ever, very few are remembered, and the following are introduced because his previous biographers have thought them worthy of notice, rather than from any particular claims to which they possess to

attention.

It is said that he was so careless about money, that once, when paying a brewer, he gave him two bank notes rolled together instead of one, and, when told of his mistake, he appeared perfectly indifferent, saying," he had enough to go on without it." On one occasion he was robbed of his watch, between London and Richmond, and when Mr Robertson expressed regret for his loss, he replied, "Pshaw, I am glad they took it from me, it was never good for anything." Having invited some friends to dinner, one of them informed him that there was a general stipulation there should be no hard drinking; Thomson acquiesced, only requiring that each man should drink his bottle. The terms were accepted unconditionally, and, when the cloth was removed, a three-quart bottle was set before each of his guests.

In person, Thomson was rather stout and above the middle size; his countenance was not remarkable for expression, though, in his youth, he was considered handsome, but in conversation his face became animated and his eye fiery and intellectual. Silent in mixed company, his wit and vivacity seemed reserved for his friends, and in their society he was communicative, playful, and entertaining. Few men possessed in a greater degree, the art of creating firm and affectionate friendships. Those with whom he became acquainted at the commencement of hi career, loved him till its close, and the individuals who had given to his life its sweetest enjoyments, watched over his death-bed and became the guardians of his fame, by superintending the only monuments of which genius ought to be ambitious, a complete edition of his works, and a tablet in Westminster Abbey.

THE THAMES AT MIDNIGHT. How beautiful and placid does "Father Thames" appear at night. He has three different appearances on different kinds of nights: on a very dark one all we can see is, that it is a river, by the reflection of the lights on the bridges, and at intervals on its banks; on a comparatively light night we can see rows of barges lying nearly mid-stream, and now and then perceive one stealing up or down the river, according as the tide is; the reflection of the lights is very plain on such a night, shooting perpendicularly into the water; those on shore "show a light" on a small circle round them, and throw into deeper shade and sombreness the dark masses of buildings, timber, and vessels, which skirt the shore at a greater distance; but when seen

"By thy sweet silver light, bonny moon," it has the most pleasing appearance; the surface of the muddy mass of water, when silvered by the beams of this luminary, looks indeed, far different than it does when you peer into it, whilst floating on its surface at noonday; at which time you are very apt to meet with the decaying carcase of a dog, cat, or other animal, or some corrupting vegetable matter. “On such a night as this" a great number of barges proceed with the tide, and it is very pleasant to observe them stealing along like shadows on the silvered water, and to hear the splash of the oars as they descend, and form sparkling circles, in the brilfiant water: the antiquated, rotten-looking buildings which line the shore, and the various vessels which lie in the river or on its banks, surrounded by timber rafts, are subjects worthy of observation on such a night. Here the moon throws its beams on a goodly newbuilt mansion; there, on a shed or outhouse which seems as if ready to fall; here the timber is covered with a silver coat, there hid by the shadow of a building; here a dark long shadow is thrown upon the water by a row of barges; there a solitary one, with a mast and sails "furled," is reflected in a very perfect manner on the watery mirror. Numberless are the pleasing objects; and

there is music for them too. When the observer is looking from a bridge, he will hear the ripple of the water as it passes through the arches a delightful

sound!

On a dark night, when the black waters can just be perceived rolling onwards, but no vessel carried along its broad stream, quite deserted by human beings (at least none, or few, are engaged in active duty, though there are many sleeping on its tranquil waters), reflections must force themselves on the mind, of the difference of its appearance at midnight and noon-day. This mighty river, now so still, so deserted, will, ere twelve hours pass away, be teeming with activity-vessels on its surface carrying to and fro various productions-steam-vessels carrying their hundreds to take a "mouthful of fresh air"-boats conveying persons on business," and on pleasure and, indeed, crafts of all shapes and dimensions; even at the present moment, every luxury, scarcity, and necessity, from the nearest and farthest points of the earth, are reposing on its bosom, which, on the rising of the morrow's sun, will be disgorged from the vessels which contain them, and will quickly be sucked up and distributed by the thousand channels of trade and commerce with which London abounds. On a moonlight night we receive ocular demonstration of the immense trade in, and consumption of, one article in the metropolis-coal; long strings of vessels carrying this useful substance proceeding with the tide, and enlivening the scene.

