SOME people have a horror of housebreakers. A great strong fellow in a fustian-jacket, with a piece of crape over his face and a pistol in his hand, is certainly a disagreeable visiter to a quiet country gentleman in the middle of a dark night in December; the hoarse whisper, conveying a delicate allusion to your money-bags or your life, is far from a pleasing method of carrying on a conversation; and therefore, without descending to any more minute particulars, or pluming myself on my personal immunity from such visitations on the score of having no house, I agree at once that a housebreaker is a detestable character, and worthy of all condemnation. A murderer, also, I am not prepared to vindicate; for though instances may occur-such as in the case of annuitants and superannuated relations where murder becomes a virtue, if not a duty, still, on the whole, it cannot be defended on its own merits. A knife forced into the stomach of an elderly gentleman in a half-sleepy state after a bottle of old port-a razor drawn across a beautiful bar-maid's throat or a bullet scientifically inserted through the ear-hole of a deaf old lady, engaged in secreting her half-year's dividends in a black trunk in the garret-are disagreeable objects of contemplation to the philanthropic mind; and I therefore at once coincide in the fervent execration in which a murderer is held by every person I have ever conversed with on the subject, except some students of anatomy, and two or three popular authors of the convulsive school. But there is another miscreant for whom I have no commiseration-a wretch, compared with whose atrocities housebreaking becomes meritorious, and murder innocent; before whose negro-like blackness-to borrow the language of Charles Phillips-the darkness of annihilation becomes white as snow; whose benediction is a curse; whose breath is a pestilence; whose name is a hell; over whose sunless memory shall settle the conflagration of a fury, and whose soul shall shudder beneath the appalling convulsions

of a fathomless doom for ever! After this description, need I say that I mean a scoundrel who neglects to pre-pay the post?-a fellow who, to make the paltry saving of a penny, forces his correspondent to an outlay of twopence? You will also uniformly find that the unpaid letter is of a most disagreeable nature in other respects; that it twits you with a deficiency in memory-whereas you have vainly flattered yourself that you have an excellent recollection; that it dwells particularly on the ancient date of your habiliments-whereas you have deluded yourself with the belief that your clothes were nearly new; and finally, that it glaringly protrudes before your eyes the total sum to which a column or two of smaller figures amounts, as if your education had been so grossly neglected that you could not run up a simple sum in addition. But no sum in addition, whether simple or compound, will the unconscionable rascal allow you to run up; and therefore you have no resource but either to refuse all unpaid letters, or to change your name, and take lodgings in a different street. The latter process admits a man, even in his lifetime, to the enjoyment of a little posthumous fame, and enables him to arrive at the unbiassed judgment of an impartial posterity. I remember when I was the Honourable Reginald Finsborough, in a dark-complexion and splendid apartments in Sackville Street, being very much delighted with the astonishing reputation I had acquired in the name of Captain Sidney Fitzherbert de York, with light brown hair, thin mustaches, and a suite of rooms in the Albany. All my jocular efforts to amuse my mercantile friends, by leaving them in the outer passage while I slipped down by the front window; all my philanthropic endeavours to inculcate on them the virtues of patience and resignation; all my self-denying ordinances, which compelled me to dismantle the apartments which I considered too handsomely furnished, and dispose of mirrors and chandeliers to the highest bidders all were kept in fond record

by the various tradesmen to whom I had distributed my patronage, and related with fitting comments to methe Honourable Reginald Finsborough -by tradesmen whom I had not condescended to employ as Captain Sidney Fitzherbert de York. A similar satisfaction awaited me in regard to the Honourable Reginald, when I was the Reverend Jeremiah Snuffle, a clergyman of highly evangelical principles, with a pair of black gaiters and plated spectacles-so that I can seriously recommend any person who is oppressed with unpaid letters, at once to look into the Court Guide or the Congregational Magazine, and select a good name. If he is afraid of having that filched from him by some of the myrmidons of the law-a process which, as Shakspeare says, leaves him poor indeed, and not enriches them I see nothing left for it but to follow my example one step further, and write a religious novel. It needs no intellect, no learning, no research; all that is wanted is a prodigious power of hypocrisy, and some strongly-coloured descriptions, which you can borrow from the last glaring trial for divorce. If you prefer Socialism and theft, on the plea that your conscience won't allow you to descend so low as to compose a religious novel, sir, I' honour your magnanimity, and have nothing further to say to you. My hints are addressed only to persons of a literary turn of mind, and by no means to gentlemen who keep a conscience.

