DESPAIR. DESPAIR itself is not utterly without its advantages. By shaking off the importunate promptings and incessant disappointments of hope, it induces the same morbid ease in the mind that mortification does in the flesh. Despair is a triumph over fear, and care, and pain, as well as over hope; thus raising us above humanity, even while we are sinking under its trials; and no one can accomplish such a victory without a feeling of stern, and perhaps not ungratifying pride. There must be something heroic in a man's sensations when Wearied, forsaken, and pursued, at last Courage he thence assumes, resolved to bear NIGHT-SONG-WRITTEN AT SEA. 'Tis night-my bark is on the ocean, Not e'en the darkened waves whose motion As if thine eyes, though veiled, were beaming Good night and bless thee, Fanny dearest! For heaven still guards and guides his track, 'Tis sweet on the benighted billow The wind, self-lullabied is dozing, The winking stars withdraw their light, Fanny! methinks thine eyes are closing, Bless thee, my love! Good night, good night! APOLLO SMINTHEUS. By a chain of reasoning not less logical and conclusive than that which enabled Horne Tooke to establish the etymological deduction of the word gerkin from King Jeremiah, Sir Edward Bulwer proves in his beautiful prose poem of" Zanoni," that the common surname of Smith, which I had hitherto supposed to have been professionally derived from Tubal Cain-" for the first Smith was the first murderer's son,"-or from the family of the Fabricii, so celebrated in Roman history, owes its origin in point of fact, to the term Smintheus-a title bestowed July.-VOL. LXV. NO. CCLIX. 2 E upon the Phrygian Apollo. Sir Edward, following the scholiast upon Homer, assigns the name to one of the god's high priests; but Strabo assures us that it was bestowed upon the deity himself, in consequence of his having destroyed an immense number of oμvai, or rats, with which the country was infested. What a blessing would it have been to our country had the Phrygian God bequeathed his rat-destroying talent to some officer of our modern House of Commons! His successor would have had no sinecure. A propos to this last word, we were led to expect that in a reformed parliament all sinecures would be abolished; and yet, after a long and frivolous debate upon some trifle, we often hear honourable members declaring that they are determined to take the sense of the house! THE LITTLE BROWNS. BY THE EDITOR. TAKING into account the peculiar circumstances of the country, and the particular juncture, coincident with the depreciation of our gold money, there is something strange and puzzling about the issue of a new coinage of Half-Farthings. In a cheap country one can understand the utility and convenience of such small monies :-for example, in France or Belgium with their centimes or in Germany with its pfennings, ten of which are equivalent to one of our pence. For in any of these lands it is still possible to procure some article or other in exchange for a coin of the lowest denomination but in England, dear England, what is there that one can purchase for such a mite as one of the new fractions? Nothing. The traditionary farthing rushlight has risen to four times the price, and the old ha'penny roll has rolled into a penny one. And half a farthing? The only, commodity I know of to be obtained for such a trifle is-kicks! I'd kick him for half a farthing. It is barely possible, however, that at the street stalls, or in hawkers' baskets, there may be something in the lozenge or lollipop line to be bought for one of these new doits. But the issue of a new coinage, of a novel value, expressly for the convenience of little children with limited incomes, is a thing not to be supposed. It is not likely, either, that the penny has thus been split into eighths, because the oranges have been eight for sixpence; neither is it probable that our copper currency has been chopped so small only to make it more like mint-sauce. Is it possible that, alarmed by the depreciation of our Sovereigns, our rulers have thought of producing a coin not valuable enough for plugging-and too little and light for sweating-even in the present warm weather? Is it plausible that to meet the haggling which hard times will pro duce, these copper minims have been invented so that two Merchants or Brokers who have boggled about a farthing, may split the difference and effect a bargain? Such a supposition were too derogatory to our modern Greshams. A certain Journal, indeed, has hinted that the measure will benefit the poor, by their receiving fractions, which hitherto have never been given to the petty purchaser; but surely this argument is untenable, for will not the same coinage enable the seller to impose a fraction hitherto impracticable on his article-for example, a penny and oneeighth on his bun or roll? The new denomination can hardly be intended-against an universal Income Tax-to enable a man with fourpence-farthing a year to pay three per cent on his annuity. The Victoria D. G. on the new coin, would never lend her royal countenance to any such speculation. Is it possible, in consideration of the dearness of bread, that the Lilliputian currency has been invented for the purchase of such tiny little loaves as Gulliver used to devour by the dozen? Alas! the people who make money are not so considerate for those who don't! With none of these views is it likely that the Demi Farthings have been minted-nor yet to encourage low play, by furnishing almost nominal stakes for short whist and games of chance. To what purpose, then, have the dwarf coppers been introduced? There still remains one use for them, and really it appears on plausible grounds to have been the very use intended by the authors of the measure-namely, to be given away. The universal distress of the working classes-the rapid increase of pauperism, and the broad hint which has been thrown out, that the wants of the starving population must be provided for by voluntary contribution, tend strongly to favour this hypothesis. The man and woman with a spare penny-the lady and gentleman with a spare shilling, will be enabled, by this very small change, to enlarge the sphere of their benevolence; and the noble philanthropist, whose generosity amounts to a guinea, may have a thousand beggars beset his gate, and "none go unrelieved away!" Yes-thanks to our mint-masters, we shall be indulged with cheap charity, if nothing else! But besides the mendicants, the minute coin will be serviceable to give to children, to crossing-sweepers, watermen, Jacks-in-the-water, and other humble officials, who look to ladies and gentlemen for fees. Whether the Half-Farthings will do to tip to servants, guards, chambermaids, stage-coachmen, waiters, or box-keepers, is more problematical: but in these hard times, when every retrenchment is desirable, the experiment at least ought to be made-nay, should even a young lady call with her subscription-book to beg for something for the little Blacks, it might not be amiss to introduce her to the little Browns. LITERATURE OF THE MONTH. CABOOL.