The pause in this last line is very exquisite. We are sorry we have not our books near us; or we could surely find out something respecting Mrs Greville, to make up for the Editor's want of information on that point. Is there nothing in Miss Hays's biography? In Nichols's collections? Or Collins's Peerage, by Egerton? We think we have a recollection, that Mrs Greville was allied by marriage to the noble family of that name.

Two poems by Lady Henrietta O'Neil, are taken out of her friend Mrs Charlotte Smith's novel of Desmond, a work, by the way, from which Sir Walter Scott has borrowed the foundation of his character of Waverley, and the name besides. In a novel by the same lady, we forget which, is the first sketch of the sea-side incident in the Antiquary, where the hero saves the life of Miss Wardour. Lady Henrietta's verses do her credit, but seem to imply a good deal of suffering. One " To the Poppy," begins with the following melodious piece of melancholy:

"Not for the promise of the laboured field,

Not for the good the yellow harvests yield,
I bend at Ceres' shrine;

For dull to humid eyes appear

The golden glories of the year:

Alas! a melancholy worship's mine :

"I hail the Goddess for her scarlet flower," &c.

In other words, the fair and flourishing lady of quality took opium; which, we believe, was the case with her poorer friend. We believe the world would be astonished, if they knew the names of all the people of genius, and of all the rich people as well as poor, who had recourse to the same consolatory drug-thousands upon thousands take it, of whom the world have no suspicion; and yet many of those persons, able to endure perhaps on that very account what requires all the patience of those who abstain from it, will quarrel with you for trying to alter the condition of society. [TO BE CONTINUED.]

1

མཉམ

1

THE FENCING-MASTER'S CHOICE.

As we have a great aversion to the repetition of old jokes, and in our ignorance of what is going forward in the festive parts of the town, can never be certain that any story we take for a new one is not well known, we always feel inclined to preface a relation of this kind with something that should serve for an apology in case of necessity, or give it a new grace in default of newness of a better sort. And this reflection always reminds us of that pleasant Milanese, whom nature made a wag and a jolly fellow, and Francis

the First made a bishop; to wit, Master Matthew Bandello, the best Italian novelist, after Boccaccio, and one who could tell a grave story as well a merry one. Monsignore Matteo, before he proceeds to relate how " a jealous enamoured himself" of a young widow, or how a pleasant" beff" was put upon a priest who became "furious of it," and "remained stordited,"-makes a point of informing the reader, where he first heard the story, who told it, and in whose company, and how much better it was told than he, with his Lombardisms, can have any pretence to repeat it; on all which accounts he wishes to God, that people could have heard it fresh from the lips of that very amiable and magnificent Signor, the before-mentioned Signor Antonio, whom he recollects as if it was but yesterday, because he was standing at the time with a right joyous and genteel company by the balustrade of the gardens of the very illustrious and most adorned Signor, his singularly noble friend the Signor Gherardesco dei Gherardi, Conte di Cuviano, where there happened to be present the ladies equally eminent for their high birth and most excellent endowments, to wit, the right courteous, virtuous, and most beautiful Ladies the Lady Vittoria, Princess of Colombano, and the Lady Hippolita D'Este, widow of the most valorous and magnificent Signor, the ever-memorable Alfonso, Prince of Ferrara; which ladies, being very affectionate towards all argute sayings and witty deeds, did nigh burst themselves for laughter, in the which the very illustrious Signor Gherardesco aforesaid did heartily join, to the great contentment of that princely company, and all who overheard those urbane conceits and most graceful phrases, which he (the Bishop) utterly despairs of rendering anything the like to the reader. But he will do his best; and as the story is exceedingly curious: (to wit, a little free) he had addressed it to the right virtuous and most adorned with all feminine dowries, the Lady Lucretia di San-Donnato, in return for one of a like nature which she was graciously pleased to relate to him one day; to wit, on the eve of the day of Corpus Domini, sitting in the windows of the Palazzo Rospoli, at that time inhabited by the very magnificent, most adorned, and most worthily given Signor, the Signor Prince Cesare Ottoboni, nephew of the most Holy Father.

By this process, the reader feels bound to like the story, if only out of a proper sense of the company he is in, and the respect that is due to all those fair and magnificent names; and then follows the novella, or new tale, perhaps not at all new, and no longer than the one we are about to relate.

