My loving days, I must confess, are over, A fact it does me honour to discover;

Though, I suppose, whether I love or not, That brute, the public, will not care a jot. The dev'l a bit will their hard hearts look to it. But should it happen, some fine day,

That anything should lead me round that way, A long and beaky nose will certainly not do it." ·

SONNET

WRITTEN ON A BLANK PAGE OF MR HERAUD'S
"DESCENT INTO HELL.'

MIGHTY Magician! of whose spell divine
My willing soul rejoices in the thrall,
With whom I tread the empyreal hall
Of preterhuman Nature, and the shrine
Uncover of that holiest mystery,

Wherein consists the wondrous oracle

Of ultimate Fate (how wisely and how well By God ordained !) with things that present beThou only Seer, to whom the central Earth

That prison hath unclosed, of which the tomb Is but the portal.-Prophet-bard of doom! How shall thy soul rejoice her in the Birth, When the old world from Nature's sluggish womb

Re-issues in primeval beauty forth!"

versation in a quaint aphorism or a poor quibble, than in set and edifying speeches; has consequently been libelled as a person always aiming at wit, which, as he told a dull fellow that charged him with it, is at least as good as aiming at dullness. A small eater but not drinker; confesses a partiality for the production of the juniper berry; was a fierce smoker of tobacco, but may be resembled to a volcano burnt out, emitting only now and then a casual puff. Has been guilty of obtruding upon the public a tale in prose, called Rosamund Gray;' a dramatic sketch, named John Woodvil;' a Farewell Ode to Tobacco;' with sundry other poems, and light prose matter, collected in two slight crown octavos, and pompously christened his works, though in fact they were his recreations, and his true works may be found on the shelves of Leadenhall street, filling some hundred folios. He is also the true Elia,' whose essays are extant in a little volume, published a year or two since, and rather better known from that name without a meaning, than from anything he has done, or can hope to do, in his own. He also was the first to draw the public attention to the old English Dramatists, in a work called Specimens of English Dramatic Writers,' who lived about the time of Shakspeare, published about fifteen years since. In short, all his merits and demerits to set forth, would take to the end of Mr Upcott's book, and then not be told truly.

He died

18 much lamented. * Witness his hand, CHARLES LAMB. 18th April, 1827.

To anybody-please to fill up these blanks.

A VALUABLE EXAMPLE. [We cannot better forward the views of the Correspondent who sends us the account of this new institution, than by publishing his own intelligent and ingenuous letter.]

[FURNISHED by Mr Upcott to the writer in the New Monthly,' who has given the public several fervent and eloquent articles on this first of the critics and essayists of his time. We have promised some extracts on the same subject from another magazine, but have been somewhat perplexed in knowing what portions of them to give or to withhold; for they trench upon matters which it is almost equally difficult to touch upon without explanation or with it; and Mr Lamb, out of the very excess of his sympathies with humanity, however harmless to everyone but himself, left a puzzle in this respect to those who chuse to discuss it. The matter seems very plain; worthy of your attention, as being of general and but in truth the metaphysics of it, to be thoroughly not selfish interest, emboldens me to ask a few moments of your attention; and I will endeavour to done justice to, are laid in the very depths of the compress the matter into small compass, for fear of nature of us; and after all, he might be grievously being wearisome. misrepresented by those who have seen him in weaker

hours than others have, and who therefore naturally enough draw conclusions respecting the habit, very foreign, we believe, to its real amount. We knew him, for instance, ourselves very intimately, and have seen him in all his phases; and yet, with respect to the point in question, our personal experience would lead us to say that it was certainly not the habit which it has been taken for, nor by any means to have been looked for as a matter of course or probability, except under certain circumstances, or at very peculiar and touching periods of his life. We almost feel the tears come into our eyes to think we should have the necessity forced upon us to allude to it, so excellent a man was he, and full of the most exalted and affecting virtues.]

