one Monday night not many months ago, and on the following Thursday morning he was a dead man. Corporal Trim himself might here have found a theme whereon to deeply philosophize. Leaving that profitable occupation to our old friend the Corporal, let us look at the half pleasant, half stern realities of the case. Brunskill left three sons: to the two younger he bequeathed £10,000 apiece; to the eldest, £200,000 and Polsloe Park. The younger may wear their crape with satisfaction, and the eldest heir may bless the needle which pricked him out so pretty a condition. His sire has made him first gentleman of a future race of county 'squires; and I beg to assure heirs to come in after times from this peculiar source, that they will have less to be ashamed of than have those noble gentlemen and ladies who descend from concubines of kings, and who exist upon the wages of their first mother's pollution.

We have now considered both the patron and his flock; let us now see how the latter have been treated by the lively poets who have "fine-drawn" them in immortal verse.

THE TAILORS MEASURED BY THE POETS.

"Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori.-HORACE."

OH, Thersites, good friend, how scurvily hast thou been dealt with at the hands of man! Thou art emphatically un homme incompris, but thou art not therefore un homme méprisable. The poets have comprehended thee better than the people; and Homer himself has no desire to prove thee the coward and boaster for which thou art taken by the world on Homeric authority. I think that Ulysses, with whom, in the 'Iliad,' Thersites is brought in contact, is by far the greater brute of the two. The husband of Penelope is cringing to the great and cruel to the lowly. He appears much less fitted for a king than for a Poor-law Commissioner. He unmercifully smites the deformed Thersites with his sceptre; but why?—because the latter, so far from being a coward, had had the courage to attack Agamemnon himself before the whole assembled Greeks. He is ridiculed for the tears extorted from him by pain and shame; and yet weeping, among the heroes of Greek epic and tragic poetry, is indulged in on all occasions by the bravest of the brave. There is nothing that these copper-captains do more readily or more frequently, except lying, for which they exhibit an alacrity that is perfectly astounding. The soft infection will run through two whole armies, and then the universal, solemn shower rises into the majesty of poetry; but when our poor ill-treated friend drops a scalding tear, in his own solitary person, it is then bathos! I concede that he talked too much; but it was generally close to the purpose, and fearless of results. His last act was one of courage. The semi-deified bully Achilles, having slain Penthesilea, cried like

a school-boy at his self-inflicted loss; and Thersites, having laughed at him for his folly, paid for his bold presumption with his life. There is another version of his death, which says that the invincible son of Thetis having visited the dead body of the Amazon with unnatural atrocities, the decent Thersites reproached him for his unmanly conduct, and was slain by him in rage at the well-merited rebuke. Shakespeare, who does all things perfectly, makes of Thersites a bold and witty jester, who entertains a good measure of scorn for the valiant ignorance of Achilles. The wit of the latter, with that of his brother chiefs, lies in their sinews; and their talk is of such a skim milk complexion that we are ready to exclaim, with bold Thersites himself, "I will see you hanged like clodpolls ere I come any more to your tents; I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction to fools."

As it has been with our poor friend Thersites, so has it been with our useful friends whose faculties are ever given to a consideration of the important matter "De Re Vestiariâ," The poets however do not partake of the popular fallacy; and the builders of lofty rhyme are not unjust, as we shall see, to a race whose mission it is to take measures in order to save godlike man from looking ridiculous.

Shakespeare of course has rendered this full justice to the tailor. In his illustrations we see our ancient friend variously depicted, as industrious, intelligent, honest, and full of courage, without vapouring. The tailor in 'King John' is represented as the retailer of news, and the strong handicraftsman listens with respect to the budget of the weekly intelligencer.

"I saw a smith stand with his hammer thus,
The while his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers (which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet),
Told of a many thousand warlike French
That were embattled and rank'd in Kent."

It is clear that nothing less than an invasion had driven this hard-working artisan from his shopboard to talk of politics and perils with his friend at the smithy. The German poet Heyne has something of a similar description of the tailor, in prose: in his 'Reisebilder' there is an admirably graphic account of how the Elector John William fled from Düsseldorf and left his ci-devant subjects to render allegiance to Murat, the grand and well-curled Duke of Berg; and how, of the proclamations posted in the night, the earliest readers in the grey morning were an old soldier and a valliant tailor, Killian,-the latter attired as loosely as his predecessor in King John,' and with the same patriotic sentimentality in the heart which beat beneath his lightly burdened ribs.

But, to revert to "Sweet Will," how modestly dignified, assured, and self-possessed is the tailor in Katherine and Petruchio! The wayward bridegroom had ridiculed the gown brought home by the "woman's tailor" for the wayward bride. He had laughed at the "masking-stuff," sneered at the demi-cannon of a sleeve, and profanely pronounced its vandyking (if that term be here admissible) as

"carved like an apple-tart.

Here's snip and nip, and cut, and slish and slash
Like to a censer in a barber's shop."

To all which profanity against divine fashion, the tailor modestly remarks that he had made the gown as he had been bidden,

According to the fashion and the time."

And when Petruchio, who is not half so much of a gentleman in this scene as Sartorius, calls the latter " thimble," "flea," "skein of thread," "remnant," and flings at him a whole vocabulary of vitu peration, the gentle schneider still simply asserts that the gown was made according to directions, and that the latter came from Grumio himself. Now Grumio being a household servant, lies according to the manner of his vocation; and where he does not lie, he equivocates most basely; and where he neither lies nor equivocates,

he bullies; and finally, he falls into an argument, which has not the logical conclusion of annihilating his adversary. The latter, with quiet triumph, produces Grumio's note containing the order; but it costs the valet no breath, and as little hesitation, to pronounce the note a liar too. But a worm will turn; and the tailor, touched to the quick on a point of honour, brings his bold heart upon his lips and valiantly declared, "This is true that I say; an I had thee in place where, thou shouldst know it; and thereupon Grumio falls into bravado and uncleanness, and the tailor is finally dismissed with scant courtesy, and the very poor security of Hortensio's promise to pay for what Petruchio owed. The breach of contract was flagrant, and the only honest man in the party was the tailor.

So much for honesty; as for bravery, commend me to forcible Francis Feeble. He too was but a "woman's tailor;" but what an heroic soul was in that transparent frame! He reminds me of Sir Charles Napier. When the latter hero was complimented by the Mayor of Portsmouth, he simply undertook to do his best, and counselled his worship not to expect too much. Sir Charles must have taken the idea of his speech from Francis Feeble; and what an honour is that for the entire profession, not of sailors, but of tailors! "Wilt thou make me," asks Falstaff, "as many holes in an enemy's battle, as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?" "I will do my good will, Sir," answereth gallant Feeble, adding, with true conclusiveness, "you can have no more." Well might Sir John enthusiastically hail him as "courageous Feeble," and compare his vlaour to that of the wrathful dove and most magnanimous mouse, two animals gentle by nature, but being worked upon not void of spirit. Indeed, Feeble is the only gallant man of the entire squad of famished recruits. Bullcalf offers "good master corporate Bardolph" a bribe of "four Harry ten shillings in French crowns," to be let off. Not that Bullcalf is afraid! Not he, the knave; he simply does not care to go! He is not curious in things strategic; he seeth no attraction in stricken