to obtain any virtues which were unsuited to their
inclinations, to the neglect of what their duties
more particularly required, serving God as it
pleased themselves, and not in the manner which he
commands.
So common is their error, that a great
number of persons, some very devout, suffer them-
selves to fall into it.

NO. LV.-SINGULAR OUTRAGE IN A DUEL.

Ir our Romance of Real Life' this week cannot be said to be equally "short and sweet," it may be allowed, like Sir Toby's challenge, to be "curst and brief."

We take it from the Bubbles of the Brunnens,' the author of which has prefaced it with one of those characteristic remarks, which with an air of somewhat superfluous and morbid nicety of fine sense, end in generally giving us really good wholesome doctrine, and showing a great deal of humanity.

Some of our readers, who write to us there-anent, will suppose from the brevity of our Romance this time, that our materials are "drawing to a conclusion:' but we owe it to ourselves and our stores (such as they are) to state, that the case is quite the reverse; that we only put so short a story in the present number, from an anticipation that it will be overflowing with a press of other matter; and that of Romances of Real Life' we really see no end. There is really no end to them in life; why should there be in

books?

Our author's account of the duel, in which a man stoops to take his nose off the ground, reminds us of the fantastic story in Ariosto, of the magician, who had the privilege of picking up his head again when any one cut it off, and whom we always fancy adjusting it by a tenure of the nose; just as a gentleman, with finger and thumb, elegantly adjusts his cockedhat. (See Orlando Furioso. Canto 15. st. 65, &c.) Let us not mention the fine Italian poet, however, without doing justice to that wonderful spirit of verisimilitude, by which he renders his most fantastic stories delightful. The magician has a fatal lock of

valuable, but yet not sufficient to sear their hearts
against it. Observe! Simultaneous with the glow
of pleasure which suffuses their faces upon recog-
nition, is the raising and extending the hand. They
seem to say each one to the other-

"Here's a hand my trusty frier',
An' gi'es a hand o' thine!"

They approach the hands are locked in the grip
of concord, and joy produces, almost involuntarily, a
hearty shake. The hands seem loth to part, as loth
as the hearts of which they are the representatives.
The grasp is gradually loosened; the hands slowly
slip out of each other, and, arriving at the tip of the
finger, the one lingers a moment ere it lets the other
drop. But you will observe that this hearty shake
was not such as would be apt to dislocate your shoul-
der, nor the grasp like the bite of a vice, that forces
the blood to, and almost out of, the fingers' ends; true
friendship is incapable of giving pain; such an idea
would be as absurd as to measure the extent of a
man's amity by the number of injuries he had done
you.

Secondly, let us consider-The shake ceremonial. By this I mean such a shake as one often would give and receive after the satisfactory arrangement of some business, or after a first introduction to a man whose new acquaintanceship had not excited any interest in you, and with whom you part careless whether you should ever meet again or no; or such as you would bestow upon one who pesters you with professions of friendship which you know to be insincere, but whose proffered hand you cannot in common politeness refuse; or such as you would give a distant relation whom you only know by sight; or at meeting and parting with a fellow club member (either clubs of the West-End, or otherwise); or such as on visiting an old AntiMalthusian you are obliged to give his spouse, and five grown-up daughters, and four grown-up sons; and indeed in a hundred other instances which it would be tedious to name. It is almost a misnomer to call this shake a shake: it merely consists in one party taking the other's hand,-raising it about an inch, or inch and a half,--lowering it again, and then separating; oft-times not even so much as that— merely making a pretence to join hands, and 'tis done with. I have never read Chesterfield, but I should think, from the idea I have of him, that he prohibits shaking hands, except between intimate friends, as too great a freedom with one with whom you are a stranger, and as too great a condescension on your part to one who is almost a stranger to you. As an enemy to all mockery, deceit, or pretence, I must give it as my opinion that only friends should shake hands; such is my practice; a bow of recognition and at parting is my custom with casual acquaintances; but, of course, I never refuse a proffered hand.

hand-shaking is one he brags of, and I have seen him
with a kindred spirit, grasping hands, and trying
who could bear the most pain, and who would flinch
under the torture first. He, however, sometimes
"catches a tartar," and then deservedly gets his
knuckles well rubbed for his pains.

