ight never might
return. There were at Brighton no less than three men who called me
Jack, and _that_, out of flies or in libraries, and one of these, chose
occasionally, by way of making himself particularly agreeable, to
address me by the familiar appellation of Jacky. At length, and that
only three weeks after my fall, an overgrown tallow-chandler met us on
the Steyne, and stopped our party to observe, "as how he thought he owed
me for two barrels of coal tar, for doing over his pigsties." This
settled it--we departed from Brighton, and made a tour of the coast; but
we never rallied; and business, which must be minded, drove us before
Christmas to Budge Row, where we are again settled down.

Maria has grown thin--Sarah has turned methodist--and Jenny, who danced
with his Excellency the Portuguese Ambassador, who was called angelic by
the Right Honourable the Lord Privy Seal, and who moreover refused a man
of fortune because he had an ugly name, is going to be married to
Lieutenant Stodge, on the half pay of the Royal Marines--and what
then?--I am sure if it were not for the females of my family I should be
perfectly at my ease in my proper sphere, out of which the course of our
civic constitution raised me. It was unpleasant at first:--but I have
toiled long and laboured hard; I have done my duty, and Providence has
blessed my works. If we were discomposed at the sudden change in our
station, I it is who was to blame for having aspired to honours which I
knew were not to last. However the ambition was not dishonourable, nor
did I disgrace the station while I held it; and when I see, as in the
present year, _that_ station filled by a man of education and talent, of
high character and ample fortune, I discover no cause to repent of
having been one of his predecessors. Indeed I ought to apologize for
making public the weakness by which we were all affected; especially as
I have myself already learned to laugh at what we all severely felt at
first--the miseries of a SPLENDID ANNUAL.--_Sharpe's London Magazine_.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

* * * * *

A CHAPTER ON HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY

"Ut sunt divorum, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo."
_Latin Grammar_.

Did you ever look
In Mr. Tooke,
For Homer's gods and goddesses?
The males in the air,
So big and so bare,
And the girls without their bodices.

There