a

Jemsejee mentioned the fact, and pointed out the inscrip- a notion were once to gain ground in India, it is diffition." P. 16, 17.

cult to say where the consequences might end. The very As to the religion and superstitious rites of the Hin- idea of prohibition would, probably, excite a vast numdoos, Colonel Briggs seems justly to be of opinion, that ber more to sacrifice themselves than before, not only as

devotees to the deity, but as martyrs to uphold their reany attempt on the part of the British government to put a stop, by means of legislative enactments, to what ligious prejudices; and where one victim is now occasion. appears to be most obnoxious, would be attended with ally heard of, fifty would then take place. In case of the very worst consequences. It has been invariably any attempt to put it down by force, (and the only pracfound, that violent measures in religious matters are

way of doing so would be by prohibiting the promuch more apt to make martyrs than converts ; and cession altogether, or by accompanying the car with arm. however shocking even the destruction of female infants, where be heard ; advantage would be taken of the cir

ed men,) the cry of Religion is in danger !' would every. and the self-immolation of widows may appear to us, these are old and deeply-founded sacred and civil privi- cumstance by designing people; disaffection to our goleges, which the people would only cling to the more

vernment would, perhaps, after spreading from one class fondly as soon as they perceived the slightest symptoms ill-effects of our interference before us in a shape and at

to another, communicate to our troops, and bring the of their being wrested from them. The gradual progress of civilization, of more enlightened views, and of a bet

a time when it might be as dangerous to prosecute the ter faith, must be left to effect that which force need

measure of prevention, as it would then be difficult or never hope to accomplish.

Our last extract describes impolitic to recede from it." an Indian fair ; and, in connexion with that subject, We should have been glad to have quoted still more contains some remarks on Indian superstition, in which copiously from this volume, but we think we have said we heartily concur :

enough to induce such of our readers as are personally “ Besides the markets, there are annual or half-yearly they will do both with

profit and pleasure. There is

interested in the subject, to peruse the book itself, which fairs, held in commemoration of some particular event connected with the town or city, or in honour of some which Sir John Malcolm, when he left Central India,

added to the " Letters” a copy of the “ Instructions” local deity or shrine. These fairs present a very good sample of the manners of the lower orders, and wil, i bestowed as a legacy upon all the officers who had acted have no doubt, excite a good deal of interest. You will under his orders. So highly did the different Indian be equally surprised and entertained, I think, at wit- governments think of these Instructions, that they or. nessing, on these occasions, a spectacle so nearly resem

dered them to be printed and widely circulated among bling similar sights in England.

all their civil servants. It will be found, that the opi. " The festival seems to level much of the distinction nions of Sir John Malcolm, than whom no one had of caste, and the separation of the sexes. Booths are

ever better opportunities of knowing the Asiatics, enerected on each side of a wide street, formed for the oc

tirely coincide in all essential particulars with those of

Colonel Briggs. casion on some common, or perhaps the dry part of the bed of a broad river, for the better display of the articles of sale. Here may be seen, exhibited at the same time, the silks of China and the broad cloth of Europe ; the Virtue's Picturesque Beauties of Great Britain ; in a dried fruits and other productions of Cashmere and Per. Series of Views by the most celebrated Artists. Acsia, and the several manufactures of India. Here, as in companied by Historical, Topographical, Critical, and England, may be seen, also, all sorts of amusements cal- Biographical Notices. Publishing in Numbers. Lon. culated to please youth, as well as toys of every descrip- don ; G. Virtue. tion, from the squeaking penny trumpet, the tinsel sword and gun, down to dolls, and kings and queens, displayed. Each Number contains four views, well drawn and en,

This is a cheap and very prettily-executed work. in gorgeous array, in cakes composed of sugar instead of gingerbread. At one place may be seen tigers and other graved, with appropriate letter-press descriptions; and wild beasts become domesticated, while the facetious and the price is only one shilling. There are to be five Num. mischievous monkey, riding on a goat by way of a char-bers in each Part, and each Part is to illustrate a coun. ger, is always present where fun is to be looked for. Atty. Kent has been selected to begin with ; and in the another are jugglers, mountebanks, and stage-players in Numbers before us are views, among others, of Canterall directions, with puppet-shows, and the attractive

ups of Somersetshire are to appear early in January.

