——‘And there the antic sits Mocking his state, and grinning at his pomp.’ As men make use of olives to give a relish to their wine, so John Buncle made use of philosophy to give a relish to life. He stops in a ball-room at Harrowgate to moralise on the small number of faces that appeared there out of those he remembered some years before: all were gone whom he saw at a still more distant period; but this casts no damper on his spirits, and he only dances the longer and better for it. He suffers nothing unpleasant to remain long upon his mind. He gives, in one place, a miserable description of two emaciated valetudinarians whom he met at an inn, supping a little mutton-broth with difficulty, but he immediately contrasts himself with them in fine relief. ‘While I beheld things with astonishment, the servant,’ he says, ‘brought in dinner—a pound of rump-steaks and a quart of green peas, two cuts of bread, a tankard of strong beer, and a pint of port-wine; _with a fine appetite, I soon despatched my mess, and over my wine, to help digestion, began to sing the following lines_!’ The astonishment of the two strangers was now as great as his own had been. We wish to enable our readers to judge for themselves of the style of our whimsical moralist, but are at a loss what to chuse—whether his account of his man O’Fin; or of his friend Tom Fleming; or of his being chased over the mountains by robbers, ‘whisking before them like the wind away,’ as if it were high sport; or his address to the Sun, which is an admirable piece of serious eloquence; or his character of six Irish gentlemen, Mr. Gollogher, Mr. Gallaspy, Mr. Dunkley, Mr. Makins, Mr. Monaghan, and Mr. O’Keefe, the last ‘descended from the Irish kings, and first cousin to the great O’Keefe, who was buried not long ago in Westminster Abbey.’ He professes to give an account of these Irish gentlemen, ‘for the honour of Ireland, and as they were curiosities of the human kind.’ Curiosities, indeed, but not so great as their historian! ‘Mr. Makins was the only one of the set who was not tall and handsome. He was a very low, thin man, not four feet high, and had but one eye, with which he squinted most shockingly. But as he was matchless on the fiddle, sung well, and chatted agreeably, he was a favourite with the ladies. They preferred ugly Makins (as he was called) to many very handsome men. He was a Unitarian.’ ‘Mr. Monaghan was an honest and charming fellow. This gentleman and Mr. Dunkley married ladies they fell in love with at Harrowgate Wells; Dunkley had the fair Alcmena, Miss Cox of Northumberland; and Monaghan, Antiope with haughty charms, Miss Pearson of Cumberland. They lived very happy many years, and their children, I hear, are settled in Ireland.’ Gentle reader, here is the character of Mr. Gallaspy: