We have been very much amused with a letter from the facetious physician of Tabby Hall, Comfrey Cardamom Esq. M.D. and Poet, tho’ like Sancho’s with regard to his wife he appears either to have forgotten his Christian name or to have re-christened himself. We have no doubt but the fair spinsters will be greatly and sincerely obliged to him for having spared them the pain of discarding their unfortunate lovers. It would have been too much for their susceptible bosoms if they had seen the misery they inflicted, and their pity might have been dangerous.
There can be no doubt that Dr Cardamom’s motives are purely disinterested. As he is paid by annual salary, he can have no pecuniary reasons for wishing to detain his patients, and tho’ Cupid may sometimes have endeavoured to strike him with the lightning of Lady Belle’s eye, or have aimed a sly spark at him from Miss Nettletop’s cooking stove, or Miss Botherham’s electric machine, or even taken his secret stand on the top of one of Miss Quickset’s vegetable tea urns, yet we cannot suppose him to have all the ladies in his eye at once.
We did not suppose that Mr Julep had been so elegant a scholar and so sweet a poet as his paper of memoranda indicates. The lines found in Miss Croaker’s hermitage and apparently addressed to the secret founder are exceedingly beautiful. By the bye we appear to have lost sight of our old correspondent. Can anything have silenced Miss Squib and is it not rather extraordinary that no answers have been returned to the application of the numerous candidates as solicitor and treasurer. Has the dexterous Doctor Cardamom also intercepted these letters?
We are happy in being able to announce No. 3 to our expecting friends and hope that Mr Anonymous may one day be able thro’ the assistance of his correspondent to drag some of the latent geniuses he has discovered from their obscurity, tho’ we should advise him to let the Sons of Ambition remain in their present inactivity as we have already enough to prevent the torch of discord from being extinguished. Poor Mr Scriblerus, he has roused a hornets nest and they appear determined to sting him to death. No sooner has he vanquished one opponent than another more formidable starts up and defies him to mortal combat. Indeed should there appear sufficient ground for the attack of Electromagus we fear it will be a death-blow to his trade and reputation. But our concern for his unfortunate victim must not exclude our admiration of Electromagus’s wonderful discovery. Henceforth let none presume to ridicule the studies of chemistry and electricity as unprofitable. Henceforth let none of the countless swarm of versemongers, who strive in vain to obtain the name of Poets, overwhelm us with their clouds of doggerel, but repair at once to Electromagus and purchase immortality. We cannot help thinking that wonderful man, from the congeniality of their tastes and the “sublime love of science” which animates both, is destined by Fate as the conjugal partner of the lovely Barbara. How glorious for our nation is it to have produced in one age two such exalted minds. The generosity with which he offers to our Society the gratuitous benefit of his labours is an example worthy of imitation. But enough, we will not anticipate the effect of his letter.
What a blessing is that impenetrable veil that shrouds impending misery from our eye, nor lets the beauty of the present scene be lost in horror at the gloomy prospect of the rocks and monsters that impede our future progress. Unconscious of the impending storm about to burst upon his head, Mr Scriblerus shines tonight in more than wonted splendour. Happy will it be for him if his knowledge of the “Art of Driving” enables him to clear his way thro’ the dangers that surround him. It is now “Neck or Nothing” but if he is fortunate enough to reach the end of his poetical course without overturning or even clogging the wheels of his car, he will have no reason to regret the time he has bestowed on the Barouchiad, tho’ the Whip Club may be no more, and the taste for driving has already yielded to newer follies.
The Menagerie of the Gods is a very sprightly little poem, but we are rather in doubt what the author intends by the Castilian streamlet. We should have taken the liberty of substituting Castalian but even with this alteration the line is deficient in quantity.
The last thoughts of an English volunteer before the Battle of Lutzen will remind our readers of the beautiful little poem “The Unhappy Soldier’s Last Watch” read last season, which it closely resembles in subject and sentiment.
The Lines to the Editress, those written on a Mail Coach, and the little poem to Eliza are all elegant, as are those on drinking out of a Lady’s Cup, but have we not seen the latter before.