CHARLES LAMB, born in the Inner Temple, 10th February 1775, educated in Christ's Hospital; afterwards a clerk in the Accountants' Office, East India House; pensioned off from that service, 1825, after thirty-three years' service; is now a gentleman at large ;—can remember few specialties in his life worth noting, except that he once caught a swallow flying (teste sua manu); below the middle stature; cast of face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion; stammers abominably, and is therefore more apt to discharge his occasional con

SIR,—I have been obliged to you a while back for the insertion of some insignificant verses. My Muse has lately forsaken me; and I am not sure whether pulses of such attempts, as conveyed in your notices your variously-worded, and numerously gentle reto Correspondents, may not have had a hand in her withdrawal of favour. A subject, however, more

A few weeks ago I enjoyed an opportunity of witnessing the establishment of a reading-room for persons of slender finances.

It is in the neigh

bourhood of Brunswick square, and instituted at the expense of an individual, and is designed for the benefit of both sexes. A spacious apartment has been provided-lights and firing abundantly supplied, with every other requisite for comfortable accommodation. Globes stand in the room, and its walls are hung with some maps; a few dozen of books have been presented, with a probability of augmentation, and superintendence arranged for.

The poorer classes and their improvement have been the objects contemplated by the public-spirited founder; and it was consequently presumed that the hours of evening were the only ones afforded by their avocations for prosecuting the desired end. The evening, therefore, has been made the period of admittance, viz. from five until ten o'clock. Any one of the subscribers (there are already seventy) may introduce a new member, upon presenting a certain notice of such desire, and vouching for general respectability and honesty. It was requisite, for the sake of shedding some dignity upon the establish

ment, as removing it from the ignominy of being merely a charitable one, that something should be paid; and thus sixpence per month is required from each member, for the privilege of entering upon all the advantages of the place; and to prevent the capricious entrance upon, and abandonment of the

right, the condition is annexed of a month's notice on quitting.

One or two of the members are willing also to afford instruction in drawing of figures, which several of the most ignorant among them were anxious to avail themselves of; and here again, some clog upon vacillation was necessary, and the additional charge of threepence per month determined on, with the same requisition of a month's notice upon discontinuance of the study. Paper, pens, subjects for copying are abundantly and gratuitously provided; additions being frequently made to the permanent collection, and occasional loans beside.

Upon the opening of the room, Dr Bhoot, a gentleman well known for literary talent, and philanthropic views, read an address to the assembled subscribers. I have one, somewhat soiled, and will endeavour to find and enclose it; but should you kindly express the least wish for more copies, they shall be furnished.

Nothing has occurred to damp the prospects with which the undertaking was commenced. Men and women, under fixed regulations, meet, and pursue each their own studies, uninterruptedly; unnecessary conversation being discouraged. A book, upon request, with a memorandum deposited, being allowed to be taken for domestic perusal.

The founder had long lamented the want of these sort of facilities for mental cultivation which the poorer classes of men and women laboured under, and the present is an experiment that promises sufficiently well to authorize a hope, that (upon inspection) others, equally anxious to disseminate the blessings of education, may deem it worthy their notice and imitation; and if they improve upon the plan, so much the better.

Such kind of institutions are among the good fruits of Captain Pen's' ultimate harvest of the world at once products and seeds of ever improving developments. The benefit of partial attempts must of course be partial results; results too, not easily appreciable among the complexity of current - at least, results which cannot be pointed to with unquestionable confidence, until the actuating impulse, viz. a very extensive augmentation of means and applications, swell out the tide of effects to a body of sufficiently broad expanse and steady flow, to leave no doubt as to what ocean it is tending.

movements,

Every mind, however, that has yielded in a certain degree its rude energies to the noble ambition of improvement, has been so far providing within itself the materials for a final conquest of its inferior propensities. Though again it must be acknowledged, that the complicated relations of moving life,

and the fusion of all sorts of ingredients which unite to produce the varied aspects of society, leave it hard to be demonstrated how far the new principle is in fluential; and affords only to the reasoning portion of observers, those evidences which hereafter the whole world will recognize. And, perhaps, it may have been ordained here, as in other cases, that the goodness of the principle shall only be universally acknowledged after its triumph; and, like the vir

tuous efforts of individual faith, the happy shore to which it conducts shall only be manifested to the depths of experience. nations, after they have gone through the soundless

this letter as an impertinent intrusion on your time. I scarcely feel any alarm lest you should regard

Your "sympathies with all," as displayed in all your sentiments, forbid me to fear. A slight notice from worked well for three or four months (and your own your lively pen, of such an establishment having inspection may easily be satisfied on the point) would of your Readers, who are blessed with wealth to most effectually make it known; and may induce some spare, to spread abroad in like manner the gifts of

knowledge.

