the worth of the stick-merchant's wares on the shoulders of the learned expositor of the rule of conduct fit to be observed towards fools with good estates in Surrey (for in that county it was that Fox's estate was situate) by knighted waiters of St. James's Street. He plied his argument in a manner so workmanlike as thoroughly to exorcise whatever spirit of exultation the learned vapulatee might have possessed.

Lord Eldon is known never to have been through life deserted by his discretion, and well did his "better part of valour" befriend him on this occasion. A man with less of this virtue might have been misled into taking an active part in the bustling scene; but his lordship, in the place of this, adopted the prudent course by which a man at once declines a breach of the peace and provides for his personal safety. His lordship afterwards presented Sir Robert to a jury, to whom he recounted Sir Robert's friendly services, but, while under cross-examination, (during which he was affected in his usual way,) he found Sir Robert's counsel of a taste so perverse as not to recognize the great merit of his lordship's discreet behaviour in the affair of Lincoln's Inn Fields.

We have already hinted, that this affair may seem to render doubtful the correctness of our opinion of Lord Eldon's eloquence; for why, it may be objected, had he not by his eloquence entitled himself to be so, should he have been favoured with Sir Robert's selection in preference to his coadjutors? To this we would answer, that it was sufficient, he was either more eloquent or less ineloquent than the three very ineloquent persons who had assisted him in publishing Sir Robert's pretensions to gentility.

That his lordship's eloquence, whatever, in other respects, it may have been, derived no advantage from neatness and propriety of diction, must be, to those who are acquainted with his style, plainly apparent. His diction was not only most unambitious, but more pregnant with vulgarisms, and awkward, than that of any one else whom we have ever known. We will give an instance of it. It frequently happens, that the claim of one man cannot be admitted without impliedly superseding the right of another. A person of different taste from his lordship would describe the effectuating of a claim of which such was the tendency in some such phrase as this-" This would be the indirect abolition of the right of A." In place of which his lordship's idiom would be, "This would be doing away the right of A by a side-wind!" We propose this as a specimen, among a variety of others, of expressions, which, when uttered, as they used to be, with, not merely gravity, but sometimes emphasis, and, at all times, innocence, were wont to tax the decorum of the back-seats with the labour of suppressing their smiles. We are tempted to mention one other of his lordship's phrases. A different man designing to announce, that he who sues a court of equity must appear to be himself unimpeachable, would employ some such expression as that. His lordship's phrase would be, "He who comes into equity "-meaning a court of equity-" must come with clean hands!”—a metaphor derived, we suppose, from the treatment exhibited towards the little boys at school, who, when called, on the unexpected visits of their mothers, from their dumps and marbles, are provided with "clean hands" to "come in with," and the special affection of the school-mistress for the

occasion.

From his lordship's professional character, and our estimate of it, let us turn, and contemplate him as a statesman. For that few words will suffice. Of what grand centrical measure for the public good has he, during so many years of power, been the author or abettor? Of how many such has he not been the steady and eager opponent? Lord Eldon, without openly professing to be such, has been found in effect to be the monotonous and undistinguishing enemy of every, we will not say innovation, but of every departure from the actual state of things

whatever, although involving no more than the redintegration of their pristine purity and soundness--from every measure proposed to that effect boding, in its turn, the most serious evils to the body politic. From that concession which it was impossible in justice, as he found it in fact, to deny or defer, the repeal of the corporation and test acts, he renewed his dismal augury of the certain and immediate fall (assumed by him to be a national calamity) of the established church. The measure has been effected; and yet we have never heard that the cathedral's lofty dome has, offended by the sight of the mace and sword of the city-mayor at the door of the neighbouring conventicle, chosen to fall in, or that encouraged by the news, the neat dull chapter-house has closed its door against the portly dean, or, rebelling against the sacerdotal claim, the jolly tithe refused to leave the field. His lordship employed against this measure all his force; and when he found himself unable to detain it within the walls of the House of Lords, he joined with others in dealing it, before it had left the doors, a Parthian kick; satisfying his enmity as well as he could by subjecting those who are admitted to office under it to an oath, (the composition being low and vulgar in a high degree) the terms of which imply so much suspicion and distrust of the taker of it as to render the administration of it an insult, and the taking of it an humiliation. We have ourselves seen honourable men smile, while repeating the terms of it, with contempt at the imputation of insincerity which it so visibly conveys. After this appeared the bill for the further relief of the Roman Catholics. His lordship foreboded from this measure the renewal of the papal authority among us, and that to his holiness the Pope were to be transferred the means of government, and to the use of the Church of Rome the possessions of the established church. We will not be so uncandid as to suppose his lordship to have meant, that all this was to take place in the instant of the execution of this measure, but we must suppose him to have meant that some slight essay towards this his holiness's design would, before this time, have ensued; and yet, although more than twelve months have passed since the coasummation of this alarming measure, such culpable remissness has the pontiff exhibited, that towards the execution of his design of usurping the means of the government of the three kingdoms, and spoiling the established church of its resources, he has not yet, that we have heard of, established a lien on even so little as an old nail, or piece of junk, or bunting, among the refuse of our military or naval stores; or been able to purloin a single sheaf of tithe-corn, or gain over to his interest one headborough or constable !

