Chapter 4

Wretched is the man who has no employment but to watch his own digestions; and who, on waking in the morning, has no useful occupation of the day presented to his mind. To such a one respiration is a toil, and existence a continued disease. Self-oblivion is his only resource, indulgence in alcohol in various disguises his remedy, and death or superstition his only comfort and hope. For what was he born, and why does he live? are questions which he constantly asks himself; and his greatest enigmas are the smiling faces of habitual industry, stimulated by the wants of the day, or fears for the future. If he is excited to exertion, it is commonly to indulge some vicious propensity, or display his scorn of those pursuits which render others happier than himself. If he seek to relieve his inanity in books, his literature ascends no higher than the romances, the newspapers, or the scandal, of the day; and all the nobler pursuits of mind, as well as body, are utterly lost in regard to him. His passage through life is like that of a bird through the air, and his final cause appears merely to be that of sustaining the worms in his costly tomb.

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The decline of life, and the retrospections of old age, furnish unequivocal tests of worthiness and unworthiness. Happy is the man, who, after a well-spent life, can contemplate the rapid approach of his last year with the consciousness that, if he were born again, he could not, under all the circumstances of his worldly position, have done better, and who has inflicted no injuries for which it is too late to atone. Wretched, on the contrary, is he, who is obliged to look back on a youth of idleness and profligacy, on a manhood of selfishness and sensuality, and on a career of hypocrisy, of insensibility, of concealed crime, and of injustice above the reach of law. Visit both during the decay of their systems, observe their feelings and tempers, view the followers at their funerals, count the tears on their graves; and, after such a comparison, in good time make your own choice.

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Constant change is the feature of society. The world is like a magic lantern, or the shifting scenes in a pantomime. TEN YEARS convert the population of schools into men and women, the young into fathers and matrons, make and mar fortunes, and bury the last generation but one. TWENTY YEARS convert infants into lovers, and fathers and mothers, render youth the operative generation, decide men's fortunes and distinctions, convert active men into crawling drivellers, and bury all the preceding generation. THIRTY YEARS raise an active generation from nonentity, change fascinating beauties into merely bearable old women, convert lovers into grandfathers and grandmothers, and bury the active generation, or reduce them to decrepitude and imbecility. FORTY YEARS, alas! change the face of all society; infants are growing old, the bloom of youth and beauty has passed away, two active generations have been swept from the stage of life, names so cherished are forgotten, and unsuspected candidates for fame have started from the exhaustless womb of nature. FIFTY YEARS! why should any desire to retain their affections from maturity for fifty years? It is to behold a world which they do not know, and to which they are unknown; it is to live to weep for the generations passed away, for lovers, for parents, for children, for friends, in the grave; it is to see every thing turned upside down by the fickle hand of fortune, and the absolute despotism of time; it is, in a word, to behold the vanity of human life in all its varieties of display!

_Social Philosophy_.

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THE GATHERER

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles. SHAKSPEARE.

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SHERRY.

Commentators have puzzled themselves to find out Falstaff's sherries sack: there can be no doubt but that it was _dry sherry_, and the French word _sec_ dry, corrupted into sack. In a poem printed in 1619, sack and sherry are noted throughout as synonymous, every stanza of twelve ending--

Give me sack, old sack, boys, To make the muses merry, The life of mirth, and the joy of the earth, Is a cup of old sherry.

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CURIOUS WILL.

_By a Student of the University of Dublin. Cum ita semper me amares_, How to reward you all my care is, _Consilium tibi do imprimis_ For I believe that short my time is; _Amice Admodum amande_, Pray thee leave off thy drinking brandy, _Video qua sorte jaceo hic_, 'Tis all for that, O sick! O sick! _Mors mea, vexat matrem piam_, No dog was e'er so sick as I am. _Secundo mi amice bone_, My breeches take, but there's no money, _Et vestes etiam tibi dentur_, If such old things to wear you'll venture; _Pediculos si potes pellas_, But they are sometimes prince's fellows; _Accipe libros etiam musam_, If I had lived I ne'er had used them, _Spero quod his contentus eris_, For I've a friend almost as dear is, _Vale ne plus tibi detur_. But send her up, Jack, if you meet her.

C.K.W.

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OLD ST. PAUL'S.

In the old cathedral of St. Paul, walks were laid out for merchants, as in the Royal Exchange. Thus, "the south alley for usurye, and poperye; the north for simony and the horse fair; in the middest for all kinds of bargains, meetings, brawlings, murthers, conspiracies; and the font for ordinary paiements of money, are so well knowne to all menne as the beggar knows his dishe."

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THE LINCOLNSHIRE EEL,

_A bit of Munchausen._

In the year 1702, there was a universal complaint among the feeders of cattle in the fens, that they frequently lost a horse, an ox, or a cow, and could not discover by what means; when watching more narrowly, they observed a horse, and presently after a cow, go to the river to drink, and suddenly disappear. On going to the river-side they saw an eel, the body of which was as large as an elephant. They could not doubt but this was the thief who had so often robbed them of their cattle, and they very reasonably concluded if they could catch the eel, their cattle would henceforth drink in safety. A council being called among the farmers, they determined upon the following expedient:--They sent to London and purchased a cable and anchor, by way of fishing-line and hook, and roasted a young bullock, with which they baited the hook, and fastened the end of the cable round a barn, which stood about a hundred feet from the river, and then waited to see what the morning would produce. At break of day they repaired to the riverside, when, to their great astonishment, they found that the eel had been there and swallowed the bait, but in endeavouring to disengage himself, had pulled the barn after him into the river, and having broken the cable, made his escape.

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With the present is published a SUPPLEMENTARY NUMBER, containing the SPIRIT of "the ANNUALS" for 1829--with Critical Notices of their Engravings and Literary Contents, copious Selections, and Unique Extracts, and a FINE ENGRAVING from a splendid subject; in one of the most popular of these elegant works.

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LIMBIRD'S EDITION OF THE FOLLOWING NOVELS ARE ALREADY PUBLISHED:

s. d. Mackenzie's Man of Feeling 0 6 Paul and Virginia 0 6 The Castle of Otranto 0 6 Almoran and Hamet 0 6 Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia 0 6 The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne 0 6 Rasselas 0 8 The Old English Baron 0 8 Nature and Art 0 8 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield 0 10 Sicilian Romance 1 0 The Man of the World 1 0 A Simple Story 1 4 Joseph Andrews 1 6 Humphry Clinker 1 8 The Romance of the Forest 1 8 The Italian 2 0 Zeluco, by Dr. Moore 2 6 Edward, by Dr. Moore 2 0 Roderick Random 2 6 The Mysteries of Udolpho 3 6