remind them that the venerable ancient, Timothy Tickler, Esq. of Blackwood's Magazine, had thought proper to inform us that

Who you are I don't know, Mr. T'other John Bull;

In reply to which we told the elder that

NOUGHT IN COMMON WITH JOHN HAVE I GOT, Mr. T.

SAVE THE NAME, and that's open to him, you, or me.

"Twas a glorious old name, ere the three

were begotten, And glorious 'twill be when the three blades are rotten.

J. B. M. No. 2, p. 78.

And having done this, we submit that it was rather tardy in John Bull to deny

us.

This, however, is a matter of the very smallest importance. But the notice in the paper has suggested to us, as a fitting and fair object of speculation, to consider who it is that has thus, in the face of day, cut us-in other words, who is the author of the John Bull?

There is nobody who sits down to write a dissertation on the authorship of Junius, who does not begin it with some fine and high spoken sentences on the importance of the inquiry; the propriety of satisfying a laudable curiosity; the impenetrable mystery in which the secret was kept, until the very moment when the present author, sitting down, developed it with piercing acumen, and held up the writer to the blaze of day. Having, from the starting-post, professed ourselves enemies, point-blank, of humbug in every shape, and this pompous exordium being only a specimen of that venerable commodity, in a different appearance, we shall not at all imitate these enquirers. Humbug we say it is, for instead of being actuated by any of these above-mentioned propensities, the authors are only intent on displaying their own abilities, in sifting evidence, with the very sensible under-plot, however, of raising the wind at the expence of a bookseller.

Nor shall we imitate these aforesaid personages in the mode of evidence which they generally bring, which is something as follows:

Taylor, the bookseller, says that Junius must have been Sir Philip Francis, because they both made strait lines so" for quotations, instead of the usual circumbendibus employed by the rest of the world, so 66.99

Dr. Busby proves him to be De Lolme, because Junius is a pure idiomatic writer of English; and De Lolme, being a foreigner, has filled his English style with solecisms.

Mr. Almon sets up Hugh Boyd, be cause the said Boyd, being drunk, said that he was the man.

Mrs. Princess Olivia Serres Wilmot de Cumberland proves it to be her grandfather, Dr. Wilmot, because she thinks fit to say so.

Mr. Stephens thinks it was Horne Tooke, because Tooke wrote against Junius, and had an implacable hatred towards him.

Charles Butler and others declare it to be Lord George Sackville, because Lord George Sackville spoke to one Swinny in the park.

Several bestow it on Edmund Burke, because he used to say utinam fecissere.

Others on Lord Chesterfield, because, being an impotent dandy, who could write about shirt-ruffles, and the impropriety of scratching one's head, he was qualified to compose vigorous epistles.

Others, again, on one Greatorex, an Irish lawyer, because, after having been an ass during his life, he ordered “ stat nominis umbra” to appear on his gravestone after he was dead.

Lastly, and finally, Edipus Oroonoko starts Suett, the comedian, which wẹ think the most sensible of all; and, when we next go by Oroonoko's shop, we shall chew a quid of pigtail with him, in token of approbation.

We perceive that we have forgotten the laurel-crowned LL,D. who puts Junius in hell, having his features abolished for ever with an iron-binding,* exhibiting to the spectator the appearance of a pot-headed Peripatetic, which certainly is a most ingenious idea of that eminent writer of hexamiters,

Leaving, therefore, this method of investigation, we shall conduct our enquiry as to who is the Bull, in our own way, first disposing of those to whom public favour has hitherto attributed the authorship. Lest we should

offend the amour propre of any of these gentlemen, by not giving him his due precedence, we put them in alphabetical order, viz.

Croker, John Wilson, M.P.
Hooke, Theodore

Luttrell, Christian, name to us un-
known

Smith, James

Twiss, Horace, M.P.

These five are, we believe, all who have appeared as candidates for the situation in point, and we shall most conscientiously reject them all.

1. Mr. Secretary Croker denied the John Bull, by implication at least, in Parliament, and it would be a breach of privilege to suspect him after that disavowal.

