friend is a bore. The Inconsolables are in no danger of consolation while they assemble together. Every long visage is a full-length likeness of all the rest; and each mourner sees his own calamity staring him in the face, in a hundred directions-which is sufficiently unpleasant. Every man hears, in the multitudinous moan of the assembly, the voice of his own dolour, and his grief deepens with the groan. Nature has done much on behalf of misery; but it is the glorious province of art to double the natural poignancy of it, and add a more refined venom to the sting.

The qualification for admission into this rapidlyrising society is only defined in the general provision that the candidate must be past consolation. It will not do to look merely melancholy and gentlemanlike ; the society admits of no mock-miseries. No vague misanthropy or lugubrious morbidity of disposition, is sufficient to ensure election. Neither will an actual calamity, however tragic to the party, at all times prevail. We can relate an instance. An acquaintance of the miserable wretch to whom we owe these particulars of the institution, offered himself lately as a candidate -on the ground of having unexpectedly become a widower the week before. The loss of a wife was not held to be a sufficient qualification, and the gentleman was white-balled; for the black-balls in this society are the certificates, not of rejection, but of election. appearing afterwards, however, that a considerable annuity, which he had enjoyed in right of his wife, had ceased with her, his claim was readily reconsidered, and unanimously allowed. Among other cases our inconsolable friend mentioned that of a highly popular author, who was recently labouring under a grievous attack of tædium vitæ, and wished to join the Inconsolables, in consequence of the remorselessness of a literary re

It

viewer, who had infamously proved him to be a blockhead. The plea was not satisfactory; and the highly popular author would have been rejected, as not thoroughly undone and broken-hearted, had not the scale been suddenly turned in his favour by the fact, that his most particular and intimate friend had resolved to write a defence of him in another literary journal. This at once decided the point of qualification.

In other instances the society may seem to act with less caution, though such is not in reality the case. A young gentleman claimed to be admitted as a miserable wretch, on the score of having, in a moment of warmhearted enthusiasm, lent a much-esteemed college chum his acceptance for an amount nearly equal to all he was worth in the world. The bill had not become due, but the gentleman was at once elected the misery being taken for granted, and the ruin voted inevitable.

The Inconsolables have a club-room, open at all hours, the walls of which would present to the view, were there a little more light, sketches of the most celebrated prisons, hospitals, churchyards, and lunatic asylums of the country-all executed by the Messrs. Grieve.

"More doleful sight did never eye survey."

Were you to follow two gentlemen in, after a summermorning saunter through this melancholy metropolis, you would probably find them sinking upon a seat in a snug, silent, dreary nook, resting their wretched elbows upon the unfeeling table, and their care-worn cheeks upon their uncomfortable hands and ordering, for purposes of refreshment, clean cambric handkerchiefs for two. You would find in the opposite corner a woebegone personage retailing to a companion, with many sighs, all the jokes out of the new farce, with the view of throwing a fresh damp upon his spirits. Others

would be reading newspapers for the same purpose, and, judging from the countenance, with considerable success; the parliamentary reports especially would appear to be taken with inestimable advantage to the objects of the reader. (The publications adopted by the Club as encouragers, directly or indirectly, of its purposes are numerous; but the "N. M. M. and H." is of course excluded as eminently mischievous.)

It is a noticeable fact, that the majority of the miserables who form the society were in other days more or less famous upon town as desperate punsters, jovial blades, practical jokers, and inveterate wags. The burthen of their morning and evening song was

"Oh, there's nothing in life can sadden us!"

The transition from the incorrigible to the inconsolable, from the sublimely droll to the ridiculously dreary, is but a step-and it is often taken. Then, seven days were too few for the week's holiday; now, the only objection they have to the measure for making dark and doleful the seventh day is, that its beneficent provisions do not extend to the other six. But the change suits them, and they would no more be gay now than they would have been grave of old. Each lays claims to a supremacy of sorrow, and to each the pleasing couplet applies

"If ever man to misery was born,

'Tis mine to suffer, and 'tis mine to mourn."

Their misery is the keener, because, like treason, it has done its worst; the cup can but overflow, and this conviction doubles the bitterness of their draught. So may they sing still, in a different sense, but with an infinitely deeper assurance of a faithful fulfilment than they had before-so may they sing still,

"Oh, there's nothing in life can sadden us!"

155

THE BLUNDERS OF THE REMARKABLY SKILFUL;

WITH A LITTLE PRAISE OF THE PRESS, AND A WORD

ON BEHALF OF THE WORLD. 1

Ir it be true that a little learning is a dangerous thing, it follows that a little more may be a little more dangerous; and that human liability to perpetrate blunders increases in the ratio of a capability to avoid them. We want a new version of the song of "Common Sense and Genius," which is good, as far as it goes that is, just half-way towards truth. Its accomplished author, whose lively fancy is still exercising itself in new songs, ought to bestow upon this favourite among his old ones another catastrophe, which should do justice to Common Sense as well as to Genius, by making both heroes of the ballad walk into the river arm-in-arm. The truth would be doubled by doubling the tragedy. The only difference between the twotheir fate being the same-consists in the place where, and the manner how. Genius, scrambling up Vesuvius, for the sake of saying that he had flung a "summerset " at the top, makes a magnificent exit down the crater. Common Sense, whose circuit is bounded by Templebar, Oxford-street, Hyde-park-corner, and the House of Commons, on the east, north, west, and south,-crosses the Regent-circus, and, with all his eyes fixed inquiringly upon Piccadilly, is run over by an omnibus suddenly emerging from the Quadrant. Genius acquires an ague in the Hellespont; while Common Sense takes the cramp in the Serpentine. "His genius was astonishing!" we all exclaim, when a man contrives to hang by the neck a few minutes too many in a slack

rope performance. "He was remarkable for his common sense!" is the invariable verdict, when a person achieves the distinction of setting fire to his house while reading the last "Penny Magazine" of useful knowledge in bed, with the candle rather near the curtain, on account of the small print.

Certain it is that exceeding skill is the prolific parent of exceedingly woeful failures. The newspapers "teem,” all the year round, with shocking accidents and calamitous occurrences, that would seem to have no origin on earth but the uncommon caution and peculiar ability of the parties who suffer by them. If we hear of a disaster above the average scale of calamity, we are sure to hear also that the ill-starred victim to it had a natural turn for averting danger, and a particular knack at keeping on the safe side of things. If a heavy waggon come in contact with a frailer vehicle, the waggoner is sure to be on his own side of the road, and not on the shafts; and if a gentleman happen to overturn his cab, and dash it to pieces, we know that he must be a driver of no ordinary skill and experience. If we are told of a horse gallopping over a few people in a crowded thoroughfare, we are sure to be informed at the same time that the rider is celebrated among his acquaintance for his equestrian accomplishments. In like manner, if a boat be run down by a craft, or carried away by the tide and upset, the feat is infallibly achieved under the auspices of somebody who had sounded all the depths and shoals of the river, and left no aquatic mystery unmastered.

Would it not seem-(we beseech the reader to lay down his Magazine for a moment, and refer to any newspaper that may be near him)-would it not seem that all the carriages which are demolished are driven by the more expert and cautious professors of the art,