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with John Kemble not many nights since, when he expressed his surprise that an actor like him, who had acquired a competence to enable him to pass the remainder of his days in tranquillity, should vagabondise in the country, and at a time when every thing was in such a depressed state. My dear sir,” replied John, “what would you

have

a man do who wants bread to eat, which is really the case ? It is true that I realised twenty-four thousand pounds, but it is all locked up in Covent Garden, and the interest I have not touched for three years." theatre,” saith the elder Harris, "contained tolerably good houses every night for ten years to come, at the expiration of that period I should still be a poor man.

So much for theatrical property !" Your letter of the 29th ult. came to hand on Wednesday. I did not neglect to go instantly to Messrs. H- and B-; the latter received the bills the same day; he promised to send them by the first messenger.

L- and L s still remain without an invitation to the Great House. Most expensive preparations are making at Newmarket, in fitting up the Regent's usual residence in style fit for the accommodation of the Grand-Duke Nicholas, (the present Emperor of Russia)800l. expended in new furniture - the house new roofed, the exterior gilded- the interior decorations not yet determined on. motion has been determined upon, and will be announced in the Gazette to-morrow. Captains, down to Captain T. Boys, inclusive, will become rear-admirals; thirty commanders will be made postcaptains ; and thirty lieutenants, commanders. The usual proportion of midshipmen will be made lieutenants. Hereby hangs a tale !

Five o'clock - Nothing new. The Privy-council yesterday,'at Brighton, was employed in swearing-in Lord Combermere as Governor of Barbadoes.

London, January 7, 1817. The irresolution manifested by the heads of the Opposition has ruined their cause, and given ministers an opportunity of recovering from their panic. It is certain that had the proposed arrangements, viz., the meeting of deputations from persons in trade to petition for Reform taken place, the object must have been accomplished. True, indeed, is the adage that “procrastination is the thief of time," for had Lord Grey made up his mind to declare himself by leading the moderate party in opposition to Hunt and Cobbett, the cause must have eventually triumphed. This is the language of Waithman, who declared yesterday that the merchants and bankers would have rallied under his (Lord Grey's) standard. Waithman's disgust is extreme, he threatens to retire altogether from public life; he accuses Lord Grey with being an enemy to Reformn. Sir R. Wilson, who is the agent between the leaders of the Whigs and the new Reformers, says that Lord Grey could not commit himself in the way proposed ; if he had done so he would have been deserted by his noble friends. Thus stands the glorious cause of the Whigs. Ministers on Wednesday finished the business of Reform by the address from the City: a measure diametrically opposite to what was expected in the preceding week.

As a last effort, a meeting was held last night at Lucas's house in Piccadilly, when a proposition was agreed to, namely, that Lucas should take the chair at the Freemasons' Tavern to-morrow se'nnight, and that Lords Grey and Holland, the Duke of Bedford, &c., should be invited to the

Sept.-VOL. LXXXI. NO, CCCXXI.

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dinner;-all these efforts will be fruitless, the whole will sink into a military despotism.

It is true that the address from the City was supported by certain moneyed men, but were they not all of them jobbers and contractors? Can you find one independent man in the list ? This is the language used by the Opposition; they seem to have recovered a little, and Lord Grey pledges himself to attend the dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern. The committee wish the leading men in the Opposition to put down their names as stewards.

The Fitzwilliams are not yet gone over; the Grenvilles are quiet! Grey is certain that if he stirs in favour of reform, they will desert him, and Lauderdale condemns in toto all attempts at reform. He says, trenchment and economy are the only games likely to succeed.” Grey, Wilson, Bedford, Tierney, and the whole of the Opposition were at the levée yesterday—it was one of the greatest ever known.

Four o'clock.-Tierney will not meet the Reformers at the next dinner. You may thence conjecture what is going on.

January 8th, 1817. Not only is the revenue altogether inadequate to meet the charges imposed on it, thus falsifying the hopes of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it is every day becoming less effective for that object, and its decrease when compared with the produce of the corresponding quarter of the former year, is no less remarkable than its deficiency in the present when balanced against the expenditure.

The American ambassador said yesterday in the City that the funds in the United States were, he had no doubt, at par on the 1st instant.

The Opposition are persuaded that the rise in the French funds on Thursday last was produced by a favourable answer given by our cabinet to the proposition recently made by the French government.

Castlereagh is gone down to join the circle at the Pavilion. Liverpool (much to his satisfaction) is also admitted. The noble lord, however, did not receive a direct invitation ; he attended the council held on Thursday, and the Regent thought he could do no less than ask him to stop for a few days.

