We have viewed, with feelings of ineffable disgust, the conduct of certain individuals amongst us, who, regardless of their most solemn promises, have wickedly conspired to subvert the laws and usuages of our most excellent Institution, and thereby sow the seeds of anarchy and discord upon its ruins. To you, Gentlemen and Brethren, our meed of praise is due, for your unflinching perseverance in exposing and bringing to justice, the guilty authors of such atrocities. ; Our sincere and fervent wishes are, that you may long enjoy the esteem and confidence of your fellow-men, especially the members of the Manchester District but above all, may you derive the best of all possible rewards, viz :-the inward satisfaction arising from a self-approving conscience. We remain, Gentlemen and Brethren, on behalf of the members of the EARL OF SEFTON LODGE, In the Bonds of Friendship, Love and Truth, JOHN LINGS N. G. JAMES CHAPMAN, V. G. A RAMBLE INTO THE WOODS AND WHAT THE WRITER SAW THERE. (From Tait's Edinburgh Magazine.) 'Twas about the middle of the sultry month of August, when the dog-star rages' and all nature sinks into a sort of luxurious repose, I had stretched myself in languid listlessness on the bank of a stream, as quiet as the leaves that breathed around me, and gradually sinking into a state of unconsciousness of the world and all its hold; I lapsed into a state of forgetfulness, from which I was roused by a hoarse croaking voice, exclaiming "Cruel, savage monster! what does he here?" I looked round and could only perceive a hawk, seated on the limb of a dry tree, eyeing me, as I fancied, with a peculiar expression of hostility. In a few moments I again relapsed into a profound reverie, from which I was awakened once more by a small squeaking whisper-"I dare say the blood-thirsty villain has been setting traps for us." I at first could see nothing from which the voice could proceed, but at the same time imagined I could distinguish a sort of confused whisper, in which many little voices seem commingled; my curiosity was awakened, and peering about quietly, I found it proceeded from a collection of animals, birds, and insects, gathered together for some unaccountable purpose, as they seemed very much excited, and in a great passion, all talking at once. Listening attentively, I could distinguish one from the other. "Let us pounce upon the tyrant, and kill him in his sleep,” cried an eagle, “for he grudges me a miserable little lamb now and then, though I don't require one above once a week. See where he wounded me in the wing, so that I can hardly get an honest living by prey." "Let me scratch his eyes out," screamed a hawk, "for he will not allow me peaceably to carry off a chicken from his farm yard, though I am dying with hunger; and come in open day to claim my natural indefeasible rights." 66 Ay, ay," barked a fox, "he interferes in the same manner with my privileges, though I visit his hen and roost in the night, that I may not disturb him." "Agreed!" hissed a snake, "for he wont let me bite him, though he knows it is my nature; and kills me according to scripture." Agreed!" said a great fat spider who sat in his nest, surrounded by the dead bodies of half a dozen insects, "agreed, for the bloody-minded savage takes delight in destroying the fruits of my honest labours on all occasions." "By all means," buzzed a great blue-bottle fly, "for he will not let me tickle his nose on a hot summer day, though he must see that it gives me infinite satisfaction." Kill him!" cried a little ant who ran fuming and fretting about at a furious rate, VOL. 4-No. 7-2 U. "kill him without mercy, for he don't mind treading me into a million of atoms, a bit more than I do killing a fly," addressing himself to the spider. "The less you say about that, the better," whispered the spider. "Odds, fish!" exclaimed a beautiful trout, that I should like very much to have caught, popping his head out of the water, "odds, fish! kill the monster, by all means; hook him, I say, for he entices me with worms, and devours me to gratify his insatiable appetite.' "To be sure," said a worm, "kill him as he sleeps, and I'll eat him afterwards; for although I am acknowledged on all hands to be his brother, he impales me alive on a hook, only for his amusement." "I consent," cooed a dove, "for he has deprived me of my beloved mate, and made me a disconsolate widow." "He has committed a million of murders," cried the spider. "He has drowned all my kittens," mewed the cat. ' only because I'm "He tramples upon me without mercy," whispered the toad, ". no beauty." "He is a treacherous cunning villain," barked the fox. "He has no more bowels than a wolf," screamed the hawk. "He is a