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most uninterrupted peace, yet the po. litical horizon is now in almost every quarter overshadowed with clouds, and that nothing short of a miracle can preserve the continuance of these pacific relations for any considerable time longer. We have recently had a fierce civil war in Canada—the West Indies are in such a state of discontent as to require a large force, civil and military, for their protection-a gigantic and most costly war has been commenced in the East Indies, and the British arms carried up into the heart of Asia-the chances of a contest both in the Baltic and Mediterra nean are hourly increasing-while the turbulent state of the country, excited by the experienced failure of the Reform Bill, has rendered it painfully apparent that a large increase of our domestic force is unavoidable. The effect of these approaching difficulties is already felt in the admitted excess of L.950,000 of expenditure last year above the income. And yet, with such a bankrupt exchequer, and such enormous charges staring us in the face, this is the moment that Government have thought fit to throw away at least a million a-year by the substitution of a penny for the ordinary postage, and thereby rendered it a matter of perfect certainty that in the next, and probably in every succceding year, the anunal deficiency will be two millions sterling!

So prodigal and culpable a waste of public money as this, at such a time, and with such necessity for a surplus revenue existing, from so many concurring dangers, is perhaps unparalleled in the history of the world, and can be explained on no other principle than this, that the ascendency given to the masses by the Reform Bill has rendered any thing like a systematic or real government impracticable in the country, and that the wretched administration which has arisen out of the confusion it produced, has no other resource but to barter a few months of lingering existence against the present solvency and ultimate independence of the empire.

Sir Robert Peel declared, in his place in the House of Commons, that even if he stood alone, he would protest in the loudest manner against this uncalled-for and ruinous dilapidation of the public income; and that he would rather retire altogether from

public life, and spend the next thirty years in retirement, than lend the support of his name, in any shape, to a measure so ruinous to the present security, and fatal to the ultimate public credit of the country. Lord Melbourne said, on the same subject, in the House of Lords, that the experiment was undoubtedly a very dangerous one, and that he really did not know how the deficiency which would be occasioned in the public revenue was to be made up; but that the people were impatient for the reduction, and he supposed it was necessary to yield to their wishes. These two declarations may be regarded as tests of the old and new race of statesmen-of those who governed the country in times past, and those who are governed by it in times present. There is no one declaration of Sir Robert Peel's for which we so highly honour him, or which will go so far to redeem his character from the imputation of undue yielding to popular clamour, which attached to the earlier parts of his political career. He may now see what are the consequences of conciliation and concession, and of the vain attempt to disarm democratic hostility by anticipating its wishes, or yielding to its demands. Better, far better for the Conservative party to remain for years out of power, than to tarnish their reputation by any further concessions to a ceaseless demand for a reduction of taxation, which is as intent upon present gain as it is blind to ultimate ruin. The night is far spent, the morning is at hand. They may rely upon it the period is not far distant, when this total disregard of the future, which has characterised all the Governments of Great Britain since 1830, will land the nation in some grievous public calamity; and that when that period does arrive, the light will at once break in upon a benighted people, and the storm of indignation which will fall on the heads of those who have been instrumental in bringing about such misfortunes will be irresistible. The passport to public favour will then be, not to have supported but resisted these ruinous reductions; and the nation, taught by the experience of suffering, will regard as her only true friends, those who had the courage to oppose them when they were wrong, and disregard their censure when it arose from ignorance.

TEN THOUSAND A-YEAR!

PART I.

Fortuna, sævo læta negotio, et
Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax,
Transmutat incertos honores,
Nunc mihi, nunc alii benigna.
Laudo manentem: si celeres quatit
Peunas, resigno quæ dedit, et mea
Virtute me involvo, probamque
Pauperiem sine dote quæro.

Hoa, CARM. Lib. iii. 29.

[To the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine.

SIR, If you should be so well satisfied with this, the first part of a short series of papers, as to insert it in your far-famed Magazine, not having been deterred from perusing it by the frank avowal that its writer is utterly "to fortune and to fame unknown," he will gladly transmit you the remainder of the series, as you may desire. If, on the contrary, it should not come up to your mark, your courtesy will, he is sure, induce you to return him the MS., addressed as beneath, to be left at Mr Cadell's in the Strand, where the writer will call for it, after the appearance, without this paper, of your November Number.-Z.

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Our correspondent, whose modest note we have taken the liberty of printing above, as we received it, will, we trust, in good time, send us Part II.; and also enable us to communicate with him confidentially.-C. N.]

