that ever gave battle; but the fortunate fall of a looking-glass so threw the lady off her centre, as to give me a very intelligible notice to quit; which I accepted accordingly: and backing out with the best grace I could muster, made my bow, and for that time escaped unhurt.

The next lady I addressed was, in her way, also a perfect living lie. She was of a certain age-the most uncertain, as Lord Byron justly remarks, in female biography.

I never heard nor could engage

A person yet by prayers, or bribes, or tears,
To name, define by speech, or write on page,
The period meant precisely by that word,
Which surely is exceedingly absurd.

She seldom appeared in open day without a veil, but sat at home in
rooms shaded with a verandah, and farther protected from the intrusion
of too much light by muslin curtains. She remained much on a sofa,
and rarely ventured to cross an open space without taking somebody's
arm, or at least drawing a large square shawl over her shoulders to
conceal the stiffness of her movements. Her hair was black and pro-
fuse, and her teeth white and regular: both, as Martial has it, were her
own; for the artists who sold them had been duly paid.
Her age was
eight-and-twenty-an age at which, for many years, she had pertina-
ciously stuck; though latterly, those who best knew her affirmed, that
she began to retrograde, and become annually younger as life advanced.
This affirmation, however, I was the less disposed to credit, as the
party herself was observed to allude to the subject much less fre-
quently than formerly, and therefore did not give her friends such
opportunities of knowing the truth from the best source. Her air was,
perhaps, too girlish and flirting for the time of life at which she chose
to remain, but then it betrayed a most winning innocence. Her pas-
sion was sentiment and fine feeling, and, except in the arrangement of
her marriage-articles, her notions were romantic and high-flown. I
had hitherto been so closely occupied in watching the progress of my
own deceits, in measuring every look, and guarding every expression
of my own carriage, that I had paid comparatively but little attention
to others; especially to those of the softer sex, with whom I had main-
tained but little intercourse. Like the "good saint," I

little knew

What the wily sex could do.

It is not, therefore, surprising, that with such an antagonist I was nearly bitten; and the "fair ruin" (to quote once more the Irish Anacreon) had nearly brought matters to an issue, when an issue which accident discovered, not "lawfully begotten," prevented our joining issue, and so put an end abruptly to the projected marriage.

It is not my present purpose to detail a long series of love-adventures: suffice it, that at length I did marry; when the truth, most involuntarily, on both parts, soon came to light. The lady had much fewer charms and many more debts than she had pretended, while my pecuniary obligations were at least ten times as many as I had ever ventured to disturb her peace of mind by alluding to. She had also concealed a long episode in her early life, not very compatible with virgin innocence; and I for my part did not mention a certain sentimental friendship I maintained with a widow, who benevolently reared VOL. IV. No. 20.-1822.

Y

a family of helpless infants, and encouraged them, in defiance of the law's intelligible axiom, to presume that they had a father, and that I was the man.

Being thus, as Father Luke has it, "settled for life," I had a spare stock of floating dissimulation on hand, which I determined on laying out on the canvassing of a borough. Here, Sir, I could tell you much of the false promises, falsely made and falsely received, in the obtaining a seat; the false interests represented by the sitting member; the false suppositions admitted in the forms of the house; the false tergiversations of rats, and the falser steadiness of more thorough-going partizans; the false arguments used to carry a cause, and the false statements made to cover deficiencies; but "lightly tread, 'tis hallowed ground." There are certain "six acts," which must cut short the thread of my narrative. Referring you, therefore, to Major Cartwright, Lord L, and other early friends of reform, I shall content myself with remarking, that in my own case the voters were worthy of the representative and the representative of his constituents. "Practices as notorious as the sun at noon-day," gave me the right of selling what I had bought; and in this part of my life I in no respect derogated from the dramatic unity of all my actions.

My next step in mendacity was made in diplomacy. But I was so far false to the definition of an ambassador, that all my lies were not told for the good of the country. Indeed, it would not be easy to say what good was intended by the greater number of them; for few of our plans had any intelligible scope. We most frequently struck into crooked paths and by-ways for the sole purpose of avoiding the high road of honesty and fair dealing: "Politiques aux choux et aux raves,' we were not unfrequently the dupes of our own art, and were often deceived by our eagerness to escape deception.

