Star.
London, England, 1826-07-11 00:00:00

OLD HEADS UPON YOUNG SHOULDERS.
r•-

'ROM TRZ NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Upon one of my days of infant innocence I lined my
cousin Proby's hat with birdlime, out of revenge, be-
- cause he had broken the central ornament in a string
. of birds eggs; which, at that happy epoch of puerile
simplicity, I had purloined from certain nests in Hadley
grove. The poor lad found his beaver as immoveable
as the plumed cap of the son of Maia ; and much hot
water and many screams were expended before it could
be disjointed from his head. My mother was seriously
angry; but my poor aunt Proby, mother to the victim
aforesaid, as gentle a being as ever suffered a family to
run wild upon the common of their own inclinations, ex-
claimed, " Well, well, never mind! he meant no'harm
there is no putting old heads on young shoulders!"
My aunt's asseveration has, according to my subse-
quent •experience, been qualified by two exceptions
the one corporeal, and the other mental. The Countess
of has a pair of very juvenile-looking shoulders,
with a very wrinkled head screwed upon their apex. If
you walk behind her, she seems twenty-two; accost
her, cis a nix, and she mounts to sixty. In that respect
she is like the law—very well to follow, but very ill to
confront. The mental exception is one Smedley Jones,
lately an articled clerk to an attorney—l beg his par-
don, a solicitor—in Furnival'i Inn, Holborn.; but re-
cently out of his time, and therefore qualified to kill
game upon his own account. He wears black half-
gaiters, and is a member of the Philonomic Society ;
exhibits much wisdom, little whisker, and no shirt
collar; simpers; makes a gentle bow at the close of
every sentence, with his chin touching:his left collar,'
bone; criticises the new law courts; wears lead-colounci
gloves affects a beaver with a broad brim ; nods at the
close of every sentence when the Court of Exchequer
pronounces a judgment, by way of encoareging the
three puisne barons; and carries his pantaloons to his
tailor's in a blue bag that they may pass for briefs.
There is a lame clerk in the Three Per Cent, Coastal
Office at the Bank, with whom Smedley Jones appears
to be on terms of considerable intimacy. Lather sus-
spect that the motive of this conjunction is that the
litter may obtain private information with respect to
certain funded property, appertaiaing to certain widows
and maidens, his attention to whom rises and falls ac-
cordingly. It is an unquestionable fact, that whenever
a young man rises, like Smedley Jones, upon his toes
in walking ; waltzes with every thick-ankled girl, that
would otherwise be a wall-flower for the whole even-

Ing ; looks benevolently downward upon his own
cheeks, sings a second at Church, and boasts of belong-
ing to no club, he may. to a certainty, be set down as
one who means to let fly an arrow at Plutus through
the Temple of Hymen.
It is quite edifying to meet Smedley Jones at a din-
ner-party. The first thing he does, on entering the
drawing-room, is to take up a book with an air of no
common sagacity. If it happen to be Woodstock, he
smiles with an aspect of compassionate disdain, and in-
forms the by-stander that he objects to historical novels,
and he prefers going to the fountain-head in Lord
Clarendon and Bishop Burnet. Upon the appearance
of the mistress of the mansion, he takes a seat by her on
the sofa ; but so near to its edge, that the slightest
backward movement of that article of furniture wouhl
seat him where he ought to be. He smooths down the
sand-coloured hair of the matrons accompanying off-
spring with an air of ineffable interest; inquires after
dear Charles : hopes to see sweet little Emma : and
ejaculates, " Oh, pray now," when mamma expresses a,
doubt as to her appearance. He then talks of the sea as
beneficial to children, and recommends Worthing be-
cause it has no cliff. When dinner is announced, he
looks sharply round for some female whose spine rather
swerves from the perpendicular, aware that heiresses are
seldom strait-backed; tucks her lean arm under his,
and manoeuvres to sit next to her at table. Whilst in
the act of descending the stairs, our proprietor of an old
head upon young shoulders, takes due care that the
tongue which vibrates in the mouth of it shall ejaculate,
" What a capital house this is I" in accents sufficiently
loud to be overheard by the master or mistress of the
mansion. He dilutes his wine with water, to adapt it
to his conversation; and enlarges upon the folly of the
maxim, " a reformed rake makes the best husband." I
beard him tell, nineteen times over, the anecdote of his
uncle Major Flush, who thirty years back, at a dinner
with Sir Phelim O'Four-bottle, poured his claret into his
boots, aware that they would stand a soaking better
than the coats of his stomach. - This gives Mr. Smedley
.lotus an opportunity of observing how different things
are at present; with an addition. that one glass of wine
at dinner, and two after it, should never be exceeded by
any man wko wishes to render himself acceptable to
the Ladies. He belongs to a society for converting
Captain Parry's Esquimau:, at the North Pole, from
the errors of their ways. I have this fact from his own
Mouth, having had the misfortune to sit next but one to
him at dinner, at old Spinsuit's, the Chancery. barrister.
The intervening individual was Miss Creek, of Upper
Clapton, a white visaged personage, whom the above-
mentioned lame clerk, in the Three Per Cent. Office,
has introduced to his acquaintance. I rather think
Spinsuit has been instructed to peruse and settle their
marriage articles. Miss Creek having retired with the
rest of the Ladies, my left dank was cruelly exposed.
The old headsman accordingly brought his juveolle left
shoulder lot ward, and occupied the vacant seat.—
Ile asked me if I did not think the Esquimaux at the
North Pole, " dark heathens ;" I answered, not entirely
so, because their whale blubber supplied them with oil
for lamps. Mr. Smedley Jones stared at this, and added
that his meaning was, that they were poor unen-
lightened wanderers. I rejoined, 44 True, but that's
Apollo's fault r. Finding that he had a neighbour who
was not to be dealt with nietaphorically, he changed
his course, and began to dilale upon his family affairs,
and informed me that his brother George was a clerk
in the Post-office, where he expressed a hope that Mr.
Freeliug wouldpash him. Finding, upoti inquiry, that
his brother George lodged at the last house in Cecil-
street, which. overlooks the mud-bank of the river

