the period of the breach with America, have not been guided, in some periods of their rule, by maxims as false and antisocial as any which are sprinkled through the pages of "the Prince :" and most assuredly there is nothing in the whole round of Machiavelism, which can compete with the deliberate falsehood, the blasphemous hypocrisy, and coldblooded sacrifice of humanity to the selfish passions of the right-lined few, which have rendered the Holy Alliance a marked epoch in the history of human degradation and suffering.

The portraiture which Machiavelli has drawn of kingly government, if it be not amiable, is at least veracious; and, if it be compared with contemporary history, it may even be censured as feeble. Such, however, as it is, it is no longer dangerous. The same means, by which tyrant overthrew tyrant, are unavailing when opposed to the illumination and activity of civilized Europeans. It is impossible to contemplate the march of passing events without being convinced, that the straight line is the shortest possible in politics as in mathematics; and that the crimes of governments are the sure sources of their heaviest miscarriages.

With respect to the subserviency of Machiavelli to the Medici, and the means he adopted for ingratiating himself with the betrayers of his country, by offering them the fruits of his political experience, there can scarcely exist two opinions; but the degree of blame with which his falling off may be visited, must be measured by each individual according to his own purity, attempered by that compassion which his sympathy for human frailty may be capable of exciting. There is a period in the life of man at which the mind grows fatigued with an unavailing contest against corruption; and there are degrees of oppression, against which even fortitude itself may be unable to contend. The combination of both these circumstances seems to have operated in changing the politics of this unfortunate man, in the latter days of his life. The picture which he himself gives of his own miserable condition, can scarcely be perused without a tear. Poor, neglected, and abandoned; condemned to seek a temporary solace in the lowest company,* and to repose his wearied intellects by retreating from Livy and Tacitus to the conversation of butchers and millers; harassed alike by remembrances of the past and fears for the future, his desire to seek from the protection of the Medici, by that time the uncontrollable masters of the republic, bread and security for the little remnant of his existence, if not exempt from blame, is still a pardonable weakness. Let him who is without political offence throw the first stone; but, ere he reprobates the want of a stoical indifference in Machiavelli, let him heap a double measure of obloquy on the successful traitors, who, in overturning the independence of Florence, wreaked their unmanly vengeance on the fortunes and person of the unsuccessful patriot.

That Machiavelli had conceived the project of directing the enor

Mangiato che ho ritorno nel osteria. Quì è l'oste per l'ordinario un beccajo, un mugnajo, due fornacciai. Con questi io m'ingoglioffo per tutto dì, giocando a cricca, a trictrac, e dove nascono mille contese e mille dispetti de' parole ingiuriose; ed il più delle volte si combatte un quatrino, e siamo sentiti non di manco gridare da San Casciano. Così rinvolto in questa viltà, traggo il cervello di muffa, e sfogo la malignità de questa mia sorte; sendo contento mi calpesti per quella via, per vedere se la sene vergogna. Lettera a F. Vittori.

mous power of the Medici, against the foreign invaders of Italy, is almost proved by the last chapter of "the Prince." His idea of thus turning to a patriotic account a calamity he had in vain struggled to avert, is pregnant with political wisdom; and it derives an additional interest from its coincidence with the opinion of many enlightened Italians of the present day, who have been tempted to look even abroad for a major force to consolidate Italy into one nation, and thus to prepare the seeds of a future independence. Such an idea as this must have powerfully tended to reconcile Machiavelli to the loss of a municipal and republican freedom, which external force and internal corruption had alike rendered precarious, bloody, and turbulent; and at the same time it affords the best apology for that political tergiversation, which casts so deep a shadow on the close of a long life, intrepid patriotism, and active service. Be this, however, as it may, the spectacle which Machiavelli offers in his old age, worn out with fatigue and disappointment, surviving the liberty he adored, and the firmness of soul which ranked him amongst the most splendid patriots of a splendid age, affords a memorable lesson of the instability of human affairs, the vanity of human hopes, and the necessity of judging conduct, under all circumstances, with charity and moderation.

M.

CONSTANTINOPLE.

IN ancient days, when on for Salem's wall
The avenger came at Heaven's mysterious call,
Portents and signs arose to every eye,

Marks were on earth and meteors in the sky;
Dreams scared the old, and visions struck the young,
And every tomb or temple found a tongue;

The dead walk'd forth-the living heard their call,
And if they fell, they fell forewarn'd of all.
-Not such the signs that in her hour of gloom

Came to foretell Byzantium of her doom;

Not such the marks, that warn'd her of her fate,
When the besieger thunder'd at her gate,
When every dreary morn's returning light
Gave but the Crescent glittering in her sight,
When from her towers in grief she mark'd below
Myriads of warriors, and in each a foe;

Hordes from all realms in wild barbaric pride,
Loading the land and swarming on the tide.

