MY DEAR SECRETARY, It was well remarked by one of our cleverest contributors, Napoleon Buonaparte, (Heaven rest his soul!) that there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. This pas seul, after a month's deliberation, has been resolutely taken by Taylor, the Trimmer, and certainly the effect has been prodigious. We all remember how sublime was the Old Series of the LONDON! We all behold how ridiculous is the New ; and accordant to the creed of the Corsican, reverence is turned into contempt. Instead of eyes uplifted methodistically towards the revolution of that heavenly body, mouths wide and silent as barn-doors, hands clasped, and knees slightly bent in

unconscious adoration,-now ecce eyes leering like the grey goggles of the Ettrick Shepherd himself, mouths gullering guffaws, hands performing on that exquisite instrument the Scottish fiddle, and knee and elbow keeping time together in a concerto between a chuckle and a crow. This is not the picture of me alone, Timothy Tickler, but of the small body of subscribers in general to the Dunciad. "Look, look at THE LONDON! my gracious! only look at the London!

Twig the New Series!-Well, this beats cock-fighting!-Price three shillings and sixpence !-unconscionable extortion-oh! for a barrel of Powldoodies, or a demi-gallon of potheen!"

Joking apart, and to treat the New

Series seriously, devil take me if, since the day on which I was kittled, saw I ever such a Magazine as this! With the deepest humility and contrition do I now confess my own stupidity, which at times has been more than I could well bear; but henceforth, I will pluck up my spirits, by remembering the NEW SERIES. Sure ly, Mullion, my stupidity never equalled this!-I ask you as a friend, whom I have ever found a friend, and, I hope, treated as such, both inter fam. and coram pop. for the greater part of half a century, if ever I appeared to be so alarmingly near my last? Yes, Mullion, with you I have used no disguise. You have attended me in my stupidest moments, when " none were by to hear" but your worthy self; you have seen me lean my forehead in unidea'd despair, now on my hand, now on the edge of the table, while glass and tumbler yielded a symphonious and spiritless response to the ululation of their master's grief-You have seen, Mullion, those dim, dull, dozing, dawnering, dying, dead eyes of mine, gradually shut up in their blue wrinkled sockets-You have heard that most alarming of all symptoms, the grammarless groan in which the very verb loses his authority, and governs the accusative no more. -You have beheld my organ of SelfEsteem, which, in size, is second only to that of a Simpson, torpid as the causality of a Poole-and wept to think, that things seemed in a fair train to qualify me for a contributor to the Phrenological Journal-All this and more have you seen, and now, on your conscience and your credit, by your hopes of heaven, and of your provision-warehouse, as a christian, and a contributor, I ask you, with my hand upon my heart, and a face beaming with the simplest sincerity, if ever, by day or night, gloom or glimmer, you had any reason to suspect that I was about to commence idiot on my own account, with such a capital and stock on hand as any one partner in this concern of the NEW SERIES? If you must answer in the affirmative, out with it at once-let me know the uttermost extent of my imbecility-I am prepared to hear the worst-at my time of life the shock need not be very great. I am grateful for the past. Yet if my intellect be indeed pronounced on a le

"wha

vel with the London, why, Cato did and Addison approved cannot be wrong;" and at least, my Mullion, let it not be remembered on my epitaph.

Why, what a blundering blockhead this Taylor must be! You know, that, not long since, he came crawling out, at the point of North's rod, from the accumulation of six months' filth and slime, a perfect Grub of an Editor, and began biting away at the pointed iron, in total forgetfulness of his want of teeth. You then saw the Grub disappear into the interior of his palace, with all the pomposity of a flying beetle into his horse-dung, obviously mistaking himself for a Gadfly, and indulging in the dear delusion of a sting. Now, once more, he sallies forth an enormous Bummer-a manifest Drone-with posteriors out of all proportion to his little short flimsy wings,-and-. There now, Mullion, did not I tell you so, down upon the pavement drops the Shardborn, and blunders with a groan into the gutter.

But easy-easy-let us drop all entymological personalities, and take another look at the New Series. Pray, may I ask, what barn-door fowl scratched this ground-plan of the THAMES QUAY? But I shall suppose my dear Mullion in his own corner over his jug, while I read aloud the first paragraph of the leading article of the first number of the New Se

ries.