ABOUT ten o'clock one, Sunday morning, in the month of July 183-, the dazzling sunbeams which had for many hours irradiated a little dismal back attic in one of the closest courts adjoining Oxford Street, in London, and stimulated with their intensity the closed eyelids of a young man lying in bed, at length awoke him. He rubbed his eyes for some time, to relieve himself from the irritation he experienced in them; and yawned and stretched his limbs with a heavy sense of weariness, as though his sleep had not refreshed him. He presently cast his eyes on the heap of clothes lying huddled together on the backless chair by the bedside, and where he had hastily flung them about an hour after midnight; at which time he had returned from a great draper's shop in Oxford Street, where he served as a shopman, and where he had nearly dropped asleep after a long day's work, while in the act of putting up the shutters. He could hardly keep his eyes open while he undressed, short as was the time it took him to do so; and on dropping exhausted into bed, there he had continued in deep un

broken slumber, till the moment at which he is presented to the reader. He lay for several minutes, stretching, yawning, and sighing, occasionally casting an irresolute eye towards the tiny fireplace, where lay a modicum of wood and coal, with a tinder-box and a match or two placed upon the hob, so that he could easily light his fire for the purposes of shaving and breakfasting. He stepped at length lazily out of bed, and when he felt his feet, again yawned and stretched himself, then he lit his fire, placed his bit of a kettle on the top of it, and returned to bed, where he lay with his eye fixed on the fire, watching the crackling blaze insinuate itself through the wood and coal. Once, however, it began to fail, so he had to get up and assist it by blowing and bits of paper; and it seemed in so precarious a state that he determined not again to lie down, but sit on the bedside, as he did with his arms folded, ready to resume operations if necessary. this posture he remained for some time, watching his little fire, and listlessly listening to the discordant jangling of innumerable church-bells, clamorously

In.

calling the citizens to their devotions. What passed through his mind was something like the following:

"Heigho!-Oh, Lord! -Dull as ditch water! This is my only holiday, yet I don't seem to enjoy it-the fact is, I feel knocked up with my week's work.-Lord, what a life mine is, to be sure! Here am I, in my eightand-twentieth year, and for four long years have been one of the shopmen at Dowlas, Tag-rag, Bobbin and Company's slaving from seven o'clock in the morning till ten at night, and all for a salary of £35 a-year, and my board! And Mr Tag-rag is always telling me how high he's raised my salary! Thirty-five pounds a-year is all I have for lodging, and appearing like a gentleman! Oh, Lord, it can't last; for sometimes I feel getting desperate such strange thoughts! Seven shillings a-week do I pay for this cursed hole-(he uttered these words with a bitter emphasis, accompanied by a disgustful look round the little room)-that one couldn't swing a cat in without touching the four sides!Last winter, three of our gents. (i. e. his fellow-shopmen) came to tea with me one Sunday night; and bitter cold as it was, we four made this d-d dog hole so hot, we were obliged to open the window! And as for accommodations-I recollect I had to borrow two nasty chairs from the people below, who on the next Sunday borrowed my only decanter, in return, and, hang them, cracked it!-Curse me, if this life is worth having! It's all the very vanity of vanities, and no mistake! Fag, fag, fag, all one's days, and— what for? Thirty-five pounds a-year, and no advance!' Bah, bells! ring away till you're all cracked!-Now do you think I'm going to be mewed up in church on this the only day out of the seven I've got to sweeten myself in, and sniff fresh air?

A pre

cious joke that would be! Whew!after all, I'd as lieve sit here; for what's the use of my going out? Every body I see out is happy, excepting me, and the poor chaps that are like me! Every body laughs when they see me, and know that I'm only a tallow-faced counter-jumper, for whom its no use to go out! Oh, Lord! what's the use of being good-looking, as some chaps say I am?"-Here he instinctively passed his left hand through a profusion of sindy-coloured hair, and

