Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.

Sir Richard Steele, as we have before noticed, is reproached by a busybody of those times for a habit of jerking his stick against the pavement as he walked. When swords were abolished by Act of Parliament, the tavern-boys took to pinking each other, as injuriously as they could well manage, with their walking-sticks. Macklin the player was tried for his life for poking a man's eye out in this way. Perhaps this helped to bring the stick into disrepute, for the use of it seems to have declined more and more, till it is now confined to old men, and a few among the younger. It is unsuitable to our moneygetting mode of rushing hither and thither. Instead of pinking a man's ribs or so, or thrusting out his eye from an excess of the jovial, we break his heart with a bankruptcy.

Canes became so common before the decline of the use of sticks, that whenever a man is beaten with a stick, let it be of what sort it may, it is still common to say that he has had " a caning." Which reminds us of an anecdote more agreeable than surprising; though the patient doubtless thought the reverse. A gentleman, who was remarkable for the amenity of his manners, accompanied by something which a bully might certainly think he might presume upon, found himself compelled to address a person who did not know how to "translate his style," in the following words, which were all delivered in the sweetest tone in the world, with an air of almost hushing gentility:-"Sir, I am extremely sorry-to be obliged to say, that you appear to have a very erroneous notion of the manners that become your situation in life;-and I am compelled, with great reluctance, to add," (here he became still softer and more delicate)" that if you do not think fit, upon reflection, to alter this very extraordinary conduct towards a gentleman, I shall be under the necessity of caning you." The other treated the thing as a joke; and to the delight of the bye-standers, received a very grave drubbing.

There are two eminent threats connected with caning, in the history of Dr. Johnson. One was from himself, when he was told that Foote intended to mimic him on the stage. He replied, that if "the dog" ventured to play his tricks with him, he would step out of the stagebox, chastise him before the audience, and then throw himself upon their candour and common sympathy. Foote desisted, as he had good reason to do. The Doctor would have read him a stout lesson, and then made a speech to the audience as forcible; so that the theatrical annals have to regret, that the subject and Foote's shoulders were not afforded him to expatiate upon. It would have been a fine involuntary piece of acting,-the part of Scipio by Dr. Johnson.-The other threat was against the Doctor himself from Macpherson, the compounder of Ossian. It was for denying the authenticity of that work; a provocation the more annoying, inasmuch as he did not seem duly sensible of it's merits. Johnson replied to Macpherson's letter by one of contemptuous brevity and pith; and contented himself with carrying about a large stick, with which he intended to repel Macpherson

in case of an assault. Had they met, it would have been like “two clouds over the Caspian;" for both were large-built men.

We recollect another bacular Johnsonian anecdote. When he was travelling in Scotland, he lost a huge stick of his in the little tree-less island of Mull. Boswell told him he would recover it; but the Doctor shook his head. 66 No, no," said he ; "let any body in Mull get possession of it, and it will never be restored. Consider, Sir, the value of such a piece of timber here."

The most venerable sticks now surviving, are the smooth ambercoloured canes in the possession of old ladies. They have sometimes a gold-head, but oftener a crook of ivory. But they have latterly been much displaced by light umbrellas, the handles of which are imitations of them; and these are gradually retreating before the young parasol, especially about town. The old ladies take the wings of the stage-coaches, and are run away with by John Pullen in a style of infinite convenience. The other sticks in use are for the most part of cherry, oak, and crab, and seldom adorned with more than a leathern tassel often with nothing. Bamboo and other canes do not abound as might be expected from our intercourse with India: but commerce, in this as in other respects, has overshot it's mark. People cannot afford to use sticks, any more than bees could in their hives. Of the common sabbatical cane we have already spoken. There is a very sufficing little manual, equally light and lissom, yclept an ebony switch; but we have not seen it often.

That sticks however are not to be despised by the leisurely, any one who has known what it is to want words, or to slice off the head of a thistle, will allow. The utility of the stick seems divisible into three heads; first, to give a general consciousness of power; second, which may be called a part of the first, to help the demeanour; and third, which may be called a part of the second, to assist a man over the gaps of speech,―the little aukward intervals, called want of ideas.

