greatly impaired his power of elocution and utterance, and became at length so severe as to accelerate his end. A few months, however, before his death, which happened in 703, he pleaded for his nephew, Messala, who was accused of illegal canvassing, and who was acquitted, more in consequence of the astonishing exertions of his advocate than the justice of his cause. So unfavourable, indeed, was his case esteemed, that, however much the speech of Hortensius had been admired, he was received, on entering the theatre of Curio the following day, with loud clamour and hisses, which were the more remarked, as he had never met with similar treatment in the whole course of his forensic career. The speech, however, revived all the ancient admiration of the public for his oratorical talents, and convinced them, that if he had always possessed the same perseverance as Cicero, he would not have ranked second to that orator. Another of his most celebrated harangues was that against the Manilian law, which vested Pompey with such extraordinary powers, and was so warmly supported by Cicero. That against the sumptuary law, proposed by Crassus and Pompey, in the year 683, which tended to restrain the indulgence of his own taste, was well adapted to Hortensius's style of eloquence; and his speech was highly characteristic of his disposition and habits of life. He declaimed, at great length, on the glory of Rome, which required splendour in the mode of living followed by its citizens. He frequently glanced at the luxury of the consuls themselves, and forced them, at length, by his eloquence and sarcastic declamation, to relinquish their scheme of domestic retrenchment. The speeches of Hortensius, it has been already mentioned, lost part of their effect, by the orator's advance in years, but they suffered still more by being transferred to writing. As his chief excellence consisted in action and delivery, his writings were much inferior to what was expected from the high fame he had enjoyed; and, accordingly, after death, he retained little of that esteem which he had so abundantly possessed during his life. Although, therefore, his orations had been preserved, they would have given us but an imperfect idea of the eloquence of Hortensius; but even this aid has been denied us; and we must now, therefore, chiefly trust for his oratorical character to the opinion of his great but unprejudiced rival. It was by means of Hortensius that Cicero was chosen one of the College of Augurs,-a service of which his gratified vanity ever appears to have reIn a few of his tained an agreeable recollection. letters, indeed, written during the despondency of his exile, he hints a suspicion that Hortensius had been instrumental in his banishment, with a view of engrossing to himself the whole glory of the bar; but this mistrust ended with his recall, which Hortensius, though originally he had advised him to yield to the storm, urged on with all the influence of which he was possessed. Hortensius also appears to have been free from every feeling of jealousy or envy, which in him was still more creditable, as his rival was younger than himself, and yet ultimately forced him from the supremacy. Such having been their sentiments of mutual esteem, Cicero has done his oratoric He also originally talents ample justice, representing him as endued with all the qualities necessary to form a distinguished speaker. His imagination was fertile-his voice was sweet and harmonious-his demeanour dignified-his language rich and elegant-his acquaintance with literature extensive. So prodigious was his memory, that, without the aid of writing, he recollected every word he had meditated, and every sentence of his adversary's oration, even to the titles and documents brought forward to support the case against him-a faculty which greatly aided his peculiarly happy art of recapitulating the substance of what had been said by his antagonist or by himself.* possessed an indefatigable application; and scarcely a day passed in which he did not speak in the Forum, or exercise himself in forensic studies or preparation. But, of all the various arts of oratory, he most remarkably excelled in a happy and perspicuous arrangement of his subject. Cicero only slightly reproaches him with showing more study and art in his gestures than was necessary for an orator. however, from Macrobius, that he was much ridiculed by his contemporaries, on account of his affected gestures. In pleading, his hands were constantly in motion, whence he was often attacked by his adversaries in the Forum for resembling an actor; and, on one occasion he received from his opponent the appellation of Dionysia, which was the name of a celebrated dancing girl. Esop and Roscius frequently attended his pleadings, to catch his gestures, and imitate them on the stage. Such, indeed, was his exertion in action, that it was commonly said, that it could not be determined whether the people went to hear or to see him. Like Demosthenes, he chose and It appears, As a proof of his astonishing memory, it is recorded by Seneca, that, for a trial of his powers of recollection, he remained a whole day at a public auction, and when it was concluded, he repeated in order what had been sold, to whom, and at what price. This recital was compared with the clerk's account, and his memory was found to have served him faithfully in every particular.