rogues must be the lower classes, as we are told, thus to be bought or browbeaten. No doubt: and their superiors, who bribe and intimidate them, are all marvellous proper gentlemen! Against a proposition for the ballot, the established arguments are, a shrug of the shoulders, a look of disgust, and an exclamation of horror;-conclusive modes of reasoning, adopted rather from necessity than choice, for we are not aware of any more convincing objections. Some, indeed, are so consistent as to tell us, that the practice is mean, degrading, contemptible, un-English, at the very time that it is openly practised in the Committee business of the House of Commons, in the elections at the East India House, and in those of almost every club throughout the kingdom. Though such noodles have short memories, they cannot be called great wits.

BANDIT—An unlegalized soldier, who is hanged for doing that which would get him a commission and a medal, had he taken the king's money, instead of that of travellers. “Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hic diadema."

BAR-Independence of the.-Like a ghost-a thing much talked of, and seldom seen. If a barrister possess any professional or moral independence, it cannot be worth much, for a few guineas will generally purchase it. It must be confessed, that he is singularly independent of all those scruples which operate upon the consciences of other men. Right and wrong, truth or falsehood, morality or profligacy, are all equally indifferent to him. Dealing in law, not justice, his brief is his bible, the ten guineas of his retaining fee are his decalogue: his glory, like that of a cookmaid, consists in wearing a silk gown, and his heaven is in a judge's wig. Head, heart, conscience, body and soul, all are for sale: the forensic bravo stands to be hired by the highest bidder, ready to attack those whom he had just defended, or defend those whom he has just attacked, according to the orders he may receive from his temporary master. Looking to the favour

of the Judge for favour with their clients, and to the government for professional promotion, barristers have too often been the abject lickspittles of the one, and the supple tools of the other.

M. de la B —, a French gentleman, seems to have formed a very correct notion of the independence of the bar. Having invited several friends to dine on a maigre day, his servant brought him word, that there was only a single salmon left in the market, which he had not dared to bring away, because it had been bespoken by a barrister." Here," said his master, putting two or three pieces of gold into his hand, "Go back directly, and buy me the barrister and the salmon too."

BARRISTER—A legal servant of all work. One who sometimes makes his gown a cloak for browbeating and putting down a witness, who, but for this protection, might occasionally knock down the barrister. Show me the conscientious counsellor, who, refusing to hire out his talents that he may screen the guilty, overreach the innocent, defraud the orphan, or impoverish the widow, will scrupulously decline a brief, unless the cause of his client wear at least a semblance of honesty and justice;-who will leave knaves and robbers to the merited inflictions of the law, while he will cheerfully exert his eloquence and skill in redressing the wrongs of the injured. Show me such a Phoenix of a barrister, and I will admit that he richly deserves-not to have been at the bar!

"Does not a barrister's affected warmth, and habitual dissimulation, impair his honesty?" asked Boswell of Dr. Johnson. "Is there not some danger that he may put on the same mask in common life, in the intercourse with his friends?"_ "Why no, Sir," replied the Doctor. "A man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling upon his hands will continue to do so when he should walk on his feet."

Perhaps not; but how are we to respect the forensic tumbler, who will walk upon his hands, and perform the most ignoble antics for a paltry fee?

All briefless barristers will please to consider themselves excepted from the previous censure, for I should be really sorry to speak ill of any man without a cause.

BATHOS-Sinking when you mean to rise. The waxen wings of Icarus, which, instead of making him master of the air, plunged him into the water, were a practical Bathos. So was the miserable imitation of the Thunderer by Salmoneus, which, instead of giving him a place among the Gods, consigned him to the regions below.

Of the written Bathos, an amusing instance is afforded in the published tour of a lady, who has attained some celebrity in literature. Describing a storm to which she was. exposed, when crossing in the steam boat from Dover to Calais, her ladyship says, "In spite of the most earnest solicitations to the contrary, in which the captain eagerly joined, I firmly persisted in remaining upon deck, although the tempest had now increased to such a frightful hurricane, that it was not without great difficulty I could-hold up my parasol !”

