "being St George's Day, and also appointed for the
anniversary and celebration of his Majesty's nativity, every demon-
stration of respect was observed throught the metropolis." There
may be reasons we are not acquainted with, for congratulating his
Majesty on being born the day on which he was not born. In
France they keep the name-day, as it is called, but that custom
originated in children's being named after the saint, on whose
festival they came into the world. Now his Majesty was not
christened after the illustrious bacon-contractor, who, according to
Gibbon, came afterwards to be called St George, and to be the
watch-word of the English chivalry. The name however did ori-
ginate among his Majesty's ancestors from that sacred and equivo-
cal personage; and we notice the thing rather for the novelty of it,
than for any purpose of objection. Whatever tends to amalgamate
the customs of all Europe may be regarded with pleasure, provided
it be nothing but an evidence of sociality. The more we copy
harmlessly from one another, the more inclined are all parties to an
interchange of real advantages. There is no nation in Europe, how-
ever highly it may think of itself, that may not learn something
on points of importance by a liberal study of its neighbours. By
the
way, it is curious, that this name of George, which has become
so royal, should signify an agriculturer. The King is his Most
Illustrious and Gracious Majesty, Agriculturer the Fourth. Mr
Southey might write hexameters on his reign, and call them the
Georgics. They would be read, as somebody said of the rest of
his poetry," when Virgil's were forgotten;" and, as Mr Porson
added-"not till then." It is strange, that Mr Southey writes nó
laureat odes. Can nothing that the King does, inspire him? The
silence would look not a little jacobinical, if the Laureat did not
pay so much attention to Church and State in every other particular.

He does not wish to look bought perhaps? But then why be so? Or if he cannot, bring himself to think he is bought, what could induce him to suppose that the government would crown his poetry, more than that of any other person? Does he think it was., for Wat Tyler, or the Botany Bay Eologues? or not rather for the poetical fictions against his old brother Reformers, in the prose of the Quarterly Review?-But this is a common-place subject, and gives rise to common-places.

The Court Newsman informs us, that "the illustrious company who assembled on this occasion to pay their respects to their Sovereign, comprised the beauty, the rank, the talent, the genius, the wealth, and the enterprise of the British Empire.'

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Halt a little there, sweet Signior. A great deal of the "rank," no doubt, and a good deal of the "wealth;" but not all the talent, thou gifted Newsman; nor the genius, thou discriminating SubLaureat; (not a man of genius was in thy list, that the public know of, except Sir Thomas Lawrence). And as to the beauty! witness, opera-house, and exhibition, and concert-room, and all the carriages of all the squares, that we deny not the charming faces which abound in high life, and which doubtless contributed their full cluster of human rose-buds to this garden of waving feathers, and diamonds like the dew. But had the gallant old Duke of Gordon been at thy side, he would never have suffered thee, thou traitor to the Jenkinses of thine own acquaintance, to blaspheme the loveliness and the lustre to be found in dairy-maid and in milliner; in bakers' daughters, and carpenters'; in the houses of Holborn, and the Strand, and Oxford street, and the remote parts of Stepney, even beyond Bethnal; and then again in all the countytowns, and all the counties; and in Ireland, with its darlings that have a breath in their speaking; and Scotland, with its barefoot beauties, standing in the brooks of Burns and Allan Ramsay!

Dost thou forget, ungrateful recorder of petticoats, dazzled with silver lama, and drunk with slips, how many fair faces have stooped over the making of those very petticoats, and lost their bloom in contributing to that of others?-faces, some of them with as fine eyes and as much refinement in them, aye, and perhaps as much gentility of origin, as hundreds that held themselves among the highest?

Take care, inconsiderate bistorian, how thou repeatest the like offence of omission, the deadliest in matters of beauty; or like the petticoats of thy Duchesses, thou wilt be elegantly trimmed thyself,-gros de Londres that thou art, and deficient in "garniture to correspond."

It must be a curious thing,-one of these Court Drawing-rooms, with its heap of external splendour, and its multitude of humours, bad and good. How much sparkling of eyes, for the first time, amidst the young! What apparent indifference, and real triumph, in the beautiful! What regret or good-humoured maternity among the old! What happy self-estimation on all sides! What

envy or generous admiration of others! And yet perhaps little of all this, in comparison with a sense of bustle and hurry, and a wonder how soon it is all over, and how little was thought of! The author of The Roué' has given us a lively notion on this head, in a passage of his first volume; which, in default of having ever been at Court ourselves (here the Newsman looks disdainful) shall be laid before our readers. 2 Paa adı RIETIS

Trevor took advantage of this seized the pen and the cards, and wrote Miss Fleming, presented by Lady Pomeroy. Miss Agnes Fleming, presented by Lady Pomeroy.' Duplicates of these were as quickly made and thrown upon the table; each young lady took the one designed for her. Trevor, in spite of a slight resistance, drew one of Lady Pomeroy's arms within his, while the other held her train, a took their places at the back of the crowd.

