Counted eighteen bald heads in the pit at the Opera. So much the better; the more the merrier. 35. Tried on an old great coat, and found it an old little one: cloth shrinks as well as parchment. Red face in putting on shoes. Bought a shoe-horn. Remember quizzing my uncle George for using one: then young and foolish. Brother Charles's wife lay-in of her eighth child. Served him right for marrying at twenty-one age of discretion too! Hunting-belts for gentlemen hung up in glover's windows. Longed to buy one, but two women in shop cheapening mittens. Three gray hairs in left eye-brow. 36. Several gray hairs in whiskers: all owing to carelessness in manufactory of shaving-soap. Remember thinking my father an old man at thirty-six. Settled the point! Men grew old sooner in former days. Laid blame upon flapped waistcoats and tiewigs. Skaited on the Serpentine. Gout. Very foolish exercise, only fit for boys. Gave skaits to Charles's eldest son. 37. Fell in love again. Rather pleased to find myself not too old for the passion. Emma only nineteen. What then? women require protectors; day settled; devilishly frightened; too late to get off. Luckily jilted. Emma married George Parker one day before me. Again determined never to marry. Turned off old tailor, and took to new one in Bond-street. Some of those fellows make a man look ten years younger. Not that that was the reason. 38. Stuck rather more to dinner-parties. Gave up countrydancing. Money-musk certainly more fatiguing than formerly. Fiddlers play it too quick. Quadrilles stealing hither over the channel. Thought of adding to number of grave gentlemen who learn to dance. Dick Dapper dubbed me one of the overgrowns. Very impertinent, and utterly untrue. 39. Quadrilles rising. Wondered sober mistresses of families would allow their carpets to be beat after that fashion. Dinnerparties increasing. Found myself gradually Tontine-ing it towards top of table. Dreaded Ultima Thule of hostesses elbow. Good places for cutting turkies; bad for cutting jokes. Wondered why I was always desired to walk up. Met two schoolfellows at Pimlico; both fat and red-faced. Used to say at school that they were both of my age; what lies boys tell! 40. Look back ten years. Remember, at thirty, thinking forty a middle-aged man. Must have meant fifty. Fifty certainly, the age of wisdom. Determined to be wise in ten years. Wished to learn music and Italian. Tried Logier. "Twould not do. No defect of capacity, but those things should be learned in childhood. 41. New furnished chambers. Looked in new glass: one chin too much. Looked in other new glass: chin still double. Art of glass-making on the decline. Sold my horse, and wondered people could find any pleasure in being bumped. What were legs made for? 42. Gout again: that disease certainly attacks young people more than formerly. Caught myself at a rubber of whist, and blushed. Tried my hand at original composition, and found a hankering after epigram and satire. Wondered I could ever write love-sonnets. Imitated Horace's ode "Ne sit ancilla." Did not mean any thing serious, though Susan certainly civil and attentive. 43. Bought a hunting-belt. Braced myself up till ready to burst. Intestines not to be trifled with: threw it aside. Young men, now-a-days, much too small in the waist. Read in Morning Post an advertisement" Pills to prevent Corpulency:" bought a box. Never the slimmer, though much the sicker. 44. Met Fanny Stapleton, now Mrs. Meadows, at Bullock's Museum. Twenty-five years ago wanted to marry her. What an escape! Women certainly age much sooner than men. Charles's eldest boy began to think himself a man. Starched cravat and a cane. What presumption! At his age I was a child. 45. A few wrinkles about the eyes, commonly called crow's feet. Must have caught cold. Began to talk politics, and shirk the drawing-room. Eulogized Garrick: saw nothing in Kean. Talked of Lord North. Wondered at the licentiousness of the modern press. Why can't people be civil, like Junius and John Wilkes, in the good old times? 46. Rather on the decline, but still handsome, and interesting. Growing dislike to the company of young men : all of them talk too much or too little. Began to call chambermaids at Inns "My dear." Thought the money expended upon Waterloo Bridge might have been better employed. Listened to a howl from Capt. Querulous, about family expenses, price of bread and butcher's meat. Did not care a jot, if bread was a shilling a roll, and butcher's meat fifty pounds a calf. Hugged myself in "single blessedness," and wished him a good morning. 47. Top of head quite bald. Pleaded Lord Grey in justification. Shook it, on reflecting that I was but three years removed from the "Age of Wisdom." Teeth sound, but not so white as heretofore. Something the matter with the dentifrice. Began to be cautious in chronology. Bad thing to remember too far back. Had serious thoughts of not remembering Miss Farren. 48. Quite settled not to remember Miss Farren. Told Laura Willis that Palmer, who died when I was nineteen, certainly did not look forty-eight. 