*This squeezing of hands is, I believe, particullary
a sailor's trick; and with them may perhaps be
somewhat excusable, as well as many other customs
not tolerated in civilized society. They mayhap
think they are grasping a marlin-spike; or else
want to prove to you how tight they can hand a
rope, and their cornuted palms give you forcible
evidence of their power. Young Middeys are gene-
rally initiated in this practice, by the boatswain,
perhaps, or his own compeers, and on his first visit
home, on leave of absence, gives his brothers and
sisters proofs of his prowess, and laughs heartily
when they cry out, "Oh!" at the same time admo-
nishing them to cry out before they are hurt, not
afterwards, as it is then useless, and a waste of
breath.

Fourthly-The shake-theatrical. The manual salute
which is practised on the stage, I never saw any
where else; it is not to be met with in any other

scene of the stage of the world than the Thespian.
One fellow takes the right hand of another, and
embeds it in his own left hand; he then looks at it
holds it out from him for a second-raises his right
hand, and brings it down again like a sledge ham-
mer on an anvil, and with a slap that resounds like
the smack of a drayman's whip,—an energetic shake
follows.
This somewhat smacks of the pedagogue's
saws, and palmam qui meruit ferat. This is one of
the points in which the gentry of the sock and
buskin do not copy nature.

While we are upon shakes that want sincerity-
that lack of heartiness, we will consider-The elec-
tioneering shake. This is a compound of several
characters of shakes; it partakes of the shake con-
descending, the shake obsequious, the shake friendly,

and the boisterous shake. The skilful tactician
tempers his shake of hand as well as his language, to
the person with whom he has to deal; but any one,
with a moderate share of penetration, at once
perceives its want of heart, and the total absence of
all life from the salutation. The soft, small, tapering-
fingered aristocratic hand of the right honourable
candidate is buried and almost annihilated in the
horn-hard hand of the labourer or artisan; and were
it not impelled by interest, would shrink from the
touch. The honest elector too, is not altogether
proof against the flattery and condescension of the
great man, and retains a firmer and a longer hold,
and gives a heartier shake on his part, than is alto-
gether palatable to the gentleman who is now the
beggar, whose present part to play is the solicitation
of a favour. The voter afterwards seems to have a
greater respect for his honoured right hand than
for its more neglected neighbour; he takes greater
care of it; guarding it from injury in his breeches
pocket. He holds his head also some few inches
higher; speaks to his wife and children in a some-
what more imperious tone for the next half hour.
It is sometime, perhaps two or three hours before
he can make up his mind to dispel the odour of gen-

or make a wry face, exclaim in a most consolatory tility upon his hand by touching a saw, or a shovel,

66

tone of affected surprise, What, my dear, fellow, have I hurt you? Beg pardon-'twas the warmth of my friendship for you, you know!" Hang such friendship! say I; if you cannot express your friendship in a more friendly way, I had rather be without it; at least without such like proofs of it.

As the Dustman said to the Coalheaver who slapped

him on the back with a "How are ye, my hearty!" -"If you considers yourself a gemman, behave as sich!" so would I say to Tom, "If you call yourself a friend, act as such." But Tom only does it for "a lark," and that he may amuse himself by looking at you trying to keep a placid countenance whilst he is torturing you. Tom's father thinks him a sad fellow, but says he has a good heart at bottom, and will be steady when he gets older. His trick at

or a pick-axe, or a loom; and there is a moment's
hesitation in grasping the proffered hand of his
favourite shopmate upon their next meeting. All
these whims, however, are dispelled by the time his
vote is registered, and the " Electioneering shake," :s
remembered by the elector, only when politics are
forgotten, till the king sends the M.P. to pay ano-
discussed at the club; and by the elected totally

ther visit to his constituents.

