Percival Leigh

“ It is a great pity that our language is so poor in the terminations that denote gender. Were we to say of a woman that she is a rogue, a knave, a scamp, or a vagabond, we feel that we should use, not only strong but improper expressions. Yet we have no corresponding terms to apply, in case of necessity, to the female. Why is this? Doubtless because we never want them. For the same reason, our forefathers transmitted to us the words, philosopher, astronomer, philologer, and so forth, without any feminine equivalent. ”

“ Whoever looks at the portraits of the Children of the Nobility, will see that some are represented as standing in the first; others in the second position; while others again are resting, with all the elegance of a Cerito, upon the very tips of their very little feet. Dove-like in everything else, they are as unlike that bird as possible in their attitudes. Why should the young Mobility tread the earth like pigeons, when the opposite mode of standing and of progression is so much more becoming? ”

“ It is not, therefore, our intention to expatiate largely on the present occasion; especially since a long discourse prefixed to a small volume, is like a forty-eight pounder at the door of a pig-stye. We should as soon think of erecting the Nelson Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace. Indeed, were it not necessary to show some kind of respect to fashion, we should hasten at once into the midst of things, instead of trespassing on the patience of our readers, and possibly, trifling with their time. ”

“ We never take a glass of wine at dinner without getting somebody else to do the same, as if we wanted encouragement; and then, before we venture to drink, we bow to each other across the table, preserving all the while a most wonderful gravity. ”

“ RULE IX.
INTEREST, &c.
To think of getting on in this world without Interest, is ridiculous. Place and Promotion are not for Fitness or Worthiness, but to serve particular Interests, private or public; and yet a [73] number of very simple persons, who have as large a green streak in them as a sage cheese, without its sageness, are continually wondering that virtue and talent do not get all the "good things" of a vicious community. Punch forbid! Is not virtue declared to be its own reward? and as to talent,—let a man be content with that. It is a positive monopoly to covet wit and money too. ”

“ Spelling is the art of putting together the letters which compose a syllable, or the syllables which compose a word.
Comic spelling is usually the work of imagination. The chief rule to be observed in this kind of spelling, is, to spell every word as it is pronounced; though the rule is not universally observed by comic spellers. The following example, for the genuineness of which we can vouch, is one so singularly apposite, that although we have already submitted a similar specimen of orthography to the reader, we are irresistibly tempted to make a second experiment on his indulgence. ”

“ The Windows and House Fronts crowded, and School-Boys mounted on Walls and Gates, and they and the Urchins in the Street shouting, as though we were going to the Races for their Amusement. But Lack! to see the pretty smart Damsels come out to gaze at us, or peeping behind Blinds and Curtains, all in high Glee, as if glad that we were taking our Pleasure, and good Humour do wonderfully heighten Beauty, as I do tell my Wife. ”

“ The Mobility are the antipodes to the Nobility: the one race of men being at the top of the world, the other at the bottom of it. The word Mobility is said to be derived from the Latin term Mobilis, fickle, or moveable; as Nobility is from Nobilis, noble. But what can be more fickle than fashion, what more vulgar than constancy? The heads of society, too, are quite as moveable as its tails. The Nobility are continually in motion; moving in good company, moving in Parliament, moving about the world. If we are to take up the Mobility as vagrants, we must set down the Nobility as tourists ”

“ Whenever there is a "rising," it is a sure sign that taxation is too light; consequently taxation should be so accommodated to the habits, tastes, and feelings of the people, as to fit them at all points, like well-made harness. If they grow too enlightened we can double the window-tax; if they be disposed to kick, put on the breeching in the shape of an income-tax; if they go too much by the head, we can raise the price of malt, and, by way of a martingale, put a duty on spirits; if they jib, we can touch them on the raw with "the house duty;" ”

“ Hope to be thought not altogether unworthy of regard: fear to be rejected as having no pretensions to the affections of such unparalleled loveliness. Know not in what terms to declare my feelings. Adore you, worship you, dote on you, am wrapt up in you! think but on you, live but for you, would willingly die for you!—in short, love you! ”

“ To say nothing of the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Iron Age, and so forth, which, with all possible respect for the poets, can scarcely be said to be worth much in a grave argument; it is quite clear that the Augustan Age, the Middle Ages, the Elizabethan Age, and the Age of Queen Anne, were all of them very different, one from the other, in regard to the peculiar tone of feeling which distinguished the public mind in each of them. ”

“ It is a superior and more durable article than that in general wear. My stock of words is exhausted. I am no wholesale dealer in that line. All I can say is, that I have a vast fund of unadulterated affection for you."
In this effusion the Stock Exchange, the multiplication table, and the dry goods and grocer's shops have been drawn upon for a clothing to the suitor's ideas; and by an unhappy choice of words, the most delightful and amiable feelings of our nature, without which life would be a desert and man a bear, are invested with a ridiculous disguise. ”

“ Good Lack! what a Crowd of People collected to see which out of six-and twenty Horses should run the fastest, and what a Medley of Vans, Omnibusses, and Taxed Carts on either Side of the Course with the People in Front of them, and the Grand Stand crowded with Heads, plenty as Blackberries and seeming like a huge Mass of them. ”