the intended departure of the king, who could no longer support his captivity at Paris. He was to proceed to Metz, or some other fortified city containing troops and officers of known fidelity. On his arrival, he was to appeal, by proclamation, to all France. He was to remind the country of his benefactions and denounce the crimes of the metropolis. He was to declare the decrees of the national assembly null and void, as contrary to law, and founded upon a manifest usurpation of power. He was to dissolve the assembly itself, and order an immediate convocation of the bailliages to elect other deputies. He was, at the same time, to order all the commandants to resume their authority, and the parliaments their functions, and to act jointly against the rebels. He was to summon all the noblesse, to rally round him for the defence of the monarch and the throne. Mirabeau was to remain at Paris and watch the motions of the assembly. So soon as the royal proclamation should appear, all the coté droit and the moderates of the coté gauche were to vote, if my memory serves me correctly, that they should immediately follow the King and separate from those who were of a contrary opinion. If Paris persevered in its disobedience, all communication with it was to be stopped, and it was to be reduced by famine. It was certain that, in support of this plan, the clergy, who had been despoiled of their riches by the national assembly, would employ all their religious influence upon the people; and the Bishops were to meet and protest, in the name of religion, against the sacrilegious usurpations of the assembly. There The were four or five pages in this strain. project appeared arranged with much art, and all its parts seemed destined to work well in conjunction. "I cannot describe my emotion, or rather my alarm, on reading this paper. After a silence of a few minutes, I told Mirabeau that I saw, in this confidence, the strongest proof of his friendship for me; that I had no observations to make; that such projects were above my skill; that I was not competent to decide upon the fate of the monarchy, nor to give an opinion upon the differences between the King and the assembly: but that my resolution was taken, and I should quit Paris in two days." p. 206-210. It suffices to add, that, after a conversation of two or three hours, during which they had some reason to fear having been overheard, Dumont convinced Mirabeau that he was but a tool of the court in this affair, and prevailed upon him to abandon the project. The following are a few scattered but pithy sentences: "When Louis XVI. held the famous séance royale to annul the decree of the commons, who had voted themselves a national assembly, Mirabeau, in pointing out the dangers of such a measure, said-' It is thus that Kings are led to the scaffold!' Of Necker, he said, 'He is a clock that always goes too slow. Mallebranche saw everything in God, but Necker sees everything in Necker.' Of the national assembly, 'It has Hannibals enough, it only wants a 'Fabius.' Speaking of the illusions which, having once governed men, were for ever destroyed, he said, 'We have long been looking with a magic-lan• When a tern, but the glass is now broken.' pond is full,' he observed, in reference to the new political event, a single mole, by piercing the bank, may cause an inundation.' A bon mot of Talleyrand is characteristic. "The dearth which kept the people in a state of effervescence, and the scene at the chateau appeared, at the time, sufficiently to account for the insurrection at Versailles. "It was not till afterwards that a plot was imagined and attributed to the Duke of Orleans. This suspicion acquired consistency, when it was known that Lafayette had insisted upon the Duke leaving Paris and going to England. The secret of this intrigue has never transpired, but I recollect that, two years after, in a confidential conversation with the Bishop of Autun, that prelate (M. de Talleyrand) uttered these remarkable words: 'The Duke of Orleans is the slop-pail into which is thrown all the filth of the revolution!" p. 178-179. The following may be read with profit, and may a little enliven the melancholy drudgery of the Irish Tithe Committee. "Tithes,' said the Archbishop of Aix, in a whining tone, that voluntary offering made by the devout faithful- Tithes,' interrupted the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, in his quiet and modest way, which rendered the trait more piquant, that voluntary offering of the devout faithful, concerning which there are now forty thousand lawsuits in the kingdom." p. 21. Poetical Ephemeras. By James Pennycook Brown. Aberdeen, Brown & Co.; London, Smith, Elder & Co. Stanzas. Oh! methinks it were sweet to die Illustrations of the Vaudois, in a Series of Views. Engraved by Edward Finden, from drawings by