Altogether. I think we may set down the Thames and bustle of the day is banished, and the mighty at midnight as a very pleasing sight; all the noise Thames is as quiet as a purling brook.

utters.

We see at once the precipice on which the poor old king stands from his own extravagant and credulous importunity, the indiscreet simplicity of her love (which, to be sure, has a little of her father's obstinacy in it), and the hollowness of her sisters' pretensions. Almost the first burst of that noble tide of passion, which runs through the play, is in the remonstrance of Kent to his royal master on the injustice of his sentence against his youngest daughter-" Be Kent unmannerly, when Lear is mad!' This manly plainness which draws down on him the displeasure of the unadvised king is worthy of the fidelity with which he adheres to his fallen fortunes. The true character of the two eldest daughters, Regan and Gonerill (they are so thoroughly hateful that we do not even like to repeat their names) breaks out in their answer to Cordelia, who desires them to treat their father well" Prescribe not us our duties "—their hatred of advice being in proportion to their determination to do wrong, and to their hypocritical pretensions to do right. Their deli. berate hypocrisy adds the last finishing to the odiousness of their characters. It is the absence of this detestable quality that is the only relief in the character of Edmund- the Bastard, and that at times reconciles us to him. We are not tempted to exaggerate the guilt of his conduct, when he himself gives it up as a bad business, and writes himself down "plain villain." Nothing more can be said about it. His religious honesty in this respect is admirable. One speech of his is worth a million. His father, Gloster, whom he has just deluded with his life, accounts for his unnatural behaviour and the a forged story of his brother Edgar's designs against strange depravity of the times from the late eclipses in the sun and moon. Edmund, who is in the secret, says when he is gone-"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major: so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. I should have been what I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardising."-The whole character, its careless, light-hearted villany, contrasted with the sullen, rancorous malignity of Regan and Gonerill, its connexion with the conduct of the under-plot, in which Gloster's persecution of one of his sons and the ingratitude of another, form a counterpart to the mistakes and misfortunes of Lear,-his double amour with the two sisters, and the share which he has in bringing about the fatal catastrophie, are all managed with an uncommon degree of skill and power.

It has been said, and we think justly, that the third act of Othello' and the three first acts of Lear,' are Shakspeare's great master-pieces in the logic of passion: that they contain the highest examples not only of the force of individual passion, but of its dramatic vicissitudes and striking effects arising from the different circumstances and characters of the persons speaking. We see the ebb and flow of the feeling, its pauses and feverish starts, its impatience of opposition, its accumulating force when it has time to recollect itself, the manner in which it avails itself of every passing word or gesture, its haste to repel insinuation, the alternate contraction and dilatation of the soul, and all "the dazzling fence of controversy" in this mortal combat with poisoned weapons, aimed at the heart, where each wound is fatal. We have seen in Othello,' how the unsuspecting frankness and impetuous passions of the Moor are played upon and exasperated by the artful dexterity of lago. In the present play, that which aggravates the sense of sympathy in the reader, and of uncontrollable anguish in the swoln heart of Lear, is the petrifying

indifference, the cold, calculating, obdurate selfishness of his daughters. His keen passions seem whetted on their stony hearts. The contrast would be too painful, the shock too great, but for the intervention of the Fool, whose well-timed levity comes in to break the continuity of feeling when it can no longer be borne, and to bring into play again the fibres of the heart just as they are growing rigid from over-strained excitement. The imagination is glad to take refuge in the half-comic, half-serious comments of the Fool, just as the mind under the extreme anguish of a surgical operation vents itself in sallies of wit. The character was also a grotesque ornament of the barbarous times, in which alone the tragic ground-work of the story could be laid. In another point of view it is indispensable, inasmuch as while it is a diversion to the too great intensity of our disgust, it carries the pathos to the highest pitch of which it is capable, by showing the pitiable weakness of the old king's conduct and its irretrievable consequences in the most familiar point of view. Lear may well “beat at the gate which let his folly in," after, as the Fool says, "he has made his daughters his mothers." The character is dropped in the third act to make room for the entrance of Edgar as Mad Tom, which well accords with the increasing bustle and wildness of the incidents; and nothing can be more complete than the distinction between Lear's real and Edgar's assumed madness, while the resemblance in the cause of their distresses, from the severing of the nearest ties of natural affection, keeps up a unity of interest. Shakspeare's mastery over his subject, if it was not art, was owing to a knowledge of the connecting links of the passions, and their effect upon the mind, still more wonderful than any systematie adherence to rules, and that anticipated and outdid all the efforts of the most refined art, not inspired and rendered instinctive by genius. To be continued next week.

