rades and conundrums, in which "my first" finds matter for an action, "my second" for a suit in Chancery, while "my tout" completely ruins both plaintiff and defendant in an appeal to the Lords. This being, as it is, a self-evident verity, it cannot be imagined that so many sad and learned personages should in all ages of the British history have started from their seats (their very wigs standing on end with horror,) with a "nolumus leges Angliæ mutari” in their mouths, as often as any one has ventured to hint at simplification and certainty in law, if gambling really deserved vituperation as a vice. Nay, even when dabbling in capital crimes was proved to have been rendered a lottery speculation by the perverse complexity and severity of our criminal code, Sir S. Romilly and Sir James Macintosh made not a jot the more impression upon the dogged supporters of the "wisdom of their ancestors."

Another accredited and very wholesale mode of gambling is a contested election; by which a man is by no means disgraced, although he should place the subsistence of his whole family for the next seven years at issue, in the hope of what he may make, by being returned to some assembly in which he can repay himself for his trouble and out, lay by a judicious employment of his "most sweet voice." Hunting and shooting, both gentlemanly amusements; and for the latter of which more especially, a whole section of severities is foisted into the criminal code, and human life itself set at nought-may also be considered as a species of gaming, since the uncertainty of the chace forms the greatest part of its pleasure. Like all other games of chance, its attraction is vastly enhanced by a bet. Without this excitement, it is inconceivable that any man of sense would go through more labour than a slaughtering butcher, and destroy without compunction eighty or an hundred birds in a morning.

One very silly prejudice against gambling, which it is important to obviate, is its supposed tendency to promote suicide-a circumstance, which, if verified, must be rather considered as advantageous, for though

Aller à l'autre monde est très grande sottise
Tant que dans celui-ci l'on peut être de mise :

yet, as no one has a right to live, for whom Nature has not provided a place at her table, to what end should a man encumber the earth, who has gambled away his ticket of admission to the feast? In point of fact, the self-destruction of such gentry is in general a saving to the state, which otherwise must, in nine cases out of ten, pay for the rope, and bear all the other legal expenses of their viaticum to the world to come. Then as to the feelings of wives, &c. it is very hard indeed if a woman whose husband se suicide for losses at play, does not provide herself with another and a better man before the year of mourning has run round. The same arguments apply to the connexion of gambling with duels; with the additional consideration, that in the latter case two gamesters may be provided for at a time, instead of one. But if any doubt remains in the reader's mind concerning the innocence of gaming, let him remember that the most Christian government in Europe openly raises a revenue from the gaming-tables of all classes, -a government which, not content with forcing religion on its own subjects, crams it down the throats of a neighbour at the point of the

bayonet. Is it credible that the worshippers of the god of St. Louis (of course a much greater god than the god of St. Paul and St. Peter), the devotees of the Virgin, the advocates of monkery, and the persecutors of heresy, would for a moment tolerate a practice which was in reality subversive of all morality? Would even our English government, which lays less open pretensions to godliness, expend large sums in the maintenance of horse-races, if there were such horrible sin in throwing a whole province into a periodical mania of gaming? The English are famous as the greatest betters in all the known world; insomuch that there is no debateable question, from the speed of a maggot to the sublimest doctrines of religion, which has not been made by them the subject of a wager. I have heard of a country squire offering the parson of his parish to hold a cool hundred with him against the coporal being of the devil: and the history is recorded of a poor fellow who actually hung himself, in order to win a wager he had laid that he would do so. How much the English are a betting people is evinced in the singular fact, that they alone have turned prize-fighting into a source of pecuniary contention. It is not recorded that the shows of the Roman amphitheatre, or the great games of Greece ever produced a bet. No one appears to have even thought of pitting Eschylus or Aristophanes against the field; nor, when the factions of the circus ran highest, though the women pulled caps and the men intrigued for their favourite colour, did they dream of silencing an opponent with the long odds. Now though the practice of deriving pecuniary benefit from black eyes and bloody noses, and turning an honest penny by battery and manslaughter, might perhaps have been deemed barbarous and blackguard, had it subsisted among the Malays, or our natural enemies the Turks, yet, being English, none but a Jacobin and a leveller can doubt of its propriety; and nothing can be more disloyal than the present outcry against the "fancy." If after what I have said the reader is still disposed to think they are wrong, and to maintain that gaming in any of its shapes is discreditable and vicious, I will only add this one convincing argument—I'll hold him a rump and dozen he is a spooney; and, be he who he may, I say "done" first.

