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.

consum

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 " mation 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;"

but to say Good Night to the public with becoming grace, is, in my opinion, an infinitely more difficult task. What can be easier than to plunge at once into the middle, without caring for a formal beginning, with an impetuous "Ruin seize thee, ruthless king;" or with a more modest, though not less abrupt, "'Twas night." "It is in the power of every man," says Dr. Johnson, "to rush abruptly upon his subject, that has read the ballad of Johnny Armstrong,

"Is there ever a man in all Scotland ?"

And with the same view, I shall quote an honest friend of mine, who began one of his tales with the explanatory sentence, "Now his parents was very good sort of folk." But to end is a very different, and far more difficult task, and it is in this that Bartholomew will chiefly fail, though with the consolation that in the same point many great men have failed before him.

It has always appeared to me, I know not how justly, that in this point the Iliad is deficient, for I have never been able to think that the single line]

Ως ̓ ὅιγ ̓ ἀμφίεπον τάφον Εκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο,

is an ending of sufficient grandeur to suit the sublimity of what has gone before. Pope seems to have thought the same: for he has inserted in his translation, or rather imitation, a whole line, of which there is not an idea in the original;

"Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade."

In another instance, who has not been disappointed with the catastrophe in Hamlet, whether read, or acted on the stage; when, after his imagination has been worked up to the highest pitch by the deep interest of the play, he sees the bungling development of the plot, the awkward artifice of the exchange of foils, and lastly, the spectacle of no less than four persons lying dead upon the stage. Here, I think, every one must agree with Johnson, "that in many of Shakspeare's plays, the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He, therefore, remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced, or imperfectly represented."

Now, I do not make these observations, taking to myself any pretensions to criticism, but merely to show, that where Shakspeare has failed, the failure of Bartholomew Bouverie will be nothing very extraordinary. For, possibly, while he hastens to an end of his labours, he may forget, or be unable, to make his bow to the public with all the grace and decorum they may expect; but to run off without saying a word, like a tavern guest bilking his landlord, is

what the Editor of "The Eton Miscellany" cannot endure.

With this imperfect apology for all his errors, and for all his frivolity, for whatever he has said wrong, and whatever he has said foolishly, most potent Public, Bartholomew Bouverie entreats you to be content. By the time of publication of the next Number, he hopes to receive the assistance of those who have hitherto stood aloof, from fear of embarking in a vessel of whose sea-worthiness they had no certain testimonial. But having now established himself admiral of the fleet, Bartholomew Bouverie begs all those who may join his squadron to steer clear of those dangerous rocks, Politics and Personality, and particularly not to venture among the conflicting waves in the gulf of Theology. And it is hereby signified to those who are willing to embark in the enterprise, who, by-theby, must have learnt tactics at Eton College, that the rendezvous appointed is Ingalton Point, Eton Road; and it is particularly recommended to those who have any doubts as to the success of the expedition, to provide themselves plentifully with the anchors of Hope.

I think it but fair to inform the public, though it is probable enough they have discovered it already without my assistance, that I am no very great poet; were it not for my outlandish friends, Malek