ere do they keep him all
the year long?--what do they do with him?--are questions I continually
am asking myself. Under what name and designation does he figure in
the pension list? for of course I am not silly enough to suppose that
a well-ordered government would depend on chance for functionaries
like these. One might as well suppose they would calculate on some one
improvising Sir William Betham, or extemporaneously performing "God
save the Queen," on the state trumpet, in lieu of that amiable
individual who distends his loyal cheeks on our great anniversaries.
No, no. I am well aware he is a member of the household, or at least
in the pay of the government. When the pope converts his Jew on Holy
Thursday, the Catholic church have had ample time for preparation: the
cardinals are on the look-out for weeks before, to catch one for his
holiness--a good respectable hirsute Israelite, with a strong Judas
expression to magnify the miracle. But then the Jew is passive in the
affair, and has only to be converted patiently--whereas "the
gentleman" has an active duty to discharge; he must imbibe sherry,
iced punch, and champagne, at such a rate that he can be able to shock
the company, before the rooms thin, with his intemperate excess.
Besides, to give the devil--the pope, I mean--his Jew, they snare a
fresh one every Easter. Now, I am fully persuaded that, at our Irish
court, the same gentleman has performed the part for upwards of fifty
years.

At the ancient banquets it was always looked upon as a triumph of
Amphitryonism when a guest or two died the day after of indigestion,
from over eating. Now, is it not possible that our classic origin may
have imparted to us the trait I am speaking of, and that "the
gentleman" is retained as typical of our exceeding hilarity and
consummate conviviality--an evidence to the "great unasked" that the
festivities within doors are conducted on a scale of boundless
profusion and extravagance--that the fountains from which honour
flows, run also with champagne, and that punch and the peerage are to
be seen bubbling from the same source.

It is a sad thing to think that the gifted man, who has served his
country so faithfully in this capacity for so long a period, must now
be stricken in years. Time and rum must be telling upon him; and yet,
what should we do were we to lose him?

In the chapel of Maria Zell, in Styria, there is a portly figure of
St. Somebody, with more consonants than