Various

“ Our equivocal gentleman, in truth, lives in a constant state of warfare similar to this with the whole world—not open hostility, perhaps, but lurking, secret aversion. The world looks shyly and doubtfully on him, and he looks fiercely and angrily on the world in return. ”

“ And although to the mere grovelling pursuer of gain, who is incapable of a single elevated or ennobling feeling, such a consideration may seem a matter of trivial importance, to those of wiser, better, and more happily constituted minds, it will always be a source of self-gratulation, as affording pleasures easily procured, and which they would not exchange for any of a grosser kind. It is, indeed, beyond a question, that there is no city in the British empire exhibiting around it such a variety of picturesque beauties as our own dear Dublin. ”

“ Regarded merely as a refined pleasure, it has a favourable bearing on public morals. Let taste and skill in this beautiful art be spread among us, and every family will have a new resource. Home will gain a new attraction. Social intercourse will be more cheerful, and an innocent public amusement will be furnished to the community. Public amusements, bringing multitudes together to kindle with one emotion, to share the same innocent joy, have a humanizing influence; and among these bonds of society perhaps no one produces so much unmixed good as music. ”

“ Amongst the two or three little foibles by which the equivocal gentleman is distinguished, is a rather urgent propensity to strong drink. He is, in fact, pretty considerably dissipated, as the florid or brick-red face on which his luxuriant whiskers vegetate, but too plainly indicates. He is not, indeed, always drunk; for his very limited command of means keeps him, on the whole, pretty sober; but he gets drunk when he can, and no gentleman can do more, nor can more be reasonably expected of him. ”

“ The equivocal gentleman, in short, is a gentleman of shifts and expedients. He has a little world of his own, in which he manœuvres for a living. Being rather respectably connected, his friends occasionally remit him small sums, and these god-sends, few and far between, and his own ingenuity, are all he has to depend upon. ”

“ If he even gets them at all, it is by mere chance, mere casual accident. Occasionally it is by an effort of ingenuity, through which he has contrived, by some mysterious means or other, to get possession of a little of the circulating medium.
And pray, then, what is the equivocal gentleman? What is he in reality, and what does he do? How does he support himself? Why, friend, these questions are a vast deal easier put than answered.
Just now, the equivocal gentleman is doing nothing—literally and absolutely nothing. ”

“ O'Gorman sprang to his feet, and, drawing the parasol from the breast of his coat, tendered it, and his arm, to the young lady, saying, with the greatest exultation, "Hoaxed, by jingo! alas! poor Sweeny. Come, Miss Kate, your brother is so taken up with Miss O'Donnell, that he can't attend to any thing, or any body. Never mind your mother; she can't bawl out at us, you know; and if she attempted to scold, she'd be voted out. I've got Sharpe's gig—come, jump up, and we'll have such a day! ”

“ The equivocal gentleman, notwithstanding the dashy appearance he aims at, and the large style in which he speaks, is, we are sorry to say it, a bit of a rogue in grain, and a good deal of one in practice: he is, in short, somewhat of a scamp, partly from circumstances, and partly from the natural bent of his genius, which is ever urging him to take the shortest cuts towards the objects he desires to possess. He is, in truth, a sort of human bird of prey ”

“ But, mark, reader! every thing about the equivocal gentleman is not in this state of seediness. He would not be the equivocal gentleman at all, if this were the case. Some of the particulars of his outward man are good—in fact, stylish—and it is this incongruity that makes him out, that makes him what he is, and which so much puzzles you to class him when you see him.
The equivocal gentleman always manages to have one or two of the component parts of his dress of unimpeachable quality, but never can manage to have the whole in this palmy state. ”

“ See what a watching and tending it requires to keep it from becoming absolutely unfit for the public eye, as the headpiece of a gentleman! Why, the watching and tending of a new-born infant is nothing to it. ”

“ IRISH PROVERBS.
The proverbs and moral sayings of a nation have always been considered to possess a remarkable interest, not only on account of the practical wisdom embodied in them, but for the insight which to a great extent they afford into the peculiar character and habits of thought of the people to whom they belong. Wisdom, it is true, is essentially the same in all countries, but the expression of it must vary according to the temperament and modes of thinking which are found to characterise the people of different nations ”

“ In short, there is no class of scenery which the poet, the painter, the geologist, the botanist, or the mere man of pleasure, could desire, that may not be reached in a drive of an hour or two from any part of our city. Nature has showered on us, with a generous hand, her various riches—the riches derived from her and our Creator. ”

“ There are two or three points in which the equivocal gentleman displays a very remarkable degree of ingenuity. One of these consists in the dexterity with which he not only conceals defects of dress, but converts them into positive elegancies. ”

“ The tailor, the bootmaker, and the lodging-house keeper, again, knowing that he is their natural enemy—and as well do they know him for this, as the small bird does the hawk—stand in great awe of him; they have an instinctive dread of him, and put themselves in a posture of defence the moment they see him. ”

“ The eagles which build in its cliffs have seen a man of a kindred lofty spirit—an eagle among men—build himself a nest amongst these solitudes; and they have been often startled from their eyry by the sounds of aristocratic joy and merriment, when the shores of the dark lake have been enlivened by the presence of the most distinguished in beauty and rank in Ireland. ”

“ If, however, there be any nation the proverbs of which remain almost wholly unknown to the people of the British islands generally, it is the Irish, of whose popular sayings no specimens have ever been given in an English dress, except a collection of about eighty, which were contributed to the first volume of the Dublin Penny Journal by our able and estimable friend Mr O'Donovan, who well observes, that "a perfect list of the proverbs of any people is, as it were, an index to the national character, or the elements of the moral notions, customs, and manners of a people." ”