If

As a worthy companion to this little morceau, we copy the following affecting advertisement from a London Newspaper: "If this should meet the eye of Emma D—, who absented herself last Wednesday from her father's house, she is implored to return, when she will be received with undiminished affection by her almost heart-broken parents. nothing can persuade her to listen to their joint appeal-should she be determined to bring their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave-should she never mean to revisit a home where she has passed so many happy years-it is at least expected, if she be not totally lost to all sense of propriety, that she will, without a moment's further delay,-send back the key of the tea-caddy."

BEAUTY-has been not unaptly, though somewhat vulgarly, defined by T. H. as "all my eye," since it addresses itself solely to that organ, and is intrinsically of little value. From this ephemeral flower are distilled many of the ingredients in matrimonial unhappiness. It must be a dangerous gift, both for its possessor and its admirer, if there be any truth in the assertion of M. Gombaud, that beauty “représente les Dieux, et les fait oublier." If its possession, as is too often the case, turns the head, while its loss sours the temper; if the long regret of its decay outweighs the fleeting pleasure of its bloom, the plain should rather pity than envy the handsome. Beauty of countenance, which, being the light of the soul shining through the face, is independent of features or complexion, is the most attractive, as well as the most enduring charm. Nothing but talent and amiability can bestow it, no statue or picture can rival, time itself cannot destroy it.

Wants are seldom blessings, and yet the want of a common standard of beauty has incalculably widened the sphere of our enjoyment, since all tastes may thus be gratified by the infinite variety of minds, and the endless diversities in the human form. Father Buffier maintains, that the beauty of every object consists in that form and colour most usual among things of that particular sort to which it belongs. He seems to have thought that there was no inherent beauty in anything except the juste milieu, the happy mean. "The beauty of a nose," says Adam Smith, following out the same idea in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, is the form at which Nature seems to have aimed in all noses, which she seldom hits exactly, but to which all her deviations still bear a strong resemblance. Many copies of an original may all miss it in some respects, yet they will all resemble it more than they resemble one another. So it is with animated forms; and thus beauty, though, in one sense, exceedingly rare, because few attain the happy mean, is, at the same time, a

common quality, because all the deviations have a greater resemblance to this standard than to one another.

Even this, however, is not a certain criterion, for our estimate of beauty, depending mainly upon association, will be influenced by the predominant feeling in the mind of the spectator, whether he be contemplating a woman or a landscape. Brindley, the civil engineer, considered a straight canal a much more picturesque and pleasing object than a meandering river. "For what purpose," he was asked, "do you apprehend rivers to have been intended?"—"To feed navigable canals," was the reply. Dr. Johnson maintained, that there was no beauty without utility, but he was not provided with a rejoinder, when the peacock's tail was objected to him. What so beautiful as flowers, and yet we cannot always perceive their utility in the economy of nature. There are belles, to whom the same remark may be applied.

As the want of exterior generally increases the interior beauty, we should do well to judge of women as of the impressions on medals, and pronounce those the most valuable which are the plainest.

BEER-Small. An undrinkable drink, which if it were set upon a cullender to let the water run out, would leave a residuum of nothing. Of whatever else it may be guilty, it is generally innocent of malt and hops. Upon the principle of lucus a non lucendo, it may be termed liquid bread, and the strength of corn. Small-beer comes into the third category of the honest brewer, who divided his infusions into three classes-strong table, common table, and lamentable. An illiterate vendor of this commodity wrote over his door at Harrowgate, "Bear sold here!" "He spells the word quite correctly," said T. H., "if he means to apprise us that the article is his own Bruin!"

BELIEF.-An involuntary operation of the mind, which we can no more control, however earnestly we may wish or pray for it, than we can add a cubit to our stature by desiring