Jack, will perpetuate his father's greatness. With this preface, Sir, in my own defence, and to which I am compelled, by the too modest silence of my friends, allow me, to introduce as a country gentleman, a most wonderful discovery which I have made, or rather which I had discovered many years ago; but being naturally of a very cautious disposition, (never advancing any thing at a hazard, but always weighing both my words and deeds, and works and writings, in the scale of futurity) I had withheld from my admiring countrymen, till it would no longer keep, or I contain myself. In short I have discovered how we may not only surpass the French in the manufacture of lace; but at the same time, give employment to ten-ten-thousand families; in short, Sir, I have discovered, by the extent of my own abilities, and from my own knowledge and observation of the works of nature, how the vast population of this country, nay of any country infinitely more populous, may be kept in a constant state of active employment, health, wealth, and (if I were a priestman, I should say) godliness; but of the latter I never, in my life (even in my better days,) was accused. My very bitterest enemy can never charge me with this failing. It is true, that I am almost disheartened with the utter contempt with which all my labours for the public good have been treated; and I am told, that say what I will, write what I will, no one will believe me. To persevere therefore, through such obstacles, must be the very acmè of patriotism. No white feather here!

Instead of encouraging a set of dull stupid manufacturers, who, with all their patents put together, have been labouring in vain throughout their lives to imitate French lace; and instead of prohibitory laws, and all those useless checks to contraband trade; and instead of those locusts, the revenue officers, and those smuggling preventive service men; I can

at once set all the French manufacturers at defiance, and in turn oblige them to have recourse to prohibitory systems to prevent our overrunning their markets with my lace. And besides, I have no need of machinery, which takes bread out of the mouths of half the growing children in the country, and stops the growth of the other half; and only fattens some few great manufacturers, who are the pillars of Pitt's system, the borough-mongering faction, and the Westminster rump. I am certain that when I have made known the discovery nothing less than a statue in gold can be erected to my immortal memory. Certainly a thing that should long ere this have been carried into ef fect; but Lam doomed to be traduced, reviled, and disbelieved. However, the time is coming with a vengeance, when all my predictions will be fulfilled, and then the country will, with one united voice (when it is too late) cry out, "Had we believed him this would not have happened."

Now there is my book, mustard against brimstone, who would have believed, that though I have written it three times over, and stereotyped it, and published a hundred copies in twenty editions; notwithstanding all this, who would have believed, for one moment, that no body will buy it? But to the point-about ten years ago my pretty little scarlet-jacketed son Jack and I were walking, as usual, in the garden, (we usually take a turn before breakfast; and my son Jack is an uncommonly shrewd child, and will be one of the first men of the age if he lives;) we were much amused with the activity and quickness of workmanship with which a spider wove his net. My dear papa! said Jack, what beautiful lace that little insect weaves! Lace! child, and I stopped. My child had unknowingly made a most important discovery. I looked at the child, then at the spider, then at the lace. Good

child! fine lace! I alternately but inwardly articulated. My mind was at the moment overcome. Lace, my dear Jack, excellent lace indeed! how regular and how beautiful! I said no more at the time; I did not disturb the spider. I walk ed away with the child. Bees make honey, thought I; worms spin silk, and why not spiders weave lace? What thousands of men, women, and children might be employed in rearing the little animals? what tens of thousands in feeding and setting them to work? how many other tens of thousands in stiffening and bleaching their webs? and again, how many thousands of lovely young women, milliners' apprentices, might be additionally employed, in sewing these nets together, for ball and concert dresses, and wedding robes; and working samplers upon them. I shall be the saviour of the country. And then what lace is, or can be, or ever was, equal to my spider's lace; so fine! so transparent! so light!

The question is one of the utmost importance; it is mechanical, commercial, political. In short, the question is no more or less, than whether we cannot find employment for five hundred thousand families, in making a very considerable article of wearing apparel, now either clumsily performed by cumbrous machinery, or smuggled over into

this country, to the great detriment of thousands of unemployed families in Nottinghamshire, Buckinghamshire, and Devon?

I have had some French lace shewn to me, and shewn to me for the finest too. Now I assert, that the finest of the French lace, that I have seen, is not near so fine, no not half so fine as my spider lace, which my noble scarlet-jacketed boy Jack got from a rose-bush. And I am satisfied that we can procure finer lace from the spider than can be made by any starvation machinery, or from France.

In my next, or in some future number, I will give my opinion in detail, as to the means of managing these spiders, and I by no means despair of seeing, or hearing, that next year thousands and tens of thousands of families will become spider catchers.