His lordship is commonly censured for the manner in which his patronage has been exercised. But, with the exception of the way in which Baron Bayley has been negatively, and Baron Richards and Lord Gifford were positively, dealt with, we are not sensible that the patronage of the Lord Chancellor has not been directed and exercised, we will not say with perfect fairness, namely, with an exclusive regard to the interest of the public, for that has never been, nor ever will be, the case, but with average fairness by Lord Eldon. The retirement of Lord Ellenborough left, it is true, a chasm on the bench not to be adequately supplied, but the country expected to see, and had a right so to expect, the vacancy supplied as well as with the materials left it could be; and, by common consent, however far Lord Tenterden may have by his administration served to justify Lord Eldon's selection, the man in whom were concentrated, in the greatest degree, the high qualities which Lord Ellenborough's retirement had left the public to regret, commanding understanding, dignity, and authority, was Baron Bayley. To the office of Chief Justice, then, ought Baron Bayley to have been appointed; but the Chancellor had his reasons, and he was passed by. With respect to the two other learned persons, they ought not to have been patronised at all.

They were both of them eminent only in qualities which, while they add nothing to the worth of a public servant, are, nevertheless, often seen to secure his fortune more effectually than the utmost degree of desertwe mean ductility and subserviency.

There is one quality of his lordship, which we have often observed, and always felt at a loss how to reconcile with that extreme sensibility which he has, on so many occasions, when speaking in contemplation of himself, exhibited; we mean the fortitude with which he has submitted to the successive deaths of his friends. This good quality we consider to be so much the more commendable in one so tender in other respects as his lordship, since we have known others (more impregnable to those feelings which have, as we have mentioned, on so many occasions been seen to affect his lordship) evince on the loss of some dear and long known friend the most culpable weakness, and yield, apparently without resistance or shame, to the force of their grief. Mr. Pope, for example, was a man sufficiently morose and unkind in general, and certainly, so far as we have been able to learn, “unused to the melting mood" of his lordship; and yet in that letter of his to Swift, written on the occasion of the death of Gay, what unbecoming tenderness does he exhibit! How passionately does he indulge his grief! His agony enforces new vigour in his so vigorous imagination! He insists the death of a friend, such as to him was Gay, to be a degree, or mode, of death to the befriended himself. "How often," he exclaims, "are we then to die before we are permitted to do so finally and for ever." The truth of this vivid picture of his sorrow, there are, we fear, too many ready to acknowledge, and able to recognize in it the very feeling which, on the loss of some loved relative or friend, has invaded them. When the death of some one of his lordship's oldest friends (we will not mention names) has been announced to-day, we have been disposed seriously to commiserate him; but when on the morrow, we have entered the Court of Chancery, we have only had to join our neighbours in admiration of the undisturbed equanimity to which we have been witnesses. We rejoiced that Zeno had so long before been gathered to his fathers; dreading that, his enthusiasm mastering his sense of propriety, he might have been prompted to ascend the eminence on which his lordship sat, and clasp him in his arms, and that Diogenes Laërtius might have to recount the humiliating fact, that this prince of Stoics had, for contempt of the Court of Chancery, been committed to "His Majesty's Prison of the Fleet."

We have now and then, when we have been proposing our objections to the public character of the noble lord (and this is a license in which a large portion of his countrymen, he may be assured, is every day indulging) in the presence of some professed admirer of his lordship, (for there always will be eccentric persons,) and soliciting a reason for esteeming him, heard imputed to him the praise of an indiscretion, from which, considering the popular opinion, ascribing to his lordship the merit of so much frugality, we hoped him to be exempt, namely, that he is "in private very munificent." This may be so; and, at any rate, we will to so much of the assertion as this assent, namely, that his lordship's munificence, whatever be its amount, is private. We do not remember to have seen any list of contributors to a public charity able to boast the grace of his lordship's name. We do not object to that private charity which "begins at home," but we like it better when it extends its rambles into the precincts and vicinity of home. We have seen a relative, and a rather near one too, of this noble lord (we hope the old woman remains as hearty as, when we saw her, she then was) who possessed one qualification at least of an object of "munificence," and we did not hear that she had acquired her qualification through her indiscreet and lavish use of his lordship's supplies.

THE GREAT FISH.

LET others sing the smaller fry-Whigs, Tories, and white-bait,
Of Alma Mater's minnows, or the sticklebacks of state;

Let Crockford's gudgeons hide their heads, Virginia's golden store,
In short, all fish, live, dead, or loose-e'en Madame A.'s a bore!-
For the Mammoth's come to lead the town, and other monsters veil-
To give the world and me a theme-" How very like a whale !"