bury, Rochester, and Tunbridge Wells. The Beauties and downs and roundabouts, at a halfpenny for twenty turns, filled with giggling girls and awkward clowns; at one moment laughing wildly, at another, screaming with affected apprehension, as they ascend the air in their little swinging boxes. On the ouiskirts of the crowd are

MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE. the markets for corn, cattle, sheep, and horses ; and last, though not the least important branch of the ceremony, is the approach of the gigantic Hindoo car, thirty feet in

RECOLLECTIONS OF A PARSONAGE. height, with wheels of proportionate dimensions. Within this vehicle is seated the idol, the object of the anni

TAE SETTLEMENT. versary, which is seen advancing slowly through the main “ THE settlement !” said an honest woman, as she street, covered with gold cloths and flowers, and drawn stood in the door-way of her own cottage, inquiring of by several hundred persons, who think it an act of devo- the passing crowd why they were all hurrying towards tion to put a hand to the labour of dragging this huge the parish-kırk;—“The settlement, indeed! Gude troth, moving temple. On these occasions, decrepid old men-ye may place him,—but it's out o'the power o'a' the and women, tired of life, voluntarily sacrifice themselves, presbyteries in the kirk of Scotland to settle him, I trow.” by allowing the wheels to pass over them. The occur- Whether or not the sage, though somewhat illiberal, obrence, however, is becoming more rare daily, and the servation of the said aged woman had any reference to my march of intellcct will, I have no doubt, in the course of own particular case, I do not arrest my narrative to detime, tend altogether to do away the practice.

termine; but of this I am certain, that upon the 25th “It is sometimes asserted that our government should day of September 1813, and just in time for the halfinterpose to put a stop to this last proceeding. Bigotry year's stipend, I was regularly ordained minister of a is easily alarmed at the idea of persccution ; and if such country parish. Previous, however, to this conclusive mica

sure, note of preparation had been given by what is termed pect from his flock. Before the blessing is pronounced,

the moderation of a call, held in my absence, and in the pa- the congregation are informed that such amongst them rish church ; at which the moderator of the presbytery of as wish to welcome their pastor, will have an opportu. the bounds presided, with a large folio sheet, inviting heri- nity of shaking hands with him at the east or west tors, heads of families—all and sundry, to subscribe a call, door of the church, as circumstances may be. Nor can or parochial invitation, to their new pastor. This, as is well any one, who has not experienced the attention, conceive known, has long become a dead letter, and is under any thing more impressive and delightful than this stood, even by the people themselves, to imply no power simple, but voluntary, act or movement on the part of a whatever,-- possessed or exercised by them, towards the kindly and well-disposed people. The new minister procuring of a settlement for any particular presentee; takes his stand a few paces from the church door, and it is, however, not entirely useless, or even meaningless, the elders of the congregation, together with the more as it affords an opportunity to the more respectable and aged and influential, generally advance the foremost to better disposed part of the congregation of strengthening recognise and welcome their future pastor. Nor is this their future pastor's hands, and of convincing him, that part of the ceremony usually unmixed with more seif he is willing and prepared to impart, they are every rious recollections, and even tears of endeared rememway favourably disposed to receive instruction. Hap- brance,-“ The worthy man who has left us” _“ The pily for the peace and comfort of the church, this is the gude auld man"_" The faithful servant of a noble moderate and peaceable view which is now taken of such master"—“ The poor man's friend, and the rich man's proceedings ; though the days have been, and that with counsellor"—these are expressions which, coming from in the lapse of fifty years, when the moderation of a call the heart, reach it, and which, breathing of the fragrance would have occasioned the calling for, and the vigorous of the past, delightfully perfume, as it were, and hallow interposition of, the civil power, in the somewhat unhal- the future. He must be unfit not only for the most delowed muster of muskets and bayonets. My call was, lightful, as well as the most hallowed of all offices, who however, moderated in" with all possible decency, and can stand all this unmoved, and who can calmly look every exhibition of kindly feeling on the part of the pa- upon the wrinkled brow, and the hoary head thus stooprish; and I glory to this time in the fact, that some in- ing in all the generous outgoings of endeared recollecdividuals who were incapable of subscribing, actually af- tion, without recalling those sabbaths, sermons, visits, fixed to it their sign, or mark.

