worthy your notice that is the tomb of Miss Fanny Flight; a celebrated beauty in her day: the green and yellow marble denotes the melancholy cause of her demise." "No doubt," interrupted the youth with the blue cravat, "And with a green and yellow melancholy She sat like Patience on a monument,' As Ben Jonson says. Egad! I thought I should whip in something at last." The guide looked a reproof at the impertinence of the stripling; and to a question from one of the ladies, as to what caused her death, answered, "A lover, madam." "Oh, sir, a rejection, I suppose." "No, madam, an offer: nothing more I assure you." "Die of an offer?" Yes, of an offer; read the epitaph: the lady, after death, confesses her errors with as much readiness as she denied them during her life." The partner of partners, the belle of the ball, And caring for none, though I smiled upon all, The parson, the merchant, the limb of the law; The merchant ran off with the niece of a Jew, And the squire" stole away" from the Village Coquette; A wharfinger's daughter at Stratford-le-Bow. When lo! pert and priggish, all congees and shrugs, I shudder'd-I sicken'd-I paid Nature's debt, "Hah! lively and lyrical enough," cried the quoter of Ben Jonson; "she seems to have died like the swan, with a song in her beak.” "What!" exclaimed a pale-looking girl, who walked arm-in-arm with her of the lilac bonnet, "died because she was courted by the apothecary? Impossible." "It is too true, I assure you," said the man in green spectacles. "I knew Miss Flight perfectly well: I once asked her to dance myself, but my green spectacles were an insurmountable obstacle: though I believe my evening coat had a black velvet collar; I rather suspect that helped to alienate her: at all events she told me she was engaged :-there her conduct was indefensible :-but, as 'touching the apothecary,' I think she was quite right. To be courted by an apothecary is a very serious matter. It is quite enough to kill any decent young woman. In every village within seven miles of the metropolis, there is a race of birds, a race of beasts, and one bat." "One bat? Lard! what has that to do with it?" said young Eye-glass. "I will explain," continued the narrator: "The esquire, the merchant, the justice of the peace, and, in some few cases, the attorney, being the upper folks, I call the birds. The butcher, the blacksmith, the exciseman, the tailor, and the gingerbread-baker, being the lower folks, I denominate the beasts. The apothecary flutters between both: he feels the pulse now of the merchant's lady, and now of the gingerbread-baker's wife is a little above par in the back parlour of the butcher, and decidedly below par in the drawing-room of the esquire-1, therefore, call him the bat. Miss Flight never could have married him: that was out of the question: so, her ammunition being all exhausted, and the birds not having been brought down, she did, what Bonaparte should have done at Waterloo-she quitted Love's service in disgust, and 'boldly ventured on the world unknown.' At this moment, our sibyl in black looked down a by-path; and, observing two women in deep mourning, made a motion to the party to stand aside, and let the mourners pass. This hint was decorously complied with. The sisters-such they evidently were-seemed to be between thirty and forty years of age, and with faces hid in deep black veils, hastily passed the party, and walked towards the gate of the cemetery. "Ah!" cried the guide, when they were out of hearing, "that is a lamentable case. Those are two maiden sisters. Their means are but small, and of course they lead but solitary lives. They had taken a beautiful little girl under their production, in whom all their affections were centered. She, poor thing, was taken off last month by a fever. They never pass a day without coming to her grave. I see they have gone through the gate; so we may venture to look at it." The monument was an humble one, and the inscription was as follows: Sacred To the memory of The 4th of September, 1822, Affliction's daughters saw this flower arise, By them 'twas raised-by them 'tis planted here, And bloom eternal in a happier sphere. SONNET. I SAW a happy bride-within a home Of wedded bliss ;-she smiled on one who loved Nor shed on all around a tenderer light. Her passing griefs were breath'd in happy sighs, A few short years, I pass'd that house again- M. sense. THE ADVANTAGES OF NONSENSE. "Dulce est desipere." HORACE. MR. EDITOR-I have long been impressed with a conviction which every day's observation and experience of life tends to confirm of the vast and immeasurable superiority for all purposes, whether of utility or of amusement, of prudence or pleasure, which nonsense possesses over I have long thought (and if I can overcome certain prejudices of education, and certain inveterate sensible habits in which you ridiculously persist, I intend to make you