I am, Sir,
Yours respectfully,

Z. Z.

Were the physical condition always perfect, and the mental state always that of enjoyment, the duration of life would always be extended to the utmost limit compatible with that of the organization of the body. But as this fortunate concurrence seldom or never happens, human life seldom or never measures the full number of its days. Uniform experience shows, however, that, provided no accident occur to interrupt the usual course, in proportion as body and mind approximate to this state, life is long; and as they] recede from it, it is short. Improvement of the physical condition affords a foundation for the improvement of the mental state; improvement of the mental state improves up to a certain point the physical condition; and in the ratio in which this twofold improvement is affected, the duration of life increases.

Longevity then is good, in the first place, because it is a sign and a consequence of a certain amount of enjoyment; and, in the second place, because this

being the case, of course in proportion as the term of

life is extended, the sum of enjoyment must be augmented. And this view of longevity assigns the

cause, and shows the reasonableness of that desire for

long life, which is so universal and constant as to be commonly considered instinctive. Longevity and happiness, if not invariably, are generally, coincident.

19 If there may be 'happiness without longevity, the converse is not possible: there cannot be longevity without happiness. Unless the state of the body be that of tolerable health, and the state of the mind that of tolerable enjoyment, long life is unattainable; these physical and mental conditions no longer existing, or capable of existing, the desire of life and the power of retaining it cease together.

An advanced term of life and decrepitude are commonly conceived to be synonymous: the extension of life is vulgarly supposed to be the protraction of the period of infirmity and suffering, that period which is characterized by a progressive diminution of the power of sensation, and a consequent and proportionate loss of the power of enjoyment, the "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." But this is so far from being true, that it is not within the compass of human power to protract, in any sensible degree, the period of old age, properly so called, that is, the stage of decrepitude. In this stage of existence, the physical changes that successively take place clog, day by day, the vital machinery, until it can no longer play. In a space of time fixed within narrow limits, the flame of life must then inevitably expire, for the processes that feed it fail. But though, when fully come, the term of old age cannot be extended, the coming of the term may be postponed. To the preceding stage, an indefinite number of years may be added. And this is a fact of the deepest interest to human nature.

The division of human life into periods or epochs is not an arbitrary distinction, but is founded on constitutional differences in the system, dependent on different physiological conditions. The periods

of infancy, childhood, boyhood, adolescence, manhood, and old age, are distinguished from each other by external characters, which are but the outward signs of internal states. In physiological condition, the infant differs from the child, the boy from the man, and the adult from the old man, as much in physical strength as in mental power. There is an appointed order in which these several states succeed ch other; there is a fixed time at which one passes

into another. That order cannot be inverted; no considerable anticipation or postponement of that fixed time can be effected. In all places and under all circumstances, at a given time, though not precisely at the same time in all climates and under all modes of life, infancy passes into childhood, childhood into boyhood, boyhood into adolescence, and adolescence into manhood. In the space of two years from its birth, every infant has ceased to be an infant, and has become a child; in the space of six years from this period, every child will have become a boy; add eight years to this time, and every boy will have become a young man; in eight years more, every young man will have become an adult man ; and in the subsequent ten years, every adult man will have acquired his highest state of physical perfection. But at what period will this state of physical perfection decline? What is the maximum time during which it can retain its full vigour ? Is that maximum fixed? Is there a certain number of years in which, by an inevitable law, every adult man necessarily becomes an old man? Is precisely the same number of years appointed for this transition to every human being? Can no care add to that number? Can no imprudence take from it? Does the physiological condition or the constitutional age of any two individuals ever advance to precisely the same point in precisely the same number of years? Physically and mentally, are not some persons older at fifty than others are at seventy? And do not instances occasionally

occur in which an old man, who reached even his hundredth year, retains as great a degree of juveni

The mental energies cannot be fully called forth while the physical condition is neglected. Happiness presupposes a certain degree of excellence in the physical condition; and unless the physical condition be brought to a high degree of excellence, there can be no such development, occupation, and direction of the mental powers and affections as is requisite to a high degree of enjoyment.

