rals and metaphysics and theology.We have eternally the same ground to go over again with fresh obstacles raised, as it should seem, for the mere purpose of impeding our progress. A common-place man takes the old point as quite a matter of fact, and never perplexes himself or his hearers with a new one. The mind can thus venture upon a system with the assurance of being finally able to conquer it.This is a satisfaction, and stimulates the soul to study. Another and more seducing fact is, that common-place people get through life more easily and more pleasantly than speculators of any sort. They sail for ever on a summer sea, with just enough of the cloud and the breeze to diversify their voyage. They never, to be sure, see the tempest in its power-the lightnings more vivid than the day, and the thunder like a voice from heaven, and louder than the cries of the Sicilian Etna; but they hear a music in the passing breezes, and they bask in the idle sunshine, and they are lulled by the scarcely undulating waters to sleepand this is quite enough for them. They are not fashioned for the reception of rough impressions. No doubt a great many other things might be said of these amiable people; but, perhaps, their character may be more clearly given by an example. So, in the room of any argumentative matter, I send you an Epitaph written on a friend of mine, who, in some measure, exemplifies my assertion as to the happiness which common-place people enjoy. Poor Tomkins! He lived more happily and got through life more smoothly than any man I ever knew. The following is a sort of Epitaph upon him: THE LATE MR TOMKINS. There have been few men who have deserved an epitaph better than my friend Tomkins. He was truly a worthy character. He was utterly without the spirit of paradox. He disdained contradiction as a vice subversive of comfort, and he lived and died without an enemy. He was cut off in the flower of his age, and he faded away like the snuff of a candle. But tears will not bring him to life, so let me e'en wipe my eyes and proceed. I remember him when a boy at school. Our master was a bit of a prophet with respect to his scholars. He said that Tomkins might not make a shining man, but that his talents were respectable, and his heart was good, and that was better. His nurse too, had availed herself, I have heard, of her privileges, and had pronounced him to be like the race of Tomkins. She ventured to add that he would be no disgrace to the family. Tomkins was not handsome, but there was a complacency in his countenance that bespoke a man at ease with himself and the world. I have known him as pleasant over a leg of mutton as a master of arts. He would cut the same kind of jokes; and if he failed in his aim at original wit, he could at all times do honour to an established jest. He beguiled you into a sympathy with his features. His very laugh was contagious, and he reserved it like a prudent general, for the end of his story. There was no waste of laughter before hand, but you saw from the twinkling of his eyes, that there was something important behind. He would protract his pleasantry, now and then, by a multitude of words-evading the joke till you were absolutely uneasy on your seat. You would guess a dozen times at what he was driving-you could not help it-and you saw him still continuing his easy stream of narrative, with a smile of tyrannic exultation at your irritability. He coiled his lengthened train of story up like a serpent, and at last burst it upon you with all his collected might. His good humour put your muscles in requisition, and you spread out your store of smiles to satisfy him and do him honour. Perhaps there have been few better judges of port than he. He smacked his lips and looked through his wine-glass with the air of a connoisseur, and you felt your taste at his mercy. I have heard him say, "Ha! this is something like-what's your cold French claret to this? This is the only stuff fit for an Englishman's stomach. Give me a bit o' roast-beef, (sirloin) and a glass of port, and the Pope may have claret for me." With what a profound air he would shake up the bottoms of the glass against the side, and make us observe its oily qualities. That," said he, “will never deceive you." If I doubted this, he would smile good-naturedly, and say, " ah! cousin, you are young young; you haven't been accustomed to these matters. I say, Mr Jones, when Stephen, here, has drank as many glasses of good old port as you and I oh! we'll give him leave to talk of these things." A laugh generally concluded these speeches, and I found myself quite at a loss for reply. My friend Tomkins was an honest man and a good subject. He owed no man a penny, and had always paid twenty shillings in the pound. He loved the king and constitution as by law established, and drank to the Protestant ascendancy. If any body put in a word about different governments, he would bid us recollect the French Revolution, and be quiet. He said this with an air so imposing, that there was no refuge but in conviction or silence. I once uttered the name of Mirabeau-" Mirabeau!!" he replied. He threw off his glass, and his underlip intruded itself upon you like a reproach. "Peace be to his ashes! He was indeed an extraordinary man. His mother used to point towards him, and bid the young people observe what it was possible to arrive at. He was the best tradesman in the ward of Cheap, and had a voice "in potency as double as the Duke's." The churchwarden vour. was a cipher to him; and in parish accounts he was without a rival. Nothing but fortune was wanting to make him a