-Senec. Præf. Lib. I. Controv. ness. put on his dress with the most studied care and neatHe is said, not only to have prepared his attitudes, but also to have adjusted the plaits of his gown before a mirror, when about to issue forth to the Forum; and to have taken no less care in arranging them than in moulding the periods of his discourse. He so tucked up his gown, that the folds did not fall by chance, but were formed with great care by the help of a knot artfully tied, and concealed by the plies of his robe, which apparently flowed carelessly around him. Macrobius also records a story of his instituting an action of damages against a person who had jostled him, while walking in this elaborate dress, and had ruffled his toga, when he was about to appear in public with his drapery adjusted according to the happiest arrangement, an anecdote which, whether true or false, shows, by its currency, the opinion entertained of his finical attention to everything that concerned the elegance of his attire, or the gracefulness of his figure and attitudes. This appears to have been the only blemish in his oratorical character; and the only stain on his moral conduct was, his practice of corrupting the judges in the causes in which he was employed, a practice which must be, in a great measure, imputed to the effects of the judicial system at Rome; for, whatever might be the excellence of the Roman laws, nothing could be worse than the procedure under which they were administered. Hortensius was first married to a daughter of Q. Catullus, the orator, who is one of the speakers in the dialogue De Oratore (Cicero, De Oratore, Lib. III. c. 61). He afterwards asked, and obtained from Cato, the loan of his wife Marcia; who, having succeeded to a great part of the wealth of Hortensius after his death, was then taken back by her former husband (Plutarch, In Catone). By his first wife Hortensius had a son and daughter. In his son, Quintus, he was not more fortunate than his rival, Cicero, in his son Marcus. Cicero, while pro-consul of Cilicia, mentions in one of his letters, the ruffian and scandalous appearance made by the younger Hortensius at Laodicea, during the shows of gladiators. I invited him once to supper, says he, on his father's account; and, on the same account, only once. (Epist. Ad Attic. Lib. VI. Epit. 3.) Such, indeed, was his unworthy conduct, that his father, at this time, entertained thoughts of disinheriting him, and making his nephew Messala his heir; but in this intention he did not persevere. (Valer. Maxim. Lib. IV. c. 9.) After his father's death, he joined the party of Cæsar (Cicero, Epist. Ad Attic. Lib. X. Epit. 16, 17, 18.), by whom he was appointed proconsul of Macedonia; in which situation he espoused the side of the conspirators, after the assassination of Cæsar. (Cicero, Philip. X. c. 5 and 6.) By order of Brutus, he slew Caius Antonius, brother to the Triumvir, who had fallen into his hands; and, being afterwards taken prisoner at the battle of Phillipi, he was slain by Marc Antony, by way of reprisal, on the tomb of his brother. (Plutarch, In M. Bruto.) Hortensia, the daughter, inherited someA thing of the spirit and eloquence of her father. severe tribute having been imposed on the Roman matrons by the Triumvirs, Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, she boldly pleaded their cause before these noted extortioners, and obtained some alleviation of the impost. (Valer. Maxim. Lib. VIII. c. 3.) Quintus, the son of the orator, left two children, Q. HorThe tensius Corbio, and M. Hortensius Hortalus. former of these was a monster of debauchery, and is mentioned by Valerius Maximus among the most striking examples of those descendants who have degenerated from the honour of their ancestors. (Lib. III. c. 3.) This wretch, not being likely to become a father, and the wealth of the family having been partly settled on the wife of Cato, partly dissipated by extravagance, and partly confiscated in the civil wars, Augustus Cæsar, who was a great promoter of matrimony, gave Hortensius Hortalus a pecuniary allowance to enable him to marry, in order that so illustrious a family might not become extinct. He and his children, however, fell into want during the reign of his benefactor's successor. painted, with his usual power of striking delineation, that humiliating scene, in which he appeared with his four children to beg relief from the senate; and the historian has also recorded the hard answer which Tacitus has he received from the unrelenting Tiberius. Perceiving, however, that his severity was disliked by the senate, the Emperor said that, if they desired it, he would give a certain sum to each of Hortalus's lus, either from terror or dignity of mind, said not a male children. They returned thanks; but, Horta word; and from this time, Tiberius showing him no favour, his family sunk into the most abject poverty. (Tacit. Annal. Lib. II. c. 37 and 38.) And such were the descendants of the orator with the park, the plantations, the ponds, and the pictures! Titian's Portraits.-It may be said of them, that it is they who look at you, more than you who look at them.