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The Cornwall Correspondent.

PARISH POLITICS..

It is our intention, under this head, to take a view of all political, domestic, or other events that may affect the well-being of society, more especially in this quarter of the country; and for that reason, we invite the attention of the public to a proceeding of the Vestry, held here on the 29th ultimo. It appears that the sum of £170 pounds had been given to the printer of the Cornwall Courier for executing the parochial printing during the preceding year; but the printer of the West India Gazette, as the former printer was out of office, presented a tender to execute it for £105, proving the fallacy of expending such a sum, and, ou being asked if he had calculated the labour, stated that he had, and that he should have a fair and ample profit in executing it at the rate of £105; thus saving the parish £65 per annum! But will the public believe it? His tender was rejected! and the leading member moved that his favourite printer should be re-elected with, (over and above the ample sum of £105,) as the parish funds are so flourishing at present, a yearly pension of ONLY Sixty-five Pounds to be paid, not out of the purse of Mr. Scott, or "his little senate," but by the public generally. This, to say the very least of it, is a specimen of jobbing that every independent and upright man should endeavour to oppose with all his power. On inquiry we find that about two reams of printing paper (40s. Sterling!) is the amount of the outlay on this mighty parochial job!!! Delirant reges plectuntur monendo."

CHIT-CHAT.

How to look big.-Procure a military surtout-no matter whether you can pay for it. See that it is illustrated with gilt or plated buttons, with something raised upon them-put your hat a little on one side; but be sure that the wrist-bands of your shirt be cut à la Brummel, i, e. comfortably covering the second joints of your fingers. Do not forget to talk as familiarly of His Grace, or Sir John, as if you were on an equal footing with them. If you sport a landau, be sure you mount the box, and give a light and airy touch with the whip, to shew that you know more about horses than your groom; and if you fail in obtaining the credit of being born a gentleman, you may stand some chance of notoriety for the qualifications of a thoroughbred coachman.

Falmouth :

PRINTED FOR THE EDITOR, BY ALEX. HOLMES.

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THE GOSSIP;

A Literary, Domestic, and Useful Publication,

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"Book-learn'd and quaint, a Virtuoso bight."

WHY should I have offered the father of all the Gossips so great an insult as to give precedence to the slender merits of Mr. Twaddle! Unintentional as it has been, the civil dudgeon' of the old gentleman has been considerably excited, and he complains that this is the age for neglecting years, experience, and sagacity. Without further premise, therefore, I beg to introduce you, most complaisant Reader, to Mr. Geoffrey Botheringham, who is universally considered a shrewd and learned man-and if shreds of Greek and patches of Latin constitute learning, he has these, and bestows them in prosion on all within the atmosphere of his lungs. I have heard him quote Horatius, Juvenalis, and Persii Flacci a thousand times within these last ten years no Italian

improvvisatoré, or extemporaneous poetaster, could equal the erudite Geoffrey Botheringham,

"Whose sullen voice, with rub a-dub,

Sounds like the hooping of a tub."

He is extremely fond of "the most sovereign weed that grows" and if you had beheld this learned Theban, as I have beheld him, enveloped in a cloud of smoke, you would have fancied that you were witnessing the resuscitation of the renowned Asmodeus, or Le Diable Boiteaux. Then for astronomical, astrological, and microscopical knowledge, which would make a clown stare like a ruminating cow, he has not here his equal: and this made Mr. Lacklore say that Mr. Botheringham was the most illiterate and intelligible man he ever knew. His astronomical calculations may, at any time, be within ten degrees of the exact thing. In physiology he

"Could tellen if a flea were lean or fat,

And read a lecture o'er the entrails of a gnat."

To these he has added the art of telling the clock by algebra, as suggested by the facetious Butler: and on the plan of the Marquis of Worcester, he can write in the dark, converse with jangling bells out of tune; he has long ago discovered the art of making unsinkable ships; and, if we give credence to his fantastic mechanical powers, he will not only discover the principle of perpetual motion; but, in short, he will teach us how to fly.

The next is a poor relation to the Fleabite family by the female side-Mr. Christopher Backbite, whose ignoble blood has crept through backbites ever since the flood. This member is apt to indulge in a deep, 'poetic vein' at times; but, alas! he has never gone beyond the Martha Brae River for his inspiration unless, indeed, his youthful draughts of the turgid

Thames at Wapping may be supposed to have given an impulse to his genius, "which coarsely clad in Norwich drugget, came;" but as local associations follow us through life, the silver Thamis rolling tide' and the porter brewed from it, may have done as much for his inspiration, as if he had drank his libations from Castalia; while Primrose-hill, of a Sunday, may have proved his Mount Helicon, and after a gradual descent to Chalk Farm, he may have there found his Hippocrene. These are the true inspirations of the votary of the muses of Cockayne-and particularly those of this Wapping Bard. Besides his poetic efforts, he attempts to give political opinions on almost every topic connected with the country, and in doing so, he has his listeners. Religion to him is a complete puzzle. He finds something rational in all opinions, but truth in none. He retails opinions, but shuns controversy. He can at all times finds doubts, but at no time resolve them. Out of his credulity in

every thing, he as easily believes nothing. He upholds the opinion that a candle should not be hid under a bushel, and verifies this in himself. He has the name, and I daresay, the qualifications of a town intelligencer, or busy gossip, who meddles in others' business and neglects his own, and he singles out his objects, no matter how unoffending to him, if opposed to the stronger party-the more virtuous the victim, the more correct the aim and deeper the wound. In fact, the sweeter the blood the deeper the bite. This hero is becoming a portly man, and if he had a wooden leg, would be an exact counterpart of Crowdero in Hudibras.

"A tun of man in his large bulk is writ;

But sure he's but a kilderkin of wit."

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His features, though full-blown and blowzy, resemble the common portraits of Tom Paine, and are equally a correct index of his mind. He has the demerit of frequently setting the parish by the ears by the propagation of scandals, and he affects still to give advice to the injured, who look up to him as an oracle. "When the shepherd is angry with his sheep, he sends them a blind guide." He even gives advice to a puny scribbler, who would wish to be considered as equally oracular: But with all his ingenuity our hero is sadly deficient in sincerity. In fact he is said to be a mischief maker, and numerous volumes of his insidious libels are still on record. These, it is true, were propagated in his more prosperous day>, and though the buffets of viscissitude have inflicted bodily infirmities, his mental aberrations are not from bad to better, but from bad to worse. The beautiful Hebrew proverb speaks volumes in illustration of this trait of character,-" In the time of affliction, a vow; in the time of prosperity, an inundation; or a greater increase of wickedness."

The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be ;
The devil was well, the devil a monk was he.

His philosophical judgement could never acquire a single rule of English syntax, and orthography proved too abstruse for his poetical imagination. He has obtained some knowledge of the stars; but the ascendant under whose evil and malign influence he first drew the breath of life remains to him unknown. He is assuredly no favourite of heaven; and the wisest say that he has not been born to be drowned. So far as regards the character of Mr. Kitt Backbite, this delineation may be relied on. His history and adventures, full of "hair-breadth 'scapes" will afford a

subject for a future essay.

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