Chancellor of the Exchequer. I once heard him on his legs for at least a quarter of an hour, on the subject of the volunteers. It was an admirable effort. He had a sneer for every one that was hostile, and joke for all who were doubtful. The sense of the vestry was decidedly in his faHow could it have been otherwise? In my life I never heard any thing equal to his reproof. Some person had said, that he was desirous of preserving his military elevation (he had arrived at the dignity of corporal in the regiment merely by dint of service). I do not wish to repeat his answer, as several of his opponent's family may feel the thing severely. On the death of the gentleman (at a city feast) who carried the colours, Mr Tomkins became ensign; and I will be bold to say, that his Majesty never had a more faithful officer, nor one who did more honour to the service. But he is gone, as Alexander and Cæsar have gone before him; and his loss is still felt in the ward of Cheap.Peace be to his ashes!" VINDICI. THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER. ONCE in the elder time-men did adore Thro' this fierce month, with lamentations loud, A God of many names. Some fearfully bowed Their abject heads upon the Egypt shore, Praising the brute Osiris. Some who wore A lovelier faith, from out the Olympian crowd Called on old Saturn.-Some from the rainy cloud Shaped the deluging Noah. Those times are o'er. And now, beneath the blue Septemper sky, NOTICES OF REPRINTS OF CURIOUS OLD BOOKS. No IV. "Tis merry when Gossips meet."-At the Chiswick-press. We have of late neglected this series in a culpable manner, but must endeavour not to allow our good friends, Mr Triphook and Mr Singer, to get too much a-head of us. They have for these several months past been as indefatigable as ever. Several new works in numbers have been set a-going at the Chiswick-press. We have seen so many as five numbers of Select Early English Poets-each number being a most beautiful little book in point of typography, and most of them rich in matter of a most interesting class of which more very soon. Another series of Ancient Humorous Poetry has just been commenced, which we think promises still better. The charming dialogue, entitled, Tis merry when Gossips meet, occupies the first number-a very choice specimen of old English mirth and satire, which had become extremely scarce, and was in fact known almost to none but the professed black-letter men of the land. We know of few people whose labours effect more real service to the literature of our age, than those of Mr Triphook; and nothing can be more modest than the style in which his labours commonly make their appearance. Let him proceed with the Ancient Humorous Poetry by all means, and he cannot fail to produce a highly delightful volume-not a "humble," as he himself terms it, but a most valuable and appropriate supplement to the elegant publications of Mr Ritson and Mr Utterson." The dialogue of the Three kind Gossips has been frequently attributed to Samuel Rowlands, but it is not well known on what authority. It is at all events much in his style, and was originally published by John Deane, "at his shop under Temple-barre,' the usual shrine from which the inspirations of old Samuel's muse found their issue into the world. It is a very quaint and lively picture of the manners of city ladies, of the middle order, at the end of the reign of Queen Bess, and really possesses not a little of the true dramatic spirit which at that time flourished in England as it has never since done. Throughout there are touches which remind us, ever and anon, of the best parts of our old comedy; but so great is the bitterness of some of the sarcasms against the ladies, that had the author brought such a piece actually upon the stage, we think it is odds against him he might have shared in the ill treatment which Aristophanes tells us Euripides met with for a similar cause from the fine matrons of Athens. It is delicate ground on which the author has trodden; and we do not know that we could have ventured to break on it ourselves, without having the apology and protection of his guidance. It is true the scene is laid so far back as A. D. 1609, at the least; but we suspect there are not a few of the points handled, to which some parallels might be found among the fair of the glorious 1819 itself. The Three Gossips are a Widow, a Wife, and a Maid, well acquainted with each other, and, we believe, cousins, who meet accidentally in the neighbourhood of a tavern, and, chiefly by persuasion of the Widow, go in to enjoy themselves for an hour or two, in the manner of the Lords of the Creation, over a flask of claret. The cheer and the conversation turns out so much to the mind of all concerned, that they agree to have some sausages and a little mulled sack into the bargain-and so they make a night of it, not separating till Bow-bell rings nine o'clock, which hour appears to them a more culpably late one, than some modern fine ladies would think nine in the morning at a ball on board a guard-ship. The malicious poet represents these females as laying aside, when by themselves in this upper room, a good deal of that delicacy of demeanour and speech which characterizes those of their sex when in the company of people of the other gender. They eat and drink, in the first place, in a style of heartiness which is quite unexampled in the usual coram publico diet of ladies. They help themselves to sausages plateful after plateful-more particularly the Wi dow-discussing all they can lay their hands upon in a way that might put the most ravenous gormandizers of