198 Noles of the Month ott [Aug.' 



sible to avoid loss of life. The workmen would have to tun nearly two 

 thousand feet before they could reach a place of safety, and the only 

 wonder is, that when the river broke in last, they were not all drowned. 

 By commencing on the opposite side all danger of this kind will be 

 avoided for some time, and, at tlie worst, the run will not be more than 

 half the present distance. Mr. Brunei had, evidently, made two grand 

 mistakes, the first was his engaging in the work at all without a 

 thorough examination of the bed of the river, a performance which 

 seems to have been most carelessly and discreditably done by the 

 managers of the diving bell ; and next by striking his excavation too 

 high. A dozen feet lower would have made but little difference in the 

 descent, while it might have kept the tunnel within the solid clay, and 

 prevented all the successive failures of the undertaking. 



There are half a dozen profound secrets which keep the brains of the 

 curious so happily busy, that we sincerely hope they will never be dis- 

 covered. What would become of the Avhole old generation of male 

 blues, one part pamphlet and three parts snuff, if by any misfortune 

 Junius avowed himself? Twaddle would receive a shock in every 

 pump-room and whist-club, &c., through the land ; nonsense yet 

 unborn would rue the day, and hundreds of monthly " Conjecturers," 

 " Investigators," " Inquirers," and " Constant Readers/' would be lost 

 to the wondering world. 



The writer of the " Whole Duty of Man" is one of those salutary 

 secrets ; — woe be to the man or woman who shall ever strip it of the 

 charm of obscurity ; — may the dust of their own shades be all their 

 portion, and may they be never thought worthy of a place in the Annual 

 Obituary ! 



The Eikon Basilike, too, has had the honour of raising literary con- 

 vulsions, scarcely less furious than the struggles of Charles and Old 

 Noll. There have been twenty revivals of the war for the honour of 

 Charles's authorship, and for that of Gauden. The war, " that for a 

 space did fail," during the last quarter of the last century, " has, in our 

 day, trebly thundering sAvelled the gale ;" and Dr: Wordsworth, master 

 of a Cambridge College, has for his own warning, been as soundly cuffed 

 by ]\Ir. Todd, as ever was fat master of a college. Still, though we may 

 be amused by the summary castigation of a round stomached, dignified, 

 and very angry doctor, flagellated in the presence of his own delighted 

 pupils by the cat-o' -nine-tails of a vigorous veteran, we sincerely hope 

 that no body will be merciless enough to the generation of twaddle, to 

 pronounce the doubt at an end. An infinity may be still said on both 

 sides, and we hope will be said for these hundred years to come. Whe- 

 ther Gauden was more a knave, or the poor monarch more the contrary ; 

 whether the Bishop told a falsehood, or the King forged ; whether the 

 book was written by either of them, or whether it is not a miserably 

 long winded, canting, and dull book, that might have been written by 

 any one dull enough for the purpose, are points which we hope will never 

 be decided, but remain fuel for the fires of controversy, " to the last 

 syllable of recorded time." 



In the physical world, some of our secrets are disappearing; and though 

 Captain Parry failed to find out the pole, and we believe, with that 

 worthy navigator, that the world have been dreaming from the beginnipg, 

 and that there is no pole ; and though Captain Ross will go further and 