cast an eye towards the bit of fractured looking-glass that hung against the wall, and which, by faithfully representing to him a by no means plain set of features (dispite the dismal hue of his hair) whenever he chose to appeal to it, had afforded him more enjoyment than any other object in the world for years. Ah, Lord! many and many's the fine gal I've done my best to attract the notice of, while I was serving her in the shop,-that is, when I've seen her get out of a carriage! There has been luck to many a chap like me, in the same line of speculation; look at Tom Tarnishhow did he get Miss Twang, the rich piano-forte maker's daughter?-and now he's cut the shop, and lives at Hackney like a regular gentleman! Ah! that was a stroke! But some how, it hasn't answered with me yet: the gals don't take! Lord, how I have set my eyes and ogled them-all of them don't seem to dislike the thing-and sometimes they'll smile, in a sort of way that says I'm safe-but 'tis no use, not a bit of it!-My eyes! catch me, by the way, ever nodding again to a lady on the Sunday, that had smiled when I stared at her while serving her in the shop-after what happened to me a month or two ago in the Park! Didn't I feel like damaged goods, just then! But, it's no matter, women are so different at different times!-Verylikely Imismanaged the thing. By the way, what a precious puppy of a chap the fellow was that came up to her at the time she stepped out of her carriage to walk a bit! As for good looks-cut me to ribbons"-another glance at the glass-"no; I an't afraid there, neither-but,-heigh-ho!—I suppose he was, as they say, born with a golden spoon in his mouth, and had never so many thousand a-year, to make up to him for never so few brains! He was uncommon well dressed though, I must own. What trowsers! - they stuck so natural to him, he might have been born in them. And his waistcoat, and satin stock-what an air! And yet, his figure was nothing very out of the way! His gloves, as white as snow; I've no doubt he wears a pair of them a day-my stars! that's three and sixpence a-day, for don't I know what they cost?-Whew! if I had but the cash to carry on that sort of thing!-And when he'd seen her into her carriage-the horse he got

on!-and what a tip-top groom-that chap's wages, I'll answer for it, were equal to my salary!" Here was a long pause. "Now-just for the fun of the thing, only suppose luck was to befal me. Say somebody was to leave me lots of cash,-many thousands ayear, or something in that line! My stars! wouldn't I go it with the best of them!" Another long pause. "Gad, I really should hardly know how to begin to spend it!-I think, by the way, I'd buy a title to set off with-for what won't money buy? The thing's often done; there was a great biscuit baker in the city, the other day, made a baronet of, all for his money-and why shouldn't 1?" He grew a little heated with the progress of his reflections, clasping his hands with involuntary energy, as he stretched them out to their fullest extent, to give effect to a very hearty yawn. "Lord, only think how it would sound!

SIR TITTLEBAT TITMOUSE, BARONET.

The very first place I'd go to, after I'd got my title, and was rigged out in Stulze's tip-top, should be-our cursed shop, to buy a dozen or two pair of white kid. What a flutter there would be among the poor pale devils as were standing, just as ever, behind the counters, at Dowlas, Tagrag, and Co.'s, when my carriage drew up, and I stepped into the shop! Tagrag would come and attend to me himself. No, he wouldn't-pride wouldn't let him. I don't know, though: what wouldn't he do to turn a penny, and make two and ninepence into three and a penny. I shouldn't quite come Captain Stiff over him; but I should treat him with a kind of an air, too, as if-hem! how delightful!" A sigh and a pause. "Yes, I should often come to the shop. Gad, it would be half the fun of my fortune! And they would envy me, to be sure! How one should enjoy it! I wouldn't think of marrying till-and yet I wont say either; if 1 get among some of them out and outers-those first-rate articles-that lady, for instance, the other day in the Park-I should like to see her cut me as she did, with ten thousand a-year in my pocket! Why, she'd be running after me, or there's no truth in novels, which I'm sure there's often a great deal in. Oh, of course, I might marry

whom I pleased. Who couldn't be got with ten thousand a-year?" Another pause. "I should go abroad to

Russia directly; for they tell me there's a man lives there who could dye this hair of mine any colour I liked-egad! I'd come home as black as a crow, and hold up my head as high as any of them! While I was about it, I'd have a touch at my eyebrows"--Crash went all his castlebuilding, at the sound of his teakettle, hissing, whizzing, sputtering in the agonies of boiling over; as if the intolerable heat of the fire had driven desperate the poor creature placed upon it, who instinctively tried thus to extinguish the cause of its anguish. Having taken it off and placed it upon the hob, and placed on the fire a tiny fragment of fresh coal, he began to make preparations for shaving, by pouring some of the hot water into an old tea-cup, which was presently to serve for the purposes of breakfast. Then he spread out a bit of crumpled whity-brown paper, that had folded up a couple of cigars which he had bought over-night for the Sunday's special enjoyment-and which, if he supposed they had come from any place beyond the four seas, I imagine him to have been slightly mistaken. He placed this bit of paper on the little mantel-piece ; drew his solitary, well-worn razor several times across the palm of his left hand; dipped his brush, worn within a third of an inch to the stump, into the hot water; presently passed it over so much of his face as he intended to shave; then rubbed on the damp surface a bit of yellow soap-and in less than five minutes Mr Titmouse was a shaved man. But mark-don't suppose that he had performed an extensive operation. One would have thought him anxious to get rid of as much as possible of his abominable sandy-coloured hair- quite the contrary. Every hair of his spreading whiskers was sacred from the touch of steel; and a bushy crop of hair stretched underneath his chin, coming curled out on each side of it, above his stock, like two little horns, or tusks. An imperial-i.e. a dirt-coloured tuft of hair, permitted to grow perpendicularly down the under lip of puppies

and a pair of promising mustachios, poor Mr Titmouse had been compelled to sacrifice some time before, to the tyrannical whimsies of his vulgar em

ers.