think too) that, under all circumstances, and in all seasons, the merits of that dull and impertinent quality called sense have been much, very much over-rated—and that, at least, in the present day, with our infinitely extended lights, advancement, and civilization, and philosophy, it is a quality as out of place and as obsolete as any of the most absurd notions of our ancestors, which we moderns reject as old-fashioned, and for which none but drivellers retain any respect. In short, as it would be the acme of absurdity for you to keep amanuenses to copy out the ten thousand copies of your Magazine, which I presume you sell, instead of employing the able successors of Caxton, in Dorset-street-for me to poison my hall with oil-lamps instead of using modern gas-for either of us to talk about the extended plain of the earth, since Sir Isaac Newton taught us better to read a word of Pope, since Mr. Sey has settled it that he is no poet; or to believe a word of Cobbett, when all the world knows him to be a bouncer by profession; so I hold, that any one is equally behind-hand with the spirit of the present age, who suffers himself, in the nineteenth century, to be a dupe to the long-exploded humbug of good sense. The fact is, Sir, the world have long ago imperceptibly and silently disabused themselves of this mistake; and though, perhaps, I may be the first open and professed advocate of nonsense, (certainly the first, whether open or concealed, in your pages) yet, in truth, I am only preaching a doctrine which our friends and acquaintances are perpetually practising, and still more recommending and illustrating by their writings. Now, Sir, imprimis, a few words of the advantages of nonsense in the abstract. Why, really the difficulty is to find any advantage or benefit in sense. It is a toiling, drudging, stupid, dull, splenetic, and churlish quality-wading and sweating through life with a load of care on its back, and a thoughtful melancholy on its brow-fastidious in its opinions-anxious about every thing striving after unattainable improvements—souring its temperament with learned discussions and philosophical humbugsan enemy to enjoyment—a marplot of fancy-a blighter of gaiety-a destroyer of love-a damper of conviviality-in short, a gloomy, perverse, gnomish sprite, that thrusts its dry visage and croaking voice mal à propos into all the brightest scenes and most enjoyable moments of life. While my friend Nonsense, with gay and laughing aspect, trips lightly over the surface of things; enjoys them all-flowers and weeds, ore and dross, wine and lees; is never unhappy; never out of countenance; never thinks, and is therefore never perplexed; never feels, and therefore knows not grief; makes friends easily, and loses them lightly; succeeds in love; is caressed by the world; and received as a most fashionable, entertaining, and inoffensive companion at all the dinner-parties near Grosvenor-square. But you will say these are only trifling pre-eminences, mere third-rate superiorities; how stands the comparison in essentials? Does not sense lead to wealth and honours? Occasionally it does; but quite as often to the King's Bench, and the Quarterly Review. Was not Sheridan in the Rules, and Brummell at C-House? Is not Rin the Gazette, and G. in the House of Commons? Did not poor Savage die of famine, while the silly Lord Macclesfield was a peer of the realm? Is not C-ge in Grubstreet, and W—in the cabinet? Ask A-, and D— and S, and half a score more, which is the easiest and the surest road to millions, and woolsacks, and coronets, and club-houses. Why was Bblack-balled at the Literary, but for writing some of the most sensible articles, and making some of the most anti-nonsensical speeches ever written or made? and why was L admitted at the same ballot, but because he never composed any thing but a cheque on Coutts's, and never made a speech except once at a Bible-society meeting, on proposing to supply the inhabitants of Coo-Coo with a bale of Mrs. H. More's Cœlebs? Then, in short, Sir, what is common sense, or any sense, good for? Does it make men loyal and well affected? No-for is not Twiss a king's man, and Burdett a radical? Does it make men patriots and friends of the people and constitution? Then why are Hunt and H-se popular, and why are Canning and Peel not so? Does it then conduce to piety? Alas! alas! Hume, Rousseau, Gibbon, and Voltaire, with sense enough to beat the whole united field of modern witty-kins, were little better than downright atheists; while Van and Bragge B― go to church twice, and read evening prayers to their servants. In morals, also, I must assert nonsense has it hollow, and the morality of men now-a-days is unhappily too often in exactly the inverse ratio of their sense-while their sensuality is in the direct ratio of it. If you would but abandon your absurd pertinacity in favour of sense, and mind, and all those