-Northcote. PREJUDICE. For the London Journal. To hate a man, and look upon him with suspicion, for no other reason but that he belongs to or was born in some particular country, betrays a narrow and prejudiced mind; yet how often do we hear men who are accounted wise and learned avow an aversion to an individual, without being able to assign any reason for so doing, other than the one just mentioned. Though these gentlemen may be ever so prepossessed in favour of a stranger before he has spoken, let him but wag his tongue, and if his speech denotes him belonging to a country to which they have an antipathy, the charm is broken, and they immediately turn their backs upon him. This prejudice is generally very prevalent among those who have moved but in a limited sphere, who have never by travelling and reflection been able to rub off the rust of illiberalism that is so apt to incrust the soul. The Scottish Lowlander turns up his nose and thinks himself superior to the Highlander; the Englishman fancies himself a cut above the Scotchman, whom he considers servile and mean; and the American is never tired of cracking his jokes upon John Bull, who in return holds the Yankee in utter contempt. Two reasons may be assigned for this illiberal con duct in the family of man. These are past outrages and climate. By past outrages we mean the cruel wars that it was customary in bygone times for one nation to wage with another, and the consequent devastations and crimes which caused the posterity of each country to grow up with the idea that the other was its "natural enemy." Thank heaven! these stormy times are over; the sun of civilization is beaming upon the minds of men, but still their hearts are not yet sufficiently warmed towards each other the prejudices of their forefathers still exist among them, and dwell in their bosoms like the waves of the ocean after a storm. The second cause is climate. In a country which is favoured by nature with every luxury the earth produces, where the ground yields spontaneously all that the appetite requires, and where few necessities exist to act as stimulants upon the minds of the inhabitants, they are apt to become slothful and indolent. On the other hand, the natives of a cold climate and comparatively barren soil, who are continually compelled to exert their utmost ingenuity to raise a subsistence, become eventually so ingenious and artful, that even Nature herself is hardly a match for them. They are incessantly at war with the elements, and their minds are never allowed to remain inactive. Necessity is the grand sharpener of their wits, and the new discoveries they are ever making in the arts and sciences are numberless. From these countries there is always a considerable part of the population emigrating into those of their neighbours. They carry along with them their native ingenuity, their hardihood, their industry and their poverty. The better-informed part of the community, among whom they locate, encourage them for their useful qualities; but the others, seeing themselves supplanted by these new comers, grow jealous, and begin to hate them. There may be certain duties in the country which the natives are prejudiced against, and which they consider a disgrace to perform: the foreigners, not having the same feelings towards such offices, and viewing them only as roads to wealth, fill them, and if they should happen to be polite and civil in the performance of their duty, they are too often called mean and servile. The country to which they belong is then fastened upon, and not only it, but all that are in it, and all that ever left it, are branded with the epithets of begThe sentiments of the garly, mean, and servile. jealous natives quickly spread, and the foreigners, ere long, find that it has become quite fashionable to hold them in derision and contempt, without their knowing why or wherefore. If a war should at any time have raged between the two countries, the aversion is doubly strong: generation after generation will imbibe this prejudice; and if a few of these foreigners should turn out unprincipled persons, the hatred to the nation will become such as centuries of laws and constitution, is it his business, who is but honourable dealing will scarcely cancel. In a conversation which we lately had with an intelligent but prejudiced friend, he expressed himself strongly against the Scotch, whom he professed to dislike above all other nations. Upon asking his reasons for such dislike, he said, he had always found them so mean and selfish that he felt disgusted with them. Have you, we asked, never met with a straightforward, disinterested Scotchman? Very seldom, answered he, with a significant shake of the head. Then you have met with some such in your lifetime? Why, said he, after a short pause, upon consideration, I have met with some exceptions to the rest of their countrymen, but I always suspected them, and have carefully avoided any sort of intimacy or intercourse with them, excepting what was accidental or absolutely necessary.—Our friend is only one out of thousands who express a dislike to a people without being aware that it is early prejudice that causes this dislike, and not their own experience. But how often are foreigners themselves to blame for rousing and keeping alive this enmity and ill-will between them and the people with whom they sojourn! We were a short time since at a social party in London, where the majority were English, when a young Scotchman, being asked to contribute his share to the hilarity of the meeting, started one of those songs of his country which inveighs against the a stranger in the land, to sow the seeds of sedition There are some branches of certain trades and Southrons, and which seemed to have been composed lity. No one can reasonably blame them for study when the two nations were at deadly variance. He sang with all the enthusiasm of a would-be patriot, darting his glances around him as if he was eyeing his foes, and striking the table with his fist, as though he fancied he was busily engaged with his broad-sword in the battle field. In looking from him to the Southron part of the company, we observed a jolly good-natured old gentleman shrug up his shoulders, and look over to a friend on the other side of the room, who, in his turn, smiled, winked, and shrugged his shoulders also. A few of the youngsters looked fiercely and disdainfully at the Scotchman, while others seemed at a loss whether to construe this