affidavits, not only that he is living now, but that posterity, until time itself shall be no more, will be a witness of his glorious longevity. The delusion, if ludicrous, is sad too; the immortal has been dead ever since the night on which his tragedy was damned.

Yet the prima donna who sweeps past him, shooting onward like a star, and seeming to breathe empyreal air, is surely living in every atom of the bright dust whereof she is formed. So indeed it would appear, for to the eye she is life all over, the personification of whatever can be comprehended in the idea of existence. But what a bad judge of visible facts the eye is, and how necessary is it sometimes to see with the heart. Viewed through that medium, sympathy proclaims her to have been some time deceased. When her darling sister, cleverer, younger, and handsomer than herself came out with such brilliant success at the other house, the vital spark fled. All talk of life after that, had about as much meaning in it as the song she excels in. She still gives, it must be admitted, the most startling tokens of an active and indestructible animation; but these are only the mock-heroic contortions of the eel, after it has been neatly skinned, and cut carefully into inches.

There is another popular phrase which clearly implies that death is not at all incompatible with a protracted stay within the precincts of existence. Poor So-and-so, say the commentators on mortality, "is dead and gone," intimating that to die is not necessarily to go, and that the defunct are not always the departed-"dead and gone" describes the double event, whenever that takes place-the exception and not the rule. The currency of the phrase strengthens our argument that dying and going are not synonymous terms, and that we may long continue to have crowds of the deceased for our intimate acquaint

ances.

It is interesting to remark how varied are the periods of demise. among the classes referred to, and how opposite are the causes which have rendered the obituary of the living so extensive. One who professes to be sixty-five, and vows that he has lived all those years, died at the age of forty, in consequence of his success in a duel with a near relative. Another, who conceives himself to have attained to middle age was in reality cut off in the very flower of his youth, by a shilling delicately introduced in his father's will. A third, a maiden, antiquated and thinner than all her tribe, by virtue of taking nothing but tea and cribbage, breathed her last-in spite of her hushed sigh, or her small sarcasm, that may seem to say she still survives-a long time ago, on the day when the gallant adventurer, who had twice danced with her after she was six-and-twenty, sailed for India without making the fondly expected offer.

For a pair of positive existences, as far as first appearances go, we need look no further than to this old sweeper at the crossing, and the occupant of the carriage rolling over it. Whosoever should conceive them to be actually living would decide wholly in the dark, and pronounce upon a case without a fact to judge it by. Sudden death overtook the unhappy cross-sweeper at the age of thirty, when he lost every sixpence of his large fortune; and the loller in the carriage expired in as sudden a manner at a later age, when he came quite unex

pectedly into a fine estate. One lost a tin-mine, and the other found a canal; both perished prematurely.

Prosperity and adversity, satiated appetite, defeated ambition, brilliant success, wounded honour, blighted affection, filial ingratitudethe hundred incidents, dark or bright, which make up in their confused and yet consistent combination, the history of every human life-each of these, occurring at a critical moment, may bring the real finis long before the story appears to have arrived at its conclusion. The cold, formal, appointed ending, is simply an affair for the apothecary and the gravedigger.

The sentiment which first suggested the wearing of mourning was beautiful and holy; but custom strips it of this sanctity; its poetry has become a common-place; and in the adoption of the ceremony the heart silently heaving with sorrow and honour for the dead, has no concern. Still, if the fashion is to be continued, it may at least be turned to a higher use, and be made to serve sincerer ends. The suit of mourning is in few cases put on soon enough! If we would invest the custom with grace and dignity, elevating it with moral sentiment, we should sometimes wear the black dress while the mourned is yet amongst us. Letters to old friends must then be written, often perhaps on black-bordered paper, indicating our regret for their loss; and the crape upon the hat we touch to a former companion, as we pass him by, might be worn, poor moral skeleton ! for himself.

It is painful, after an absence of a few years to return to a family circle in which we had stored up a thousand friendly and affectionate memories where we expected to find the bright deep well-spring of sympathy, bright, deep, and clear as of old-and see nothing there but dry sand; Time's glass pouring out its contents over and over again, only to increase the heap and make a desert of the garden, every hour adding a little handful to the disappointing, the desolate, the hideous waste.

What a mockery of the heart, as we stand in the midst and look mournfully around, to attempt to persuade ourselves that we are amongst the living-merely because they all regularly breathe and wear no shroud! Count the faces there; in number, but in number only, they are the same; look into them for the old recognition, and the death's head is grinning. We feel that we have just shaken hands with the late Mr. Jones, who has forgotten to get himself buried. The act of friendship-in this case the ceremonial-has sent a chill to the soul. The momentary contact with that cold nature was freezing; at the bare touch of his hand, we feel horrid rheumatism running up the right arm.

It is the same as we proceed round the circle. The friends and companions of our youth are no more. The eldest son perished of a scarlet coat on obtaining a cornetcy, and the eldest daughter died a sadder death when she joined the saints. The remainder became defunct in succession, each in his own favourite way. When we take our leave, it is bidding adieu to the dead. The ordinary courtesies there would be anomalous and absurd to the last degree; for they must come in the form of inquiries concerning the departed-" How is your late lamented father?" or, "I hope your deceased sisters will go to the opera on Tuesday."

Call'd on me when I was young, "You," she cried, "will be a dweller All the great and wise among.

