Now, "the British" was a certain staid and grave high-church review, the editor of which received the poet's imputation of bribery as a serious accusation; and, accordingly, in his next number after the publication of _Don Juan_, there appeared a postscript, in which the receipt of any bribe was stoutly denied, and the idea of such connivance altogether repudiated; the editor adding that he should continue to exercise his own judgment as to the merits of Lord Byron, as he had hitherto done in every instance! However, the affair was too ludicrous to be at once altogether dropped; and, so long as the prudish publication was in existence, it enjoyed the _sobriquet_ of "My Grandmother's Review." By the way, there is another hoax connected with this poem. One day an old gentleman gravely inquired of a printseller for a portrait of "Admiral Noah"--to illustrate _Don Juan_! * * * * * WALPOLE'S WAY TO WIN THEM. Sir Robert Walpole, in one of his letters, thus describes the relations of a skilful Minister with an accommodating Parliament--the description, it may be said, having, by lapse of time, acquired the merit of general inapplicability to the present state of things:--"My dear friend, there is scarcely a member whose purse I do not know to a sixpence, and whose very soul almost I could not purchase at the offer. The reason former Ministers have been deceived in this matter is evident--they never considered the temper of the people they had to deal with. I have known a minister so weak as to offer an avaricious old rascal a star and garter, and attempt to bribe a young rogue, who set no value upon money, with a lucrative employment. I pursue methods as opposite as the poles, and therefore my administration has been attended with a different effect." "Patriots," elsewhere says Walpole, "spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty of them within four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or insolent demand, and _up starts a patriot_." * * * * * DR. JOHNSON'S CRITICISMS.