I come now to the consideration of a more agreeable branch of the subject-The lover's shake. Love is the quintessence of friendship; as then it is a pleasure to grasp the hand of a friend in true amity, the delight of the lover's manual embrace must be proportionally fraught with joy. It is a misnomer to call it the "lover's shake;" I have more correctly

denominated it a "manual embrace." The pleasure

is too delightful to part with it so transiently as a shake of the hand implies. When lovers meet alone, their hands are locked together from the moment of meeting to the time of parting. They wander in some shady grove, or by some murmuring stream "hand in hand." Milton beautifully, but simply, describes our first parents,

"So hand in hand they passed-the loveliest pair."

Then, when, after sweet communings, lovers are obliged to part, though but for a time, what a world of affection is evinced in his warm earnest pressure of her hand, and her more gentle, but not less loving return! But I must curb my flowing quill, which is just in a humour to grow eloquent upon the subject. The bounds of propriety must not be overtions; a rhapsody on love would be more fittting to stepped in the length of these heterogeneous observa

commence than to close an article.

A great deal more might be said upon joining hands; the antiquity of the custom; "though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished," which takes it back to Bible times; the question also, whether it is preferable to the French custom of kissing? the joining hands at the nuptial ceremony, the blood coming from the heart to the ring finger; the symbol of union among bands of banditti or patriots, the "Hand in Hand Insurance ;" and a host of other relative matter, not forgetting the hand of the Indicator, (which, by the bye, only offers you one finger to shake.) As this does not pretend to be a regular dissertation, I shall take the liberty of leaving all that might be said upon these branches of the subject, unsaid, at least for the present.

But, says the reader, you have not yet applied all these premises to the proposed system of " Chirology." Gentle reader, oblige me by doing so yourself, each in the manner that may best suit his fancy. Or, inclination permitting, I will perhaps do so on some future occasion.

I have a word to say before I, for a time, lay down my pen. Do not accuse me of presumption or inconsistency in shaking hands with you and the Editor at the commencement of the article, while, at the same time, I say that only intimate friends should thus salute. Remember it was only an imaginary shake-a shake through faith; believing, as I do, that your hearts feel some regard, some small portion of friendship (provided you are not critics), for your humble servant, a

BOOKWORM.!

• No symbol, we beg leave to say, of the Indicator's practice. As this "Index" has been alluded to by our Correspondent, and, from its frequent appearance before the public in connection with the writer, has become identified with him in the minds of some readers, we take this opportunity of stating, in reference to questions which have been put accordingly, that we write for no periodical at present, but the LONDON JOURNAL, nor, with the exception of a forthcoming article in the New Monthly,' have written for any, ever since it was set up.-ED.

THE WHOLE SUM AND SUBSTANCE OF THE PHIEOSOPHY
OF HEALTH.

The body is to be preserved in a state of health two ways; by moderate diet and seasonable exercise; for the nature of sublunary things is so

gliding, that if we continually repair not what time consumes, by little and little, they waste to nothing; and yet so as the excess render it not drowsy, and indisposed to contemplation; nor the too slender diet weak and languishing; that neither luxury soften it, nor negligence pollute it. Exercise follows nourishment, though they seem to follow and wheel about one another; for we exercise and eat; eat and exercise; the one to prepare us for meat, the other to awake nature, and keep the body's part in motion; and we should so use them, that the body may be the better; and the mind never the worse.— Du Vaiz.

THE WEEK.

BIRTH-DAYS.