illtimed song into an insult, or ascribe its introduction to the rawness and ignorance of the singer. The moment he had finished, an older Scotchman, and a man of the world, perceiving the spirit that his imprudent countryman had roused among the company, proposed, and almost immediately began, a favourite English drinking song, which he sung with so much glee and spirit, as completely restored the good humour, and banished the feeling which had a few minutes previous threatened to disturb the harmony of the evening. ing their own interest. Who then is the supplanted artisan to storm against, if he cannot justifiably do so against his rival or the public? We answer, against no one; for no one is censurable. But if he must needs storm, let him do so against chance, or his own inability to keep his place in the public estimation. Instead, however, of grumbling about the caprice of the unpatriotic public, and cherishing and encourageing an inveterate hatred for all foreigners, and Frenchmen in particular, if he is a wise man he will pocket his gains, and thank his stars that he so long fattened uninterruptedly upon a business for which, he now finds, he was not so well qualified as others in the world. He will also reflect that his son-if he has public do not patronize the Frenchman merely be- Until the day arrives when man shall become How often, too, are the feelings of the natives hurt by foreigners drawing comparisons between the land they live in and the one in which they were born and bred. These comparisons are generally partial, especially if he who draws them left his country when young. It is the nature of man to look back upon the scenes of his infancy, when his heart was free from care, with an interest which is heightened by distance, present troubles, and imagination. He expatiates on the joys of his boyhood, and all the pleasurable sensations of his early days, as if the loss of them was intirely owing to his removal from the scenes where he enjoyed them. He does not reflect that he must again be young, and his heart as buoyant as ever, before he can again appreciate the charms of those scenes that possessed his heart and delighted his fancy in the bright morning of youth. If you believe him, his country, though it may be one of poverty and meanness, is a fairy-land to the one in which he now resides; and its government In the meantime let us make it an inviolable rule and institutions, though perhaps despotic and cor- never to speak against nations or communities en rupt, are founded on principles of wisdom and If an individual or individuals of any country liberalism, while the powers by which he is now have betrayed our confidence, and proved themselves governed are tyrannical and oppressive. But even unworthy members of society, it is our duty to expose allowing all this to be true, what right had he to them, for such exposure may put those on their guard hurt the self-love and patriotic feelings of those whom they are now deceiving; but never let us be in whose country he shelters himself, by drawing so uncharitable as to cast unpleasant reflections on such comparisons? If they are content with their the country which gave them birth, as though it was masse. THE FIRST OF THE FAIRIES. WHAT ho! ye minims of earth, The buttercup bells; 'Tis Oberon calls you to birth. Whence we came, and what we were, With Whip, and Nip, Come forth in your ranks, Come forth with your pranks, "With mop and mowe;" Of your whirling dance, The nose of cramming priest ; The snoring slattern in her nest. Hang thickest on the lime-tree flower, To the cricket's chime, A Pretty Note of Acceptance.-Balzac sent to borrow four hundred crowns of Voiture. His brother wit cheerfully complied, and taking the promissory note which the servant put into his hands, wrote on it thus: "I, the underwritten, acknowledge myself debtor to M. Balzac in the sum of eight hundred crowns, for the pleasure he did me in borrowing four hundred of me." He then returned it to the servant, to carry back to his master. "What are all Voiture's finest letters (says a French author) in comparison of such a note!" Correcting the Press. The publishers of the French Dictionary of French Dictionaries' have adopted a phenses and Elzivirs. The proof sheets of the work plan somewhat similar to that followed by the Stewill be open to general examination for seven days previously to the operation of pulling off the copies; and a premium of 50 cents (5d.) is offered for every typographical error which may be detected. Twenty errors discovered in one or more numbers of the work will intitle the discoverer to a gratuitous copy of the whole Dictionary. The Printing Machine. THE VILLAGE ALEHOUSE. A PICTURE IN DETAIL. DEAR ramblers all-an Alehouse sign There rests the waggon in its track,— A corn-bag round each horse's nose is; There comes the miller and his sack; And there at ease the beggar dozes. There limps the ostler with his pails, And there the landlord stalks inspector; Hay-ricks are near, and orchard fruit; The cock's shrill crow and flapping wing; The low contented neigh of brute; The pipe's perfume, and tankard's ding. The snapping cork,-the roaring joke ;- And kisses copse and chimney top. Z. Z. AFFECTING ACCOUNT OF MR [By Mr Southey. From the Autobiography of Sir Keswick, May 10, 1809. SIR, I hold myself greatly indebted to you, not only for the list of authors, but for the very gratifying manner in which you have introduced my name in the Censura Literaria.' That list, with another of equal length, for which the selections were prepared for the press, but omitted during the course of publication by the friend who undertook to superintend it, will