music united have not been able to save from the degrading power of the musical bore.

How often, standing beside the harp and the pianoforte, self-immolating, must the modern Anacreon have offered up praise, such as the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not,

"Dear harp of my country!"

How it has suffered in unskilful, worse than unskilful-conceited, and affected hands!-and "Love's young dream," and "All those endearing young charms,”-now old and common, stale and vulgar!— and "Oh breathe not his name;"-conceive it sung by a young lady fresh from-

"I love somebody, somebody, somebody."

For author, poet, musician, gentleman, can any torture be devised from which a man would shrink more? There is, however, but one Anacreon of the age, and few persons, perhaps, of sensibility and sympathy so delicate as to feel this agony of shame and indignation. Besides, there is some possible escape, some refuge from the danger. By declining parties where musical bores are engaged, by avoiding private theatricals, or reading parties, where we are likely to meet them, we may keep tolerably clear of several of the plagues I have described. But there is another description whom it is impossible to escape, he so infests society; I mean the everlasting-quotation-loving bore, -English, Latin, and Greek. This animal, like the lion-hunter, feeds on scraps, but, still more undistinguishing of taste, he

“ On husks of learning dotes,

And thinks he grows immortal while he quotes."

He is the infant-reciting bore, in second childishness.

We wish in vain that it were in mere oblivion. But, unluckily, he remembers every thing you have heard a thousand times and more. Sometimes he gets into parliament, and tries his Latin and Greek there; but is usually coughed down; of which there have been right honourable examples, which have happily deterred others from boring Europe with their schoolboy learning.

From the ladies' tea-tables, the Greek-and-Latinquoting bores were driven away long ago by the Guardian and the Spectator, and seldom now translate for country gentlewomen. But the mere English quotation-dealer, a mortal tiresome creature! still prevails, and figures still in certain circles of old blues, who are civil enough still to admire that wonderful memory of his which has a quotation ready for every thing you can say? He was certainly born with a jingle of rhyme in his ears, and the sound proves an echo to the sense of whatever is uttered in his presence. He usually prefaces or ends his quotations with," As the poet happily says ;"-or, "As nature's sweetest wood-lark wild justly remarks ;"—or, "As the immortal Milton has it."

There are females as well as males of this class, all nauseated by persons of genius. After a certain age found incurable; but if taken up young, others might be cured where there is no radical deficiency of taste, but only a superabundance of memory preponderating over judgment, and a precocity of the wit. A youth under these circumstances might perchance be cured by Dr Pangloss.

But there is a certain simplicity, joined to enthusiasm for excellence, which, in early youth, distin

guishes real genius. One new in the ways of literature, unacquainted with the practices of bores, infant or adult, may chance to light upon hackneyed quotations, and, novice-like, conceive that these are quite fresh beauties of his own discovery, and that may do honour to his taste. To prevent the confusion and disgrace consequent upon such mistakes, and for the general advantage of literature, in reclaiming, if possible, what has gone to the bores, it might be of service to point out publicly such quotations as are now too common to be admitted within the pale of good taste.

In the last age, Lord Chesterfield set the mark of the beast, as he called it, on certain vulgarisms in pronunciation, which he succeeded in banishing from good company. I wish we could set the mark of the bore upon all which has been contaminated by his touch, all those tainted beauties which no person of taste would prize. This would note them for the avoidance of all ;-they must be hung up, viewless, for half a century at least, to bleach out their stains.

I invite every true friend of literature and of good conversation, blues and antis, to contribute their assistance in furnishing out a list of quotations to be proscribed. Could I but accomplish this object, I should feel that I had not written in vain. To make a good beginning, I will give half a dozen of the most notorious :

"The light fantastic toe," has figured so long in the newspapers, that an editor of taste would hardly admit it now in his columns in any report of a fashionable ball or fete champetre.

Pity is akin to love,"-sunk to utter contempt; along with," Grace is in all her steps;" with,

2

"Man never is, but always to be blest;"

"Youth

at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm ;"-no longer safe on a boating party, nor on any select party of pleasure.

The bourgeois gentilhomme has talked prose, without knowing it, till we are quite tired of him.

"No man is a hero to his valet de chambre,"-gone to the valets themselves.

"Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire,”-in great danger of the same fate. For my own share, I am conscious of having quoted it at least a dozen times, it is so tempting!-But so much the worse, -wit is often its own worst enemy.

Some anatomists, it is said, have, during the operation of dissection, caught from the subject the disease. I feel myself in danger at this moment, and will, as fast as possible, get beyond the reach of infection or contagion.

A secret horror thrills through my veins. Often have I remarked, that persons who undergo certain transformations are unconscious of the commencement and progress in themselves, though quicksighted when their enemies, friends, or neighbours, are beginning to turn into bores. Husband and wife, no creatures sooner!-perceive each other's metamorphosis,-not Baucis and Philemon more surely. Seldom, like them, before the transformation be complete, are we in time to say the last adieu. -I fear that I have long been

I feel that I am

A BORE.

G

MAXIMS.*

FROM GOETHE.

ONE must whip the curd if the cream won't come.

It is a melancholy thing to observe how often a remarkable man goes through life in a constant state of struggle with himself, his circumstances, and his time, without ever being so fortunate as to hit upon the (nevertheless simple) something by which all these might be reconciled.

It is vastly an easier matter to sympathize with the brain that is full of prodigious errors, than with one that is contented with half-truths.

There is no hair so little that it casts no shade.

The dust never rises so fiercely as when it is just about to be crushed into total quiescence by a tempest.

It is no easy matter for one man to understand

These maxims are taken (but not, except in a few instances, literally translated) from the venerable Goethe's work, entitled "Ueber Kunst und Altherthum," (On Art and Antiquity,) vol. 3d.-1821.