bloody tyrant," croaked the eagle. "He is the common enemy of all nature, and deserves a hundred and fifty thousand deaths," exclaimed they all with one voice. I began to be heartily ashamed of myself, and was thinking how I might slip away from hearing these unpleasant reproaches, but my curiosity kept me quiet, while they continued to discuss the best mode of destroying the tyrant. There was, as usual in such cases, great diversity of opinion. "I'll bury my talons in his brain," said the eagle. "I'll tear out his eyes," screamed the hawk. "I'll whip him to death with my tail," barked the fox. "I'll sting him home," hissed the snake. "I'll drown him, if he'll only come into the brook, so I will," quoth the trout. "I'll drag him into my hole, and do his business there, I warrant," said the ant; and thereupon there was a giggle among the whole set. "And I'll-and I'll," said the worm,-"What will you do poor devil?" exclaimed the rest in a titter. "What will I do? why I'll eat him after he is dead," replied Sir worm; and then he strutted about until he unwarily came so near that he slipped into the brook, and was snapped up in a moment by the trout. The example was contagious. "Oh! are you for that sport?" mewed the cat, and clawed the trout before he could get his head under water. "Tit for tat!" barked Reynard, and snatching puss up in his teeth, was off like a shot. "Since it is the fashion," said the spider, "I'll have a crack at that same bluebottle," and thereupon he nabbed the poor fly in a twinkling. "By your leave," said the toad, and snapped at the spider in less than no time. "You ugly thief of the world," hissed the snake in great wrath, and indignantly laying hold of the toad, managed to swallow him about half way, where he lay in all his glory. "What a nice morsel for my poor fatherless little ones," cooed the dove, and picked up the ant and was flying away with it in quite a sentimental way, when the hawk seeing this, screamed out "What a pretty plump dove for a dinner! Providence hath ordered that I should eat her." He was carrying her off, when the eagle darted upon him, and soaring to his eyry, on the summit of an inaccessible rock, composedly made a meal of both hawk and dove, then picking his teeth with his claws, he exclaimed with great complacency, "what a glorious thing it is to be king of the birds!" "Humph!" exclaimed I, rubbing my eyes, for it seemed I had been half asleep, "hump! a man is not so much worse than his neighbours after all." TO THE EDITOR AND COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT FOR THE MAGAZINE. GENTLEMEN, THE fable of the Old Man and his Ass, "who, in striving to please everybody, pleased nobody," one would imagine had got into the heads of some of the readers of your excellent Magazine, which is fast becoming a source of information and intelligence to the whole Order. Still it seems to be the very nature of some people to find fault with that which they cannot mend. Thus we hear one man complaining of there being too much repitition and returning of thanks for medals and gifts, which are of no importance but to those who receive them. Others assert that there is too much extraneous matter selected from works that every one has read before-nothing original! Some complain of anniversaries being reported with an everlasting sameness, while others insist it is sufficient to hear a sermon preached on a Sunday, but a complete bore to read one afterwards in the Magazine. I fear these latter gentry are not over-religious. Now, Sir, I would advise all these fault-finders just to try their own skill at composition, and I doubt not their united efforts might probably enlighten and astonish the whole Order—at least, in their own opinion. But as some of these gentry may wish to know who and what I am, I have been some time in deciding whether I should satisfy them or not; for-as I care for nobody, and as I am not yet at the bar-I do not feel inclined or bound to answer to my name. In the second place there are very few men who can give a tolerable account of themselves, let them try ever so hard— but this is not my case; and thirdly, it is nobody's business-or if it were, I do not hold myself bound to attend to anybody's business but my own, and even that I take the liberty of neglecting whenever it suits my own convenience. Willing, however, to gain that friendly opinion at first, which I am certain of ultimately possessing, I am anxious to spare my brother officers the trouble of making a thousand conjectures,-not one of which would be worth a tobacco-stopper,-by informing them, that as I do not write for money, neither will I write for fame, knowing too well the variable nature of public opinion