congratulate one another upon our lucky escape from the calamity of a twenty or thirty thousand pound prize!  The fox in the fable, who accused the unattainable grapes of sourness, was more of a philosopher than we are generally willing to allow.  He was an adept in that species of moral alchemy which turns everything to gold, and converts disappointment itself into a ground of resignation and content.  Such we have shown to be the great lesson inculcated by the Lottery, when rightly contemplated; and if we might parody M. de Chateaubriand’s jingling expression, “Le Roi est mort:  vive le Roi!” we should be tempted to exclaim, “The Lottery is no more:  long live the Lottery!”

* * * * *

The foregoing article, as the reader may possibly remember, was not Lamb’s only contribution to the “New Monthly Magazine.”  Indeed, it was in that pleasant and popular periodical,—­then at the height of its popularity, with many of the most admired writers in Great Britain among its contributors, and edited by the elegant and polished poet who sang the “Pleasures of Hope,”—­it was in this magazine that Elia’s admirable “Popular Fallacies” were first given to the world. (I fear, however, that the exquisite grace, beauty, and polish of these delightful papers were hardly appreciated by the readers of the “New Monthly.”) And it was for this publication that he undertook to write a novel.  Although Elia had but little fancy for novels himself, and in the writing of them would not have done justice, perhaps, to his rare genius, yet, nevertheless, I suspect that all admirers of “Rosamund Gray,” if not all readers of novels, regret that he did not complete the work of fiction he began for the “New Monthly Magazine.”  Judging from the specimen that was published, it would have been, had the author seen fit to finish it, quite an original and very characteristic production.  Here is the first chapter of the story.  Though advertised to be continued, this is all of it that ever appeared.

* * * * *

REMINISCENCES OF JUKE JUDKINS, ESQ., OF BIRMINGHAM

I am the only son of a considerable brazier in Birmingham, who, dying in 1803, left me successor to the business, with no other incumbrance than a sort of rent-charge, which I am enjoined to pay out of it, of ninety-three pounds sterling per annum, to his widow, my mother, and which the improving state of the concern, I bless God, has hitherto enabled me to discharge with punctuality. (I say, I am enjoined to pay the said sum, but not strictly obligated:  that is to say, as the will is worded, I believe the law would relieve me from the payment of it; but the wishes of a dying parent should in some sort have the effect of law.) So that, though the annual profits of my business, on an average of the last three or four years, would appear to an indifferent observer, who should inspect my shop-books, to amount to the sum of one thousand three hundred and three pounds, odd shillings, the real proceeds in that time have fallen short of that sum to the amount of the aforesaid payment of ninety-three pounds sterling annually.