Thames. I answered, " I hope he will." I was then
informed that Mr. Smedley Jones's brother Richard
was a clerk in the brewhouse of Sweetwort and Com-
pany ; the junior partner of whicir establishment,
" sitting under the same minister" at Haat" had ;mo-
ralised to push him. Finding that Sweetwort and Com-
p iny were celebrated for their large vat, I again said,
" I hope they will," wh'ch procuted for me one of those
amiable chia-dropping bows which I have already de-
picted. " For myself," continued my juvenile com-
panion with the antique bust, " I have a clerk who is a
cousin to one of the judges, who goes the home circuit
next assizes; he knows something cf the high sheriff.
and that kind-hearted and noble personage (Nlr.Smedley

Jones is not spm ing of. adjectives to benefactors in eisi
or ex peso) has promised to puSh me"—" Neck and
heels out of Court, into the High-ftereet,"."olPght
"or his javelin-man will not be of 07 mind- * Capt.
Srnithers, with a dull eye and a drawling voice, now
altered his snuff-box to Mr. Smedley Jones ; this the
latter declined, with another of those amiable bows t,)
which I have faintly endeavoured to do justice ; and
turning to me; observed that snuff-taking was. a bad
habit for a young man. "At all eventsr answered I.
"he should wear a bad habit, or Scotch rappee will
make it one." " Not but what I carry a box myself,"
continued Mr. Smedley Jones—with a look that be
meant for arch—" here it is r so saying, he pulled out
of his coat pocket an oblong box, with an amber lid.
" May I perish," thought I, "if it does not come from
Geneva,. We shall now be pestered with the regular
orthodox series of quadrille tunes." When this machine
had interrupted conversation for the usual period, and
had "said its say," I was in hopes that we had done
with it; "but, soft! by regular approach—not yet."
It was again wound op, and again set a-going, to gra-
tify little Theobald Spinsuit, who had bolted into the
dining-room in quest of an orange. These little attentions
gratify mothers, and are apt to procUre the perpetrator
a second invitation to dinner..