and prayers, which, in all probability, lay at the foundaAfter the morning star, arises the sun, and after the tion of the whole, and which will yet, at some future moderation of a call comes the still more luminous and ordination, form a theme of similar recollections in reimpressive ceremony of ordination ; and as some of my gard to the present incumbent. readers may be ignorant, or entertain but a very imper- I have enjoyed many days of what, in the ordinary fect notion of this ceremony, I shall give them the cir- language of life, is termed happiness. I have rolled, cumstances somewhat in detail.

whilst a child, in the lee and sunny slope of a brae, A lawful, or week-day, is always appointed by the from noon to eventide, in all the delirium of perfect presbytery for the ordination of a minister, and what is idleness, eyeing for hours the thin cloud coursing over, somewhat surprising, the last ordained minister of the and dimming the blue sky above, or watching the egressbounds is appointed to the discharge of this solemn and ingress, and varied evolutions of all manner of green, important duty. The bell rings at the usual hour, and crested, leather-backed, and long-legged insects. † have a sermon, with the customary accompaniments of psalms killed my first trout, and after pulling him out with the and prayers, is delivered before the members of presby- strength of a Sampson, have seen him sporting with the tery, and usually in presence of a crowded congrega- hook in his stomach, for minutes of ecstasy, on the tion. This part of the service being concluded, the of. green bank of a bonny muirland burn.

I have spent ficiating clergyman proceeds to the ordination, which is my first sixpence in a village fair, and have even venpreceded by a number of questions that are directly put tured, whilst yet a stripling, to request the acceptance from the pulpit, and to all of which the presentee, who of a fairing, of some country toast, who had bewitched is placed in the midst of the presbytery, and directly half the young men of the neighbourhood. I have seen, in front of the pulpit, assents, by an inclination of his felt, and fully appreciated those “ golden hours” which head, with the exception of the question respecting fly away“ on angel wings,” and which bear along with simony, to which an audible and distinctly articulated them remembrances which neither time nor eternity, negative is required. The officiating clergyman, who neither life nor death, will, I believe, ever be able is at the same time moderator, then descends from the to efface from the soul within me; but of all the happulpit, and placing himself in a convenient situation py days of my life, the day of my settlement was, with reference to the presentee, procceds to set him perhaps, the most truly and overpoweringly delightful. apart, in a solemn and devotional prayer, to the sacred It was as if all my feelings, under the pressure of a duties of the altar. All this while the presentee thousand atmospheres, had become inconceivably conkneels, whilst the rest of the congregation stand ; and densed and elastic. There was a glow, and a light, towards the conclusion of the prayer, and in accord and an expansiveness within, like that which, in Proance with expressions then made use of, the officiating fessor Leslie's account of the earth's centre, fairly outminister, in the first place, and then every member of shoulders and counteracts all incumbent gravitation. presbytery present, place their hands slowly and reve- It was not a darkness visible, but a light invisible, rentially upon the presentee's head. At this part of the which I carefully, but unsuccessfully, strove to cover ceremony the effect is at the deepest ; the congregation and disguise, but which ever and anon emanated in is still and breathless, whilst the solemn words of ordi- countenance, manner, and movement.