Then hie thee to that classic spot, where man and boy and minx,
Once staked their pence, but to be scared by lion, leopard, lynx—
For all alive have had their day; on Nero's trophied cage

A joint-stock, heaven-storm company has rear'd a motley stage,
Where doctors death's-head quarters keep and make the boldest quail,
While grave St. Martin's counts our hours" How very like a whale !”

O wondrous fish! what happy chance hath thrown thee on our shore,
To speak of by-gone prodigies, and make us doubt no more
The Prophet's rod, or Pharaoh's kine, and Jonah's trip to sea?
One man, seven steer, and sundry snakes, were a mere lunch to thee!
Yet stauncher gourmands we may find within the "hallow'd" pale-
Things sent to suare or gulp their kind-" How very like a whale?”

The little globe' that Nature gave to light the pond'rous mass,
Invites the Man of Scents to view himself as in a glass-

A painted, patch'd, and lank outside, that hands and props befriend ;
A tuft for what might be the chin, with brains at t'other end.3
And he of Law for once might ken a “plain, unvarnish'd" tail,
Where knaves are easily seen through" How very like a whale !"

And here each "child" of song shall pour its pap-spoon " minstrelsie,"
Precocious bardlings out-slangwhang T. W. N. B.!
Book-muslin literati ape blue-stockings from Budge Row,

And double L's defunct out-scrawl pure cockney lays from Bow!

Let Caskets, Olios, reject-the verse shall still prevail,

And bless the Album in the ribs -" How very like a whale!"

Gone, gallant France! thy scions still shall dwell in Chaos' rule,
A happy medium between the monkey and the mule!
Leviathan, we owe to thee, Charles Capet, and his cook,
The influenza, Voltaire's creed, and Bourrienne's lying book ;
To crown our hopes, the drama's dome new Roscii shall assail,
And apes redeem the tott'ring stage-" How very like a whale!"

Nine hundred years-thy breath gone out on that predestined shore
Where Freedom's day-spring shadow'd forth the sun of William Four;
Be Britain's token-let her mark Corruption's doom in thee-
A symbol from the mighty deep, to bid the world be free!
Then Faction's gaunt, unwieldy power, stern Reason shall unmail-
The Mammon-god become a show-" How very like a whale!"

The eye is remarkably small, and of glass.

F. K.

2 The skeleton is painted, and pinned together, being supported on iron props.

3 A cast of the brains lies under the tail.

An Album is kept in the belly of the fish.

5 The presumed age of the Cetus.

PUCK IN LONDON.

More swift than lightening can I flye
About this aery welkin soone,

And, in a minute's space, descrye

Each thing that's done belowe the moone.-
-OLD BALLAD.

"THOU mischievous imp, that dost bring scandal upon Fairyland!—Thou, miraculous varlet, whose cheats and pranks, and cozenings, have brought our people into ill-repute !-nay, whose villanies are so many scoffs at our imperial state and clemency,— where hast now been gamboling?-Come, scape-grace, what is thy last trick?"

Thus spoke King Oberon, sitting in regal splendour, throned in a half-blown moss-rose, his fair queen lying in a neighbour flower, and all his courtiers, guards, and lacqueys, disposed in due array about him. The chancellor sat, with professional gravity, on his sack of thistle-down, his cobweb purse of state before him; the peers, decked in their dew-wet robes of tulip-leaves, shone in gaudy rows; the bishops-(for the Fairies have bishops, and, of course, saints,

Saint Tit, Saint Nit, Saint Is, Saint Itis,
Who 'gainst Mab's state placed here right is;
Saint Will-o'-th'-Wispe, of no great bignes,
But alias call'd here fatuus ignis,)—

the bishops in their lily sleeves, and furze-ball wigs, seated in ears of corn, looked oily and orthodox. The lord-chamberlain dexterously handled (the Fairies can do these things) a ray of moonshine for his wand of office; and the speaker sat (for once) wide awake upon a toadstool. The solicitor-general, in a rusty suit of beetle-wings, might be seen lolling against a nettle; and the attorney-general, with a full, yet sneering face, glancing at a few rascally editors of newspapersThe Butterfly, The Glow-worm, The Cricket, &c. huddled together in sprigs of rue, hemlock, and foxglove. There were present all the members of the senate: some were lodged in potato-blossoms— some in thistles-some with meagre looks and an affectation of sanctity, in sugar-canes-some, bilious and bloated, dozed in poppies-some lay on carpets of finely preserved rat's-skin-some were engaged blowing bubbles-and many pursuing that fine aristocratic employment, known in this grosser world of Toryism and pensions as the dolce far niente. Nearly all these wore the small down of the cuckoo, to whose powers of expression they had successfully limited their own; two notes, "aye" "no," comprising their copia verborum.

The ladies must not be forgotten. The maids of honour were lying in jump-up-and-kiss-me's; here was heard a musical giggle from a bevy of countesses in bachelor's-buttons, or soft whispering from horn-beam; every passion-flower had its lovely burthen; every love-lies-a-bleeding might have told a tale of perjured vows and broken hearts.

We have been thus minute in our description of the court and legislative assemblies of Fairy-land, that on a future occasion, when