Notwithstanding the general belief that John Bull is not good in this department of state, and that, let him treat with whom he will, he generally ends, like a cully in a bad house, by being forced into a fight, and compelled to pay for the broken heads and glasses, to tip the watchman, and find bail for his good behaviour; still I should feel disposed to flatter myself with some success in this line, were I not obliged to confess, that in the modern way of doing business, more is obtained by the downright path of corruption, than by the most complicated scaffolding of ingenious fibs. It has now, indeed, become an axiom, omnibus et lippis notum et tonsoribus, that lying is only useful when you want to spin out a negotiation, but that for bringing matters to a conclusion, there's nothing like a Bank-note or a diamond snuffbox.

About this time I got (for once in my life against the grain) into another lie, quite equal to the rest-I was engaged in a duel! The affair originated in a lie; the courage with which I went out was a lie (for in reality it was sheer dread of being called a coward, and so losing the emoluments of office and the pleasures of society, that induced us to go out); the pretence on which we arranged an accommodation was a lie; the profession of regard which accompanied our reconciliation was a lie; the narrative we printed in the newspapers of the transaction was an abominable lie; and nothing was sincere in the whole business, but the satisfaction with which we left Chalk Farm in a

whole skin, and the chagrin of the by-standers that nothing worth the telling had happened to repay them the trouble of looking on.

Having thus arrived at the top of the wheel of fortune, by a natural consequence I began to decline. A series of unforeseen accidents have hurled me from prosperity. My diplomacy being rendered ineffectual by superior mendacity, I lost my place; a more promising and plausible candidate threw me out of parliament; a lie on 'Change, of which I was not in the secret, made me "a lame duck," and the false accounts of my partner put me into the Gazette. The only instance in which the Genius of falsehood has proved true to her disciple was in the lie which lost me my wife :-the poor woman happened to lie in a damp bed, and went off in a nine-day fever. I am now once more where I started in life, a little, perhaps, richer in experience, but much poorer in character. If you, Mr. Editor, will get me a few articles to write for the- -Review, well and good: if not, I must e'en take to writing lottery-puffs; or, if that fails like the rest, betake me to the least profitable, and, therefore most persecuted, of all liescommon mendicity. In the mean time oblige me by printing this letter; and it may meet the eye of some one who is willing to pay a good price for a good commodity, and once more set me a-going by employing the talents of your obedient humble servant,

FERDINAND MENDEZ PINTO. P.S. If you object to some parts of this narration as being commonplace, please to observe that the traits of falsehood and hypocrisy best worth relating, in my adventurous life, could not be told without subjecting your Journal to the suspicion of glancing at characters too elevated to ridicule, and too powerful to censure. I'd tell you more if I dared. M.

SONNET.

Translated from Petrarch.

Quel vago impallidir, che 'l dolce riso.

THERE was a touching paleness on her face,
Which chased her smiles, but such sweet union made
Of pensive majesty and heavenly grace,

As if a passing cloud had veil'd her with its shade :
Then knew I how the blessed ones above

Gaze on each other in their perfect bliss,

For never yet was look of mortal love

So pure, so tender, so serene as this.

The softest glance fond woman ever sent
To him she loved, would cold and rayless be
Compared to this, which she divinely bent

Earthward, with angel sympathy, on me,
That seem'd with speechless tenderness to say—
"Who takes from me my faithful friend away?"

E.

THE LONDON 'PRENTICES.

THE Author of Waverley is again upon English ground: Auld Reekie has been abandoned for "the faire and renowned citie of London-the blooming Augusta of the West-the seminary or seed-plot of martiall spirits;" and after having had evoked by this potent unseen wizard the spirits of malignants, whigs, and covenanters, of Scotia's bold chieftains, and rapparees, of our own King John and his haughty barons, we are at last presented with a view of the brave 'Prentices of Fleet-street, such as they were in the days of peaceful King Jamie. It may, perhaps, be imagined, that the might and importance of the 'Prentices with their clubs is exaggerated in "The Fortunes of Nigel;" but it is to be remembered, that in those days women, and not men, served in the mercers' and haberdashers' shops (Stowe's Survey); and that the 'Prentices were very different persons from the essenced petits-maîtres, who in our times value themselves not on their play at bucklers or broad-sword, but on the glories of ambitious Dandyism. So considerable a body were they, that a tumult excited by them in the year 1517, occasioned the happy holiday of Spring to bear the name of "Evil May-day."