Nor am I nation fall distinctly, deliberately, and devoutly, from ashamed to own it. The past was a past of varied and the lips of the speaker. The ordination-prayer being sometimes harassing incident; a morning and noon. finished, the brethren shake hands with their newly-ad- day of cloud-blast-sunshine—and fragrance;-exquimitted brother, and the congregation having resumed site happiness, relieved and shaded by consummate their seats, an address is made from the pulpit, in the misery—all the extremes which can and do meet within first place to the ordained party, and next to the con- the measurement of man's capability of suffering or en. gregation over which he has been appointed to preside. joying. I now longed for a reduced scale of feelingThe speaker usually insists, on this occasion, at some a more equalized tenor of movement an even, or merely length, on the nature and importance of the clerical du- undulating pathway of life, over which I might walk ties, as well as on that reciprocal forbearance, attention, peaceably and peacefully in the faithful discharge of duty, and affection which a faithful pastor has a right to ex. and in the cherished but softened recollections of past

66

being. All this I had found, and accordingly inscri- sufferably tiresome, and that, of all creations under the bed,

sun, it is the most monotonous and disagreeable. It is

continually assuming, nevertheless, th: airs of a coquette « Inveni portum ! spes et fortuna, valete! Sat me lusistis; ludite nunc alios,"

of threescore and ten, and se-ms anxious to impress us

with the idea, that, phænix-like, it can renew its youth over the gateway of my future dwelling.

when it pleases ; but its efforts are to the last degree The livings of the Scotch country clergy are poor ; feeble and futile. It is exposed to the influence, it is granted, and those which are emphatically denomina- true, of certain laws, which it is pleased to term laws of ted poor livings, are quite inadıquate to the exigences change, but which, from the undeviating regularity of of a minister's family. But still-bear witness, every their

operation, might quite as well be called laws of power that is intere-led in the happiness of man-ihe uniformity. Is not the rotation of the seasons just as life of a country minister is naturally a happy one ; sur- certain as the succession through different generations of rounded by a population which is at once comparatively the same vegetable and animal productions ? Sardana. moral and intelligent, consequently peaceable, and grate- palus, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Semiramis, and Cam. ful for all little services-inoving in the discharg: of byses, have they not all perspired under a July sun, and official duties, at once intellectual and practical, giving been wet to the skin by a Noveinber shower? Danaus, almost equal and balanced exercise to the head and to and Priam, and Codrus, and Solon, have they not all io. the heart. Surrounded, it may be, and in the case of a haled the perfume of a rose or a lily, and enjoyed the country clergyman, it ought always to be, by all the en favour of an apple or an apricot? Every natural phedearments of family affection and love the old stem, nomenon we now see, was seen by men and women who sheltered and sheltering, rising and overtopping, yet lived before Agamemnon ; and all that we now feel, leaning and reposing on the young life, and branching hope, fear, suffer, or delight in, was by them acknowbeneath misfortune ; and reverenced by all that cluster- ledged to possess a similar power. Things have stood ing phalanx of aged maidenhood, reduced to poverty, in the same relation to each other, and produced upon which occupies the steps to a Scotch pu pit, and is at each other exactly the same effects, from the day on once its ornament and its praise ; useful and indispen. which Jeroboam was defcated at Jezreal, down to the sable in all that youth, love, and beauty, are so closely very hour of iny present writing, which is between twelve interested in ; the spiritual father, as time rolls on, of a and one of Friday, the 12th of December, eighteen hun. young and a merry generation, all instructed to respect dred and twenty-eight. the hand which sprinkled their faces in infancy at the Hence the dull monotony of which we complain ; and baptismal fount, and the lips which first pronounced the only relief we ever experience, is by meeting now their name in public; the glorious evenings and morn- and then, not with a new existence, but only a new comings over which duty refuses to establish a claim, and bination. If we go into a far country, we may see moun. which are, therefore, the lawful possession of whim and tains grouped as we never saw them before ; but they are inclination ; the streams, trod and retrod, in bank a d still mountains. If we possess what has been denomi. sand-bed, till every inhabitant of every pool and gul- nated genius, we may arrange thoughts and feelings let is as well known to “ the minister" as if he had somewhat differently from those who have preceded us, placed them all in his visiting muster-roll; the gar. but the individual thoughts and feelings are as old as den, ever new, a d varying in walk, arbour, and fruitage, the moon and stars. Compare, for example, Homer's -the minis er's drawing-room, in fact, where he dri ks baciles with those of Virgil, or Ariosto, or Camoens, or tea with the younger sisterhood of the parish, of a sum. Milion, or Voltaire, and now is it that you are able to mer evening, and reads Blackwood's Magazine on or- distinguish them ?-only by the words in which they dinary occasio's ;-all these, and an i fi iiy of cousi- are described, -not by the deeds that are done, or the derations besides, converge into one focus, and stand, emotions which those deeds inspire. The soldier who with sunny radiance, one green a' d retired spot, in a fell at Waterloo died exactly like the soldier who fell at Scotch valley, where the spire peeps over the trees, and Troy. He may not have been apparelled after the same the smoke of the minister's manse is observed trailing, t'ashion ; his language may have been less ancient, and with particular effect, about four o'clock of a Sabbath a bullet may have gone through his heart instead of a evening.

