society, I will briefly describe it. He is commonly a man of irregular habits, shut out from all society except that of his comrades and his horse, suffering (from the smallness of his pay) many privations; and being without a thought for to-morrow, will seize his enjoyments wherever he can find them. If the necessary gratification afforded by eating be put into the balance with that of drinking, his predilection to the latter will turn the scale, whereby he can accommodate himself to the liquid staple of any nation on which the chance of war may throw him.'—vol. i. p. 318.

If this be the real character of a military trumpeter, we can only say that the world is infested by many a military trumpeter in disguise; and until we find a real trumpeter possessed of the requisite stock of impudence to induce him to publish his own memoirs, we shall by no means consider him the most contemptible character in society.

The following anecdote of Dr. Walcot, once but no longer celebrated as Peter Pindar, is so very probable, that we do not hesitate to give full credit to it.

'The before-mentioned Dr. Walcot, whom I well knew, and who in his writings styled himself Peter Pindar, was an eccentric character, and had many whimsical sayings. He used to call a blacksmith, the humble servant of a horse's leg, and spruce-beer, deal-board broth. If he saw any one eat heartily, he would say, "that man is fit to eat for a wager tripe out of a pail with a butcher's bull-dog and beat him :" and in speaking of pictures, (of which he was very fond) he would observe, "I never give for one more than the value of its frame, and then I am sure not to be taken in." When G, the publisher, made a proposition to the doctor to purchase the copy-right of his works, he, by letter, offered him an annuity, durante vita, of two hundred pounds. The doctor, however, having been informed that G- was very anxious to have them, asked three hundred. This was replied to by G- appointing a day on which he When the ap

would call on the doctor to talk the matter over with him. pointed day arrived, the doctor received him in complete dishabille, even to his nightcap; and, from having purposely abstained from shaving himself for three or four days, together with his complexion being naturally cadaverous, his appearance was unhealthy and forlorn: added to which, he assumed a hollow, sepulchral cough, such as would exhilarate a rich man's heir, and excite the commiseration of a sheriff's officer! It appeared, however, that G—— had determined not to make any advance on the two hundred pounds per annum already offered, till the doctor displaying a violent fit of coughing, (which the former thinking mended his chance,) he was induced to offer to make it two hundred and fifty pounds. This the doctor peremptorily refusing, and being apparently seized with another attack that nearly suffocated him, G― thinking it impossible that he could last long, agreed to make the annuity three hundred. annuity was some time afterwards reduced to two hundred pounds, under the following circumstances: Doctor Walcot having, in several of his poems, unwarrantably and unjustly made his late and revered majesty George the Third the subject of them, Mr. Pitt, the minister, at length most properly passed a bill through both houses of parliament to restrain such licentious conduct in future; for where is the difference between wounding the body

This

and the mind? The publisher, therefore, considering that the restraint thereby imposed would militate against his profits, by abridging the sale of the works, filed a bill in Chancery against the doctor. When the doctor was informed of G's proceedings in Chancery against him, he said to the friend who had made the communication, "Poor man, I pity him! for though I should live these twenty years, it is not likely to come to a hearing!"-" Aye," said his friend; "but suppose the master of the rolls was to give a decree in G▬▬▬▬'s favour, what would you do then?"— "Why," replied the doctor, "I would appeal to the chancellor against the decree; and if he confirmed it, I would postpone it to the next century, by lodging an appeal to the House of Lords." However, as "miracles will never cease," it so happened, that in a comparatively short time Gobtained a decree in his favour, by which the annuity was reduced to the last-named sum, two hundred pounds; and as the funds of the doctor were not sufficient to defeat the ends of justice in accordance with his threatened procrastination, he was compelled to 'submit. This decision incensed the doctor so highly, that he vowed he would have his revenge on Gwhich he eventually accomplished, by living nearly twenty years afterwards." -vol. i. pp. 344-347.

