deeply-read physician, having descended to him from the celebrated Doctor Richard Naper, of Little Lindford, by Stony Stratford, of whom the same thing is related as W. Lily records of another Buckinghamshire Vicar-that he was so fond of smoking that he would cut up the bellropes, to fill his pipe with, when he wanted tobacco; and so much addicted to praying, that his knees had grown horny with constant genuflexions. His descendant, I gathered from some of his marginal observations, was a believer in the doctrine of superintending intermediate spirits carrying on the work of providence,* and a little in the philosopher's stone; nor was my sort of school-master, Mr. Staunton, altogether, to say the truth, a Didymus as to either notion. He and I together had made out a catalogue of all those volumes, with a sort of compendium of their contents, which it was that fixed them so firmly on my memory. It was, I remember well, in the month of December that I obtained Sir Richard's book, and greatly did I regret that it was winter-time; for we had no candle in the kitchen, as old Hannah said the light made her eyes ache, and reading was of no use to anybody but the parson. I had used to kneel down, on the edge of the fender, and read by the fire-light, when the day waned. I was obliged to go to bed when old Robin did, which was seven o'clock; and I would lie awake for hours wishing for the morning, and wondering what would be the end of some conspiracy, or battle, that I had left off in the middle of. To church I never went, during the whole time I stayed at my uncle's house. Service was performed, at M-, every second Sunday only; nor even that very regularly, since Mr. Staunton's death. My uncle himself had not the slightest notion of anything in the shape of religion. Church-rates and the paying of tithe were quite enough, he was wont to say, to make a heathen of anybody. His only way of keeping the Sabbath was by putting on a clean shirt and a green coat, with silver buttons, instead of the old brown one, and casting up his farm accounts; and, if he had not taken medicine, which he did regularly every fourth Sunday, he would wind up the day with a bottle of better wine than ordinary, and go to bed, if possible, drunker than upon weekdays. *"Vectores quidam inter terricolas cœlicolasque "- "in aeris spatio intersiti " quorum obsequio et operâ et ministerio omnia fieri," says Apuleius: a doctrine of second causes, which, to those that entertained that belief of Epicurus "nullus Deus ipse miscetur hominibus sed hoc præcipuum eorum sublimitatis specimen est quod nullâ contractatione nostrâ contaminatur"-that "magnificent and high-strained notion of God's majesty," as it is called by the great and pious Browne--may have appeared not wholly unreasonable. In truth, many a more absurd one has and still does set men together, dog-like, by the ears.-J. W. But why dwell thus minutely on the miserable days of my childhood? There is neither pleasure nor profit in the thought of them; and for any sort of apology, that they might be held to afford for my subsequent career, what matters that to me? I am what I am, and desire not to be other! (To be continued.) THE LAY OF THE PRINTER. (From an old Newspaper.) Print, comrades, print: a noble task Is the one we daily ply; 'Tis ours to tell, to all who ask, The wonders of earth and sky! We catch the thought, all glowing warm, Then let us sing, as we nimbly fling A glorious thing is our labouring— Print, comrades, print: the fairest thoughts The rarest form e'er sculptor wrought Then let us sing, as we nimbly fling A glorious thing is our labouring— Print, comrades, print: God hath ordained Then spurn the charge that we disdained We envy not the sons of ease, Nor the lord in princely hall; But bow before the wise decrees Then let us sing, as we nimbly fling The slender letters round: A glorious thing is our labouring— Oh, where may its like be found? DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BOURBONS. HISTORY OF THE REIGNS OF LOUIS XVIII. AND CHARLES X. By Eyre Evans Crowe. London: Bentley. The Bourbons are fast disappearing from Europe: and, as Sovereigns, it is a pity that the race is not entirely extinct. France is free from them, and will undoubtedly remain so, in spite of the wishes, of the sanguine few, for a "Henri Cinq." The Two Sicilies would fain be quit of the race; and it is doubtful whether Spain will hold them much longer. The traditional policy of the Bourbons (for policy, like the gout, appears to be hereditary) was more tyrannical than that of the English Tudors, more fanatical than that of the Scotch Stuarts, more grasping than that of any royal family in the world, the verdict of all nations has long since condemned them. No country would now submit to be ruled by a Bourbon-that was not too crest-fallen, too priest-ridden, too feeble, to express its own will. In the work before us, we have the history of the reigns of the two last members of the elder branch of the Bourbons, that have ruled in Europe. What a record of folly, crime, and weakness it presents! For these two men was half Europe in arms: to restore them to the throne of France did the nations join and spend their blood and their treasure: to reinstate them a second time was the Battle of Waterloo fought and won. And what were they? and how did they deserve what was done for them? how prove, by their subsequent conduct, their fitness for the position to which they were thus hoisted on the bayonets of Europe? We confess, we look back on the events of forty and fifty years ago, with a kind of incredulous wonder. Can England really have wasted her gold and her energies to thrust upon a foreign people a Sovereign whom they hated or despised? Can she really have looked upon the Crown of France as the personal inheritance of the Bourbons, of which they were unjustly deprived? And yet, upon no other grounds could she have had any