javelin,—but he had the same appetites, passions, proWhen thee, Jerusalem, I forget,

pensilies, and the same connexions with lite. Drawing

from the same originals, how can the artist avoid paintbut the very supposition is intolerable.

ing the same portraits ? J. G. Nor is it that mankind has been condemned to fare

upon the crambe repetita only once, or twice, or a thou.

sand times. The same perpetually recurring banquet PROPOSALS FOR AN EXTIRE CHANGE IN THE has been invariubly re-cooked for the children, which

their fathers had teasted on the day before. Other covers

may have been put upon the dishes,-- philanthropic “ Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt !"

Oude may have discovered a new sauce,-an ingenious “ And 'tis the sad complaint, and almost true,

Mrs Glass may have suggested a fresh garnishing,—but Whate'er we write, we bring forth nothing new.”

as soon as the food itself reaches the palate, the awful CowPER.

certainty of its personal identity was ascertained, and The Assyrians say they are the most ancient people on hope sank into despair. Originality is like the elirir the face of the earth. But the Mogul, laugh at the As. vitae ; he who seeks it will only be goaded into madness syrians, whom they consider extremely modern upstaris. by his unprofitable labours. Not a sin le remoant has The Chinese, on their part, turn up their noses at both been left throughout all the moral and intellectual world. the Assyrians and the Moguls, believing their own ce- It would have been almost better had there been no such lestial ancestors to have had possession of the world se thing as passions at all, for they have been each harped veral millions of years before any other nation had been upon with as much unwearying pertinacity, as was ever heard of. It is a difficult point. I shall not attempt to exhausted on the most genuine botile of l'arren's insettle it. But whichever be the most ancient people in comparable blacking. Look at love, for instance ; existence, no one will deny that the world itself is far through the indefatigable silliness of poets, and novel. past the meridian of life; or rather, to speak more ists, and people of that sort, has it not already become plainly, that it has fallen long since into its dorage. alm st disgusting ? Not that the subject is in itself disThe natural consequence is, that it has become most in agreeable, (Heaven forbid !) but that women being all

a

NATURE OF THINGS.

a

a

women, and men being all men, one good account of the ment of an order of things so new, that, to our ancient tender interest they may excite in each other, is equal to prejudices, it might at first sight appear strange and lua thousand. Who does not shudder to think of the un. dicrous That my meaning may be more clearly un. wearying cruelty with which the firmament of heaven derstood. I would make these suggestions among others. has been persecuted, to represent blue eyes! What an Let all the stars be knocked out, and most especially int-rminable consumption has there noi been of the raw the evening and morning stars, which have become so mat:rial—the west wind_to be manufactured into sighs ! disgustingly common-place. Perhaps some of them What a tremendous run upon every green bank for rosés, might be strung into necklaces, and ladies seventeen to be changed into the favourite currency of blushes ! miles high might wear them about their necks. The How many myriads of heads of hair, or rather of wigs, moon should be stowed away with all expedition, and have been made out of sunbeams! What a waste of not another line allowed to be write:n even to her me. pearl, to secure a sufficient supply of that staple com- mory. The sun, after being carefully extinguished, modity, called teeth! Even beauty must cease to please, might be made into a great steam-coach, that would -must cease to be considered heautiful--if for so many carry a million of passengers round the world before ages its constituent features have been so indu vitably breakfast. If so vulgar a thing as light was requi. ascertained. How can I be expected to fill over head red at all, the Gas Company could easily manufacture and ears in love with Ma ilda Amelia Elizabeth Fitz rainbows of variegated lamps, and hang them in festoons Oriel decidedly the pretticse girl in the town of through the firmament. There should be men and wo. if I find, by referring to my circulating library, that her men of all shapes and sizes, -some, round as oranges, with ege is not one tint bluer, her blush not one shade deeper, the power of rolling themselves along like great bowls her hair not one gleam brighter, than the eyes, blushes, with or without a bias ;—some, like squares or pa lelo. and hair of all females, in all corners of the globe, and grams, as full of sharp corners as an old-fashioned house, in all periods, have always been ?