2. Mr. Theodore Hooke has been too much persecuted by the Government, and occupied by his own affairs, in one way or another, to be able to mind those of others; and we believe nobody will accuse Bull of keeping clear from the concerns of the remainder of mankind.

3. Mr. Ampthill Park Luttrell is too much of a dandy to be so stiff a representative of the pugnacious parts of our natural character. He may be able to write very pretty advice to Julia; but, to use a polite phrase, which he will understand, to write John Bull is not in his breeches.

4. That it is not James Smith is demonstrable, from the fact that James has never been known to tell any of the John Bull jokes before-hand, nor to sing any of the John Bull songs after publication, things which afford complete evidence, that he had nothing to do with it. Besides, there is never any mention of Mrs. Fubbs, of Crutchedfriars, nor Mr. Dobbs, of Houndsditch, in its columns, and James cannot write without introducing these heroes.

5. There remains Horace Twiss.What would we not give, that the laws of modern decorum allowed us to repeat the Hibernian epigram on his monarch; for it would be the fittest answer to his letter denying the authorship of John Bull ! Did he never hear

the epigram George Colman made when he read his denial.

They say I'm John Bull, exclaims Twiss. Nay, alas,

You mistake, my dear Horace, they call you Jack-ass.

Putting these five, therefore, out of the question, who is John Bull? We have shewn who he is not.

We know, if we liked, that we could hand down any person we wished to immortal fame, by just mentioning what we know on the subject. But, gentle reader, before we have told you who it is, we beg leave to ask you a question.

A thousand, if you please, will be the reply, if you are a polite reader, as we are bound to suppose you.

Well then, the question is, can you keep a secret?

Of course.

And so can we.

is not that a well-known character ? You cannot take up any book of anec dote, particularly piquant, and exact anecdote, such as Captain Medwin's book on Lord Byron, without finding him, or her, (for is of all

ages and sexes,) playing a most conspicuous part.

Having thus disburthened ourselves of our secret, we shall reserve the dis quisition on the evidence, external and internal, which has led us to this conclusion, so satisfactory and so luminous, until next month. In the mean time, gentle readers, we request that you will not make any ill use of the confidence we have so unreservedly placed in you.

IF one, accustomed to the unchanging habits of some of those secluded districts of the world, in which the grandson not only follows the steps, but wears the

garments of his grandfather, and where changes of costume are marked out by space and not by time, he would be apt to say of English manners, what Pope

said of women, that they have. " no character at all." A people, from the highest to the lowest, influenced by the vicissitudes of trade, moved where it invites, or from whence it drives, and raised and lowered in their relative importance by the chances which it turns up, can have no permanent character upon which to build any thing like a system. They are like their climate or their sky, in a state of constant change, so that that which would be a faithful portrait of any one set of persons to-day, ceases to have likeness to-morrow.

As Englishmen are they upon whom those vicissitudes operate first and most directly; it is among them that there is a total want of every thing like national manners, at least of manners which might not with just as much truth be predicted of an Englishman at Naples or Astrachan, as of an Englishman in London. We have no doubt our nobility, our fine gentlemen, our clergy and our literati, but they merge in the general oblivion of character; the first being distinguished only by his armorial bearing ; the second, by a sort of constitutional ennui, which lets one know that he is out of his element; the third, by a head gear a little more unseemly than that of other men; and the fourth, by no cha racteristic distinction. All is business among the men of England-gain is their god, and his worship is all their glory. No doubt they write and reason, and dispute and harangue, as eloquently as the men of any other nation; but they do that as a matter of business, and not for the abstract furtherance of art or science, or the theoretic discovery of truth. The most profound philosopher of the English schools, or the most eloquent speakers at the English bar, or in the English senate, differ in subject, but not in object, from the most successful breeder of cattle, or the most skilful constructor of steam-engines. We do not say that this is faulty; we only say that it exists, and that existing, it takes away all those little traits and peculiar distinctions, without which it is impossible to find or to describe manners. less busy and bustling and changing society, may be compared to one of the -old-fashioned engines, which were put in motion and regulated by a horse turning a wheel here, and a boy drawing a string there, while that of England resembles one moved and regulated by a single power. The one is, if you will, like

A

an ancient galley, with its benches of rowers, all of them in sight, and moving it heavily along by hard labour, at their respective oars; while the other dashes away like a steam-boat, in which you hear the rush of the water, and see the rapidity of the motion, but you can discern no separate impulse.

