pect to be told that my project is jacobinical, as tending to make the profane vulgar independent of those legitimate correctives-the axe and the halter; but I cannot see the matter in this light. John Bull, we are sometimes told, is like a restive horse-give him his head and he runs to the devil; but, by my proposition, the common people will never be able to make head at all, whatever be their provocations; so that I really consider myself entitled to the great prize from the members of the Holy Alliance. Other cavillers may urge that it would be injurious to the progress of knowledge and the cultivation of literature, as if the brains could not exist any where but in the head! Buffon, no ignoramus in such matters, was decidedly of opinion that the stomach was the seat of thought. Persius dubs it a Master of Arts, "Magister Artium, Ingenique largitor venter." Ventriloquism is yet in its infancy, but who should limit its eloquence were it cultivated from necessity? So satisfied are we of the reflecting disposition of this portion of our economy, that we call a cow, or other beast with two stomachs, a ruminating animal, par excellence. Why might not our clergy, instead of dividing their discourses into heads-Cerberean, Polypean, and Hydraform, which always afflict me with a cephalalgy-spin the thread of their sermons, like the spider's, from the stomach instead of the head, and apportion them under the titles of the peristaltic motion, the epigastre, the hypochondre, and the colon names as sonorous and classical as those of the Muses, with which Herodotus has baptised his respective chapters? Even constituted as we now are, with head-quarters already provided for the brains, will any one deny that an Opera-dancer's are in his heels, or that Shakspeare had not a similar conviction, when he makes one of his characters exclaim, "Hence will I drag thee headlong, by the heels, Does he not, moreover, distinctly mark the seat of pride and aspiring talent, when he says of Wolsey, "He was a man Of an unbounded stomach-ever ranking But I have said enough. If the reader be satisfied that I am suggesting a prodigious improvement, I have carried my point: if he be not, I deny that he has a rational head, and thus establish my argument. Here are the two horns of a dilemma, which, if he will continue to wear his super-humeral callosity in spite of my admonitions, may supply it a fitting decoration; and so having conducted him to the same predicament as Falstaff in Windsor Forest, I leave him to moonlight and the fairies. Miss Mary Ball to Miss Jane Jenkins, DEAR Jane, we reach'd Paris as day-light was closing, And its aspect, to use a French phrase, was imposing. Its magnificent portals, majestic and wide, Through which Temple-bar without stooping might ride— That they make Portland-place Lilliputian quite,- All of brass like the one where Danaë was penn'd,— But it's gone, and a little white flag met my eyes We drove to Meurice's, and there should each thing go, With young roasted-pig, which the French hate like Jews. The statues, and marbles, and sculptures to view. "O Dieu! que c'est beau! c'est superbe, magnifique! Voilà ce que c'est que de suivre l'antique! There's the young piping Faun-hark, he's going to warble; Is this one of the stone-produced men of Deucalion? Or the elephant actor that plays at Franconi's. Colour'd gowns without sleeves are the promenade dress, Which to me has a servant-like look, I confess ; Some wear an elaborate cap, but upon it Not an atom of hat or iota of bonnet! Then they lace down their waists, while the garment so scant is That you see the hips working like`lean Rozinantes; The bonnets in fashion are sable as ink, But at Paris unknown-so I got a Precisian The abhorrence they threw in their shoulders and eyes, "Nous en avons en noir-mais, O Ciel! O Dieu ! And the price? "Soixante francs, quand c'est garni comme cela; C'est toujours prix-fixe-nous ne marchandons pas." I blush'd as I offer'd them forty; but they Took the cash without blushing or once saying nay. The value I set on my beauty is small, For the manner-the fashion's the thing after all: Thus in bonnets it isn't the feathers and lace, So much as the smartness, gentility, grace, That the wearer possesses;-now these, you'll acknowledge, I May modestly claim without any apology; And I offer you none for this lengthen'd report On my bonnet, (the plume would be handsome at Court,) |