and supporting life, not by breathing, but by apertures, The evil of which we complain pervades all space, resembling chimneys, from which smoke should issue ; and extends itself to every object with which we are ac- -some no larger than drumsticks, and others so high, quainted. We are shut in by an atmosphere, to which that their heads would be far beyond the ordinary range belongs an equally fatal influence over animate and in- of vision, unless when they went into the depths of the animate creation. The children of Galgacus made snow. ocean to bathe, when the waves would rise almost to balls, and so do ours; the first Druids sang sonnets to their shoulders, and the whales would pass in shoals bethe moon, and so do we. Helen eloped with Paris, and tween their legs. The sea should be of boiling water, we have still our Doctors' Commons. People died un- and all the fish should be ready for eating ; and raw der Ring Pelops, and their friends lamented their loss ; oysters be a thing to dream of, not to sell. There should tears are shed, and cambric handkerchiefs are used, at be several cast-iron, stone, and wooden bridges across funerals even now. The respectable burgesses of Mem- the Atlantic ; Mr Owen's establishment at New Har. phis gave exceedingly pleasant evening parties a few years mory should be the capital of the world ; and there after the flood; and among their descendants, eating and should be a chain of mountains, called the Mountains dnnking, dancing and fiddling, are still considered fa- of Phrenology, higher than the Andes, consisting wholly shionable amusements. There were races at the Olym- of human skulls. Thunder, and lightning, and wind, pic Games equal to those tor the Great St Leger; there should be laid on the shelf; storms should have new fea. were lectures delivered in Plato's Academy, not much tures, and might be manufactured out of the bursting of inferior to any which may be heard at Oxford or Aber- mountains, the crashing of red-not ice-bergs, the bellow. deen ; Bonaparte was only a second edition of Cæsar ; | ing of monsters that passed through the air, like great and Cæsar was only a copy of Alexander ; and Alexan. balloons, and the pelting of church-steeples, old castles, der was a mere imitator of Cyrus ; and Cyrus borrowed tombstones, coffins, dead birds, monks of the Inquisi. all his best notions from Nimrod. Do we weep ? Who tion, washing-cubs, and skeletons. Forests should be has not wept before us, inspired by the very same grief ? all cut down, and green meadows all ploughed up; if Do we laugh? The joke is as old as tne hills; it set the people wanted to hunt, they should hunt through the table in a roar in the time of Osiris. Are we ambitious ? air, or under the sea. As for evening or morning walks, So were all the great men, whose names nobody ever or tours to the Continent, or poetical musings on the beard, who lived in Palmyra. Do we fall in love ? The beauties of nature, such things might exist, but " with object of our admiration is the very fac-simile of ten a difference," as Ophelia says ; for the walks, and the thousand young ladies, who married ten thousand young tours, and the musings, would not present the same etermen, and became the mothers of ten thousand families, nal round of objects and ideas. There would be no such before the downfall of Babylon. Are we anxious to thing, as an odious, glaring sunrise, or a great unmeaning make ourselves wise, and to be the instructors of man- cream-faced moon; there would be no distressing classi. kind ? The acquisitions of ninety years will be but a cal associations about Italy or Greece ; and dabblers in trifling portion of that knowledge with which our ances- rhyme would not be constantly borrowing from each tors were familiar ninety centuries ago. Do we wish to other, at least until the new state of things became again cultivate the imagination ? Tribes of husbandmen have old. It is not impossible, however, thai these changes been upon the field before us, and the soil is exhausted. may be considered impracticable ; and if so, the other There are just two ways by which we can be saved from plan I have hinted at is still at hand. the morbid listlessness-the dead swampy apathy- My second mode for securing the attainment of that which a conviction of the monotony of all things must greatest of all i lessings, originality-is simply, to necessarily produce. The first is, by an entire change change the nature of the human mind, to alter the standin the external universe ; and the second is, by leaving ard of' taste, to abrogate the old, and to introduce a set external nature as it is, but effecting a complete revolu- of fresh canons by which to regulate our nocions, both tion in the sentiments and ideas of all mankind concern. of matı rial combinations, and of mo-al and intellectual ing it. It is worth while considering, for a moment, beauty, worth, and fitness. This might be done with both plans.