That state of the system in which the physical condition is sound, is in itself conducive to enjoyment, while a permanent state of enjoyment is in its turn conducive to the soundness of the physical condition. It is impossible to maintain the physical processes in a natural and vigorous condition if the mind be in a state of suffering. The bills of mortality contain no column exhibiting the number of persons who perish annually from bodily disease produced by mental suffering; but everyone must occasionally have seen appalling examples of the fact. Everyone must have observed the altered appearance of persons who have sustained calamity. A misfortune that struck to the heart happened to a person a year ago; observe him some time afterwards; he is wasted, worn, the miserable shadow of himself; inquire about him at the distance of a few months, he is no more.

Alike

If this be so, what follows? One of the most interesting consequences that can be presented to the human mind. The deviation of the periods of infancy, childhood, boyhood, and adolescence, is fixed by a determinate number of years. Nothing can stay, nothing retard, the succession of each. incapable of any material protraction is the period of old age. It follows that every year by which the term of human existence is extended is really added to the period of mature age; the period when the organs of the body have attained their full growth and put forth their full strength; when the physical organization has acquired its utmost perfection; when the senses, the feelings, the emotions, the passions, the affections, are in the highest degree acute, intense, and varied; when the intellectual faculties, completely unfolded and developed, carry on their operations with the greatest vigour, soundness, and continuity; in a word, when the individual is capable of receiving and of communicating the largest amount of the highest kind of enjoyment.

A consideration more full of encouragement, more animating, there cannot be. The extension of human life, in whatever mode and degree it may be possible to extend it, is the protraction of that portion of it, and only of that portion of it, in which the human being is capable of RECEIVING AND OF COMMUNICAT ING THE LARGEST MEASURE OF THE NOBLEST KIND OF ENJOYMENT.

Relation between the physical condition and happiness, and between happiness and longevity depends on the action of the organic organs. The action of the organic organs depends on certain phy. sical agents. As each organic organ is duly supplied with the physical agent by which it carries on its respective process, and as it duly appropriates what it receives, the perfection of the physical condition is attained; and according to the perfection or imperfection of the physical condition, supposing no accident interrupt its regular course, is the length or the brevity of life.

It is conceivable that the physical condition might be brought to a high degree of perfection, the mind remaining in a state but little fitted for enjoyment; because it is necessary to enjoyment that there be a certain development, occupation, and direction of the mental powers and affections: and the mental state may be neglected, while attention is paid to the physical processes. But the converse is not possible.

Molé, an extract from which (our authority) appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine,' for November 1816, p. 394.]

His works have neither the character nor the features of his conversation. Reading them you would suppose him to be devoted to the most serious contemplations; see him in company, and you would sup

pose he never meditated at all. He takes no interest in the common occurrences of society. He is careless about everyone, and even about himself. Sometimes, without having listened to or seen anything that has past, he comes in with the most pertinent remark; then, perhaps, he is all simplicity; but in every humour he is very agreeable. His ideas flow with rapidity, and he communicates them without His reserve; he is neither wordy nor affected. conversation is a happy mixture of beauties and of charming, and sometimes astonishing. negligences, and amiable disorder, which is always

For his figure a little girl once said, that it was all zig-zag but the sex in general see only the expression, and not the form. His mouth is large, it is true; but the words and the verses that flow from it are delightful. His eyes are small and hollow; but, aided by the changes of his countenance, they express all the variety of his character. He does not give his features time to look ugly. He is not inattentive to his person; but he seldom adapts its ornaments to the occasion. He will go in deshabille to a duchess, and ride a-hunting in full dress.

