The French have not the word pamphlet, and yet it seems to be of French extraction, and no other than palm-feuillet, a leaf to be held in the hand, a book being a thing of a greater weight. So the French call it now feuille volante, retaining one part of the compound. Palm is the old French word for hand,` from whence we have palmistry, the palm of the hand, a palm or span, and to palm a card, and from thence the metaphor of palming any thing upon a person. CAMBRIDGE WIT. A gentleman of St. John's College, Cambridge, having a clubbed foot, which occasioned him to wear a shoe upon it of a particular make, and with a high heel, one of the college wits called him Bildad the shuhite. GRADUAL REFORM. When lord Muskerry sailed to Newfoundland, George Rooke went with him a volunteer: George was greatly addicted to lying; and my lord, being very sensible of it, and very familiar with George, said to him one day, "I wonder you will not leave off this abominable custom of lying, George." "I can't help it," said the other. "Puh!" says my lord, "it may be done by degrees; suppose you were to begin with uttering one truth a day." PRIVATE AND PUBLIC. Charles II. spending a cheerful evening with a few friends, one of the company, seeing his majesty in good humour, thought it a fit time to ask him a favour, and was so absurd as to do so: after he had mentioned his suit, Charles instantly and very acutely replied, "Sir, you must ask your king for that." A HUNDRED TO ONE. "There were a hundred justices," says one, "at the monthly meeting.' "A hundred," says another. “ Yes," says he, “do you count, and I will name them. There was justice Balance, put down one; justice Hall, put down a cipher, he is nobody; justice House, you may put down another cipher for him-one and two ciphers are a hundred." THE CHILD OF MIGHT. For the Table Book. War was abroad, and the fleeting gale Brought the summoning sound of the clarion's blast→→→ On the valour and youth that went forth to the tomb- Banner and spear gleam'd in the sun And the laugh was loud as the day were won: Woe to thee, Child of Pride and Might. 'Tis the hour of battle, the hosts are met, J. J. K.. This is another of the criers of a hundred years ago, and, it seems, he cried "NewRiver water." The cry is scarce, though scarcely extinct, in the environs of London. I well remember the old prejudices of oldfashioned people in favour of water brought to the door, and their sympathy with the complaints of the water-bearer. "Fresh and fair new River-water! none of your pipe sludge!" vociferated the water-bearer. "Ah dear!" cried his customers, "Ah dear! Well, what'll the world come to they wo'n't let poor people live at all by and by-here they're breaking up the ground, and we shall be all under water some day or other with their goings on-I'll stick to the carrier as long as he has a pail-full and I've a penny, and when we haven't we must all go to the workhouse together." This was the talk and the reasoning of many honest people within my recollection, who preferred taxing themselves to the daily payment of a penny and often twopence to VOL. I.-24. the water-carrier, in preference to having "Company's-water" at eighteen shillings per annum. Persons of this order of mind were neither political economists nor domestic economists: they were, for the most part, simple and kind-hearted souls, who illustrated the ancient saying, that "the destruction of the poor is their poverty they have perished for "lack of knowledge." The governing principle of Napoleon was, that "every thing must be done for the people, and nothing by them:" the ruling practice of the British people is to do every thing for themselves; and by the maintenance of this good old custom they have preserved individual freedom, and attained to national greatness. All our beneficial national works have originated with ourselves-our roads, our bridges, our canals, our water-companies, have all been constructed by our own enterprise, and in the order of our wants. Garrick Plays. No. XXI. [From Sir Richard Fanshaw's Translation of " Querer Por Solo Querer"-"To love for love's sake”—a Romantic Drama, written in Spanish by Mendoza: 1649.] Felisbravo, Prince of Persia, from a Picture sent him of the brave Amazonian Queen of Tartary, Zelidaura, becoming enamoured, sets out for that realm; in his way thither disenchants a Queen of Araby ; but first, overcome by fatigue, falls asleep in the Enchanted Grove, where Zelidaura herself coming by, steals the Picture from him. The passion of the Romance arises from his remorse at being taken so negli gent; and her disdain that he should sleep, having the company of her Picture. here plays upon him, who does not yet know her, in the disguise of a Rustic. Fel. What a spanking Labradora! She Zel. That picture now's well worth your keeping. For why? 