less trouble, and would be quite as efficient as the scheme If the external universe were to undergo a revision already proposed. Would there not, for example, be a and alteration, sufficient to remove the ground of our delightful novelty in having all our old notions of virtue present complaint, it would need to be borne in mind and vice swept away at once ? People have been praithat no partial change would do,-nothing could be sing courage, and justice, and honour, and benevolence, listened to but a sweeping and radical reform,-a to- and all that sort of thing, so incessantly, that every one tal destruction of the old constitution, and the establish- knows the furniture of a good character as exactly as an

ܪܙ

upholsterer knows the furniture of a gentleman's draw her face towards the centre, but rising at the lower end ing-room. This is melancholy; and it is not less me. into a knob of exquisite rotundity. Her mouth had that lancholy that no great villain possesses an idiosyncrasy slight twist which all sculptors and painters love to imi. of his own, but that they are all, without a single excep- tate; and the bluish whiteness of her lips contrasted tion, cunning, ungrateful, ferocious, selfish, and impi. finely with the blackening grandeur of her teeth. Her ous. This should be altered. Epic poets should choose classical chin was sharp and long, throwing into the for their heroes the younger sons of Irish emigrants, shade her thin neck, which rose gracefully, almost like born in some of the least fashionable houses of the pa- a continuation of her slender body. Miss Gogglegrumph's rish of St Giles ; they should dwell with delight on head having been skilfully shaved, only one little tuft their neglected education, luxuriate in pleasing descrip- remained as a love-lock upon the very top; and many a tions of their tattered poverty, and celebrate their glori- noble youth looked at that love-lock and sighed. But ous contempt of all shockingly honest industry ; they it was not Snifterina's ineffable smile, nor the squeaking should paint in the most bewitching colours the lady of clearness of her irresistible voice, nor all the charms of their love, whose young heart beat with a passionate her matchless person, that delighted most ;-it was her fondness for gin-twist, and whose delicate fingers rejoi- mind, entirely unhurt as that mind had been, by any ced to play about a gentleman's fob, or in his side attempt at education. Yet was she not destitute of ac. pockets; they should follow with a noble ardour the complishments. She could sing the comic songs of all lofty subject of their verse from one degree of manly languages ; she was alike at home in the sciences of far. wickedness to another, till he at length reigned over an riery and rat-catching; and few could surpass her in the affectionate and admiring world, and, for the greater healthful and elegant exercise of eating and drinking ; glory,

ory, made a gallows his throne, and the hangman his she was so prudent, that the only thing she did not keep prime minister. How infinitely superior would such a was her temper; and she was never known to lose any production be to those maudlin and hackneyed composi- thing except her judgment. A report was at one time tions in which the bravery of an Achilles, the piety of an industriously circulated, that she had been observed to Æneas, or the constancy of a Rinaldo, are so stupidly blush; but we can positively contradict the uncharitable lauded! So long as we retained our present antiquated calumny. Such was the fascinating Snifterina,-animental constitution, it might perhaps be difficult for us ably pert, fashionably insolent, naturally affected, rafully to enter into the spirit of such a poem ; but, as tionally conceited, independently unasculine, and, in soon as that was changed, its beauties would shine con- short, lost in a blaze of all those virtues which adorn a spicuous.

