404 Projiotf^tls for abolishing the First of September. f Obt. 



ceremony, and did the same with my gun for the last time. To fire- 

 arms, I have thus acquired a most particular aversion, and like Mr. 

 O'Connell, have made a vow never to accept any challenge ; so that it 

 would be quite useless for any one to think of calling me out. My 

 friends wanted me to become a captain in that fine body of middle-sized 

 men, the Surrey militia, by which I might have had an excellent oppor- 

 tunity of seeing the coronation ; but I disliked the suspicious manner in 

 which they carried their muskets, and declined the honour. When in 

 town, I never attend the theatres, in consequence of the immense 

 quantity of gunpowder and bad jokes which are let off there upon all 

 occasions, and nothing on earth will induce me to touch a newspaper 

 on account of the " reports." R. F. W. 



PARAGRAPHS FROM A PORTFOLIO. 



The " science" of Latin-verse pronunciation has puzzled England for 

 the last five hundred years, and I suppose will proceed in puzzling it 

 for five centuries more at least. Watson, Bishop of Landaff, in his 

 Memoirs, feehngly deplores the misfortune of having " got his Latin" at 

 a north-country school, which left him to hammer out the " longs and 

 shorts" for himself, when he began to work his way up to character at 

 Cambridge. Paley too, was not " strong" in this very much prized, 

 and very absurd attainment. It is still among the stories of the " com- 

 mon room" at Oxford, that in reading the Thesis for his Doctor's de- 

 gree, he pronounced " profugus" with the penultimate long. All Oxford 

 was in astonishment, nothing was talked of for a month, but this high- 

 treason against prosody. At last by an effort of \yit and indignation 

 which cost the author another month, the following lines were pasted on 

 the undone Doctor's door : — 



" Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venit littora, 

 Errat Virgilius : forte profugus erat." 



It is to be presumed that nothing could have prevented his drowning 

 himself under the college pump, after this ponderous punishment ; but 

 his getting the living of Bishopwearmouth, worth two thousand a-year 

 then, and since worth four, and swelling the pluralities of the Honourable 

 and Reverend the husband of the celebrated Lady Charlotte Cadogan, 

 and brother of the Duke of Wellington, being the fifth tribute to the 

 " virtues and learning" of that very lucky personage. 



Sheridan's habits of awpunctuality were so confirmed, that no one ever 

 thought of his keeping an engagement : and the true way of having 

 him' at dinner was to invite him to breakfast ; then there was a probabi- 

 lity of his stepping in about the time cloth was laid, to apologize for 

 being a " little too late." 



At last a friend, who had frequently been disappointed when he had 

 asked large parties to meet him and Mrs. Sheridan, applied to him to 

 fix his own hour, and tell him fairly at " what time of day or night, he 

 would choose to dine." " Oh, any hour you think proper," was Sheridan's 

 answer : " but, my dear friend, hang being fixed to minutes ! I hate 

 such bread-and-cheese notions." 



