what he has to say about them; and then, without stopping for an answer, lets fly his own bald quotation, if indeed, that deserves the name of quotation, which only depends upon the usage of the same word, without any similitude of sense to the passage, to illustrate which it is mentioned. We find many more instances of these faults, but are afraid of exceeding our limits; and are altogether so much obliged to any body who makes us laugh, that we wish not to be severe upon any thing that gives rise to that vulgar convulsion; even though it be involuntarily accompanied with the muttered "pish" or "psha," that seems to chide ourselves, and express shame for being amused at such nonsense. In this publication, however, we often find ourselves at liberty to laugh in perfect good taste. After having enumerated the miseries of the country, these gentlemen go on to those of every place and occupation.-Of Games and Recreations -of London-of Public Places-of Travellingof Social Life of Reading and Writing-of the Table-Miseries Domestic, Personal, and Miscellaneous. In addition to these, Mrs Testy furnishes a "few supplementary sighs," which were certainly imperiously called for. As, otherwise, the "miseries " of the fair sex (and we believe they enjoy at least as many, and as fanciful and fantastic as those which torment the lords of the creation) would have been entirely untrenched upon. As it is, we suspect Mrs Testy has made a very small draught from the army of vexations and megrims in which "angel woman delights. This arose, necessarily, from the author's slender stock of information upon that point; for we are convinced they were furnished by no female friend. No lady, we think, would undertake a task, which, if fairly performed, must discover all the hidden springs and recesses of the female mind; all the arcana of the Bona Dea, which have hitherto been preserved as sacred as the secrets of freemasonry. Nor would any true woman ever give up so much of the assumed dignity of the sex, as to allow that their gross vassal, man, is held in such estimation, or capable of producing such uneasiness, by his most trivial actions, in their refined minds, as is confessed in the following sighs. 10. At a ball-being asked by two or three puppies why you don't dance?'—and asked no more questions, by these, or any other gentleman on the subject::-on your return home, being pestered with examinations and cross-examinations, whether you danced-with whom you danced-why you did not dance-&c. &c.; the friend with whom you went, complaining, all the time, of being worried to death with solicitations to dance, the whole evening." "14. After dinner, when the ladies retire with you from a party of very pleasant men, having to entertain, as you can, half a score of empty, or formal females; then, after a decent time has elapsed, and your patience and topics are equally exhausted, ringing for the tea, &c. which you sit making in despair, for above two hours; having three or four times sent word to the gentlemen that it is ready, and overheard your husband, at the last message, answer, Very well-another bottle of wine.' By the time that the tea and coffee are quite cold, they arrive, continuing as they enter, and for an hour afterwards, their political disputes, occasionally suspended, on the part of the master of the house, by a reasonable complaint, to his lady, at the coldness of the coffee ;-soon after, the carriages are announced, and the visitors disperse." "16. At a ball-when you have set your heart on dancing with a particular favourite,—at the moment when you delightedly see him advancing towards you, being briskly accosted by a conceited simpleton at your elbow, whom you cannot endure, but who obtains (because you know not in what manner to refuse) 'the honour of your hand' for the evening." We here finish our analysis of the work. The author seems to entertain an idea, that written dialogue is entitled to the liberties used in real conversation. We meet, accordingly, with some incorrect grammar, and much crudeness of style, encumbered with many unwieldy parentheses. Above all, he seems to have adopted, from colloquy, the use of several words, newly and extraordinarily applied, which, in company, are easily explained, and enforced by some gesture or emphasis of the speaker; but, when written down, convey no immediate idea to the reader, or, at least, a very feeble one. We meet with a "washy remark," "a man of iron," "a sepulchral party," &c. all perhaps good colloquialisms, but which, in writing, lose all their force, from the explanations necessarily affixed; or, in default of them, the thought which the reader must bestow to discover their humour, or even meaning. Printing in italics is a disgraceful method of marking the point of a witticism. But the chief faults of the work are, great sameness and length, which mutually and severely aggravate each other; and we could readily have dispensed with much of the conversations introductory to the groans, and, still more willingly, with the dull homilies preached at the end by Mr Sensitive, senior. This is a remark, able instance either of an author's distrust in his readers, whom he would not leave to pick out his moral, or of diffidence in his own powers of rendering it plain and easy. The reader, at the end of the groans, thinks he has finished the book, and is leaving it merry and pleased, when Mr Sensitive, senior, steps in, and, like the butler in the drama of Lovers' Vows, detains him, insults his understanding, and deadens his spirits, by the heavy recitation of his musty moral. On the whole, we strenuously recommend this work to all who love to laugh; and, at the same time, feel no pleasure in disappointing an author, who aims at humour, by captious objections or dignified sullenness: for (as Tom Testy would put in) "By two-headed Janus! Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time, And others of such vinegar aspect, That they'll not show their teeth by way of smile, To the first class described here, we promise much merriment from the perusal of this work; and to support our opinion, we will select a few of the best groans; or at least those which most affected our risible faculties. A selection, we avow, much easier made, than that of the faults that have been mentioned in this review. OF TRAVELLING. "4. (S.) Just as you are going off, with only one other person on your side of the coach, who, you flatter yourself, is the last,-seeing the door suddenly opened, and the guard, coachman, hostler, &c. &c. craning, shoving, and buttressing up an overgrown, puffing, greasy, human hog, of the butcher or grazier breed-the whole machine straining and groaning under its cargo, from the box to the basket.-By dint of incredible efforts and contrivances, the carcase is, at length, weighed up to the door, where it has next to struggle with various and heavy obstructions in the passage. When, at length, the entire beast is fairly slung in, and (after about a quarter of an hour consumed in the operation) plunged down and bedded, with the squelch of a falling ox, and the grunt of a rhinoceros,—you find yourself suddenly viced in, from the shoulder to the hip; upon which the monster-when, in another quarter of an hour, he has finally pumped and panted, and snortled himself into tranquillity,-begins to make himself merry with your misery, and keeps braying away,-totally callous to the dumb frowns, or muttered execrations ('curses not loud but deep') of the whole coach." "25. (S.) At a formal dinner-the awful resting-time which occasionally intervenes between the courses: "Ned Tes. Inde alios ineunt cursus, aliosque recursus, "10. (T.) After having left a company in which you have been galled by the raillery of some wag by profession-thinking, at your leisure, of a repartee which, if discharged at the proper moment, would have blown him to atoms.' "29. (S.) Rashly confessing that you have a slight cold, in the hearing of certain elderly ladies of the faculty,' who instantly form themselves into a consultation upon your case, and assail you with a volley of nostrums, all of which, if you would have a moment's peace, you must solemnly promise to take off before night-though well satisfied that they would retaliate, by taking you off' before morning! "Ned Tes. Egrescitque medendo.' VIRG." FROM MRS TESTY'S SIGHS. "11. At a long table, after dinner, having the eyes of the whole company drawn upon you by a loud observation, that you are strikingly like Mrs or Miss particularly when you smile." We are sorry the author inserted such an affected and nonsensical groan as the following. |