enable me, in an additional volume, to supply the bibliographical defects of the work. It gives me great pleasure to hear that Bampfylde's Remains' are to be edited. The circumstances which I did They were not mention concerning him are these. related to me by Jackson of Exeter, and minuted down immediately afterwards, when the impression that they made upon me was warm. He was the brother of Sir Charles, as you say. At the time when Jackson became intimate with him he was just at his prime, and had no other wish than to live in solitude, and amuse himself with poetry and music. He lodged in a farm house near Chudleigh, and would oftentimes come to Exeter in a winter morning, ungloved and open-breasted, before Jackson was up (though he was an early riser), with a pocket-full of music or poems to know how he liked them. His relations thought this was a sad life for a man of family, and forced him to London. tears ran down Jackson's cheeks when he told me the The story. When he was in London, his feelings, having been forced out of their proper channel, took a wrong direction, and he soon began to suffer the punishment of debauchery. The Miss Palmer, to whom he dedicated his Sonnets' (afterwards, and perhaps still, Lady Inchiquin), was niece to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Whether Sir Joshua objected to his addresses on account of his irregularities in London, or on other grounds, I know not, but this was the commencement of his madness. He was refused admittance into the house; upon this, in a fit of half anger and half derangement, he broke the windows, and was (little to Sir Joshua's honour) sent to Newgate. Some weeks after this had happened, Jackson went to London, and one of his first inquiries was for Bampfylde. Lady Bampfylde, his mother, said that she knew little or nothing about him; that she got him out of Newgate, and he was now in some beggarly place. Where?-In King street, Holborn, she believed, but she did not know the number of the house. Away went Jackson, and knocked (at The late Sir Charles Bampfylde, who was shot.-Ed. every door till he found the right. It was a truly But he never wrote: the next news was that he am. THREE PLEASANTRIES, OF WHICH THE READER MAY TAKE HIS CHOICE. 'Tis pleasant climbing the green hill's ascent, TABLE TALK. St Overseer and St Overall.-M. de Lannoi, from Rome, mentions some original papers which he martyr, was nothing more than the cloak which Alban happened to have at the time of his execution. An Honest Lover.-As D'Aubigné (Henry the Fourth's friend and rough monitor) was once relating his misfortunes to M. de Taley, the latter interrupted him, saying, “ You have papers of the highest consequences to the late Chancellor, who is now retired to his seat, and quite worn out; if you will consent that I should send to acquaint him with what is in your custody, I'll engage you shall have 10,000 crowns, if not from him, from those who would make use of them to ruin him." Upon which, D'Aubigné fetched all these papers which were at once to ruin him, and threw them in the fire before M. Taley, who, beginning to reprimand him smartly for it, D'Aubigné answered, "I have burnt them, lest they might burn me, for the temptation might have overpowered me." The next day, the old gentleman taking him by the hand, said, "Though you have not made your thoughts known to me, I am too quicksighted not to perceive that you have a love for my daughter: that she is courted by persons in better circumstances than yourself cannot be unknown to you; but your burning those papers yesterday is such a proof of integrity, that it has disposed me to signify to you, that I am willing you should be my son-in-law." Address of Virtue.-Du Chattelet, a French statesman (he was one of the Scotch family of Hay), had such an unshaken integrity, that he was imprisoned for refusing to act in some unworthy measures. Being afterwards released, he went to the royal chapel: but the King (Louis XIII.) affected to look another way, that he might not meet the eyes of a person to whom he had lately done such flagrant injustice. Hereupon Du Chattelet whispered one of the noblemen, "Be so good as to tell the king, my Lord, that I freely forgive him, and beg the honour of one look." This set the king a-laughing, and all was well. Excellent Advice to Poets.-The ordinary poet, like the ordinary man, is for ever seeking, in external circumstances, the help which can be found only in himself. In what is familiar or near at hand, he discerns no form or comeliness; home is not poetical, but prosaic; it is in some past, distant, conventional world, that poetry resides for him; were he there, and not here, were he thus, and not so,-it would be well with him. Hence our innumerable host of rose-coloured novels and iron-nailed epics, with their locality not on the earth, but somewhat nearer the moon. Hence our Virgins of the Sun, and our Knights of the Cross, malicious Saracens in turbans, and copper-coloured chiefs in wampum, and so many other truculent figures from the heroic times or the heroic climates, who, on all hands, swarm in our poetry. Peace be with them! But yet, as a grand moralist proposed preaching to the men of this century, so would we fain preach to the poets a sermon on the duty of staying at home. Let them be sure that heroic ages and heroic climates can do little for them. That form of life has attraction for us, less because it is better and nobler than our own, than simply because it is different; and even this attraction must be of the most transient sort. For will not our own age one day be an ancient one, and have as quaint a costume as the rest, therefore, and be ranked along with them, in respect of quaintness? Does Homer interest us now because he wrote of what passed out of his native Greece, and two centuries before he was born? or because he wrote of what passed in God's world, and in the heart of man, which is the same after thirty centuries? Let our poets look to this is their feeling really finer, truer, and their visions deeper than that of other men,they have nothing to fear, even from the humblest subject; is it not so, they have nothing to hope, but an ephemeral favour, even from the highest.