11 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH AND THE COCKNEYS. 



WE are decidedly what the ladies call an amiable man of that there can 

 be no question. We enjoy a singular calmness and equanimity of temper, 

 and delight in a wonderfully well-organized and tranquil disposition. 

 We have our little foibles, undoubtedly, but among them are not to be 

 reckoned the sudden gusts and outbreaks of passion with which others, 

 and those not a few, are unhappily afflicted. 



But, indeed, great as is our forbearance, we are hard put to it some- 

 times -, there is a tremendous run upon our bank occasionally, and we 

 have not seldom to encounter and to endure afflictions that the three 

 friends of Job never dreamed of inventing, and to which Job himself 

 never could have submitted. 



We need not inform most of our London readers, that this vast me- 

 tropolis is a repertorium of anomalous monsters of all descriptions 

 home-made, provincial, and imported. There is the ass-domestic, ca- 

 priciously gambolling, wild. There is the patent improved donkey, 

 warranted to bray without ceasing. There is the goose grafted on the 

 donkey. Again, the bore, the wild bore, the bore constrictor, the inter- 

 minable bore. Finally, the twaddler, the tea-drinking and tattle-bearing, 

 the button-besieger, the ear-piercing, the distracting, the heart-breaking 

 twaddler. From these plagues we pray unceasingly a removal, " Defend 

 us from the same with thy mighty power.'' 



" Pardon me for remarking," interposes the numskull, whose face pre- 

 sents a lively idea of a map of Boeotia, " that there are no such animals 

 as those of whom you so fabulously tell. You are nervous and irritable, 

 and create imaginary monsters." Ho ! ho ! is it so ? Master Simplicity -, 

 then are you less of a biped than I mistook you for. Nervous and 

 irritable? No such thing. Humane and agreeable. And as to the 

 creation of imaginary monsters, let me ask the candid inquirer, the citizen 

 of the world, whether what I assert be not, to the letter, true. Let him 

 proceed to the " Pig and Whistle," where the " intellectual all-in-all," 

 sadly bemused with half-and-half, is pouring forth his unleavened non- 

 sense, and from thence to the newly erected club-house, where the aris- 

 tocratical " nought and carry none " reclines, teazing a segar ; and then 

 must he, perforce, confess, that no zoological museum affords so infinite 

 a variety of mere instinct, with so little admixture of mere reason, 



" There are more things in heav'n and earth, O Noodle ! 

 Than are dream 'd of in your philosophy," 



or than philosophy can away with. 



To minor grievances we cheerfully devote ourselves. One self-suffi- 

 cient coxcomb, (who aspires to the title of a literary man, for no other 

 reason than because he happens to be a Scotchman, and writes for that 

 popular journal, " The Scotch Scratch-cradle ") tells us that Pope is a 

 much finer poet than Spenser ; that Wordsworth is a silly fool, and that 

 Coleridge is a mystical old dreamer. What is to be said to a man of 

 this description ? Another admires Bishop or Wade infinitely more than 

 Weber or Mozart, or congratulates himself upon having no ear for 

 music. It is the indication of a weak mind to be susceptible of such 

 influences. A third modestly describes himself as an individual pos- 

 sessing merely plain good sense, and forthwith utters the refuse of an 



