422 Letter on Affairs in general. [Ocr. 
y si 1 aes 
the Morning Post, every day, from a‘ wig-maker.—“ J. Dimond recom- 
mends»to»the Nobility”—(this preference of the higher classes’ ought 
always: to:be observed: by tradesmen )—“ his fashionable’ Perruques,”“ 
“ particularly to those who wear false hair.'.—Now who the ‘devil others 
should he recommend them to? occ, 
The Globe of the 19th inst. states, as an instance of the extraordinary 
effects of “competition by steam,” that persons may now “ get from 
Bristol to Cork for one shilling and sixpence.” |The worst of it:is; that 
for the same money they may get from Cork to Bristol. 12 
Lam particularly fond of a good advertisement ; and there is an ex- 
cellent one in the Chronicle of to-day.—‘ A married man, with little in- 
cumbrance, wishes fora situation as gardener, &c.”—“ Perfectly under- 
stands green-house, forcing, framing,’ &c. Also.a general knowledge of 
agriculture and breeding of stock ; likewise the wife is calculated to:take 
her part in the same. 
»/No man in England will read without horror and: commiseration the 
trash which was uttered a few days since about the Duke of York ina 
«Catholic Meeting” at Mullingar. What: the tastes and: habits» of 
those persons must be, who could attempt to make the serious: and pain- 
ful illness of a kind-hearted and benevolent man the subject of “ loud 
laughter,” it cannot be necessary for me to declare. But) of this Lam 
certain—the “Catholic cause” already “stinks in the nostril” of three- 
fourths of the people of Great Britain ; and those who wish well to it, 
have no chance but in separating themselves finally from its present. soz- 
disant leaders, to save it from hopeless and incurable ruin, 
The. new farce called Before Breakfast, which Mathews plays in at 
the Lyceum, isa lively, laughable aftair—almost the only good thing 
that has been produced at any of the small theatres all the summer. 
And I am the more pleased to say a good word of it, because it is done 
by Mr. Peake, on to some of whose productions I have laid, in my 
time, rather unmercifully.' In fact, he wrote one piece that had a 
“charity boy” in it, a part that was very much applauded, but used 
to make me sick. And another that had a man withoa hump-back in 
it, which made me still sicker. And then his puns! They put one’s 
stomach out of court altogether. But the Jonathan Doubikins farce 
was of a better order than these; and I like Before Breakfast better 
still, There is some clever management about the “business” of 
Mathews’ part ; and a notion rather of character in the beginning of it, 
And Bartley’s, too—the man of “impulses,”—is good. And Keeley 
makes something of a discharged foot-boy. And the Major of broken 
phrases is very comical. It is an excellent manner of speaking, that; 
and has been tmder-rated: I heard a barrister on the Midland Circuit 
do acase in it, and it’struck’me as better a hundred times than:a 
Philippean oration. I will describe it some day when I:have time, but 
I am too much pressed now. i 
An agreeable ’bout at give-and-take fell out the other day in the neigh- 
bourhood of Brussels. An Englishman passing along the road on the 
top of the Hirondelle diligence, saw a Frenchman shooting in the fields, 
and made faces at him. The latter immediately put up his piece, fired 
at the offender, and wounded several persons on the coach. The illus- 
tration of national character, on both sides, here is admirable. One sees 
so clearly that an Englishman would make the faces; but, as clearly— 
