CARICATURES FROM "RANK AND TALENT."
By a dispensation of the printer and pages, last week, the better half of our notice of Rank and Takne—the selection of specimens —was divorced from its mate, the criticism. We cannot reunite the parts into one article, but we make the only amends that is left to us.
AN Iota: Gar.:AT strolled into Pall Mall, and was very sleepy; and he stood so long rubbing his eyes and stretching his arms at the gate of St. James's Palace, that he positively set the sentinels yawning. He smiled at the effect of sympathy : and the sentinels also smiled, modestly and with the appearance of great gratification ; for it is a high honour to be smiled at by a man of rank and consequence ; and they knew that he must be a man of rank and consequence, because he was very sleepy and did not know what to do with himself. To keep himself awake, lie walked along Pall Mall, but not very fast, lest he might have too much time on his hands when he should arrive at the other end. Then he threw the contents of his snuff-box into the street, that he might have the amusement of getting it filled again at Pontet's. When he had, by dint of great exertion to walk slow, arrived, after a quarter of an hour's sauntering, at the little snuff-shop at the corner of the street, he felt almost fatigued enough to enjoy the pleasure of sitting down; and he accordingly took his seat.
A Carnoric Preiasr.—As Markham was retiring, he met at the drawingroom door a strange mysterious looking personage, dressed in black, and having a look of gloom and darkness far beyond any darkness of attire. The stranger fixed his eyes inquiringly on the young barrister, and by his looks seemed to rebuke the young man as an unwelcome intruder. Markham again looked at the stranger, not from any wilful curiosity, but almost through a power of fascination. Never had he seen a countenance of such singular and curious expression. It seemed not only unetrlish, but unt.arthly. The eyes were large, flat, and lustreless; the checks long, narrow, pendulous, and sadly yellow ; the nose aquiline; the forehead ION': and wrinkled ; the hair thick and grizzled ; the mouth wide and the lips thin and pale ; and the teeth long and irregular, and :cit.:matt:1y k id yt It like the keys of an old harpsichord. Mark ham sielsened at : he guessed what the stranger was, and so can our readers. [This sounds somewhat illiberal; which the author is not generally. We must do Father Martini the justice to 5ay that he turns out better than he looks.] A CITY 1)Axier's Cane.—A very tconomical piece of card, whereon, its edges having In en previously or sultsequently gittiad, was engraved in good bread old English characters, liar. :4-1,6aar .*afonionf.', ; and in a snug sly corner, in a very small neatly engraved character, a. .7Iary Axe. IDLENESS THE SOUL OF NOBILITY.—Wealth, it appears, is always honourable, and always honoured ; but there are various degrees in which it is honourable. That wealth is most honoural which has been handed down through many generations, and which his been acquired nobody knows how and nobody knows when. That wealth is less honourable which is the obvious result of commercial di4nce, skill, and activity : but in process of time, as the inheritors of that wealth grow more ignorant of the means by which it was acquired, it becomes more honourable. There is some degree of honour in possessing wealth by means of marriage with an heiress, even if that heiress inheritmercantile wealth, pro.. vided that the person marrying the said heiress never did, or attempted to do, or was capable of doing any thing to provide for himself. There is honour also in wealth acquired by commercial skil, but that honour is of a very equivocal kind ; and those more highly favoured persons who have
descended from a long line of ancestors, who mien disgraced themselves by obtaining a livelihood for themselves, ought to look down with a proper degree of contempt on such individuals as lave, by using their un derstandings or employing their skill, acquired property for themselves. This is exceedingly appropriate and decent, in s country which depends on commerce.
AN ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY.—There VMS scarcely It piece of music which Miss Henderson could not play at sight : but her style of playing was such as to weary rather than to fascinate, and to listen to the young lady's dexterity on the pianoforte was called undergoing one of Miss Henderson's sonatas. There was the same hardness and absence of poetry also in her paintings. The outline was very correct, the colouring was accurate, the transcript complete; but there was no life in the living, no animation in the scenery. There was a provoking likeness in the portraits which she sometimes drew of her friends ; and so,proud was she of her skill in portrait-painting, that few of her acquaintance could keep their countenances safe from the harsh and wooden mockery of her pencil. Deriving a rich gratification to her vanity from her various accomplishments and miscellaneous acquirements, she fancied that her greatest happiness was in the pursuit of knowledge and the pleasures of science. [See the work itself, Vol. II. p. 106. for an excellent account of the prin. espies on which this kind of education is got up.] EXTRACT FROM ONE OF THE ABOVE YOUNG LADY'S LETTERS. (She is resigning her lover to her rival.) "I feel, I acknowledge, your superiority; andnot only do I feel and know it, but it is manifest to others too. Tippetson is your slave. Nay start not—I repeat it. Tippetson is your slave. I am well aware that I possess not the powers of mind to retain him. Clara, he is yours. Yes, my ever dear friend, Tippetson is yours. I surrender him entirely, unreservedly, calmly. Do you doubt it, my Clara ? Do you distrust me? Oh, no, you cannot. See how steadily and firmly I write. My hand trembles not, my cheeks burn not. No tear blots the paper ; nor do I repent what I have said, or wish it unsaid. Tippetson appreciates your merits." Vol. II. p. 194.
SPANISH AND ITALIAN EMIGRANTS IN A ROOM IN TOTHILL STREET
(Not a caricature.)—When arrived at the first landing-place, he heard a multitude of voices, which he naturally supposed to proceed from some gentlemen of the fancy. Without knocking at the door, he immediately let himself in, and found to his great astonishment, that he had mistaken the apartment. He found himself surrounded by a group of dark-complexioned, sallow-looking, unshorn beings; some of whom were sitting on the floor, others on crazy boxes and broken chairs, and all of whom were smoking cigars. The dingy dress they wore, and the faded decorations which were suspended on their left breasts, immediately proclaimed them to be emigrants. As soon as he entered the room, their voices were stilled, and they turned inquiring eyes and sickened looks towards him, as if to a harbinger of some intelligence of good. The moment thathe felt where and with whom he was then accidentally placed, his spirit sank within him ; and he did feel a compassion for the miserable objects that surrounded him.
A WEALTHY KNIGHT GUILTY OF HAVING BEEN A SOAPBOILER.—Sir Gilbert Sampson had been a soap boiler. True, but what of that ?—he had retired from business and had washed his hands of soap. He had been a soap-boiler—true, but whose fault was that ? Not his own : he had no innate, natural, violent, irresistible, unextinguishable propensity for boiling soap ; for if he had, Ile would never have relinquished the pursuit. The fault was his father's ; for had the fatherof Sir Gilbert been a duke, Sir Gilbert had never been a soap-boiler. As to the rest, Sir Gilbert Sampson was a man of good understanding, of extensive know.. possessingledge, possessin strong natural powers of mind, and altogether free from
every species of affectation The pleasure of his life was the company of a few old acquaintances ; but he tolerated parties when Miss Sampson could manage to assemble them. And this was not adifficulty, even though Sir Gilbert had been a soap-boiler : for his cook was not a soap -boiler, and his fishmonger was not a soap-boiler, and his wine.tnerchant was not a soap-boiler ; Sir Gilbert's dinners were very excellent; and those who partook of them praised them much, and did not say a word about soap while they were at dinner.
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