'tis an original. Fel. Is this Shepherdess a Witch? Or saw the sleeping treason, which I committed against Love Zel. Seen? aye, and know thee for a man Thou ken'st little what sighs mean. Fel. Unveil, by Jove, that face serene. Zel. What, to make thee sleep again? Fel. Still in riddles ? Zel. Now he sees: This pinching wakes him by degrees. Zel. Of Parnass Green. Fel. Sleep I indeed, or am I mad? Zel. None serve thee but the Enchanted Queen? Zel. Sir Gallant, not so fast. Zel. See me you shall: But touch not fruit you must not taste. (She takes off her veil.) What says it, now the leaf doth fall? Fel. It says, 'tis worthy to comprize But Paradise doth grow in it. The tall and slender trunk no less divine, (He begins to know her.) This should be that so famous Queen Zel. What stares the man at? A Picture I once mine did call- Zel. Fall'n again asleep you are: Nor are pictured, nor use glasses. Who skip their rank, themselves and betters wrong: To our Dames, god bless 'em, such quaint things belong. Here a tiny brook alone, Which fringed with borrow'd flowers (he has Gold and silver enough on his own) Fel. Art thou a Shepherdess? On a mountain, called THERE. Fel. Wear'st thou ever heretofore Lady's clothes? Zel. I Lady's gear? Yes-what a treacherous poll have I ]— In a Country Comedy once enacted a main part; Still I have it half by heart: Would fool, when she was in the vein, To my taste this is fine, elegant, Queenlike raillery; a second part of Love's Labours Lost, to which title this extraordinary Play has still better pretensions than even Shakspeare's: for after leading three pair of Royal Lovers thro' endless mazes of doubts, difficulties; oppositions of dead fathers' wills; a labyrinth of losings and findings; jealousies; enchantments; conflicts with giants, and single-handed against armies; to the exact state in which all the Lovers might with the greatest propriety indulge their reciprocal wishes-when, the deuce is in it, you think, but they must all be married now-suddenly the three Ladies turn upon their Lovers; and, as an exemplification of the moral of the Play, "Loy ing for loving's sake," and a hyper-platonic, truly Spanish proof of their affectionsdemand that the Lovers shall consent to their mistresses' taking upon them the vow of a single life; to which the Gallants with becoming refinement can do less than consent. The fact is that it was a Court Play, in which the Characters; males, giants, and all; were played by females, and those of the highest order of Grandeeship. nobleman might be permitted amongst them; and it was against the forms, that a great Court Lady of Spain should consent to such an unrefined motion, as that of wedlock, though but in a play. No Appended to the Drama, the length of which may be judged from its having taken nine days in the representation, and me three hours in the reading of it-hours well wasted-is a poetical account of a fire, which broke out in the Theatre on one of the nights of its acting, when the whole Dramatis Personæ were nearly burnt, because the common people out of "base fear," and the Nobles out of " pure re.. spect," could not think of laying hands. upon such "great Donnas;" till the young King, breaking the etiquette, by snatching up his Queen, and bearing her through the flames upon his back, the Grandees, (dilatory Æneases), followed his example, and each saved one (Anchises-fashion), till the whole Courtly Company of Comedians were got off in tolerable safety.-Imagine three or four stout London Firemen on such an occasion, standing off in mere respect! C. L. THE STUART PAPERS, IN POSSESSION OF THE KING. In the year 1817 the public, or, more correctly speaking, the English public at Rome, were much excited by the report of a very singular discovery. The largest and the most interesting collection of papers relating to the Stuart family, probably existing, was suddenly recovered. The circumstances connected with the discovery are curious. Dr. W., whose residence on the continent for many years had been unceasingly devoted to every species of research which could tend to throw light on the antiquities of his country and the history of her kings, had in the Scotch college at Paris, after much patient investigation, arrived at the knowledge of some Gaelic MSS., and, what may be perhaps deemed of more consequence, of several papers relating to the dethroned family. The Gaelic MSS., it was imagined, would throw some light on the quarrel de lana caprina of the Ossian "remains," a name which, as it has been given to the Iliad and Odyssey, cannot be considered as an insult to the claims of the Irish or Scottish phantom which has been conjured up under the name of Ossian: but the Journals, &c., though they added little to his actual information, and communicated few facts not hitherto before the public, had at least the merit of placing the end of the clue in his hand, and hinting first the probability of a more productive inquiry elsewhere. occurred to him that after the demise of James II., as the majority of the family habitually resided at Rome, much the greater number of interesting documents ought still to be discoverable in that city, and, whatever facilities might originally have existed, they must have been increased considerably, and indeed enhanced by the late extinction of the direct line in the person of the cardinal de York.