Hugh Dyke Acland, Esq., accompanied with Descriptions. London, 1832. Tilt. Charles Tilt has some skill in producing a pretty book; this is a very handsome one; it contains some dozen or so of engravings, of the romantic scenes of a most romantic country; and the letter-press connects scene with scene, and ties the whole up like a chaplet of flowers. We wonder how travellers find out new scenes for the pencil, in a land through which our painters of the picturesque have frequently wandered; but we wonder more, how these same Findens find time to work at so many undertakings. Why don't they contract for all the graver work of the metropolis, build a factory on the plan of Owen, and reduce all other engravers to the condition of journeymen? Facilis, Celera, Certa. London, 1832. Sherwood & Co. THIS is declared to be an attempt to render short-hand writing more easy, and of more ready application, by the use of simple characters, for all simple sounds, and by determinate modes of abbreviations, according to the principles of the English language. We certainly be THIS little volume (which, in its printing and getting up, does great credit to the Aberdeen press,) shows rather strikingly how much poetry is now written, because much poetry has been read. Here are amiable feelings and imaginative phraseology employed on picturesque subjects; and yet there is scarcely a line that seems the spontaneous growth of the author's own mind. It is a volume of poetical words, and made us cry out with Jean Jacques," Les choses! les choses! Je ne répeterai jamais assez que nous donnons trop de pouvoir aux mots: avec notre education babillarde nous ne fesons que des babillards." However, Mr. Brown has done no worse than many who make greater pretensions ; and if his 'Ephemeras' have no value as poetry-assuming that much-abused word to mean the melodious expression of original thought, deep feeling, and accurate observation of mind, man and nature,-it is but fair to acknowledge that his volume contains some pleasing verses. If Mr.Brown determine to write again, we would seriously dying it-having had no less than three letters advise him, when he does so, to lock up every modern poet in his possession, and turn an especially deaf ear to the syrens among them. At present, without any intention on his own part, he writes the said measure generally proving fatal to young versifiers, and often overpowering the strength of old ones. He will also do well to make sparing use of another metre, which is a great seducer of the inexperienced, because, if the most difficult to write well, it is the easiest to write after a fashion, and has a light-horse-gallop grandeur, often mistaken for real power : The poison cup is in his hand, and in his heart despair, For wildly back upon the earth he flings his weight of care, &c.-p. 94. It is, after all, both a mortifying and mollifying reflection, that the carelessnesses of old writers occasion the faults of young ones. On this score Mr. Brown has a claim to mercy; and we give a pretty extract: lieve the writer of this work to be master of the subject, for he has compressed the whole essay-theory, alphabet, abbreviations, examples, and exercises, into seven pages! Those, therefore, who desire to be informed on the subject, will not lose much time by studying his work; and though we are not ourselves friendly to the use of short-hand, except professionally, we know that many persons are desirous of stu within this month, requesting information on the subject. Important Facts, proving the great Utility and very great Superiority of Captain Jekyll's Patent Portable Vapour Bath. By J. Jekyll. London, Saunders. relating to the use of vapour baths in general; THIS pamphlet contains facts and observations but, of course, has particular reference to Capt. Jekyll's patent portable bath. We have examined not only the pamphlet but the bath itself, and the latter appears to us a very useful invention; but twelve guineas is a price out of all reason; and, till they are manufactured at a much cheaper rate, the patent will neither benefit the patentee nor the public. Essay on the Right of Hindoos over Ancestral Property. By Rajah Rammohun Roy. London, 1832. Smith, Elder & Co. A legal question very ably argued, but of no general interest to the English reader. One of the prohibitions of the Hindoo law on the subject of marriage, incidentally mentioned, is strange enough to be worth quoting: "Let him not marry a girl with reddish hair, nor with any deformed limb, nor one troubled with habitual sickness, nor one either with no hair or with too much, nor one immoderately talkative, nor one with inflamed eyes." p. 33. OUR LIBRARY TABLE. IN the days of our youth when we first lifted a fowling-piece, and began our career as a sportsman, to us the game-laws were as a book sealed; gamekeepers