1823.) Affairs in General. 403 
broken necks for the newspapers. Methodist chapels are the next in 
point of honour. They maintain a very active competition in the rapi- 
dity of their rise, and the certainty of their expeditious fall. They have, 
for the last half year, generally come down at the rate of a couple a 
month, and with a considerable loss of legs and arms—the conversion of 
gouty old saints into flying sinners—the stoppage of old women’s 
tongues in that final rest, which is the only one that such tongues will 
ever know ; and the solemn determination of all who value their osteo- 
logy, craniology, and physiclogy, never to go within sound of popular 
preaching, and the Irvings of this world again. 
* The next description of candidates for overthrow, are county assembly 
rooms ; where no sooner have the last touches of the Raphael of the town 
been applied to brightening the true-blue of the county arms—the cards 
of the stewards been duly honoured by the universal attendance of the 
fair and illustrious for ten miles round—the sheriff, at the head of his 
ten daughters paid his devoirs down the blushing and bowing ranks— 
the sheriff’s lady, to set an example, set to the retired major of militia, 
the great military authority of the place; and both on the heavy 
fantastic toe, are boreing their way like linked buffaloes down the red- 
cheeked and full-fronted mob, when a crack is heard above ; the floor 
shudders below—the candles in all their sockets sympathize by tumbling 
out—a shower of fresh plaster gives notice that the ceiling is giving 
* way—the fiddlers fly for their lives—the stairs are choked with the 
heroes of the “local,” trampled down by fat and frantic belles ; the walls 
heave like the side scenes of a village theatre; the young gentlemen 
jump over the young ladies in their way to the stairs ; partners are 
forgotten, first loves jilted, passion breathes its vows no more, fortune- 
hunting is thinking not of the ladies’ pockets, but of its own bones ; the 
sheriff no longer takes the lead of the county ; the representatives take 
leave of their constituents, without the ceremony of a farewell speech ; 
« Sauve qni peut!” is screamed in all the languages of Somersetshire. 
The doors are no longer the received mode of discharge, the windows 
being substituted ; flying leaps of the most magnificent kind are made 
without notice or applause. At last a burst of slates, dust, laths, plaster, 
_ brick and mortar, the crash of the last tea-cup, the last candle sconce, 
the last fiddle, and the last fiddler, announce that all is over. In a week 
more the ruins are developed; shoes and stockings are recognized by 
their distracted owners; a snuff-box leads to the discovery of some 
ancient she-conveyancer of scandal, who was supposed to have taken 
advantage of the general confusion to elope with the retired serjeant of 
the militia staff; and at the bottom of all is found the sheriff’s enormous 
lady, with her arm tight round the neck of the old major, whom a coro- 
xs inquest declares to have died of “ strangulation.” 
+ 
Captain Garth’s affair has gone down. The black box that was to 
A -; out such overwhelming ruin on the head of the Duke of Cumber- 
land, and to prove the gallant Captain a prince in disguise, is found 
out to be worth nothing, to contain no secret deeper than that of the 
Captain’s own incumbrances, and to prove no fact, beyond the ingenuity 
of the party in making it the foundation of a claim for the clearance of 
his debts. Into the depth of the transaction, of course, we do not con- 
descend to look. There is degradation in the touch of such matters, 
and we leave the fictions as we find them. But the true purpose of 
‘ ot 2 
