tioned class claims our attention, from the comprehensive range of its operation. It is not applied to the mental foibles or personal defects of a single object; it does not attack the failings of a solitary individual; it wastes not the lash of censure on an isolated instance of absurdity, but it inflicts a wound upon thousands in a moment, and stamps the mark of ridicule upon numberless victims. The Quizzes, the Prigs, the Marines, the Chaises, are, amongst our alumni, well-known examples of the nickname General. But we have too long lost sight of the main object of our present lucubration, which was, the recommendation of this art to our fellow-citizens, as a commendable, though much-neglected study. When we say much neglected, we mean not that nicknames have ceased to be the rage, and are falling into disuse (for certainly there never was an age in which they spread more luxuriantly); but we allude to the lamentable decay of imagination and ingenuity in their formation. If we look back to ancient times, we shall find, that, in those days, nicknames were derived from the same sources as in the present age; they had their origin from natural defects, from personal deformities; yet how amazingly do the cognominu of antiquity exceed in elegance and taste the nicknames of more modern date. How wonderfully are the "Chicken," the "Shanks," the "Nosey," of Etonian celebrity surpassed by the "Pullus," the "Scaurus," the "Cicero," of Roman literature. It is a disgrace upon the genius of our generation, that, at a time when other arts have arrived at such a high perfection that our age may almost be considered the Augustan age of the world, the art of nicknames should have totally lost the classical polish for which it was in the olden time so eminently remarkable, until it has sunk into the vehicle of vulgar abuse, neither adorned by wit nor chastened by urbanity. These considerations have induced us to give our most serious attention to the advancement and improvement of the art. We are confident that our researches in this line of literature have not been misapplied; and our readers will surely agree with us, when they reflect on the manifold utility of the study, when properly cultivated. There is so little variety in English christian names, that, where friends are in the habit of using them, great mistakes must naturally take place. A sirname, as Charles Surface observes," is too formal to be registered in Love's calendar." A nickname avoids alike the ambiguity of one, and the stiffness of the other; it unites all the familiarity of the first with all the utility of the second. Besides this, the nickname is a brief description of its object;-it saves a million of questions, and an hour of explanation: it is in itself a species of biography. Homer, when he gives to his Juno the nickname of "Bull's-eyed," expresses in a word what a modern rhymer would dilate into a Canto. For the rescuing of nicknames from the obloquy into which they have fallen, we have collected a large assortment of them, which we are ready to dispose of to applicants at a very low price. We have in our stock appellations of every description, the Classical, the Familiar, the Theatrical, the Absurd, the Complimentary, the Abusive, and the Composite. By an application at our publisher's, new nicknames may be had at a moment's notice.The wit and the blockhead, the sap and the idler, shall be fitted with denominations which shall be alike appropriate and flattering, so that they shall neither outrage propriety, nor offend selfconceit. The Dandy shall be suited with a name which shall bear no allusion to stays, and the Coquet with one which shall in no way reflect upon rouge. In short, we have a collection of novelties adapted to both sexes, and proper for all ages. In one thing only is our stock deficient; and that, we are confident, will be supplied previous to the appearance of our second Number. We have no doubt that some obligingly sarcastic associate will favour us with a new and an ingenious nickname for THE E.TONIAN. L My Brother's Erave. (FROM THE POETRY OF THE COLLEGE MAGAZINE.) BENEATH the chancel's hallow'd stone, The place is silent-rarely sound Nor murmur of the passing crowd, Where thou, beneath thy burial stone, Art laid in that unstartled sleep The living eye hath never known. But when the sweet-ton'd Sabbath-chime, Of prayer, and thanks, and bended knees; When rustic crowds devoutly meet, And lips and hearts to God are given, And souls enjoy oblivion sweet Of earthly ills, in thoughts of Heaven; Is heard above thy burial stone? And if a voice could reach the dead, That Sire, who thy existence gave, It is not long since thou wert wont This altar, that baptismal font, These stones which now thy dust conceal, The sweet tones of the Sabbath-bell, Were holiest objects to thy soul; Those scenes, the heart can ne'er forget! I feel not now as then I felt, The sunshine of my heart is o'er ; The spirit now is chang'd which dwelt Within me, in the days before. But thou wert snatch'd, my brother, hence, In all thy guileless innocence; One Sabbath saw thee bend the knee, In reverential piety For childish faults forgiveness crave- |