were heard of only besouth the Trent, and over the scene of our exploits, lords of the manor and squires of low degree existed, but at the rate of one to the ten miles square. We had not the fear of any one before our eyes, and blazed away right and left and straightforward, always bringing down some winged inhabitant of the air, and sparing neither the little nor the large, the savoury nor the unwholesome. In this unsparing mood we heaped our hall table with all and sundry-the black, the white, the mottled, and the brown. There were ptarmigans and teals, blackcocks and hooded crows, moor-hens and kites-in short, everything from the raven down to the wren. Our hall table was but the type or symbol of our library table on this eventful evening: here are books of all shapes and sizes, in all styles and in all moods; the lofty and the low; the inspired and the dull; the practised veteran and the raw recruit, whom those seductive gipsies, the Muses, have wiled away from some worthy trade to pursue their will-o'-wisp vocation. We shall treat them as we did the aforesaid victims of the fowling-piece, some of which were plucked and roasted, and eaten with a savoury sauce, and baptized in their passage by the choicest wine; while others again were sent with compliments to some distant friend, or consigned at once to oblivion, from being rank and unpalatable. So now to our task. 1. The first work which comes to hand is the second volume of Pickering's Milton, pertaining to the 'Aldine Poets'; a beautiful book, containing a large portion of that divinest of all poems, the Paradise Lost. It is needless to say more of such a work than that it maintains its high character for accuracy and elegance, and that some of the notes are new and valuable. 2. The second is a little wren of a book, called Cobbin's Moral Fables,' a thing fit for a child in size, but in value suitable for age. It contains many valuable fables and parables, such as influence life and lead it to virtue: nor is the preface unworthy of perusal; the ridiculous assertion of Rousseau, that all fables which ascribe reason and speech to animals should be with held from children, as being only vehicles of deception, is very pithily dissected and confronted with the Scripture and Addison and Cowper. 3. What volumes are these? Things of shreds and patches! verse and prose of all kinds, and on all subjects. It is the Album,' with one hundred engravings, in two volumes, printed for Strange, in Paternoster-row. There are tales, verses, sketches, memoirs, and anecdotes, worthy of better company than they have found. Here the battered contributor puts forth his dull strength, and the youth just begun his infatuated dalliance with the muse finds a place open for his first lispings: of course, there is much that deserves the speedy oblivion which swallows up more worthy things; but there are here and there bits and scraps meriting a better fate. We cannot stay to particularize them. 4. Mary Kerr Hart Key's 'Enigmettes, or Flora's Offering to the Young,' published by Robins, in Ivy-lane, is a pretty little book, yet, verily, it puzzles us sorely. There is much that is amiable, and sensible, and elegant; little that is vigorous or original. Some useful lessons are reduced to the limits of rhyme; and, on the whole, we have seen as indifferent verses obtain high praise; but we are in a fastidious mood just now, and coy and hard to please. 5. Herbert's Country Parson, Church Porch, &c. is a very little volume, which contains thirty-seven different images of the duties which 6. The Phenomena of Nature Familiarly Ex- change. advantages to be derived from a study of the language; and the first part is more than usually interesting. ORIGINAL PAPERS TO SPENCER PERCEVAL, ESQ. M.P. I mean no offence, Sir- Thou long Tom Coffin singing out, 'Hold Fast'- Great growth of Cholera, 7. The Poems' of Henry Incledon Johns, Oh, Mr. Perceval! I'll bet a dollar, a cuted. 10. Catherine of Cleves,' published by Mr. Andrews, is a translation from the hand of Lord Francis Leveson Gower; and we learn, from those who have compared it with the original, that it owes some of its present attractions to his taste and fancy. There are very natural and powerful scenes, certainly, in the drama; and it could not well be otherwise; for if the foreign work did not contain them, the noble translator has genius enough to create them in the necessary spirit. 11. Of the Sermons' by the Rev. Cornelius Ives, we can give but a brief account. They are twenty-five in number, and pious and earnest, rather than eloquent; while they can startle few by the boldness of their speculations, they will gain the attention of many by their learning and their moderation. 