The Press. — London, England, 1854-01-07 00:00:00

JANUARY 7, 1854. H. TEMPLE, RESTAU RATE U R, From Tiverton, Devon, respectfully informs the Nobility, Gentry, and the Public in general that he has taken the old-established House in Downing-street, which will henceforth be conducted on entirely new principles. H. T. has on hand a large assortment of the choicest plitatits of itt CABINET AND NESSELRODE PUDDINGS, prepared after a new and improved receipt. Together with the celebrated HUMBLE PIE, recently eaten with unanimous relish by her Majesty's Ministers. TURKEY PRESERVED, by H. T.'s new Pyroligneous Acid : warranted to keep in any climate. BEST RUSSIAN BEAR HAMS, completely cured, and warranted free from all noxious qualities. POTAGE EN HOCHE-POT AU QUEUES DE CHEVAL, after the approved receipt of the Landlord of the Old Turk's Head. CALF'S HEAD and GAMMON a la LITTLEJOHN, relieved of its crudities, and fitted for home consumption. Improved Turtle Soup, with New Force-Meat Balls, respectfully recommended to the Corporation of London. CAULD KAIL FROM ABERDEEN, carefully warmed up, and. warranted to surpass the celebrated cratnbe recocta of the ancients. H. T. has served for many years, under distinguished ckis, in several Foreign Establishments, and is in constant communication with M. Louis, of the Cafe Francais. N.B.—The Ohl Stock will be Sold Cl' at Reduced Prices. SKETCHES OF RADICALS. 13 11. THE RADICAL FEMALE. Vire;mll-1 are born Conservatives. This is a fact of which there cannot be Any doubt. Hence the Radical Female is at best an unnatural exception ; and I never, for my own part, think of her except as of some "Pig-headed lady," or other monstrous creation. Radical Females arc rare and curious, and as little known as mermaids ; but never bestow the same attention on their personal appearance as those interesting creatures. A paper might be written, indeed, showing how much the Conser vative cause owes to the Radicals' wives and daughters. When the severe and terrible Podger advances to the period of baldness, and becomes fat, he finds that he has bean nourishing a brood to turn upon him. His olive branches, with the beautiful peacefulness which the olive symbolises, put him at peace with the powers of his native land. Young Podger will hear of nothing but a cavalry regiment, and here has Podger, all his life, been abusing war and soldiers, and kicking up a hubbub about the army being kept to support an oligarchy ! But the AIiSSC3 Dodger arc far more intractable. Those THE PRESS. charming girls turn up their noses kNature having arranged that that shall be an easy performance) at the Cottouville young men. At watering-places, or on the Continent, or elsewhere, they meet with the sprouts of good families ; in the county where Podger has bought a slice of the land of a Jacobite family (he will ask the Whigs for the attainted title, some day !) they come within the influence of an entirely new set of ideas, and will not revere Podger. The youngest boy goes to the navy, and is " cobbed " with a sword scabbard for proposing Cobden's health, &e. &c. What is an old fellow to do • Non ego hoc lemon, calithis juventil, he might exclaim, had he any acquaintance with the writer who makes the exclamation. But he is getting old, and ho must die with the awful consciousness that he has been bestowing his warmth on the hatching of a brood of aristocrats. However, when women are Radicals, they go the entire animal. Miss Piper, the poetess, the elderly authoress of " Letters on the Human Anatomy" (that masterly confutation of Paley), is a frightful example. All the Bloomers are examples. From the lady of Sir Barnaby Crabs, M.P. (who writes leaders in the " Rasper," and is constantly inserting a paragraph to the effect that we hear Sir Barnaby Crabs, M.P., will be " offered the "—anything that is vacant)—to the youngest Bloomer, the female agitators are more violent than the male ones. Sproggs is opposed to capital punishment (naturally enough), and would let the scoundrel live ; but Miss Piper sees in him a "crushed humanity," a " dormant goodness," and would substitute for his chains garlands of roses. The Radical Female is sometimes a " thing of impulse," but the commoner type is a woman of " strong good sense." She is an over done woman, or an under-done man. The Piper, for instance, is a very good little girl, but she got her head turned by one of the geniuses who turn the heads of the Radical Mystics. The Piper writes, and with her feminine liveliness she adopted the antagonistic attitude. She threw all her warmth into " new views." The plain meaning of the Piperean view is simply this : she is a sentimentalist, and raves about Reformers just as other girls do about music, poetry, ruins, moonlight, or whatever their special rage may be. She is a lively, soft-hearted girl, and if she chooses to call her quick apprehensions " intuitions," why, where's the harm ? There is only ono event which can be expected to make Miss Piper practical, and that, of course, is —marriage. There was poor Margaret Fuller, a queenly woman in her way : when she married and had little Angelo she became (as you see by her biography) quite an intelligible woman, and capital wife and mother. The fact simply is with regard to these high-flying damsels, that. they see a great deal existing in the institutions of Europe which is by no means so pleasant to contemplate as moonlight or " Locksley Hall." They would like to abolish all evil out of the world, and sprinkle it with rosewater ; and I would like to have straw berries for breakfast, only it is winter time, and I cannot get them. For Miss Piper's reasonableness and practicality, then, I fear we must wait till sh ois married. But she won't marry Nubibus, or any of those speculative gentlemen whose writings she loves ; it being, I remark, the invariable custom of those fellows to marry quiet, pretty, girls, destitute of enlarged views, who adore them, and give way to them, and make them very comfortable. So that Miss Piper will probably " throw herself away " on some solid fellow, and make him pay for a new edition of her " Poems " on the very finest paper. The gifted Miss Seragg is the female Radical of another type, You may see Miss Scragg, at the British Museum, fearlessly examining huge books of anatomical plates. She would like, when she hears of an abuse, to " put her foot " on it---and, between ourselves, if that .lid not crush it I know not what would. I would rather be reverenced by any man than by a Scragg—for they give you an extra " scrunch" on the part of the oppressed sex. She writes leaders and reviews, and goes to the office to correct a proof—like a man, in fact. She is a man, indeed—a spoiled man ; a man not quite manly enough. It was Miss Scragg who wrote those angry lelers to the " Vase " when the affected Destriver published his " Sonnet to a Poppet." She over whelmed him with scorn ; repudiate/1 the vile homage of the man as an insult to the " understanding "of the whole sex. The fact is, the sonnet was not intended for Miss Scragg; it was no more her busi ness than it was Ben Caunt's to engage in the controversy. But she has a perfectly just suspicion that the charms of her mind are not so attractive as the graces of " that empty little goose " Miss Flowerbell. And, indeed, I cannot see why Miss Scragg should expect to exercise the rule both of man and woman too. She is a vigorous-minded woman enough; but there are as clever people about as she ; and she is really so like a man that I would almost as soon think of flirting with the Pope as with her. 4 -- 1