advertised it through the world under the name of Reform. But having pocketed the fees, he thought fit to withhold the medicine, and, left any other fhould adminilter it, he tranfported half a dozen of the faculty, and gagged or tied up all the reft. Thus left a prey to a vital disease, Mr. B. Parliament dragged on a very precarious existence. In his infancy he was fubject to fainting or fits annually; but as he grew up, they feized him only triennally, and lately every feven years. These fits ufed to laft for feveral weeks, fometimes months, leaving him apparently in an abfolute ftate of diffolution. Yet with all thefe figns of imbecility and decay, it has been prophefied that he never would die a natural death. So it has actually turned out. He fell by his own unnatural hand, and by a ftrange fympathy, on the fame day on which Mrs. Irish Parliament met the fame fate in the crifis of a yellow fever, though tied up in a trait waistcoat. In his will we do not find any thing remarkable. Having died fo much in debt, it could not be expected he would leave many legacies. Among the most valuable we find a bequest of this juft and néceffary war for religion and focial order, with all the rights, appendages, and appurtenances thereunto belonging, to his only fon and heir, Imperial Parliament, begotten on the body of the Irish lady of that name, whom he had many years in keeping. Item, a New Art of Cookery, revifed and corrected by Lord Hawkesbury and Mr. Ryder, to be distributed among the poor of the parish, and half a dozen old tin canisters, containing the Imperial fecurities, to his executors for the payment of his debts, amounting to 400,000,000l. The Irish mother of Mrs. Imperial Parliament, though not a woman of virtue, was more thrifty. She has left thousands to be given in charity among the poo and potwalloppers, in all the beggarly boroughs through through the country, exclufive of titles, honours, places, and penfions, for her favourites and domeftics. Mr. British Parliament having died felo de fe, was refufed Chriftian burial, and, horrible to relate! his members might have been feen fcattered the next day upon the high roads, and there gazed at by the most beautiful and delicate women, without exciting difguft or terror. The family feat at Westminster, in which his paternal ancestors refided, except for a while when they were ejected by Oliver Cromwell, is fitting up in great fplendour for the young heir, Mr. Imperial Parliament, who will commence housekeeping the 22d of this month. January 2, 1801. ANTIQUARIUS, MR. EDITOR, THE MARRIAGE. [From the Morning Chronicle.] IN the courfe of laft fummer I fent you a letter* containing an account of the intended marriage of Mr. John Bull to Madam Hibernia, with fuch particulars of the courtship, &c. as I could then collect. I have now the pleasure to inform you that the marriage took place, by fpecial licenfe, on last New Year's Day. John, who has a fondness for particular days and dates, thought it would be witty as well as wife, to have it faid that he married his Irish bride on the firft day of the century, of the year, and of the month!But, for what reafon I know not, the parties do not come together until the 22d of this month. This is *Vol. iii. page 391. not not quite in the ordinary course of things; but John is not an ordinary character None but himfelf can be his parallel! And fome people are very eager for marriage who are very cool about every thing else. Besides, the disparity of years!-but that now-a-days is nothing. The fervants of the lady were too numerous to be all admitted into the new eftablishment. The guardians, therefore, agreed that thirty-two of the upper. fervants, and about an hundred of the lower, fhould be drawn by a kind of lot, and enter into John's fervice. The reft have been paid confiderable fums of money for the paft (and fome, I am told, haggled, like market-women), and the rest have had their wages continued, by way of annuity. I believe I mentioned to you that John dropt his intention of building a new houfe on this occafion, upon account of the expenfe. Expenfe is not a matter which a fond lover would consider at such a time; and it is certain the money laid out in one of John's foolish jaunts to foreign parts would have been more than fufficient. But he was over-perfuaded in this, as he is in many things, and therefore fet himself about repairing the old manfion, which, it must be confeffed, not only looks, but really is, as good as new. The furniture, indeed, is the fame as before, except fuch articles as the lady fends over for her own convenience, and which, I am told, may be very eafily altered to fit the rooms. Some ftrange discoveries were made in repairing this houfe, of heathen gods and goddeffes concealed behind the pannels, which makes one think that John has not always been fo orthodox in his religious opinions as he now pretends. He has alfo made confiderable alterations in his equipage and coat of arms, quartering his new wife in the third fhield, and his former wife (the Scotch woman I told you of) in the fecond, while his own arms occupy the first and fourth, as much as to fay that he will be a match for both. He has alfo bargained that his new wife and himself fhall belong to the fame Church, which has likewife been fitted up for her reception, with feats, hafsocks, and other conveniences for kneeling and devotion.The following infcription, as ufual on fuch occafions in churches, appears on the front of the gallery, in letters of gold upon a black ground: THIS CHURCH WAS REPAIRED AND BEAUTIFIED," AT THE EXPENSE OF THE JOINT PARISHES, ANNO DOMINI M,DCCC,I. Great hopes are entertained that this match will be a happy one, and fo I with most fincerely: but so many circumftances feem requifite now-a-days to conftitute a happy marriage, that we rarely find them all united in one couple. John has certainly left off in a great degree his rough manner, nor does he permit any of his fervants to call his bride by such filthy names as they made use of fome months ago. There is ftill, however, a good deal of tittering among them when her name is mentioned, and they are prepared to take advantage of any little flip of the tongue, or any little blunder the may make, and to which the is, I am told, rather liable. Kind treatment, however, would be a wifer measure, improve her temper, which is naturally good, and prevent her throwing herself into the arms of that Frenchman with whom the was fupposed to have an intrigue about two years ago. At that time, perhaps, John's jealoufy was carried too far; and this might have pro VOL. IV. L L voked voked her to a conduct far beyond her original intentions :-certain it is, fhe could not then fo much as dig a potatoe without being fuppofed to have a defign in it; and you know there are fome high-spirited dames "who will not be fufpected without a caufe!" As to that Frenchman, it is the fame fellow John has been quarrelling with for the last eight years, but about what, I believe, the parties themselves cannot tell. For my part, I have no doubt that, if they were to talk over the matter amicably, they would foon come to a good understanding :-unfortunately, instead of this, they have been mutually exasperated by a parcel of bufy, meddling interlopers, who have found it for their perfonal intereft to foment a quarrel, which, on John's part, has been moft unfuccefsfully conducted, and with a moft enormous expense; and this, by the way, gave rife to the frequent whifper, that a rich wife would not be abfolutely unneceffary, in the prefent ftate of John's finances. This, however, is mere calumny; for, whatever advantage the lady may derive from the honour of fharing his bed and board, it will be fome years before he can touch a penny of her fortune, which is mostly in land that has not been hitherto improved to the best advantage. I am, Sir, your humble fervant, &c. January 3, 1801. THEATRE NATIONAL. [From the Morning Chronicle.] THE opening of this theatre has been delayed from day to day, partly, we understand, from the abfence of the performers engaged in the country, and partly from fome neceffary alterations in the Joliloquy at the commencement |