There were three or four more verses on the same subject, but we leave them &c. &c. out, lest people should say that we were paid so much per verse for puffery. We shall add a verse or two on Geoffry Crayon and his new book. LXVII. Few writers of stories are half so deserving As the New-York historian, Squire Washington Irving, LXVIII. We mean not to say that there's no blame or cavil, or Flaw to be made in his Tales of a Traveller; There's a great deal of Balaam, no doubt, to be found in LXIX. Yet they're all of them readable-rather too dear A dollar's their price any day in the year But a pound we would pay, aye, and Crayon we'd thank ye, LXX. There you're strong➡'tis your soil-'tis your natural ground, No rival at all can be any where found; But we've lads by the score, who, as well and as wittily, Page 74, line 26, for superiority of Rogers, read inferiority of old Sam Rogers. If you read for inclusive,' what we wrote, 'inclined.' In page 77, for law,'-which is stuff, 6 Read laud,' line the fourth, and there's meaning quant. suff. Theologic' is wrong; so pray place theologue," In line 24, where we're speaking of Hogg. Turn to line 25, I mean page 79, For renown,' lege' venom,' which much mends the line. We quote both the lines, that the sense may be seen; · And the verses will read smooth without grating or jar. To which catalogue of errors we must add one worthy of Debrett. We said in our article on Lord Byron's letters (p. 42), that the series in our possession began in 1816, when his lordship was in his seventeenth year, and continued until 1815, the period of his marriage." We hope that our readers had tact enough to perceive that 1816 should have been 1806. There are cases, you } see, in which even nothing makes a great difference. As for the aforesaid letters, the same reasons that prohibited us from publishing them last month, still operate. As we have made this a most wandering skip-about article, it is as well for us to continue it so to the end. We, therefore, avail ourselves of this medium of writing a few ANSWERS TO OUR CORRESPONDENTS. The paper on EGOTISM,' though evidently written by a smart person, is not worked up sufficiently for the public eye. Would a letter, directed to the Northumberland, catch An Old Grenadier?' Mr. C. MOREAU has sent us a circular letter, touching A Chart of the Trade of England;' and, we conclude, that noticing thus much is sufficient for all his purposes. We have not forgotten our promise of noticing the European Review, as A. B. insinuates, but question whether it is worth it. Perhaps next month. INSIDE THE CURTAIN,' mistakes us much if he thinks that we shall open our columns to green-room scandal. If we were so minded, we might do no little in that line; but it is hardly fair that the private lives of actors and actresses should be liable to a more scrutinizing examination than those of any other people. From X. Q. and his 'ELEGIES,' we must X. Q. Z. be, And for the letter which he asks, lo! we've given him three. We own the joke is an old one, but we could not resist versifying it when we got a lot of elegies with the signature. It is a pity that A TRIBUTE TO DEPARTED GENIUS,' did not contrive to write better lines than these: ON THE LAMENTED DEATH OF OXBERRY, THE COMEDIAN. Mourn, reader, for the death of one so merry, As him I grieve for, gay Mr. OXBERRY. He was a man quite free from any faults, And kept good ale and gin in his wine-vaults. The bard may have his lines again on calling for them. ' TRANSLATIONS FROM THE MODERN GREEK,' probably in our next. We comply with Z. Q.'s request, and give, accordingly, a list of the books of the month, as follows. We may, perhaps, continue to do so, as it appears some people wish for it; on what principle we cannot conjecture. Hullmandell's Art of Drawing upon Stone, with twenty plates, royal 8vo. 15s.-Life and Journal of the Rev. Joseph Wolf, 8vo. 7s.-Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, vol. 4. 12mo. 8s.-Nicholls's Armenianism and Calvanism compared, 2 parts, 8vo. 1.— Bearcroft's Practical System of Orthography, 12mo. 3s. 6d.-Canova's Works, 2 vols. roy. 8vo. 41. 4s.-Ditto, large paper, 67. 6s.-The Human Heart, 8vo. 10s. 6d.-Hawker's Instructions to Young Sportsmen, Third Edition, royal 8vo. 17. 10s.-An Account of the Peak Scenery of Derbyshire, by J. Rhodes, 8vo. 14s-The Art of French Cookery, by M. Beauvielier, 12mo. 7s.-Elgiva, or the Monks, an Historical Poem, 8vo. 8s.-Russell's New School Atlas, 8vo, half-bound, 12s.-Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters, new Edition, 2 vols. 8vo. 11. 4s.-Malcolm's Poems, f.cap, 8vo. 6s.-Smith's Guide to English Composition, Logic, &c. 8vo. 10s. 6d.-Wentworth's Poetical Note-book, 12mo. 7s.Dupin's Journal of a Residence in Ashantee, 4to. 27. 12s. 6d. -Burns' Poems, with Westall's Designs, 12mo. 9s.-Ditto's Songs, with Ditto, 12mo. 9s.-Sutleffe's Medical and Surgical Cases, 8vo. 16s.