MR. POOLE'S PHINEAS QUIDDY OR SURER INDUSTRY.

Phineas Quiddy is essentially a farce expanded into three vo- lumes ; and as there is not much more matter in the way of scenes and incidents than is requisite in what a sailor might call a "well-found" farce, the process of expansion is often more curious than interesting. Sometimes it takes the form of a minute elaboration of the stage-directions ; soinetimes it consists in fill- ing up by description the externals which the actor presents to the audience, or the reader supplies for himself; occasionally it works by the process that the players, we believe, technically call gagging—that is, when a scene amuses in a high degree, it is continued beyond the point where the author closed it, by ha-ha Is, he-he !8, pokes in the ribs, and such other dialogue, or substitutes for discourse, as the literature and experience of the parties can supply extempore. Occasionally, Phineas Quiddy is extended by claptrap or stage morality spun out, or hits at public events current at the time of writing, (part of it was published piecemeal in a monthly magazine). The closing scenes, and some of the more serious narratives in the first part of the work, are the only passages in the usual style of fiction ; and even there the manner of the modern dramatist is not long dormant. Where not written in dialogue, or dialogue's accessories, the composition is that of a man who looks for the effect of what he writes to speak- ing rather than reading. He renders his diction forcible not by style but stress ; the Italic figure predominating in his pages, some- times showing where an entire sentence is to be emphasized, and sometimes only a phrase or a word ; nay, sometimes the wit con• sists in the proper stress being laid upon a series of syllables at intervals, like the pauses in verse—as " unromantic, unsentimental, unfine."

But though Phineas Quickly throughout exhibits the mind of a playwright exercising itself on a novel without due preparation, it is that of a very clever playwright. The book, indeed, has no sus- tained interest as a whole ; neither characters, incidents, nor ge- neral conduct, have any more than a stage probability ; there is no greater coherence between particular stages of the novel than there is between the acts of a modern melodrama, in which, by means of a programme to "instil the plot into the audience," any vulgar difficulties of time, place, or action, may be left out or jumped over ; and the composition is frequently wordy. But all of the farce proper is laughable—some of it very ; and Mr. Poom is excellent in describing what may be termed the acting of the dialogue—in touching off the general impression a player would convey or leave. Here is a little example of what we mean.

" Why, marm, as to that," replied Quiddy, with a sly look at the speaker, " mum ; I say nothing. The present Lord Mayor has two daughters and plenty of money —hem—ever see the Lord Mayor, miss ?"

" Never enjoyed that honour, Sir." " Great creature ! hardly any pride; well worth seeing, Mies." Then putting his hands into his pockets and stretching hie legs out to their full length, he added, in a tone of affected indifference, "Him and ine's intimate."

Beyond the obvious object of writing a sufficient number of articles to fill three volumes, and connecting them by something like a story, the purpose of Phineas Quiddy is to exhibit the green- room notion of " sheer industry." Active industry—the labour of work—is however, a thing, that the histrionic mind cannot rise to, and the industry of Phineas Quiddy is properly speaking no in- dustry at all. The hero begins life as shop-boy to a small tobacco- nist, in Cow Lane, Shoreditch ; and having by dint of parsimony accumulated a few shillings, he lends them out at enormous in- terest to labourers who buy at his master's shop, taking full-value pledges as security. Succeeding to a third and eventually to the whole of the business, Quiddy extends his assistance to small tradesmen in distress; then rises to the dignity of a bill-discounter at usurious interest ; and at last arriving at the grade of a general merchant or a warehouseman, achieves a plum, and has a pros- pect of knighthood, when Sir Phineas Quiddy that is to be is carried off' by apoplexy. This sort of career exhibits watchful attention, perseverance, hardness, and extortion, rather than plodding or any other kind of industry. The misnomer, however, would have been of no conse- quence had any true reflection of any kind of life been presented ; which is not the case in Phineas Quickly. Amusing though overdone and farcical scenes, no doubt, there are— as, in the first book, where Quiddy makes love to his master's widow, as well as in sonic of the interviews with the apothecary Mr. Swinney, the lawyer Grubb,

and Mr. Lickpenoy the lodger; and in the second book, (for the work, like the life, has its two sections,) where Mr. Quiddy is making love, and the dinner at Sir Gog Cheshire's. The whole, however, is heterogeneous ; and one can see the process of collec- tion,—a story heard as a fact, of some man who had risen by par- simony from an errand-boy to a tradesman, and accumulated pro- perty—some shrewd but vulgar and ignorant person, who had emerged from the counter to the counting-house, and whom the author had very likely fallen in with—frauds in business, and usurious transactions, coining out under examination in the Court of Bankruptcy—with town stories hitched in here and there, the in- cidents that fill up the outline being supplied by invention. This heterogeneity is injurious to any thing like a truthful effect ; which is still further reincved by the manner in which the previous habits of the writer influence every thing that passes through it—nothing in him but doth suffer a farce-change. This, however, gives a character to the work ; and the best or broadest of it is laughable.

A COCKNEY IN THE COUNTRY.

