stuff? give us the placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over
their rident horses, wounding those good-humored enemies, who tumble
gayly off the towers, or drown, smiling, in the dimpling waters, amidst
the anerithmon gelasma of the fish.

After Doctor Syntax, the apparition of Corinthian Tom, Jerry Hawthorn,
and the facetious Bob Logic must be recorded--a wondrous history indeed
theirs was! When the future student of our manners comes to look over
the pictures and the writing of these queer volumes, what will he think
of our society, customs, and language in the consulship of Plancus?
"Corinthian," it appears, was the phrase applied to men of fashion
and ton in Plancus's time: they were the brilliant predecessors of the
"swell" of the present period--brilliant, but somewhat barbarous, it
must be confessed. The Corinthians were in the habit of drinking a great
deal too much in Tom Cribb's parlor: they used to go and see "life" in
the gin-shops; of nights, walking home (as well as they could), they
used to knock down "Charleys," poor harmless old watchmen with lanterns,
guardians of the streets of Rome, Planco Consule. They perpetrated a
vast deal of boxing; they put on the "mufflers" in Jackson's rooms;
they "sported their prads" in the Ring in the Park; they attended
cock-fights, and were enlightened patrons of dogs and destroyers of
rats. Besides these sports, the delassemens of gentlemen mixing with the
people, our patricians, of course, occasionally enjoyed the society of
their own class. What a wonderful picture that used to be of Corinthian
Tom dancing with Corinthian Kate at Almack's! What a prodigious dress
Kate wore! With what graceful ABANDON the pair flung their arms about
as they swept through the mazy quadrille, with all the noblemen standing
round in their stars and uniforms! You may still, doubtless, see the
pictures at the British Museum, or find the volumes in the corner of
some old country-house library. You are led to suppose that the English