February 8, 1612. At Strensham, in Worcestershire, the son of a farmer, Samuel Butler, the most learned and witty of satirical poets, the banterer of the Puritans. Charles the Second used to carry Hudibras about in his pocket, yet had not the spirit to do anything for its author, who lived poor and died so, rich only in a mind teeming with thought and imagery. He had a friend, however, who stood by him in life and death, and who decently buried him. When poor selfish Charles died, pieces of his remains (cut from the embalming) were found floating about in kitchen sinks.

him only a dull blank with nothing left remarkable
in it; whoever has known "the pangs of despised
love, the insolence of office, or the spurns which
patient merit of the unworthy takes;" he who has
felt his mind sink within him, and sadness cling to
his heart like a malady, who has had his hopes
blighted and his youth staggered by the apparitions
of strange things; who cannot be well at ease, while
he sees evil hovering near him like a spectre; whose
powers of action have been eaten up by thought,
he to whom the universe seems infinite, and himself
nothing; whose bitterness of soul makes him care-
less of consequences, and who goes to a play as his
best resource to shove off, to a second remove, the
evils of life by a mock-representation of them-this
is the true Hamlet.

9, 1700. Daniel Bernouilli, professor of medicine and natural philosophy at Basil, a celebrated We have been so used to this tragedy that we mathematician, like his father. His reputation may be estimated by the following anecdote. He hardly know how to criticise it any more than we fell in, during a journey, with a fellow-traveller, who, being struck with his conversation, asked his name. "I am Daniel Bernouilli," answered he with simplicity. "And I," replied the other, thinking to keep up the joke, "am Sir Isaac Newton."

-10, 1670. At Bardsey Grange, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, of an ancient family, William Congreve, the wittiest of English dramatists. The Duchess of Marlborough (heiress of the Duke) was so fond of his company, that not being able to endure the sight of his empty chair at table, she had an image made of him in wax, and used to drink to it as if he were alive. This looks well for him; and yet there is an apparent heartlessness in his plays, which makes us unwilling to repeat in other words what we have said of his genius in the Supplement' to this Journal, No. 3, Chapter the Fourth.

Same day, 1706. In Broad street, near the Bank, (where his father, afterwards the celebrated Bishop, was rector of St Peter Le Poor) Benjamin Hoadly, author of the comedy of the Suspicious Husband.' He was an eminent physician, and a good-natured, benevolent man. His play has been thought as profligate as those of Congreve; but there is an animal spirit in it, and a native under-current of good feeling, very different from the sophistication of Congreve's fine ladies and gentlemen. Congreve writes like a rake upon system; Hoadly, like a wild lighthearted youth from school.

CHARACTERS OF SHAKSPEARE'S
PLAYS.

BY WILLIAM HAZLITT.

NO. IV. HAMLET.

THIS is that Hamlet the Dane, whom we read of in our youth, and whom we seem almost to remember in our after-years; he who made that famous soliloquy on life, who gave the advice to the players, who thought "this goodly frame, the earth, a steril promontory, and this brave o'er-hanging firmament, the air, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours ;" whom "man delighted not, nor woman neither;" he who talked with the grave-diggers, and moralized on Yorick's skull; the school-fellow of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at Wittenberg; the friend of Horatio; the lover of Ophelia; he that was mad and sent to England; the slow avenger of his father's death; who lived at the court of Horwendillus five hundred years before we were born, but all whose thoughts we seem to know as well as we do our own, because we have read them in Shakspeare.

Hamlet is a name: his speeches and sayings but the idle coinage of the poet's brain. What then, are they not real? They are as real as our own thoughts. Their reality is in the reader's mind. It is we who are Hamlet. This play has a prophetic truth, which is above that of history. Whoever has become thoughtful and melancholy through his own mishaps or those of others; whoever has borne about with him the clouded brow of reflection, and thought himself "too much i' th' sun;" whoever has seen the golden lamp of day dimmed by envious mists rising

his own breast, and could find in the world before

should know how to describe our own faces. But
we must make such observations as we can. It is the
one of Shakspeare's plays that we think of oftenest,
because it abounds most in striking reflections on
human life, and because the distresses of Hamlet are
transferred, by the turn of his mind, to the general
account of humanity. Whatever happens to him
we apply to ourselves, because he applies it so himself
as a means of general reasoning. He is a great
moraliser; and what makes him worth attending to
is, that he moralises on his own feelings and expe-
rience. He is not a common-place pedant. If ' Lear'
shows the greatest depth of passion, Hamlet' is the
most remarkable for the ingenuity, originality, and
unstudied development of character.