The proprietors of the Courier were attacked on the Stock-exchange on Monday for having asserted that ministers would not require a loan. They excused themselves by saying that Mr. Vansittart had deceived them.

Three o'clock.-A rumour is in circulation that ministers mean to revive the property-tax ; it is pretty general in the circles at the WestEnd of the town this morning; even the Treasury-clerks speak of it.

You will perceive from a paragraph in the Chronicle that government have sent circulars to all the tax-gatherers to collect the arrears. A reverend doctor detailed the following anecdote at RM's this morning; “ The collector for the parish of St. George's, Hanover-square, waited last week on a duke, a Welsh baronet, a colonel who holds a place at court, and a sinecurist in the West Indies--they each declared their inability to pay. Be so kind,' said the collector, 'as to make a minute in my book to that effect.' They did so, and then the tax-gatherer departed. Attending the board the next day, he presented his book. "How is this?' exclaimed one of the commissioners. What, not pay their taxes ?-measures must be taken. In the next sheet the deficiencies were so lamentable

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that only four houses had paid. The commissioners were in a rage with the collector. Look on the next sheet,' rejoined the collector. The commissioner looked, and what do you think he found ?-—why his own name among the defaulters."

London, January 10, 1817. Letters are said to have been written by Lord Castlereagh to several noble lords, the friends of the administration, in which is urged that the imperious necessities of the state require a renewal of the property-tax, and that the accomplishment of such an object can alone secure the welfare of the country: his lordship therefore hopes they will support the measure, as by giving up a part they will secure the greater proportion. Land is getting up; large purchases have been made within the last fortnight. The confident assertions made by the adherents of ministers, that time only is wanted to restore things to their level, have given a new stimulus to those adventurers who have realised fortunes by the war. In the meantime, the indifference manifested by the people borders upon apathy. Trade is now wholly at a stand! All the leading streets Bond Street, St. James's Street, Piccadilly, Pall Mall—are still deserted. The shopkeepers are in a state of insolvency at the West-End ; three out of four counting-houses are shut up. A trading house, which six months since engrossed the attention of fourteen persons, now employs a clerk and a boy at the desk. Delusion and dejection alike prevail—we are a divided people!

Our merchants are not so much to be pitied! they have lived too fast -much above their sphere--rivalling the nobles of the land. To detail the sumptuousness of their houses, tables, equipages, would exceed belief. I recollect dining a few years ago at B—'s, at Camden Place, Chislehurst, when I saw a dairy which cost 10,0001.-it resembled a Roman temple.

The Opposition are getting into better spirits, they entertain a confident hope that the new club will give them an opportunity to retrieve their lost characters. One awkward thing attends them—they mistrust each other-even the leaders, Grey, Holland, and Lauderdale. A friend of the latter said lately, Lauderdale humbugs Grey.

Lords Rolle and De Dunstanville, I am assured, have received letters from the ministers relative to a property-tax, recollect, not an income-tax. It of course will affect the land and the funds only.

Lord Liverpool is just returned from the Pavilion-Castlereagh came on Wednesday night-L- has not been invited; he cannot account for the neglect, and feels humbled and mortified ; for many months he has trembled for the safety of the system, but it appears likely that he will sink before it.

Tierney says this morning, “They mean to raise a loan of thirteen millions, and take the same in exchequer bills, the latter to be funded for a certain time, perhaps.

Every one is impatient for the opening of Parliament. Prodigious interest is excited by the defalcation in the revenue, every one is anxious to know what will be the measures resorted to by ministers. Country gentlemen say, if the property-tax is proposed the ministers will be discomfited. Tierney thinks it the most equitable mode of proceeding:

The Prince Regent never appears abroad : the only exercise he takes is in the riding-house; Lord Castlereagh’s mode of waltzing at the Pavilion created many a hearty laugh : at the ball given in honour of the Princess

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Charlotte's birthday, his lordship surpassed even himself ; Lady Charlotte Cholmondeley was his partner. The quadrilles danced by the beautiful Mrs. Patterson (Jerome Buonaparte's first wife) and the Misses Caton, elicited the warmest panegyrics from the Regent. Among the novelties of the day was the making Henry R- a knight, who has since solicited the Prince to be unmade. The Regent said he would accede, provided a fine of a hundred guineas was paid.

Not ten people can be found at any of the club houses in the course of the day, “ stat nominis umbra.”

London, January 14, 1817. An extraordinary sensation was produced yesterday by a reportin the best informed circles, that the Honourable Thomas Grenville means to move in the House of Commons for the reduction of his own sinecure and that of his brother. The Marquis of Buckingham is equally well disposed. The Marquis of Tavistock will commence the business, by moving for Parliamentary Reform in the Commons, and Lord Holland in the Lords. The whole of the Grenvilles are said to be most decided in their coalition with the Whigs; and a friend of the latter, in a tone of high exultation, assured me yesterday, that Lord Grey had completely succeeded with Lord Fitzwilliam, to their great surprise.

