WITH a vanity inseparable from great men, we take for granted that the inside of our magazine admits of no improvement; and hence an attention to the neatness of its outside, is the only means left us, whereby to evince our gratitude for the great and increasing patronage which we PART XI.-41.-Fourth Edit.

VOL. II.

continue to receive from the public. The embellishment which stands at the head of these remarks, will, therefore, be found on the covers of our future numbers. Our little publication may, thus, be compared to an intelligent and beautiful female, who, on her first appearance in society, places all her hopes upon the sweetness of her natural charms; but, at length, the delicious poison of flattery is poured into her ears; and she endeavours, by the aid of artificial ornaments, to heighten the adoration which she receives from her enraptured admirers.

This is strong language; especially when it is considered from whom it proceeds, and to whom it applies. But, we despise the sneaking process of seeking for applause by a pretended diffidence of our own merits. It may serve your dunces to fill one half of their books with apologies for the other half; we are for no such mawkishness. We are confident that we possess a giant's strength, and, by the lord, it is our intention to use it like giants-so, good Messieurs Public, look to ourselves.

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Vanity," says Dean Swift, "is rather a proof of humility than of pride;" and he proves this by arguing that those, who continually boast of their own talents, have a modest consciousness that it is doubtful whether any but themselves perceive them. Upon this principle, silence is the greatest act of vanity a man can be guilty of; inasmuch as it may be inferred that he supposes the world to be already conscious of his merits. We are determined to have no such accuastion brought against us. It may seem, from these observations, that we are deficient in modesty and humility; but we beg to assure those, who may come to such an erroneous conclusion, that we are fully in possession of those, as well as many other christian virtues, which we take care to exercise on all suitable occasions.

In recurring to the embellishment, we shall not pass such a libel upon the taste of our readers, as to suppose it necessary to dilate upon the talent which our artist has displayed in its execution. There is, however, a necessity to say some few words on the subject of its design. This is, to us, rather a difficult undertaking; for we honestly confess it appears to us as obscure as the hieroglyphics in an almanack. Indeed, so little talent have we for allegory, that, but for one fortunate circumstance, we should have been obliged to content ourselves with some such description as would be given of it, by those itinerant exhibitors of miniature panoramas, who display their pictures and their oratory in Bartholomew fair. The fortunate circumstance to which we allude, is no less than an opportunity to present to the reader an extract from a letter we have just received from our artist on the subject.

* * * * “I was sitting a few evenings since by my fire side, (the evenings really get so cold that I am obliged to keep in a fire,) I was sitting, I say, sipping my glass of brandy and water, (you know, Mr. Merton, I always take a little before I go to bed,) when, from the heat of the fire, or from the strength of the liquor, or from the softness of my easy chair, I say, from one or other of these causes, I fell asleep and dreamed a dream.

I had, during the evening, been looking over a few of the late numbers of the Literary Magnet, and had read with much satisfaction an

announcement of the about-to-be-continuation of the Dejeuné in your magazine, (my eldest daughter, Peggy, used to take in the Dejeuné.) I had been looking over the Magnet, I say, and I now fancied that I perceived a luminous appearance about its pages, which continued to increase with much rapidity. The brightness became at length so great, that the book itself was indistinguishable; and from amidst the splendour in which it was lost, there came forth a figure, which I recognized to be Apollo. At a distance, a great multitude of persons had been beholding the dazzling light which proceeded from the Literary Magnet; and their numbers continued to increase until they covered the whole world, which began to revolve round the bright figure which had stolen upon my vision, (you know I was dreaming, Mr. Merton:) I say, the whole world began to revolve about it, as a centre of attraction. At this instant the graces"

Stop a minute, Mr. Artist, how could the world revolve, when it was held fast by the graces, as you have represented it? Artist. Ay, there's the devil!

THE HALF-PAY OFFICER.

In this piping-time of peace, when the political ocean is still, and we are only aware of the wrecks it has made, by discovering here and there a tell-tale fragment of the ruin, on its now peaceful shores-when the Gazette has nothing to record, save the translation (not to Heaven,) of some courtly Bishop-the Knighting of a modern Midas, or the promotion of a carpet hero-and a list of bankrupts, interesting to few, except my Lord Chancellor. In these halcyon days, with many sweets we have some bitters, and the evergreens of our prosperity are not without their canker-worm. The glories of war have passed away like the dazzling, but distracting, images of a troublesome dream. Heroes, like Banquo and his spectre Kings, have strutted their little hour, and oblivion has swallowed them up... We read through the feverish years of the late awful contest with listless inattention, even though the colossal shade of Napoleon stalks before us, like the diademed ruler of Hades, "with regal port, and faded splendour wan," warning us of sublunary insecurity; and the "heart's blood and tears," which have fallen as rain to consolidate the altar of our country's freedom, dry on the graves of the dead, and the wounds of the living, with stinted reward and cold praise. The Half-Pay Officer-he is not introduced as the subject of idle mirth; poverty and eccentricity are often respectable, and he who redeems his threadbare coat and strange manners by justly-founded claims on a nation's gratitude, surely deserves to escape the sneer of ribaldry, and the laugh of folly. The worn-out veteran, whose profile is now to be sketched for the reader's amusement, with the same feelings with which we contemplate some ancient structure, which, though tottering into decay, is made venerable by the recollection of its former glories. There are worse things than munching toast and sipping coffee in a quiet and gentlemanly saloon at the West-end, when all one's dear friends are out

of town, and we have no convenient uncle to visit in the country. Imagine, then, your anonymous, humble servant, established in a green-curtained box, one of some twenty or thirty, seemingly engaged in poring over a file of The Times, but in reality scanning the peculiarities of the little world of loungers around him. Passing without notice the butterflies of fashion, who court our attention for the handy-work of their tailor, we pause to read a chapter from the volume of Human Life at Box, No. 6, the most obscure in the room.