Shakspeare

had more magnanimity than any other poet, and he
has shown more of it in this play than in any other.
There is no attempt to force an interest: everything
is left for time and circumstances to unfold. The
attention is excited without effort, the incidents suc-
ceed each other as matters of course, the characters

The

think and speak and act just as they might do, if left
intirely to themselves. There is no set purpose, no
straining at a point. The observations are suggested
by the passing scene-the gusts of passion come and
go like sounds of music borne on the wind.
whole play is an exact transcript of what might be
supposed to have taken place at the court of Den-
mark, at the remote period of time fixed upon, before
the modern refinements in morals and manners were
heard of. It would have been interesting enough to
have been admitted as a by-stander in such a scene,
at such a time, to have heard and seen something of
what was going on. But here we are more than
spectators. We have not only "the outward pa-
geants and the signs of grief;" but "we have that
within which passes show." We read the thoughts
of the heart, we catch the passions living as they rise.
Other dramatic writers give us very fine versions and
paraphrases of nature: but Shakspeare, together with
his own comments, gives us the original text, that
we may judge for ourselves. This is a very great
advantage.

own want of resolution, defers his revenge to some
more fatal opportunity, when he shall be engaged in
some act "that has no relish of salvation in it."
"He kneels and prays,

And now I'll do't, and so he goes to heaven,
And so am I reveng'd: that would be scann'd.
He kill'd my father, and for that

I, his sole son, send him to heaven.
Why this is reward, not revenge.
Up sword, and know thou a more horrid time, il
When he is drunk, asleep, or in a rage."

He is the prince of philosophical speculations, and,
because he cannot have his revenge perfect, accord-
ing to the most refined idea his wish can form, he
misses it altogether. So he scruples to trust the
suggestions of the Ghost, contrives the scene of the
play to have surer proof of his uncle's guilt, and then
rests satisfied with this confirmation of his suspicions,
and the success of his experiment, instead of acting
upon it.
Yet he is sensible of his own weakness,
taxes himself with it, and tries to reason himself out
of it.

"How all occasions do inform againt me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast; no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To rust in us unus'd: now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,-

A thought which quarter'd, hath but one part
wisdom,

And ever three parts coward :-I do not know
Why yet I live to say, this thing's to do;
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do it. Examples gross as earth excite me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd, ¦
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. 'Tis not to be great,
Never to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father killed, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain ?—O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!"

Still he does nothing; and this very speculation on
his own infirmity only affords him another occasion
for indulging it. It is not for any want of attach-
ment to his father or abhorrence of his murder that
Hamlet is thus dilatory, but it is more to his taste
to indulge his imagination in reflecting upon the
enormity of the crime and refining on his schemes of
vengeance, than to put them into immediate practice.
His ruling passion is to think, not to act: and any
vague pretence that flatters this propensity instantly
diverts him from his previous purposes.

The moral perfection of this character has been called in question, we think, by those who did not understand it. It is more interesting than accord

The character of Hamlet is itself a pure effusion of genius. It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can well be: but he is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility—the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from the natural bias of his disposition by the strangeness of his situation. He seems incapable of deliberate action, and is only hurried into extremities on the spur of the occasion, when he has no time to reflect, and in the scene where he kills Polonius, ing to rules: amiable though not faultless. The and again, where he alters the letters which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are taking with them to England, purporting his death. At other times, when he is most bound to act, he remains puzzled, undecided, and sceptical, dallies with his purposes, till the occasion is lost, and always finds some pretence to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness again. For this reason he refuses to kill the King when he is at his prayers, and by a refinement in malice, which is in truth only an excuse for his

ethical delineations of " that noble and liberal casuist" (as Shakspeare has been well called) do not exhibit the drab-coloured quakerism of morality. His plays are not copied either from The Whole Duty of Man,' or from The Academy of Compliments!' We confess, we are a little shocked at the want of refinement in those who are shocked at the want of refinement in Hamlet. The want of punctilious exactness in his behaviour either partakes of the "license of the time," or else belongs to the

SPENSER'S ANGUISH ON THE DEATH OF HIS CHILD.

