IN
AN

said he is allowed a thousand pounds where the sittings of the Council are a-year for the expences of the office : held, and in them, on all corporation it may be so; but we have heard that occasions, the ordinary entertainments the citizens of the black and smoky of the Lord Provost should be given. town of Newcastle give their chief The inauguration banquet, as we have magistrate two thousand pounds, a already said, should be held in the splendid equipage, and a superb man- Parliament-house. sion. The very sight of the Mayor of We would also seriously recomBristol, in the pride, pomp, and cir- mend the hint of our ingenious correcumstance of office, would astonish spondent, Mr Christopher Columbus, the worthy deacons of the different with respect to a state-coach, to be crafts, who are so largely implicated gravely considered, though we disapin the object of our complaint. prove entirely of his Tontine scheme,

Now we would ask why such things of sending our Provost to dwell so far should be, and overcome us like a from the centre of Auld Reekie. Can summer cloud, without our special any thing, for example, be more ridicu. wonder? For surely, saving and ex- lous than a batch of elderly, well fed, cepting London, there is no other perhaps gouty gentlemen, struggling town under such obligations to exhi- against the wind, and grinningas if they bit her chief magistrate, with ap- would bite off the nose of Boreas, enpropriate splendour, as the ancient deavouring to make their way towards capital of the oldest of all the British the door of an inn, to give the freedom monarchies. What makes the shame of the city to some renowned or illusof the thing more striking is, that the trious character. The proper way of whole of what is wanted might be bestowing such honours-the most obeasily obtained, and in a style too, vious and the most flattering, is to inwhich would even bear comparison vite the personage on whom it is in with the corpulent and cumbrous tended to be conferred, to meet the magnificence of the London appoint- magistrates; but if circumstances renments. But, before stating them, der this inconvenient, as was the case we would beg to lay it down as a when Prince Esterhazy was lately principle, that ALL PUBLIC OFFICERS here, then, and in such cases, the ProSHOULD, IN

OFFICES, BE vost, with suitable officers, emblems, APPROPRIATELY MAINTAINED, and and ensigns of authority, should be therefore a judicious economy would enabled to represent the rank and digdiscern between the paraphernalia re- nity of the city. It is, we are aware, quisite to the dignity of the provost, not very easy to speak gravely, to and the ministration to the personal many minds on such subjects, but pomposity or vanity of the individual our well-known free and desultory occupying the station. Nothing, in style had never a more suitable topic; our opinion, can, for example, be and although many wise, many learnmore absurd' than the vulgar ostenta- ed, &c. bodies of gentlemen have tion of the Mansion-house of London, been accustomed to think with much where, for a year, every year, some levity of city usages, the gingerbread honest, thrifty, and prudent family coach, and the big bellies of Alderare afflicted with the necessity of mic men and Bailies, the acquiescent micking the style and manners of the homage paid in all ages to those in the nobility. While we would therefore vested with the trappings of visible recommend a Mansion-house to be grandeur, is a moral demonstration provided for the Lord Provost, we must that the decorations of office are agreebeg to be understood not to mean a able to the common sense of manresidence, but only a proper place kind. The great object is, to take care where he could entertain illustrious that they are in unison with the taste strangers, or perform those hospitable and spirit

of the age in which they courtesies to his fellow-citizens and are assumed. But when once assumed, assistants in the magistracy,-courte- they ought to be preserved in their sies which constitute no inconsidera- original state, as consecrated things. ble portion of his public duty. For The cause which essentiallycontrithis purpose, it occurs to us, that, buted to denude the magistracy of at an inconsiderable expence, a very Edinburgh of their ancient costume splendid

suite of apartments might be and municipal pomp, was undoubtedcasily constructed within the same pile ly the removal of the court to Eng

