with this text I protest I could go on for hours. What multitudes of men, what multitudes of women, my dears, pass off their ordinaire for port, their small beer for strong! In literature, in politics, in the army, the navy, the Church, at the bar, in the world, what an immense quantity of cheap liquor is made to do service for better sorts! Ask Sergeant Rowland his opinion of Oliver, Q. C. "Ordinaire, my good fellow, ordinaire, with a port-wine label!" Ask Oliver his opinion of Rowland. Never was a man so overrated by the world and by himself. Ask Tweedledumski his opinion of Tweedledeestein's performance. "A quack, my tear sir! an ignoramus, I geef you my vort! He gombose an opera! He is not fit to make dance a bear!" Ask Paddington and Buckmister, those two "swells" of fashion, what they think of each other. They are notorious ordinaire. You and I remember when they passed for very small wine, and now how high and mighty they have become! What do you say to Tomkins's sermons? Ordinaire, trying to go down as orthodox port, and very meagre ordinaire too! To Hopkins's historical works? to Pumkins's poetry? Ordinaire, ordinaire again—thin, feeble, overrated; and so down the whole list. And when we have done discussing our men friends, have we not all the women? Do these not advance absurd pretensions? Do these never give themselves airs? With feeble brains, don't they often set up to be esprits forts? Don't they pretend to be women of fashion, and cut their betters? Don't they try and pass off their ordinary-looking girls as beauties of the first order? Every man in his circle knows women who

give themselves airs, and to whom we can apply the port-wine simile.

Come, my friends, here is enough of ordinaire and port for to-day. My bottle has run out. Will any body have any more? Let us go up stairs, and get a cup of tea from the ladies.

OGRES.

DARE say the reader has remarked that the upright and independent vowel, which stands in the vowel-list between E and O, has formed the subject of the main part of these essays. How does that vowel feel this morning?-fresh, good-humored, and lively? The Roundabout lines which fall from this pen are correspondingly brisk and cheerful. Has any thing, on the contrary, disagreed with the vowel? Has its rest been disturbed, or was yesterday's dinner too good, or yesterUnder such circum

day's wine not good enough?

stances, a darkling, misanthropic tinge, no doubt, is cast upon the paper. The jokes, if attempted, are

I

elaborate and dreary. The bitter temper breaks out. That sneering manner is adopted, which you know, and which exhibits itself so especially when the writer is speaking about women. A moody carelessness comes over him. He sees no good in any body or thing, and treats gentlemen, ladies, history, and things in general with a like gloomy flippancy. Agreed. When the vowel in question is in that mood, if you like airy gayety and tender gushing benevolence-if you want to be satisfied with yourself and the rest of your fellow-beings, I recommend you, my dear creature, to go to some other shop in Cornhill, or turn to some other article. There are moods in the mind of the vowel of which we are speaking when it is illconditioned and captious. Who always keeps good health and good-humor? Do not philosophers grumble? Are not sages sometimes out of temper? and do not angel-women go off in tantrums? To-day my mood is dark. I scowl as I dip my pen in the inkstand.

Here is the day come round, for every thing here is done with the utmost regularity: intellectual labor, sixteen hours; meals, thirty-two minutes; exercise, a hundred and forty-eight minutes; conversation with the family, chiefly literary, and about the housekeeping, one hour and four minutes; sleep, three hours and fifteen minutes (at the end of the month, when the Magazine is complete, I own I take eight minutes more); and the rest for the toilette and the world. Well, I say, the Roundabout Paper Day being come, and the subject long since settled in my mind-an excellent subject—a most telling, lively, and popular

subject-I go to breakfast determined to finish that meal in 9 minutes, as usual, and then retire to my desk and work, when-oh, provoking!-here in the paper is the very subject treated on which I was going to write! Yesterday another paper which I saw treated it, and of course, as I need not tell you, spoiled it. Last Saturday, another paper had an article on the subject; perhaps you may guess what it was, but I won't tell you. Only this is true, my favorite subject, which was about to make the best paper we have had for a long time--my bird, my game that I was going to shoot and serve up with such a delicate sauce, has been found by other sportsmen, and pop, pop, pop, a half dozen of guns have banged at it, mangled it, and brought it down.

"And can't you take some other text," say you. All this is mighty well. But if you have set your heart on a certain dish for dinner, be it cold boiled veal, or what you will, and they bring you turtle and venison, don't you feel disappointed? During your walk you have been making up your mind that that cold meat, with moderation and a pickle, will be a very sufficient dinner; you have accustomed your thoughts to it; and here, in place of it, is a turkey, surrounded by coarse sausages, or a reeking pigeon-pie, or a fulsome roast pig. I have known many a good and kind man made furiously angry by such a contretemps. I have known him lose his temper, call his wife and servants names, and a whole household made miserable. If, then, as is notoriously the case, it is too dangerous to balk a man about his dinner, how much more about his article? I came to my meal with an