ber on the brassplate on the door, he would, if he could articulate, frankly confess he had utterly forgotten! But we cannot now comment farther upon the duellists or drunkards; for our great monthly coach parcel (an additional pair of horses is allowed the mail on that day) has just been rolled through the outer and inner shops right into the Sanctum, by half-a-dozen porters-cords cut-ten ply of strongest brown ripped off-and, lo! on the very top of the supply,-Part Third of Monkeyana, lying snug and soft in thinnest silk-and not a wrinkle or crease on the ingenious emble matical frontispiece!

It is positively the best of the three The first plate in the number, with the motto "Great skill have they in Palmistry," is, it appears to our recol lection, a parody, it may be said, on Sir Joshua's famous picture of the same subject. The grouping of the principal figures is the same, but in Sir Joshua's, the nymph who holds out her delicate hand and arm, her most sweet, and fair, and dainty palm, to the fortune-teller, is of ducal déscent, and he who represents her lover is, if we remember aright,-if wrong, 'tis of no consequence, a portrait of her noble brother;-whereas, here, the nymph is only my lady's maid, and her lover, my lord duke's favourite black footman, both represented by monkeys. My lady's monkey-maid is in a truly languishing love sick condition, and listens to the old monkey witch, with a face of leer ing fear that is exceedingly touching lying all the while amorously, but by no means immodestly-for she is far from being a naughty nymph between the supporting knees of the enamoured negro, her head, from which the leghorn has fallen back, with its flaunting ribbandry, resting on his shoulder, while one of Blackie's hands is protectingly placed across her neck, and the other held out open-fingered, in astonishment at the sibyl's predictions. His bright bound, glistening, cockaded, full dress livery-hat becomes him most gallantly fixed" with an air" on his woolly knowledge-box-the breast-pin spark les on his frill-and altogether he is evidently a very killing man of colour, The leg, on the knee and thigh of which Abigail reposes, is of unmistake able African origin, what little calf VOL. XXIV.

there is being high up, and the shin bone, with that princely protuberance especially belonging to the royal line of Congo.

"Souls made of fire, and children of the sun, With whom revenge is virtue."

alternately of Molineux and RichHis fine physiognomy reminds us mond, Sutton, Johnson, Stevenson, Robinson, and Josh Hudson's black fail to cut out some work for the best were he to enter the ring he could not of the heavy weights. What the palmist may be muttering to the Be trothed we shall not, if we can prevent ourselves from doing so, conjecture; yet it is plain that she is in possession of some secret, which they had vainly imagined was known but to their two selves, and that she scruples not to hint that they

“Have loved, not wisely, but too well."

There is not, however, any symp toms about the figure of the lady's maid betraying that she is seriously amiss-although the sibyl is recommending marriage before she lose her place. The phiz of massa, however, now, that we look rather more scru tinizingly into its expression, has something we don't altogether approve. He looks like a red wolf in a black sheep's clothing, and we fear may prove a Popish recusant. Meanwhile a monkey-imp of a child, slung on the beldame's back, is playing tricks with her hood, and amusing himself with pulling out grey hairs. Yet, after all, we believe there will be a marriage and Mulattoes, who by the by, are just like pigs, pretty little yellow squeakers as long as they are pigs, but get horridly ugly as they grow up into hobbletyhoy boys and girls, sows and boars. However there is nothing in such a perspective or prospective to deter a white lady's maid from enter ing into lawful wedlock with a black Duke's footman, so let the bans be published forthwith, with as little delay as the canons of the church will allow, and the marriage ceremony bę performed by the Rector in their own parish church. So wishing joy to the pied one-flesh, and a honeymoon, if the arrangements of the Duke and his daughter for the summer tour still hold good, at the Lakes, Keswick, Ambleside, Lowood, and Bo'ness, where the accommodation at the inns G

is excellent, we bid adieu to the Betrothed; and after a hasty and pleased glance at plate second, a Beadle or Verger, or some such officiary drest in a little brief authority, and with gold-laced cocked-hat, and cane, dispersing a triad of monkey lads, who have been playing at pitch and toss on the steps of a church, we presume on Sunday, and who sprawl off in a scramble of much variety and animation; and after another glance, as hasty and as well pleased, at plate third, representing a Client in the clutch of a well-briefed and better-feed Barrister, a client who, from his infatuated earnestness, is manifestly a plaintiff about to be non-suited, with costs, not overlooking the Fable of the Cats and Cheese in the middle, nor the picture of a man putting his head and shoulders into a lion's mouth in the background,-we eagerly pounce upon plate fourth, which to us is one of the most exquisite treats ever furnish ed by the fancy of a painter. For lo! two well-matched Monkeys are at it hard and fast with the gloves, on the stage of the Fives Court!