12. The Tour in Westmorland, and Remarks on Grouse Shooting,' by Gideon Michael Angelo 13. We have also to notice the Introductory And new deaths reckon'd, courses; While doctors, tho' they bid us rub and chafe, The man is safest who gets in the safe?- By way of a variety, He's preaching to the wind. I cannot dare not-must not fast, and won't, My constitution can't obey such censors: Three times a day to eat; T. HOOD. THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE. George Crabbe was a preacher and a poet, but though, no doubt, a good and laborious divine, he owes his fame in this world to his intercourse with the Muse. Of the style of his Sermons we know little, nor know we anything of the people to whom they were addressed; but if they partook of the stern and unsocial spirit of his verse, then wo! say we, to those over whose unfortunate heads they were poured; and if his flock at all resembled the men and women of his poetry, then God be merciful to the preacher, for his people were past redemption. For the space of fifty years and odd, it was his pleasure to delineate the features of the people around him, and to report in verse the state of rustic society in manners and in morals. The spies of old, who cried out, that the water was naught and the ground barren, seem to have been of the tribe of Crabbe: yet they differed from the divine in this respect, that they believed not what they said, whereas, there can be no doubt of the perfect sincerity of the bard. He saw nothing in humble life but want and crime; the homes of his people he considered as upper stories to the pest-house and the work house, and the inhabitants themselves as the predestined heirs of sin and sorrow, whose chief employment was to cheat, and swear, and lie, and exhibit "Their Maker's image more than half defaced." This picture of mental and personal degradation he has repeated through almost all his works: we find it in the city, in the field, in the workhouse, and the cottage he is, in verse, one of Job's comforters to the people, he consoles them with the healing doctrine that hell was not made for dogs: for the rich we know not that he opened, in imagination, the doors of Paradise; but the poor and the needy he has represented worthy of nothing but "penal fire," and fit only for taking refuge within the jaws of that inexorable pit, which, like the public workhouse, stands open for the husbandman and the mechanic. Now, this "Come curse me, Jacob, and come defy me, Israel" sort of style, is anything but to our liking: and, were it ever so much so, we cannot conceal from ourselves that it is a view of humble society at once unjust and unpoetic. The rustic population of the land are neither so wretched nor so depraved as the reverend bard describes them; there is no want of worth and talent among the poor; and, though we acknowledge that sin abounds, and that the manners of many are shameless, we hold it to be bad taste in the Muse to close the right eye on all the virtues, and open the left on all the wretchedness of the peasantry, and, pitching her voice to a tone sarcastic and dolorous, sing of the cureless sores and feculence of the land. There is, no doubt, something wrong in the internal construction of that poet who considers that every man with a ragged coat and every woman with uncombed locks is fallen and reprobate, and who dipping his brush in the lake of darkness paints in merry old England as a vagrant and a strumpet. If we, however, dislike the foundation on which this distinguished poet raised the superstructure of his verse, and condemn the principles on which he wrote as unnatural, we cannot for the soul of us be insensible to the matchless skill and rough ready vigour of his dark delineations. In inanimate nature he sternly refuses to avail himself of the advantages which his subject presents, of waving woods, pebbly shores, purling streams, and flowery fields: he takes a cast of nature homely, forbidding and barren, and compels us to like it by the force of his colour and by the stern fidelity of his outline: while in living nature he seems resolutely to have proscribed all things mentally or externally lovely, that he might indulge in the dry hard detail of whatsoever we dislike to contemplate, and triumph over our prejudices and feelings by the resistless vigour of his language and sentiments, and the terrific fidelity of his representations. On him who refuses to give to the world his full sympathy, the world usually retaliates sevenfold: Crabbe is by no means so popular as his genius deserves of late there has been a woful coldness on the part of the admirers of him, who has not been inaptly termed "The Hogarth of Poets;" and his works, in spite of the intense laudations of all manner of reviews, remain undisturbed on the bookseller's shelf. The critic who first perceived the true character of Crabbe's poetry and pronounced it untrue to nature, was that Anarch old, Gifford, of the