Malcolm, James Peller: First Impressions Or Sketches from Art and Nature, Animate and Inanimate (London, 1807)

254 KINGSWESTOJT.
sword in hand. The " first impressions" must
have been insufferably acute on her imperial mind.
The dignity of her sex, the honour of her crown,
demanded that she should immediately—box their
ears ; and, my life on it, such would have been
the first impulses of her resentment.
Our improvements in the mode os.governing
have rendered abfolute monarchs unnecessary. The
virtuous and the sedate now follow the example of
the Sovereign and their families; and the reigning;
house of Brunswick must be allowed, in three
successions, to have afforded the moll amiable
sor public and private life.
The Monarch, and his illustrious relatives, need
not now—box or imprison their erring subjects;
the smile os derifton, from those who commit no
sollies, cuts deeper than the lain on Numbering
reflection : and thev who are not to b e recovereci
by that smile are not worth serious correction.
Caricaturists and the Stage flagellate those who
cannot be noticed from the Pulpit. Even'Astley's
exhibition of the dowager on ass-back, attended
-by her gigantic footman, must have had some
essect ; and severe falls may perhaps cure the
mania of afs.-racing.
The populace have prevented this new mode os
taking the air near London. John Bull's samily
has that general sense of decorum, that they would
hunt