M.

STANZAS.

Oн let me never see controll'd

In that sweet spring-time of the mind,
When all the feelings, young and bold,
Speak loud and may not be confined-

Let me not see Art's fingers rude

With cold and withering touch deface,
All that is spotless, chaste, and good,
All that is worthy to be woo'd-

Transparent truth and native grace.

The loveliest hues that Nature gave,
The painted insects of the year,

Are lost, if but a feather wave
In sacrilegious sweep too near.

THE MONTHS.NO. III.

March.

If there be a month the aspect of which is less amiable, and the manners and habits of which are less prepossessing than those of all the rest, which I am loth to admit, that month is March. The burning heats of Midsummer, (when they shall come to us at the prophetic call of the Quarterly Reviewers-which they never will,) I shall be able to bear. And the frosts and snows of December and January are as welcome to me in their turn as the flowers in May. Nay, the so much vituperated fogs of November I by no means set my face against; on the contrary, I have a kind of appetite for them-both corporeal and mental. As an affair of mere breath there is something tangible in them. In the evanescent air of Italy a man might as well not breathe at all, for any thing he knows of the matter. But in a November fog there is something satisfying. You can feel what you breathe, and see it too. It is like breathing water-as I suppose the fishes do. And then the taste of them, when dashed with a due seasoning of sea-coal smoke, is far from insipid. Not that I would recommend them medicinally; especially to persons of queasy stomachs, delicate nerves, and afflicted with bile. But for one of a good robust habit of body, and not dainty withal, which such, by the bye, never are, there is nothing better in its way than a well-mixed Metropolitan fog. There is something substantial in it. You may "cut and come again." It is at once meat and drink, too ;-something between eggflip and omelette soufflée; but much more digestible than either. And wraps you round like a cloak, into the bargain. No-I maintain that a London fog is a thing not to be sneezed at-if you can help it.— Mem. As many spurious imitations of the above are abroad-such as Scotch mists, and the like-which are no less deleterious than disagreeable-please to ask for the "true London Particular”—as manufactured by Thames, Coal-gas, Smoke, Steam, & Co.-No others are genuine.

it

In fact, and sub rosa,-November is a month that has not been fairly done by; and for my part I think it should by no means have been fixed upon as that which is, par excellence the month best adapted to hang and drown oneself in ;-seeing that, to a wise man, that should never be an affair of atmosphere. But if a month must be set apart for such a process-(on the principle of luck-which determines that we are bound to begin our worldly concerns on a particular day, viz. Saturday and would, therefore, by parity of reasoning, call upon us to end them with a similar view to times and seasons) let that month be henceforth March;-for it has, at this present writing, no one characteristic by which to designate it-being neither Spring, Summer, Autumn, nor Winter, but only March.

But what I particularly object to in March is its winds. They say

"March winds and April showers

Bring forth May flowers."

But I doubt the fact. They may call them forth, perhaps,-whistling over the roofs of their subterraneous dwellings, to let them know that Winter is past and gone. Or, in our disposition to "turn diseases to

commodities," let us regard them as the expectant damsel does the sound of the mail-coach horn as it whisks through the village as she lies in bed at midnight, and tells her that to-morrow she may look for a letter from her absent swain.

The only other reason why I object to March is that she drives hares mad; which is a great fault.-But be all this as it may, she is still fraught with merits; and let us proceed, without more ado, to point out a few of them. And first of the country;-to which, by the way, I have not hitherto allowed its due supremacy-for

"God made the country, but man made the town."

Now, then, even the winds of March,-notwithstanding all that we have insinuated in their disfavour-are far from being virtueless; for they come careering over our fields, and roads, and pathways, and while they dry up the damps that the thaws had let loose, and the previous frosts had prevented from sinking into the earth,-" pipe to the spirit ditties" the words of which tell tales of the forthcoming flowers. And not only so, but occasionally they are caught bearing away upon their rough wings the mingled odours of violet and daffodil-both of which have already ventured to

Come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty."

