12 Specimens of Cant. QJuly, 



grief over the tomb of this personage. We wish her ladyship Joan Can- 

 ning, the clever, were applied to for notes on the panegyric : — 



The Late Mr. Huskisson. — A tablet of white marble, bearing the following 

 inscription, has been erected at Parlc-side. near Newton :— " This tablet, a 

 tribute of personal respect and affection, has been placed here to mark the 

 spot where, on the 15th of September, 1830, the day of the opening of this 

 railroad, the Right Honble. William Huskisson, M. P. {singled out by the 

 decree of an inscrutable Providence, from the midst of the distinguished mul- 

 titude that surrounded him) in the full pride of his talents and the perfection 

 of his usefulness, met with the accident that occasioned his death, which 

 deprived England of an illustrious statesmati, and Liverpool of its most 

 honoured representative ; which changed a moment of the noblest exultation 

 and triumph that science and genius had ever achieved into one of desolation 

 and mourning ; and striking terror into the hearts of assembled thousands, 

 brought home to every bosom the forgotten truth that — ' in the midst of life 

 we are in death.' " 



MAXIMS BY A MIDDLK-AGED GKNTI.EMAN. 



There are two ways of looking at anything remarkable in this remaik- 

 able world : if you look at it with the left eye, it is one thing ; with the 

 right, it is another ; with both, it is itself or more than itself. An 

 artist, looking even at an old post by the highway side, will perceive in 

 it something picturesque — a plain man will see nothing more in it than 

 a piece of wood, misshapen and rotten. You may look at things serious 

 and turn them into humour ; at things humourous, and they become 

 grave : in fact, there are two sides of everything ; but maximists gene- 

 rally have looked with their favourite eye only on the favourite side of 

 things, an economy of their visual organs which I disdain to imitate ; on 

 the contrary, I shall use all the eyes I have by nature, and shall look as 

 often at the reverse as the obverse of " things in general. ' 



Dull Men. — Blessings be on dull men — I do not mean the dull men 

 who won't talk, but the dull men who will. They are sleep's physicians 

 — her ministers, preaching peace and sound slumbers to all men. Take 

 an example. — One of this good sort of persons sups with you at eleven, 

 talks at you till one ; you in the mean time compose yourself in your 

 arm-chair, fit your elbows comfortably in the corners, cross your legs, mix 

 your grog, light your cigar, and resign yourself, like a philsopher, to a 

 late lecture. At two you have perhaps had occasion to say " Yes," thrice, 

 " No sure } " twice or so ; " Indeed ! '' about the same number of times ; 

 and this is all it has cost you for a soporific, which, made up of medical 

 materials, would come to a crown, at least. From two till half-past two, 

 he is himself somewhat silent : his whiffs and his words come forth like 

 the companions of the ark, two and two ; and you observe, without sur- 

 prise, that he is run down. In a few minutes more, he looks at his 

 watch, and remarks that " It is time to go" — that is, he perceives that 

 you are supersaturated with sleep : you persuade the other glass ; he 

 refuses it ; then you yawn your widest, beg his pardon, and bid him 

 " Good night." He goes home, happy that he has been listened to with 

 so much of deferential silence : you stumble up to your chamber, with 

 such an entire resignation to the inevitable necessity of sleep, that 

 pulling off your clothes seems an absurd delay ; and you are off in a 

 minute to the district of dreams, and rise, next day, with no headache. 



