neither an English Burgess, an Italian Borghese, nor even a Swifs Bourgeois. Mr. Placid, Sir, is a Spaniard: I had it from his own mouth; for, being with him one day during the Spanish Armament, I found the UnderSecretary bufy in fcratching his head over a letter. Forgetting, I fuppofe, that I knew his only patron, to whom his Majefty had entrusted the whole conduct of foreign affairs, a fit of vanity came over him; and loftily raising himself on his feat, he affumed an air of true Caftilian gravity, and faid---" Is not this a strange viciffitude of fortune! that I, who was born a fubject of the King of Spain, fhould now be appointed to conduct the war against him?" I fmiled at the Spanish Don's thus raifing himself above the English Duke. Chronicle. AN ENVOY. I SIR, HAVE been much diverted with the interefting correfpondence which has lately been carried on in your paper, between Signor Blandofo Borghefe, mufician, on the one part, and an independent pickleman, who figns himself " A Friend to honeft Burgeffes," on the other. It would be the higheft prefumption in me to pronounce abfolutely in favour of thofe gentlemen, who, in point of abilities, feem to be fo very well matched; and at the fame time I should confider it an act of the groffeft injustice, both to them and their innocent families, to prejudge a difpute on a matter of no lefs importance than that of fatisfying their friends which of them is not the relative of a certain notorious Under-Secretary. I must however confefs, with all my partiality for my own countrymen, that I think fome advantage has been gained by the Italian profeffor; and that, notwithstanding our ingenious oil-man has evidently put in practice all the refources which he has been able to derive from long experience in the lubricity of his trade, the dexterous foreigner has compelled him to admit, that the UnderSecretary Secretary may, for aught he can tell to the contrary, have had some concern in the oil and pickle business. I must own, notwithstanding, Sir, that the mystery is by no means explained to my fatisfaction by either of those writers, and that were I difpofed to give credit to the affertions of the one or the other of them, a new perplexity would arise from the letters of your two correfpondents, one of whom pofitively affirms that the Under-Secretary is a Swifs, and the other a Spaniard. Now, Sir, in the midft of all this biographical erudition, I fhould be free to confefs myself among the number of the puzzled, if I had not been fortunate enough to get at fome very material evidence, which will not only throw light upon this complicated matter, but help to rescue my friend, the Under-Secretary, from the hands of those who seem to pay fuch little refpect to the ancient blood which circulates in his veins. It happened to me the other day, Sir, to fall in company with a very near and dear relation of the Under-Secretary, an odd, merry dog, and facetious gentleman, as ever the earth produced. The authenticity of my narrative will, I flatter myself, admit of no difpute, when I inform you that this perfonage was no other than the celebrated Signor Placido, alias the Little Devil; a perfon whofe ingenious exercifes on the flack-rope at Sadler's Wells have long been a theme of admiration to an anxious and enlightened public. From him I learned several particulars concerning the fubject which now fo defervedly occupies the fpeculations of the curious. It feems that their common ancestor was a celebrated German Rope-dancer, (not a Dutch Skipper, as it has been maliciously reported, perhaps with an intention of confounding his pedigree with that of one Mr. George Rofe) who was a great man in his time, and author of a famous recipe for curing corns. His name was Fynfiegelacvelbrandtenfafthout, and he flourished about the time of the Norman conqueft. What ferves to afcertain this point more fully is an anecdote talked of to this day in the ROLLE . ROLLE family, which mentions that this very perfon had the honour of being toffed in a blanket at a feast given by one of the Duke Rollos, on his marriage with the Frow von Pompernicle, the famous Weftphalian beauty with a wide mouth, and a great bolter of herrings. After this he paffed over into England, where he was long a favourite with the public, and exercised his various performances on the flack and tight-rope, to the great edification of our youth. It was at this period that an accident happened to the family name which it has never thoroughly recovered. Being none of the eafieft to remember, and having, withal, himfelf the misfortune to be a heavy, purfy man, fome mischievous wags took the liberty of adding to his German appellation the familiar nick-name of Barge-se, which the delicacy of modern pronunciation, by a very allowable corruption, has metamorphofed into that of BURGESS. From this illuftrious practitioner, my new acquaintance, the Little Devil, affures me they are both lineally defcended, and corroborates it by appealing to various records in the poffeffion of the officers of police in fundry parts of Europe, all of which agree in reprefenting the family, who were fond of travelling, as having laboured in their feveral vocations to the great encouragement of the cultivation of hemp. I hope, Sir, by this clear and fatisfactory account of the manner in which the name was acquired, that your correfpondents will acknowledge no farther difpute can be maintained on this fubject, and especially that the gentleman who favoured us with a hint about the propriety of my friend's refuming the original mode of fpelling his name, which he contends to be Bourgeois, will in future abftain from his officioufnefs, fince he must know that, in thefe days, Bourgeois is but another name for a fans-culottes, and he must be convinced by this account of Placid Burgess's defcent, that the culottes must have been a moft indifpenfible article in the wardrobe of the founder of the family. I am, Sir, your moft humble fervant, L A TRUE BURGESSIAN. SIR, Ecce iterum Crifpinus. OTWITHSTANDING the skill and fotti Ngliezza with which the ingenious foreigner, Signor Blandofo Borghefe, endeavoured to parry off the reproach of being related to the placid Under-Secretary, the latter's Italian warehouse and complexion still left the matter in doubt. However, if he were a native of that land of mummery and mufic, could he be entirely ignorant of his mother-tongue? Now, in the Under-Secretary's paper, I found an account of a fhip being arrived at Genoa from Ponente. "Where the d-v-1 is Ponente ?" faid I to myfelf. "I have been in every port of Italy, great and fmall, from Civita-vecchia and Leghorn, to Nettuno and Porto-Fino, and yet I never heard of this Ponente." I took the map, and examined it fcrupuloufly from Reggio to Nizza, and still no Ponente was there. At laft, I recollected that Ponente was Italian for the west, and that the veffel was merely arrived from the weftward. From this, and many other blunders of the Under-Secretary, and ftill more from his admirable affurance and intrepidity of countenance, I am inclined to believe a friend of mine who afferts, that he is an Irishman, and that his original name was Brogues; a diftinction his family obtained by beginning fome time fince to wear fhoes. It is eafy to conceive that the natural tendency of all languages to euphony, may have occafioned the tranfpofition of the r, of which we have many inftances, as in burnt from brent, &c. The other trifling changes any etymologift will account for. Though the fubject is almoft as ftale as the *If there were any fpecies of radish at all resembling the Under-Secretary's complexion, he would be an excellent illustration of Shakespeare's whimfical defcription of " a forked radish, with a head moft fantaftically carved upon it." When his yellow pock-marked face is puckered up into a fweet-dimpled fmile, which occurs at almoft every moment, it is hardly poffible to avoid catching the infection. Under Under-Secretary's olives, yet as his birth has been affigned to almoft all the countries of Europe, by inferting this letter, which proves him an Irishnan, you will do a piece of fervice to mankind in general. VAN TRUMP. THE LAWYER'S FAREWEL TO HIS MUSE. BY THE LATE SIR W. BLACKSTONE, knt. A wretch forfakes his native land, In sweet society with thee! 1 Then all was joyous, all was young, And years unheeded roll'd along! But now the pleafing dream is o'er ; These scenes must charm me now no more: L 2 Loft |