A COUNTRY CLUB. (From a knowing and sprightly novel, just published, called The Exile of Erin, or the Adventures of a Bashful Irishman.')

THE Red Lion, where the club to which I have just alluded were in the habit of assembling, was one of those snug, old fashioned inns, now so rarely to be met with, except in the east of England. It had a deep, wide brick porch, from whose roof hung a magpie in a wicker cage. This porch opened into a tolerably sized hall, wherein stood an oblong oaken table, grievously notched, albeit hooped with iron and a few high backed arm-chairs of the same material. Opposite the window was the fire-place, within whose ample range four men might sit with ease; and on the walls, hung on one side, a bookshelf, containing a few odd volumes of Swedenborg's works; and on the other, a glass case, in which was a salmon reclining full length on some bits of artificial grass.

He was a

Among those who were oftenest to be met with in this cozy, outlandish hall, was, first and foremost, the Auctioneer, a person, who in an isolated Welsh district, usually enjoys great consideration. duck-legged, pompous little being, fond of making allusions to a professional visit which he paid to London in the year 1814, when he had the rare luck to see the Allied Sovereigns, and squeeze the horny fist of Blucher. This was the one leading incident in his life, from which he always dated.

Next came a Half-pay Officer, a grim-looking dog, snappish-disputatious-egotistical-with a dried liver, and cheeks sallow and wasted, which went in like the two sides of a fiddle, and spread out again at the chin and forehead. This warrior—or the "Captain," as he was commonly styled-held it as the chief article of his creed that, whatever is, is wrong, and was never so happy as when setting people by the ears together. His favourite hobby was India, about which, like General Harbottle, he was fond of telling marvellous stories. In person he was remarkably prim; wore a blue frock coat, a little white at the edges in front, and buttoned close up to the

throat; stiff black stock; and boots pieced, but polished for he prided himself on a small footwith singular attention to effect. On warm, sunny days he might be seen seated on the parapet of the Towy bridge, rocking his legs listlessly to and fro, humming a fragment of some old mess tune, or taking brisk turns up and down the bridge, and jerking out an impudent "hem!" whenever a petticoat approached him. When heated with argument, he had a trick of giving sharp, irritable tugs at his shirt collar.

Third in station was the Attorney, who exacted respect by virtue of his profession, and who was withal so cautious of, what he called, committing himself before Court, that in alluding to any particular individual, he never mentioned more than his or her initials.

This fellow, like his prototype Rondibilis, had the keen scent of a stag-hound for a lawsuit, whence it came to pass that he was more reverenced than loved by his neighbours, many of whom he had contrived to render singularly poetical about the pockets.

The fourth was my landlord, the Apothecary, a good-natured, silly creature, blessed with a widowed sister, who superintended his establishment, and of whom I shall presently have occasion to speak. His chief occupation consisted in sauntering about the neighbourhood, with his hands in his breeches pockets, and talking to anyone who would talk with him. He had projecting eyes, like a lobster, with a vague, unmeaning stare, and usually kept his mouth ajar— I supposed from a habit he had acquired of swallowing every extraordinary story he heard or read.

FANCY PORTRAIT OF

CHRISTINA, QUEEN OF SWEDEN. (From Miss Landon's Francesca Carrara.') HER meditation was interrupted by an unusual bustle in the ante-chamber, when, before the pages could announce her, the Queen of Sweden walked, or rather ran, into the room. Advancing straight

to the Queen, she exclaimed-" A thousand congratulations, I have just heard of the taking of Valence, and could not rest till I had rejoiced with you on the success of your arms."

Victory is an agreeable subject, and the visitor and her compliments were equally well received.

