s. tinder-boxes are unknown in scotland, and i am sure _m.l.b._ if he wants a business would as readily make his fortune by selling them, as the yorkshireman who went to the west indies with a cargo of great coats. lines on my forty-ninth birthday. (_for the mirror_.) on the slope of lifes decline, the landmark reached of _forty-nine_, thoughtful on this heart of mine strikes the sound of forty-nine. greyish hairs with brown combine to note times handand forty-nine. sunny hours that used to shine, shadow oer at forty-nine. of youthful sports the joys decline, symptoms strong of forty-nine. the dance i willingly resign, to lighter heels than forty-nine. yet, why anxiously repine? pleasures wait on forty-nine. social pleasuresjoys benign still are found at forty-nine. with a friend to go and dine, what better age than forty-nine? ladies with me sip their wine, though they know im forty-nine. tea and chat, and wit combine, to enliven musing forty-nine. let harmony its chords untwine, music charms at forty nine. oer wasting care let croakers whine, care well defy at forty-nine. fifty shall not make me pine why lament oer forty-nine. joys lets trace of auld lang syne, memorys fresh at forty-nine. then fill a cup of rosy wine, and drink a health to forty-nine. w. w. spirit of the public journals. philosophy of london. _the quadrant_ the principle of _suum cuique_ is felicitously enforced in that ostentatious but rather heavy piece of architecture, the regent quadrant, the pillars of which exhibit from time to time different colours, according to the fancy of the shop-owners to whose premises respectively they happen to belong. thus, mr. figgins chooses to see his side of a pillar painted a pale chocolate, while his neighbour mrs. hopkins insists on disguising the other half with a coat of light cream colour, or haply a delicate shade of dutch pink; so that the identity of material which made it so hard for transfer, in zeluco, to distinguish between his metal venus and vulcan, is often the only incident that the two moieties have in common. _squares_. the few squares that existed in london antecedent to 1770, were rather sheep-walks, paddocks, and kitchen gardens, than any thing else. grosvenor square in particular, fenced round with a rude wooden railing, which was interrupted by lumpish brick piers at intervals of every half-dozen yards, partook more of the character of a pond than a parterre; and as for hanover square, it had very much the air of a sorry cow-yard, where blackguards were to be seen assembled daily, playing at husselcap up to their ankles in mire. cavendish square was then for the first time dignified with a statue, in the modern uniform of the guards, mounted on a charger, _à lantique_, richly gilt and burnished; and red lion square, elegantly so called from the sign of an ale-shop at the corner, presented the anomalous appendages of two ill-constructed watch-houses at either end, with an ungainly, naked obelisk in the centre, which, by the by, was understood to be the site of oliver cromwells re-interment. st. jamess park abounded in apple-trees, which pepys mentions having laid under contribution by stealth, while charles and his queen were actually walking within sight of him. the quaint style of this old writer is sometimes not a little entertaining. he mentions having seen major-general harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered at charing-cross, he (harrison) looking as cheerful as any man could in that condition. he also gravely informs us that sir henry vane, when about to be beheaded on tower hill, urgently requested the executioner to take off his head so as not to hurt a seton which happened to be uncicatrized in his neck! _modern building_. we are the contemporaries of a street-building generation, but the grand maxim of the nineteenth century, in their management of masonry, as in almost every thing else, as far as we can discover, appears to lie in that troublesome line of macbeths soliloquy, ending with, twere well it were done quickly. it is notorious that many of the leases of new dwelling-houses contain a clause against dancing, lest the premises should suffer from a mazurka, tremble at a gallopade, or fall prostrate under the inflictions of the parsons farewell, or the wind that shakes the barley. the system of building, or rather running up a house first, and afterwards providing it with a false exterior, meant to deceive the eye with the semblance of curved stone, is in itself an absolute abomination. besides, greek architecture, so magnificent when on a large scale, becomes perfectly ridiculous when applied to a private street-mansion, or a haberdashers warehouse. st. pauls church, covent-garden, is an instance of the unhappy effect produced by a combination of a similar kind; great in all its parts, with its original littleness, it very nearly approximates to the character of a barn. inigo jones doubtless desired to erect an edifice of stately roman aspect, but he was cramped in his design, and, therefore, only aspired to make a first-rate barn; so far unquestionably the great architect has succeeded. then looking to those details of london architecture, which appear more peculiarly connected with the dignity of the nation, what can we say of it, but that the king of great britain is worse lodged than the chief magistrate of claris or zug, while the debates of the most powerful assembly in the world are carried on in a building, (or, a return to westminster hall,) which will bear no comparison with the stadthouse at amsterdam! the city, however, as a whole, presents a combination of magnitude and grandeur, which we should in vain look for elsewhere, although with all its immensity it has not yet realized the quaint prediction of james the first,that london would shortly be england, and england would be london. _morning_. the metropolis presents certain features of peculiar interest just at that unpopular dreamy hour when stars begin to pale their ineffectual fires, and the drowsy twilight of the doubtful day brightens apace into the fulness of morning, blushing like an eastern bride. then it is that the extremes of society first meet under circumstances well calculated to indicate the moral width between their several conditions. the gilded chariot bowls along from square to square with its delicate patrimonial possessor, bearing him homeward in celerity and silence, worn with lassitude, and heated with wine quaffed at his third rout, after having deserted the oft-seen ballet, or withdrawn in pettish disgust at the utterance of a false harmony in the opera