In short, do what we would, go where we might, we were outraged and annoyed, or at least thought ourselves so; and beyond all bitterness was the reflection, that the days of our dignity and delight never might return. There were at Brighton no less than three men who called me Jack, and _that_, out of flies or in libraries, and one of these, chose occasionally, by way of making himself particularly agreeable, to address me by the familiar appellation of Jacky. At length, and that only three weeks after my fall, an overgrown tallow-chandler met us on the Steyne, and stopped our party to observe, "as how he thought he owed me for two barrels of coal tar, for doing over his pigsties." This settled it--we departed from Brighton, and made a tour of the coast; but we never rallied; and business, which must be minded, drove us before Christmas to Budge Row, where we are again settled down. Maria has grown thin--Sarah has turned methodist--and Jenny, who danced with his Excellency the Portuguese Ambassador, who was called angelic by the Right Honourable the Lord Privy Seal, and who moreover refused a man of fortune because he had an ugly name, is going to be married to Lieutenant Stodge, on the half pay of the Royal Marines--and what then?--I am sure if it were not for the females of my family I should be perfectly at my ease in my proper sphere, out of which the course of our civic constitution raised me. It was unpleasant at first:--but I have toiled long and laboured hard; I have done my duty, and Providence has blessed my works. If we were discomposed at the sudden change in our station, I it is who was to blame for having aspired to honours which I knew were not to last. However the ambition was not dishonourable, nor did I disgrace the station while I held it; and when I see, as in the present year, _that_ station filled by a man of education and talent, of high character and ample fortune, I discover no cause to repent of having been one of his predecessors. Indeed I ought to apologize for making public the weakness by which we were all affected; especially as I have myself already learned to laugh at what we all severely felt at first--the miseries of a SPLENDID ANNUAL.--_Sharpe's London Magazine_. * * * * * SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS * * * * * A CHAPTER ON HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY "Ut sunt divorum, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo." _Latin Grammar_. Did you ever look In Mr. Tooke, For Homer's gods and goddesses? The males in the air, So big and so bare, And the girls without their bodices. There was Jupiter Zeus, Who play'd the deuce, A rampant blade and a tough one; But Denis bold, Stole his coat of gold, And rigg'd him out in a stuff one, Juno, when old, Was a bit of a scold, And rul'd Jove _jure divino_; When he went gallivaunting, His steps she kept haunting,[4] And she play'd, too, the devil with Ino.