The trumpet sounds--and on the blast are borne Each warrior held his breath, For a moment, and no more; The rush of human wrath; And peal'd in thunder forth. Oh, who can tell, the pride of conscious might The fierce ebriety of war's delight; And amid the crash of shivering spears, The hot blood's maddening flow, It were worth the life of a thousand years, [To be continued.] MALEK. THE MISERIES OF GODFATHERS. I almost invariably happens, that men, with wives and small families of thirteen children, have attempted to cry down the situation of a bachelor. They say that he wants the comforts of his cheerful fire-side, his homely fare, his smiling wife, and children climbing up the knees of their sire, and so forth; but it always appeared to me, that they never had been able to hit upon the true cause of the bachelor's misery; for the touchstone of his misfortunes is the certainty of being solicited to become a Godfather. Every unmarried man is sure to have a regiment of Godchildren, and it is this, and this alone, which drives so many men, at the sober age of fifty, to the altar of Hymen, and the arms of a cook-maid. Dr. Johnson, in his spirited poem, "The Vanity of Human Wishes," says, "The teeming mother, anxious for her race, not face (for every child is like its mother, and every mother handsome, in her own opinion; the child, therefore, has that accomplishment already), but Godfather. Accordingly, every good-natured man, who is unmarried, is pressed to stand Godfather to some squalling infant. I lately called on a bachelor, and not finding him at home, I amused myself, till his return, by prying about the room, when I chanced to light on a manuscript, which I now present to the public, as the genuine diary of a Godfather: "(Ten o'clock.) A Godson called on me, previously to his going to school. Knew his tricks, and determined to punish him. Slipped a shilling into his hand, and said, 'Here, my boy, here's a sovereign for you.' He looked like a child on a washing-day, but I would not observe his blue looks, or discover my mistake. "(Eleven o'clock.) Four letters, in envelopes (double postage), requesting me to take long journeys to christenings. (Twelve o'clock.) A few two-penny post letters, with wafers, appointing christenings.-N. B. Two on the same day, and at the same hour. I cannot, not being a crowned head, be sponsor by proxy to a child whom I never saw, and whose parents I never heard of. 66 (One o'clock.) Went out for a walk, and met crowds of my little protegés. Their little fingers dirtied my hands, and thereby prevented me from calling on a certain lady of delicate nerves, and exquisite sensibility. "(Two o'clock.) Attended a christening.-N. B. A truant nail in the corner of the stool tore my pantaloons. "(Three o'clock.) Ditto. In my hurry to go from one church to another, my hackney-coach knocked down an old man, who dying of age a week afterwards, the parish officers made me pay five pounds for his funeral obsequies. 66 (Six o'clock). Dinner-forced to Dinner-forced to say that I saw the light of genius in the eye of a Godson who squinted. Heard from another Godson a long account of an usher at his school, and from another, that William the Third was surnamed the Conqueror, and Blue Beard meant Henry the Eighth. My little Godchildren, one and all, made rude remarks, talked all at once, and broke glasses; I with difficulty, as in duty bound, forced a simper, which almost gave me the locked-jaw. "(Ten o'clock). Went home, and to bed, could not get to sleep for two hours. At last dosed, fancied that I was surrounded by my Godchildren, in the characters of imps of hell; jumped out of bed, fell on the floor, cut my head, and was confined to my room for a week." Here my friend came in, and we joked together, when he showed me a list of his Godchildren, which I at first supposed to be a manuscript copy of the new Army List. If I were a bachelor, I would bilk all my protegés, and rather found an asylum, or leave sums for the maintenance of favourite pug dogs. We have heard of an old man, who constantly asked parents for lists of their children, as they thought to name in his will, but he unfortunately forgot them all. So would I act. Most people have three names, a Christian, a Family, and a Surname. I remember a person who, like the man in the Vicar of Wakefield, liked to call a person by all his names, and when he called his son, addressed him by ten names, two Godfathers', a Godmother's, and the original. "Come here," said he, "John Richard Williams George Augustus Jackson Charles Smith Thompson FubbsCharles made from Charlotte, at the particular request of an old female friend, who stood Godmother. Appalled by this assemblage of nomens and cognomens, I asked if he was practising for Champion at the Coronation. How can people be so mean! how can they expect to reap advantage at such a distance? Few people have their fortunes made by their Godfathers. Why, then, do they not bring up their children to some honourable profession, instead of lingering on the unsubstantial food of expectation? B. Vos valete et. TER. [Enter BARTHOLOMEW BOUVERIE solus.] Your humble servant is in a most strange dilemma, and from no common cause: he is at this moment racking his brain to find that consummation devoutly to be wished for "-an ending. That indispensable requisite to a book, a "Jamque opus exegi,” is the cause of all his anxiety: in short, Bartholomew Bouverie heartily wishes to put an end to himself, till restored to life on the 18th day of June. It has been the practice of authors to prate on the difficulty of beginning, and to quote Dimidium facti qui cœpit habet;" |