the Dilettanti Society of Edinburgh to the blush. The bottle, also, is pushed round in a way that would do Bill Young's heart good to see rivalled below the blue and yellow ceiling of his HALL: Even the young lady never leaves a drop of heel-taps, but fills as fair, and gives her toast in her turn as boldly as either of her more experienced companions. We believe almost every young lady will acknowledge the justice of the remark of the Maid, in this little specimen of their carousing dialogue. "Wife. My turne is next, and so it passeth round: Looke, Gentlewomen, is it full de'e thinke? I scorne to be intreated take my drinke. Widow. Why laugh you, Cossen ? sweet lets know. Mayde. An odde conceite I thinke on, When I am forth in company, or so, And sayes, Sweet, mend your draft, you drink no whit; Introth you shew yourselfe too maydendainty: Drinke better, Lady, at my kind request. I say, sweet Sir, I can no wine digest." Shortly after, a great deal of mirth is excited by the Wife, who gives an account of a very squeamish and delicate lady, a neighbour of her's, who never drinks a single drop, except at dinner or supper, and even then is contented with a very small allowance. The Widow holds this person in great contempt. She says, "Marry and gip, some body take her vp: Some Doctor's wench a' my word for her skill, That takes in diet by the dram and pill." The Widow, indeed, is decidedly the most knowing member of the company. She approves of her own condition, and says she wont marry a gain, although she admits having a red-haired man" for her suitor at this very time. She has a prejudice, however, against gentlemen of that complexion, and admits that she might be less frigidly disposed towards a more swarthy-faced lover. She admires, above all things, a fine rich black beard, curled down the breast in the luxurious fashion of those times, and "Ile neuer trust a red-hair'd man againe, A man whose beard seems scar'd with spirits t'haue bin, That wants the worthiest grace, length, bredth, and thickness, And hath no difference twixt his nose and chin, But all his haires haue got the falling-sicknes; Whose fore-frunt lookes like Iack-an-Apes behind : That lesson, without booke, was straight mine owne, She need not to repeat it ouer twice; The Widow and the Wife then turn to the Maiden, and advise her, by all means, to alter her state. She is fifteen years old, and that age, they say, is just the most proper for being married-although here, under favour, we must entirely differ from them. Most of the young ladies we know about that age are mere children, and would be quite useless at the head of a house. But Miss Besse seems to think very seriously of profiting by the advice given here. She says plainly enough that it is not from her own inclination she has so long continued unwedded. Her case is thus told, and we believe it may not be an uncommon one. "Faith, 'tis my mother's counsel that I tarrie ; She alwayes sayes, when young men come a woing, Stay, daughter, stay, you must not yet be doing." The Widow disapproves very much of this conduct of Besse's mother, and advises the young lady to elope with some young fellow or other as soon as she has an opportunity. The Wife also gives shameful countenance to this good counsel, by quoting the following high authority. "A scholler told me when I was a Mayd, Of marriage knot-they haue no power to break it, Now by this sacke, a learned man did speake it." Bess, however, although she promises to adopt the plan proposed-is a sensible girl, and will do nothing hurriedly. She is resolved to wait till a handsome lover makes his appearance and talks with great scorn of a rich fellow with a horrible squint and a pair of spindle-shanks, who has been flirting with her at some evening parties in Fish-hill, for it is there she lives. In regard to this one-eyed admirer, the Widow (who is, of course, infected with the mania of matchmaking) thinks the Mayde has behaved foolishly and cruelly, and pleads the cause of the unfortunate man with much eloquence, but without the smallest success. Miss Elizabeth says, shrewdly enough, that she herself is the person most concerned, and that she will follow, as to this matter, nobody's counsel but her own. Waxing warm as she proceeds, she debates the point with a skill that argues highly of her natural talents, and announces the determinate nature of her resolution with a heroic clearness of expression. It will be observed that the Wife (who seems to have married for love herself) coincides with Bess in opinion. The Mayde says of the man with the squint, VOL. V. Ile haue a comely man from head to foot, In whose neat limbes no blemish can be spied : Whose legge shall grace his stocking or his boot, And weare his rapier manly by his side: With such a one my humour doth agree, He shall be welcome to my bed and mee. Wife. Besse, and th'art wise, hold that For were I to begin the world to-morrow, opinion still, In such a choice, I would my minde fulfill: And so I drinke to thee: come on, hang When their hearts love's as much in other things, As there is vertue in mine apron-strings. There occur in the dialogue a great many pieces of highly important information, concerning the private motives and cunning tricks adopted by wives, widows, and maids, for the furtherance of their great plans, viz. the entrapping and governing of men. But these we leave for the present untouched, strongly recommending a perusal of the whole to those of our own sex who wish to walk in the world without blind-folds. We long for the appearance of the future numbers of the Ancient Humorous Poetry. 4 C |