my favourite 'Ninety-eight. This was at a
book-stall close to the Four Courts, Dublin;
and I immediately became its possessor at the
outlay of sevenpence sterling. The book-stall
keeper, who was quite a Sir Charles Grandison
of bibliopoles, politely offered to send my
purchase home for me, but I took it to my
habitat myself, and revelled in 'Ninety-eight
half that night.

I found my Mag. to be in the hundred and
third volume of its age, a very respectable
antiquity even in 'Ninety-eight; and, had it
lived to the present day, it would have been a
very Methuselah among Mags; but the work
went the way of all waste paper, I am afraid,
years ago. I cannot pretend to give you any
detailed description of its contents; for, as per
title-page they included letters, debates,
antiquity, philosophy, mechanics, husbandry,
gardening, fifteen more subjects, and "other
arts and sciences," besides "an impartial
account of books in several languages," the
"state of learning in Europe," and the "new
theatrical entertainments" of 'Ninety-eight.
And mark that my Mag was only a half-
year's volume, from June to December. So
I will say very little about philosophy or
husbandry, the state of European learning,
and the new theatrical entertainments of
'Ninety-eight, merely culling as I go on what
seems to me curious, principally among
the domestic occurrences of my year, and
which may interest even those who have
no peculiar solicitude concerning 'Ninety-
eight.

First, I found a fronilspiece elegantly
engraved on copperplate, representing a
wood or bosky thicket, in which reposed a
lady in the costume of Queen Elizabeth,
but much handsomer; behind her the poet
Dante; by her side a lady in a Grecian
costume, name unknown; and around her a
lion, several sheep, and a rabbit. In the
foreground a hideous dwarf in a fancy dress,
whom I was uncertain whether to take for
the fabulist Esop or the Polish Count
Borulawski, was presenting a laurel wreath to a
gentleman in a full bottomed wig, large cuffs,
ruffles, shorts and buckles, who seemed very
anxious to get the wreath indeed, and was
incited thereto by the poet Horace; who
egged him on with a large scroll, backed up
by another gentleman, of whose person or
dress nothing was visible but a very voluminous
wig looming above his friend's shoulder,
and was on that account perhaps intended
as an allegory of Mr. Charles James Fox.
On reference to my Mag. for an explication
of this engraving, I was informed that it was
emblematic of Summer, and some lines from
the Seasons followed the information; but as
I could not see what he of the wig and ruffle
had to do with summer and Queen Elizabeth,
I considered it and passed it, over as a mystery
of 'Ninety-eight, to be solved by future study
and research.

Mrs. Muscadine writes to the editor during
June, complaining of the mania for
volunteering. She bewails the fact that her
husband, and all the husbands of her acquaintance,
have now the same squareness of the shoulders
to the body and the front, their heels are all
in a line, and their thumbs are all as far back
as the seams of their trousers. She complains
that her husband's affections are completely
alienated from her by the rival charm of one
Brown Bess, and that at prayer time he calls
out "front rank, kneel!" for ll of which
she rates the Duke of York heartily, but
good humouredly. I wonder whether the re-
embodiment of the Militia, or the recollections
of Chobham will call forth any Mrs. Muscadines
in 'Fifty-eight. Next I find a long
biography of John Wilkes. "Wilkes died in
the year before. In addition to his biography,
my Mag. has this month a notice of Dr.
Farmer, the author of the Essay on the
learning of Shakspeare, also deceased in
'Ninety-seven. In the House of Lords, on
the twenty-eighth of March (my Mag. only
reports it in June), the Bishop of Rochester
attributes the numerous applications for
divorces, which have recently taken place in
their lordships' House, to the Jacobinical
principles which had been inculcated from
France. In the House of Commons, on the
third of April, on a motion for leave to bring
in a bill for the abolition of the slave trade at
a period to be specified, which had been
moved by Mr. Wilberforce, there are eighty-
three ayes, and eighty-seven noes—majority
for the middle passage, the barracoons, the
bilboes, and the cartwhip, four.

April the twenty-fifth, in a social little
committee of ways and means, Mr. Pitt
moves for a trifle of twelve millions eight
hundred and fifty-seven thousand pounds
sterling for the army. He states, pleasantly,
that he thought last Christmas that ten
millions or so might have done; but that
"into the particulars of that sum he will not
now enter." Considerate, this, of the pilot
that weathered the storm. To make things
pleasant he claps on, in the same cosy little
committee, the "additional tax upon salt,"
and the "additional duty upon tea," and the
"tax on armorial bearings," "which," says
Mr. Pitt, "rests upon a principle exceedingly
different," which in truth it does.

Three-fourths of this month's number of
my Mag. are occupied with a narrative of
the events of the Irish rebellion, and of the
battle of Vinegar Hill. They belong to
history.

On May the third the Whig Club dine
together at the Freemasons' Tavern,
London, Mr. Fox in the chair. They are all very
merry, and Mr. Fox gives the "Sovereignty
of the People" (the Habeas Corpus Act has
just been suspended). The Duke of Norfolk,
on his health being drunk, sensibly observes,
that "where the people have no rights, the
nobility have no privileges worth enjoying;"
and the Duke of Bedford in a neat speech