His body is 74, his soul is only 15. Sensible to excess, he is assailable on all sides; but it is all to no purpose; his thoughtlessness and gaiety come to his aid, and leave him the happiest of beings. Public amusements are nothing to him: he is always occupied by some onc object, and happy in being so engaged. He will give you his company for hours, and is happy with you: but so he is with the housekeeper: or his horse, which he will sometimes caress

for two hours, and then forget that he has one. Yet, if he cannot be praised for uniformity of life, he has none of the vices of irregularity. However careless his conduct may be, it is always innocent. If he has no great features of character, he has all those engaging qualities of grace, liveliness, and simplicity, so natural, and yet so full of ingenuity, that he is courted like a reigning beauty, and beloved like a favourite child.

[Ir ever the letter of the marriage institution might
be set aside in favour of its spirit, it would surely
be in a case like the present. The story appeared
originally in the famous French publication,
the Causes Célèbres. It reminds us of one strikingly
like it in an Italian publication, called the Floren-
tine Observer,' upon which Mr Shelley has left the
fragment of a noble poem. See, in his Miscellanous
Poems,' the piece intitled 'Genevra.']

Two Parisian merchants, strongly united in friendship, had each one child of different sexes, who early contracted a strong inclination for each other, which was cherished by the parents, and they were flattered with the expectations of being joined together for life. Unfortunately, at the time they thought themselves on the point of completing this long wishedfor union, a man, far advanced in years, and possessed of an immense fortune, cast his eyes on the young lady, and made honourable proposals; her parents could not resist the temptation of a son-inlaw in such affluent circumstances, and forced her to comply. As soon as the knot was tied, she strictly enjoined her former lover never to see her, and patiently submitted to her fate; but the anxiety of her mind preyed upon her body, which threw her into a lingering disorder, that apparently carried her As soon off, and she was consigned to her grave. as this melancholy event reached the lover, his affliction was doubled, being deprived of all hopes of her widowhood; but, recollecting that in her youth she had been for some time in a lethargy, his hopes revived, and hurried him to the place of her burial, where a good bribe procured the sexton's permission to dig her up, which he performed, and removed her to a place of safety, where, by proper methods, he revived the almost extinguished spark of life. Great was her surprise at finding the state she had been in ; and probably as great was her pleasure, at the means As by which she had been recalled from the grave. soon as she was sufficiently recovered, the lover laid his claim; and his reasons, supported by a powerful inclination on her side, were too strong for her to resist; but as France was no longer a place of safety for them, they agreed to remove to England, where they continued ten years, when a strong inclination of revisiting their native country seized them, which they thought they might safely gratify, and accordingly performed their voyage.

The lady was so unfortunate as to be known by her old husband, whom she met in a public walk, and all her endeavours to disguise herself were ineffectual. He laid his claim to her, before a court of justice, and the lover defended his right, alleging, that the husband, by burying her, had forfeited his title, and that he had acquired a just one, by freeing her from the grave, and delivering her from the jaws of death. These reasons, whatever weight they might have in a court where love presided, seemed to have little effect on the grave sages of the law; and the lady, with her lover, not thinking it safe to wait the determination of the court, prudently retired out of the kingdom.

RELIGIOUS OPINION IN RAJAHSTAN.

The period of sectarian intolerance is now past; and as far as my observation goes, the ministers of Vishnu, Sirha and Budha, view each other without malignity, which feeling never appears to have influenced the laity of either sect, who are indiscriminately respectful to the ministers of all religions, whatever be their tenets. It is sufficient that their office is one of sanctity, and that they are ministers of the Divinity, who, they say, excludes the homage of none, in whatever tongue or whatever manner he is sought; and with this spirit of intire toleration, the devout mis. sionary, or Moollah, would in no country meet more security or hospitable courtesy than among the Rajpoots. They must, however, adopt the toleration they would find practised towards themselves. Tod's Antiquities of Rajahstân.

CHARACTERS OF SHAKSPEARE'S

PLAYS.

BY WILLIAM HAZLITT.

NO. XVI.-KING LEAR.

