Amor Virtutis is informed that we cannot tell him where to get skeleton keys made.
Non mi ricordo, and numerous other correspondents are apprised that we believe the lady was born about the end of the reign of King George the Second. But her address is in the Court Guide, and they had better apply to her personally. We do not profess to keep a Register Office.
Saucy Lizzy.—The best cosmetic is health. Rise early, take exercise, read Punch, and be asleep before dark, and you will not need "washes," which, as the Vicar of Wakefield says, do no end of mischief. But if you must use anything of the kind, a little cantharides and mustard, rubbed into a paste with turpentine, laid on over night, and the face washed with sulphuric acid in the morning, will probably produce an alteration. But, Lizzy, on no account use it unless made up by a chemist.
A Youthful Aspirer.—We happen, at this moment, to want neither "poetry" nor "a boy as can black boots and run errands," but should a vacancy occur in either department, we will bear you in mind. Your "Lines to the Two Warrens" scarcely do justice either to the Blacking or the Blackwood one.
J. Wheeler Blashby (or some such name).—How can we tell you where to get a hippopotamus? But we could tell you where to get a writing master, who would be a much better "companion for your leisure hours."
Musidora.—We need hardly say that we do recognise the hand, and with pleasure. Your grace's secret is, of course, perfectly safe with us, and we should write privately, but have no right to disturb a lady's incog. As your grace is pleased to prefer periwinkles we must bow, but a good deal may be said for whelks. We cannot, however, concur in your opinion of the music of Rigoletto, which we must, with all deference, pronounce "stunning." Your enclosure shall be duly forwarded to the Marquis.
Archimedes.—Yes, logarithms and decimals mean the same thing, and to reduce decimals into the concrete formula of logarithms, it is only necessary to extract the cube root and take the middle term (of course omitting fractions) until the tangents have for their basis the sine of the complement. Any charity boy could show you the process.
S. F. (Leeds).—We are surprised at such ignorance in a place of progress like Leeds. The Letters of Junius were not written by any man, but by Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who conveyed them to the press through her friend John Evelyn, author of the poem of Silver (on which Phillips founded his, of the Splendid Shilling), and she took the name of Junius as a sort of joke, because at the time of writing them she wore one of the Brutus crops introduced at the French Revolution.
Jack Robinson.—Rather, and before you could mention your own name. But when you send us grouse, send a leash, not a brace.
Macdonald Paul says, that the family of Skirwharmlie is Scotch, and its members have been worthy to rank with many of whom Scotia is most proud. Owing to the unfortunate prejudices of past ages against treason, arson, cattle stealing, and the like, the family was continually decimated by judicial interposition, but its representative keeps, or kept (for the police are very tyrannical) a marine store shop near Old Gravel Lane.