Quarterly. common life, (he observes,) every man instinc : "In Yet, nothing heeded, would one stroke suffice tively acquires the habit of diverting his atten- Of another stamp is the following-it is the picture of a loose liver fallen into misfortune and the vale of years. And now we saw him on the beach reclined, in which the seeds of the best affections have When The Borough,' a poem, was pub- The Anchor, too, affords the seamen joys, 6 In small smoked room, all clamour, crowd, and noise; Standing they drink, they swearing smoke, while all The deep dry ditch-the rushes in the fen- The sorrowful softness of the following That he who made these three delineations was a man of deep observation, and a poet of a high order, no one can fail to perceive; in every page which he has written may be found passages lighter or darker, but all breathing the same sort of spirit, and all wearing, too truly, the sombre livery of a dolorous muse. It must not be inferred from what we have said, that Crabbe never deviates into the paths of peace, and happiness, and virtue: he indulges us with many beautiful snatches of that nature; yet they are generally as brief as they are brilliant, and may be compared to a few stars in a tempestuous night, which only aggravate the general gloom. Of his 'Tales of the Hall' we shall say nothing; nor of the manuscript poem which lies in the hands of Mr. Murray-that his works will be offered to us in a cheap form, and in a monthly issue, we have little doubt, yet we are not among the advisers of such a step. The poems of Crabbe appeal not largely enough to the sympathy of mankind to be popular. There is little imagination and much truth-it is the happy union of both which promises success first, and fame after. The stern poet we have attempted to delineate the man was of a milder mood: in truth, Crabbe was one of the meekest and gentlest He had a soft, low voice, and of mankind. an insinuating ease of address, which won upon the most unsocial-if a friend desired him to shake a stranger by the hand, he did it, and not without a well-turned compliment. He was a scholar, and a ripe one; a preacher too, we have heard said, of much attraction, and a poet of no common kind; he nevertheless failed to find preferment in the church-he contrived, however, to support himself by his pen and a small living which he enjoyed at Trowbridge, through the patronage of the Duke of Rutland. He was of Aldborough, in Suffolk, where he was born in the spring of 1754; he owed his education to Cambridge, and his success to himself. His health was generally good: he sometimes visited London, but preferred his own home, where he expired, after a short illness, on the 8th of February, in the 78th year of his age. Of his kindness of nature, and of his continued possession of his powers, we are enabled, by the kindness of a friend, to give ample proof. He had been applied to in behalf of Mr. Leigh Hunt, for whose fate many men of genius have expressed a deep sympathy; and the answer which he returned may be considered as one of the last letters that the hand which traced the Parish Register' and the 'Borough,' wrote: Trowbridge, 24 Jan. 1832. "SIR,-It would ill become one who has been so much indebted to the kindness of his friends as I have been, to disregard the application which you are so good as to make in behalf of Mr. Leigh Hunt. My influence indeed is small, residing, as I do, in a place wherein little except cloth is made, and little except newspapers read; yet there are a more liberal class of readers, though I am afraid they are not among the wealthy portion of our inhabitants. that I am doing myself honour by uniting, for the purpose you mention, with those persons whose titles and names are annexed to the printed paper intended for general circulation. "I am, Sir, respectfully, &c. "GEORGE CRABBE." "To John Foster, Esq. "Burton-street, Burton-crescent, London." I consider The clothiers of Trowbridge expressed a sense of their loss by shutting up their shops when the poet died-it will likely be long before they are honoured with the company of such a poet again. ANSWER TO PAUPER. What have you to do with streams? What right have such as you to dun Talk of passions-amorous fancies ? Talk of wintry chill and storm, Suppose you don't enjoy the spring, You cannot look for everything On eighteen-pence a week! With seasons what have you to do?