woman." Every moment of existence-every thought-every For authors and publishers, in particular, these will feeling would now be new, and, consequently, worth li- indeed be happy times, when originality will thus be ving for. We should no longer hear of murmuring born anew. The reviews may probably speak somewhat streams, or shady groves, or warbling birds, or blue in the following style of a work which may have recently skies, or gentle zephyrs, or any other set of epithets issued from the press :-“ This is an able production. equally loathsome, because all equally trite. In descri- There is not a single sentiment in the whole we ever met bing a fine landscape, the traveller or novelist might with in any known author. Most of the words, indeed, write thus, and, in thus writing, would address himselt to are new ; and the style is as diametrically opposed to the sympathies of every reader :-“ It was a day of dark all the rules of Aristotle, Longinus, Quinctilian, Blair, and cloudy beauty, in that most enchanting month De- and Campbell, as the most fastidious critic could desire. cember ; an agreeable and heavy shower was falling ; We observe several parentheses of twenty pages ; and the air was in that most delicious of all states, when it we think there are only three separate sentences in all is not cold enough to condense rain into hail, but is too the four volumes. This is as it should be. The reader's cold to admit of its remaining purely liquid, and con- attention is thus riveted, and the majestic flow of the verts it, therefore, into slect. There was not an ugly English language is preserved. No one should venture green leaf on any of the trees; the birds were, fortunate to begin this book with an empty stomach ; for, as the ly, all silent, with the exception of a jackdaw and a pea- end of the first sentence is somewhere about the middle cock, whose mingled melody came full upon the ear. of the second volume, and as it is impossible to leave off The insignificant sea was visible in the distance, but its till this point be gained, the consequences upon a weak sickening water was forgotten, for the eye rested upon a constitution might be dangerous. The subject which majestic steam-boat with seven funnels, out of which the author priucipally insists upon is, the interesting one came a glorious canopy of smoke, suggesting, even on of damp sheets a theme more intimately connected with the barren ocean, some of those snug and cheerful feel all the sublimest doctrines of philosophy than, perhaps, ings the stranger experiences on coming, for the first any other. The chapter upon warming-pans is, in our time, within sight of beautiful Leeds, or romantic Man- estimation, the finest ; but there are besides several adchester. In the foreground there was an Irish village, mirable digressions (if they can be called so) upon the with a row of pig-styes at one end, and a churchyard at high intellectual character of idiots, upon the notorious the other, all in a state of fine decay, and exciting emo. honesty of that most useful class of the community, tions so sublime, that the enraptured and awestruck spec- somewhat oddly termed pickpockets, and upon mousetator, after laughing for half an hour, could not help traps, silk stockings, the female sex, hatters, patriots, dancing an Indian war-dance, and at last, overpowered landed property, and bellows-menders. On the whole, by his feelings, walking a dozen paces backward on his we can safely recommend this book, as admirably adapt hands and feet, and then bursting into a tear!" ed for the use of schools, members of parliament, and

Upon the same principles might be written a descrip- medical gentlemen.” tion of a lady, “made to engage all hearts, and charm I have thus only thrown out a few crude hints, which all eyes ."-" The heroine of my tale—the lovely Snit- will, nevertheless, serve to evince my earnest desire that terina Gogglegrumph-had all the constituents of perfect an entire change should immediately take place in the beauty. Her eyes, which in their expression differed nature of things, both for the sake of that most exhaust. considerably from each other, were both of a delicate ed portion of human beings called authors, and those green; and Nature, as if unwilling that any one object other respectable persons, no less to be pitied, called should ever be honoured with the united gaze of two readers. The pros:cution of the design I must leave in such orbs, gave to Snifterina the power of looking east the hands of the legislature, and the country at large. and west, or north and south, at the same moment, and That a connexion with all that is stale, flat, and com. thus of killing, as sportsmen technically term it, both mon-place lias increased, is increasing, and ought to be right and lett. She had a nose angelically flattened upon diminished, no sensible man can doubt. But that a