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and they

"A number of young men who were loitering that they might lose no part of the scene of confusion, for such is every part of the palace on a drawing-room day, excepting the presence-chamber and those immediately adjoining, called out after Trevor, but he heeded them not,

"They were now fairly in the crowd; new comers had closed them in, and were pushing from behind, which the struggles of those before to take care of their dresses, and to steer clear of the swords and of the wigs of dignitaries of the church and t the law, which were here and there seen like cauliflowers in the crowd, made a mob at Buckingham House very similar to a mob anywhere else.

"These struggles were still more vehement at the approach to any of the doorways, to the narrow spaces of which the people who had occupied a whole room, were obliged to contract themselves to gain a passage to another.

"Here Trevor's arm was of great use, and Lady Pomeroy ceased to regret that she had been obliged to him, when she felt the conveniences of passage which his strength and attentions obtained for her and her protegées at these perilous passages; for very perilous they were to flounces, feathers, and festoons.

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"Many ladies were near fainting in these doorways, and excited the compassion of Agnes, in spite of the difficulties of her own progress; though she could scarcely forbear laughing, when she saw the plump face short roundabout lady actually buried eyes, nose, and mouth,' as children say of the moon, in the full-bottomed wig of a short dumpling D.D., who had been thrust back upon her by some sudden re-action of the crowd.

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"At length, however, they came to a door where their further progress was stopped by the crossed halberds of the gentlemen-pensioners who lined the apartment into which the door led.

"Here was the beginning of the appearance of a court-here things were conducted with some of that order, which should certainly characterise the admission of the subject to the presence of the sovereign; and here our party had time to breathe, and to feel some return of that trepidation with which so many young hearts beat on their first presentation.

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Lady Pomeroy gave a hasty look at her nieces as they entered this last room, when the halberds were for a moment withdrawn to admit those nearest the door, and Trevor found more favour in her eyes when she saw that their dresses were much less discomposed than those of many of the others, through the exertions he had made in piloting them through the crowd- Take off your gloves-let go your train, ma'am,' was heard

uttered to those immediately before them. Amelia obeyed like an automaton; but the heart of Agnes leaped to her throat with a mingled sensation of fear and loyalty, as she caught a first glimpse of that court, in the midst of which she saw a monarch whom she had been trained to love, and whose presence and kindness she had never forgotten at the juvenile ball at Brighton.weruloy day am to 996a2s & ni baad (Their trains dropped-they moved forward, while the attentive pages arranged the half-acres of satin which swept gracefully behind them.flede "Amelia moved with her accustomed ease. Lady Pomeroy's heart glowed with pride as she saw her bend and rise gracefully as she passed the King; and it was lucky that, in this admiration of her sister, she did not perceive the agitation which Agnes had great difficulty to conceal.

Agnes had no eye for the moment for any but the monarch, surrounded as he was by all the heroes and statesmen of the age. They were all unregarded; her whole soul seemed swallowed up with a feeling of loyalty that almost overpowered her. This feeling was depicted in her then that sensation which in the other sex makes the patriot and the hero.

plain and affectionising colour and panting bosom; and she felt

"Agnes did not recover her self-command till she got out of the presence-chamber; but when she first arrived at the top of the stair-case, and looked down over the balustrade into the hall, she was delighted at the splendid coup d'oeil that presented itself.

It was here that the splendour of the English court was to be appreciated; a splendour not arising solely from dress and decoration, but from the really fine persons of most of those who compose it.

« Foreign courts may outstrip the English in tinsel, and diamonds, and brilliancy, but there is no court in Europe that can exhibit such a number of fine young men and handsome women as ours, w

"From the gallery Agnes took a survey of the whole scene below, which the blaze of diamonds, glitter of stars, nodding of plumes, and mixture of military with civil costumes sparkling with gold and silver," rendered almost a realisation of some enchantment."WOBBERO

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The greatest pleasure on these occasions, next to that of being presented for the first time, must be the sight of some extraordinary. lion or lioness.. In the present instance, the Duchess of St Albans appears to have been the spectacle in request. The Court Newsman, after his general preface, and mentioning the costly, tiaras of the Royal Family (who appeared, by the way, in dresses of British manufacture), hastens to speak of the Duchess the very first; and to tell us, that " in addition to a diamond tiara, she had a stomacher of diamonds." We do not introduce the mention of this lady invidiously. We think she had as much right to be at Court as anybody there; and wish, with all our hearts, for her sake as well as the spectators', that she was as young and handsome as she was twenty years back, and had married three Dukes in succession. A French philosopher under the old regime is said to have written a very serious treatise, the object of which was to consider the best mode of making "Dukes useful." Now one of the modes, we conceive, might be the encouraging them to cross the breed with young and handsome plebeians. Her Grace, it is said, is not without hopes to that effect, though she is young no

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