DURING one of the rebellions of the unhappy Irish, the author of the Faerie Queene, who had been secretary to a Lord Lieutenant, resided in a house which was part of the forfeited estate of the Earl of Desmond. It was burnt to the ground, and his infant child in it. What effect this must have had upon a man, who, to the natural tenderness of a father, joined all the sensibility of a poet, is here intimated in one of the most affecting dialogues and bursts of passion we ever read. The passage is in the appendix to Mr Landor's beautiful book about Shakspeare. Essex's half-playful kindliness, and arch anticipations of the possibilities of ordinary comfort, before he is aware of the real state of the case, admirably prepare for its dreadfulness, when it is disclosed; and the paroxysm of the wretched father is truly awful. His heart seems caught, and made mad, in the fires that consumed his infant.

SPENSER. Interrogate me, my lord, that I may answer each question distinctly, my mind being in utter confusion, at what I have seen and undergone.

ESSEX. Give me thy account and opinion of these very affairs, as thou leftest them; for I would rather know one part well, than all imperfectly; and the violences of which I have heard within the day surpass belief. Why weepest thou, my gentle Spenser? Have the rebels reached thy house?

SPENSER. They have plundered and utterly destroyed it?

ESSEX. I grieve for thee, and will see thee righted.
SPENSER. In this they have little harmed me.

ESSEX. How! I have heard it reported that thy grounds are fertile, and thy mansion large and pleasant.

SPENSER. If river, and lake, and meadow ground, and mountain, could render any place the aodbe of pleasantness, pleasant was mine, indeed! On the lovely banks of Mulla, I found deep contentment: under the dark alders did I muse and meditate. Innocent hopes were my gravest cares, and my playfullest fancy was with kindly wishes. Ah! surely of all cruelties, the worst is to extinguish our kindness. Mine is gone; I love the people and the land no longer. My lord, ask me not about them; I may speak injuriously.

ESSEX. Think rather, then, of thy happier hours and busier occupations; these likewise may instruct

No leaf, no bud will spring upon the earth before I sink into her breast for ever.

ESSEX. Thou, who art wiser than most men, should bear with patience, equanimity, and courage, what is common to all.

SPENSER. Enough! enough! enough! Have all men seen their infants burnt to ashes before their eyes?

ESSEX. Gracious God! Merciful Father! what is this?

SPENSER. Burnt alive! burnt to ashes! burnt to ashes!

The flames dart their serpent tongues through the nursery window; I cannot quit thee, my Elisabeth! I cannot lay down our Edmund. Oh these flames! they persecute, they hiss upon my brain, they taunt me with their fierce, foul voices, they carp at me, they wither me, they consume me, throwing back to me a little of life, to roll and suffer in, with their fangs upon me.-, .-Ask me, my lord, the things you wish to know from me— -I may answer them-I am now composed again. Command me, my gracious lord! I would yet serve you soon I shall be unable. You have stooped to raise me up; you have borne with me; you have pitied me, even like one not powerful; you have brought comfort, and will leave it with me; for gratitude is comfort.

Oh! my memory stands all a tip-toe on one point: when it drops from it, then it perishes. Spare me ; ask me nothing; let me weep before you in peace—the kindest act of greatness.

ESSEX. I should rather have dared to mount into the midst of the conflagration, than I now dare entreat thee not to weep. The tears that overflow thy heart, my Spenser, will stanch and heal it in their sacred streams, but not without hope in God.