There new ensued a regular struggle between Mr.
Smedley Jones's tongue and my taciturnity. He is one
of those civil young men oho must speak to their neigh-
bours, whether they hive any thing to communicate or
not. I was accordingly asked what I thought of the
Catholic Qtrestion. I had entertained no thoughts upon
the subject. "Indeed F' was the reply. The nest to-
terrogatory to which I was subjected, was " Who was
the author of Junius?' 1 protested that I had never
given the matter a moment's reflection. This, how-
ever, did not stop the subject, and I was condemned to
listen to the usual harangue, with the words, " Sir
Philip Francis, Lord Chatham, Lord Shelburn, bound
copy at bankers, and tall man at letter boa", emphasized
after the accustomed manner. Then followed the
banking system of Scotland, the Rev. Edward Irving,
(whose watch I fear is still in pawn), the death of the
dowager Empress of Russia, Craneoscopy, and Tooke
on Currency : all which topics were by me, jointly
and severally, returned ignoramus. Mr. Smedley Jones's
battery here suffered a momentary pause: whereupon
" Thinks 1 to myself!" now for my turn. " Since
Nature has clapped an old head upon his young shoul-
ders, Art shall insert a young head between my old
ones. Fifty-one shall start the topics which twenty-one
ought to have discussed. Accordingly I asked Mr.
Smedley Jones, to his no small dismay, what he thought
of Mrs. Hamby's Cherry Ripe and the Lover's Mistake•?
I took it for granted that he had seen Paul Pry on
horseback, at Astley's Amphitheatre. I animadverted
upon Madame Pasta's Medea: was sorry that Signora
Garcia had picked up a Yankee husband : mentioned
that I had seen Sir Thomas Beevor add Cobbett, in St.
Paul's Church-yard, in the characters of the Goose and'
Gridiron : wondered why Potier came to the French
theatre, in Tottenham-street; and asked him if he could
tell me what had become of Delia? Nor did I not re-
gret that Miss M. Tree had changed her situation, and
taken to enact plays at Florence, in lieu of operas at
Covent Garden. It is thus that extremes produce each
other. If twenty-one monopolizes all the sense at the
dinner-table, fifty-one must take to the nonsense or hold
Its tongue. 44 Sir," said the moralist of Bolt Court,
upon an occasion somewhat similar, "be talked of the.
origin of evil, whereupon I withdrew my attention, and
thought of Tom Thumb." I fear that Smedley Jones
has by this time become alusost as wearisome to the
reader at second hand as be was originally to the writer.
I shall therefore conclude, with this observation:—
" All monsters ought to be smothered : and wherever
Nature puts an old bead upon young shoulders, the
sooner the one is knocked off the other the better."

Mr. Green ascended with his balloon from Derby,
on Wednesday last. The balloon was seen to pass
over Eastwood, in a direction E. by N.E. and continued
in view for nearly half an hour. Mr. Green descended
near 011ert on.

The amount paid as dudes on the French and East
India silk manufactured goods is much less than was
anticipated. On the first day the import was allowed
(the 6th inst.) 70,000/. was paid for dutiei ; on Friday,
only 10,0001. The amount on Saturday is said to have
been inconsiderable.

The Fe.rty-second Anniversary of that valuable In-
stitution of the Kent Dispensary, under the patronage
of her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kill; was cele-
brated at the Green Man Hotel, Blackheath, on Thurs-
day, the 6th inst. Sir E. KNATCHIVLLI Ban. M P. one
of the Vice Presidents, in the chair. The dinner was
served op in the best style, and the wines wete most excel-
lent. The only addition to the usual loyal toasts was a
speedy recovery to his Royal Highness the Duke of
YORK, which was drank with sincerity from the hearts
of all present.
Mr. Egerton Smith, of Liverpool, has proposed a new
species of life preserver for persons going to sea. It
consists of a collar of curk, two inches thick, and 19
inches in diameter, with * hole in the middle, large
enough to let the head pass through. The collar lies
upon the shoulders, somewhat like a tippet, and is fast-
ened to the body by strings passing from back to front
under the arms. Its weight was 2 pounds. " This
collar," he says, " supported me without any exertion
on my part, and with my arms entirely out of the water.
A young Gentleman also hung upon me in the water,
and the collar sustained us both, withoufmotion on our
parts, either of the hands or lee ; and I have not a
i doubt that a collar of similar thickness, and of two feet
diameter, would keep afloat three persons. I found I
could swim as quickly, and I thought even quicker,
with the simple apparatus than without it ; nor is this at
all improbable, as the weight of the body being neu-
tralized by the buoyancy of the cork, the whole exer-
tion of the arms is applied to propelling the swimmer
forwards. It is also a very great advantage of this col-
lar, that it enables the wearer to lie on his back in the
water, and thus shift his position, which, if he were sub-*
jet to long immersion, would be of great consequence."
An Inquest was on Siturday held at the Black Horse,
Poplar, on the body of T. Martin, a seaman, who, it was
reported, died in foonaecinense of a , blow received from
die mate of the Lend Hunglrford East Indiaman ; but
it appearing in evidence, that von after the deceased
received the blow he drank a large quantity of Bengal
rum, by which he became insensibly drunk, and died
soon after being sent on slo e. The Jury therefore re-
turned a verdict. Died from . xcessive di inking.
A convivial Baron of the Exchequer, the i ther day,
in reply to are observation, " that a certain quantity of
wine did nu harm," said.. NJ, it WAS an ancerthin quan-
tity did el the mischief."