SECRET MEMORANDUMS. 159 



bee." He is far more disposed to play the drone. He does not like 

 to rack his poor brains incessantly to find fresh excitement for others 

 young men and women, with quick pulses and prancing hopes 

 after all excitement is worn out of himself. He rather craves a fat- 

 cushioned arm-chair and foot-stool, wherein he may recline and read ; 

 taking no thought for the morrow. But I am compelled to write. 

 O, hateful heart-breaking sight of green-baize coverlid ! soon as the 

 breakfast things are removed, whereon the murky ink-stand, de- 

 tested blank paper that must be crammed ere noon and d d pen, 

 are placed in array before me. Monotony and disgust, ye are iden- 

 tified ! All that I now do, and it is considered passable and Ell- 

 worthy, I believe I could do just as well were I deaf, dumb, and 

 blind. I have written under so many signatures, that my individu- 

 ality seems lost to me, and I have moreover gone through almost all 

 the combinations of the alphabet. Original articles, critiques, letters 

 and receipts bear ye witness to my Protaean impersonations ! But 

 I feel that this cannot last much longer. The corporeal medium, 

 even now almost reduced to a Shade, of a paid-contributor to all the 

 magazines, must soon pay its own debt to the largest of Magazines 

 and contribute to the dust ! My errors have been venial, for I 

 found it impossible to live without eating ; and I trust the present 

 article may tend to prove at a future time that I was not actuated by 

 malice, avarice, or wantonness. Whenever or wheresoever it ap- 

 pears, it ought to be copied out (by paying the proprietor) into every 

 periodical throughout the United Kingdom ! 



Oh, public ! thou many-headed patron, to whose continual amuse- 

 ment I have so long contributed ; your anonymous or innumerable- 

 named friend bids you a lasting farewell ! Oh, editors ! who will 

 scarcely know what to do without me especially " upon a pinch" 

 receive my thanks ! and oh, Wimble ! much praised, much abused, 

 though not altogether injured, man forgive me ! 



The foregoing papers were found at the bottom of his trunk some 

 time after the death of Mr. Ellworthy. He had left directions that 

 whatever magazine first inserted them, the editor should receive his 

 best remembrances; and he had ingeniously written an eloquent 

 cloge which would fit any one of them. This, however, the indi- 

 vidual into whose hands the papers were recently placed, has thought 

 it more consistent with decorum not to forward. He particularly 

 requested also that his departure should be formally announced in 

 the Obituary of the Old Squaretoes ; in return for an article on 

 " Hair-powder," for which he again insisted if it were the last 

 words he should ever write that he never had been paid. We are 

 afraid that a little testy irritation has been induced by this misunder- 

 standing, as the required announcement has not yet appeared. 



R. H. H. 