Can it ever be too late in the day to go on with the quotation, and say that now, too, we have

But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,

Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength-a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips,
And the crown-imperial."

We have made our way into the garden at once, without intending it. But perhaps we could not do better; for the general face of Nature is not much changed in appearance since we left it in February; though its internal economy has made an important step in advance. The sap is alive in the seemingly sleeping trunks that every where surround us, and is beginning to mount slowly to its destination; and the embryo blooms are almost visibly struggling towards light and life, beneath their rough, unpromising outer coats-unpromising to the idle, the unthinking, and the inobservant; but to the eye that "can see Othello's visage in his mind," bright and beautiful, in virtue of the brightness and the beauty that they cover, but not conceal.-Now, too, the dark earth becomes soft and tractable, and yields to the kindly constraint that calls upon it to teem with new life-crumbling to the touch, that it may the better clasp in its fragrant bosom the rudiments of that gay but ephemeral creation which are born with the Spring, only " to run their race rejoicing" into the lap of Summer, and there yield up their sweet breath, a willing incense, at the shrine of that nature, the spirit of which is endless constancy growing out of endless change. Must I tell the reader this in plainer prose? Now, then, is the time to sow the seeds of most of the annual flowering plants; particularly of those which we all know and love—such as sweet-pea, the most feminine of flowers

that must have a kind hand to tend its youth, and a supporting arm to cling to in its maturity, or it grovels in the dust, and straggles away into an unsightly weed; and mignonette, with a name as sweet as its breath-that loves "within a gentle bosom to be laid," and makes haste to die there, lest its white lodging should be changed; and larkspur, trim, gay, and bold-the gallant of the garden; and lupines, blue and yellow and rose-coloured, with their winged flowers hovering above their starry leaves: and a host of others, that we must try to characterise as they come in turn before us.-Now, too, we have all the bulbous-rooted flowers at their best, and may take a final leave of them; for we shall see them no more :—of the tulip, beautiful as the panther, and as proud-standing aloof from its own leaves; and the rich hyacinth, clustering like the locks of Adam; and the myriadleaved anemone; and narcissus, pale and passion-stricken at the sense of its own sweetness.

Now, too, the tender green of Spring first begins to peep forth from the straggling branches of the hedge-row elder, the trim lilac, and the thin threads of the stream-enamoured willow-the first to put on its spring-clothing, and the last to leave it off. And if we look into the kitchen-garden, there too we shall find those forest-trees in miniature, the gooseberries and currants, letting their leaves and blossoms, both of a colour, look forth together, hand-in-hand, in search of the April sun before it arrives-as the lark mounts upward to seek for it before it has risen in the morning. It will be well if these early adventurers-forth do not encounter a cutting easterly blast; or, still worse, a deceitful breeze that tempts them to its embraces by its milder breath, only to shower diseases upon them. But if they will be out on the watch for Spring before she calls them, they must be content to take their chance.

Now, too, the birds are for once in their lives as busy as the bees are always. They are getting their houses built, and seeing to their household affairs, and concluding their family arrangements--that when the summer and the sunshine are fairly come, they may have nothing to do but teach their children the last new modes of flying and singing, and be as happy as-birds, for the rest of the year. Now, therefore,— as in the last month-they have but little time to sing to each other; and the lark has the morning sky all to himself.

Lastly, now we meet with one of the prettiest, yet most pathetic sights that the animal world presents: the early lambs, dropped in their tottering and bleating helplessness, upon the cold skirts of winter, and hiding their frail forms from the March winds, by crouching down on the sheltered side of their dams.

Now, quitting the country till next month, we find London all alive -Lent and Lady-day notwithstanding; for the latter is but a day, after all; and he must have a very countryfied conscience who cannot satisfy it as to the former, by doing penance once or twice at an oratorio, and hearing comic songs sung in a foreign tongue; or if this does not do, he may fast if he pleases, every Friday, by eating salt-fish in addition to the rest of his fare! Now, the citizens have pretty well left off their annual visitings, and given the great ones leave to begin; so that there is no sleep to be had in the neighbourhood of May-fair, for love VOL. VII. No. 39.-1824.

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