Christopher North and the Cockneys. 1 3 



should be found to trip up his heels some of these days. The modern 

 Antaeus, however, has this advantage, that he always contrives to plant 

 his feet firmly in the earth and there he sticks in a peculiar filth of his 

 own, which it is rather perilous to approach. But once come to a close 

 grapple, and lift him out of his own dunghill, and it needs no Hercules to 

 throw him as heavy a fall as he would probably desire or expect. 



At the conclusion of a savage article, wherein Christopher delights, 

 purporting to be a review of some hopeless trash manufactured by one 

 Michel], who must have expired ere this, of very intensity of dullness, 

 had it not, been for the fillip given to him by the review in question, thus 

 says the invincible 



' We have seen some impudent stir lately, in quarters where the cock- 

 neys were wont to be mum as mice. The vermin had better be quiet j 

 and now that they have taken sweet counsel together, retreat in time to 

 their holes. Should a certain Red Rover of a grimalkin, who shall be 

 nameless, leap out upon them, what a topsy-turvy of tails and whiskers ! 

 We should like to see an Archibald-Bell-the-Cat arising among the 

 Cockneys." 



Were an Archibald-Bell-the-Cat to arise among the Cockneys, he 

 would probably be better employed than in kicking out of his way the 

 superannuated and nameless Red Rover above alluded to ; for our own 

 part, although we confess ourselves to be the identical mouse that was 

 made so much of by the mountain, we shall arrange our whiskers with 

 all the coolness imaginable, even in the presence of so tremendous a 

 grimalkin as Christopher North. To confess the truth, our courage does 

 not arise so much from a conviction of our own muscular power (we are 

 unconscious of a pun) as of the physical weakness of our grimalkin, whom 

 we firmly believe to be well nigh worn out clawless and toothless and 

 so buttered, of late, on all sides, as to be no longer fit for the house-top ; 

 but, for the future, will be found peculiar to the common sewer and the 

 like desirable promenades. 



To drop metaphor when we read such braggart stuff as that which 

 we have quoted above we ask ourselves a few questions, which may be 

 compressed into one. What does this person mean ? Does he for one 

 instant suppose that he has such men to deal with now, as he endea- 

 voured to crush some years ago, when he himself was a better man, and 

 when he was supported by better men, than he or they will ever be again r 

 Does he for a moment imagine that we are to be bullied or browbeaten ? 

 It must, then, be by an Englishman. Oh, no ! this nonsense, Master 

 Christopher North, take our word for it, will not do any longer. Tories 

 must learn, or be taught, that these fantastic tricks only serve now to 

 cause expansion of the risible muscles, and, we are quite certain, can 

 never be of any further advantage to those who indulge in them. They 

 are extravagant, indecent, and unreasonable, and are not any longer to be 

 thought of. 



The truth is, this impatience and irritability on the part of Mr. North, 

 is, we feel, attributable slightly to physical causes. The man is ill 

 bilious melancholy perplexed, perhaps, by that cutaneous eruption 

 on the skin, with which some of his countrymen are unhappily afflicted ; 

 or, as likely, by those multitudinous retainers by which they are not 

 unfrequently attended. If this last be the case, judging from the dispo- 

 sition shewn in the passage quoted, we should be inclined to say *' the 