49. Resolved never to marry for any thing but money or rank. 50. Age of wisdom. Married my cook! POETICAL WORKS OF MRS. JOHN HUNTER. In our last number* we commemorated the high individual character of the lately deceased Mrs. John Hunter, and paid a tribute to her poetical memory. Her poems have been for eighteen years before the public. From being published a long time after they were written, they were less attractive to the curiosity of the times than they might have been if they had appeared earlier; but their elegant language, and chastely interesting tone of sentiment, rendered them favourites with not a few good judges of literature. In the opinion of the first of living poetesses, Mrs. Hunter's Miscellaneous Poems evince that she possessed the feeling and imagination of genius. little piece, entitled La Douce Chimère, has great sweetness and felicity. Her lines entitled "To my Daughter on being separated from her on her Marriage," struck us as most touchingly pleasing. When we conceive a mother of sensibility addressing her child on such an occasion, poetry seems to perform a hallowed office; and unpretending as this little strain is to the character of originality, it still affects us with the truth and pathos of maternal feeling. Dear to my heart as life's warm stream Twined every joy and care and thought, May he who claims thy tender heart For kind and gentle as thou art, If so beloved, thou 'rt fairly won. And cheer thee till we meet again! The Mrs. Hunter gave our language some of its most popular songs, among which we omitted to mention, in our former notice of her compositions, "The Mermaid's Song," and the delicious little piece "My Mother bids me bind my hair.” We have happened by accident to meet with the following lines of her writing, which have never been before published. Page 89 of the Historical Register. THE FALL OF THE LEAF. ADDRESSED TO LADY C. WITH AN EOLIAN HARP, 1813. In early youth, in riper age, Joy, Hope, or Love the Muse engage; Did not the heart its warmth retain : From Spring, to Autumn's chilling breath: The evergreen shall cheerful spread Fresh verdant boughs, to deck the earth. When Nature sinks in deathlike sleep, Then shall the winds, with viewless wings, The falling of the wither'd leaf. Titnest Cottage, A. H. ACCOUNT OF THE CAPTIVITY OF ALEXANDER SCOTT, AMONG With Geographical Observations on his Routes, and Remarks on the Currents of the By MAJOR RENNELL, F.R.S. &c. Ir appears, in the preamble to this paper, that it is drawn up by Dr. Trail and Mr. Wm. Lawson: the former intended to make a separate volume of it for the benefit of the traveller's friends, but the publishers deemed it too short to produce any emolument to them: it is, therefore, communicated to the public through the pages of the "Edinburgh Philosophical Journal," published 1st January last. The traveller, we are told, was frequently examined by the editors, Dr. Trail and Mr. W. Lawson; and from the regulations adopted in drawing from him a narrative of his adventures, and from the observations made by these gentlemen, there appears every reason to suppose that the narrative is faithful and true, as far as it goes. The manuscript, it seems, has been submitted to our celebrated geographer, Major Rennell, to whom it appeared so important, that he has supplied the narrative with a map, shewing Alexander Scott's route across the Desert to Sudan: and that gentleman purposes annexing two dissertations to the narrative, which, coming from so celebrated a man, will necessarily throw fresh light on African geography. As our acquaintance with Africa proceeds and enlarges, travellers multiply. The moving sand-hills of the solitary Desert, and the stunted shrubs of the sahell, or plains of those parched Deserts, become thus more familiar to us, and form a link in the chain of discovery. These elucidations, however, would add but little to our imperfect knowledge of the interior of that vast, unknown, but interesting continent, did they not proceed beyond the limits of these arid plains and mountains of rock and sand, and thereby throw light on the map of Africa, confirming the accounts of former travellers, who, however entitled to credit by a discriminating public, have reported things so incredible as to excite the suspicions of the learned respecting their truth; so true it is, that "Le plus part des hommes mesurant leur foi par leur connoissance acquise croyent à fort pu de choses. Riley and Adams have given to the British public narratives of their adventures and observations in these Deserts; several Frenchmen have also added to this stock of information, and have each respectively, in his way, depicted the face of this wild and solitary district, which separates two immense and populous countries on the same continent from one another, as the ocean divides the two continents of South America and Africa. Thus Barbary and Bled el jerreed is divided from Sudan by an immense sea of sand (a Bahar billa mâ) or sca |