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closed upon him, he put on his hat, as if uncons scious where he was; and, crushing it down over his eyes, he began wandering round the room in a state of stupor. The officers in waiting re minded him that he should not wear his hat in the presence of the magistrate, and he instantly removed it but he still seemed lost to every thing around him, and though one or two gentlemen present put money into his hands, he scarcely noticed it. At length he slowly sauntered out of the office, apparently reckless of every thing. ANONYMOUS.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

THERE are perhaps no two sets of human beings, who comprehend less the movements, and enter less into the cares and concerns of each other, than the wide and busy public on the one hand; and, on the other, those men of close and studious retirement, whom the world never hears of, save when, from their thoughtful solitude, there issues forth some splendid discovery, to set the world on a gaze of admiration. Then will the brilliancy of a superior genius draw every eye towards it-and the homage paid to intellectual superiority, will place its idol on a loftier eminence than all wealth or than all titles can bestow,—and the name of the successful philosopher will circulate, in his own age, over the whole extent of civilized society, and be borne down to posterity in the characters of. ever-during remembrance and thus it is, that, when we look back on the days of Newton, we annex a kind of mysterious greatness to him, who, by the pure force of his understanding, rose to such a gigantic elevation above the level of ord

nary men-and the kings and warriors of other days sink into insignificance around him-and he, at this moment, stands forth to the public eye, in a prouder array of glory than circles the memory of all the men of former generations-and, while all the vulgar grandeur of other days is now mouldering in forgetfulness, the achievements of one great astronomer are still fresh in the veneration of his countrymen, and they carry him forward on the stream of time, with a reputation ever gathering, and the triumphs of a distinction that will never die!

DR. CHALMERS.

CHARACTER OF A COCKNEY.

THE true Cockney has never travelled beyond the purlieus of the metropolis, either in the body or the spirit. Primrose Hill is the ultima Thule of his most romantic desires; Greenwich Park stands him in the stead of the Vales of Arcady. Time and space are lost to him. He is confined to one spot, and to the present moment. He sees every thing near, superficial, little, in hasty sucession. The world turns round, and his head with it, like a roundabout at a fair, till he becomes stunned and giddy with the motion. Figures glide by as in a camera obscura. There is a glare, a perpetual hubbub, a noise, a crowd about him; he sees and hears a vast number of things, and knows nothing. He is pert, raw, ignorant, conceited, ridiculous, shallow, contemptible. His senses keep him alive; and he knows, inquires, and cares for nothing farther. He meets the Lord Mayor's coach, and, without ceremony, treats himself to an

imaginary ride in it. He notices the people going to court or to a city feast, and is satisfied with the show. He takes the wall of a lord, and fancies himself as good as he. He sees an infinite quantity of people pass along the street, and thinks there is no such thing as life or a knowledge of character to be found out of London. "Beyond Hyde Park all is a desert to him." He despises the country, because he is ignorant of it: and the town, because he is familiar with it. He is as well acquainted with St. Paul's as if he had built it; and talks of Westminster Abbey and Poets' Corner with great indifference. The King, the House of Lords and Commons, are his very good friends. He knows the members for Westminster or the city by sight, and bows to the sheriffs or sheriffs' men. He is hand in glove with the chairman of some committee. He is, in short, a great man by proxy, and comes so often in contact with fine persons and things, that he rubs off a little of the gilding, and is surcharged with a sort of secondhand, vapid, tingling, troublesome self-importance. His personal vanity is thus continually flattered and perked into ridiculous self-complacency, while his imagination is jaded and impaired by daily misuse. Every thing is vulgarized in his mind. Nothing dwells long enough on it to produce an interest; nothing is contemplated sufficiently at a distance to excite curiosity or wonder. Your true Cockney is your only true leveller. Let him be as low as he will, he fancies he is as good as anybody else. He has no respect for himself, and still less (if possible) for you. He cares little about his own advantages, if he can only make a jest at yours. Every feeling comes to him through a medium of levity and impertinence; nor does he like to have

this habit of mind disturbed by being brought into collision with any thing serious or respectable. He despairs (in such a crowd of competitors) of distinguishing himself, but laughs heartily at the idea of being able to trip up the heels of other people's pretensions. A Cockney feels no gratitude. This is a first principle with him. He regards any obligation you confer upon him as a species of imposition, of a ludicrous assumption of fancied superiority. He talks about every thing, for he has heard something about it; and, understanding nothing of the matter, concludes he has as good a right as you. He is a politician, for he has seen the Parliament House: he is a critic, because he knows the principal actors by sight; has a taste for music, because he belongs to a glee club at the West End; and is gallant, in virtue of sometimes frequenting the lobbies at half-price. A mere Londoner, in fact, from the opportunities he has of knowing something of a number of objects (and those striking ones) fancies himself a sort of privileged person, remains satisfied with the assumption of merits, so much the more unquestionable as they are not his own; and from being dazzled with noise and show and appearances, is less capable of giving a real opinion, or entering into any subject, than the meanest peasant. There are greater lawyers, orators, painters, philosophers, players, in London, than in any other part of the United Kingdom: he is a Londoner, and therefore it would be strange if he did not know more of law, eloquence, art, philosophy, acting, than any one without his local advantages, and who is merely from the country. This is a non sequitur, and it constantly appears so when put to the test. A real Cockney is the poorest creature in the

world; the most literal, the most mechanical, and yet he too lives in a world of romance—a fairy land of his own. He is a citizen of London; and this abstraction leads his imagination the finest dance in the world. London is the first city on the habitable globe; and therefore he must be superior to every one who lives out of it. There are more people in London than anywhere else; and though a dwarf in stature, his person swells out and expands into ideal importance and borrowed magnitude. He resides in a garret or in a two pair of stairs' back room; yet he talks of the magnificence of London, and gives himself airs of consequence upon it, as if all the houses in Portman or in Grosvenor Square were his by right or in reversion. "He is owner of all he surveys." The Monument, the Tower of London, St. James's Palace, the Mansion House, Whitehall, are part and parcel of his being.

Let us suppose him to be a lawyer's clerk at half-a-guinea a week: but he knows the Inns of Court, the Temple Gardens, and Gray's Inn Passage; sees the lawyers in their wigs walking up and down Chancery Lane; and has advanced within half a dozen yards of the chancellor's chair: -who can doubt that he understands (by implication) every point of law (however intricate) better than the most expert country practitioner? He is a shopman, and nailed all day behind the counter; but he sees hundreds and thousands of gay, well dressed people pass-an endless phantasmagoriaand enjoys their liberty and gaudy fluttering pride. He is a footman-but he rides behind beauty, through a crowd of carriages, and visits a thousand shops. Is he a tailor? The stigma on his profession is lost in the elegance of the patterns he pro

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