BILL COBWEB.

My son Jack proposes to become a candidate, "at the Arts and Sciences," for the gold medal, to be carefully wrapped up in. paper; and produce a hundred spiders, all working journey-work at their cushious. Please, Mr. Editor, to send my wife a new straw bonnet, my scarlet-jacketed son Jack's Jack-ass having this morning made a meal of his mother's grass one whilst she was feeding the poultry in the orchard.

X.

Tristram Shandy.

(Continued from page 22.)

CHAPTER V.

I KNOW nothing that would vex me more than to have it supposed, that my father was a man of intolerant principles. He was so completely the reverse of this, that he would too frequently run into the opposite extreme, and give people credit for better motives than they deserved. This foible he has carried to such an excess, that I once heard him declare, in the plenitude of his good-nature, or simplicity, whichever you will, he believed it very possible for the Whigs to be sincere in their clamours about retrenchment, and all the other economical things of which they are so fond of talking. "For though, (said he,) they have always been more rapacious when in power than any other party, yet they have been kept from the loaves and fishes long enough, I hope, to teach them the folly of bestowing useless sinecures with so liberal a hand as they used to do." -My father's faith, too, was particularly strong in most things. He believed it very possible, that an honest upright Whig-and a Radical, that did not richly merit transportation, may be found. If your reverence will pay as much attention to the ingenuity of his argument, as Cobbett did to the bones of the poor negro which he

resurrectionized, you will be convinced in a moment." I have never," said my father, " seen a unicorn or a man with his head beneath his arm, yet I firmly believe that there are such things. And why not," he would add, with an air of triumph, why not believe in the existence of an honest Whig ?" Counsellor Phillips, with all his brogue and all his boddering, never hit upon a happier argument. There was this shade of difference indeed between my father's oratory and the learned counsellor's— my father said little, but the few words he uttered were full of meaning-the counsellor discharges a variety of tropes and metaphors at the heads of the unfortunate twelve, who, by virtue of their oaths, are obliged to keep awake and listen to him, without meaning any thing-or to be more charitable, without making his meaning understood.

CHAPTER VI.

My father had one of the clearest definitions of the word "Nincompoop," floating in his brain, that ever any man had. He would have traced it up through every known language, to the original tongue that was spoken at Babel-aye, and for aught I know, would have went still further-for when he was in the vein, he was just as fond of brushing up his classic lore, as my Lord Byron and Mr. Hobhouse are of telling all the world, they know N

something of Latin and Greek. It is much to be regretted, therefore, that my uncle's observation was made so mal-á-propos; for coming, as it did, so suddenly at that particular point, the laugh it occasioned, created a complete change of feeling, and that change was fatal to my father's explanation of the title bestowed so gratuitously on the bright luminary of the Com. mon Hall of London. It is possible, that by "Nincompoop," he may have meant a man who waggishly termed his own advice, the result of "Absolute Wisdom."He may have meant a man that had a son, whom he wished to become chaplain to some high personage, where religion would not be an object-or daughters, that he wanted to be maids of honour!-He may have meant a man that wished to prop his sinking fortunes by urging desperate measures.-But, after all these conjectures, his meaning may have been very different from either, as it is very probable the word simply means, a sort of contemptuous expletive; which Billingsgate sort of arguing (I blush to think he could descend to use it) my father very probably acquired from the columns of the "Old Times," which Trim had been reading. "I wonder," said Dr. Slop, yawning as the corporal concluded the editor's remarks on the state of the nation, "I wonder that any but medical men can complain of the newspaper which Trim

"that

has just finished. It has had the effect of an anodyne upon me.Fox-glove would not have been more powerful.-Mr. Tobias Shandy, you perceive, is still dozing, and Trim himself seems inclined to do what he has often done in the field of battle, follow the example of his master." This was touching the finest chord of Trim's heartHis whole frame vibrated, and his face was instantly lit up with all the honest enthusiasm which an old soldier feels, at an allusion to what he has been. "Would to God," said the corporal, his honour, instead of being lulled to sleep every evening in this manner, was able to go through similar scenes to those we have witnessed. It is painful for an old soldier to hear of a British general forgetting his duty to his king, and joining with a riotous mob to insult him, and set the laws at defiance.". "True, Trim," said my uncle Toby, whom the corporal's warmth had roused-" In our days, a drummer would have considered himself disgraced by it, and a major-general that had attained his rank without seeing service-purchasing all his commissions""Buying foreign orders," added Trim-"Would have been treated with contempt by the washing-women that followed our camp,' cluded my uncle.

con

(To be continued occasionally.)