thereon of domestic animals of the most improved kind, some of which she has annually sent up for exhibition in the Smithfield Club's Annual Shows, in Goswellstreet, and there obtained several Prizes of Plates (of which Institution she was the Patroness.) A cow and three sheep were in progress of fattening at Belvoir, for the Show, which commences on Friday next; and it was a particular request of her Grace, in her short and fatal illness, that these animals should be sent up to the Club's Show, as a last testimony of her regard for this very useful Institution; and, as such, these fine animals cannot fail, we think, of attracting a sympathizing attention.

The mere anecdote is very creditable to the late Duchess, but the sentimental thought that the fine animals, the prize cow, and three fat sheep, would attract a sympathizing attention, is of irresistible absurdity. Had the fat sheep been made mutton of, this same scribe would doubtless have talked of their exciting sympathizing appetites, and attracting sympathizing carving-knives.

- Came home very melancholy from Drury Lane, where I had the misfortune to see Mr. Harley play Little Acres in the Rivals. The million like this performer, and say that he is droll. I cannot discover a single merit in him; there seems to me to be nothing but flippancy and a sort of grimace, which ought properly to appear through a horse-collar. The after-piece was the Wager, a sad dull thing, with one practical joke, a man in a box. It has made me very sleepy, the pleasantest consequence of play-going.

15th. The Morning Chronicle is never weary of writing about Matilda. There is a paragraph about Matilda regularly every day. To-day it says, "The Tale of Matilda,' lately published by a Noble Lord, excites redoubled interest, since it is suspected to derive its origin from a real occurrence in fashionable life."

A Doctor Carnagie has written a letter about Wimborne school, in which this passage appears: "The publication of the Lord Chancellor's letter to Mr. Mayo, and that gentleman's reply, I can confidently assert, was made without the consent or knowledge of Mr. Mayo, from a copy sent to his relations at Bath, with a view to their private gratification, but without the most distant idea of being made public." The Doctor must himself have been brought up at a free grammar-school I should imagine, for very free he makes with grammar. The copy was sent without the most distant idea of being made public! Bravo Doctor!

16th. "The object of Mr. Campbell's late hasty visit to the Continent, we understand, was to make some researches connected with his poetical studies, which, having accomplished, it is his intention immediately to resume his Essays on Poetry in the New Monthly Magazine." Colburn in The New Times.

I always thought Campbell's ideas on poetry very far-fetched. 17th. There is a story abroad about a wealthy Jew, which, if true, is of a rare roguery, and far surpasses any stroke of "Greatness" in the History of Mr. Jonathan Wild. It is said that when the embarrassments in the city first commenced, this Jew paid into a great banking-house 300,000.; this was a large sum, but the circumstance was not considered as any thing very extraordinary. Two or three days afterwards, however, another sum of 700,000l. was paid in; this excited surprise and suspicion, and one of the firm went to a friend, a Bank Director, and consulted him about the affair; the Director told him, that he thought it had a strange look, and advised

him to keep the money by him untouched for a few days, and to see how it would be drawn out. This the house did; and two days after, at half-past four, the Jew's cheque came in for a million, and was paid, partly with the very notes that had been deposited. It is supposed that the Jew calculated on the bankers' not having that sum by them, and that at that late hour there would not be time for them to procure it, in which case he might have gone all over the city, giving out that the house had returned his cheque. This news would have gone forth with the post, and would have spread confusion all over the country. I write down the anecdote as I heard it; what degree of truth there may be in it, I cannot pretend to say.

19th.-A morning paper states, that the story of the Jew is utterly false.

"The Tale of 'Matilda,' lately published, and attributed to a Noble Lord, excites redoubled interest, since it is suspected to derive its origin from a real occurrence in fashionable life."

Colburn in The New Times. I am sure I have seen this before, or something very much like it.

Under the head of "The Mirror of Fashion," The Morning Chronicle informs us, that a delicacy for the breakfast-table, denominated (how fine!) potted shrimps, is prepared at Calais, by the father of the player, Mr. Penley, of Drury Lane!

Waded through the first volume of "Granby;" it is tedious, drowsy nonsense, full of pretension to fashion, but in fact extremely vulgar. Colburn insists in his critiques on this trumpery book, that the Author has had access to the drawing-rooms of the great; if so, it must have been in the capacity of a livery-servant. He may certainly have moved in the first circles, but it must have been with a salver in his hand.