— Thomas Carlyle. LONDON JOURNAL. TO ASSIST THE INQUIRING, ANIMATE THE STRUGGLING, AND SYMPATHIZE WITH ALL. WEDNESDAY, Nov. 19, 1834. TWILIGHT ACCUSED & DEFENDED. A MONSTROUS thing has happened. Here is a correspondent of ours, and a pleasant one too, and witty withal, aiming a blow at our gentle friend, Twilight! What possible mood could he have been in? Did he expect a friend who had disappointed him? or a new book? or a letter? Was his last bottle of wine out? Or did he want his tea? Or was he reading, and could not go on, the servant not being in the way to bring candles? Or was the evening rainy? Or had he said anything wrong to any one else, and so was out of temper? Or had he been reading something about twilight, badly written, a "twaddle," and so was disposed to go to an extreme the other way, and be perverse in his wit? His first verse looks like it. Or had he a tooth-ache? or a head-ache? or nothing to do? Or had his fire gone out? We should almost as soon have expected a blow from him at gentleness itself, as at our gentle dusk friend, the mildest and most unpresuming of the Hours, meek, yet genial withal, like some loving Mestizo or Quadroon, something between fair and dark, or dusk and dusker, who, by her sweet middle tone between merit and the want of pretension, and by having nothing to arrogate, and much to be prized, charms the amorous heart of some contemplative West Indian, who is tired out between the flare of his whiter favourites, and the undiscerning presumption of his black. Certain it is, that, vehemently howsoever he speaketh, we hold him not to be in earnest (the less so by reason of that enormity); but, in order to prevent the peril of any false conclusions, in minds accustomed not to such facetious perversity, and still more to take the opportunity of vindicating the character of our gentle friend, and make our correspondent remorseful the next time he sees her (for having even appeared to treat her ill), we have thought it incumbent upon us to follow up his hard words with others more fitly soft and overwhelmingly balmy. Oh, there is nothing like defending a good easy cause, and a tender-hearted client ! It makes one, somehow, so sure of triumph, so able to trample on one's enemy with the softest foot and the most generous reputation-so gifted (dare we say it?) with the pleasures of malignity by the very exercise of benevolence. Mark you, dear reader, with what a tender savageness we will set him down. Yet he rails in good set terms. There is no denying that. Far be it from us to deny it, who shall only gain the greater praise from our refutation. Hear him how he sets out with the ingenious impudence of his pun and his alliteration A TRIMMING FOR TWILIGHT. How I despise the twaddle about twilight, Twilight is eve grown grey before its time, (From the Steam-Pressof C. & W. REYNELL, Little Pulteney-street.] No. 34. 'Tis like that forming frown yet undefin'd That yon half-smiling female face has got, As tho' it hadn't quite made up its mind Whether it should look angrily or not. Twilight's an interloper in the sky; A dame passé, who, growing old and wan, Lovers love twilight, but I'm not a lover; Haply 'tis so: in love's delirious trance, Fancy that peoples darkness with bright rays, And makes a darkness that it thus may gaze; How is't that every feeling, fond, intense, Tempts us to lose awhile our visual sense? Is it superfluous? We drink love thro' it; This is digressive, but enough for me; Thou'rt day declared a bankrupt, offering round Not day-break, but day broken, light fades fast; Now flickering fainter, now more darkly dull, I would not have thee linger in thy pain :" Is that thy shadow, lingering on the moor? Beneath the hillock's shadow, cloak'd in grey, PRICE THREE Halfpence. Child of the mist, isthmus 'twixt light and shade! W. L. R. "Away-away!" Our correspondent must have been in a great hurry, to speak thus to the poor gentle twilight, which has not a word to say for itself, unless it be the muffin-bell, the next thing in humbleness of sound to the sheep-bell. We take him to be a prodigiously active and eager spirit, with an ultra flow of health and life, and never easy but when occupied, perhaps not then, unless the occupation perfectly suits him. But he has a soul withal; you may know it even by what is implied in his style of abuse; and therefore it is not the twilight he hates, but the absence of something which he wanted instead of it. Yes; assuredly he has been “snubbing" the poor Quadro, like some lordly planter, because somebody else has not brought him his sangaree. - He lets we cannot say the “cat out of the bag ”– but the dove out of the cage-in what he says about lovers. He tells us he is "no lover," merely in order to avoid what he knows to be conclusive against him; and, in fact, he runs into a digression about love, on purpose to disprove his own argument. Besides, if he happens to be so limited or so unlucky in his circle of acquaintances as to be in love with nobody, he must love all sorts of loveable things, otherwise how could he write so well about loving? and if a man loves anything at all, he must needs