pretence for espousing the cause of these men. How we disclaimed, nay how we ridiculed, the idea, six years ago, of interfering on behalf of Louis Philippe, or any other man-Bourbon, Orleans, or Bonaparte-in a question which concerned the French people alone. In the aggressive policy of the first Napoleon our fathers find, now, their only excuse for the war of fifty years ago. And if they were in principle wrong, they had the misfortune also to support the most unfit and incompetent men that could well have been found. Louis XVIII., an old gourmand, who loved good cheer better than anything in the world; and who was, in truth, an easytempered well-meaning old gentleman, with whom it must have been a pleasure to dine and crack a bottle of Lafitte, but who had no more talent than one of his own heavy old coach-horses, and was about as competent to govern the France of 1815 as a venerable dame, of seventy, is to have charge of the education and morals of a young gentleman of “fast” tastes and habits, of the age of twenty. Cannot one imagine his reception by the "old guards" of Napoleon? “Human figures could express nothing so menacing or so terrible. These grenadiers, covered with wounds, the conquerors of Europe, who had seen thousands of bullets pass over their heads, who smelt of fire and powder; these men, robbed of their old captain, were brought to grace the triumph of an old King, invalid with years, not wars, whilst an army of Russians, Austrians, and Prussians, surrounded and watched them. Some, moving the skin of their foreheads, made their large fur hats descend over their eyes, to prevent them seeing what passed before them: others lowered the corners of their mouths, in the contempt of their rage: others, athwart their moustache, displayed their teeth, like those of tigers. They presented arms with a fire and fury that made one tremble. Never were men put to such a trial, or suffered such an infliction. If one voice had called them to vengeance, at that moment, they would have been exterminated to a man, or they would have eaten the earth!” In this description there is, perhaps, some exaggeration, as there is doubtless much truth. Could the idol of cooks be the idol of these old men of war? He reigned nine years, during which time he displayed, at first, moderation—for he was an easy man, who liked the material comforts of his palace better than regal duties and afterwards, when terrified by the assassination of his nephew, the Duke de Berri, he was disposed to be tyrannical. The rage of a good-tempered man once roused is more fearful than that of the ordinary Hotspur: the tyranny of the weak coward who thinks his life in danger, is a thousand-fold less endurable than the strong rule of the bold despot. Louis XVIII. became more and more unpopular, but saved his crown-by dying. Charles X. was a man of another stamp. Free from his brother's love of pleasure and ease, he was also without his placid amiability. Cold, harsh, suspicious, and fanatical, he was a more dangerous man for the liberties of France—a truer Bourbon. Within a year of his accession he had procured a law to be passed, making death the penalty for the profanation of the consecrated host. And this in free-thinking, sceptical, scoffing France! It was scarcely the way to lead his subjects back to a true reverence for religion, or to conciliate their affections to himself. Then followed his attempts to gag the liberties of the press, in which the Chambers refused to aid. He prorogued them, and formed a new ministry of his own creatures, and the Chambers voted that they had no confidence in them. He persisted, with the blind infatuation of such men, to pursue his obnoxious schemes, and on the 25th July, 1830, issued a series of his own ordinances, suspending the liberty of the press, dissolving the newly elected Chamber of Deputies, and altering the system of election! On the 29th of that month-four days later-a revolution had been carried out, and Charles X. had ceased to reign. The country rejected the Duke de Bordeaux (the posthumous child of his son the Duke de Berri), in whose favour he abdicated, and chose Louis Philippe of Orleans to discover, a few years later, that it had only substituted one Bourbon for another: a younger branch, but with the same tainted root. Mr. Eyre Evans Crowe (formerly, we believe, the Paris correspondent of the Daily News) has written the history of these two Bourbons-the old gourmand, and the priestly fanatic. He has done his work well: he might have given us a more entertaining book, but scarcely a more instructive one. Its perusal should go far towards eradicating any lingering love of Bourbonism that may yet exist in Europe. TURKEY IN ENGLAND. No Englishman need go to Turkey now; for Turkey has come to England. Not exactly the country and climate; but the people, their manners and customs, their costumes, and their every-day habits of life. Do you wish to comprehend all the secrets and luxuries of a Turkish bath? do you desire to see one of the faithful having the whole of his head shaved except the little tuft by which he is to be dragged into Paradise? do you aspire to see the uncomfortable way in which Turkish gentlemen dine, with their legs tucked up under them, like tailors, and a copper thing, like the lid of a large boiler, for their dining-table? Do you want to see a dishonest baker, with his ear nailed to his own door-post? a Sultana at her toilet? another one smoking her narghile, sipping her coffee, and receiving her guests? Are you anxious for a peep at a Circassian beauty, with the yashmak or veil of the finest gauze over her face— whereby she fulfils the letter of the Prophet's law and evades its spirit? In short, if you want to see and to know all these things, and a hundred others concerning Turkish people and their domestic lives and manners, don't go to Constantinople-where you will waste time and money, and PP |