1831.] A/airs in General. 655 



The other theatres are drilling with the greatest rapidity, and the 

 sounds of trumpet, drum and gun, are hourly startling the echoes from 

 London Bridge to that unaccountable structure, which spans the river at 

 Hammersmith. 



Every man of fame must pay for it, and one of the penalties of a 

 notorious wag is, to bear the scandal of all the jokes, wicked and witty, 

 that are born while he is in the meridian. Every body knows the 

 reverend wag of the Whigs. Some one remarked to him, that Colonel 

 P was a man of great ' mental qualifications.' * Which do you 

 mean ?' was the Divine's reply, ( sentimental or regimental ?' 



On the Chancellor's talking over with him the late scene in the Lords, 

 and asking whether he did not think the rebuke was deserved ? " Per- 

 fectly," said the wag, " only that the dish might not have been the worse 

 for your mixing a little less pepper with your mace." 



On its being rumoured, that an individual, who has at length been 

 brought into the peerage, was so discontented at the delay of the step, 

 that he had intended to renounce his name. fe That would be contrary 

 to Pope and prudence together," said the wag, " for he is every thing 

 by Fitz.", 



The Bishop of Exeter's elevation had astonished all men but the 

 Duke of Wellington, whom nothing astonishes, but his own tumble. 

 " That he should be Fill-pot, might be expected," said the wag, " from 

 his birth, education and manners ; the wonder is, that he should be 

 Fill-mitre/' 



Why should the Duke of Beaufort be so angry with the Sunday paper 

 for talking of his settlements ? " Did you ever," said the wag, " hear 

 of a Duke who liked to have Spectators of his family secrets." 



When the second reading of the Reform Bill was carried by the majo- 

 rity of o?ie; somebody observed, that the premier should be much 

 obliged to number one. " It was mere gratitude," said the wag ; 

 " for there is not a man in England who has always taken better care of 

 number one." 



" What will become of the whippers-in now," said a sage of Brookes's 

 the other evening, ' ' when the people will take the lash into their own 

 hands, and drive us from our newspapers and coffee-rooms to the house ?*' 

 " Never fear," said the wag, " the office will be always useful ; party 

 always hunts in packs ; the only difference in the Whigs now and fifty 

 years ago is, that then they were ^/bar-hounds, and now they are grey- 

 hounds." 



Paganini and Colonel Fitzclarence are at present the Lions, and the 

 world has not been so perplexed with paragraphs since the arrival of 

 Miss Jelk at the Adelphi. The Colonel's elevation to the peerage has 

 been celebrated in the loftiest strains in various quarters ; and as he is 

 really a good humoured fellow, and has conducted himself without any 

 of the absurdities into which young men often run, when they think that 

 they have a strong purse behind them ; we can feel no objection to his 

 obtaining a rank, to which nine-tenths of its holders have not a much 

 fairer claim. But there is a little feature of the general panegyric which 

 points it peculiarly, and which we have no doubt the Colonel would 

 prefer to all the newspaper magnifications. After mentioning that the 

 titles by which this lucky individual has been raised to the peer- 



