INTERESTING PUBLICATION. TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Seven Dials, Tuesday Night.
Stu—Having been induced by one of the Representatives of the fens of Lin- coln—not of the webfooted genus—to visit London, with the prospect of being, at no distant date, appointed Professor of Rhetoric in King's College, I have of late spent much time in preparing a course of practical lectures on Parliamentary eloquence. The recent lamentable reverse in public affairs Ina, however, effaced all my prospects, and left me no alternative but that of either introducing my works to the public through the press, or throwing them into the fire. 1 am too poor to be able to publish at my own expense, and can find no publisher of sufficient taste and enterprise to undertake the work at his. Perhaps some- thing might be done by subscription. Be so good as to allow the enclosed speci- mens the publicity of your columns.
I remain, your very humble servant, PEREGRINES ANSER.
SINCLAIRIANA.
Lord BYRON is made to speak in a published journal of his old schoolfellow, Cronus SINCLAIR, as a man of high talents. " What a pity," said a wit of the day, looking at the playground of one of our great English seminaries, " that all these nice clever lads should grow up into stupid Members of Parliament " GEORGE SINCLAIR is no exception to the rule. On the evening of Thursday the 17th instant, this ex-Liberal performed d voluntary Nune Dimittis in honour of the late Premier. One of his figures of speech excited considerable merriment. " They (the Reformers) find it much more easy to destroy the Doric column of the Conservative Government, than to raise the Composite pillar of its enemies." Nothing was heard of for some days but the chanter ot the " Doric lay." On Monday evening last, however, blaster GEORGE put an end to all wicked jokes by the only possible means—viz. by outdoing himself. and affording the jesters newer and rarer food for merriment. He attributed to poor Sir R. PEEL " a splendid and towering head ;" he spoke of tht " broken urns (quwre, pitchers that could hold no water ?) and fallen columns of the late Government; " he alluded to "the structure and symmetry of the new Minis- terial edifice;" wondered that they did not see before it "the colossal column of granite from the Giant's Causeway ;" and men prepared to "steer the course " of the edifice, column and all, "between the Radical reefs of Scylla on the one band, and the Conservative quicksands of Charybdis on the other." The Catholic miracle of the travelling house of Loretto was nothing to this Pro- testant miracle of a sailing edifice, with a granite column cut from a basaltic rock in front of it. It seems, too, that the materials of the " Doric column' are neither more nor less than "quicksands." The reporters do not inform ca how the Conservatives looked when they heard themselves compared (not un- justly, we confess) to such a universal absorbent. It would be difficult to jumble together in less space so incongruous a mixture of images as has been done by the "clever boy" of Harrow, "the stupid Member of Parliament " fur Caithness ; unless, indeed, they were tied up in a strait-waistcoat.
SIBTHORPIANA.
Who that has visited the Lobby or interior of the House of Commons but is acquainted with the modern Major Sturgeon—the gallant Colonel (of Mi- litia), who, in virtue of his military dignity, looks down upon bookmakers ot families twice as old as his own ? We mean the worthy who, at the suggestion of Dr. LIISHINGTON, doubled for one night only in the charactets of the above- named MajorSturgeon and the no less famous Jerry Sneak. This "whiskered Pandour " burst upon the astonished woild on Monday evening in a new cha- racter, illustrative of the equanimity of a losing gamester. Ilis good temper, for which he was deservedly complimented by Mr. O'Cosxcat., far excelled that of Sir Anthony Absolute in his celebrated " D— it, Jack, can't you be cool as I am?" His malediction upon the winning party was sublime. Al- luding to the benches on which they were seated, " he trusted they would always be to them thorny seats." The idea is not strictly new, being borrowed from the Gaelic. We cannot indeed say in what part of OSSI A N it occurs; but we know that down to the present day a similar evil wish is familiar to the enraged Gael.* He shortly after broke out into the following magnificent metaphor—" he looked to the opening of the ports and the inundating of the country with foreign corn." Here is a quite original argument against the repeal of the Corn-laws. The gallant (Militia) Colonel, inspired like his sainted brother GRESLEY, his eye " in a fine frenzy rolling," sees the superfluous corn of the Continent piled up against our ports so high that if we but open them it will fall in upon and smoother us. Impious wretches that we are, to grumble against our all-wise landowners! It would be but serving us right to lift the sluice and leave us to our fate.t He next assumed the tone and gesture of a Caesar, intimating his natural antipathy to a yet undetected conspirator. " Yon Cassius bath a lean and hungry look," said the bold Johns. " I do not like the countenances of the gentlemen opposite," said the bearded Sin- THOP.I.F. The winding up of Major Sturgeon's speech fully entitles him to be elected Mayor of Garratt at the next election. " He would only say, in conclu- sion, that he earnestly hoped God would grant them a speedy deliverance from such a band !" We have no doubt that it is a band which plays most dis- cordant music in the ears of the gallant Militia-man.
• "Truish an hone ;" which being interpreted means, Thorns in—ye-mt. seat sf honour. Perhaps some starved mechanic may say with BYRON- " Though that cloud were thunder's worst, And charged to crush him—let it burst !"
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