Deprive a man of his stick, who is accustomed to carry one, and with what a diminished sense of vigour and gracefulness he issues out of his house! Wanting his stick, he wants himself. His self-possession, like Acres's on the duel-ground, has gone out of his fingers' ends. But restore it him, and how he resumes his energy! If a common walking-stick, he cherishes the top of it with his fingers, putting them out and back again with a fresh desire to feel it in his palm! How he strikes it against the ground, and feels power come back to his arm! How he makes the pavement ring with the ferrel, if in a street; or decapitates the downy thistles aforesaid, if in a field! Then if it be a switch, how firmly he jerks his step at the first infliction of it on the air! How he quivers the point of it as he goes, holding the handle with a strait-dropped arm and a tight grasp! How his foot keeps time to the switches! How the passengers think he is going to ride, whether he is or not! How he twigs the luckless pieces of lilac or other shrubs, that peep out of a garden railing! And if a sneaking-looking dog is coming by, how he longs to exercise his despotism and his moral sense at once, by giving him an invigorating twinge!

But what would certain men of address do without their cane or switch? There is an undoubted Rhabdosophy, Sceptrosophy, or Wisdom of the Stick, besides the famous Divining Rod with which people. used to discover treasures and fountains. It supplies a man with inaudible remarks, and an inexpressible number of graces. Sometimes, breathing between his teeth, he will twirl the end of it upon his stretched-out toe; and this means, that he has an infinite number of easy and powerful things to say, if he had a mind. Sometimes, he holds it upright between his knees, and tattoos it against his teeth or under lip; which implies, that he meditates coolly. On other occasions, he switches the side of his boot with it, which announces jauntiness in general. Lastly, if he has not a bon-mot ready in answer to one, he has only to thrust his stick at your ribs, and say Ah! you rogue!" which sets him above you in an instant, as a sort of patronizing wit, who can dispense with the necessiting of joking.

66

At the same time, to give it it's due zest in life, a stick has it's inconveniences. If you have yellow gloves on, and drop it in the mud, a too hasty recovery is aukward. To have it stick between the stones of a pavement, is not pleasant; especially if it snap the ferrel off; or more especially if an old gentleman or lady is coming behind you, and after making them start back with winking eyes, it threatens to trip them up. To lose the ferrel on a country road, renders the end liable to the growth of a sordid brush; which, not having a knife with you, or a shop in which to borrow one, goes pounding the wet up against your legs. In a crowded street, you may have the stick driven into a large pane of glass; upon which an unthinking tradesman, utterly indifferent to a chain of events, issues forth and demands twelve shillings and sixpence. But perhaps we have been anticipated on these points by that useful regulator of the philosophy of every-day matters, who wrote a treatise entitled the Miseries of Human Life. We shall only add, that the stick is never more in the way, than when you meet two ladies, your friends, whose arms you are equally bound and beatified to take. It cannot possibly be held in the usual way, to say nothing of it's going against the gown or pelisse: and to carry over the shoulder, endangers veils and bonnets, besides rendering you liable to the gallant reproaches of the unreflecting; who thinking you minst have walked with the ladies from all eternity, instead of the next street, ask you whether you could not leave your stick at home even for two. But see, how situations the most perplexing to an unreflecting good-will, may change their character before a spirit truly enlightened by the smiles on each side of him. Now is the time, if the fortunate Sceptrosopher wishes to be thought well of in a fair bosom. He throws away the stick. The lady smiles and deprecates, and thinks how generously he could protect her without a stick.

it

It was thus that Sir Walter Raleigh, when he was an aspirant at Elizabeth's court at Greenwich, attending her one day on a walk, in company with other fine spirits of that age, and coming upon a plashy strip of ground which put her Majesty's princely foot to a non-plus, no sooner saw her dilemma, than he took off a gallant velvet-cloak

which he had about him, and throwing it across the mud and dirt, made such a passage for her to go over, as her royal womanhood never forgot.