* ALTHOUGH events long subsequent to the date of those related in this work of the late Sir Alexander Burnes on Cabool, have superseded and rendered obsolete much that it contains; yet on the other hand, the late fatal circumstances connected with its lamented author and his compatriots, on the very spot chiefly described, give to it an adventitious interest of the most intense character, and will cause it to be so generally read, that our task of noticing it may be confined to a brief abstract of its chief contents. It is in fact, so far as regards the body of the work, pretty strictly what it professes to be-a "Personal Narrative of a Journey to and Residence in" a city which will ever henceforth be the most painfully memorable in our Eastern annals. The journey was made in pursuance of a government mission, the chief object of which was that of " opening the river Indus to commerce, and establishing on its banks, and in the countries beyond it, such relations as should contribute to the desired end." Unluckily for the local interest of the work, a very small portion of it is devoted to the description of Cabool itself,-all the early chapters being employed in details of the journey thither-a legitimate feature of the design no doubt, but one that we could well have dispensed with in favour of a more ample and minute account of the city itself, and its singular environs. The immediate and strong interest of the volume commences on the writer's quitting Peshawur for the Kyber Pass,-through which the author and his suite penetrated without an escort, contrary to the urgent advice of the French governor of Peshawur, General Avitable. The description of this passage is one of the most interesting in the book,-especially at the present moment, Here is one graphic speci men of it: We had scarcely pitched our camp in the confined ground below Ali Musjed, and in the dry bed of the river, when the rolling thunder gave notice of rain; and it soon came down in such torrents as must have washed us back to Jumrood, had it not been for the activity of our own people and the assistance afforded us by the Khyberees. Tent, boxes, and every thing were dragged by main force up the steep sides of the defile on which we were constrained to remain, drenched to the skin, and totally without shelter, and by no means in that placid state of mind which would enable us to have enjoyed the sublimity of the scene-for sublime it certainly was-the water rolling in a torrent down the bed of the pass, driving bushes and every thing before it; whilst waterfalls in all directions and of all hues came rushing down around us, some of them in an unbroken fall of more than three hundred feet-all of these bursting out one after another from unseen crevices in the rocks by which we were surrounded. Next morning we were joined by Agha Jhan, the governor of Jellalabad, the Momund chief, Sadut Khan, and a shalighassee or officer of the court, who came with about 5000 men, and the hill rang with shouts and noise of men Cabool. Being a Personal Narrative of a Journey to and Residence in that City in the years 1836, 1837, and 1838. By Sir Alexander Burues, C.B., &c. 1 vol. and arms; during all which din and tumult we remained looking on as patiently as we could, but heartily wishing ourselves fairly out of the defile. This we effected on the following morning, by a march of twenty miles to Duka, and at length cleared the far-famed pass of Kyber without an accident. The last half of the pass is the most formidable; but even there it is pervious to heavy artillery. The remainder of the volume is devoted to Cabool and the districts in its vicinity; but we are bound to say that by far the most curious and interesting of the details we meet with are those furnished by the lamented Dr. Lord, in letters to his chief, relative to a mission he undertook (accompanied by Lieutenant Wood) to the country of Mir Moorad Beg, where the two Englishmen remained for more than four months. Dr. Lord's brief notice of the customs of the Uzbecks, written when at Koondooz, is full of novelty and interest. Another very valuable portion of this volume is the information collected by the author at Cabool, relative to the singular and rather mystericus race, the Kaffirs, who occupy the mountainous regions north of Affghanistan. After all, however, the most permanently valuable portions of this volume are the various appendices, and especially those which relate to the main object of Burnes's mission, and to what must ultimately be the sole object of British enterprise in countries beyond the Indusnamely, the navigation of that noble river for commercial purposes. The specific information here detailed may, if carefully aud judiciously extended and worked out, lead to results too vast and important even to be glanced at in the present state of our relations with Affghanistan ; but the nature and extent of which may in some degree be judged of from the extremely valuable researches of Mr. Godfrey Vigne, higher up on the Indus, and especially in the valley of Kashmir, as detailed in his important work noticed by us at length last month. THE DIARY OF MADAME D'ARBLAY. THE fourth volume of this invaluable Diary, now on the eve of publication, commences with the year 1788, and closes with the beginning of the year 1789-a sufficing testimony of the singular industry of the writer, and the intense interest she took in the novel and extraordinary scenes by which she was now surrounded-particularly that one which occupies so large a portion of the Diary, and occupies it in a manner, and to a result more singular and curious, and of more moral as well as historical interest, than any thing else that has hitherto seen the light, or can ever be expected to see it, on the same topic we allude to the first attack of insanity experienced by George III. at the latter end of the above year. The personal and private details connected with, and arising out of this event, by the turn of which, it is no exaggeration to say, the entire condition of Europe was subsequently modified-Miss Burney, without in any instance infringing on the almost sacred trust reposed in her, contrives to give with such singularly graphic general effect, blended with such touching pathos in the details, that the whole reads like some terrible story of ancient times, rendered |