556- Notes of the Month 



to a flourish about having nailed his flag to the mast and going down with 

 all sails set. But ask a metaphor- dabbler what he means by this jargon, and 

 ten to one he can't tell you the difference between a top-gallant royal and the 

 hatchway. Then for clouds horizons and breakers, gulphs surges and tor- 

 nadoes, one may as well take up a treatise on navigation as encounter a news- 

 paper paragraph about a squabble between a dog's-meat man and the pro- 

 prietor of a Punch-and-Judy show, or any other penny-a-line catastrophe. 

 Some time ago you couldn't learn that your friend had a cold without being 

 treated to a croak from the Frogs of Aristophanes, or be told of the appren- 

 ticeship of a charity urchin without your informant pitching you an Arma- 

 virumque-cano version of the affair, to the utter bewilderment of all common 

 sense. 



Now that that rage has gone by, we find that our mother tongue 

 may be a very mysterious language without the " aid of foreign ornament," 

 for our wise-ones of the press, the bar, and the senate, will not be simple. 

 Is there no preventative against this mania for fine writing? The other day 

 we saw an advertisement from a country gentleman desiring to participate in 

 the Times at half-price. Participate in the Times ! Cobbett proposed to keep 

 a mallet with an attendant functionary in every parish church, to knock all 

 phrase-mongering humbugs upon the head ; but his big English heart led , 

 him to think too favourably of his countrymen, for he certainly did not mean % 

 iron mallets, and hence the inutility of his suggestion. " Too much water 

 hast thou had, Ophelia," said Laertes to his drowned sister. Too much wood 

 hast thou in thy headpiece, oh Borthwick ! to profit by the prescription of the 

 athlete of the gridiron. And yet who should know the ailments of the repre- 

 sentative of Hamlet and Evesham, if not him of Oldham ? Anomalous this 

 of a verity, for like to like says the proverb gammon says Peter (posturising 

 after the Dying Gladiator) apple-pie all quince is too much of a good thing. 

 What with Peter, Richards, and a few more in the Commons, Phillpotts in 

 the " other place," and some of our hebdomadal and diurnal meteors, our 

 pensive public are pretty well off in the commodity our intense neighbours 

 call botheration. 



RATHER UNREASONABLE. They say that a certain literary M.P. is exces- 

 sively dissatisfied at the reception of his first and last dramatic production. 

 One of his grounds of complaint is, that certain members of the press who 

 had hitherto played toadies to him on all occasions have, in the case al- 

 luded to, forgotten their quondam occupation, and barked at his heels in 

 chorus with the pack of vllifiers by whom he had always been assailed. Dis- 

 satisfaction on this score is natural enough, and we can the more readily 

 sympathise in his chagrin thereat from our having always abstained from ab - 

 surd eulogies on the one hand, and malignant censure on the other. But it 

 is also said, we know not how truly, that he finds fault with Macready be- 

 cause he boasts that his was the only part in the play in the least entitled to 

 be considered a well-drawn or a powerfully sustained character. Now, if the 

 honourable and learned gentleman really indulge in any splenetic grievings of 

 this sort, we must consider him as peevishly vain as his traducers insist that 

 he is. Whatever he himself now thinks, it is manifest that in the first in- 

 stance he considered, the actor also considered, and lastly, the public, we 

 imagine very justly, considered that Macready is' entitled to Brag-alone. 



BLOWING HOT AND COLD IN THE SAME BREATH. On the appearance 

 of the King's Speech the tory organs instantly pronounced it the most barren, 

 meagre, and unmeaning document of the kind ever published. Next evening 

 the Standard, which had joined in the cry of its anti-ministerial compatriots, 

 contained the following : 



" Before the ministerial announcements had been three hours before the 

 public a becoming resolve was taken, preparations were commenced, and 

 Freemasons' Hall was engaged for a public meeting of the friends of the 



