Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 097.djvu/12

2 Guinness but froth and disappointment, you are more of a philosopher and less of a victim than most British beer-drinkers.

This is not the vice of the present generation, nor is it likely to be soon revived. Schneiderism went out with the Prince Regent and Brummell. A nobleman of the present day, who is oftener heard of in the Mechanics' lecture-room than at Almack's, has something better to do with his time than to waste it in the excision of coat wrinkles, and the curative process of fine-drawing.

If 1853 produce this result, we shall have less occasion than we suppose for regretting the political change which has brought about the retirement of Lord St. Leonards, of whom we may say, as Dryden did of his great predecessor:—without the faults that marred the statesmanship of the first Earl of Shaftesbury.

Alas for the applicants in the Irish court of "Encumbered Estates!" The "squires in debt" this year will be as plentiful, we fear, as ever;—"poor knights" are perhaps a rarer article than they were in the days of "bonny King Jamie," who made them, as fishermen salt herrings, by the thousand.

This is more likely to happen in 1853 than in any other year since gold came into fashion—a long period to reckon. It is not the bullion-merchants of Cheapside, nor the bulls of the Stock Exchange who will count their gains on Primrose Hill or Blackheath; but the lucky ones of Australia, numbering a few usurers—("Some bastards, too," as Falconbridge says)—who, having no roof under which to house them, will weigh their nuggets at the Victoria diggings. But, for all this, the usurers will have no greater faith than heretofore in the honesty of their fellow-creatures, and—in Australia—no one can say that they are not right; lucky for society if Europe be equally free from suspicion.

When such unbelievable occurrences, says Lear's Fool, come to pass,

We have shown how many of these events may happen in 1853, and yet we do not despair of winning through it—and finding ourselves and our readers none the worse—if not a good deal the better—in 1854.

For this result, we do not, however, exactly look to the great Political "Concert" which has just struck up. The new "Liberal-Conservative" Ministry is, doubtless, a very harmonious combination, but we cannot help comparing it to Sylvester Daggerwood's benefit, on which occasion,—"at the particular desire of several persons of distinction,"—the most eminent performers have "kindly consented" to waive all personal and professional jealousy, and appear in the several parts allotted them "for one night only."