-Still though no deep mysterious sign was given,
To speak the anger or the aid of Heaven;
Though no dread warning stood exposed in air,
To lend the lost the firmness of despair,
Even though no spectre rose upon the eye,
To tell the recreant 'twas not hard to die-
Yet was there one, who in that day of grief
Gazed round all hopeless, reckless of relief.
Ere the first weak one at the breach gave way,
Untold he traced the hurrying of decay,
Unwarn'd he felt that ruin mark'd the wall,
That strife was vain-and he had but to fall-

This thought-this task-this wretchedness was thine,
Injured, unaided, martyr'd Constantine!

F.

GRIMM'S GHOST.

LETTER XI.

THE Clubs of London, in their variety and hostility, resemble the Clans of Scotland. The Highland lass ridicules the Lowland lads. So the spurred and booted member of Brookes's, casting an eye of scorn up the vista of Albemarle-street, dubs the Alfred a congress of bluestocking old women. The Union sets at nought the Verulam, while the brethren of the latter think that, with the title of Lord Bacon, they have exclusively inherited no small portion of his learning and sagacity. The Beef-steak club meets under the roof of the Lyceum; Rich, its founder, was proprietor of Covent-garden theatre: ergo, its members must eat and drink within Thespian walls. Partridge would have dubbed this a non sequitur; but logic in his day was only in its infancy. The Thespian club assembles at Molard's tavern in Great Russell-street. Every syllable there uttered must smack of the sidescene. If you drink with your neighbour, it is "Measure for Measure." In raising the glass you exclaim, "So the King drinks to Hamlet:" and if you differ in opinion with the gentleman who sits next to you, you ejaculate with Marc Antony, "O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth." The two coteries last-mentioned pique themselves upon their intellects, and speak with utter scorn of the Eccentrics in Maiden-lane, who black their faces with burned cork: while the latter shrug their shoulders at the bare mention of the Catamarans, where merit consists in mere noise; and from whose symposium in Martlet-court are heard the heart-quailing sounds of brass pans, mail-horns, shrieks, yells, and gunpowder explosions.

Not the least singular establishment of this kind is the "Unsuccessful" club at the Bedford, so called from its members having failed in dramatic writing. One damned farce entitles a man to be a member, instanter. If his comedy be withdrawn after the second night, he must be ballotted for. But if his tragedy be hissed off during the first act, he comes in by acclamation, and may order what dinner he pleases. The perpetual president, with a silver catcall at his buttonhole, attained that eminence by a long career of damnation. He proudly boasts that, during a seven years' probation, his most endurable dramatic bantling was a melodrame that set every body asleep. He counts his hisses as a warrior does his wounds, and hopes in time, by dint of bad acting, to make the people in the pit tear up the benches.

The last association, upon which I shall rather dilate, is called the Epigram Club. Young Culpepper, whom I immortalized in my letter previous to the last, is a member. At the close of that epistle I left him with his family, and the elegant Captain Augustus Thackeray, prepared to adjourn on the following evening to the Adelphi theatre to witness the performance of Tom and Jerry. Five in number, they mounted a hackney coach. The captain, ashamed of his coadjutors, shrank back, and dreaded recognition all the way from Ludgate-hill to the corner of Cecil-street. It was a vain apprehension: every man calling himself a Christian at half after six is dressing for dinner. The coach drew up opposite Adam-street. Surprised at the quietness of the rabble, the party dismounted, and on going up to the door of the