Great fault was found with the alteration of the rates of postage as a matter of finance, but I can confidently say that I consider it a very excellent measure indeed, in a financial point of view; and the only amendment I should like to have introduced into the bill, would have been a clause enabling any gentleman who disapproved of the new system, to pay for his letters according to the old. If money is to be given for a letter at all, for heaven's sake let it be as small a sum as possible; for epistolary literature has fallen so low in England, that I am not prepared to say that even the present extortion of a penny for a letter is not a great deal more than it is worth. At the same time, it shall not be my fault if my country is not improved in this respect, for I intend to lay the whole art and mystery of let

ter-writing open to the dullest comprehension; so that hereafter, if any man is not an agreeable correspondent, he will have nobody to blame for it but himself. The French have no Milton, no Shakspeare, no Walter Scott, no Burns, no Hogg, and therefore, of course, no Bacon; but to make up for their deficencies in the epic, the universal, the inexhaustible, the spontaneous, the natural, and the philosophical, they certainly have managed to invent a style of writing letters which most people have looked upon with no little admiration. Every body goes mad when they talk of the correspondence of Madame de Sevigné; it is so plain, they say so neat, so pointed; and the same thing is uttered in universal chorus about the letters of Voltaire, and De Deffand, and Diderot, and half a hundred more; but 'tis all trash, my public-a most palpable instance of the facility with which John Bull chimes in with any thing that is dinned into his long ears, more particularly when it seems to bear a little hard upon himself; and I do not despair of seeing the time when John will be persuaded by the Prussians that they won the battle of Waterloo, and by the French that they were the very reverse of beat. I can assure John Bull, that if he only attends carefully to the following pages, he will beat the French as completely at letter-writing as at Trafalgar; so bear a good heart, John, mend your pen, and prepare to listen to the secrets I am now going to reveal, in strict confidence, of course-or, as the vulgar hath it, between you and me, and the post.

The only difficulty I can see in the composition of a letter is, that you may perhaps not exactly know the character and disposition of the person you are addressing; for, as the main object of a letter, like that of poetry, is to please, you would be a great fool if you filled your epistle with any thing disagreeable. You will, therefore, take care not to introduce any disquisitions on the advantages of the voluntary system, or of free trade in corn, sedition, or blasphemy, to Sir Robert Inglis; nor any allusion to Greek bonds to Mr Hume, or Greek accents to Lord Palmerston. But as the surest means of making your letter please, fill it with flattery; for, however people pretend to despise the

is a smart dashing flippant sort of letter, which may perhaps be useful in the case, for instance, of a young mediciner dedicating his work to an old one-e.g. :

TO THOMAS ALLFEE, Esq., M.D., &c. &c.

"Sir, I dedicate this book to you, because I walked St Thomas's long enough to know why the students thought no small beer of Abernethy. -Yours," &c.

A

The butter here is too thinly spread. A compliment by implication will never do in print, though it sometimes tells very well in conversation. Therefore, be more open; tell a man he's a great man at once, and do not leave his greatness to be gathered from his resemblance to any body else. soldier may be a great hero though he never studied the tactics of Whitelock, and a sailor may earn a peerage without bearing any resemblance to Admiral Elliot. But the epistle dedicatory may now, I think, be left to every one's own taste; and, with the emphatic word, butter! butter! butter! I proceed to the next branch, the epistle dutiful.

Every person who was ever in love, must have perceived what very disagreeable individuals fathers and mothers could make themselves; or rather, what an uncomfortable provision of Nature it was that there should exist such beings as fathers and mothers at all. Their optics seem differently formed from those of other people, and have lost the power, or never had it, of perceiving roses and lilies on the cheeks of undowered maidens, or grand expression and handsome figure in briefless barristers and half-pay lieutenants.

The

epistle dutiful is, therefore, very difficult; for it is addressed to people who can never enter into one's feelings, or understand what you would be at. Awkward questions are asked in reply; such as whether the aforesaid lilies and roses will pay a butcher's bill; or whether the grand expression and handsome figure of our legal or military friend can be made available by way of a settlement. Strong recommendations are also held out of bandy legs and fifteen hundred a-year, or of stockbrokers' widows with good jointures. At eighteen the bandy legs have

no chance; at five-and-twenty, the fifteen hundred a-year is irresistible. So that dutifulness at those two periods is a very different matter. I borrow from the English-German Letter- Writer, by J. Williams and H. Doering, a speci. men or two of a good German's ideas of the dutiful. Beginning at the age of fourteen or fifteen, let us hear a boy and girl at school on the approach of the holidays:

From "my Son, sir."