"Lay on, Macduff; And damn'd be him that first cries hold, enough!"

We never saw Turner and Randall, (those illustrious heroes now defunct, and who have taken their place among the immortals) set to, but we have seen as good ones as they,-aye, and better too, Mendoza, and Ward, and many of the best men of that era,George Head the Inimitable, who could knock you down out of distance, and though but an eleven stone man at the most, licked Giant Gregson to his heart's content, like winking with in the rules of the Bench-Tom Belcher, yet glove-champion of the ring, notwithstanding his late unfortunate muffler-fight with white-headed Bob, and that Tom is now somewhere about the half-way house between the fortieth and fiftieth mile-stone on the high road of life-his great antagonist, the undefeated Dutch Sam, undefeat ed, till in his spindle-shanked, bellows. to-mend, and fist-enfeebled premature old age, he fell a Jew-confounding and cleaning-out sacrifice beneath the maulies of Nowlsworthy, then Master of the Rolls, who in his turn bit the sod beneath the terrific punishment of that unconquered antic Scroggins, "the gentlemanly kind of man,'

to say nothing of the immortal Jem, before whom no man could live, till Pollux, jealous even in his star, struck him with a racket-ball into a Monops, and then, indeed, shame to the gen tlemen of England, Belcher the Great, Pride of the Nursery, Hero of Moul sey-Hurst, and Champion of England, that is, the world—with all but hope and confidence gone, for strength left him in the ring as he stripped, and went over to Hen Pearce-sank with all his laurels beneath the Game Chicken, then new Lord of the Ascendent, and afterwards, in two cruel combats with Tom Crib, then known by the cognomen of the Black Diamond, now Ex-Ex-Champion ;-nor yet to speak of John Jackson, the Unapproachable, the best-made man from top to toe in all England, not one weak point in all his matchless frame-strong, steady, straight, rapid, resistless, terrible, before whom, while yet a stripling, Few terell the Philistine fell, and who did Mendoza, not giving him a chance, under the ten minutes, flooring him every round as butcher felleth ox."

We pretend to no great nous in ring-affairs; but we have gumption enough left to admire the ingenuity of our amiable friend Pierce Egan, as honest a man as lives, and as thorough a trump,- -no less to admire the quaint originality of the facetious and acute John Bee, and the amusing varieties of the Annals of Sporting, Sporting Magazine, and Bell's Life in London. These excellent writers have vindicated the science of pugilism, and the characters of its prime professors, from the ignorant reproaches of a set of senseless blockheads, incapable of comprehending and appreciating the native spirit of heroic England. As friends of humanity, they have supported the ring at the points of their pens against all gainsayers, and proved to demonstration, that were it not for prize-fighting, without which, it is plainer than a pikestaff that pugilism could never flourish as a national custom, there would be for one death by fisty-cuffs, at least fifty, to say nothing of downright assassinations and murders, with iron-bound wooden clogs, case-knives, razors, pistols, and blunderbusses. One or two of the Judges of the land see this nearly in its true light—as, for example, Chief Justice Best, a bright and a manly character, who

does not, like some old women on the Bench, who for the present shall be nameless, shudder at the thought of a clean knock-down blow, but is of opinion, that, on frequent occasions, a bloody nose and a black eye are badges of honour, which the best man in England may, if honourably acquired, wear with honour at market, and even, since the Sunday will come round re gularly, the latter badge-namely, the black eye, even at church. Pierce Egan, John Bee, and Christopher North, wish for peace among the people; and therefore they wish, that, to preserve it, as far as it can be preserved, the people should be taught the art of war. Perhaps a Chief-Jus tice cannot consistently with the pe culiar decencies of his office-which, however, when not founded in reason, are all a fudge-recommend prize◄ fighting from his seat. But he can shew what his thoughts and feelings are on the subject; and our present illustrious Chief may depend upon it, that in no part of his late admirable charges-admirable-on every pointdid the people of England go more heartily along with him, than in his panegyric on pugilism; a panegyric which should be written in letters of gold, and hung up in a handsome frame at the Castle, and all other sporting-houses of character and celebrity.