— If such as you don't like this world- OVERSEER. THE POETICAL WORKS OF MR. LEIGH HUNT. THERE are circumstances which of themselves apologize for little deviations from established forms; and we are sure we shall stand excused for going out of our ordinary course to announce this work. Mr. Leigh Hunt, a labourer in the fields of literature, who has toiled on cheerfully and with good heart and hope under all the changing influences of a quarter of a century, is now, in "the sere and yellow" time of life, struggling against great difficulties, with failing health, and a numerous family dependent on his exertions. This fact having become known, some friends have kindly taken upon themselves to propose the publication of his Poetical Works by subscription, and thus endeavour to anticipate many more anxious months and many another illness-in a word, to put him in advance of his difficulties. It is the anxious wish of those who differ or agree with Mr. Hunt in opinion, that minor circumstances should on this occasion be forgotten, and that all should unite as in a common cause to testify respect for genius; and whatever may be the issue of this appeal, it must ever be to Mr. Hunt a pleasant and consolatory recollection, that the honoured of all parties have given to it the sanction of their name, as will be seen by the following note which accompanies the prospectus:— Several of the friends of literature, having been made acquainted with the pressing difficulties under which a man of genius is unhappily sinking, are anxious to unite in one common OUR WEEKLY GOSSIP ON LITERATURE THE many literary papers which monthly, "I commenced it in ill health, and quit it in worse. It was the necessity of going to the criticisms before I went to bed, that broke me down; to say nothing of other anxieties which are apt to accompany most men of letters, who live by their pen." purpose of justice and benevolence towards him, theatre night after night, and of writing the that they may testify their respect for intellectual exertion, and rescue the cause of letters from an unworthy reproach. They approve of the annexed plan, proposed with a view to a general subscription. They invite every friend of genius in the community to join with them in promoting its success; so as to secure, by their united exertions, a solid testimony to Mr. LEIGH HUNT, of their desire to see a man of letters, of his standing and reputation, not only rescued from the immediate danger of necessity, but put in possession of such a security of means, as would no longer leave him to the chance of repeated illnesses, and all the anxieties they produce, in a man of sensibility and a father. But we must not omit to mention, that a new threepenny, called The Spectator, has started at Edinburgh, which contains some fair articles; but then the Literary Journal from the same goodly city, the first number is defunct. We are also shortly to receive, of Tait's Magazine, which has promised much in the way of vigour and originality; and on the same day, Regent Street is to furnish us with novelty, and a first number of the British. A third monthly, of which we hear good promise, is a Nautical Magazine, which is to contain a register of maritime discovery in all parts of the world. Dover-F. Leveson Gower-Vassall Holland -Mulgrave - John Russell-John Edward Swinburne Edward Lytton Bulwer-John H. Hawkins-Thomas Babington Macaulay Richard L. Sheil-Thomas Barnes-John Bowring-Thomas Campbell-Samuel Taylor Coleridge-Walter Coulson-Allan Cunningham-lished edition of the Works of the Ettrick Charles Wentworth Dilke-William GodwinJoseph Hine-James Hogg, Thomas HoodJ. D'Israeli-Joseph Jekyll-William JerdanJames Sheridan Knowles - Charles LambWalter Savage Landor-Henry Luttrell-Frederick Marryatt · Thomas Pringle - Bryan Waller Proctor Leitch Ritchie - Samuel Rogers-Thomas Roscoe Horatio Smith Robert Southey Sharon Turner - William Wordsworth. The works are to be selected by Mr. Hunt (with corrections and emendations), accompanied by notes and a preface, and printed in one handsome volume, price one guinea; and, to add to the value, it will contain an original poem, the first, of any length, that he has written for many years. The names of those, who are disposed to assist the present undertaking, will be received by Mr. Edward Moxon, 64, New Bond Street, Mr. Charles Tilt, 86, Fleet Street, and Mr. Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, Of more enduring works we hear little. The first volume of the collected and embel Shepherd, is in progress. The first tale will be preceded by a Life of the Author, from his own pen, brought down to the present day. 6 The Royal Academy have elected Briggs and Newton, as Academicians, in the room of Jackson and Northcote. We have been asked, and by good judges, what pictures either have painted, which surpass the 'Sale of Circassian Slaves'-the Death of Archbishop Sharpe'-or, Knox admonishing Queen Mary,' by Allan; but we hear, in the way of explanation, that the latter suffers considerably from a complaint in his eyes; and that the Academy are at this moment in actual want of members who can assist in the business of the Institution; and that this weighed with them in their decision. There are now two vacancies to fill up amongst the