troops arrived at the edge of the moat, and followed him. Our HERO might then have justly exclaimed with his brother hero, Jack Falstaff, - I have led my rag-a-muffins where they are peppered: there's not three of my hundred and fifty left alive, and they are for the town's-end, to beg during life.' CHAPTER XI. VOICE. "Aut Cæsar, aut nullus." Есно. nullus. VOICE. "What the weak head with strongest bias rules, "Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools." Есно. fools. If it be permitted to those grave gentlementhe learned brethren of the coif-to foist Joe Miller's jests into their most serious business; we conceive that we may be allowed by those carping rag-a-muffins,-those satirical, critical, panoramal, cynical, venal, half-crown, eighteenpenny drudges, the Reviewers, to slip one of In fact, them now and then into a work, professedly designed for the public amusement. every man, who purchases eighteen-penny, or half-a-crown's worth of their prostituted trash, tacitly acknowledges that his own judgement is not worth so much. This growing evil is of too great magnitude to be treated of here, as well as foreign to our present purpose; but we may hereafter amuse the public with such private anecdotes of proprietors, publishers, and contributors to Reviews, as will enable them to guess at the mischievous contents of this new Pandora's box. At present, we shall only say that, in defiance to these Cerberuses, to whom we disdain to give a sop, we shall endeavour to please our readers in our own way, and they may go to the devil in theirs ;—so now comes the jest:-One of the kings of England having been prevailed upon, by the incessant applications of some of his courtiers, to knight a person, whom he knew would prove a disgrace to the honour; when he came to perform the ceremony, the unworthy object hung down his head, as if conscious of his demerits. "Nay, man," " cried the king, "do not be abashed; it is I who have the greatest reason to be ashamed of this act.". We know not who blushed when, soon after our HERO's flight from the Main Land, he was created Field-Marshal, and, on the death of the commander-in-chief, was appointed to succeed him. And yet, perhaps, had not his ancestors, by their victorious acts bequeath'd "Ilis titles to him, and wrote on his forehead, "This is a lord—he had liv'd unobserv'd 66 By any man of mark, and died as one We know, however, that if our hero did not blush for his honours, his honours might well blush for him. The Freelanders grinned at the idol-the Mars-to whom they were to look up as their Palladium. Ever since his swimming feat, they could not separate him, in idea, from a drake, now swimming, and then diving in a pond, to elude the fangs of the pursuing dogs. Indeed, the Freelanders have ever been remarked by their neighbours for a happy knack of turning all their misfortunes into a jest. They hoped, however, (we cannot say they expected) that the honour and importance attached to this high station would make our hero verify the old 6 Latin adage-Honores mutant mores: that is, that he would resolve, in Jack Falstaff's English paraphrase If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do;'—but he had too much spirit to adopt these tame plebeian notions. On the contrary, he shook his elbows, rattled the glasses, and firked the lasses, with more ardour than ever. Debts of honour, and debts of mistresses, increased on every hand; but who, that values his reputation, would be out of debt, when, as Pistol says,"Base is the slave that pays." Shakspeare. -To borrow is an act of prudence, as well as an acquisition of good fame, of honour and. respect. It is an act of prudence to borrow money, for who can tell whether the world will last till the day of payment? and, if it should hold out so long, "What fool so confident to say, "That he shall live another day?" -It is an acquisition of good fame, as all your creditors will be interested in bolstering up your credit, lest, if your prosperity should be doubted, they should lose their debts. They |