pany "No body coming to woo," the young gentleman grumble and talk about slow promotion, horses, &c., and discuss as news, affairs which have happened at least three months before. Talents (I mean literary) are not of much use in India, "Talents here find themselves placed in the same sentence with treacle; custards are coupled with conjugal fidelity, and moral duties with macaroni."

POLYPHILUS.

Tuesday, January 9, 1844.

No. 5.

The Subaltern for the Ladies.

"He is a professed admirer not of any particular lady but of the whole sex.

He is to suppose every lady has caught cold every night, which gives him an opportunity of calling to see how she does the next morning.

He is upon all occasions to shew himself in very great pain for the ladies: if a lady drops even a pin, he is to fly in order to present it."

GOLDSMITH'S CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.

"It was impossible not to take notice of him."

MACKENZIE,

The wonderfully natural character of the adulator drawn by Theophrastus the disciple of Plato, only causes man to flatter man, I wonder why he did not draw that of one who is continually flattering the ladies, but the reason I suppose is this, he intended the character as applicable to both. I extract a paragraph from the original for the benefit of those whose avocations may have prevented them from perusing Theophrastus. "When his patron is about to speak, the parasite imposes silence on all present; and he himself while he listens, gives signals of applause; and at every

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pause exclaims Well said, well said.' If the speaker is pleased to be facetious, he forces a grin; or puts his cloak to his mouth, as if striving to suppress a burst of laughter. He provides himself with apples and pears, which he presents to the children of the family in the presence of the father and kissing them, exclaims Worthy offspring of a noble stock,' the foot,' says the humble companion, when the great man would fit himself with a pair of shoes, 'the foot is of a handsomer make than the pair you are trying' and so on. To the female sex flattery is always dear, for which reason, man is continually giving it to the Ladies; the Duchess of Devonshire was highly flattered, when the dustman wished to light his pipe at her lovely bright eyes, but such I suppose would be thought little or nothing of by the dear creatures in this country; woman without flattery could not exist, it is far dearer to her than all the luxuries of the East, than all the brilliants of Golconda ; imagine then a young subaltern imparting the "delicious essence" to the fair, not to one remember (for he is the ladies' man) how he must rise in their estimation, and be looked upon by many as the at-length-arrived fulfilment of hope deferred. The ladies' subaltern is generally of a quiet disposition, the first

to take up an argument in favour of the sex; in fact he is a petticoat champion, to whom the Ladies impart all their secrets, as the reward for his services. He then becomes an emporium of news, a walking chronicle of births, marriages and deaths; he will tell and can tell, to whom such a young lady is engaged, but that only in cases of great necessity, he is always ready to contradict a rumour, which might hurt the feelings of any delicate fair; he is in general smart in his dress, his hair shining with the use of puffed off oils and balms, those tools of foppery; he will even go the length of learning how to work the cross stitch, make a pair of slippers, decide the quality of tea, and order dinner. In general his mind is a compound of romance, and snatches from Italian Operas, he is well read in the new Romances, where plenty of rich heiresses are to be found for £1, 11, 6; he has perused with the most intense interest" Moore's Loves of the Angels," a book much relished by all young ladies of sentiment, which he takes great delight in reading to them: on parade the ladies' subaltern loves to have the eyes of the fair fixed on him, for well he knows they are muttering to one another, what a very handsome young officer that is, he will turn out

a second Lord Clive; such then is the favourite, the man who while he is adored by the fair is often at the same time considered a nuisance to society by the other sex ; but he is a fine young man for all that, he loves the ladies, and that is no more than Cæsar, Marc Antony, Napoleon, and "our great Captain of the age," have done before him." "Ride si sapis," as the Spectator would say.

POLYPHILUS.

Tharsday, January 11, 1844.