The next two extracts which we make are of a character with one

other already cited. We allude to the impudent exposure of a family scene which Parke accidentally witnessed. The subject of the first of the subsequent quotations is Mr. Braham, the justly celebrated vocalist, and for what reason we cannot divine, except it be his merit and well-earned success, he appears to be an object of very ill-concealed hostlity to this writer. He says:

Braham, who was not engaged at the opera, or either of the winter theatres, did not by this speculation make his coffers overflow; an object which he prudently seizes every occasion to effect. That ruling passion, gain, which so particularly sways persons of his persuasion, is so strongly implanted in their natures, that it may sometimes be discovered in their children, even while infants, as the following relation will show :-A gentleman, who was in the habit of visiting at the house of that admired singer, informed me (as an admirable trait in a child then only five years old) that he one day asked Braham's little boy to sing him a song, which the infant said he would do if he paid him for it. "Well, my little dear," said the gentleman, "how much do you ask for one?"-" Sixpence," replied the child. "Oh," said the other, "can't you sing me one for less?"—" No," said the urchin, "I can't take less for one; but I'll sing you three for a shilling!'-vol. ii. p. 50.

A more unfeeling, unjust, and mendacious paragraph than this was never instigated by malice. The crime of Braham in the eyes of the Oboist is, that he always acted in conformity with the feelings of a gentleman. He had too much good taste-he had too honorable an ambition to cry "hail, fellow, well met," with Parke and his comrades, at the "Brown Bear," or the "Finish ;" and it is because he despised the luxuries of gin and cigars, that his name is to be befouled, and his innocent family dragged before the public gaze! If there be a member of the dramatie corps who has con

ducted himself with more uniform dignity and good sense than another, within our memory, it is Braham, who, of all living performers, would be the most entitled (if a title can ever be obtained for such a thing) to assume consequence, and put up for a personage of importance. But true merit has no need of the aid of pretension-it shines by its own lustre: it could only lose by imitating the airs, and mimicking the strut of obscure mediocrity. Mr. Braham however does not monopolize the enmity of our musical memorialist, as will be seen in the following passage:

'Incledon, the celebrated vocalist, was a singular compound of con trarieties, amongst which frugality and extravagance were conspicuous. Mr. Shield the composer, Incledou, and I, lived for many years a good deal together. Shield and myself dined with Incledon

On one occas February. When I had arrived

"Bill,

at his house at Brompton in the there, Incledon said to me, you like ducks?" Conceiving, from the snow lying on the ground, that he meant wild ones, I replied, "Yes, I like a good wild duck very well."-"Damn wild ducks!" said he, "I mean tame ducks, my boy:" adding, "I bought a couple in town, which we shall have for dinner, for which I gave eighteen shillings!" Soon afterwards a letter arrived, announcing that Mr. Raymond, the stage-manager of Drury Lane Theatre, who was to have been of the party, could not come; in consequence of which, I presume, only one duck was placed on the dinner-table, with some roast beef, &c. When Mrs. Incledon (who as well as her husband, was fond of good living) had carved the duck, like a good wife, she helped her husband to the breast part and one of the wings, taking at the same time the other wing to herself, reserving for Shield and me the two legs and the back. Shield, who looked a little awkward at this specimen of selfishness and ill-manners, at first refused the limb offered to him, and as I had declined taking the other, there appeared to be but a poor prospect of the legs walking off, till Shield relented and took one, and Incledon the other, so that they were speedily out of sight.'-vol. ii. pp. 56, 57.

We do not know any terms in our language in which we could safely express the abhorrence we feel for the caitiff, who dares thus to sport with the privacies of domestic life. What is it come to this, that we cannot invite a professional buffoon to our table to humour our company, without the apprehension that the fellow will caricature our entertainment in his memoirs? Are we so changed indeed in England, as that we cannot admit a teacher of music into our house, to keep an over-animated little boy out of harm's way, unless at the risk of his looking under chairs, prying into closets, and putting his ear to key-holes, to purvey for the scandalous chronicle, which he has determined to give to the world?

Private character is not the exclusive prey of such persons as Parke. He calumniates by wholesale. Perhaps there never was a case of more audacious and insolent abuse of the liberty of the press, than that which is exhibited in the annexed passage on the Methodists of England.

