666 Notes of the Month on [Dec. 



despairing and desperate efforts they make to get the last farthing of their re- 

 venue. Mr, Hincks, be it recollected, is a great Bible-man, a great Tory, and a 

 great converter of Catholics. He seems, also, to be a very excellent tithe- 

 man." 



Why will our novelists be eternally running after impossibilities of 

 time, place, and character, when facts ai'e every day before them that 

 would outstrip all their romance ? Let the following notice be laid upon 

 their tables, digested upon their pillows, shaped in their escrutoirs, and 

 published Avitliin the next three months in three volumes, hotpressed, 

 and dedicated to the Sunday conversationist, the old ]\Iarchioness of 

 Salisbury, or Lady Jersey, or any of the ladies patronesses, of established 

 notoriety. 



" Expected Marriage of the Marquis of Abercorn. — A projected marriage, we 

 understand, is upon the tapis between the youthful Marquis of Abercorn and 

 one of the accomplished daughters of the Earl of Harewood. On the 11th of 

 January the noble marquis will come of age, when, independent of an immense 

 personal fortune, which has been accumulating ever since the decease of the late 

 marquis, he will become possessed of an income of 94,0001. per annum, arising 

 from large estates, situated in the three kingdoms. In addition to this fortune, 

 the noble marquis will succeed to an English and an Irish peerage, each of 

 which entitles the marquis to a seat in the House of Peers, and is the only in- 

 stance in the British peerage of three titles being united in one person. In 

 politics the noble marquis is a staunch Tory ; and there is no doubt if the new 

 Reform Bill should not pass before his taking his seat, but that the noble mar- 

 quis will oppose it." 



Here are ample materials for the genius of the modern novelist. 

 The first volume would, according to all rule, detail the Marquis's 

 Etonian frolics, would find delighted and superabundant materials in a 

 coup-dceil of his ancestors, with anecdotes of red-heeled shoes, toupees, 

 diamond snuff'-boxes, and lap-dogs of King Charles's breed. The third 

 volume might return to the living world again, and develope, in the 

 detail that all the world loves — tlie dexterity of the angling for the 

 young Croesus ; the baits laid out for. the settlement of charming 

 daughters, accomplished sisters, and nieces overflowing with perfection ; 

 the whole mystery of the art matrimonial, the hai-p and guitar-playing, 

 the supper-giving, the summer invitations, the pheasant-shootings, the 

 rides telc-a-tcte, the green-lane sentimentality, the sudden ardour of 

 retirement, and the outrageous determination for single blessedness, 

 except in the peculiar case made and provided. Then the half-entangle- 

 ment, the half-escape, the mother's reserve, the father's frown, the 

 sister's wrath, and the brother's pistol. Out of those materials Lack- 

 brain himself might construct a history of " moving accidents," and 

 we feel ourselves doing a general service to the republic of letters in 

 proposing the subject to authorship in general. 



The propensity to be gulled belongs so much to human nature, that 

 we can no more wonder at the growth of swindlers, than we can at the 

 growth of caterpillars. They both feed on the labour of the industrious, 

 and where they are suffered to feed, they will increase. But the most 

 unaccountable instances of the kind are royal pretenders. Every 

 nation has had its Perkin Warbeck ; but it is curious, in a time so 

 jnodern as our own, and in a country so much alive to the detection of 

 royalist imposture as France, a succession of " Pretenders." The Cor- 



