334 Notes of the Month. 



His childhood was a continued series of distressing suffering, very mucA 

 increased by an unceasing petulance, which required the kindest feelings on 

 the part of his friends to render supportable. He played well with his battle- 

 door, and could spin a top with as much dexterity as any of his playfellows. 



At the age of seven he could write and began to draw ; soon afterwards 

 he was sent to school, where he became conspicuous for ability ; and, on the 

 completion of his collegiate education, he was admitted into the studio of 

 several celebrated painters. Here he had an opportunity of displaying great 

 xmiability and affection of manners, with fine moral qualities, distinguished 

 :alent, and discriminating judgment. 



His phrenological conformation corroborated his elevated qualities, and 

 gave promise of considerable professional ability. His success has fully 

 warranted the high expectations that were anticipated for him, for he is now 

 a painter of great celebrity, and has founded a school for himself. 



One anecdote connected with his painting is amusing. The painters who have 

 seen his works and examined his style, agree in one expression with regard to 

 them, that he displays 'trop de main.* 



NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



Nescio quid meditans nugarum et totus in illis. HORACE. 



RATHER OMINOUS. Believe the Tories, and the year of our Lord 1837 is the 

 commencement of their millennium. A remarkable nice year truly it has been 

 so far as it has gone, and a precious sample of what we may expect when the 

 sun of office shall have entered Taurus, and Knatchbull be in the ascendant. 

 Here we are just commencing the second month, and a fearful mortality has 

 in a measure desolated our highways. Such snow has fallen that the pro- 

 pagation of conservative falsehood has been impeded by it. Such fogs have 

 obscured the atmosphere, that at a short distance the Marquis of Waterford 

 was mistaken for a gentleman, and the Bishop of London for a primitive 

 Christian, There have been such frosts that the vanity of the author of 

 "Runymede's Letters" has been congealed for half a dozen hours when he was 

 asleep ; and, anon, such heats that Lord Eldon was about to promise to com- 

 mence a distribution of blankets. The capture of Bilboa has appalled the 

 hearts of the Carlists, and the seizure of Lord Ranelagh's wigs made Truefit the 

 envy of every Christian tonsor from the Pyrenees to Gibraltar. A murder 

 has been perpetrated upon a woman in the Edgware Road, the horrors of 

 which altogether eclipse any orange fiction of a parson butchery in Ireland. 

 A hoax has been played off on Sir Frederick Roe and the Home Office, 

 enough to deprive the Minerva press romance-mongers of the poor praise of 

 being imaginative. An omnibus cad has said that he took one of the new 

 fourpennies instead of a sixpence, and more than that, some people have be- 

 lieved him. A Scotchman has offered to make affidavit that he preferred 

 the Highlands to London ; and a Tory has been heard to make use of the 

 word patriotism, but, being asked what it meant, confessed he knew not. 

 Wonderful 1 wonderful ! Etzub ! Etzub! as they say in Abyssinian a lan- 

 guage with which and the English some of our constitution orators are equally 

 conversant. This promises to be a marvellous year. We have not seen 

 our old friend Francis Moore, Physician, but we suppose we may take it for 

 granted that he has predicted all manner of good things. Indeed we should 

 imagine that, like the Tories, he has too much regard for his character to be 

 inconsistentin his absurdities. As sticklers for the faith of their ancestors, the 

 Tories are doubtless given to a credence in omens; and if so, we should fancy 

 they must regard that preternatural state of things with dismay, notwithstand- 

 ing all the vaunted reaction in their favour. The Times is out of joint (our 