The very cause, however, which takes away from Englishmen every thing which a foreigner would call character, tends to stamp upon Englishwomen' a character, not only different from that which the sex have in other countries, but more particularly and decidedly feminine.

It is pretty generally admitted that the English ladies are among the most desirable shafts in the quiver of Cupid; but they remain in that quiver, or are satisfied with being that only in the games of the owner. They neet not with men in their worldly pursuits, and combat not with them in their intrigues, as they do in some other countries. It is impossible to live near them, and not admire them; but still their wars against the other sex are waged only against the heart; and a mistress, in England, is quite pleased at being drawn in the same vehicle with her paramour, without ever attempting to snatch the reins and the whip, for the purpose of directing that vehicle herself. The sexes come not, as it were, upon each other's ground. The men have their business, their politics, and their parties; and the women have their eloquence, their love, and their maternal affection: or if (as is very likely to be the case) the lady be, after all, the real governor, the gentleman always has the credit of it; which, for all public and political purposes, answers just as well.

The separation of the sexes in their youth, which the habits of a commercial people renders necessary, has no doubt the first and principal effect in forming this peculiar character of the English ladies; but it is also assisted by political circumstances. The more absolute and tyrannical that any government is, the more certain is it that females will be the real depositories of power. Despots rule by their passions, and where this is the case, the stronger passion is the sovereign despot; and hence woman, whether at large or in the harem, rules, as a matter of course. (To be concluded in our next.)

"THE gloomy month of November!" I do not like the assertion, the reflection, the what you will-it is an exaggeration born of those who live in garrets, and who see the sweet sun but o'Sundays. There is no such thing as gloom in bonny Old England, where her children can, for the most part, live as they ought to live, and die jovial fellows. They, I mean, who pay the best tribute to the old dame's glories, by enjoying the fruits, and the corn and oil, which, with a hearty good-will, she pours upon them from her horn of plenty. Gloom!

there is not such a word in the whole chapter of our history; it was banished the state when the Barebones were driven out, and men took the manufacture of "home-brewed" seriously into action. Gloom! there is not enough in the whole country to make a jacobin, or keep alive emigration; the "clank of the canakin," like fires in an African forest, scares away the monster; whilst, at the same time, as do the countryman's beaten kettles and saucepans entice the bees into a swarm-it congregates together the mimics of dull care, and all those that are the antipodes to the bluedevils. But I am exuberant-and no wonder it is the season of my re-invigoration, the repletion of my life and spirit. I have been laid like the vam pire, if I may compare things of evil with things of good report-in the beams my life-blood and am enriched with omnipotence for another year. I have, Anteus like, kissed my mother-earth

VOL. I.

MODERN SONG.

again, and again am invincible. October, "old October," has commenced my rites, has opened the celebration of my birth-day. Children and fathers, ye that are the sacrificers to my altar, the proselytes to the sweet flowing eloquence of Britain's nectar, will you have a Parthian glance at the rationally happy anniversary-the holiday which not even in a coronation, or triumph, has a parallel.

Well, then, there came to my making the hale and the hearty of all ranks and divisions in life-every order of society. The Doric basement, and the Corinthian capital, each had its representative, and with all of them it was the labour of love to pleasure me. First came, clothed in their best, and crowned with a wreath of barley, they that are the country's pride, a bold peasantry; those who, whether they toil beneath a bright sun in the bounteous corn-fields, or in the misty city, do yet furnish forth their evening banquet by the sweat of their brows. These bore homely banners before them, symbolically decorative of their several employments; whilst the regular pewter quart," glittering like a glow-worm when she lights the fairies o' Midsummer nights to their fantastic and tiny revelries, and reflecting the shunshine of my portly. countenance, was elevated, like the host of Scotland before the jolly clans that now attended my muster-cry, as the badge and ensign of their numerous levies. There was no affectation, no sycophancy in the salu2 C