336 A History of the " Humbug" Family. [MARCH, 



Few are aware how many of our public architects are of that distin- 

 guished race from which I am descended. Our ancestors lived in their 

 dwellings of wood till they caught fire ; but we, in this age of improve- 

 ment, are enabled to live in our neat fabrics of lath and plaster till they 

 fall down. Look at the villas of the Regent's Park ! are the mansions 

 of Inigo Jones to be compared to them ? View the modern churches 

 are not these pretty buildings far superior to the heathenish structures of 

 Sir Christopher Wren ? And why are these so but because Mr. Nash 

 and Sir Geoffrey Wyatville are my first cousins. 



The medical practitioners have acknowledged the relationship by 

 the extreme avidity with which they have undertaken to relieve the 

 public from all fear of the Cholera. They have instituted Boards of 

 Health, and introduced many other plans which sufficiently shew 

 their anxiety to do honour to the , race from which they sprung. 

 Another very imaginative race of men, more familiarly known as 

 auctioneers, I feel flattered in being related to. Many members of 

 this respectable community have the happy art of transforming things 

 apparently worthless to articles of extraordinary value. They seem to 

 possess the philosopher's stone, and turn all that's brass, except their own 

 countenances, into gold. Give them a ruinous building, of which the 

 rats and the winds are the only inmates, and it will rise in a night, 

 like the palace of Aladdin, into a splendid family mansion, replete with 

 every convenience. But we have understood that the new properties 

 vanish immediately they come into the possession of the purchaser, and 

 are no more heard of. The art of painting things in their brightest 

 colours was first discovered by one of my ancestors. The lawyers, 

 again, from time immemorial, have been known as an illustrious branch 

 of the " Humbugs." They are the same now as they ever were. They 

 shew the same happy facility of defending either side of a cause, the 

 same dexterity in leading their clients through the mazes of the law, 

 till they have completely incapacitated them for any further arbitration. 

 They possess the same love of justice, and the same ideas of its value. 



I am happy to say that my family is now in a very flourishing state. 

 I never read an advertisement, or a speech in parliament, but I am con- 

 fident as to the source in which it originated. Every declaration of a 

 member at the hustings is full of the family sentiments. All prospec- 

 tuses, designs, proposals, manifestoes, proceed from the same source. 

 Those interesting pieces of information in our public prints, commonly 

 called " Puffs," are manufactured on the same principles ; and Row- 

 land's Macassar claims its full share of public notice, as well as the last 

 fashionable novel. When the Russian talks of freedom, the Italian of 

 patriotism, the Frenchman of sentiment, the Portuguese of glory, the 

 Dutchman of taste, the German of religion, the Scotsman of modesty, 

 and the Irishman of metaphysics ; and when an Englishman prefers 

 French politesse, and a coutelette d la Maintenon, to British hospitality 

 and roast beef, there cannot be a doubt in the world that they belong to 

 my ancient and respectable family they are all " Humbugs." 



