CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 345 



graced the festival with their company. Among the company present, 

 we observed the Rev. Oliver "Whiteface, Mrs. Whileface, and the nine 

 Misses Whiteface, John Popkins, Esq., Mrs. and the seven Misses Pop- 

 kins, cum muUis alios qucc nunc proscribere longam est." 



**This is rather a long communication, but woe betide the editor if he 

 dare to make the slightest alteration in it, or curtailment of it ; should 

 he correct the Latin quotation or omit it altogether, there would be such 

 a philological controversy in the paper, that its columns, for the next six 

 months, would look like ** the Diversions of Purley." Should the editor, 

 by any accident, omit the name of Popkins, or insert it as Mr. Popkins, 

 the village apothecary, no individual, bearing the name of Popkins, would 

 read his paper for the next twenty years ; and, in all probability, such 

 an insult would lead to the establishment of a rival paper on independent 

 principles. The editor of the Blunderton Chronicle once lost fifteen sub- 

 scribers and a constant correspondent, for presuming to substitute the 

 word ** moon" for ** lunar orb," in an epistolary communication. It 

 was in vain the editor protested that the alteration was made merely 

 from want of room, and that he was aware of the great superiority of his 

 correspondent's talents ; the correspondent was inexorable, and would 

 never forgive any man such a gross and scandalous crime, as daring to 

 presume to correct his style. Many other pleasant matters of local in- 

 telligence grace the columns of a country newspaper, such as gigantic 

 turnips, unseasonable cabbages, kittens with six legs, pigs with one ear, 

 and, peradventure, some elaborate narrative of ** certain diabolical mis- 

 creants, sacrilegiously breaking into the pantry of the parish clerk, and 

 stealing thereout two cow-heels and a bushel of tripe, together with four 

 pewter spoons and a bran new gridiron, which he had provided for his 

 Sunday dinner." 



** It is to be particularly remarked, that country thieves, in country 

 newspapers, are all diabolical miscreants, therefore, all those who would 

 avoid the reproach of diabolical miscreancy, would do well to avoid plun- 

 dering pantries in the country. For my part I cannot see how a man 

 can hold up his head again, after being called a diabolical miscreant in a 

 country newspaper, it is enough to kill him for life." 



In some of the articles the burlesque is comical to the extreme, 

 but the veriest cynic who has disclaimed laughter as a vulgar pro- 

 pensity, must have his risible faculties forced into play on perus- 

 ing the chief part of these characteristic sketches It is the 

 conviction of their strict resemblance to nature, though broadly- 

 caricatured, and the ludicrous position of men and things in 

 circumstances dexterously placed for the peculiar occasion, which 

 give these stories their force of colouring — and then the phraseology 

 in which they are wrapped is so admirably adapted to the different 

 scenes brought to the mind's eye. There is no coarseness of lan- 

 guage in any part of the volume — on the contrary it is distin- 

 guished by purity of style and neatness of diction — and we have 

 no doubt, which is presuming in no slight degree on its merits, 

 that all its readers will cordially agree with us in this our unbias- 

 sed opinion. 