On

your shoulders fortune thrust isHonours more than I can tell-❞

Mrs. Hope, to do her justice,

Really talks extremely well.

First, she cried, "You're devilish clever, Push for fame and pocket pelf,

Write a play and lay for ever

Billy Shakspeare on the shelf."

'Twas done the curtain rose, I nearly Felt the laurels deck my brow

Deuce a bit, I wish sincerely

Mrs. Hope had heard the row.

Eloquence, at her suggestion,

Conscious too that I possess'd, I, on some important question,

Soon the sovereign mob address'd. Strange to say such storms assail'd me, Showers of worse than hail or rain, All my elocution fail'd me,

Mrs. Hope was out again.

Whisp'ring then my wondrous merit
Claim'd at court a leading place,

I at length contrived to ferret

First my Lord and then his Grace.
Much they said conceit to soften-
Promises they made a few-
Mrs. Hope, great people often
Humbug fools as well as you.

Oft she vow'd the sex adored me,
Conquering all where'er I chose,
Husbands, lovers, tho' they bored me,
Ne'er could such a smile oppose.
Yet I scored by wives and misses,
When I came to count my game,

Quite as many kicks as kisses-
Mrs. Hope, oh! fie, for shame!

THE verses bearing the title of the "Beauty of Brighton" were composed with a double purpose. For the first :--England can boast of a violinist who is at the very antipodes of Paganini; for, whereas Paganini could play upon one string any tune that had ever been composed since the hour when Apollo first set up in the musical line, till the moment that the great monochordist himself twiddled his last pizzicato; the artiste in question (who delights the Brightonians during one half of the year, and the Londoners during the other) can play but one half of a single tune-say three quarters, and he will then have no just ground of complaint of a stinted allowance-upon all four! And observe the "all four" is used advisedly; for he does somehow contrive-how he does it must be left to Sivori, or Ernst, or Oury to discover-but he does somehow contrive to elicit tones-and such tones, O Orpheus!-from all four at once, from the G string to the E. "Arpeggio," cries some matter-of-fact fiddler. No such thing-no more arpeggio than a sow grunts arpeggio-the sounds are scraped off the four strings simultaneously, not one ten-millionth part of a second intervening between them. As to what is the tune, or the portion of the tune, which he plays, the best judges are not yet agreed. One says it is the "Dead March in Saul;" another, the "College Horn

pipe;" a third, "Water parted from the Sea;" a fourth, "Britons strike Home;" some say one thing, some another; but it is most generally suspected-for it results in a mere matter of suspicion after all -that he thinks he is playing "Over the Water to Charlie." Of this opinion (or suspicion, rather) is the author of the poem following; and it was for the purpose that is to say, purpose the first-of rescuing this extraordinary artiste's only tune from its doubtful and somewhat disgraceful condition, that he resolved to give it a respectable settlement, by "marrying it with immortal verse." And albeit as little vain as poet may be, he deems that he has produced a something which shall live after him"-not, however, founding his hopes (as some sarcastic critic might say) on the chances of his bidding good night to the world before the appearance of the New Monthly for the coming May.

Purpose the second an amiable purpose it will be said-was to throw an apple of discord amongst the unmarried divinities (and not few are they, to the shame of single-man-kind be it spoken) who embellish that Babylon of marine towns, Brighton. But this, as all wicked intentions deserve to be, must, if not altogether frustrated, be at least limited in its operation, and to an extent, indeed, which the poet had never contemplated. For, admitting, as he does, that he invoked the Muse with a particular object in his hear-that is to say, in his eye-it will instantly be perceived that no young lady, bearing a name composed either of more, or fewer than just two syllables "need apply:" thus, the Misses Jones, Tims, Sims, Pyms; Appleton, Poppleton, Singleton, Congleton; Atterbury and Battersbury, Trelyddeldillon and Fitzmyddlewyllan are, by the prohibitory length or shortness of their patronyms, excluded from the privilege of joining in the flattering scramble. Let it, however, console them to reflect that, by the same circumstance they are protected from the mortification of defeat.

But what a May-day is prepared for the Misses Simpsons, Thomsons, Johnsons and Jacksons, and all the other dissyllabled beauties of the place! The heart-burnings! the jealousies! the pulling of caps and tearing of ribbons-metaphorical caps and ribbons be it understood, for the realities are unknown to young ladies. ""Tis I am the Beauty of Brighton !"-" No, 'tis I."-" You, indeed! no; 'tis to me those exquisite stanzas are addressed." Fortunately for the poet he is half a hundred of miles away from the scene of strife. It is from London he casts his mischievous missile, and can but guess at the terrible effects of its explosion. O, for next Thursday's number of the Brighton Gazette !

Even as I am writing these words, he comes-he of the fiddle. He walks towards my window, not as ordinary mortals walk, by moving his legs alternately forward, and treading on the flat of the foot; but by curiously tossing his feet over each other and supporting himself on his ancles. And now he takes his seat-not a bench, nor a chair, nor a stool, but a stick, a walking-stick! Placed horizontally, of course? By no means-perpendicularly-bolt upright. The lower point he puts to the ground, and on the upper point he sits! How he contrives to do it is the wonder of every one of the many thousands who have seen him; but there, on the point of a stick, he sits; and, apparently,