illusions, you would at once be extricated from a dreadful hobble on the moral score in which you men of sense are involved. Come over to my notions, patronize nonsense and no-meaning, and their votaries, and abandon men of sense, and you will find yourself at once in the most immaculate society of regular moral men -good fathers of families (in the right way), exemplary masters, diligent church-goers, and assiduous tithe-payers and tithe-receivers; instead of being driven to consort with such a set of rakes and roués, graceless wits and ungodly bards, as you now put up with from a childish attachment to sense and talent. Take my advice, keep company with the British Reviewers and the readers of the Christian Observer and the British Critic, and you will soon admit that nonsense is the best preservative of morals and decorum, and dullness the finest antiseptic possible against the corruptions of this wicked world. But, Sir, hear the testimony of the most sensible of men themselves, hear their own estimation of those supremacies of sense and mind which the deluded world so much admire. What said Solomon, the most sensible of all? why that every thing, sense and learning included, was mere vanity; and did not Socrates, who had toiled all his life after wisdom, come at last to the satisfactory conclusion that all his knowledge only taught him that he knew nothing?-truly a pleasant discovery at the end of sixty years consumption of brain and midnight oil! If these were mere sayings of these great (I mean these nonsensical) characters, I should not attach much weight to them, but only ascribe them to the perverse propensity of great men affectedly to under-rate the qualities and characteristics by which they are alone distinguished; but when we remember that the said first-mentioned contemner of wisdom illustrated his own aphorisms by keeping three-score times as many wives and concubines as any the most nonsensical man could possibly know what to do with, without the assistance of his friends, and that Socrates suffered himself to be henpecked by a jade, in a way that none but men of learning and genius ever do, one must readily admit with them that wisdom is the weakest, and sense and learning are the most nonsensical things imaginable. Aristotle, Cicero, Bacon, Pope, Johnson, have all come to the same conclusion of the utter nothingness of sense and knowledge. Now, Sir, if nothing and nonsense are what we are to arrive at in the end, I confess I prefer the shortest cut. I would go tout droit au but. If nonsense is the ultimate goal, straight to the mark, say I. I like to travel as the crow flies; no toiling for me up mountains of science, amongst crags of philosophy, and sloughs of learning, and fogs of controversy. Why trudge over Highgate-hill when one can canter through the archway; why imitate these men of profound vanity and erudite folly, and philosophical nonsense-the Platos and Lockes, and Humes, and Wartons. Surely it is much easier and more satisfactory, and more rational, and certainly more popular, to be plain downright jackasses and noodles at once, like our friends A. and B. and C. and D. and E. If, then, nonsense is a happy, popular, and fashionable companion, cherished by the great-admitted to a seat in the cabinet-returned with triumphant majorities to the house-a staple commodity at Murray's a favourite contributor to Magazines-a pious, loyal, and churchgoing subject-moral and domestic in habits a good believer, and the quintessence and result of all knowledge and all philosophy, I do maintain that nonsense attains and fulfils in a very easy and delightful and toilless manner, almost, if not quite, all the good ends and purposes of life, and that it is one of the most absurd and hypocritical cants, of these canting days, to affect to quiz and ridicule and despise so main an engine in the affairs of life, and so considerable a contributor to the fame and fortune and pleasures of individuals. Now, Sir, let me ask what is the most delightful of all passions? Is it not that which is the nearest allied to nonsense?-which laughs at philosophy, makes fools of philosophers, baffles wisdom, turns the heads of all the world, from the palace to the cottage, and makes all men, from the gravest statesman to the silliest miss, write, and talk, and wish, and hope, and think, and do the most preposterous nonsense that ever entered into the brain of nonsensical man? And think of the importance, and results, and influence of all this very nonsense and twaddling; think of the which grow Relations dear and all the charities Of father, son, and brother, and luxuriate from this fruitful stem; think of the volumes written on it; think of the blood shed for it Nam fuit ante Helenam mulier teterrima belli of the intellect, the time, the energies, devoted to it; the dynasties overthrown, the crimes committed, the laws enacted, and acknowledge |