[Continued from last week.] ONE of the most perfect displays of dramatic power is the first interview between Lear and his daughter, after the designed affronts upon him, which till one of his knights reminds him of them, his sanguine temperament had led him to overlook. He returns with his train from hunting, and his usual impatience breaks out in his first words, "Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go, get it ready." He then encounters the faithful Kent in disguise, and retains him in his service; and the first trial of his honest duty is to trip up the heels of the officious Steward who makes so prominent and despicable a figure through the piece. On the entrance of Gonerill the following dialogue takes place :

"LEAR. How now, 'daughter? what makes that frontlet on?

Methinks, you are too much of late i' the frown. FOOL. Thou wast a pretty fellow, when thou had'st no need to care for her frowning; now thou art an O without a figure: I am better than thou Yes, forart now; I am a fool, thou art nothing.sooth, I will hold my tongue; [To Gonerill.] so your face bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum. He that keeps nor crust nor crum, Weary of all, shall want some.

That's a sheal'd peascod!

[Pointing to Lear.

his eyes?

Either his notion weakens, or his discernings

Are lethargy'd-Ha! waking?—'Tis not so. Who is it that can tell me who I am?-Lear's shadow?

I would learn that: for by the marks

Of sov'reignty, of knowledge, and of reason,
I should be false persuaded I had daughters..
Your name, fair gentlewoman?

GONERILL. Come, sir:
This admiration is much o' the favour
Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
To understand my purposes aright:

As you are old and reverend, you should be wise:
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
Men so disorder'd, so debauch'd, and bold,
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shows like a riotous inn: epicurism and lust
Make it more like a tavern, or a brothel,

For instant remedy: be then desir'd
By her, that else will take the thing she begs,
A little to disquantity your train ;

And the remainder, that shall still depend,
To be such men as may besort your age,
And know themselves and you.

LEAR. Darkness and devils!————
Saddle my horses; call my train together.
Degenerate bastard! I'll not trouble thee;
Yet have I left a daughter.

GONERILL. You strike my people; and your disorder'd rabble

Make servants of their betters.

Enter ALBANY.

LEAR. Woe, that too late repents—Oh, sir, are
you come ?

Is it your will? speak, sir.-Prepare my horses.
[To Albany.
Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child,
Than the sea-monster !

ALBANY. Pray, sir, be patient.

LEAR. Detested kite! thou liest. [To Gonerill. My train are men of choice and rarest parts, That all particulars of duty know; And in the most exact regard support The worships of their name-O most small fault, How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show! Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature From the fixt place; drew from my heart all love, And added to the gall. Oh Lear, Lear, Lear! Beat at the gate that let thy folly in,

[Striking his head. And thy dear judgment out !- Go, go, my people! ALBANY. My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant Of what hath mov'd you.

LEAR. It may be so, my lord

Hear, Nature, hear! dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend To make this creature fruitful! Into her womb convey sterility; Dry up in her the organs of increase; And from her derogate body never spring A babe to honour her! If she must teem, Create her child of spleen: that it may live, To be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her! Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; ] Turn all her mother's pains and benefits, may feel To laughter and contempt; that she How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child! -Away, away! [Exit. ALBANY. NOW, gods that we adore, whereof [cause';

comes this? GONERILL. Never afflict yourself to know the But let his disposition have that scope That dotage gives it.

Re-enter LEAR.

LEAR. What, fifty of my followers at a clap! Within a fortnight!

ALBANY. What's the matter, sir?

LEAR. I'll tell thee; life and death! I am asham'd That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus: [To Gonerill.

That these hot tears, which break from me perforce, Should make thee worth them.—Blasts and fogs upon thee!

The untented woundings of a father's curse Pierce every sense about thee! Old fond eyes Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck you out; And cast you, with the waters that you lose, -Ha! is it come to this? To temper clay.Let it be so:—————— -Yet have I left a daughter, Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable; 'When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails? She'll flea thy wolfish visage. Thou shalt find, That I'll resume the shape, which thou dost think I have cast off for ever.

EPISTLE TO A FRIEND.

