_July 28, 1828._
And so, most tasteful and provident public, you are going out of town on
Saturday next?--We envy you. Mars is gone, and Sontag is gone, and Pasta
is going--and Velluti is out of voice--and they are playing tragedies at
the Haymarket--and Vauxhall will never be dry again--and the Funny Club
are drenched to their skins every day--and "the sweet shady side of Pall
Mall" is a forgotten blessing. You will be dull in the country if this
weather continue--but not so dirty as upon the Macadam. So go.
We shall stay behind, with the Duke of Wellington, to look after
business. It would not do for either of us to be gadding, while Ireland,
and Turkey, and Portugal want watching. The times are getting ticklish.
The stocks are rising most dreadfully, as the barometer falls; and the
Squirearchy are beginning to dread that the patridges will be drowned.
That will be a sad drawback from the delights of a two-shilling
quartern-loaf. For ourselves, we have plenty of work cut out for us, in
this our abiding place. The fewer the books which are published, the
more we shall have to draw upon our own genius; and the duller the
season, the more vivacious must we be to put our readers in spirits. But
we have consolation approaching in the shape of amusing work.
Immediately that parliament is up, the newspapers will begin to lie,
"like thunder," Tom Pipes would say. What mysterious murders, what
heart-rending accidents, what showers of bonnets in the Paddington
Canal, what legions of unhappy children dropped at honest men's doors!
We have got a file of the "Morning Herald" for the last ten years;--and
we give the worthy labourers in the accident line, fair notice, that if
they hash up the old stories with the self-same sauce, as they are wont
to do, without substituting the pistol for the razor, and not even
changing the Christian name of the young ladies who always drown
themselves when parliament is up, we shall take the matter into our own
hands, and write a "Chapter of Accidents" that will drive these poor
pretenders to the secrets of hemp and rats-bane fairly out of the
field.--Ibid.
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