associates, and, we believe, about fifty candidates. Stanfield, Fraser, Web ster, Hart, Rothwell (who is about to visit Italy), and so many other men of talent, that we had rather reserve ourselves for unquestioned comment, and cavil at the election, fall on whom it may so becoming in critics, than have the onerous privilege of a vote on the occasion. Before we take leave of art, we may add, that Pickersgill has a whole-length picture of Lady Coote, and a portrait (for Mr. Peel's gallery) of Mr. Goulburn, nearly finished, for the ensuing ex hibition. The meeting last Saturday at the Artists' Conversazione was very numerously attended, and, what is of more importance, there was a very splendid assemblage of works of art in fact, it is allowed by all to have been the richest treat of the kind that has yet been seen at any of these meetings. Mr. Landseer contributed many sketches-most admirable and vigorous specimens of his fertile pencil. The unfinished Portrait of a Lady, said to be a scion of a noble family, will long be remembered; and the studies of Highland Sports were the theme of general admiration. Too much praise cannot be given to Mr. Landseer for his very kind exertions on this occasion, and we hope his example will not be thrown away upon his professional brethren. Mr. Robson also contributed a we await the display with more philosophy. Literary puffing is bad, but theatrical puffing is detestable. It is also reported that Mad. Puzzi is engaged. An Opera Buffa, by Donizetti, is the next to be produced; Vestale,' by Spontini, is to follow; and we hear that, to gratify some medling patrons, Mr. Mason has promised to bring out Giulietta e Romeo,' by Vaccai, who is now in London. With the present company, a good Opera Buffa may succeed; but Pasta and Rubini are too fresh in our memory, to leave us content with second-rate singing, music, or acting, in an Opera Seria. The grand ballet of Cendrillon,' is in rehearsal-is this novelty? Gühr, from Frankfort, we are told, is likely to be engaged as conductor of the German operas-we hope this may prove true; even in Germany, he is considered a marvellous fellow. He was sent for to Cassel, where he reproduced operas of Spohr, with the greatest success, after they had failed even under the direction of the author himself! He, indeed, might teach us musical organization and discipline. Covent Garden people has astonished their 'Robert le Diable' is now ready at both our Great National Theatres. Rophino Lacy has adapted the words for Covent Garden, and the music has been scored from a portfolio of drawings, all choice specimens, in-piano-forte copy. The silent industry of the cluding two which were generally admired a marine subject by Callcott, drawn with all that truth and fidelity which distinguishes the pictures of this admirable artist: and a drawing a very rare thing-Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano in the horse-pond, by Mr. Mulready: it was a very spirited representation; and although it did not realize the too fastidious taste of the artist himself, it met with the well-deserved encomiums of the rest of the company;-nor must we omit to mention a drawing, done in his younger days, by that glorious old man Stothard, of the 'Children in the Wood taking leave of their Parents.' We cannot take our leave of this meeting, without congratulating the members of the Society on the successful exertions which they have made to redeem the credit, which they had lost by the previous meetings; and we persuade ourselves, that a hint given in kindness in this paper, was not without its spirit-stirring influence. rivals at the other house. Mr. Bishop, it is said, reluctantly undertook his task. We have seen some of the music, which does not satisfy our expectations; bereft of stage and scenic effect, and the novelty in Meyerbeer's scoring, the music alone will not command success. FINE ARTS NEW PUBLICATIONS. The Illustrations of the Poems of Burns,' are painted by Kidd, engraved by Shury, published by Hearne, and amount in all to a dozen. Some have appeared heretofore in the Royal Lady's passages of the great poet, and some of them, Magazine. They are selected from favourite such as the Poor Man's Wine,' and 'The Farmer's address to his auld Mare,' are worthy of the verse. There are others, however, which we like less. No man mad with tooth-ache ever gapes so tremendously as the sufferer in Kidd's sketch; he knows that to open his mouth lets in cold, and aggravates the pain. The one we like least, is The Death of Poor Maillie ;' a shepherd's surprise is of a more subdued kind than the painter imagines. The third part of the 'Anecdotes of Hogarth,' accompanied by twelve engravings from his works, has just been published by Nichols & Son, and we have no doubt will be acceptable to the public. Don Quixote meditating, and