"All those who consider the 'apparelling of the state' as a matter of some consequence, must hail with pleasure the growing disposition to improve the appearance and convenience of the country at large, and the metropolis in particular: Soane, Nash, and Macadam, are stoning all the streets to death as though they were so many St Stephens. In the embellishment of our city it would be well

to remember that London is the metro

polis, not merely of England, but of the whole British empire; an empire which, comprising its dependencies in Asia, Africa, and America, as well as in Europe, in point of population is exceeded by few, and, considering its wealth, knowledge, intellectual energy, commercial enterprize, and the consequent moral and physical power, perhaps unequalled by any, ancient or modern. The capital of such an empire ought to possess a commensurate character, On the contrary,

London, in its improvements or embellishments, has scarcely kept pace with the provincial towns. It is but, like one of its booksellers, a proprietor of a series of very indifferent Highways and Byeways. The houses crowd together and jostle like their inhabitants at an election, or in a Caledonian chapel. There is not even a good leading street to connect the two grand divisions, the City and West End of the Town. The best of them, that by the Strand, Fleet-Street, and St Paul's Church Yard, presents a tortuous, unseemly, and, for the most part, narrow passage, disturbed by cross thoroughfares, jutting churches, and elephants' mansions; it is also so invariably choked by stoppages, as to wage continual warfare against business.

"People quite forget the importance of the public buildings and the public avenues to their daily comfort and convenience; and it would take an entire paper to shew the influences of all kinds which the position and the construction of a city have upon the morals and habits of its inhabitants-many of them are very evident. If a town is composed of small houses, and spread over an immense space, communication will be difficult, and social intercourse obstructed, and, of course, diminished.”

Oh! my Mullion, mildest of men, what beauty of expression! a grcwing disposition to improve the convenience of the country at large.” Our scribe of the New Series here means "the out-of-door nature" of the Cockneys, which is now beginning "to lie more convenient to town ;"-" stoning all the streets to death, as if they were so many St Stephens !" What profound knowledge, and striking application of Holy Writ! what beautiful expression given to the scientific discovery of streets being now, for the first time, made of stones! how novel the similitude, yet how natural and obvious, as soon as made, between a long street under the process of Macadamization, and him the first martyr! The delighted reader wonders how a resemblance so strong at all points had never presented itself to his own pensive imagination! that it should first have appeared in the New Series of the London, Anno Domini 1825! But with what perfect ease and mastery does the gifted author of THE THAMES QUAY turn from poetry to prose, from fancy to fact, from martyrology to statistics! "IT WOULD BE WELL TO REMEMBER THAT LONDON IS THE ME

TROPOLIS NOT MERELY OF ENGLAND, BUT OF THE WHOLE BRITISH EMPIRE!" Guthrie, thou god of my youthful idolatry, hide thy head for ever→ Pinkerton, thou Goth of my riper years, carry thy quartos to the Pozzi-Malte Brun, listen thou unto the wizard, "LONDON IS THE METROPOLIS OF ENGLAND." Yes, it is indeed; and “it would be well to remember" it. Let

the great truth be written in letters of gold, that he who runs may read. But

this is not all-for what is the whole British empire? why, it is "an empire, (vide supra,) which, comprising America, as well as in Europe, in point its dependencies in Asia, Africa, and of population is exceeded by few; and, considering its wealth, knowledge, intellectual energy, commercial enterprize, and the consequent moral and physical power, perhaps unequalled by any, ancient or modern!!!" Mullion, my boy, had you any idea of that ?-will you ever again argue with me against popular education? If you do, " you will do well to remember that London is the metropolis of England," and that the article THAMES QUAY, in which that mighty truth was first formally promulgated, was written BY A PAVIOUR."

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Since the days of Akenside, we have had no such imaginative writer as the Paviour. "London is but like one of its booksellers, a proprietor of a series of very indifferent Highways and Byeways. Sly, satirical dog!

Each

street a little ago was like St Stephen; and now the whole of London," the metropolis, not merely of England, but of the whole British empire," is like " one of its booksellers!" Damn the idiot, Mullion,-isn't that enough to send No. I. of the New Series of the London into the paper-box of your cigarium? yet I question if a leaf of such material would light a cigar. It is fit only for a pipe at the Pig and Whistle.

Forgive this sally-but, my dear English Opium-Eater, I insist upon your reading aloud to our friend A lan Cunninghame, the following sentence, written in Italics, as Hogg calls them; and if you do not both agree with me in declaring it, not only at the head of all periodical, but also of all idiotical composition, my name is not Timothy Tickler.

"People quite forget the importance of the public buildings and the public avenue