I ASK no fields with plenty crowned,
I ask no wealth, as Gyges owned,
Dear S**r; all I seek

Is what the wants of life require,
Beef, porter, bread, a sea-coal fire,
My Paper once a week.

I ask no stores of dirty pelf
To make me quite forget myself;
Such ills does wealth afford;
To me a barter has no charms,
To me the stocks cause no alarms,
I envy not a hoard.

The master-minds of other days,

The bards whom wond'ring nations praise
To me their treasures bring.
Homer and Virgil me inspire,
For me Anacreon strikes his lyre,
For me does Horace sing.

And they, the chiefs of elder time,
The denizens of every clime,
The patriot men of yore,—
For me they live, for me they bleed,
For me they do the heroic deed;—
What can I wish for more?

With wealth like this, with friends like these,

I live in no inglorious ease;

Nor ever blame the fates,

Because they have denied to me

The complement of L. S. D.

They've lavished upon Thwaytes.+

of Mitylene.

G. H.

+ Thwaytes-of course a generic name,-a noun of multitude, like Smith or Tomkins,-and not implicating any individual of the numerous and worthy tribe of the Thwayteses.

CONTRAST BETWEEN

THE REAL AND FASHIONABLE GRACES OF WORSHIP.

(From the new Novel, Chances and Changes.') "WHAT a contrast," said Catherine to Edward Longcroft, "is this little church among the mountains, to the fashionable churches in London. When I saw the benches of hewn stone, without any distinction of pews, the simple pulpit, the unadorned altar, the rough walls, backed by the solid rock, I bethought me of your uncle's pew in Mary-le-bone, carpeted like a drawing-room, lined with crimson cloth, padded like a carriage, for the more luxurious ease of the shoulders that rested against it; the chandelier, the fire-place, with its polished cut-steel fender and fire-irons, and Mr Longcroft rattling them and regularly stirring the fire, as soon as the text was given out."

"Why, Catherine, you are satirical, my child,” said Mr Neville. "How is that? Do not you know, that if these poor mountaineers were proud of the poverty of their church, its simplicity would be fully as offensive in the sight of the Almighty as all the pomp of Mary-le-bone, or any other edifice of the same character."

"No, my dear father, I am not in any mood to satirize," said Catherine, "but I always used to feel uncomfortable in that church, the distinctions were so very aristocratic; it made me seem as if the object to which it was consecrated was merely a form of polite society; the fault may be in myself, but I "must own I never could feel half the devotion sitting by the fire-side, with a velvet cushion at my back, and my feet on an ottoman, in Mr Longcroft's pew, that I did at our own dear Nethercross, and at this little church in the desert here."

"Catherine is right!" said Edward, "there ought to be no distinction of persons in places of worship; there is none in a Catholic church; the good sense of the people teaches them all to take their places with a decent regard to their respective conditions,

stood.

"stands still with awful eye." It is hail fellow, well met. In the theatre alone men bowed before the agonies of Othello's passion, the sublime terrors of Macbeth's imagination there alone they dreamt with the philosophie Hamlet over the riddle of life, to find in death the sole solution of its mystery!Is he who now enters the Mermaid with that light and buoyant step the author of these wonderful creations? Is that the demi-god of genius, the master of spirits and of men? See how he enters, unconscious of any superiority, and open and unassuming as a child. It is only as the wine stirs, and the potent Jonson gets rather dictatorial, that those quiet flashes of wit glance forth against him. We may suppose, in addition, the quiet undercurrent of satire, half pleasant, half scornful, which must have run through the mind of Shakspeare as he arbiter of their fate; waiting for his nod, as the saw the younger poets turn to Jonson, as the great sign of doom; and leaping for very joy in their

hearts, as, out of that oracular chair of his-the town chair of poetry, wisdom, and scholarship-he pronounced them, with affectionate conceit, his "sons," and proceeded to "seal them of the tribe of Ben." But this ran, we dare be sworn, an undercurrent merely. It never ventured itself to the surface in the shape of severity or scorn. The more learned assumptions of Jonson were those we are to suppose he twitted him about, making all merry meanwhile, and adding to the sociality by his jests. It is by no means to be concluded from this that Shakspeare disrelished learning, or did not himself admit it in a gallant and airy spirit, and as a social grace. It was only the Jonsonian shape of it he thought a fair subject for quizzing. Hear him speaking for himself at the Mitre in a happy vein of festive wit,

"Give me a cup of rich Canary wine,

Which was the Mitre's once, and now is mine;
Of which had Horace and Anacreon tasted,
Their lives as well as lines till now had lasted."