THEIR

land. Had the monarch continued to The very thought of such a sight, reside here, or condescended to pay us to shew à King, and a King of such an occasional visit, we have no doubt, refinement as George IV. is hideous. that, instead of those sable suits, in For God's sake, Bailies and Deacons of which so many of our esteemed friends Edinburgh, set to work instantly. Let appear, as if in constant mourning all your shovels, barrows, and besoms; for some hanged thief or other, we be put in requisition. Commissioners should have seen them apparelled as of Police, Whigs, Tories, and Radicals, in the days of Provost Maccalzean, up and at it. Though you should want when the Town-council entertained drink for a month, wash the causeway. Queen Mary; namely, in coats of Seize every nocturnal vase, boyne, tub, black velvet, doublets of crimson sa- and crock, or by whatever other name tin, and hose of the same colour ; for they may be known; and instead of we hold the recommendation of the the Flowers of Edinburgh, let them Council in 1918, by which the magi- be filled with earth, and planted with strates were advised to wear coats of fragrant shrubs and odoriferous balms, black velvet, (and in consideration and placed in rows, from the Tron thereof, ten pounds Sterling were or- Kirk to the Abbey gate, to subdue the dered to be paid to each of the Bailies, irremediable odours--the breath of Dean of Guild, and Lord Treasurer, abomination, that taints the air from yearly,) to have been a corrupt job of every wall and corner round the demodern degeneracy. And we beg, by filed and deserted home of royalty. the way, to know if the said ten pounds But though the magistrates of Edcontinue to be still regularly paid ; inburgh do their part ever so well,

if so, where are all the velvet coats ? what is to be done with the palace it-The Provost is the only one we have self ? Had it been the property of any ever seen so dressed.—Let the Re- private nobleman, instead of belonging formers look to this.

to the crown, is it probable that so fine In contemplating the probability of a mansion would have been allowed to L'a visit from the King, we would ad- sinkinto such absolute decay? Weknow vise Mr Arbuthnot, and his friends in not how the Dukes of Hamilton have the magistracy, to imitate their wor- been able to reconcile to their honour, thy predecessors in Queen Mary's time, as men, the neglect and ruin which, and forthwith equip themselves ac- without remonstrance, they have alcordingly, in order to give his Majesty lowed to fall upon this venerable and in

some notion of the olden time of this teresting edifice, the more especially, as his most ancient kingdom.

it is still required for several national But alas ! Scotland has survived her purposes. The election of the Peers royalty. When the King comes, where of Scotland is still held there, and the nu shall we put him? We shudder to Chapel Royal is the place where the think of the squalour and misery that Knights of the Thistle can alone be have thrust their pale faces and dirty installed. It is indeed inconceivable, lean hands into the most revered re- how the royal residences of Scotland, cesses of the palace. What an avenue from Dunstaffnage of immemorial anmust he pass to the well-sung towers tiquity, to Linlithgow and Holyroodof Holyrood, in his descent by the house, should have been allowed to Canongate.

sink into ruin—the latter in particular, “ There oft are heard the notes of infant when the preservation of it might not

only have been honourable to the counThe short, thick sob, loud scream, and try, but a source of wealth and of pleashriller squall;

sure to the metropolis. The environs of How can ye, mothers, vex your children so ? Holyroodhouse are singularly pictuSome play, some eat, some cack against

resque, and, with very little trouble, And, as they crouchen low, for bread the cliffs and the mountains might and butter call.

have been so adorned with trees, that And on the broken pavement, here and

the King's Park would have become there,

one of the finest walks that the vicimany.a stinking sprat and herring pity of any city could boast of ;-as it

is, nobody that is not actuated by And brandy and tobacco shop is near, some strong motive of necessity, or And hens, and dogs, and hogs, are feed- of antiquarian curiosity, can bear the ing by.” РОРЕ. thoughts of approaching a place so

3L

woe

the wall,

Doth

lie;

Vol. X.

desolate, wild, and melancholy. We of those afflicted with the Radical have often wondered that the spi- distemper. The result, merely as a rited boys of the High School have spectacle, would be one of the finest never thought of laying out some of imaginable. It would, besides, aftheir pocket-money in buying hazel- ford the people an opportunity of nuts to plant the Salisbury Crags. seeing the King, in his state, as a

DEE The speculation would redound to the monarch, in some appropriate balinfinite profit of their successors; and cony, rendering the procession, as it

; by so simple a process as occasionally were, a levee holden to receive the throwing a few handfulls of forest homage of the hardy and industrious

. tree seeds down the steeps, they might Those who saw the King proclaimed clothe those naked rocks, and create a will easily form some idea, though but woody and picturesque effect, of which a faint one, of the magnificent pageant the finest landscape painters only dream which we contemplate. Let them super in their most poetical moods. It is, pose, for a moment, the fronts of the however, of no use to talk or to sug- stupendous houses of the High Street gest on this subject, while those whose all decorated with garlands and green duty it is to attend to all that may be boughs, and the windows filled with said, are seemingly alike insensible to beauty--the balcony in front of the the ancient renown and modern glory Royal Exchange occupied by musiof their country ;-who move as if çians, and the King, attended by his they felt not the inspiring influence of great officers and the magistrates