love so mild and loving a thing as the twilight. (Here are a great many repetitions of the word "love;" but it is a pleasant note, and will bear reiteration like the nightingale's.) on Furthermore, in this passage of our correspondent's about love, compared with certain letters which he has written to us privately, urging us to give an article Coleridge," we have detected him in the fact of nis disingenuousness; for this very passage has manifestly been suggested by some stanzas of that favourite of his, in the poem intitled the "Day-Dream." It is a lover's picture of twilight in a room, and is so beautiful and true, that it might serve, alone, as an answer to all the stanzas of this pretending rogue :— My eyes make pictures when they are shut: I see a fountain, large and fair, A willow, and a ruin'd hut, And thee, and me, and Mary there. O, Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow! Bend o'er us, like a bow'r, my beautiful green willow. The shadows dance upon the wall, By the still dancing fire-flames made; And now they slumber, moveless all! And now they melt to one deep shade! But not from me shall this mild darkness steal thee; I dream thee with mine eyes, and at my heart I feel thee! Very beautiful, and spiritual, and truly loving. But lovers, the most honourable and delicate, have a trick of taking other advantages of the good-natured twilight; and the poet goes on to let us know as much: Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play. Far be it from us to deny the merits of light and seeing. Beauty was surely meant to be seen as well as loved, or why is it so beautiful? But it is maxim with us never to deny the merits of one go thing because there is another; and twilight, where love is, has its loveliness also, as well as lamp and daylight. One of the greatest tests of true love is the sense of joy imparted by the mere presence of the beloved object, apart from light, speech, or anything else; and twilight, somehow, rewards us for the sincerity and generosity of this feeling, by bringing us nearer to the object of our affection, in its abolition of intermediate objects, and a general sense of its mild embracement. Come-let us consider what our correspondent would say further in behalf of the twilight, if he were in the humour for it. We wish we had time to say it in verse; but here we heave a great sigh (one of the sighs of our life); and as we always feel ashamed of sighing in the midst of this beautiful creation (of which to be able to discern a millionth part of the beauties, is to waken up as many consolatory angels, who lie in wait to become visible to loving eyes) we shall proceed to express ourselves in our accustomed prose, from which, at all events, the love of what is poetical cannot be excluded. Twilight is the time between light and darkness, when the facility afforded for action by the daylight is over, and the aid of candle-light, for the renewal of action, awaits our pleasure to renew it or not. It is therefore the precise time, of all others, which seems We say, by designed by nature for meditation. nature; for though we hold it to be man's nature to be artificial as well as natural, yet it is natural for him, being a thinking being, to "take pause;" and nature in this gentlest and most intermediate hour seems to offer it him. The greatest part of his duty is over (we hold, that in a more civilized state of society it will all be over, except for purposes of entertainment); he cannot see to work; he cannot see, very actively, to travel; his very book begins to fail him, unless he has determined to keep up the train of his reading, and goes nearer and nearer to the window, and at last he must give it up. is therefore thrown upon his meditations. Now "think a little." He Not of your cares, dear reader, if you can help it; not of your work; not of other people's faults; not of your own. There is time enough to attend to those, when we have more light-unless indeed you do it in great charity, first towards the faults of others, and then towards yourself (having earned the right), and always provided you end, as indeed you must if true charity meditates with you, in resolutions befitting the mildness and considerateness of the hour. We would not even have you think of the sufferings of others, provided you think of them at any other time, and do what you can to help them. Twilight is a placid hour, and you must entertain it with placidity or not at all. You must have so acted, or so wished to act, at other times, as to be able to give gentle welcome to gentle guest. You must be worthy of the twilight. (Here our correspondent gives a great wince; and begins to inquire of his conscience, whether he has ever cracked any one's skull, or written any impiety except the above.) Now let us think of all mild and loving things,— of our childhood, of the fields, of our best friends, of twilight itself and its shadows, of the quiet of our fireside, and the fanciful things we see in the glowing coals, of the poets who have spoken of evening, of the beauty of stillness, of scenes of rural comfort, of the travels of the winds and clouds, of stories of good angels, nay, of dear friends whom we have lost, provided we have lost them long enough or loved them well enough to consider them with reference to the beauty of their own spirit, rather than to their absence from ourselves. Perhaps they are commissioned to be good angels over us:-perhaps they are now this minute in the room, smiling in the certainty of their own lovingness, and the knowledge of our future good; ;ay, and (as far as their sympathy with our present struggles will permit) smiling to think even how startled