theatre found it closed. It was the first Wednesday in Lent! I will not mention, "to ears polite," the place to which the elder Culpepper consigned the Lord Chamberlain. Still, the execration was not "Sesamy;" so the portals continued closed. "We have nothing left for it," said the father, as he bundled the two ladies back into the coach, "but to return as wise as we came." "Suppose you and I go to the Epigram Club," said the son to the captain. The latter thought any port better than the storm of the slopseller, and gladly acceded to the proposal. "Where do you meet?" said the dragoon, as he and his companion hastily turned up Southampton-street." At the Wrekin," answered the other; you will find it a very agreeable lounge: I hope you have got an epigram ready." "Geud Gad! not I," ejaculated the son of Mars. "I know a great many songs. I know Drink to me only,' and Fly not yet,' and Believe me if all these endearing young charms,' and the first verse of Had I a heart.' But as to epigrams I only know one which begins-" Here the hero was cut short in his narrative by an encounter with two waiters, who, with a brace of napkins and five brace of bows, ushered the two gentlemen upstairs. The company had assembled, and the dinner was upon the table. Captain Thackeray and young Culpepper had already dined upon cold beef and cucumbers in Savage-gardens. This, however, made no difference. Like James Boswell the elder, who regularly dined at the Sheriff of London's table twice in each day during the Old Bailey sessions, the two friends felt a returning appetite, and played as good a knife and fork as if nothing had happened.

On the removal of the cloth, the president gave three knocks with his hammer upon a table, whose dinted surface bore evident tokens of many former attacks of the same sort. Silence being procured, he commenced his harangue by reminding the society, that, there, nobody was required to sing: that it was gothic barbarity to call upon a gentleman to struggle with a cold and hoarseness: that the organs of singing were frequently deranged, those of speaking very seldom: and, therefore, that the usages of this institution were highly rational, inasmuch as no man was there called upon for a song, but every man for an epigram. Then, addressing himself to the member on his right, with the most amusing gravity, he exclaimed, "Mr. Merryweather, may 1 trouble you for an epigram?" Mr. Merryweather, thus accosted, begged to remind the company that on the Bow-street side of Covent-garden Theatre, stood a statue of Comedy and another of Tragedy. "You are right, sir," said Culpepper, "and they both look so sober that it would puzzle Garrick himself to say which was which." "You have hit it, sir," answered Merryweather; "upon that circumstance hinges my epigram. It is as follows:

With steady mien, unalter'd eye,
The Muses mount the pile,

Melpomene disdains to cry,
Thalia scorns to smile.

Pierian springs when moderns quaff,
'Tis plainly meant to shew,

Their comedy excites no laugh,

Their Tragedy no woe."

A pretty general knocking of glasses upon the table denoted that this sally told well; and the society, as in duty bound, drank Mr. Merryweather's health. "Mr. Morris," said the deputy chairman to a member on his right hand," were you at the late masquerade at the 'Opera House ?" "I was," answered Morris, with all the elation which is felt by a man who thinks he sees an opening for throwing in a good thing."I went with Lump the leatherseller. He wore a Domino, but he wanted to go in character."-" What character?"-" Charles the Second.”—“ Indeed! and what made him alter his determination ?”— "My epigram."-"Oh pray let us have it."-" Certainly.To this night's masquerade, quoth Dick,

By pleasure I am beckon❜d,
And think 'twould be a pleasant trick
To go as Charles the Second.

Tom felt for repartee athirst,
And thus to Richard said:

You'd better go as Charles the First,
For that requires no head."

"Bravo," ejaculated the president, "your health, Mr. Morris : I think you are in a fair way of winning the silver medal. I don't think any of your successors will beat that. But we shall see. Mr. Vice, you will please to call upon Mr. Snaggs. We must take him in time, or the Hampstead stage will be too sharp for us." Snaggs, who for the last five minutes had been fidgetting and looking at his watch, with as much disengaged hilarity as falls to the lot of any married man, who is tied down to stage-coach hours, started from a reverie, and begged to inform the company, that in his village resided a physician and a vicar, who often walked arm in arm together. "Which circumstance," said Snaggs, "induced me to squib at them after the following fashion : How D. D. swaggers, M. D. rolls!

I dub them both a brace of noddies.
Old D. D. has the Cure of souls,

And M. D. has the Care of bodies.
Between them both, what treatment rare
Our souls and bodies must endure,
One has the Cure without the Care,

And one the Care without the Cure."

The applause which followed this effusion, was so much louder than that which was excited by Mr. Morris, that the latter began to tremble for his silver medal. His fears, however, were groundless. Snaggs again looked at his watch, snatched up his hat, and, like the landlord in Joseph Andrews, "ran down stairs without any fear of breaking his neck."

The president now looked at his watch also: it pointed to the hour of nine he exchanged a significant glance with the vice-president, (who also officiated as secretary); and the latter cast his eyes towards à mahogany box in the window-seat, and began to fumble for his keys. "Silence, gentlemen," exclaimed the former," and listen to a report of our committee, setting forth the objects and prospects of this institution." The secretary then drew forth a red morocco bound book, and proceeded to business.

The report commenced by stating, that the object of the Epigram