Will you have personal scandal?  I am your man.  I will swear away the character, not only of an author, but of his whole family—­the female members of it especially.  Do you suppose I care for being beaten?  Bah!  I no more care for a flogging than a boy does at Eton:  and only let the flogger beware—­I will be a match for him, I warrant you.  The man who beats me is a coward; for he knows I won’t resist.  Let the dastard strike me then, or leave me, as he likes; but, for a choice, I prefer abusing women, who have no brothers or guardians; for, regarding a thrashing with indifference, I am not such a ninny as to prefer it.  And here you have an accurate account of my habits, history, and disposition.

Farewell, sir; if I can be useful to you, command me.  If you insert this letter, you will, of course, pay for it, upon my order to that effect.  I say this, lest an unprincipled wife and children should apply to you for money.  They are in a state of starvation, and will scruple at no dastardly stratagem to procure money.  I spent every shilling of Mrs. Jenkinson’s property forty-five years ago.

I am, sir, your humble servant,

DIOGENES JENKINSON,

Son of the late Ephraim Jenkinson, well known to Dr. O. Goldsmith; the Rev. ——­ Primrose, D.D., Vicar of Wakefield; Doctor Johnson, of Dictionary celebrity; and other literary gentlemen of the last century.

[We gratefully accept the offer of Mr. Diogenes Jenkinson, whose qualifications render him admirably adapted to fill a situation which Mr. John Ketch has most unhandsomely resigned, doubtlessly stimulated thereto by the probable accession to power of his old friends the Tories.  We like a man who dares to own himself—­a Jenkinson.—­ED.]

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FINE ARTS.

His Royal Highness Prince Albert, who has occasionally displayed a knowledge and much liking for the Fine Arts, some time since expressed an intimation to display his ability in sketching landscape from nature.  The Royal Academicians immediately assembled en masse; and as they wisely imagined that it would be impolitic in them to let an opportunity slip of not being the very foremost in the direction of matters connected with royalty and their profession, offered, or rather thrust forward, their services to arrange the landscape according to the established rules of art laid down by this self-elected body of the professors of the beauties of nature.  St. James’s-park, within the enclosure, having been hinted as the nearest and most suitable spot for the royal essay, the Academicians were in active service at an early hour of the appointed day:  some busied themselves in making foreground objects, by pulling down trees and heaping stones together from the neighbouring macadamized stores; others were most fancifully spotting the trees with whitewash and other mixtures, in imitation of moss