But see the Set-to! The Man-Monkey to the left has evidently the advantage in height and length; but his antagonist has it in weight by a few pounds, and his compact frame exhibits formidable muscle. Studies both, for the anatomist, the statuary, and the painter. Had that heavy right-hander, delivered at Jacco Mac co's smeller, not been caught by that accomplished pugilist's sloping right forearm, it might have been a floorer. The little one has mischief yet in his kidney-seeking left; and next time they hit out together, 'tis odds they counter. Jacco is leary as Aby Belasco, and is difficult to be got as Spring himself but his opponent will be in, he won't be denied, and at the weaving system we question if he has his equal in the ring. Look at him again, and say now, is he not in that attitude a phenomenon? But all the words in the world would fail adequately to ex

press the grotesquely scientific character of this inimitable Set-to. All is in perfect keeping-the faces of the spectators are all agrin, and agape, and aghast, and a-gloom, and a-glimmer, with the fluctuations of passionate emotion. The helmeted head of Lark❤ ins the Life-Guardsman rises nobly in the opening between the attitudinarians, towering over the crowd. And hark, how uproarious the applause! The monkeys, we beg their pardon, the men will be matched, we have no doubt, for a hundred a-side, to fight probably in the same ring, after the affair between Jack Carter and Jem Ward has come off-Jacco the favourite-guineas to sovereigns-and we should not wonder if the second battle were the better of the two, for Carter is a cur, and Ward a cross.*

*

We must now lay aside Monkeyana, and bid Thomas Landseer farewell. Twenty years ago, we should not have cared to have put on the gloves with him, and shewn that we too could spar a bit; for that he can spar well this plate is proof-positive. Now we are feeble on our pins, our hams are weak, and our knees totter, our right hand has forgot its cunning. Come down to the Lodge, then, our dear sir, and we shall hold out to you the right hand of friendship ungloved, and introduce you into the inner ring within our porch, where, during our light airy intellectual play, we shall have both a second and a bottle-holder. One brother at a time is best; so come down by yourself, and we do trust that you will give such a report of us as may induce each member of the family to go in by rotation. Edwin, we know, has been frequently in Scotland, and once or twice in No. 17; but we were then, most unfortunately, laid up in bed, with gout in every lith and limb of our body, and the greatest deer-and-dog-painter that ever drew an ear or an antler left Scotland by us unseen, but not unhonoured. Your pencil, your brush, and your graving needle, must all have, while you are at the Lodge, a holiday, except indeed for an hour or two, that you may leave us a relic of your genius, some exquisite bijou to be hung up in a sunny nook of the wall among the chef-d'œuvres of the Immortals.

WE have long been tired of the eter nal tameness and insipidity which are the prevailing characteristics of works of fiction in the present day. The poor novel-writers are evidently at their wits' end, and, to use a Scotch phrase, have already gone to the full length of their tether. Time was, that when stretched on our comfortable sofa, with a dish of Mocha, and a new novel, we were as happy as Sir William Curtis with punch and turtle. Now, though we still lounge and sip coffee, the novel forms no longer an item in our catalogue of pleasurable appliances. We can derive no amusement from a mere dull rifacciamento of old incidents dressed up in holiday finery for the nonce of republication by Mr Colburn. We are sick to death of the eternal remodelling of antiquated common-places; of the incessant outpouring of one vessel into another; the tame resuscitation of feeble and everyday characters; the persevering endeavour to concoct new mixtures from old ingredients,-ending, as all such attempts must end-in lamentable failure. There really appears as if there were something in novel-writing which numbs the faculties, and paralyses the energies of ordinary minds. We have thousands of firstrate men in the country, poets, philo sophers, political economists, magazine-contributors, historians, newspaper-reporters, and metaphysicians. Now, take these men each in their own particular department, read their historical, or metaphysical, or political treatises, their police reports, their essays, critical and moral, their poetry, and ten to one you will find them all respectable-some more than respectable-in point of talent. But strange to say, let any of these lights of the age sit down to indite a novel, and a change is at once wrought in the whole character of his intellect; his faculties desert him in his utmost need, and he sinks at once into a driveller. Where, for instance, will you