, hallowed places, and were incredulous seated on an elevated platform in to the power of that solemn and af- front of the Cathedral, commanding fecting genius which presides over the & view of the street to the Palace

. ancestral abodes of chivalry and pa- Let them then paint to themselves triotism.

the pavement, thronged with countless And here we take liberty to con- spectators, and the array of the cititrovert a notion that seems some- zens, glorious with waving plumes how to have got into circulation, that and banners, ascending to the foot of here ¢ the good town" shall not be able to the royal platform, then defiling into give the King such a welcome as he the Lawnmarket, and counter-marchreceived in Dublin. Certainly, if an ing by the Parliament-Close back into attempt is made to follow modern de- the High-Street, with the clangour of vices, the thing will be a failure ; but all accorded instruments of sound, if we revert to the ancient customs of mingled with the shouts and acclamathe kingdom, the Scots will beat the tions of the people, and they must be Irish out and out. Nothing, for ex- convinced, that neither Dublin, nor ample, in the King's public entry in any other town in Europe, can proto Dublin could compare with a revi- duce such a spectacle as that with val, but in a modern taste, of the an- which the loyal inhabitants of the cient weapon-shawing *, for the occa- good town” might verify to their King sion; which would have the effeet of their just right to that venerable apturning the attention of the people pellation. Let Sir Patrick Walker from radical nonsense, and of making marshall as he may the decorated erthem emulous in loyalty. With this ders and ranks of nobility

and knightview, we would therefore recommend hood, and Sir John Sinclair get to the deacons of the trades, and the Highlanders, in all their tartans, the heads of other public bodies, to that the mountains of the North may begin, as soon as the period is ascer- send forth, we will stake our crutch

, tained when his Majesty is likely to which we cannot move without, that come, to provide themselves with ban- a procession of the honest trades and ners, and

appropriate ensigns of their crafts of Edinburgh, closing with the R& crafts and professions, to march in time-honoured pageantry of King procession before the King. The very Crispin, will present a scene of popuinterest which such an occupation lar splendour, unexampled in the auwould give to the minds of the multi- nals of all similar shows and procesa tude, could not fail to cure thousands sions.

(

( * We do not mean, that the revival of the weapon-shawing should extend beyond the different corporations and citizens mustering in their best, and forming a properly

1 marshalled array, to give his Majesty some idea of their numbers and respectability.

1

a

Cork, Nov. 6th, 1821.
DEAR CHRISTOPHER,

which now reposes in his girdle, (unI was some time ago looking over till suddenly pulled forth to indite the the pa ani old theological work, which, among ingenious thought when arrived at mamany other curious things, expatiated turity,) would sink into everlasting

, In considerably on the merits of the old oblivion, I am sure your kind heart, Die La' Scholastic Doctors, and dwelt much far from indulging in mirth, would sim. on their several titles- such as Irre- melt with grief on the occasion. At

fragabilis, Ponderosus, Subtilis, Pro- least mine would. It is with these . fundus, and twenty others of equal ce- feelings you must consider this letter, ni, de lebrity and import. But what the au- which is an attempt to rescue from to dla thor seemed particularly to take de- forgetfulness some of the effusions a

light in, and indeed what gave me the foresaid, by sending them to you. I Took greatest pleasure, was the collection of am sure the ingenious writers will icon ch their different epitaphs and celebrated bounce with joy, when from the si

sayings, and the concentrating in one lent tomb they hear your mellow voice is, de place so many quaintly-devised and ordering Ebony to imprint their lays, ini i crabbed specimens of the distorted in- and will cry out, in classic chorus,

genuity of those ages, I could not help through the clay-cold caverns of the

a thinking, Kitt, how amusing it must earth,strony i have been to behold one of these worthpens ies, Tostatus for instance, of whom it

Ecce, vir Septentrionalis

Extitit homo specialis, 10277 was said,

Bonus homo validè!
Hic stupor est mundi, qui scibile, discutit

Suo nam mandavit ore
omne,

Nostras res imprimatori,

Bona habeat edere! sy, bal seated at work, in an easy-chair, with 1, iso his doctor's cap pushed on one side of which classic and appropriate chorus

his head, -his cloak thrown backwards may be Englished thus, with equal from absolute sweating through excess elegance :of thought,-his left hand pulling Behold! the mightie man, Kitt Northe, strongly his long grey beard, - his pen Hath shewn himselfe of speciale worthe, stuck for a moment in his inky girdle, A goodlie man indeede ;

his right hand scratching the side of is his head, —his feet striking rapidly Our verses that his prynter bolde

