A Hundred Years APO
THE " SPECTATOR," DECEMBER 31ST, 1831.
THE COURT.
No news, says the adage, is good news. Of our good King, wo have this week nothing to announce. We could wish that we could be equally silent respecting the Queen ; but we regret to say, on the authority of those who are des propioree, that she has nape- rieneed a return of a cough which on former occasions has been found troublesome. The Windsor people anticipate from this cir- cumstance, that the Royal Family will soon return to the Castle, as the sea-air is not considered favourable to her Majesty's complaint. Whether their loyal wishes do not form the ground of their Lobel', is uncertain. The Brighton people, who have their wishes also, ridicule the notion of Windsor being drier than the coast of Sussex ; and we rather think they have reason.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR.
The Spaniards are poor ineomprehensive creatures. A modern traveller says, " give a Spaniard his shade in the summer, and his sunshine in winter; his tobacco, his melon, his dates, his bread, and his wine ; give him a hole to creep into, and put him within sound of a convent bell, and he asks no more ; or, if he is a respectable peasant, then give to him his embroidered jacket, his tasselled hat, his guitar, and his trieje_ (sweetheart) ; and it is a matter of in- difference to him whether Spain is sulcd by a Caligula or a Titus." We have known even Englishmen, who, if you gave them all they wanted, would not ask for more ; but such specimens of slavish content are not common.
A TERRIBLE STORY.
The passengers in Princes Street [Edinburgh] a few evenings apt, were thrown into a state of alarm and excitement, from a whisper, which quickly collected a crowd around a porter proceeding westward with a heavy-loaded creel, that he was carrying a dead body to the Royal Institution on the Mound, for dissection ! One affirmed, that he of the creel must either be a " Burke or a Bishop " ; while another, with more prying eyes, declared he saw the legs of the subject distinctly through the spars of the basket. There was no withstanding this last remark ; the bearer of burdens was instantly disencumbered of his load ; the dead body was hauled forth to public view, when lo ! it turned out to be a well-scraped pig
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