.It is not difficult to account for the vast increase of that sect of dis

senters, who seem to promise hereafter to outnumber the members of the Church of England. The proselytes they make would appear surprising, did we not know by what means they were effected. Their leading preachers and others who follow their example, go into the houses of the poorer sort of persons, and when they are sick, or are suffering under privations during an inclement season, present to them tickets for bread, meat, and coals, which they take to the different tradesmen who are thereby authorised to supply them. They have schools, where boys and girls are not only instructed gratis, but are annually clothed, and at a proper season are apprenticed with a respectable fee; and so devoted are they to their tenets, that even the ladies, young and beautiful, go about from house to house, to distribute bounties and to collect subscriptions, as low as two-pence, for Bibles, &c., which are delivered to those who subscribe at half the usual price. Is it then matter of wonder that they should make so many converts, their charities, and their cant being addressed to the labouring poor and their children, who are so greatly benefited by their benevolence, that they would consider themselves wanting in gratitude were they not to embrace their mode of worship? I have however known instances where some churchmen of infamous character have, by hypocritically affecting to fall into their opinions, been loaded with favours; and the blind zeal of these sectarians has carried them so far, that when even made acquainted with their enormities, they have offered excuses for them, in consequence of their having apparently abandoned the established church, by occasionally presenting themselves at the methodistical chapel. If the views of these sectarians, as many assert, are directed by hypocrisy or ostentation, or any other feeling not of a critninal natnre, we should not, while we admire the effect, be too nice in scrutinising the cause. I have thus far digressed because I have lately had opportunities of witnessing their efforts; and while I observe the great extension of that sect, 1 lament that it is not checked by counter liberalities on the part of the members of the established church, who, wrapt in their dignified security, may, from the thinness of their congregations, find hereafter that the large sums of money which have been expended in erecting new churches might have been applied to more beneficial purposes.'-vol. ii. pp. 205-207.

We have no personal interest in defending the religious community here alluded to, from the charges so unblushingly brought against it. But we confess our Christian patience is sadly put to it, when we see a trumpery fiddler from Vauxhall abandoning the suitable occupation of chiming jigs for cyprians, and turning public accuser of a large and important class of society! The spectacle is truly a laughable one even in our day.

Having now given the reader as fair specimens as we could select of the various merits of this precious work, we think he will sympathise in the astonishment with which we confess we are filled, that so contemptible a series of mean and common-place trash could have ever, by the instrumentality of men of even ordinary cunning, been allowed to see the light. The wretched mind which constructed such a fabric as this, is more perhaps to be pitied than blamed. Necessity is sometimes deaf to the dictates of feelingtoo often to those of virtue. To the vision of old age, also, the

different shades of right and wrong appear but too frequently blended together. Many excuses, therefore, may be pleaded in extenuation of a book written in the dotage of an intellect which perhaps was never remarkable for its vigour. The work is but a sample of those publications which a new and corrupt system has established in our literature-a system that has substituted for the nutritious aliment by which the minds of our forefathers were strengthened, a deleterious regimen, spiced too abundantly for the palate to be wholesome for the constitution. Buffoons and domestic traitors now cater for the instruction and recreation of the enlightened people of England!

ART. VII.-A Narrative by John Ashburnham, of his attendance on King Charles the First, from Oxford to the Scotch army, and from Hampton Court, to the Isle of Wight: never before printed. To which is prefixed, a vindication of his character and conduct, from the misrepresentations of Lord Clarendon. By his Lineal Descendant and present representative. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Payne and Foss, Baldwin and Cradock. 1830.

AT this the eleventh hour of the day, the Earl of Ashburnham has come forward to vindicate the memory of his ancestor, from what he calls the misrepresentations of Lord Clarendon. Why it is that his Lordship has kept his manuscripts so long concealed from the world, is a question upon which he has condescended to afford no information. Neither does it appear why he has now produced them from the place where they have so long lain concealed. We confess that we should have slept as soundly if these volumes had never met our eyes. We believe that if they had remained in the noble Earl's library, the sun would have still continued to rise and set as usual, the moon and stars to shine, the November fogs to thicken, and the winds to blow. We feel assured that the muffinman would have gone on ringing his cheerful bell, even although John Ashburnham's ghost continued to groan beneath the weight of imputations which have been cast upon him by the Chancellor of the Stuarts.

The present Earl must be in his seventieth year. We suppose that he has preserved the vindication of his ancestor, as an occupation for his age. It was indeed an employment suited only to that period of life-a gossiping sort of work, fit for a Lord who had nothing else to do. We venture to say that, intent as his Lordship appears to have been upon his subject, nay, roused by it as he has sometimes been to a high degree of anger, there are not half a dozen persons upon the face of the globe who care one farthing about the issue of the controversy which forms the theme of his discourse. Who desires to be informed whether, nearly two centuries ago, a man familiarly named "Jack Ashburnham," and a great favourite of Charles I., was a fool or a knave; whether he