We should like to call to ourselves an aid of this sort, and be able at the head of every one of our stories to state how it was told us by this person or that; how that, sitting one day in the gardens of Kensington, at a time when the dust of the streets rendered an escape into those green and quict places agreeable, we had the pleasure of hearing it from the lips of that very

adorned and witty Mister, the Reverend Mister Samuel Smith, or the extremely magnificent and choice in his neckcloths, the admired Mr Tomlinson; or how dining with the very magnificent and grave Esquire, the Squire Jinks, of Jinks Hall, it was related to us by the facetious and extremely skilled in languages, the bachelor of arts, the hopeful Dick Watts, cousin of the high born and most beautiful lady, the Lady Barbara Jinks, consort of the said esquire, who being at that moment in the act of swallowing a cherry, was nigh to have thrown all the lovers of wit and elegance in those parts into mourning, in consequence of the extreme difficulty she found in swallowing the fruit and the facetiosity

at once.

The story is this: that in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, the celebrated fencing-master, Monsieur de la Rue, being at that time fencing-master to the gentlemen of the university of Cambridge, and grievously tormented in his vocation by the said gentlemen, who made no end of mimicking his grimaces, groaning out of measure at his thrusts, not repenting at his remonstrances, and shewing themselves otherwise insensible of the dignity and pains-taking of his profession, did one day, towards the end of the month of June, the weather being hot, the said Monsieur de la Rue in his jacket and night-cap, and divers of the said gentlemen standing idly about, laughing and making a vain sport, instead of pinking him as they ought to have done,-he, the said Monsieur de la Rue, did, I say, then and there sit down on the floor in the room in which he was fencing, and placing, one on each side of him, the two foils which he then happened to be holding in his hands, and being provoked out of the ordinary measure of his patience by the eternal gibes and ungrateful levities of those his tormentors, the said gentlemen, was moved to utter the following speech, or representation expostulatory; which he did with great passion and vehemence, his eyes wide open, his hands and face trembling, and emphasis rising at every sentence:

Jentlemens,

If Got Almaighty-vere to come down from hevven,-and vere to say to me, "Monsieur de la Rue,-vill you be fencing-master at Osford or Cambreege,—or vill you be ETAIRNALLY damı?”I should answer and say,

SARE, if it is all the same to you,-I vill be ETAIRNALLY dam."

LONDON:

Published by HUNT and CLARKE, York street, Covent garden; and sold by all Booksellers and Newsvenders in town and country.-Price 4d.

PRINTED BY C. H. REYNELL, BROAD STREET. GOLDEN SQUARE. TO

No. XXVI. WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1828.

"Something alone yet not alone, to be wished, and only to be found, in a friend."-SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.

THE PANTOFLES.

(FROM THE ITALIAN OF GOZZI.)

BY A CORRESPONDENT.

IN Bagdad lived an old merchant, of the name of Abon Casem, who was famous for his riches, but still more for his avarice. His coffers were small to look at (if you could get a sight of them), and very dirty; but they were crammed with jewels. His clothes were as scanty as need be; but then, even in his clothes, there was multum in parvo; to wit, much dirt in little space. All the embroidery he wore was of that kind which is of necessity attendant upon a ragged state of drapery. It meandered over his bony form in all the beauty of ill-sewn patches. His turban was of the finest kind of linen for lasting; a kind of canvass, and so mixed with 26

VOL. I.

elementary substances, that its original colour, if it still existed, was invisible. But of all his habiliments, his slippers were most deserving the study of the curious. They were the extreme cases both of his body and his dirt. The soles consisted chiefly of huge nails, and the upper leathers of almost everything. The ship of the Argonauts was not a greater miscellany. During the ten years of their performance in the character of shoes, the most skilful cobblers had exercised their science and ingenuity in keeping them together. The accumulation of materials had been so great, and their weight was so heavy in proportion, that they were promoted to honours of proverbialism; and Abon Casem's slippers became a favourite comparison, when a superfluity of weight was the subject of discourse.

It happened one day, as this precious merchant was walking in the market, that he had a great quantity of fine glass bottles offered him for sale; and as the proposed bargain was greatly on his side, and he made it still more so, he bought them. The vendor informed him, furthermore, that a perfumer having lately become bankrupt, had no resource left but to sell, at a very low price, a large quantity of rose-water; and Casem, greatly rejoicing at this news, and hastening to the poor man's shop, bought up all the rose-water at half its value. He then carried it home, and comfortably put it in his bottles. Delighted with these good bargains, and buoyant in his spirits, our hero, instead of making á feast, according to the custom of his fellows, thought it more advisable to go to the bath, where he had not been for some time.

While employed in the intricate business of undressing, one of his friends, or one whom he believed such, (for your misers seldom have any) observed, that his pantofles had made him quite the