cabinet of a silly old King, who has been taught by the Sages and Poets of his country, the true æsthetic relish for "Eine Natur." But, on these questions, Women won't reason. She who winneth the race 'twixt Cutty Sark and Cutty-Sark must prepare for the worst possible construction. Little need Dollallolla have minded any displeasure: could she only have kept herself quiet. But the notion of the Public fandango seems never to have been tamed out of her. Unlike the Irishwoman who "neither loved grandeur nor goodness-but only pace and dacency," the Countess of Landsfeldt was constant to tightrope and slack-wire. Dance she must and dance she would: not "tumble," like the Queen of Sheba, for King Solomon alone, but for Ministers and Students and Newspaper folks-aye, and snap her castanets in the sinister faces of the Jesuits !-perfectly sure" the confident thing!"-that no moth would eat her velvets, nor high wind tear her laces ;-and knowing by hard experience of trade, that gold in the pocket won't tarnish. 0 most random and short-sighted of Dollallollas: to entertain such notions of reconciling Free-trade and Monopoly ! "A little sun, a little rain," (and a little mud of the Munich kennels, too, so the journals tell us!) and the gates of Dollallolla's House opened,—and out was she driven, to witch what other world, the Saint of Dancers knoweth best. And the barbarous people rushed in, to ravage, and destroy and demolish the treasures, the description of which had made so many a good woman's mouth water,—and the King wiped his eyes, and added another sonnet (such as it is) to his centenary; and with a general hiss the curtain has fallen on the Masque or Farce, which, peradventure, will be resumed somewhere about All Fool's Day. For even Lord George himself, will hardly now assert, that the existence of any theatre whatsoever, or that the sovereignty or abdication of any puppet,-is stable. But if this deposition of a Queen Bobtail in Bavaria be admired at, as a useful and comical illustration of the uncertainty of greatness, what are plain people to make of French Fashions for March? Tag and Rag gone out!-clean swept away,-before Europe could cry "O!"-and hardly affording our hospitable Queen time to reciprocate past civilities, by fitting out her bathing machine to bring the draggled King safe ashore! Why, the other day, when my Boy and I were in Paris, it appeared too evident that nobody believed much in anybody,-I mean, among what we call the privileged classes. Heads given to palsy were shaking as usual, Croakers-a race never still from the time of "the Frogs" of Aristophanes to the more modern grenouilles whose song is cut short by the cooks of Gaul-were as usual keeping up their dismal ditty about "Dancing on the surface of a Volcano,"Reformers were ravening for their banquet,-the chink of money was to be heard inspiritingly on the back-stairs of most public offices, and on the best of authorities, the Citizen King had expressed his determination of "driving his fiacre" just as pleased him, let his "Cousin of England take Spanish matches and Swiss intriguings ever so much amiss! He had even made up a party to see the Prohibition. Not Dollallolla herself was surer of Empire and a Mausoleum at a grateful People's cost! There is something sublime in the absurdity of such security. The man who for eighteen years, had been dogged by Assassination-so that for a time (Gossip Rumour saith) no one knew in which precise chamber of the Palace he was to pass the night--was now so richly curtained with fortifications, so lulled by the murmur of his myriad troops, so strong in the consciousness of the money garnered up for family use that he could bid his soul eat, drink, and be merry! and talk of one coming Riot more or less with as glib an indifference as we talk of one other Punch or Dreadful-Accident-Maker, who squeaks, or drawls past our windows, until silenced by the Police-The brute, besotted stillness of some Pagan Idol, without human motion in its limbs, or speculation in its eyesamid things of life, has always impressed me with a certain awe : and with feelings akin to this, do I regard the recent position of that huge mass of Self-Cheatery and Delusion-once a shrewd, energetic man—the fall whereof we have just heard.—The transaction is mighty enough to make the wonder of ages, yet small enough to be told in a nursery rhyme. -- The Clock struck ONE! Never was stroke so loud :-never fall so mean! One or two accessory touches of comedy are not to be lost sight of as heightening the deep and serious meaning of the event, and pointing its moral by the force of fine contrast. The Seven Undertaker's Men in Black, who paraded the Faubourg, trying to proclaim the Duke of Bordeaux, and who finding their pleasant little proclamation vain, went forthwith and inscribed themselves as Republicans "what an end was there of "that timehonouring Loyalty," the praises of which Young England has hymned with so much good sympathy and bad rhyme !-Then, who could help smiling at the departure of Prince Louis Napoleon with his two Carpet Bags, for the scene of Earthquake ?-(My Lame Boy persists that in one, there must have been a stuffed Eagle which will travel flat!)-And who could avoid laughing at his speedy return-with the thanks of the Republic for his tendered services; and its polite assurances that it was best served by his keeping at a distance? Napoleon's name no longer a spell which can raise half an hour's cry on one of those stormy days in France when a government is to let !!.. . . . . . have we— who are not old men-lived to see last scenes like these? Verily much that has been used to call itself Greatness, must hold its state now a days on Fields of Cloth-of-Frieze, whereas the Field of Cloth-of-Gold was of late hardly superb enough for its parade !