MR. EDITOR, I am one of those ignitible individuals who took fire at the first mention that was made of instituting a magazine. I immediately set to work at concocting an article for it with the greatest eagerness, but unfortunately my brain would not keep pace with my good will to serve the Magazine. For I found that after I had been dreaming over a long, prosy article on the Origin, Advantages &c. of this periodical, I had trespassed on the province of the Editor. I attempted to write a story, but I could not hit upon a subject, and last of all I became a poetaster, the result was an "Address to the Magazine." But here again my infelicitous brain proved false, and I had the greatest difficulty in squeezing out a few lines. The Address is so very indifferent, that I would not have you soil your valuable pages with it; but to give you some proof that I have not been idle I will send you an extract or two; after reading which you will not, perhaps regret that I have not sent you the entire piece. The first extract shall be taken from the beginning. What Muse shall I invoke, whose power divine And make him soar aloft in verse sublime, The second shall be from the end ;— But I must premise that the stanza immediately preceding, contains a complaint of the manner in which poetry was excluded from the former periodical, which bore nearly the same title as the present one. But now the Muse, unfettered, yields a song, The bonds first broken, which she wore too long, And not being able to avoid the alliteration which occurs in the penultimate line, I beg to remain, your would-be-useful servant, Hardbrain. That our choice of an Editor sage is, B. HINTS TO HOUSEKEEPERS. I. How to preserve fruit.-Lock the garden door and keep a sharp look out on the walls. (And above all, at Downside, on the cinder-heap.) II. How to stuff a goose.—Let the reader of this, (mind the writer will not do at all) take his seat at the dinner table, and eat till he can eat no longer, he will find then, that he has stuffed a goose. III. How to make a bottle of brandy go a long way.-Pack it up carefully in a small hamper, send it up to London by the Great Western Railway, and thence by ship to Sidney, when it reaches that port, you will have made it go a very long way. IV. How to fry soles.-Get several old shoes, cut away the heels and all the upper leather, place the residue of each shoe on a gridiron over a hot fire, and the soles will soon be fried. J. NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. We have received some good verses signed "W. Constantreader,” and we should have inserted them, had we not considerable doubts as to their originality. If this gentleman will satisfy us on that point, we will willingly give then insertion in our next. The communications of "Lucian," "Rotundus," "C," and "Tau" have been deferred through want of space. The Editor's box will close, for the April Number, on Thursday the 14th inst. DOWNSIDE MAGAZINE AND MONTHLY MISCELLANY. VOL. I. APRIL, 1844. NO. 2. HINTS TO OUR PRECEPTORS. We conceive that we can do nothing more in accordance with our duty, than assist in every possible way our respected and respective masters, in their many anxieties and labours of love. Deeply impressed with this feeling, we think we cannot do better than throw out a few hints to ease their toils in the approaching examen, We flatter ourselves that they will find the following questions highly appropriate and interesting. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 1. Given p the number of minutes the Prefect is absent from bounds, and q the velocity of a boy afraid of being caught, required the number of visitants to the store-room in former times. 2. B going out cruising gets n peaches; unexpectedly meeting John, he flies off at right angles, (velocity q as before,) what is the force of John's dextral ambulatory against the locus sedens of the delinquent? Explain this by the parallelogram of forces. 3. Given v the velocity of sound in dough, and n the number of plums in a square foot of plum cake, find the formula to denote the time before a plum in one of our shouting puddings, could be heard by its nearest neighbour, supposing it could shout loud enough to be heard at all. с HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1. Mention all the battles that have taken place in Great Britain, from the earliest times to the present day; giving the dates, causes, effects, and the names of the generals and principal men on both sides. (Do it in five minutes.) What reasons are there for supposing that George III. never existed. Quote Virgil's third Georgic in proof of your assertion. 2. Explain the historical allusions in the following lines, and fill up the blanks: Heigh diddle diddle The cat in the fiddle, The- -jumped over the moon; The little laughed To see such sport, The dish ran after the Define exactly the signification of "Heigh diddle diddle." Shew hence how Edward I. came to be diddled out of Guienne by Philip, King of France (1294.) For further questions vide London University Examination Papers passim. Examiners, Professors Birch'em, Heavyhand, and Co. Through breakers' roar and billows' foam And o'er the waters far to roam, Where none my course may mark. I love to spread my swelling sail The deer loves his own native hill, For there he's wild and free; But I am wilder, freer still, When I am on the sea. The eagle mounts the clouds on high, Which madly howls athwart the sky, And though his flight be bold and brave, My gallant bark flies o'er the wave, LUCIAN. AN ESSAY ON WIT AND HUMOUR. Various are the senses in which the word "wit" has been used. By old writers it was frequently, nay generally employed in a very wide signification; it served to designate the whole intellectual faculty, with the exception of the will, having thus a meaning almost co-extensive with the word "ability." Thus, in books written in the last century, we often find that a person is described as a man of wit, while we clearly see from the context, that the individual alluded to was a grave, learned personage, a man of great ability no doubt, but decidedly no humorist, not such a one as we should now designate as a man of wit.—In the following desultory remarks, we will consider wit and humour, in as much as they are suggestive of the ludicrous, or so far as they may derive their origin from the last named faculty. One of the most common, vulgar, and in our humble opinion, the very lowest species of wit-can we call it wit?-is the employment of cant phrases, or of slang. We have had the misfortune of knowing many a youngster set up as a humourist, with no better stock in trade, than a small supply of this odious article. Very witty no doubt he thinks it is, to designate an eccentric companion by the term "a rum stick," to call his hat "a tile" or "a thatch," or to express a request that a candle should be extinguished, by the elegant phrase |