20th.-Heard an anecdote of a singular piece of roguery, which far surpasses in ingenuity, any stroke of knavery of the present prolific day: Some years ago, a city banker (a Quaker!) died, leaving a will, in which he bequeathed very large sums to his relations and friends; twenty thousand pounds to one, ten thousand to another, thirty thousand to a connexion, and so forth, the whole legacies amounting to a vast sum, (half a million it is said); but they were left under this condition, that they were not to be paid to the parties till after a lapse of ten years from the death of the testator; and during this time the money was to remain part of the capital of the firm. This seemed a commercial whim, no more. At the expiration of the ten years the legacies were applied for, and it was discovered that not one sixpence of them was forthcoming, or ever had had any existence except in the imaginative will of the deceased banker. His sole object was to give credit to the firm, and this he completely accomplished, for every body took it for granted that the immense property willed away was, during the ten years, making a part of the capital of the firm, and a high idea was formed of the stability of a house so strengthened. The fraud answered completely. Considering all the circumstances, this posthumous piece of knavery seems to me unparalleled. Posthumous rogueries for the advantage of children, or near relatives, are not rare, but a posthumous roguery for the benefit of a firm has an air of disin

terested knavery about it. But, however, it is very possible that a trader may take to heart the prosperity of a firm, as much as a father does that of a beloved child.

-They say that at the memorable meeting of the Arigna Mining Company, the shareholders were perfectly over-awed by the formidable mustachioes of one of the orators, Sir William Congreve. This should be added to the examples of the virtues of mustachioes mentioned by Montesquieu in his Persian Letters. "As for the mustachio," say he, "it is respectable of itself; and independently of consequences, the wearers fail not sometimes to derive from it great advantages for the service, for the prince, and the honour of the nation, as was made to appear by a famous Portuguese general in the Indies, Jean de Castro; for, finding himself in want of money, he cut off one of his mustachioes, and sent it to the inhabitants of Goa, demanding of them twenty thousand pistoles on this pledge; they lent it to him instantly, and in the end he redeemed his mustachio with honour." Sir William Congreve's mustachioes certainly overawed the shareholders, and so the Arigna Mining Company may be said to have derived great advantages and honour from them; indeed, by virtue of them, the transaction of buying mines at 10,000l. and charging them to the Company at 25,000l. was voted honourable; but I should like to know whether these mustachioes, which have done so much, would do all that was done by Jean de Castro's. For the honour of Old England, I trust that a British mustachio will not be outdone by a Portuguese. Suppose then, Sir William Congreve were to cut off one of his mustachioes, and to send it, not to Goa, but, I will say, to his own Equitable Loan Company, what would his wouldbe pawnbrokers lend on such a pledge?

Received a canvassing letter from Mr. Goulburn, who wishes to be elected member for Cambridge. He recommends himself by saying that he has, for seventeen years, in Parliament, maintained the established institutions of the country. Goulburn has maintained the established institutions of the country just as a jackdaw, perched on the weather-cock, maintains a steeple. He has been chattering at the top of them for the time he mentions.

-Last night I put down in my journal what I thought of Granby: to-day I see in a Morning Paper this paragraph-"The admirable novel of Granby, just published, we understand, is the first production of a young man of high fashion, and of a noble family. It belongs to the same class as Tremaine and Matilda, [this is killing three birds with one stone,] the scenes of it being laid in the highest circles of fashionable society in the present day." Joking apart, in sober earnestness, I cannot understand how a paper of character can condescend to lend itself to this sort of imposition on unsuspecting readers. If quack publishers send quack advertisements let them be published with the other quackeries in the advertisement pages of the journal; and for the love of honesty and fair dealing with "Constant Readers," do not adopt them, and lend them the credit of editorial paragraphs-a credit which a per-severance in this system will utterly destroy; for newspapers which deal in this traffic are, in fact, selling their characters inch by inch; readers, who have found themselves deceived repeatedly, will learn to

suspect every thing, without distinction, that appears; and when their confidence, the thing practised on, is gone, the quack advertiser will carry his half-guineas elsewhere.

A Meeting of the Shareholders of the London University.-A gentleman observed, that when the Committee undertook to recommend a certain number of individuals as fit persons to form the council, they should have nominated forty-eight instead of twenty-four; on which Mr. Thomas Campbell remarked, that he had strained a point in undertaking to recommend twenty-four. He recommended twenty-four, and among those twenty-four stands his own name; it is therefore clear that he recommended himself, and he was right in doing so, for nobody else would have recommended him. For the sake of the credit of the project, however, I regret this circumstance. Mr. Thomas Campbell has certainly done his best, in every way, to make the thing ridiculous.