meet at a venture with three more talented and promising individuals than Lord Normanby, Mr Lister, and Mr Robert Ward? They are quite the sort of men one would wish to meet at a dinner party any day in the week; clever, personable, well dressed, and well bred; amiable in their domestic relations, pleasant travelling companions, chatty in a post chaise, and condescendingly communicative in the mail; good shots and quadrillers, far from despicable at Ecarté, and able, with some cramming, to accomplish a tolerable speech in the House of Commons. We appeal to any one if we have here overstated their merits, or whether, in the catalogue of these gentlemen's pretensions, one item could conscientiously be omitted. Yet take them as novel-writers, and they dis play a lamentable want of all imagin ative power. How utterly stale, flat, and unprofitable, (to any at least but the author and bookseller,) is the matter of their fictions! They present us with no new and vigorous creations they give utterance to no thoughts which bear the stamp of power and originality; all is tame, drowsy, unimpassioned and monotonous. They describe not men but manners; the manners too, not of large bodies of so ciety, but of a particular coterie, insignificant in everything but the rank and wealth of its members. Their motto uniformly is, "La sauce vaut mieux que le poisson." In their eyes the value is not in the matter, but in the cookery, and such hashing and rehashing, such mingling of fashionable condiments to disguise the staleness of their materials, as they are compelled to employ, it is altogether mar◄ vellous to contemplate.

It is but justice to observe, however, that many of the faults we have noticed, are faults as much of the system as of its individual supporters. Luckily for Mr Colburn there is a rage among vulgar people-and vulgar people form the great majority of the reading pub

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lie of the present day-to become acquainted with the manners, habits, and pursuits of those circles, from which they are excluded. It is quite wonderful to observe the interest excited East of Temple-bar, by a description of a ball at Almack's or a dinner at Park Lane. And if such things please these opulent and worthy persons, why, in Heaven's name, should they not be gratified? Why, if the people call for a stone, should Mr Colburn give them bread? It is his office to cater for, not to regulate the public taste, and he is not called on to decide, like a Paris or an Abernethy, on the value or wholesomeness of the viands which the popular appetite may demand.

Were we in a bad humour, which -thanks to a peptic pill of Doctor Kitchiner and a good dinner — we are not, we might go on in this snarling and captious strain, to the end of our article, laying about us with our critical shillelah, like an Irishman in a row, and occasioning fracture and contusion to many worthy individuals, who rejoice in Mr Colburn as their publisher. But this we shall not do for two reasons, The first is, that we are not in the humour. Nothing has occurred to exacerbate our temper, or stimulate our liver into unhealthy action, and we feel ourselves at the present moment in charity with all mankind. The second is, that beneath all our deceitful demonstrations of dislike or indifference, we have always had a sneaking regard for Mr Colburn. True it is, we never told our love, but let not our assertion be held doubtful on that account. We have done him good offices in secret, and now almost blush, even through our own emblazonment, to find them fame. Of many of the best articles in the New Monthly, we are the author. We wrote the Ode on the Bonassus, and the Elegy on the death of the Elephant in Exeter Change. For a much admired article on "Hats," which ap -peared some years ago, we may like wise assume credit, to say nothing of sundry contributions which we purloined from Blackwood's Balaam box, and which contributed in no small de gree to the celebrity of the New Monthly-But of this enough. We now say publicly, that we consider Mr Colburn a liberal and enterprising publisher, and an honourable man. We were paid

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punctually for all our contributions, at the rate of five guineas a-sheet, transmitted regularly, including the odd shillings, in a parcel by the mail; and though this rate of remuneration must undoubtedly appear small, we have no doubt that, under all the circumstances of the work, it is quite as much as could reasonably have been expected. We are always happy, therefore, when Mr Colburn really does publish a good book, to do our best to add to its popularity, by impressing it with the signet of our praise. As a proof of our good faith in this declaration, we do not hesitate to express our decided opinion, that the public now stand indebted to him for one of the best and ablest works of fiction which for a long time past has issued from the press. We allude to "The Kuzzilbash, a Tale of Khorasan." An account of which we intend shall form the staple of our present article.

Considering the almost universal attraction of Eastern fiction, and the number of accomplished travellers, qualified by long residence to afford true and vivid pictures of the manners of those oriental nations, among whom they have been sojourners, it does appear strange that so few efforts should have been made in a department of literature, so popular and engaging. That the task of filling the hiatus thus left, is most difficult, we admit; yet we have already seen the difficulties, great as they are, surmounted by at least one author, and only wonder that other writers, almost equally qualified for the task, should not have started forward to

"Partake the triumph, and pursue the gale."

The truth is, that the studies of a person who would acquire an intimate knowledge of the manners, habits, feelings of a nation, must not be limited to the journal of the traveller, or the researches of the historian. It is only from a series of individual portraits, by representing men in their domestic as well as in their public relations-by exposing to view, not merely their actions, but their motives, by exhibiting them, in short, as they exist in all their widely ramified con nexions, with religion, with govern. ment, and with each other, that an accurate judgment can be formed of the genius and character of a people. It