276 Men and Candles. [MARCH, 



What a situation what a change for one of the mighty ! It would be 

 odd, too, to recognize, in the tapers of a ball-room, the remains of 

 departed beauty. Contrasting the flame that shone from them with a 

 recollection of their living brightness, we might exclaim with Gray, 



" E'en in their ashes live their wonted fires." 



The melting system, indeed, once become general, there would be no end 

 to the philosophical observations that must arise from it to the ludicrous 

 and touching contrarieties to which it must give place. Thus some future 

 strolling actor might murder Otway and Shakspeare, before Kean, Young, 

 and Kemble, dwindled into the three tallow foot-lights ! The gentlemen 

 at Crockford's might see to ruin new dupes by the last remains of former 

 victims. A dead husband, placed in the bed-room, might gutter away 

 in the candlestick on the nuptial night of his too-forgetful spouse. How 

 many of our saints would be compelled to flare at masquerades and the 

 opera ! Parson Irving, made into long sixes, might serve to illuminate 

 the dressing-room of some future Grimaldi ; whilst Messrs. Egerton and 

 Claremont of Covent Garden might cast a light upon the Hebrew volume 

 at the Jews' Synagogue. It would be a hard fate for the remains of a 

 vegetable-dieted person to be used in any of our meat markets : it would 

 be no less hard for an author to fall into the hands of a trunk-maker 

 to afford a light for the pasting of well-remembered, unsold sheets. It 

 would be grievous for a President of a Royal Society to be crammed 

 into a bottle, and placed in a back garret, to twinkle the hours away, 

 until the tenant some sans-culotte bricklayer's labourer staggered 

 home, and puffed the ex-President out. We wonder how a tailor would 

 burn in the room of a creditor ; or how a timid lady would deport her- 

 self with pistols over the mantel-piece or left alone with a party of 

 carousing fox-hunters ! Gentlemen of economical dipositions would 

 certainly be most desirable they would make the most of themselves. 

 Lawyers, for instance, it would, we imagine, be very hard to put out ; 

 tax-gatherers would last for ever ; sinecurists would be most unprofitable 

 burning. Not so with some long-winded members of Parliament the 

 regular five-column men would be invaluable. Watchmen must sell at 

 a reduced rate ; they would give a dull, sleepy light moreover, have a 

 continual tendency to gather what housewives call thieves, about them. 

 We wonder how Mr. Cobbett would burn ! certainly, with great eco- 

 nomy ; it would, however, we should think, be necessary to put him into a 

 perforated lantern. Physicians and doctors would make but tolerable 

 candles they would always appear with " winding-sheets^ in them. 

 How it would irk the heart of a country gentlemen of a fine, unbending 

 game-preserverone who had imprisoned his fifty poachers a season to 

 be reduced into a " six," and compelled to witness an illicit feast of hares 

 from his own manor ! We should not like to see a Jew rabbi upon the 

 counter of a Christian pork-merchant ; neither should we like to see a 

 modern Brummell light his cigar at a Dr. Franklin. 



Impartially weighing the good with the evil of the melting system, 

 we feel convinced that the good must preponderate. It would, to be 

 sure, throw the undertakers out of employment ; but then it would add 

 considerably to the body of the tallow-chandlers. The mutes might tear 

 their hat-bands into garters, tuck up their coat-sleeves, and turn to their 

 new trade. Besides, what tracts of church-yard ground might be brought 

 into profitable cultivation ! We have not yet calculated how many quar- 



