NOTES OF THE MONTH. 215 



back of the Horse Guards, constitute their knowledge of gunnery; 

 and the maneuvering of forces they learn from Almack's and Hyde 

 Park. But supposing them to be Wellingtons in their way, no men 

 are more unfitted for law-makers, even on matters of fighting, for 

 they are totally incapable of viewing a rupture between England 

 and any of the Continental powers in any other light than a mere 

 appeal to arms. In the present unstable state of public affairs there 

 is no saying how soon the people may be called upon to exercise 

 their right of voting. Whenever the time does come, we hope 

 electors will be a little less precipitate than hitherto in bestowing 

 their " most sweet voices" on " whiskered panders and fierce 

 hussars." 



MARCH OF NONSENSE. No people in the world are more keenly 

 alive to a sense of the ridiculous than the English, and yet we are 

 for ever perpetrating most quizzical outrages on common sense. 

 Lady Morgan, in her " France," furnishes us with many a disqui- 

 sition upon the superior politesse of the lower orders in that country. 

 She tells us it is no uncommon thing for a vender of cabbages, or a 

 retailer of cauliflowers, to be found reading Moliere or Racine ; and 

 that a Parisian fish woman will expatiate upon the goodness of her 

 piscatory commodities, with witticisms from Voltaire, and senti- 

 mentalisms from Rousseau. But for a proper touch of the true 

 bathos we may conscientiously defy competition. At the late musical 

 festival, a gentleman named Harris, a chorus master, shouted with 

 peculiar energy. The members of the choral orchestra called this 

 great ability (genius we submit would be more appropriate), and 

 forthwith conspired to make him a present, in some degree propor- 

 tioned to his extraordinary desert. Now, what was this mark of 

 homage to vocal superiority ? Was it some gentle dulcimer, that the 

 winds of heaven had but to sigh upon to produce such sounds as 

 would take the "imprisoned senses and lap them in Elysium ?" Was 

 it an antique Cremona, potent, like the lyre of Orpheus, to " shake 

 the strong-based promontory, and by the spurs pluck up the pine 

 and cedar ?" Or was it some fairy finger-organ, like the singing tree 

 in the Arabian legend, Vocal with a thousand throats, and replete 

 with all the soft witchery of " dulcet and harmonious breath ?" 

 No; it was nothing of this. The Westminster choristers, with a 

 taste so exquisitely refined, that we conceive it must have been 

 intuitive, presented J. H* Harris, Esq. with a huge silver quart 

 tankard. As if for the renovation of his thorax, after the expendi- 

 ture of an infinity of breath, he receives a quart mug, from which to 

 quaff his " heavy" beverage a porter pot, by way of tribute to his 

 abilities. If any of the innumerable patronisers of talent, with which 

 this vast city abounds, should entertain the notion of dispensing a 

 portion of their favours on the Prussian Polyphemus, who consumed 

 a round of beef, two legs of mutton, a barrel of beer, and sundries 

 to match, we beg respectfully to suggest that " a Treatise on Astro- 

 nomy" would be a very befitting mark of approbation. 



THE PERFECTION OF REASON. Another of those monstrous 