-Dollallolla is forced to return to her horsewhips and pistols; her cigarettes and short petticoats ;-Henry Cinq, may go or stay, wherever he likes,-the new Napoleon, is invited back to London, (not to call it "being sent packing ") ere his secretary has had time to take the Flat Eagle out of the Carpet Bag !Conclusions how crushing in their impotence! But, to the English, the "whereabouts of the deposed Personages is a matter of some interest. The ladies first. We think that Dollallolla is too wise to come our way. Mr. Lumley, we are sure, will hardly engage her again, seeing that "the stalls" sentenced her gambades as having 66 а kick too much" of the Quadrant in them-neither will Mr. Delafield :—still less Madame Vestris: least of all Madame Celeste: supposing that Dollallolla was willing to dance "at the Minors" after having figured on Royal boards. And it is the fixed idea of Miss Weak that The Pope has sent for her; and, that, ere May-day comes, she will be heard of as triumphing in the Vatican !-Ladies that walk about with Caps of Liberty on poles, are in great present request in Italy and after having cajoled a Crown, it would be fun to humbug a Tiara !-So to Rome let Dollallolla post, an she will, and try her luck there; unless, she has dreams of turning the Grand Turk round her finger. But Dollallolla's brother in ignominious ejectment, he looks to England-is here-fondly recollecting old times, no doubt. Here, too, are his sons and his daughters and his grandchildren: into whose recollection this Revolution may possibly be printed, as a time of pleasurable 66 excitement of no lessons, and no dressing up, and no good behaviour and of seeing many queer people and lastly, of going to stay with the little Folks of kind Queen Victoria, and having the run of their perfidious English playthings!-For to children, discomfort becomes a pleasure, so it only brings along with it novelty. There is another of the fugitives, too, by whom the arrival at Newhaven may come to be agreeably remembered, when a Revolution or two more have passed:-I mean, the weary" Queen of the French. One can fancy that to her, Mrs. Smith's inn, must be better than "the chamber of dais" at Neuilly; and Claremont an Elysium in its absence of Infernal Machines. A Man may get inured to the idea of being shot at— more especially if he harbour the superstitions apparently entertained by our inmate that he bears a charmed life :—but the plight of that man's wife is less enviable: a state of terrors to which no Jesuit manna can serve as an anodyne, nor against which, the largest consciousness of private virtue can provide a bulwark. Now, therefore, may an innocent and timid Lady, at last rise up quietly, and take rest unharmed by spectres, after eighteen years of grief and fever, and nightmare! As to the deposed Citizen King himself: there is more to be said, touching his reception and sojourn within our borders. Had Rhadamanthus been harbour-master at the landing place, Louis Philippe might have been greeted, as he stepped on shore, with those two particularly comfortable lines from the Moorish Ballad, Good King! thou art rightly served, Good King! this thou hast deserved ! But Rigorous Justice, albeit he sits in John Bull's gate, is too apt to take its black cap off when a Royalty goes by.-Justice will cry (and Justice's Wife still louder) "To the ducking stool with Dollollolla! as loud as Rigorous Virtue could desire: yet the next instant both go bowing, and becking, and simpering up to a King Crack in distress, just as if the distress had not been caused by King Crack's own craft, cupidity, and falsehood. Oh! let us look sharp after Pity, Condolence, and Benevolence, when Sycophancy can take a share in their proceedings!—so long as there are silly Fools of Quality, who fancy it is aristocratic and constitutional to snub the People, by soothing their Oppressor,so long as we have thrifty Amphitryons, to whom a wandering Sovereign is even more acceptable, by way of Lion, than a Lind were she willing to come and warble for love-or than the last new Murderer, could he be hung up in his Cage, behind "the breakfast tents," for good company to tremble at ! To me, this swarming this driving to and fro-this leaving of cards from A to Z-at Embassies and Hotels, and other shelters for the misconducted, does not show the generous side of British nature! An unmolested and secure retreat is reception enough, for one whom all agree to consider as a defaulter on system :-and let this be kindly but silently ministered. But, let us have no rushing about with presents and plum-cakes, for one drummed out in double quick time-by way of recompense of malpractices, merely because he asked our Moons to dine-or because he is now in condition to play the part of a star of first magnitude—at an Ealing breakfast, or a Roehampton (not Republican) Archery Fête. I hear "the inconceivable fickleness and meanness of Louis Philippe's followers, sharply commented upon,-as if having been taught by him how to sell their souls, they are not now following his precepts by tendering them wholesale to the Provision (al) Government of France! But, let us take our own tale home. Because Everard Le Grand's visit to Holyrood under Charles X. was a topic which lasted himself and "womenkind" as long as the never-forgotten Royal breakfast at Tillietudlem-must nothing serve that strange and demented woman his sister, but she must absolutely, the other day, come up to town, with railway haste-on the strength of some hazy tradition of "her ancestors having a right to wait on Kings of France,"—and her own resolution, "not to be behind hand in duty because her Sovereign had fallen into misfortune?" I am told that she would absolutely have got up an address among the old Ladies of our Row, but that some one said in her hearing that an Address was low and popular-on which she decided upon going, alone, herself to Claremont to express her feelings and sympathy. Loyalty proposes, in these days, but Liberalism disposes! The stars which watch over the popular cause, decreed that Paul Bell and Son should be on the Platform at the station, when the long train came sighing, slowly up, in which was sitting Miss Le Grand upright and genteel, previous to putting her precious scheme into execution. For many reasons she cannot bear the sight of me. I am one of her trustees: and she must mind what I say, when it comes to buying in or selling out. Then I set her right about her facts, and am too apt to pull down her screens-even before company-without giving due warning. The Lady-turned all the colours of the Tricolor, when she set her eyes on me-set up |