we should be to see them, if it were within heaven's knowledge of what is best for us that we should do so. For God is the author of mirth as well as seriousness, and considering what security of belief in good there must be in celestial natures, we may conceive some little stooping to it even in the happiness of heavenly cheeks. "Let us think" of that, and of all other possibilities beyond the regions of mere earthly utility, not excepting it nevertheless. It is the privilege of the imaginative,' that they include everything which is good, besides seeing a germ of it at the core of the thorniest evil. We put these words, "let us think," within marks of quotation for a reason very proper to mention in this place; for we scarcely ever begin meditating at twilight without calling them to mind as uttered to us by the beloved parent to whom we are indebted for most of our aspirations after anything useful or beautiful. She would say to us sometimes at this hour, when our spirits appeared to her to be a little too incessant, "Come-let us think a little." And then we used to sit down on a stool at her side, and look at the fire, and be led into a sedate mood by some story she would tell us of her own mother, or of the sea, or of some great and good people of old. So now this is good hushing time, is it not, reader? and fit for keeping a little from the candles; and not what our ultra-lively friend (now growing reYou and we are morseful) would make of it. sitting on each side of the fire-place, one of us with a knee between his hands, the other with a child between his knees, and there is a fair friend with us, and we are all as quiet as mice, our faces lit up by the fire, and our shadows shifting on the wall. When we speak, it is in a low voice; for twilight has this also in common with the sweetest of its friends :Its voice is ever soft, gentle and low,An excellent thing in "Twilight." W. L. R. shall come in among us, if he is "very good." W. L. R. You see before you, sir, a penitent. Ed. I see before me a suspicious quoter of impudent plays. W. L. R. I appeal to the lady's face, sir. Ed. Oh, you're a very cunning appellant, sir, and the lady's face will get you a pardon for anything.There-Don't tumble over the little boy. But with what face you can come in, after saying you are no lover" W. L. R. Excuse me. Whatever I might have said before, real or pretended, and whatever new presumption I may be guilty of now, nobody can look on this lady's face, without Ed. Hush, hush, not so very loud and enthusiastic. (All laugh.) You see how little he was in earnest. The moment he hears of a comfortable party and a charming woman, he is for being in the midst of it, twilight and all.-Come, as we are Christian people, we will give him, by way of penance, what shall be no penance at all. He shall recite to us Coleridge's poem, intitled Frost at Midnight.' There is mention in it of a fireside and of the little fluttering film on the bars before us; and the spirit of the whole piece is suited to the occasion, quiet, reflective, and universal. The last line is the perfection of ideal sympathy. W. L. R. (suppressing the vehemence of his enthusiasm in order to recite with a gentleness fitted to the lines, and gradually growing softer and more seasonable, till nothing can be better given)— FROST AT MIDNIGHT. The frost performs its secret ministry Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud-and hark, again! loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings: save that at my side, My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, This populous village! Sea, hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; Only that film, which fluttered on the grate, Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form Whose puny flaps and freaks, the idling spirit But O how oft, How oft, at school, with most believing mind Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, fall, Heard only in the trances of the blast, HINTS FOR TABLE TALK. 'Tis night-all is silent-the dwellers in the habitations round are hushed in slumber, or else wooing sleep ;-recumbent they ponder on the transactions of the past day, or take thought for those of the morrow. 'Tis October, and the winds sough round the gable end of the house and o'er its roof;-the last of the flies buzzes drearily through the room. I am in my chamber—a garret,-according to Bacon, the best place for light and poetic study, and, therefore, authors should descend in proportion to the character of their studies, to the second floor, first floor, parlour, kitchen, cellar, and to the very vaults of Somerset House, for heavy, profound metaphysics; because in proportion as they are high in the air, their spirits and thoughts are exhilarating and ebullating, and the nearer they approach the centre of gravity, their minds are constrained into a deeper and more sombre train of thought. But sombre is not the character of writing at which I am at present engaged-neither do I claim the poetic strain-light writing for light reading is my present aim. Light,-said I? I' faith my lamp burns dim, and must be trimmed. Lamp, -said I? No-'tis an unpoetic candle. I cannot, as is the manner of some, persuade myself into the belief that there is some of Shakspeare's fat, or Milton's marrow burning in it, to give light, or to shed a lustre on my poor lucubrations-No-'Tis as genuine a mutton fat as ever burned in socket-some of it, mayhap, supplying combustion, for a second or third time, to illuminate the deeds of a mortal. "Out, out, brief candle!" said the poet, to the last inch of life, flickering in the socket of time. Hide not thy light under a bushel," said a greater |