And the worthy Richard Jackson, whose manuscript hands this down to us, inserts a dramatic direction in the second line at the end of the fourth word, thus, "[drinks]." And so the life of Shakspeare passed, according to the chance records of the time. He wrote the mightiest works that have been given to

man, and sought no personal association with them." He received none. As each of these works appeared, they merged, as it were, into the general and univer sal spirit to which they indeed of right belonged— the spirit of humanity. They became a portion of the great heart of the world. HE, meanwhile, from whom they first proceeded, continued to walk through life's common way; laying on his heart the lowliest duties; assisting his fellow-actors to pass life merrily as they might; and,-secure of the everlasting ex istence of those shapes of beauty he had sent into the world to be to it "joys for ever,"-for himself, in Mr the estimation of posterity, he betrayed no care. Lamb has said there is a magnanimity even in authorship. Is it not here? if the term of authorship can indeed be applied to Shakspeare. Posterity has certainly, in his case, taken care that nothing was lost by such noble modesty. Shakspeare is now only less than worshipped ;-it is esteemed an honour to speak the tongue he spake.

camera

THIS little Society have left their dark and cramped abode in Bond-street, and have much more commodiously hung out their colours in the small room at Exeter Hall; not on a ground floor, down a step, but nearer the sky and sun, up a fine stone staircase. We hope their prospects are rising accordingly. At all events, a better policy has been pursued; and we do not observe those miserable daubs that disfigured the walls of their former place, as bad as any of the unsuccessful candidates for the amateur prizes at the Society of Arts. Though the pictures are much more select, they do not strike us as being fewer in number. The majority are landscapes,little snatches of homely scenery, very agreeable matter for an hour's amusement. The pictures are mostly very small, and very, very few are elaborate in the colouring enough to deserve the name of paintings. The effect of the whole is somewhat as though the contents of a well-filled album had been dislodged from their native home, and framed and glazed, and hung round the room, with here and there a large drawing from the portfolio, to give a dignity to the little squadron. Altogether, there is a general want of finish, and even of ambition, among the drawings; they are mostly executed in the mannered style of roughness, with a obscura effect, common among old-fashioned watercolourists, or with a glaring blankness, a sort of ostentatious neatness, in which, keeping the paper clean is made to pass for delicacy of finish; the real use of colour, the blending of tints, the delicacy of high finish, bold contrast, the bolder dispensing with contrast, are scarcely to be met with. A few are aspiring in the attempt at colour, but such are apt to want harmony, leaving the material to overpower the effect it should produce. Downing's drawings are of the ultra neat order, where a large space of clean and feebly-tinted distance is made to show off the deeper-toned spot which constitutes the principal object ; and yet his drawings do not want for a real feeling of nature. 'Northgate, Chester' (18), is at once a prime instance of this defect, and a very good specimen of his power. It is vigorous, and yet soft and pleasing; but that unnatural shadow in the middle of the picture is so much too heavy for the rest, that though richly coloured, and not opaque, it tells like a large blot in the middle of a very neat, but very feeble drawing. Cahusac is clever; but he would do well to study nature more, and Hunt less: his drawings are clever, but mannered. His best is a Sporting Highlander' (45). Shepherd is tasteful, but his colours are too positive and unblended. 141 and 149, however, are very clever, and for force of effect may perhaps take the second place among their fellows. Campion, Lindsay, Duncan, Rochard, are among those whose pictures we have noted with a mark of approbation.

Shipping on the Thames' (315) by the first, is a very clever drawing. But the glory of the place is a couple of fruit-pieces by Lance;-rich, glowing,