"You may give me credit for sincerity," continued she, "as there is some selfishness in it. It hurts one's vanity to be mistaken, and you know I prophesied the success of the fleur-de-lis.”

"Valence," observed M. de Nogent, one of the party at the card-table, "was besiged a hundred years since by the French army, but unsuccessfully;

the fort has never before been taken, and-"

"And you should have been there," interrupted Christina, abruptly; "with your long stories of a hundred years since: I would rather hear them a hundred years hence." Then turning, with a singular change of countenance, from harshness to extreme sweetness, to Madame de Mercœur,-" I give you joy that your husband should be the first conqueror of this redoubtable Valence." "I deserve," replied the Duchess, " sation for the anxiety I have endured.”

some compen

Anxiety! nonsense!" exclaimed the Swede, "a man is never in his proper element but when fighting, I am persuaded that war was always meant to be the one great luxury of the human race. War calls out all our good qualities; courage teaches a man to respect himself; and self-respect is at once the beginning and the guarantee of excellence. Besides campaign teaches patience, generosity, and exertion. So much for the morale; and as to the enjoyment, pardieu! I can imagine nothing beyond the excitement of leading a charge of cavalry."

a

"Alas, Madam," said the King, smiling, "why cannot I offer you the baton of a Marshal." "You cannot lament," returned shre, "the possibility more than I do. What could God mean by sending me into the world a woman? But let us change this mournful subject-it really affects my feelings."

"I am rejoiced," returned Louis, "that you hav ́ recovered from the ennui of Messieurs les Jesuites' tragedy."

"I protest," was the reply, "equally against confession and tragedy from them; their rules are too lax in both."

"You do not seem," said the Queen, evidently wishing to change the subject just started, “to have, been much pleased with our dramatic representations; but we have not been fortunate; our actors are generally more amusing."

"I suppose so," replied Christina; " as you keep them still. But I see I have interrupted your game; go on, and do not mind me. I should like to have another victory to congratulate you upon."

Crossing the room, she seated herself on one chair, while drawing another towards her, she placed her feet upon it, and thus stretched out negligently began talking, in a low tone, to the King and Made, moiselle Marcini.

She

Francesca had now an opportunity of observing her more closely, and found that her appearance, if equally singular, was more picturesque than she had heard described. Her dress was odd enough; half masculine, half feminine, but it became her. wore a sort of jacket of bright red camlet, richly braided with gold and silver lace; a fringe of which also hung from her grey petticoat, which was short enough to show her feet and ancles, whose small size was rendered more remarkable by the peculiar shaped boot. A crimson scarf, hung over one shoulder, adroitly hid the defect in her figure; and round her throat was a neckcloth, edged with point lace, and fastened with crimson riband. She was delicately fair, with an aquiline nose, and a mouth, the size of which was forgotten in its white teeth and pleasant smile. She wore a peruke of very fair golden hair s vanity; her own tresses had been very beautiful; în and herein was shown the lurking spirit of female some whim she had had them shaven off, but the colour of the peruke had been most assiduously assorted to them. Her eyes, large, blue, bright, and restless, were ber most remarkable feature, perhaps from constant employ; they seemed perpetually on the watch, and she also had a custom of fixing them with singular intentness on the person to whom she spoke. It was said this habit had somewhat startled the Bishop of Amiens, whom she selected for her confessor; instead of the downcast eyes to which he had been accustomed, the royal penitent, who then knelt at his feet, fixed her clear piercing orbs full in his face, till the good father was all but stared out of counten 'nce. She was small and slight, and the impression she gave as she lounged on her two seats, swinging to and fro her black hat and feathers, was of a fair and pretty boy, clever, and somewhat spoiled by indulgence.