22d. The Morning Post gives a true and particular account of the strangling of the Emperor Alexander. According to this polite Journalist, the Autocrat was cut off by means of a " fashionable movement,” as it were. The Post, which is omnipresent at parties, galas, balls, and fêtes, witnessed the whole affair, and reports the barbarous murder with equal eloquence and circumstantiality. The account of the embarkation for the fatal water-party (what a title for a Romance !) is given with as much particularity as the history of any entertainment in Grosvenor-square; and I fully expected to see that the confectionary was supplied by Gunter, and that Gow's band enlivened the company with some appropriate and animated strains. The New Times wagishly observes, that the mention of the succession of fêtes in the annexed story, smells strongly of the shop, but I think this remark invidious. It is the especial province of the Post to take cognizance of all the routs in the known world; and when an Emperor falls on a water-party, the Post must necessarily be best informed concerning the arrangements of the fashionable traitors

"On his (the Emperor's) return from the steppes of the Crimea, and before he quitted Taganrog, a succession of fêtes was given. In one of these a water party was formed on the sea of Azof, which bathes the walls of the town. The conspirators contrived that the Imperial boat should be manned entirely by themselves and their friends. The confident Monarch embarked before a gazing population, and the boat rode gaily, with the shouts of thousands from the shore to swell its sails, and to cheer its return. But when they sailed, and she was solitary on the waters-when no eye [save the Post's] could see, and no ear [save the Post's] could hear-with a struggle, or in calm despair, 'midst the curses of unmasking foes, or in deep silence, a mental voice alone thundering Retribution the Autocrat of half a world was strangled!" Gemini!! For a historian commend me to the Morning Post. No Royal excursion on the Virginia Waters was ever described more circumstantially than the above fatal aquatic; and no scene in Tacitus is more boldly and vividly painted, There is a noble breadth in the latitude which the historian allows himself, in the fine passage, "with a struggle, or in calm despair'midst the curses of unmasking foes, or in deep silence!"

ON DILETTANTE PHYSIC.

THIS is an age of universal illumination, as all the world knows; and if it were not, to what purpose have we the Quarterly Review, and the Edinburgh Review, and the Westminster Review, and the Critical Review, besides the New Edinburgh, which is dead and gone, and the Universal, which is gone to keep it company, and all the other reviews, and all the magazines, annual, quarterly, monthly, and weekly-all, all the weekly gazettes, and all the daily papers, besides that most elegant, exquisite, and luminously critical journal, the Literary Gazette?

Why, we are absolutely suffocated with knowledge; and therefore the age knows every thing, and every body is learned, and antiquity was a jest to us, and we are dying of literary, scientific, and philosophical repletion and stuffing. As to what will happen when the Mechanics' Society shall comprise every turner of a pin's head; when the Tailors' Society is organized; when every body shall be able to dance upon a rope; when the New London University shall have swallowed up Oxford and Cambridge; when Chrestomathia shall be as common and cheap as cucumbers in August, it passes our prognosticability. Nothing else but the Millenium can possibly relieve us.

The advantages are vast, endless, overwhelming, inappreciable, inexplicable; they never will nor can be conceived or foretold. The gods will be nothing to us: we shall command the seasons, like the philosopher in Rasselas; fly to the moon, like Bishop Wilkins; wander about upon the tails of comets, like the Saturnian dwarf and his Sirian friend; pluck Jupiter by the beard; roast eggs in Mercury; clamber the mountains of Venus; shave ourselves in Saturn's ring; and turn our cows to graze in the Milky way.

Such, and far more, will be the ultimate results. The intermediate ones are approximative, but they are vast and important. Every one knows every thing, as we said before. All our ladies can deeide on Lord Byron's poetry as easily as on the colour of a gown; all the world, from a bishop to a tinker, can judge of predestination and free grace; every journeyman tailor is an adept in the politics of Greece; coblers, tinkers, and tailors can write sermons, aye, and preach them too. Mr. Hogg rivals Alcæus and Theocritus; ancient virgins discuss population and pronounce on Malthus; boarding-school misses learn political economy from Madame Marcet, and gases at the Royal Institution; and next, but far from finally, every man may be his own lawyer, if he is not already, for three shillings and sixpence.

Every lady too is her own physician, and not only her own physician, but that of other people. Thanks for this to the Universal Light, and to the labours of Dr. Buchan, Dr. Reece, Dr. Underwood on Children; Dr. Sir Arthur Faulkner on the same animals; the Mother's Guide, Mrs. Glasse's Cookery Book, (appendix,) the New London Practice of Physic, and more, which it would pass our patience to enumerate.

Dilettante law has been considered, somewhat proverbially, hazardons, because a man may lose his property. Nothing can be so proper as, on the other hand, dilettante physic; because the practiser