ployers, Messrs Dowlas and Tag-rag, who imagined them not to be exactly suitable appendages for counter-jumpSo that it will be seen that the space shaved over on this occasion was somewhat circumscribed. This operation over, he took out of his trunk an old dirty looking pomatum pot. A little of its contents, extracted on the tips of his two fore fingers, he stroked carefully into his eye brows; then spreading some on the palms of his hands, he rubbed it vigorously into his stubborn hair and whiskers for some quarter of an hour; and then combed and brushed his hair into half a dozen different dispositions-so fastidious in that matter was Mr Titmouse. Then he dipped the end of a towel into a little water, and twisting it round his right fore-finger, passed it gently over his face, carefully avoiding his eyebrows, and the hair at the top, sides, and bottom of his face, which he then wiped with a dry corner of the towel; and no further did Mr Tittlebat Titmouse think it necessary to carry his ablutions. Had he been able to see himself as others saw him," in respect of those neglected regions which lay somewhere behind and beneath his ears, he might not pos sibly have thought it superfluous to irrigate them with a little soap and water; but, after all, he knew best; it might have given him cold and besides, his hair was very thick and long behind, and might perhaps conceal any thing that was unsightly. Then Mr Titmouse drew from underneath the bed a bottle of Warren's "incomparable blacking," and a couple of brushes, with great labour and skill polishing his boots up to a wonderful point of brilliancy. Ha. ving washed his hands, and replaced his blacking implements under the bed, he devoted a few moments to boiling about three tea-spoonfuls of coffee, (as it was styled on the paper from which he took, and in which he had brought it whereas it was, in fact, chicory.) Then he drew forth from his trunk a calico shirt, with linen wristbands and collars, which had been worn only twice since its last washing-i. e. on the preceding two Sundays-and put it on, taking great care not to rumple a very showy front, containing three little rows of frills; in the middle one of which he stuck three "studs," connected together with two little gilt

chains, looking exceedingly stylishespecially coupled with a span-new satin stock which he next buckled round his neck. Having put on his bright boots, (without, I am sorry to say, any stockings,) he carefully insinuated his legs into a pair of white trowsers, for the first time since their last washing; and what with his short straps and high braces, they were so tight that you would have feared their bursting, if he should have sat down hastily. I am almost afraid that I shall hardly be believed, but it is a fact, that the next thing that he did was to attach a pair of spurs to his boots:—but, to be sure, it was not impossible that he might intend to ride during the day. Then he put on a queer kind of under waistcoat, which in fact was only a roll-collar of rather faded pea-green silk, and designed to set off a very fine flowered damson-coloured silk waistcoat; over which he drew a massive mosaic-gold chain, (to purchase which he had sold a serviceable silver watch,) which had been carefully wrapped up in cotton wool; from which soft depository, also, he drew HIS RING, (those must have been sharp eyes that could tell, at a distance, and in a hurry, that it was not diamond,) which he placed on the stumpy little finger of his red and thick right hand

and contemplated its sparkle with exquisite satisfaction. Having proceeded thus far with his toilet, he sat down to his breakfast, spreading the shirt he had taken off upon his lap, to preserve his white trowsers from spot or stain-his thoughts alternating between his late waking vision and his purposes for the day. He had no butter, having used the last on the preceding morning; so he was fain to put up with dry bread-and very dry and teeth-trying it was, poor fellow-but his eye lit on his ring! Having swallowed two cups of his quasicoffee, (eugh! such stuff!) he resumed his toilet, by drawing out of his other trunk his blue surtout, with embossed silk buttons and velvet collar, and an outside pocket in the left breast. Having smoothed down a few creases, he put it on :-then, before him the little vulgar fraction of a glass, he stood twitching about the collar, and sleeves, and front, so as to make them sit well; concluding with a careful elongation of the wrist-bands of his shirt, so as to show their whiteness gracefully beyond

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