There he sits-tall, thin, pale, a man of iron, all bone and muscle, over whom sixty years and forty campaigns have passed, leaving fewer wrinkles than wounds. He is bald, and that temple of thought, his lofty, expansive forehead, terminates in shaggy black eye-brows, which partially conceal the bright, keen, inquisitive orbs, that roll beneath them. You can find little, in the expression of his face, of sympathy with the affairs of others; his features are moveless and bust-like. You would start, were those lips to mould themselves into a smile, and a joke from that mouth, would sound like a merry tune from the organ in St. Paul's. Yet there is nothing morose or cynical about him—an infant would not fear to entwine its arms about his neck—a ragged mendicant would not be afraid to solicit his charity. If he has no spirit of communion with his kind, if the common-places of the world have no charm for him, if the amusements of the young and the gay excite no corresponding emotion in his bosom, it is not misanthropy, but disappointment, which has ossified the surface of his heart-for that heart is still trem blingly alive at the core to every call of pity, to every tender and generous impulse; and the man, whose looks you might fancy would "freeze Spitzbergen," has often earned the blessing of him that " was ready to perish," and called from heaven a beam of joy to lighten the mansions of despair, though the soul-healing ray was never to visit his own breast. We will not enter on romance in real misery, and a monotonous narration of accumulated sorrows can have few attractions. Suffice it to say, that our coffee-house companion came into life with high expectations, and higher hopes-both were blasted. "Pshaw! a common tale. What more?" He loved passionately, was loved truly, but“ not even love can live on flowers." He strove to hew a way to fortune with his sword-found honour, but not wealth-and after bootless years of hardship and suffering, returned to his native land to bury his betrothed one, (they told him she died of a broken heart,) and sink into that bemocked, unconsidered thing, a Half-Pay Officer.

It would be no wonder if such a man should bear occasional resemblances to Plutarch's Timon; we should readily excuse his snarlings at a world to which he is so little indebted-but, no, there is still enough of the milk of human kindness in his veins, to soften down all the asperities of his temper. A scandalous word never passes his lips, a harsh one seldom; and from his conversation you may gather, that he contemplates the agitated tide of time with composure, because he knows that with "nought to fear, with nought to be," the billows which disturb its depths can never distract him again. Like Shakspeare's melancholy forester, "he has much matter in him ;" and if one can but succeed in drawing

him out, and wearing off the reserve which constantly hangs about him, like a funeral garment, he presently appears in his natural character of a polished gentleman, and an accomplished scholar. But he has no motive for mental exertion, and too often retires into the dim sanctuary of his own soul, to nurse the bitter remembrances of his early years. Hence it is difficult to restore his ideas to their primitive channels, as a fine instrument, long untouched by the master's hand, when brought from dust and neglect to be retuned, will at first emit nothing but discords.

Few men reach their sixtieth year without some manifestations of approaching senectude; and those who are happy enough to preserve their intellectual faculties unimpaired at that advanced period, do yet sufficiently evince, by the the decay of their bodily powers, that the winter of life is at hand. Our Half-Pay Officer is much less susceptible of these outward changes than many others, for his frame has not been emasculated by luxury, and salutary exertion in his youth gave a tone to his constitution, which is not easily lost. Yet he does not grow younger, and day after day, as mine eye turns involuntarily upon him, I fancy that his thin grey hair grows thinner, and that his pale complexion is fading into a still paler hue. Besides, his voice, which used to come full and commanding on the ear, has lost much of its rich volume and silvery sweetness; and yesterday, as I saw him giving some trifling direction to the waiter, I felt an unbidden tear stealing down my cheek, for methought I then looked on him for the last time. And who can look on any thing, much less on the venerated symbol of goodness and greatness in ruins, for the last time, without a tear? He bowed kindly to me, the door closed behind him, he was not at the coffee-room to-day, and 1 have a presentiment, (smile at my absurdity, if you please,) that I shall indeed see him no more. I hope otherwise, yet why? There was not a single link remaining in the chain of being to bind his affections to this world, and I think I am not wrong in believing that he was better prepared for his journey to the "world unknown," than many of far higher pretensions to sanctity. "Was he religious?" you ask. Yes, in the strictest sense of the word; for though his prayers were only heard by his God, they were conceived in that spirit, which is sure to render them acceptable. Hence, if his last moments are overpast, I will not wish them recalled, since there can be no fairer Epitaph for my Half-Pay Officer, than the recollection of his virtues.

H.