a W! And for such outrageous attacks upon their moral characters, the unfortunate members of the alphabet are without redress. Now, had such a convenient mode of concealment not existed; had the parties alluded to been assured that they themselves must bear the shame of their own misconduct, and that they would not be permitted to transfer it to two unoffending letters; it is much more than probable that their dread of exposure would have operated as a restraint upon their inclinations. Hard is the lot of the poor alphabet? For such outrageous attacks upon its moral character, it is without redress! The letters have not their action for defamation; they are calumniated with impunity; and this is, perhaps, the first time that a champion has ventured to stand forward in their defence!

Another, although comparatively a lighter grievance, to which they are subjected by this unfair use of their names, is the constant disturbance of their peace and quiet. Not a day passes but the whole community is alarmed for their safety, or thrown into a state of consternation by the reported annihilation of one or more of their members, usually by violent or disgraceful means. Fire and water, the dagger and the bowl, (according to newspaper reports) have made such havoc amongst them, that one is astonished at finding a single letter well and hearty at the present moment. Last Tuesday the slaughter was, in appearance, terrific. Q- was found drowned at Richmond, and Cfloating in the New River; the young and beautiful Mrs. A—died in the straw; 0— — was squeezed as flat as a pancake between a waggon and a wall; T— scalded to death; U had put an end to a hopeless passion, by the gentle aid of garters and a bed-post; and I was poisoned by having swallowed a dumpling containing more arsenic than apples. Upon inquiry, however, it was discovered that not one word of all this, so far as related to the parties in question, was true; but that the real sufferers were Messieurs Quintin, Collins, Ommaney, and Ingram; Mistresses Ash and Upham; and Miss Tims.

The petty vexations and annoyances inflicted upon them are numerous; but too notorious to need, as well, perhaps, as of too little importance to deserve, a notice in a defence of so grave a character as the present. With one highly meritorious letter, who shall be nameless, whose complaints are unceasing, and seemingly well founded, I confess I have no sympathy. According to his own showing, the persecutions he suffers, through the hatred of the "Warwickshire lads and the lasses," and of those inhabitants of the capital who are emphatically denominated Cockneys, are not to be endured; but I think that, in the long run, ample justice is done to him; for if, as he says, he is even in one short commandment ejected from house, he is generously admitted into ox and ass. Thus is he doubly compensated.

Again the omission of some one of them, where his presence is essential, is so clearly the effect of accident, and not of ill-will, or of a deliberate intention to injure, that that also is unworthy of our serious attention. Take, for instance, the following paragraphs selected from the newspapers, the sense of which is completely altered by the omission of the initial letter of the word printed in italics :-

"The conflict was dreadful, and the enemy was repulsed with considerable laughter!"

"Robert Jones was yesterday brought before the sitting magistrate on a charge of having spoken reason at the Barleymow public-house." "In consequence of the numerous accidents occasioned by skaiting on the Serpentine River, measures are taking to put a top to it."

"When Miss Leserve, late of Covent Garden Theatre, visited the Hecla,' she was politely drawn up the ship's side by means of a hair.” "At the Guildhall dinner none of the poultry were eatable except the owls."

"A gentleman was yesterday brought up to answer a charge of having eaten a hackney-coachman for demanding more than his fare; and another was accused of having stolen a small ox out of the Bath Mail: the stolen property was found in his waistcoat pocket."

"The Russian general Kachkinoffkowsky was found dead with a long word sticking in his throat."

"SMITHFIELD FESTIVITIES.-The air was crowded with people of all descriptions. At two o'clock the Lord Mayor drove through it in his state carriage."

These, however, are but trifling grievances. But the practice of casting upon the poor unoffending Alphabet the odium of offences committed by other people--of making the innocent suffer for the guilty is not only grossly unjust in itself, but detrimental in the highest degree to the well-being of society at large; for, to say nothing of high crimes and misdemeanors, it cannot be doubted that decency and morality at least would be less frequently violated, were the facilities of concealment diminished, and exposure rendered more prompt and certain.

P*.

THE WRECK OF THE COMET.

HARD by her native shore

Did that gay ship smoothly glide:
She ask'd no breeze to impel her o'er,
No sail to flout the tide.

Instinct with motive strength,
Her bulk on the waters lay,

And bravely she moved her majestic length
On her couch of ocean spray.

It was the midnight hour,

The jovial dance was done,

And sleep upon many a lid had power,
That saw not another sun.

And beauty and youth were there,
The lover and loving bride,
Affection too pure for fate to spare,
And hopes that should not have died.

And thoughts in silence bent

On children, friends, and home,

On life's port, where the voyager journey-spent Looks for his joy to come.

The moon, a false friend, fled,

For her friendship's proof was nigh;

And darkness, from that which covers the dead, Came over earth and sky.

And now the headland frown'd

A mark to the timoneer,

A SCHOOLMASTER OF THE OLD LEAVEN.

THE good old race of flogging schoolmasters, who restrained the passions by giving vent to them, and took care to maintain a proper quantity of fear and tyranny in the world, are now perhaps nearly extinct; at least, are not replenished, as they used to be, with a supply of bad blood in the new ones. Education has assumed the graces fit

for the calm power of wisdom. She sits now in the middle of smiles and flowers, as Montaigne wished to see her. Music is heard in her rooms; and health and vigour of body being cultivated, as well as of mind, neither master nor scholars have occasion for ill humour.

I knew a master of the old school, who flourished (no man a better rod) about thirty years back. I used to wish I was a fairy, that I might have the handling of his cheeks and wig.

He was a short thick-set man about sixty, with an aquiline nose, a long convex upper-lip, sharp mouth, little cruel eyes, and a pair of hands enough to make your cheeks tingle to look at them. I remember his short coat-sleeves, and the way in which his hands used to hang out of his little tight wrist-bands, ready for execution. Hard little fists they were, yet not harder than his great cheeks. He was a clergyman, and his favourite exclamation (which did not appear profane to us, but only tremendous) was "God's-my-life!" Whenever he said this, turning upon you and opening his eyes like a fish, you expected (and with good reason) to find one of his hands taking you with a pinch of the flesh under the chin, while with the other he treated your cheek as if it had been no better than a piece of deal.

I am persuaded there was some affinity between him and deal. He had a side-pocket, in which he carried a carpenter's rule (I don't know who his father was), and he was fond of meddling with carpenter's work. The line and rule prevailed in his mode of teaching. I think I see him now, seated under a deal-board canopy, behind a lofty wooden desk, his wooden chair raised upon a dais of wooden steps, and two large wooden shutters or sliders projecting from the wall on either side to screen him from the wind. He introduced among us an acquaintance with manufactures. Having a tight little leg (for there was a horrible succinctness about him, though in the priestly part he tended to the corpulent), he was accustomed, very artfully, whenever he came to a passage in his lectures concerning pigs of iron, to cross one of his calves over his knee, and inform us that the pig was about the thickness of that leg. Upon which, like slaves as we were, we all looked inquisitively at his leg; as if it had not served for the illustration a hundred times.

Though serious in ordinary, and given to wrath, he was "cruel fond" of a joke. I remember particularly his delighting to show us how funny Terence was (which is what we should never have found out); and how he used to tickle our eyes with the words "Chremes's Daater." He had no more relish of the joke or the poetry than we had; but Terence was a school-book, and was ranked among the comic writers; and it was his business to carry on established opinions and an authorized facetiousness.

When he flogged, he used to pause and lecture between the blows, that the instruction might sink in. We became so critical and sensi