" I'll tell you how it is, Mr. Q.," continued the other. "A man who bus passed a Lunnun life all his days has but a dull time of it when he comes to settle down in the country. I've tried it, and it wont do. No, no; habit's habit. After slaving in my shop six days of the week, it used to be a pleasure to me toga out two or three miles into the country on the Sunday. Then, when rambling about the fields, without seeing so much as a row of houses—ay, sometimes for as long as five minutes together—and drinking in ths. fresh air, as one may say, I used to think, that if ever I should get rid of the turmoil of business, a country life would be the life for me! Well, as soon as I was a free man I took a lodging at Islington: and what can be more rural ? for there's man, Fields, Barnsbury Park, and--. Well, I rambled about (rem morning till night, having nothing else to do, and thinking I should never be tired of it : but, after the first two or three weeks, I sighed to he among any busy haunts again."

"I never knowed you'd got an aunt," said Quiddy, innocently. Without noticing the interruption, the other continued-

" And then when a rainy day happened to come! Oh, Mr. Q.! (with more of a groan than a sigh,) a rainy day in the country to a Lunnuner ! And then the Sunday! Formerly, when Sunday came, it was my hnlyday ; I used to go somewhere into the country : now, I had nowhere to go—rwas in the country. I declare to you, Mr. Q., that one Sunday after dinner I walked up to Shore. ditch, by way of change, and passed the whole afternoon in strolling about the empty streets in this neighbourhood ; and a great relief it was to me. Tarts are tarts, and very nice things in their way they are, and not a boy but likes them ; but 'prentwe him to a pastryeook, and give him nothing but tarts from one week's end to another ! So is the country to a thoroughbred Lunnuner, Mr. Q —a sort of heaven to visit, hitt a place quite the contrary to live in. I've tried it, I tell you, and know it."

A LODGING-HOUSE-REEFER. •

Mrs Fleecer was, in her way, an excellent woman ; but by this qualification of her praise, nothing more serious is meant than that she was subject to most of those little infirmities which are inseparable from her calling.. Ste was i's honest as the day : is lodger might leave gold untold scattered about his apart- ments, and it would be as safe as if deposited under triple locks in the deepest vaults of the hank; but his tea-chest, his coal-scuttle, the unfinished decanter of nine on the sideboard, were never benefited by her visits in his absence. She would scorn to charge him in his weekly bil's for commodities which had not been supplied to him; but his daily pennyworth of milk occupied a modest space in his tiny jug, and his pound of butter melted away, as if from Christ- mas to Christmas the year were one entire and perfect canicule. She would have cut off her own good right hand sooner than unlock his writing-case, or break the seal of a letter; but, should either be left open, there was no cogent lodging-house reason to restrain her from just taking a peep at their contents. These, however, were, as we have said, the infirmities of her calling—not her own.

THE USES OF SPELLING (TO A WRITER).

With this invitation Phineas readily complied ; for he took pride to himself for %hat he called "singing a good song." Ile was bleat with a loud, coarse voice : when singing, be swung his head from one shoulder to the other alter- nately after each word ; and in the delivery of the words, "carefully emphasized his blunders," as Miss St. Egremont formerly expressed it, "in ostentatious display of his imagined accuracy." " Which of nay songs will you have "? inquired he. "You know I only sing two, Sir G. Shall it be

" Ily the gaily eirclin' alarse

can sea 'ow minutes parse,

B) the 'ollow cask oe're told—"

" I prefer the other," said the knight-

.. Flow thou regal purple stream.

Tiuted by the solar beam."

And our convivialist proceeded to sing •• Flow—thou—regle —pupa—stream-

Tinctured-by- the solo -beam- Jo - my- goblet-sparkliti - rise- Cheer-my 'art-and glad my -heyes," Sec.

MR. QUIDDY'S SMALL-TALK.

"I have never seen them, Sir," [Gog and Magog,] said the lady; "are they in bronze?" "Oh dear, no," replied he, exultingly ; "as a citizen, I'm proud to say they are in Guildhall !"

He next evinced his taste and judgment by declaring his opinion that St. Paul's was "an uncommon pretty building,"—taking it for granted the ladies had seen that.

" It is indeed a noble edifice, Sir," said Miss St. Egremont ; "it is an en- during monument to the architect's glory."

"Monument! begging your pardon, miss," said he, (with a polite bow to excuse his correction of her mistake,) "St. Paul's has nothing to do with the Monument: that 's on Fish Street Hill, and is quite a different sort of thing. There 's a curious little anecdote about St. Paul's, ladies; built by Sir Godfrey 'Webster, when labour cost only a penny a day. Better times to live in for paying than receiving—ho, ho, ho! ' " I never," said Miss Si. Egremont, (with her eyes fixed musingly on the fire, and thinking aloud rather than addressing the observation to him,) "I never can look at that stupendous dome, majestically rising into the air, with- out experiencing a sensation of awe—without wondering at the power that raised it—without asking myself, How could it possibly have come there ; where did it come from ?' " " Why, miss," said Quiddy, " I hare heard it said that it came from Rome; that Sir What's his name took it from St. Peter's. Ho, ho, ho! if that's

true, we wish St. Peter's may get it back again But we don't believe such nonsensical stories now a-days. Something like the giants at Guildhall com- ing down to dinner when they hear the clock strike one—eh, Mrs. Fleeces? Ho, ho, ho!"

"Ha, ha, ha! Ridiculous!" responded Mrs. Fleeces; "but for my part, I never did much believe that !"