For with his owne mouthe he hath told, against the ground, and his long, Should "prynte : (welle may he feede !) thin, swarthy sour face contracted into

many wrinkles as your own round, Already art thou celebrated on the and fat, ruddy, good-humoured phiz would earth by millions, and above the earth, doubtless be seen forced into, in a fit in the garrets of hundreds. Be it your of the rheumatism, if the mysterious study now, to be celebrated and hoveil which encompasseth it did not noured under the earth, as infallibly hide its features from mortal eyes.- thou shalst, by giving light to the proWould not you laugh downright at ductions of its inhabitants. But, beseeing him in this curious situation ? sides these considerations of glory and I am sure you would, Kitt, notwith humanity, they are really so curious in standing all

you may say about huma themselves as to deserve your notice, nity, &c. But if you knew that all his as you will perceive by the few follow travail would be set at nought--that ing specimens. The first I give you is his immense turmoil would be of no on Alexander Alensis, the celebrated avail.--that the productions of his pen, Doctor Irrefragabilis.' Here it is :

Conditur hoc tumulo, famam sortitus abundè
Gloria Doctorum, decus et flos Philosophorum,
Auctor scriptorum vir Alexander variorum.
Inclitus Anglorum fuit Archilevita, sed horum
Spretor cunctorum, fratrum collega minorum
Factus egenorum, fit Doctor primus eorum.

as

last;

What beauty !-What's your epitaph but I must fairly yield to him in the on Sir D. Donnelly to this ?-What ingenuity with which he strings togea majestic succession of orums! not ther thạt noble succession of sonorous to speak of the pretty compliment to cadences. What can be finer than the your Southron friends in the second third line, when, after having raised last line. How the writer must have our expectation to the highest by his worked to make out these verses ! I encomiums in the two preceding verought to know something of his trou- ses, he suddenly and sublimely de

, ble, as I had a pretty fair tug myself clares who the subject of them is :-at a few lines

you
inserted in

your “ Auctor scriptorum vir Alexander variorum!" All your modern nick-nacks are no- ness, conceit, and moral instruction. thing to this! Lost in admiration as It is written on Peter Comestor, (mind you doubtless are, at the above speci- his surname,) the author of “ Histomen, the next will far outdo both it, ria Scholastica.” Read and admire! and all others I ever read, in quaint

“ Petrus eram, quem petra tegit, dictusque Comestor,
Nunc comedor; vivus docui, nec cesso docere
Mortuus: ut dicat qui me videt incineratum,

Quod sumus, iste fuit, erimus quandoque quod hic est." What do you say to that, Kitt? As a que Comestor, nunc comedor.” What farthing rush-light, in the hands of a sublime idea of retribution does not an ancient maiden, yields to the bright, this contain. He who was called Eatness of the mid-day sun,-as the nar- er, (and, haply, for a good reason,) is row defile of Faulkner's Lane, in our now eaten,-by the worms, rats, &c. lordly city, is inferior to the spacious Also the continuance of his Doctorship area of the Parade,

-as the dry pages in the grave, and the lecture he thence of Constable's shrink before those of delivers to the world. Ah! the times Blackwood's as if before a parching are gone by when such things could fire, * so does every other epitaph ap- be written. As for these degenerate pear nought, when compared with the days—Alas! I fear I may safely defy perfect model you have just read. Not any one to match these lines, without a member of the sentence but contains the gauntlet being taken up!- I pera point. “ Petrus eram quem 'petra ceive I have not paper for much more ; tegit.” Which of your now-a-day but I must give you one on a country; scribblers would ever hit on such a man, either of yours or mine, it is hard thought? But, above all, “ dictus- to say which, but he is

Richardus a Sto. Victore Scotus.
Moribus, ingenio, doctrinâ clarus et arte

Pulvereo híc tegeris, docte Richarde, situ
Quem tellus genuit felici Scotica partu

Nunc foret in gremio Gallica terra suo.
Nil tibi Parca ferox nocuit, quæ stamina parva

Tempore tracta gravi rupit acerva manu:
Plurima namque tui superant monumenta laboris,

Quæ tibi perpetuum sint paritura decus,
Segnior ut lento sceleratas mors petit ædes,
Sic

propero nimis it sub pia tecta gradu. Although some of your very classic readers will probably admire this more than any of the others, yet I must beg leave to differ with them. What can equal the concetti in the two first of those epitaphs ? Besides, I think that although in the fourth couplet it is prophesied that his writings will obtain for him immortal fame, it will be to your mention of his

epitaph that

*