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Letters have just reached the moon, which bring intelligence that Buonaparte has changed his determination of visiting England in gun-boats, being much too unwieldy machines; and that he has invented a species of canoe, by which he can paddle across the channel with great ease, or, in case there may be a brisk breeze, sail along under a reefed damask napkin, at the rate of seven knots an hour; they are so contrived, as not to overset without drowning the passengers, that they may not be taken prisoners. The model has been shewn to the members of the National Institute, and unanimously approved.

Nothing can shew the extent of genius of the great Consul more than these inventions. I would, however, advise him to take care of himself when he is about half seas over. It is not the plaster of Paris that can make him invulnerable.

Z.

ERRATUM.-No. I. p. 6, 1, 2, for 24,000 read 240,000.

The Man in the Moon is much obliged to Ferguson's Ghost for his notice of

a press error.

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THE want of encouragement so much experienced by true genius has occasioned me to make this application to you, since I have reason to hope that you have already noticed my labour; and that you will become my patron. You may easily judge, Sir, that in this automaton age, any improvement in speaking figures will be a desideratum; but what I am about to offer to the public far exceeds any thing of the kind yet attempted, and may be truly valuable to gentlemen who are just met to talk over affairs. I know that you are a good mechanic, and therefore I will proceed to describe my invention to you, for which I certainly intend to solicit a patent. You have doubtless, Sir, heard of the great difficulty of many public speakers to articulate more than the monosyllables Aye and No. Well, Sir, that difficulty is at an end, they may talk away like so many cockatoos. My invention, Sir, is-a Pocketloquist, a little ingenious morsel of mechanism, which possesses such wonderful powers and

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capabilities that it will actually speak for half an hour at a time without stopping, that is, if properly wound up, just the same as a barrel organ plays a variety of tunes. It is so small, that a gentleman may carry it conveniently in his pocket, or conceal it in his handkerchief, and is of so curious a construction that the slightest pressure of the hand will raise or depress its tone, and by a proper fingering it will speak on any side, or to any tune. The use of it may be learnt in half an hour, but the proper manner of applying it to use must be well recollected; for instance, if a young member wishes to speak on the Treasury side, he must put it in the right pocket, if in the Opposition, in the left; if perfectly independent he must not have to do with any pocket at all. You see that with this contrivance gentlemen need not be at the trouble of turning their coats, it is merely done by putting their hands in their pockets. If a candidate wishes to try it at an election, he has nothing to do but to carry the pocketloquist with him to the hustings, and set it to the tune of Liberty, Freedom of the Press, Habeas Corpus, No Taxes, Constitution, &c. when I am certain that my little automaton will carry the poll, and the member may then (as is often the case) truly say, that it was all out of his own pocket.

"Another great advantage of the pocketloquist is, that owing to a judicious combination of the words, the speeches will not appear at all studied, and may be fashioned after any stile, the simple, the florid, or

the obscure.

"The pocketloquist will, by its mechanism, fit any subject, and the sense may be put together with as much facility as the parts of one of Newberry's maps for children; now it is not so very easy to put the sense of some of our modern fine speeches together without making them nonsense.

"I understand that there are some people who chuse to say that the pocketloquist is not by any means a new invention; that it has been used before to great advantage, and in great places; that it is made of metal; that it works by a golden key; that it is known to the lawyers in Westminster-hall; that it is a pick lock; that it has been successfully applied by pickpockets, and has often been used to rob the public. I believe that I am as well acquainted with the weight of metal as any body, and am ready to admit that some orators may have been put in motion for or against, by a secret spring, or by a something that might have given them the word, in the same way as the show-man speaks for Punch, in that ingenious comic representation to be witnessed any day in the streets, and from which I am free to confess I took the hint of my pocketloquist; but in my invention the proposition is reversed, for the articulation is not conveyed to my little figure, but my little figure speaks for those who have not a word to say for themselves, or a word to spare; for instance, we will for a moment suppose that there will be, next Friday, a great debate on the motion of Mr. Simpkins; now Mr. Tomkins is in prodigious anxiety to prepare a brilliant speech on the

other side the question. Well, Sir, Mr. Tomkins has nothing to do but to sit down and compose the subject matter, by placing together the following or any other high sounding words; virtue, reform, public credit, one pound notes, patriotism, nothing, something, stocks, omnium, &c. &c. and the machine will work of itself, to the admiration of the whole house, who will call out, Hear him! Hear him! while the newspaper reporters shall be carefully writing down the jargon of my clever little political puppet.

"The use of the pocketloquist in Westminster-hall must be obvious, and would certainly prevent many little unlucky accidents that sometimes occur; such as the one which happened only a short time ago :-An Irish barrister of eminence, who was retained for the plaintiff, came, after he had been drinking his two bottles of wine, in a great hurry into court, and snatching up his brief, began to plead with great vehemence for the defendant, and went on in a fine strain of argument until he began to get sober, when he discovered his mistake; but nothing can disturb the assurance, or equal the ingenuity of the law. The barrister, with great address, continued without hesitation: "Now, gemmen of the jury, I believe that I have said every thing that can be said by my learned brother, for the defendant, which I have done as well to save my learned brother's time, as to shew you how easily those arguments may be refuted." The whole court were astonished at the admirable easy presumption of the barrister, who went on disproving all that he

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