FINE ARTS.

not paint the naked sun, which his eyes could not look at. But now-a-days a sun is not worth a penny of flake white; any water-colour painter can make you one with blank paper in the twinkling of a bed-post. For our parts, we know that our irreve. rend eyes stared Mr Barrett's sun full in the face, but were not punished with seeing green and purple spots at every turn; what is better, our eyes stared also at Mr Barrett's sheep and the peaceful valley where they are reposing, and derived infinite satisfaction from so doing; truly, they are very charmingly done. 'Deliberation' (265), an illustration of the old subject of a letter received by a young girl, which we are to suppose contains a proposal, by F. Clater, is a clever picture; the girl is prettily painted; and the old pensioner giving her his fatherly advice, is capital. Creswick's Westminster Bridge, from Vauxhall-stairs,' (286) of its class, is the best painted picture in the room. The brilliant colour, the real effect, the liveliness of the scene, make it equally valuable as a piece of painting, and a local portrait. Childe has many pleasant pictures; the Entrance to Chiselhurst' is our favourite; it is one of those sweet places one comes upon in the country roads of England, with a horsepond by the way-side overhung by trees, with thirsty cows cooling their knees in it, and looking, meek and motionless, with a faint curiosity at the passenger. For such scenes, Childe has a real feeling, and his paintings are therefore in earnest, and make the spectator so too. • Good News' (295), by Mrs F. Corbeaux, is painted with much power.

his superior, which does but dim the talent he undoubtedly possesses. The Opening of the Royal Exchange, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth' (416), by Pickering, is a shewy and an interesting picture, but feeble in the execution. Among the portraits, Mrs W. Carpenter bears the bell. Her Portrait of Mrs Harding' (213), is very clearly and skilfully painted; we object alone to the hair, which is rather dead in the colouring. Hurlstone's portraits we cannot admire. They are mostly affected, and blackish in the colouring; but the Portrait of Lieut.Col. Yorke' (112), and Miss Gronow' (210), are clever. For the sake of their subjects, our readers should look at Beatrice Cenci' (579), a copy from a picture by Guido (the heroine of Mr Shelley's noble tragedy); and Petrarch's House at Arqua' (615). Study of a Trappist Monk,' who died by voluntary starvation (675), by Rippingille, is a clever study of a very fine head. It is, we presume, the original sketch for 465 in the British Institution, a very admirable picture. Among the Sculpture, we were most struck with some designs and Restorations by J. Henning, jun. 'The Vintage' (782), is excellent. He seems to have caught the spirit of the old sculptors; his works are like theirs in style, but have not the tameness of imitations in general.

beauty.

artificial and sophisticated person than the village The colouring is pure, harmonious, and powerful. Another little sketch, by the same artist, is in the Water-colour Room, inferior, but not unworthy of the Village Belle,' (473) a Cottage Maid,' described by Rogers. Her "kerchief blue" should have been a more conspicuous feature; but it is a very pretty and unaffected girl, with none of the sophisticated nature of our friend the Belle.' There is good intentions and much power in The Angel announcing to the Shepherds the Birth of the Saviour' (341), by R. A. Clack. The angel, perhaps, seems too small and insignificant a part of the picture; he is too close to the shepherds, and too far from the great light; but the landscape is very striking-its tone is calm, yet deep, fitted for the dawning of a portentous but a good-giving wonder; the solemn blue of the heavens, the dark land, the rising light, the bright stars, are painted with high poetic sentiment, and with no lack of painter's skill; the elements of the picture are broad and vast, but not over strained on the contrary, they are in thorough keeping with each other, with the sentiment of the picture, and with nature. The picture is hung very high, therefore its execution in the detail is less easily seen; by this circumstance it may gain; but, to judge by what we can see, it is more probable that is loses. The bright star in the middle of the picture, is one of the most surprising bits of luminous imitation we remember to have seen. 'Scene in Axminster, Devon,' (348) F. W. Watts, is a charming picture; it is a bit of broken ground, clothed in the most luxuriant leafiness, with a glowing sun and wandering cattle half hidden among the leaves and knolls. It is Watts's best this time. Bass has a few of his ludicrous designs. The one called ' Independant of a Vote' (354) is not bad; it is an old picture, and the comparison does Mr Bass's later works no good. The wounded Fallow-deer' (375), by Hancock, is clever. Hancock would be a gainer if he relinquished his obvious imitation of Landseer, which he carries into the handling, and even into the spe cific design; but with very unequal success. He should avoid a comparison with one so much

Grecian literature in Italy, Morhofius ( Polyhistor.' p. 777.) says:-" Sprung from the celebrated Imperial Lascarine family, he enriched the library of de Medicis with a wealth of Greek books, having visited and examined all the libraries of Greece for that purpose, when sent by Lawrence de Medicis on an embassy to Constantinople. It was under the di

rection of this same Lascaris, that Pope Leo X may be said to have almost transported Greece into Italy, as to a new colony."*]