-Finlayson on Preserving the Health of Seamen, 8vo. 4s.Coombe's Elements of Phrenology, 12mo. 4s.-Warton's History of English Poetry, by Park, 4 vols. 8vo. 21, 10s.-Tales of a Traveller, by the Author of the Sketch-Book,' 2 vols. 8vo. 11. 43.-Caprice, a Novel, 3 vols. 12mo. 17. 1s.-Gurney's Peculiarities of the Society of Friends, new Edition, 12mo. 5s.-A Selection from Denon's Sermons by the Rev. E. Berens, 12mo. 5s.-Psha! That's all-our monthly work is o'er, And then we'll meet you gay once more, So saying, let us conclude, I lift my eyes upon the radiant moon, POSTSCRIPT. On a Couple of Sentences in the last Noctes Ambrosianæ. O'DOHERTY.- "You would disapprove, I suppose, of the attack on De Quincy in the John Bull Magazine?" NORTH." Disapprove? I utterly despised it; and so, no doubt, did he. They say, he is no scholar, because, he never published any verbal criticism on Greek authors-what stuff," &c. We beg leave to set Mr. North right, on two most important facts, which he has, most magnanimously, mistated, in this last speech of his. In the first place, whether he despised our article on Quincy, (it is really too ridiculous to call him De Quincy) or the contrary, which is not of much consequence to the world in general, the little animal himself did no such thing, for he immediately wrote half-a-dozen mortal pages, in answer, for the London, which Taylor, with sounder sense, suppressed, well-knowing, that the less that is said about these things the better; and, being perfectly conscious that any thing in the shape of reply would call down, from us, a crushing rejoinder. Such was the manner of Quincy's contempt for us, and we know that he is, this very moment, writhing under the infliction. Secondly, we did not say he was no Greek scholar, because he had never published verbal criticisms on the language. We said, he had never published any thing whatever, which could make us suspect that he knew Greek, and we repeat it. We added a proof that he had quoted, in the London, some Greek verses, abounding in blunders; which, if he had been a scholar, he could not have missed observing, without dropping a hint of their incorrectness. We have nothing but his word for it, that he knows Greek. He is, we own, constantly referring to Plato for example; but, it is perfectly plain, from the blunders which he adopts, that it is from the Latin translation that he derives his information. The fellow's writings are so utterly contemptible, that they are not worth minute examination to hunt-up and expose his ignorance; but we defy any body, from them, to prove the affirmative side of the question, and to bring forward any thing, out of his works, barring his own disgustfully boasting assertions, which could warrant any suspicion of his knowledge of Greek. We should like to see somebody take up our defiance. Having thus shewn that Mr. North knew nothing, whatever, of what he was talking about, when he lugged in "the Quincy creature" by the head and shoulders, we bid him adieu, begging leave to ask him what end does he purpose to gain by "paiking at us?" We are in perfectly good-humour with him, and are only sorry that he should think fit to quarrel with us, in defence of one whom, but for private reasons, he would most willingly confess to be one of the greatest literary bores ever spewed upon the public. Need we say any more? A nod, &c. &c. VOL. 1. THE JOHN BULL Magazine. OCTOBER, 1824. No. 4. PROSPECTUS AND SPECIMEN OF A NEW JOE MILLER. IN the church-yard of St. Clement Danes, as you proceed down the Strand, after you have passed the famous steeple which that unfortunate blockhead, John Williams, (who wrote by the name of Anthony Pasquin) in one of the few happy moments vouchsafed to his brickdust-brain,* declared to be a mile-stone run to seed, namely, St. Mary-le-Strand, you will pass by the tomb of Joseph, usually called Joe Miller. There should the punster come the earliest guest, And there the joker crack his brightest jest; And many a quiz should o'er that ground be played, That ground now sacred by Joe's relics made.-POPE. There are few more holy spots in this our metropolitan town. We think that there ought to be a regular annual pilgrimage to the grave. All the wits of the city-by which we mean not merely the And quaffing round the woeful ground, And sigh for him who lies below, The jovial and the witty. Joe was a comedian of the lowest class-the Teague of his day. The Irishman declared himself no Irishman-but, perhaps, it was on the same principle that Matthews declares Yates no mimic, t So Gifford or Gifford's friend, in the notes on the Baviad and Mæviad. TO ANTHONY PASQUIN. Why dost thou tack, most simple Anthony, Thou, like that statue, art devoid of brains? Many a keen jest, and many a sportive line: We quote from memory-but the whole should be read-and particularly with Williams's own special pleading notes on it. "Why, Sir," Matthews says, "Yates ought to stick to what he can do. There never VOL. I. R |