to build my hopes upon it. I therefore care not a fig what people think of me. I shall write when I please, and what I please-in short, I shall write for no other earthly purpose but to please myself, and this I am certain of doing, because I have determined beforehand to be pleased with what I write; so I spare myself the trouble of any further explanation, because I hate trouble, and hold the man who would unnecessarily incur it in the most supreme and ineffable contempt. While I continue to write prose, I shall write merrily, being decidedly of opinion that wisdom, true wisdom, is a plump jolly dame, who sits in her arm-chair, laughs right merrily at the farce of life, and takes the world as it goes. It is frequently a source of great mortification to a writer, who for the amusement of himself, and those who may chance to read his lucubrations, that he cannot employ his leisure hours in sketching an odd character from mere imagination, but every Jack Pudding conceives it is pointed directly at himself; or if he throws a fool's cap among the crowd, every queer fellow will insist upon putting it on his own head, and write his name under it. Now, however, I may be mortified at these characters supposing themselves of sufficient consequence to engage my attention ;-I should not care a rush, if they did not get into a passion and complain of being ill-used;—yet it is but natural that when a man gets a thwack in a crowd to suppose the blow was intended exclusively for himself, and so fall into anger. But I do assure these good people that I would not, for all the money in my best purse, willingly hurt the feelings of any single mortal upon earth-therefore, as I am about to exhibit a cap and bells, I do beseech my good-natured readers not to get into a passion, or place the cap on their heads before they are certified of its being a fit. And now, gentle reader, allow me to introduce to your acquaintance my most esteemed and highly respected friend and brother, Mr. Nicholas Fuzz-a humourist by nature, a very little man, but of the true gunpowder temper-one flash and all is over. It is true, when the wind is in the east, or he happens to hear of a new peer being created, or a pension granted, he is apt to become a little splenetic, and heaven help the man who happens to cross his humour at that moment. I would not lose one of his splenetic bursts for the best wig in my wardrobe. I assure you, in these moments, he is actually sublime, and blazes forth like a volcano against king, lords and pensioners. He is one of the most inveterate little radicals I ever knew, and no persuasion could ever induce him to join in our national anthem when closing the Lodge, until we came to Rule Britannia,-then burst forth his mighty voice in all its power and melody, and, when acting as N. G., Fuzz would slip out of the chair, and out of the Lodge if possible, while his right-supporter gave our usual toast "The King." The death of William Cobbett had nearly proved the death of Nicholas Fuzz. He had pinn'd his faith to the infallability of that great man-all he said and all he did was gospel, in the opinion of poor Fuzz-and he once actually caused a Lodge of emergency to be called, to consider the propriety of withdrawing the funds of the Lodge from the Savings Bank, merely because Cobbett had said, in his Register, “that Government had withdrawn fifteen millions to liquidate the proprietors' claims on the abolition of slavery in our West India Colonies," and insists, to this day, "that if Cobbett had said the word, the Bank of England itself would have been broken." He is also a particular friend to the Clergy, and I have heard him exclaim, in one of his paroxyisms of loyalty, "that he should like to see the whole church militant whigs and tories, tied together and frizzling on Cobbett's gridiron," though I really believe he has too much of the milk of human kindness to hurt a worm, were it in his power to do so. He is, moreover, a very learned little man, and I verily believe, had he been brought up at Oxford or Cambridge, he would, in all probability, have been promoted to the dignity of senior wrangler. Should you get into an argument with him, you would be overwhelmed in a trice by such a number of syllogisms, and high sounding words, as would almost annihilate you with astonishment. Only permit him to take a synopsis of the case, and he will prove, to a demonstration, "that water never can, of its own accord, rise above its own level-that air is certainly the principle of life, and that not a particle of the flesh upon a man's bones is the same at forty as it was when he was born-that there is no difference betwixt frogs and toads, the one being male and the other