SPENSER. My hope in God is, that I may soon see again what he has taken from me. Amidst the myriads of angels, there is not one so beautiful: and even he, if there be any, who is appointed my guai dian, could never love me so. Ah! these are idle thoughts, vain, wandering, distempered dreams. If there were ever guardian angels, he who so wanted one, my helpless boy, would not have left these arms upon my knees.

ESSEX. God help and sustain thee, too gentle But what am I? Spenser! I never will desert thee. Great they have called me! Alas! how powerless, then, and infantile, is greatness in the presence of calamity!

Come, give me thy hand: let us walk up and down the gallery. Bravely done! I will envy no more a Sidney or a Raleigh.

TABLE TALK.

Malherbe, the French poet, was very 'free of his speech. The Archbishop of Rouen having desired of him, as a great favour, that he would be present at a sermon which he was to preach, had invited him to dinner. When the cloth was taken Malherbe fell fast asleep; and the bishop away, waking him to carry him to the sermon, he desired to be excused, for that he found he should have "a comfortable nap without it.",

POWER OBTAINED BY KINDNESS.

The exercise of positive efficient benevolen ce towards inferiors, brings with it increase of the power which constitutes superiority. Of two men occupying a position of equality as regards others, the man who contributes most to the happiness of those others, will infallibly become the most influential; will dispose of a greater quantity of service. He will strengthen his position by augmenting the number of his good deeds. Every benefit conferred on others will be prolific to himself. And the benefits conferred on others increase the power of others; and the increase of power in the hands of those willing to do him service, is the increase of his own power. The compound interest brought to effective benevolence by deeds of benevolence, is happily limitless; of the seeds scattered by the husbandry of virtue, few will turn out barren.-Bentham's Deontology.

PERSEVERANCE IN A FAVOURITE OBJECT.

In conducting one of his geometrical surveys, it is animating to see the fortitude and skill displayed by Delambre, the astronomer. In a letter to (Lalande, written in 1797, he thus expresses himself: "I had about six hours' work, and I could not do it in less than ten days. In the morning I mounted to the signal, which I The nearest inn was that at Sullers,

All

left at sunset.
to which it took me three hours to go, and as much
to return, and the road was the worst I have met
with. At last I resolved to take up my lodging in a
neighbouring cow-house; I say neighbouring, because
it was only at the distance of an hour's walk. During
these ten days I could not take off my clothes; I
slept upon hay, and lived on milk and cheese.
this time I could hardly ever get sight of the two
objects at once; and during the observations, as well
as in the long intervals which they left, I was alter-
nately burned by the sun, frozen by the wind, and
drenched by the rain. I passed thus ten or twelve
hours every day, exposed to all the inclemency of the
weather; but nothing annoyed me so much as the
inaction."-Portrait Gallery.

ANGER.

PLEASANT EXPOSTULATION OF GOETHE'S MOTHER
WITH HERSELF.

Yesterday, however, I could not bear myself any

longer, and so I scolded myself heartily, and said

"Shame on thee, old Räthin (Counselloress), thou hast had happy days enough in the world, and thy Wolfgang to boot; and now, when the evil day comes, thou must e'en take it kindly, and not make these wry faces. What dost thou mean by being so impatient and naughty when it pleases God to lay the cross upon thee? What, then! thou wantest to walk on roses for ever? now when thou art past the time, too-past seventy!" Thus, you see, I talked to myself, and directly after my heart was lighter, and all went better, because I myself was not so naughty and disagreeable.—Recollections of Goethe..