Λάσκαρις ἀλλοδαπῇ γαιῃ ἐνικάτθετο γαίην
Οὔτε λίην ξείνην, ω ξένε, μεμφόμενος·
Εὔξετο μειλιχίην· ἀλλ ̓ ἄχθεται, είπερ ̓Αχαίοις
Οὐδ ̓ ἔτι χεν χεύει πατρὶς ἐλευθερίον·
HERE Lascaris reposes, in a land

That is not his, yet of that land would speak
No ill, and many favours doth allow :-
But this afflicts him-this as with a brand
Is on him, that the country of the Greek
Hath no free graves to give her children now.

"Ex illustri Lascarina Imperatorum familia oriundus, Medicæam Bibliothecam insigni Græcorum codicum the-sauro ditavit; cum Legatus à Laurentio Medicao Constan tinopolin missus omnes Græciæ bibliothecas scrutaretur. Eodem Lascare auctore Leo X ipsam propemodum Græ ciam in Italiam, quasi in novam coloniam, deduxit."

TABLE TALK.

PLEASANT SCHOOLING, AND AN AFFECTING STORY.

Wilhelm had a room in Stilling's house; in it there stood a bed, in which he slept with his son, and at the window was a table with the appurtenances of his trade, for as soon as he came from school he laboured at his needle. In the morning early, Heinrich took his satchel, in which, besides the necessary school-books, there was a sandwich for dinner, as also the History of the Four Children of Haymon,' or some other such book, together with a shepherd's flute. As soon as he had breakfasted, he set off, and when he was outside the village, he took out his book and read whilst walking, or else quavered some old ballad or other tune upon his Aute. Learning Latin was not at all difficult to him, and he had still time enough to read old tales. In the summer he went home every evening; but in the winter he came only on Saturday evening, and went away again on the Monday morning; this continued four years, but the last summer he stayed much at home, and assisted his father at his trade, or made buttons.-Even the road to Florenburg and the school afforded him many a pleasant hour. The

schoolmaster was a gentle and sensible man, and knew how both to give and to take. After dinner Stilling assembled a number of children about him, went out into the fields, or to the edge of a brook, and there related to them some fine sentimental tales; and, after his store was exhausted, others were obliged to do the same. As some of them were once together in a meadow, a boy came to them, who began as follows:-" Hear me, children! I will tell you something. Near us lives old Frühling; you know how he totters about with his stick; he has no longer any teeth, and he cannot see nor hear much. Now, when he sits at the dinner table and trembles in such a manner, he always scatters much, and sometimes something falls out of his mouth again. This disgusted his son and his daughter-in-law, and therefore the old grandfather was at length obliged to eat in the corner behind the stove; they gave him something to eat in an earthen dish, and that often not enough to satisfy him. I have seen him eating, and he looked so sad after dinner, and his eyes were wet with tears. Well, the day before yesterday, he broke his earthen dish. The young woman scolded him severely, and he said nothing, and only sighed.. Then they bought him a wooden dish for a couple of farthings, and he was obliged to eat out of it yesterday for the first time. Whilst they were sitting thus at dinner, their little boy, who is three years and a half old, began to rattle little boards together on the floor. Young Frühling said to him What art thou

doing there, Peter?' 'O,' said the child, I am making a little trough, out of which my father and

mother shall eat when I am grown up.' Young Frühling and his wife looked at each other awhile: at length they began to weep, and immediately fetched the old grandfather to the table, and let him eat with them."—Autobiography of Heinrich Stilling. ¡

AWKWARD EXPERIMENT.

I remember to have heard of a certain gentleman that would needs make trial what men did feel that were hanged. So he fastened the cord about his neck, raising himself upon a stool and then letting himself fall, thinking it would be in his power to regain the stool at his pleasure; which he failed in, but was helped by a friend then present. He was asked afterwards what he felt? he said he felt no pain, but first he thought he saw before his eyes a great fire and burning; then he thought he saw all black and dark; lastly it turned to a pale blue or sea-water green; which colour is often seen by them which fall into swoonings. I have heard also of a physician yet living, who recovered a man to life, which had hanged himself, and had hanged half an hour, by frictions and hot baths; and the same physician did profess that he made no doubt to recover any man that had hanged so long, if his neck were not broken with the first swing.-Bacon on Life and Death.