COUNTRY LITTLE KNOWN.

We have to inform the public of a remarkable discovery, which, though partially disclosed by former travellers, has still remained, for the most part, a strange secret. It is this;-that there is actually, at this present moment, and in this our own beautiful country of Great Britain, a large tract of territory, which to nine hundred and ninetynine thousandths of our beloved countrymen is as much an undiscovered land as the other end of New South Wales, or the Pole which they have gone to find out. We have read of places in romance, which were more shut out by magic from people's eyes, though close to them, than if a fifty-foot wall encircled them. It would seem as if some such supernatural prohibition existed with regard to the land in question; for the extremities of it reach to within a short distance from the Metropolis, which it surrounds on all sides; nay, we have heard of persons riding through it, without seeing any thing but a sign-post or some corn; and yet it is so beautiful, that is called emphatically The Country."

It abounds in the finest natural productions. The more majestic parts of it are at a distance; but the zealous explorer may come upor it's gentler beauties in an incredibly short time. It's pastures and cattle are admirable. Deer are to be met with in the course of half a day's journey; and the traveller is accompanied, wherever he goes, with the music of singing birds. Immediately towards the south is a noble river, which brings you to an upland of the most luxuriant description, looking in the water like a rich-haired beauty in her glass yet the place is in general solitary. Towards the north, at a less distance, are some other hilly spots of ground, which partake more of the rudely romantic, running however into scenes of the like sylvan elegance; and yet these are still more solitary. The inhabitants of these lands, called the Country-People, seem, in truth, pretty nearly as blind to their merits as those who never see them; but their perceptions will doubtless increase, in proportion as their polished neighbours set the example. It should be said for them, that some causes, with which we have nothing to do in this place, have rendered them duller to such impressions than they appear to have been a century or two ago; but we repeat, that they will not live in such scenes to no purpose, if those who know better, take an interest in their improvement. Their children have an instinct that is wiser, till domestic cares do it away. They may be seen in the fields and green lanes, with their curly locks and brown faces, gathering the flowers which abound there, and the names of which are as pretty as the shapes and

colours. They are called wild roses, primroses, violets, the rose campion, germander, stellaria, wild anemone, bird's-eye, daisies and buttercups, lady-smocks, ground-ivy, hare-bells or blue-bells, wake-robin, lillies of the valley, &c. &c. The trees are oaks, elms, birches, ash, poplar, willow, wild cherry, the flowering may-bush, &c. &c. all, in short, that we doat upon in pictures, and wish that we had about us when it is hot in Cheapside and Bond-street. It is perfectly transporting, in fine weather, like the present for instance, to lounge under the hedge-row elms in one of these sylvan places, and see the light smoke of the cottages fuming up among the green trees, the cattle grazing or lying about with a heavy placidity accordant to the time and scene," painted jays" glancing about the glens, the gentle hills sloping down into water, the winding embowered lanes, the leafy and flowery banks, the green oaks against the blue sky, their ivied trunks, the silver-bodied and young-haired birches, and the mossy grass treble-carpeted after the vernal rains. Transporting is it to see all this; and transporting to hear the linnets, thrushes, and blackbirds, the grave gladness of the bee, and the stock-dove "brooding over her own sweet voice." And more transporting than all is it to be in such places with a friend that feels like ourselves, in whose heart and eyes (especially if they have fair lids), we may see all our own happiness doubled, as the landscape itself is reflected in the

waters.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

J. is informed that it is intended to divide the Indicator into Volumes for which purpose a Title-page will be ready for delivery by the close of the Fiftieth Number,

or thereabouts.

S. L. is under consideration.

A Correspondent informs us that the Latin word for Daisy, Bellis, is of Greek origin; to which it is traced in some old works. We trust we have taken him with us of late, in our May-weather enjoyments.

Orders received by the Newsmen, by the Booksellers, and by the Publisher, Joseph Appleyard. -Price 2d.

Printed by Joseph Appleyard, No. 19, Catherine-street, Strand,