"The sage Cardinal, whom the proud King of France did not disdain to court, and the great Sir Thomas More, who once bore the title of under-sheriff of London, were both made anxious by this affray: and the Duke of Norfolk, the Scourge of the Scots,' as King Henry called him, with 1300 men, entered the city to subdue the rioters! On the morrow, to the number of 400, some men, some lads but thirteen or fourteen years of age, they were led to Westminster Hall, when with halters round their necks they awaited the King's grace; and three queens, says the old Chronicler, Queen Katharine, his majesty's consort, Mary, the French queen, and Margaret of Scotland, his majesty's sisters, long time upon their knees implored the King to pardon the delinquents: which he did after a severe monition."

As during the French Revolution Paris was emphatically France, and concentrated within itself the energies of the empire, so did London and her population once hold in our own island a pre-eminence and importance, of which the progress of population, the growth of the wealth of the country, and the advancement of civilization, have now bereft her. Ere this change took place, her stout young tradesmen formed in the mass a body of no inconsiderable physical force, ready, moreover, and immediately applicable upon an emergency. We find accordingly that in all times of commotion the Apprentices were active and forward. During the Civil Wars, and the struggle with prerogative which preceded them, "the resolved," or "well-affected Apprentices," as they styled themselves, drew up many petitions and protestations and declarations. In the affair of the Bishops they were very active. Clarendon has inserted a petition which they on this occasion subscribed; and there is extant*

"A true Relation of the most wise and worthy Speech made by Captain Ven, one of the burgesses of the Parliament, to the Apprentices of London, who rose in Cheapside upon the combustion at Westminster, on Wednesday last at night, Dec. the 19th, 1641, as also the randevowes they had that night at the Counter in Wood-street*** The apprentices waiting at the Parliament-House three days without giving affront or ill-language to any,

Printed for R. H. Lond. 1641.

they did only with a full consent cry down 'Bishops and Popish Lords;' but coming home by slender companies were set upon by divers cavaliers, who did cut many, and misused most with base language, not only apprentices, but men of good rank and quality (calling them ram-headed rogues) to the great disparaging and disheartening of them in their trades and callings. But many apprentices being committed, and the others countenanced, caused them to swell in blood to adventure the losse of their lives; and they met to the number of 2000 on Wednesday last with clubs, swords, halberts, &c. and were resolved to go to the White Lion; and others cried, to my Lord Mayor,' but by the providence of God, and the grave wisdom of Captain Ven, they were prevented by the grave speech that followeth *

་

We spare our readers this oration. After its conclusion the narrative proceeds: "So they all cried 'home, home,' with a mighty noise; but some would not be satisfied, but went down to the Counter in Woodstreet." The affair ended in the sacking of that prison, and the deliverance of the turbulent Apprentices there confined.

The English have been in all times distinguished by that wholesome and honest pride which manifests itself in conforming to the condition of life, whatever it may be, into which the individual may be thrown: the national temperament is strongly opposed to the petty vanity of arrogating an equality with any class in society, to be ranked with which they do not possess solid and indefeasible claims. The English yeoman glories in his trim jacket, clean smock-frock and clocked hose; and is far above any attempt, ridiculous and abortive as it must prove, to ape the dress or manners of his superiors; but at the same time that he thus feels all the proprieties of subordination, such is the admirable effect of our institutions and free polity, that he has the fullest and most lively sense of the equality of all in the eye of the law. The sturdy Englishman will not abate a jot of the important privileges belonging to him as a freeman; but neither will he depart from what befits his station. Notwithstanding this is all true, and, though we have chosen our illustration from a different order, it is as certainly true of our traders as any order in the whole community, yet it does seem that vanity of a certain sort did at one period excite some emotions among the people of the city; that all were not of honest Sir Ven's sentiment, (see "Fortunes of Nigel," vol. 1.) and that Tunstall was not without sympathy in his lamentations upon the ignobility of the mechanic arts. There is a curious pamphlet entitled "The Citie's Advocate in this Case, or Question of Honour and Arms, whether Apprenticeship extinguisheth Gentry.*" It appears to have been written in consequence of the anxiety entertained by a certain gentle Apprentice, of a temperament such as Tunstall's, who, in a letter to his father, prefixed to the dissertation on this notable question, explains with great naïveté the origin of his sorrows. "By reading certain books," he says-we quote the passage in order to warn folk against the practices which may, it seems, tend to unsettle their minds”- "and conferring with some who take upon them to be well-skilled in heraldry, I am troubled with apprehensions that by becoming an Apprentice I lose my birth-right, which is to be a gentleman, and that I had rather die than endure."Whereupon the worthy old sire, with very proper spirit, declares, that

Printed for Wm. Lee, at the sign of the Turke's Head, next ye Miter and Phoenix in Fleet-street, 1629.