female,-knows it to be a fact-is confident the world goes round, and that the moon is inhabited." Fuzz is, moreover, an inveterate punster ;—you can scarcely make an observation, but whack! he throws a whole handful of puns in your face, like a bowl of cold water. Notwithstanding this, he is one of the most humane and benevolent of little men in the whole town of Gotham. Should a man be in sickness or distress, let him but apply to Fuzz and he will obtain relief and assistance-if it be possible for man to obtain it-and it may be said, without fear of contradiction, that Nicholas Fuzz has collected more money in this way than any other man in Gotham. I have often sat in silent admiration, listening to him, when pleading the cause of some poor soul or other in distress. No sooner does he rise than the hubbub of a whole room ceases, as if by magic. He will then address them individually and collectively-he will take a synopsis of the case, and ply them with analogies and corollaries, and amalgamate them all together, to the utter astonishment of many who may be seen with their mouths wide open, listening to such words as they never heard before in the whole course of their existence; and I have often wondered how or where he obtained such a number of hard words, though I have been told that he attends a certain society of book-worms, who dedicate two hours every Sunday morning for the purpose of grubbing up all the obselete terms, apophthegms, syllogisms, and far-fetched words in the English tongue; yet I am inclined to believe this a fudge. But would you see Nicholas Fuzz in all his glory, it is when presiding at a Harmonic or Free and Easy-here he is truly great: the power and compass of his voice is such as rarely fails to astonish and delight all that hear him. The last twenty years Nicholas Fuzz had no rival in vocal abilities: so great was his fame in this line, that I have been informed it has actually reached the shores of America-his health being frequently proposed and drunk by the good people of New York, at their harmonic festivals and I very believe, were Free and Easys suspended by habeas-corpus, the end of Nicholas Fuzz would most assuredly be near at hand. Here in his glory, year after year, at the head or tail of a Free and Easy, sits Nicholas Fuzz every live-long night in the week but one, and that one he dedicates to Odd Fellowship. Lastly, Nicholas Fuzz is, without exception, one of the greatest little public men in the whole town of Gotham. Brighton, 1837. VESTA. PARTY SPIRIT. "BEHOLD how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." THAT" union is strength," is an universally acknowledged axiom; yet strange to say-evident as is the necessity of union, and self-evident as is the above propositionthe conduct of some of the brethren would seem to shew, that they do not see the necessity of the one, nor feel the truth and force of the other. If union is strength, the stability and permanency of every community, whether small or great, must necessarily depend on close union. It must be, therefore, of paramount importance, that in all our Lodges, there should be unity of purposeunity of interests and a most cordial co-operation in everything relating to the good and welfare of them, if they are to go on in any way like comfort and prosperity. I feel the delightful assurance that such is the real state of many, very many of our Lodges, presenting the pleasing spectacle so well described in the words of the poet "How blest the sight, the joy how sweet, When brothers join'd with brothers meet And surely none other than a demon could look upon such scenes with indifference, and have no desire to participate in such happiness, where "Kind desires to serve and please, That there is not and the languid I think that it is This is as it should be; but it is not universally so among us. harmony and co-operation in all our Lodges, the closing of some, state of others, too plainly shew. To what is this attributable ? owing in a great measure, if not altogether, to the blighting and union-destroying influences of party spirit; though I doubt not that some of our Lodges may have been closed from other causes, but that Lodges have been broken up by the cause here assigned, are facts which have come under my own cognizance. It is to be exceedingly regretted, that anything like a factious and disorderly spirit, should be found invading the almost sacred retirement of the Lodge, where nothing but harmony and unanimity ought to prevail. Sometimes a little misunderstanding, or difference of opinion, which ought to be met with calm and temperate discussion, will call up in the breasts of those who have little command of temper, (perhaps ren |