"Honoured sir,-In a few days I shall have an opportunity of visiting H., and of renewing those pleasing scenes which have been interrupted by being at school. The separation has been attended with very pleasing effects; for, had I never been divided from you, I should never have felt that lively joy which now plays around my heart, and will endear our meeting. I flatter myself that my improvements will equal your wishes, and that you will have no occasion to tax me with negligence. Mr and Mrs D., beg their respectful compliments; please to accept of, and present, my duty to my mamma; respects to all my friends, and love to my brothers and sisters.-I am, honoured sir, your dutiful son."

From " my Daughter, sir," on the

same occasion.

"Dear mamma,-You speak, in your very kind letter, of the pleasure you promise yourself in my company these Christmas holidays; I beg leave to offer you my most sincere thanks, for your obliging expressions; the satisfaction I feel from them, can be better conceived than committed to paper. It shall be my constant desire to merit similar sentiments from you; and may every wish of your heart be as completely gratified as I trust this will be, the 21st being fixed for our going home.-I am, your most dutiful and affectionate daughter."

The great beauty of these two letters is the easiness of the style; no stiffness nor formality; and, above all, not the slightest possibility that my worthy friends the schoolmaster, or the head usher, (famous for his eloquence and politeness,) assisted in the composition of the boy's epistle; or that my prim acquaintance, the principal of the ladies' seminary, suggest

ed to the daughter any of the pretty natural thoughts that made the respective old fathers and mothers so proud of their boy and girl, that they nearly killed them with buns and sweeties all the six weeks' vacation. But, in the course of ten or twelve years, the letters from those admirable young people, though still full of every thing proper and becoming, are somewhat different in their style. Habbakuk-for that, I believe, is the name of the dutiful boy-Habbakuk Baggs writes to Susannah Sudds, and nothing, I think, can be finer than the respectful way he addresses her. I copy still from the German-English Letter-Writer :

HABBAKUK to SUSANNAH. "Madam,-Those only who have suffered them, can tell the unhappy moments of hesitative uncertainty which attend the formation of a resolution to declare the sentiments of

affection. I, who have felt their great

est and most acute torments, could

not, previous to my experience, have

formed the remotest idea of their se~

verity. Every one of those qualities in you which claim my admiration, increased my diffidence, by showing the great risk I run in venturing, perhaps, before my affectionate assi. duities have made the desired impression on your mind, to make a declaration of the ardent passion I have long since felt for you. My family and connexions are so well known to you, that I need say nothing of them. If I am disappointed of the place I hope to hold in your affections, I trust this step will not draw on me the risk of losing the friendship of yourself and family, which I value so highly, that an object less ardently desired, or really estimable, could not induce me to take a step by which it should be in any manner hazarded. -I am, madam, your affectionate admirer and sincere friend."

THE ANSWER-SUSANNAH to HABBAKUK.

"Sir,-I take the earliest opportunity of acknowledging the receipt of your letter, and the obligations I feel to you for the sentiments expressed in it; and assure you, that whatever may be the event of your solicitations in another quarter, the sentiments of friendship I feel from a long acquaint

.

ance, will not be in any manner altered.

"There are many points besides mere personal regard to be considered; these I must refer to the superior knowledge of my father and brother; and, if the result of their enquiries is such as my presentiments suggest, I have no doubt my happiness will be attended to, by a permission to decide for myself. At all events, I shall never cease to feel obliged by a preference in itself sufficiently flattering, and rendered still more so by the handsome manner in which it is expressed; and I hope, if my parents should see cause to decline the proposed favour of your alliance, it will not produce such a disunion between our families, as to deprive us of friends who possess a great portion of our regard.-I am, sir, your sincere friend

and humble servant."

With such models as these, it is im

possible for any young couple to go

wrong; and I think it shows no little magnanimity in me, to talk so flatteringly of a book that may materially teacher of the sublime art of letterinterfere with my own reputation as a to inform the sympathizing reader of writing. I wish I had it in my power the issue of Habbakuk's solicitations luded to; but though I have no posiin the other quarter so modestly altive proofs on the subject, I conclude that, if the father and brother had been foolish enough to throw any obstacles in the way of so unobjectionable a match, a special miracle would have been wrought to bring it about; and therefore we may rest pretty well assured, that the parson was consulted on the matter in a very short period after the swain had screwed his courage up to the popping point. But it is not every courtship that shows such smooth sailing as this; and there is sometimes another style to be adopted, in addition to the dutiful, and that will best be shown in a specimen or two of the Epistle Confidential. And, it is needless to add, - that letters of this description are rarely addressed to fathers and mothers. The principal writers of letters of this description, are young ladies of romantic propensities, who think the chief end of woman is to have a sensitive mind. There are generally half-a-dozen damsels of this kind in every parish, and it is for their