Notes of the Month. 555 



with plumes and all the necessary et-ceteras to match; for it is only a 

 matter of justice that those cream-coloured brutes should earn their barley, 

 which it is barely possible they ever can do much to the annoyance of the 

 public pulse. 



UNCOMMON FINE WRITING. "As mad as a March hare" is a com- 

 mon adage, and by way of illustrating it we suppose, the editor of the Liver- 

 pool Telegraph thus acquainted the public with his appreciation of his own 

 merits, and their beatitude in possessing such a Solon, in his publication of 

 the 8th ult. : " The Liverpool Telegraph is but, as it were [there may be a 

 doubt about it then it seems], a new combatant in the field of politics ; but 

 the great encouragement and support which we have met with since we 

 buckled on our armour, and entered the lists to contend for the rights and 

 privileges of the people, induces (!) us again [a constant recreation, we may 

 surmise, with the Liverpudlian Bobadil] to put forth our political creed, and 

 to renew those vows and protestations of fidelity to the people's cause, which 

 have won for us the unexampled patronage which has been our portion during 

 our hitherto short career. [A precious nincompoop for the protege of the 

 ' Metropolis of the North.'] ' FOR THE PEOPLE' has been our motto from first 

 to last. Under the same motto we shall continue the conflict. Our object 

 will ever be to uphold the people's rights, contend for their privileges, and to 

 urge on the march of all those great measures which will tend to increase 

 their [whose are the measures in strait-waistcoats ?] liberties, and promote 

 their happiness and welfare. We are the advocates of principles, not of per- 

 sons. We shall give our support to the Ministry whenever the Ministry act 

 for the people ; but as often as we see the slightest symptoms of trimming, 

 or shuffling, or leaning towards the aristocracy at the people's cost, we shall 

 be amongst the first to denounce and expose them. So we have done in 

 time past, so we shall do in time to come. As Reformers we must stand, or 

 as Reformers we must fall." [A subject of vast moment truly whether he 

 do one or the other.] We won't say with the spouse of lago, that it would 

 be proper to put a scourge into every honest hand to lash this gentleman 

 through his syntax and prosody, for we think good whip-cord would be 

 wasted if so applied, even though we are favourable to a repeal of the duty 

 on hemp. But we fancy that the destitute Highlanders, about whom we 

 heard so much at the Egyptian Hall the other day, might find plenty of 

 occupation in cutting birch for the good of some of our best possible in- 

 structors, who go Telegraphing their inanities about, after the fashion of the 

 foregoing worthy. He is one of those brilliants whose phoenix-like rise the 

 Tories predicted from the extinction of the fourpenny stamp ; and we must 

 riot blind ourselves to the mischievous effects of such rampant nonsense 

 because a liberal happens to be the showman. The Slops of this order are 

 becoming as plentiful as mushrooms, or rather we should say as toadstools, 

 for the growth of such fungi is a melancholy matter. They are in the heroics 

 upon all possible occasions. No wonder Russia should augment her forces 

 by land, and America increase her marine, when people keep clamouring 

 about buckling on armour and entering the lists at this rate. Why half- 

 a-dozen of Burke's departure-of-chivalry speeches were not near so mar- 

 tial as a newspaper leader is now-a-days. " Arms on armour clashing bray, 

 horrible discord" perpetually. And though the arms and armour be neither 

 helm or blade, nor even potstick or frying-pan, still the uproarious derange- 

 ment of verbs, nouns, and participles (vide the extract) has a cursed alacrity 

 in the production of the doldrums. We speak earnestly, because feelingly. 

 It's no joke to have the din of " guns, blunderbusses, trumpets, drums, and 

 thunder," resounding in one's ears ; and if there be one thing in the world 

 that can add to our abhorrence of this species of annoyance, it is when the 

 perpetrators thereof insist upon their hideous dissonance being regarded as 

 "dulcet and harmonious breath." If one of these Ossianic-soul'd gentry 

 wishes to inform us of his determination of purpose, forthwith he treats us 