TRUE LOVE.

"Hast thou not observed, Doris, that thy future husband has lame feet?" "Yes, papa," said she, "I have seen it; but then he speaks to me so kindly and piously, that I seldom pay attention to his feet." "Well, Doris, but young women generally look at a man's figure." "I, too, papa," was her answer; "but Wilhelm pleases me just as he is. If he had straight feet, he would not be Wilhelm Stilling, and how could I love him then?" [This is very beautiful.]

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

CIRCUMSTANCES again compel us to postpone the extracts from Mr Lamb, and also to beg the indulgence of numerous correspondents till next week.

Will our fair friend of L'ULTIMA CAMBRIA have the goodness to inform us at what bookseller's, or other house in London, a small parcel containing a book may be addressed to her?

LONDON: Published by H. HOOPER,- Pall Mall East, and supplied to Country Agents by C. KNIGHT, Ludgate-street. From the Steam-Press of C. & W. REYNELL, Little Pulteney-street.

CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY.

No. II.

EYES.-The finest eyes are those that unite sense and sweetness. They should be able to say much, and all charmingly. The look of sense is proportioned to the depth from which the thought seems to issue; the look of sweetness to an habitual readiness of sympathy, an unaffected willingness to please and be pleased. We need not be jealous of

"Eyes affectionate and glad, That seem to love whate'er they look upon." Gertrude of Wyoming.

They have always a good stock in reserve for their favourites; especially if, like those mentioned by the poet, they are conversant with books and nature. Voluptuaries know not what they talk about, when they profess not to care for sense in a woman. Pedantry is one thing: sense, taste, and apprehensiveness, are another. Give me an eye that draws equally from head above and heart beneath; that is equally full of ideas and feelings, of intuition and sensation. If either must predominate, let it be the heart. Mere beauty is nothing at any time but a doll, and should be packed up and sent to Brobdignag. The colour of the eye is a very secondary

matter.

Black eyes are thought the brightest, blue the most feminine, grey the keenest. It depends intirely on the spirit within. I have seen all these colours change characters; though I must own, that when a blue eye looks ungentle, it seems more out of character than the extremest diversity expressed by others. The ancients appear to have associated the idea of gladness with blue eyes; which is the colour given to his heroine's by the author just alluded to. Anacreon attributes a blue or a grey eye to his mistress, it is difficult to say which: but he adds, that it is tempered with a moist delicacy of the eye of Venus. The other look was Minerva's, and required softening. It is not easy to distinguish the shades of the various colours anciently given to eyes; the blues and greys, sky-blues, sea-blues, seagreys, and even cat-greys.' * But it is clear that the expression is everything. The poet demanded this or that colour, according as he thought it favourable to the expression of acuteness, majesty, tenderness or a mixture of all. Black eyes were most lauded; doubtless, because in a southern country the greatest number of beloved eyes must be of that colour. But on the same account of the predominance of black, the abstract taste was in favour of lighter eyes and fair complexions. Hair being of a great variety of tint, the poet had great licence in wishing or feigning on that point. Many a head of hair was exalted into gold, that gave slight colour for the pretension; nor is it to be doubted, that auburn, and red, and yellow, and sand-coloured, and brown with the least surface of gold, all took the same illustrious epithet on occasion. With regard [to eyes, the ancients insisted much on one point, which gave rise to many happy expressions. This was a certain mix

No. 57.

ture of pungency with the look of sweetness. Sometimes they call it severity, sometimes sternness, and even acridity, and terror. The usual word was gorgon-looking- Something of a frown was implied, mixed with a radient earnestness. This was commonly spoken of men's eyes. Anacreon, giving directions for the portrait of a youth, says—

« Μελαν ομμα γοργον εστω,
Κεκερασμενον γαληνη.”
"Dark and gorgon be his eye,
Tempered with hilarity."

