With regard to his temper, we may describe him in the words of Horace,

"Irasci celerem, tamen ut placabilis esset;"

indeed, while we were settling the preliminaries of our partnership, he fell out with me three times, and as often offered me his hand with the greatest cordiality. The chief fault that I find in him is, that he will on no account give up his own opinion; he is more stiff-necked than the mountains of his country, for "huge Plinlimmon bowed his cloud-topt head" to the magic song of Modred; but all my arguments have not been able to procure me the same favour from Mr. David ap Rice. His forte is poetry, in which his style is decidedly national, seldom adhering to the vulgar restrictions of rhyme, and occasionally o'erstepping the modesty of reason. It will no more bear comparison with the standard of legitimate poetry, than the Song of the Goat with the purer age of the Grecian Tragedy; but still it has a native wildness, an artless irregularity, which cannot fail to please; it has none of that elaborate diction, or studied harmony, which delights some classes of our readers, yet it bears strong traces of genius, and of genius unassisted by art. Its greatest fault is its inequality, for it runs, as it were, the course of the comet, at one time illuminated by the full effulgence of the sun, at another lost in impenetrable obscurity.

Such is the coadjutor whom I have taken, but there are a few other traits in his character which I may hereafter mention; at present I offer him to the public, such as I found him, a wild, inflexible, poetical CambroBriton.

ON ENNUI.

With your permission, friend Bouverie, it is my intention to offer a few remarks concerning that most unwelcome of all visitors, that enemy to conviviality, that bane of all rational amusements and recreations, commonly designated by the name of ennui; not for the purpose of inspiring you with those unenviable sensations attending it, or of throwing a melancholy dejection on that brow of yours, which beams with perpetual serenity and good-humour, and which never cast a repulsive or interdicting look on the most humble of your more submissive fellow-creatures. Far otherwise is my intention; I wish only to give an insight into those many miseries, those restless and uneasy moments, those frequent yawns and eye-rubbings, those instinctive ejaculations of “Oh, dear! what a heavy day it is!" and many others of a similar nature, all of which the generality of mankind entail upon themselves, by neglecting that proper regimen, calculated to resist its encroachments and to repel its attacks.

Now, the common query attending all professed loungers, and especially those whose superior rank in life gives them a title to a certain leisure and independence, denied to their more active brethren, is, "How is Time to be killed?" You must be well acquainted with the vulgar opinion, that cats have nine lives now, how many lives should you think Time had? think Time had? For my part, I should give him a triple proportion of both vitality and muscular strength, if we may reason from analogy; for

no one has effectually been able to beguile many an interminable quarter of an hour, although armed with the anodyne whiffs of an Havannah cigar, or the more sociable, and certainly less odoriferous, contents of a snuff-box, when held in thraldom by the shackles of ennui; and many a young Miss has repeatedly turned over the leaves of a deserted album, or fumbled in the unfathomable abysses of a reticule, without experiencing the least respite or alleviation from her sufferings.

For the purpose of illustration, I shall make no scruple of quoting the expressions, verbatim, of two votaries of the shrine of Indolence and Inactivity, to which I was an ear-witness not long since: "I say, Dick, I be very unk-ed."-" So be I, Tom," is the emphatic reply. Now, I think it unnecessary to explain the meaning of this word "unkid," or unked (you may question the orthography of the word, if you please), to you, friend Bouverie, since I am aware that you are equally conversant with cottage eloquence, and with the more refined and more sophisticated departments of literary jargon. This elegant dissyllable is as descriptive of the internal feelings of my two heroes, as any other I could possibly have brought forward; and by its sulky, ominous, and sepulchral pronunciation, is a sure proof that ennui, by some means or other, has insinuated itself into some unguarded chinks and creeks, and taken possession of their animal faculties, having fortified itself against every attempt to dislodge it. As to the authority of the word, I do not vouch for its appearance in the columns of Dr. Johnson's dictionary, but I imagine that the privilege of évoμaтoofia, or fabrication of words, will be granted to

my heroes, although not pretending to the same powers of imagination and invention as the Chian bard.

I should guess there were few nations so free from the annoyance of ennui as the Italians: whether from the purity of the atmosphere which they breathe, or from other physical causes, I do not pretend to determine; certain it is, that Italy is the land where those delightful feelings of independence, and the blessings of that dolce far niente, or, to give it its literal translation, the sweet nothing-todo-ish-ness, are most fully appreciated and practised in their most enlarged and comprehensive forms. Few human beings can exist on as little mental sustenance as the Italian; a guitar, a voice, and sunshine, are all his wants these alone, carry him through Italy, and through life. He can be luxurious when luxuries are before him, and fast when not better employed. He will nestle by the side of his mule on the Appenines, or on a straw-litter in the valleys of Piedmont; dreaming perhaps of the "plaudits of the Boulevards, or the golden showers of the Haymarket.”

Happy would it be for us, friend Bouverie, for us Englishmen, were our spirits as buoyant and elastic as those of the Italian; but, as I have before mentioned, we are all inevitably doomed, at certain times and seasons, to paroxysms, more or less violent, of the muchdetested ennui: and even Etonians, though placed in the midst of merriment and joviality, and surrounded by a large assembly of literary friends and miscellaneous contributors, are not exempted from occasional visits from their old occupant.

How frequently, my dear Bouverie (I sigh deeply at

the recollection of it)-how frequently has it fallen to our lot to be a constituent part of a numerous company of friends on a rainy day in the country! When all perambulatory locomotion is put an end to, and our straining eyes in vain try to discover some slight portion of blue sky, or glimmering of sunshine. These are the trying moments, when our letters are all conned over for the fifth or sixth time, and when we have quaffed political beverage from the columns of a newspaper to its very dregs; when the billiard-room is deserted, and the battledoors and shuttlecocks thrown aside in disgust; when we have the pleasing prospect of being scarcely able to support our exhausted faculties till the hour of luncheon; then, perhaps, not in a state to endure any thing more substantial than a biscuit and a glass of water. These are the agreeable effects of ennui; and it is lamentable to reflect, how frequently the harmony of a "little musical party," or the sociability of a "little tea party," has been marred by the gloomy visages, and invincible taciturnity of our "unkid" guests. And many is the time when either a copious libation of Epsom salts, a rose-coloured gargle, or a pill surrounded with a most inviting envelope of raspberry jam, has been prescribed to some unfortunate individual, by an apprehensive mamma, under the plea of bodily indisposition, when the true cause was merely mental dejection, brought on, perhaps, by the recollection of a forbidden custard, or an interdicted sugarplum. Nor is this all: an emetic is not unfrequently resorted to, and administered to the persecuted victim, to remove a disorder, for which neither Machaon, Hippo