“ Overlooking himself what partial deficiencies there may be in this department of his entire man, and thinking that the world will overlook them too, the equivocal gentleman affects the "bang up." He is not content with desiring to impress beholders with the idea of his being merely a respectable sort of person: he desires much more than this. ”

“ In person the equivocal gentleman is stout and robust, his age somewhere about forty. He is bushy-whiskered, and affects a swaggering, bold, off-hand manner, talks large to waiters, and looks with edifying ferocity on every body. ”

“ Now, I'd be bound that if we could ascertain what Socrates said to himself at the time, we should find that for all his smooth face and soft words he inwardly took some desperate liberties with the heathen deities, and pitched Xantippe, crockery, and all the makers of it, to Pluto, and all the infernal gods, in a hurry. However, he kept his countenance, which is more than can be said of Frank Costello, or Dick Fitzgerald, or of Mr Sharpe, who nearly went into convulsions with laughter ”

“ Mr John Henry Johnstone was born at Tipperary in 1750, and was the son of a small but respectable farmer, having a large family. At the early age of 18 he enlisted into a regiment of Irish dragoons, then stationed at Clonmel, commanded by Colonel Brown. Being smitten with the charms of a neighbouring farmer's daughter, Johnstone used to scale the barrack-wall after his comrades had retired to their quarters, for the purpose of serenading his mistress, having a remarkably sweet and flexible voice. ”

“ What a fulness of enjoyment has our Creator placed within our reach, by surrounding us with an atmosphere which may be shaped into sweet sounds! And yet this goodness is almost lost upon us, through want of culture of the organ by which this provision is to be enjoyed.—Dr Channing's Address on Temperance. ”

“ Mr Sharpe's countenance fell. The discovery had been made too timely to please him.
"What's best to be done now? I can purchase beef somewhere as we go along, and we'll get it dressed at Howth, in some cabin or another."
"Phwee—oo," whistled Mr Robert O'Gorman, "what the deuce would we do with ourselves for five or six hours, at the least, that such a piece would take to roast, without any thing to keep its back warm in an open cabin? I'll tell you what, ma'am: give me the money, and I'll get as much cold roast beef as you like, from Mulholland." ”

“ The labouring classes are most exposed to intemperance, because they have at present few other pleasurable excitements. A man who, after toil, has resources of blameless recreation, is less tempted than other men to seek self-oblivion. He has too many of the pleasures of a man to take up with those of a brute. Thus the encouragement of simple, innocent enjoyments, is an important means of temperance.
These remarks show the importance of encouraging the efforts which have commenced among us, for spreading the accomplishment of music through our whole community. ”

“ None but himself knows how dreadful—none but himself knows the thousand shifts and expedients he is compelled to have recourse to, to maintain appearances in this most important and most troublesome department. ”

“ In other words, placing, for the reason alluded to, little or no influence over the shape, fashion, or quality of his clothes, but being obliged to conform to circumstances in this matter to a most unpleasant extent—to wear, in short, whatever he can most conveniently get—he is driven to the expedient of adapting his character to the particular description of dress he may be wearing at the time. ”

“ France, especially before the revolution, has been represented as a singularly temperate country; a fact to be explained, at least in part, by the constitutional cheerfulness of that people, and by the prevalence of simple and innocent gratifications, especially among the peasantry. ”

“ Of these, one of the most remarkable is the mountain lake called Lough Bray, of which we give a sketch in our present number. How many thousands are there of the citizens of Dublin who have never seen, perhaps never heard of, this little mountain pool; and yet it is one of the most perfect examples of scenery of its kind in Ireland—one of those spots in which nature appears in her most stern and [Pg 34] rugged aspect; solitary, gloomy, and unfit for the companionship of man. ”

“ Every thing was at length announced to be ready. A basket, covered with oiled silk, swinging conspicuously from the axle-tree of the gig, rendered it unnecessary to ask Mr Sharpe if he had all the requisites prepared; and Mrs Harvey, having cast the last scrutinizing glance around, gave the long-wished-for word to "take places."
Now, all this time there were four hearts bent upon one object, and four heads at work planning how to attain it. The youngest of the Misses O'Brien was the sprightliest girl of the party ”

“ The coroner's inquest on view of the body, and depositions of Mary Norkott, John Okeman, and Agnes his wife, inclined to find Johan Norkott felo de se; for they informed the coroner and jury that she was found dead in her bed, the knife sticking in the floor, and her throat cut: That the night before she went to bed with her child, her husband being absent, and that no other person after such time as she was gone to bed came into the house, the examinants lying in the outer room, and they must needs have seen or known if any stranger had come in. ”

“ It must, however, be confessed that, as yet, we have not learned sufficiently to appreciate these gifts, and, consequently, do not sufficiently enjoy them. "The world is too much with us"—and there are many scenes of striking interest within our reach, which are more frequently seen by the stranger visitant than by ourselves. ”

“ Men drink to excess very often to shake off depression, or to satisfy the restless thirst for agreeable excitement, and those motives are excluded in a cheerful community. A gloomy state of society, in which there are few innocent recreations, may be expected to abound in drunkenness, if opportunities are afforded. ”

“ Okeman's wife fell upon her knees, and prayed God to show a token of her innocency, or to some such purpose; her very words I have forgot. The appellees did touch the dead body; whereupon the brow of the dead, which was before a livid and carrion colour (that was the verbal expression interminis of the witness) , began to have a dew or gentle sweat arise on it, which increased by degrees till the sweat ran down in drops on the face; the brow turned and changed to a lively and fresh colour, and the dead opened one of her eyes and shut it again ”

“ Pray, who are they? Why, they are rather a curious class of persons. But if you are in the habit of noting character, we rather think you must know them. They are to be seen in every city, and almost in every town. ”