*

A taste of it, however, was sometimes desired in the eyes of the ladies. Theagenes, in Heliodorus's Ethiopics,' describing his mistress Chariclea, tells us, that even when a child, something great, and with a divinity in it shone out of her eyes, and encountered his, as he examined them with a mixture of the gorgon and the alluring. Perhaps the best word in general for translating gorgon would be fervent; something earnest, fiery, and pressing onward. Anacreon, with his usnal exquisite taste, allays the fierceness of the term with the word kekerasmenon, tempered. The nice point is, to see that the terror itself be not terrible, but only a poignancy brought in to assist the sweetness. It is the salt in the tart; the subtle sting of the essence. It is the eye intellectual, what the apple of the eye is to the eye itself,—the dark part of it, the core, the innermost look'; the concentration and burning-blass of the rays of love. I think, however, that Anacreon did better than Heliodorus, when he avoided attributing this look to his mistress, and confined it to the other sex. He tells us, that she had a look of Minerva as well as Venus; but it is Minerva without the gorgon. There is sense and apprehensiveness, but nothing to alarm. No drawback upon beauty ought to be more guarded against, than a character of violence about the eyes. I have seen it become very touching, when the violence had been conquered by suffering and reflection, and a generous turn of mind; nor, perhaps, does a richer soil for the production of all good things take place anywhere than over these spent volcaBut the experiment is dangerous, and the

noes.

event rare.

Large eyes were admired in Greece, where they still prevail. They are the finest of all, when they have the internal look; which is not common. The stag or antelope eye of the orientals is beautiful and lamping, but is accused of looking skittish and indifferent. "The epithet of stag-eyed," says Lady Wortley Montague, speaking of a Turkish love song, "pleases me extremely; and I think it a very lively image of the fire and indifference in his mistress's eyes." We lose in depth of expression, when we go to inferior animals for comparisons with human beauty. Homer calls Juno ox-eyed; and the epithet suits well with the eyes of that goddess, because she may be supposed, with all her beauty, to want a certain humanity. Her large eye looks at you with a royal indifference. Shakspeare has kissed them, and made them human. Speaking of violets, he describes them as being

"Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes."

From the Steam-Press of C. & W. REYNELL, Little Pulteney-street.]

Æthiop. Lib. 11, apud Junium.

PRICE THREE HALFPENce.

touching under this circumstance than any others; because of the field they give for the veins to wander in, and the trembling amplitude of the ball beneath. Little eyes must be good tempered, or they are ruined. They have no other resource. But this will beautify them enough. They are made for laughing and should do their duty. In Charles the Second's time, it was the fashion to have sleepy, half-shut eyes, sly and meretricious. They took an expression, beautiful and warrantable on occasion, and made a commonplace of it, and a vice. So little do "men of pleasure" understand the business from which they take their title. A good warm-hearted poet shall shed more light upon real voluptuousness and beauty, in one verse from his pen, than a thou sand rakes shall arrive at, swimming in claret, and bound on as many voyages of discovery.

In attending to the hair and eyes, I have forgotten the eyebrows, and the shape of the head. They shall be despatched before we come to the lips; as the table is cleared before the dessert. This is an irreverent simile, nor do I like it; though the pleasure even of eating and drinking, to those who enjoy it with temperance, may be traced beyond the palate. The utmost refinements on that point are, I allow, wide of the mark on this. The idea of beauty, however, is lawfully associated with that of cherries and peaches; as Eve set forth the dessert in Paradise.

EYEBROWS.-Eyebrows used to obtain more applause than they do. Shakspeare seems to jest upon, this eminence, when he speaks of a lover

“ Κημ'

εκ τω άντρω συνοφρυς κόρα εχθες ίδοισα δαμαλας παρελωντα, καλον καλόν ημες εφασκεν

Ου μεν ουδε λόγον εκρίθην απο τον πικρον αυτά, Αλλα κατω βλέψας των αμετεραν ὁδον ειρπον.” "Passing a bower last evening with my cows, A girl look'd out,-a girl with meeting brows. Beautiful! beautiful!' cried she. I heard, But went on, looking down, and gave her not a word."

This taste in female beauty appears to have been confined to the ancients. Boccaccio, in his Ameto,' the

In one of his Epistles, beginning

"Nobles esprits de France poetiques."