* His journey It * His Royal Highness the Cardinal de York, or as he was sometimes called, "Your Majesty," reposes in the subterraneous church of St. Peter, under a plain sar to Rome, and the results of his persever- lay still in the hands of the executors, but ance fully justified these conjectures. could not at first ascertain whether they There was nothing in Dr. W.'s appear- comprehended any large masses of his paance or manner, nothing in the circum- pers. Enough, however, had been detected stances of his long absence from his coun- to lead him much farther: he seized the try, which could offer motives of encourage- hint, profited by it, and in a few weeks ment; no man carried less before him, as satisfactorily assured himself that the papers far as externals were in question, that letter were, as he suspected, included, and were of recommendation to which the most un- at that very moment at Rome. He lost no courteous are compelled to yield. He was time in addressing himself to the proper in bad odour with his own government, quarter, but monsignor was out of and consequently with every thing legiti- town, (the acting executor of the cardinal,) mate and subservient on the continent, and and it was very doubtful whether his agent, one of the worst calculated individuals that the abbate Lupi, was sufficiently authorized Providence could have selected, if not for or empowered to dispose of them in his a discovery, at least for its preservation. absence; the abbate Lupi, less scrupulous, Dr. W. was known to few of his coun- or more ignorant than persons in situations trymen at Rome; and as well as I re- of such high trust, smiled at the communicollect, they were exclusively Scotch, but cation, and conducted the doctor without his acquaintance amongst the natives was delay to the premises where these cartacci, extensive and useful. He had been en- or paper-rubbish, as he termed them, were gaged in some cotton speculations in the still lying in confusion. It was a dark and Campagna, which had altogether failed; dreary garret or gallery, at the top of the more, I believe, from want of funds and house. The abbate pushed back a crazy public spirit, than from any error in the door, and showed them heaped up, in large project or its execution. The soil was fa- lots, in various parts of the chamber. The vourable, the climate favourable, and the garret was crumbling, the wind and rain specimen. I saw scarcely inferior to the entered ad libitum through the broken tiles, Asiatic. But whatever may have been the the rats prowled and plundered at full discauses, the results were salutary, and pro- cretion, like the followers of Omar, and ductive at least of this advantage, that it had now lived for many years at free quarserved to introduce him to the 66 mezzo ters on the spoils; but neither decay, nor ceto " circles of the capital. A mercante the seasons and their ravages, nor the rats di Campagna is a personage in nowise and their incursions, nor the appearance of inferior to a lawyer, and Dr. W. knew daily loss, were sufficient to rouse the how to preserve his importance amongst habitual indolence of the administrators to his competitors. The information which he the least effort for the preservation of the gained here was a new source of encou- remainder. There was a sufficient quantity, ragement. After much sagacious and per- however, left to surpass the most ardent severing inquiry, and occasional but partial anticipations of the doctor: he gazed in disappointments, he at last chanced in a silence and astonishment; it was a moment happy hour on the great object of all his of true and unalloyed delight-an instant labours. He was informed in rather a which, in the estimate of the enthusiast, circuitous manner, that a considerable porwill outbalance the sufferings of months tion of the late cardinal de York's effects and years, like the "Land! land!" of Columbus, or the eureka of Pythagoras. He hesitated, he doubted-he took up the paper that was nearest to him; his warmest wishes were realized; it was an autograph of James II. A glance over the rest was sufficient; it was with difficulty he could suppress the feeling of exultation which shivered and fled over his whole frame. bate accepted his proposal, and very near After an affected question or two, the abfive hundred thousand documents, of unquestionable authenticity and of the first historic importance and authority, were cophagus, which bears the name of Hen. IX. No one will dispute the title of a few handfuls of dust, but it is worth observing that something very similar reappears on the monument in St. Peter's itself. This is consistent in a Roman : legitimacy, like the priesthood, is indelible, and cannot be rubbed out by misfortune or wrong. The sketch in Forsyth is interesting and delicate, though rather Jacobite and Scotch. I met many persons who retained recollections of him at Rome, but none of these recollections are worth noticing. He seems to have rendered himself more remarkable by petty peculiarities, than any great quality of heart or head. He was supposed to be the quickest driver for a cardinal of the whole college, and sometimes came in from Frascati, (his bishopric and habitual residence, a distance of about fourteen miles, in an hour and a quarter. This was thought in the first instance marvellous, and in the next indecorous. The only honours he retained were his titles great and little, and the privilege of mounting the Vatican in a sedan-chair. knocked down to him for not more than three hundred Roman crowns. Dr. W. still meditated, paused, appeared reluctant, ✨ |