Simon Frazer Lord Lovat, are capital things, and Sancho's Feast in his Island is still better. To the anecdotes of Nichols and Stevens, Walpole, Ireland, and Charles Lamb, are added some dozen or so of passages from 'Cunningham's Life of Hogarth.' The text from so many paintings by all sorts of hands, resembles a tartan-plaid-very opposite in the hues of its bars, yet blending well together and forming a pleasing whole. Number 6. of the Select Views of the Lakes of Scotland,' contains Loch Ericht,' in Perthshire-a solitary and gloomy scene, such as the eagles and wild deer love; Loch Lydon,' in the same picturesque county-a sheet of water lying on the dreary Moor of Rannock, a thousand feet above the level of the sea; and Loch Ran nock itself, the inhabitant, as a highlander would say, of a very lonely and beautiful valley, some three miles broad and twenty miles long. These landscapes are accompanied by descriptions in prose, containing many curious and characteristic anecdotes of the place and people. 'Love me, love my Dog,' is a very pretty groupe of children, designed and drawn on stone by F, Wilkin, whose portraits we have so often commended, both for beauty and accuracy of drawing. 'The New Church of St. Dunstan in the West,' is a Gothic building of considerable beauty, [Erratum.-In last week's report, the name of Capt. with a very handsome tower, which is neither Smyth, was misprinted English.] ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. The début of La Contessa Lazise this evening, at the King's Theatre, in the character of Desdemona, being "her first appearance on any stage," has been referred to by a contemporary journalist as a subject of interest from its novelty: we trust our nobility will feel it as one deserving commiseration and indulgence that they will show a generous sympathy with the sad fortunes of this noble lady-and that the musical world will waive for once, and it may be for one night only, the which he was furnished. Several maps illusprivilege of expressing any feeling of disap-trative of the country through which he passed, probation, should the performance not equal were laid before the Society. their hopes and former experience. Curioni, we hear, is engaged to play Jago to Winter's Otello, with Signor Calveri as Roderigo; and a Signora Albertini is the change for Castelli of respected memory. The silly friends of the management are quite in raptures with the condescending debutante, and are awaiting with anxiety her appearance in some character which will admit of the full developement of those mental and physical powers which for this night are to be hid under the bushel of her amiabilities: for ourselves, Feb. 13.-G. W. Hamilton, Esq., Vice President, in the chair.-Some extracts were read from a Journal of Lieut.-Col. Monteith, kept on a tour through Azerdbijan, and on the shores of the Caspian Sea. He ascended the lofty summit of Sahend, between Tabreez and Maraga, the height of which he found to be 9,000 feet. In the course of his tour, Colonel Monteith received the utmost attention, both on visiting any places he chose, and from the guides with MEETINGS FOR THE ENSUING WEEK. MONDAY, Phrenological Society Medical Society Linnæan Society TUESDAY, Horticultural Society WEDNES. THURSD. FRIDAY, SATURD. Institution of Civil Engineers. Society of Arts.... Royal Society {Society of Antiquaries. Royal Institution Eight, P.M. Eight, P.M. .p. 7, P.M. p. 8, P.M. .Eight, P.M. .. p. 8, P.M. Westminster Medical Society.. Eight, P.M. so long nor so tapering as some we have seen, nor so short and abridged of fair aerial loftiness as others. The print before us has no architect's name, but, we believe, it is the work of Mr. Shaw; it is printed by Engelmann, and sold by Walker. 'Lord Amherst,' engraved after Reynolds, by H. S. Ryall, though scarcely soft enough in some of its lines, is a clever work, and gives much of the fine light and shade of the original. We have seen nothing better in that style of art since the last work by the inimitable Cousins. 'Saul,' from the original of Varley, by Linnel, recalls that very noble painting to our recollection. It is conceived from that affecting passage in Scripture, "The beauty of Israel is slain on the high places." The painter imagined that the body of the king had reached the gate of Jerusalem-mourners followed buried in grief -the very trees on the way side looked sad, and the towers were peopled with sorrowful faces. Not a little of this has found its way to the engraving now before us: it is published for Albert Varley, No. 47, Edgware-road. We cannot take leave of this subject without inquiring, at the request of more than one artist, why it is that this fine original picture is placed, at the British Gallery, in such a situation that it is impossible to make out any of its beautiful |