JOURNAL, ON HIS MOTTO,
("TO ASSIST THE INQUIRING, ANIMATE THE STRUG-
GLING, AND SYMPATHISE WITH ALL.")
TRUE friend! thou dost indeed assist

That which most tickles us in this passion is the seeming justice of it, and that it appears to excuse itself by the malice of another. We ought TO THE EDITOR OF THE LONDON not, however, to entertain it; for to commit the correction of an offence to anger, were to punish vice by itself. Reason, which should govern, will admit no such officers as execute at their own license without her authority: to her, violence is improper who will (like nature) do all by the compass. She conceives that such violent motions only proceed from the imbecility of such as have them; who, like children and old men, trip and run when they think to walk.-Du Vaix.

INTERESTING DEDICATION.

To Thomas Caldecott, of the Middle Temple, Esq., who materially assisted in the completion of the present volume. This Treatise on English Versification' is affectionately dedicated by his schoolfellow in Winchester College, and friend of seventy years standing, The Author, W. C., Oxford, April 5, 1827. [The Rev. William Crowe, Public Orator of the University. A punster, who was by when this dedication was read out loud, said (but with no want of reverence) that he thought it time for a friend of so long "standing" to take a chair.]

JOSEPH WARTON AND POPE'S COUSIN.

Th' inquiring in their souls' distress;
When error wraps them like a mist

In its drear, mazy wilderness,
Then comest thou, with out-stretch'd hands and heart,
The mist is pass'd-and world! how sweet thou art!
Kind friend! thy words Do animate

The struggling, when their spirits fail;
Even though equal to our fate,

The mind will sometimes seem to quail,
With low, pale voice thus whisp'ring in our ear,
"How useless are thy efforts! how severe !"
Dear friend! aye thou dost sympathise

With all who tread the common earth;
The poor, rich, ignorant or wise,

Their hopes, their sufferings, their mirth,
All find thy heart an ever-open home:
Ah! never may itself, unshelter'd, roam!
Hull, Jan. 7, 1835.

J. S.

Thankful as we are, personally, to the writer of these verses, readers like him (and fortunately we have many) will believe us when we say, that we publish them quite as much for the evidence they afford of the salutary effect of hopeful writing upon good

hearts.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

'Ugolino' and the Iron Mask' shall be turned to account, as D. G. wishes.

R. H. R. (whom we are glad we please) says, in reference to our want of room for more correspondence, that we might employ a smaller type. On the other hand, we have readers (not aged ones either) who complain that our type is too small, and that they cannot read it by candle-light. What are we to do?

The sex in general were partial to him; and the editor has frequently seen the young, the handsome, and the gay, deserted by the belles, to attract the notice of the Doctor: whilst he was, on his part, thoroughly accessible, and imparted his lively sallies and instructive conversation with the most gallant and appropriate pleasantry. He was a great admirer of beauty; nor was it in his nature to use a rude expression to a female. He had, moreover, a great tenderness and love for children, and fully exemplified the maxim, that wherever there are a uniform tenderness to the female sex, and an indulgent notice of children, there is a warm and feeling heart. His politeness to the ladies, however, was once put to a hard test. He was invited, whilst Master of Winchester, to meet a relative of Pope, who, from her connection with the family, he was taught to believe could furnish him with much valuable and private information. Incited by all that eagerness which so strongly characterized him, he, on his introduction, sat immediately close to the lady, and, by inquiring her consanguinity to Pope, entered at once on the subject, when the following dialogue took place :We should like to publish some of the stanzas of Pray, sir, did you not write a book about my cousin "Thoughts on an Infant's Death,'-indeed all of Pope?"-"Yes, madam."-" They tell me 'twas them, for the sake of the general writing of the vastly clever. He wrote a great many plays, did not author. But the poem has too little of his origihe?" '—“ I have heard only of one attempt, madam." nality, considering its length. -“Oh, no, I beg your pardon, that was Mr Shakspeare: I always confound them."-This was too much even for the he Doctor's gallantry : replied " Certainly, madam ;" and, with a bow, changed his seat to the contrary side of the room,

An inquiry has been made respecting the 'Reflector.' R. A., of No. 17, Aske's Hospital, Hoxton, says he has a copy of it to dispose of, in ex

cellent condition.

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