The Lord Mayor dines with the tradesmen at the Freemasons' Tavern on Friday next, also Williams the banker, a man highly respected in the city, Charles Calvert, from the Borough, brings six; perhaps there will be a hundred persons assembled together-it is not a meeting called by advertisement. The Whigs say that this call will be the salvation of them. Lord Holland takes the chair at the second dinner, when the party calculate upon bringing a hundred members of the two houses!

The resolutions have passed through the hands of Lord Holland, who has revised them. A Mr. Lucas, who has a house in Piccadilly, is the projector of the whole scheme ; he is a manufacturer of cotton twist in Lancashire, and has now an order for the Russian market ; it is to supply it with that material for fifteen months, at the rate of 10,0001. worth

per month.

Amidst all this, the Court is lulled into a state of apparent security. The ministers have assured the Regent that they shall be able to carry on the affairs of the state without any difficulty through the medium of accommodations from the Bank. They are also most confident as to the friendly disposition of a great northern power, and that the rumours to the contrary, are mere chimeras of the brain—the work of the Jacobins. " A vote of credit for ten millions, a fresh issue of Exchequer bills and a trust in Providence, will enable the government to go through the year," so said David Ricardo yesterday upon 'Change.

Three o'clock.--Tierney, speaking of Prince Talleyrand, admits the truth of the appeal, but he says, the conversation alluded to formed only a part of the subject connected with it. The ministers say, that the Dukes of Bedford and Devonshire are spending half their fortunes in the above object ; i. e., the meeting for reform : they are quite in the dark. You would scarcely believe the impression this stir has made.

“ If it succeeds, Cobbett falls into the back-ground," so say the Whigs.

At last, Lhas been invited to the Pavilion ; he says, that he is in greater favour than ever. Now, what think you? He actually calculates upon the circumstance of Castlereagh calling him, “my dear fellow;" and daily corresponding with him.

THE OUT-STATION; OR, JAUNTS IN THE JUNGLE.

BY J. WILLIAMS GRYLLS, ESQ.

CHAPTER III.

DEALINGS WITH THE FIRM OF BRUIN AND CO.

SC

For my own part, I always entertained a very decided penchant for the whole bruin family, individually and collectively.

Whether it is the off-hand affectionate greeting with which they are ever ready to welcome a stranger (although, unfortunately, like that of the amiable youth, Manfred, their “embrace is fatal”), or whether it is the bluff, stolid, pig-headed, John Bullish way they possess of “ doing business,” that won my affections, is of no possible consequence to the reader. Suffice it to say, that I own, unblushingly, the soft impeachment; and very seldom ever put myself out of the way to murder in cold blood one of the innocents.

Our major abominated, or, more bruinically speaking, could not bear the bare idea of them.

How far he was justified in his antipathy, remains to be read, and, as it constituted my first expedition against this downy tribe, is, perhaps, worth chronicling.

It was tiffin (i. e., luncheon) time in the garrison of -, in Ceylon ; that glorious, blessed hour of the twenty-four, which proclaims the eight interuninable hours following the morning's parade to be knocked on the head for that day at least—those hours we vividly remember, in which, like so many miserable ghosts, the dwellers in barracks wander forlornly through the corridors, puffing Manilla cheroots, desperately asking every body they momentarily encounter "what o'clock it is,”-and bullying the messman because it is not an hour later, sighing for “two, P.M. ;" as if it were the moment they had lived all their lives to survive and be blessed. It was tiffin time, and a dozen of us had tallyhoed the first mess-waiter with the first dish of curry into the mess-room, when the major (who, bless his old soul! is now quartered in Heaven) made his appearance at table among us (“his boys," as he used to call us), bearing on his shoulders a physiognomy

Eheu! quantum mutatus ab illo ! in which he had left us the night before, and on which the betting might have been even, that the effect of a broad-wheeled waggon over the most prominent feature would simply have resulted in a bottle-and-half of unadulterated château margaux !It was evident there was a screw loose, and it was not until the worthy old soul had drained a tumbler full of claret cup at a draft (a compound, good reader! of claret, mint, sugar, and nutmeg; iced-try it, if you are ignorant of the quality), that we could get the remotest inkling as to how the jolly countenance of that religious devotee to Bacchus could be so “ sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.” But the major shall tell his own story—the first and last dealings he ever had with the Firm of Bruin and Co.

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