swear; and so he laid a wager he'd never swear again; and yesterday, in the middle of dinner, while he was champing his bird, and cutting up your argument about cruelty, all of a sudden what does our vicar but clap his hand to his jaw as if he was going to give a view holla, and rap out the d-dest oath you ever heard. He had Now champed a shot, by G-d, with an old tooth. that's meat and drink to you, Harry, for all your tenderness." "Why, it was only a shot in a black coat, Jack, instead of a black cock." "That's famous. I'll tell him of that. Oh, Hal, your laugh is savage. See-you enjoy the sport now yourself." "It ought to be a lesson to him." "Oh yes! mighty considerate persons you Tatler and Spectator men are, and would make fine havock with our amusements.' "Excuse me. It is you that make fine havock. I would have you amuse yourself to your heart's content, if you would do it without breaking the bones and hearts of your fellow-creatures." "Fellow-creatures!' and their 'hearts! The hearts of woodcocks and partridges! Pooh, pooh! Bilson might have borne his pain better, I own, though it's a d-d thing, that sort of jar; but what he says, is very true; he says, if you come to think of it, there must be pain in the world, and it would be unmanly to think of it in this light." "Very well. Then do you, Jack, who are so manly, and so willing to encourage one's sports, stand a little farther, and let me crack your shin with this poker." "Nonsense. That's a very different thing." "Perhaps you'd prefer a good crack on the skull ?" "Nonsense." "Or a thrust-out of your eye?" "No, no: all that's very different." "Well you know what you have been about this morning. Go and pick your way again along the palings there; and leave me your fowling-piece, and I'll endeavour to shoot you handsomely through the body." 66 Nonsense, nousense. I'm a man, you know; and a bird's a bird. Besides, birds don't feel as we do. They're not Christians. They're not reasoning beings. They're not made of the same sort of stuff. In short, it's no use talking. There's no end of these things." "Just so. This is precisely the way I should argue if I had the winging of you. Here I should say, is Mr. John Tomkins. Mind, I am standing with my manningpiece by a hedge." N "With your what?" "With my manning-piece. You cannot say fowlingpiece, when it is men that are to be brought down." "Oh, now you're joking." "I beg your pardon; you will find it no joke presently. Here, says I, is Mr. John Tomkins coming; or Here is a Tomkins. Look at him. He's in fine coat and waistcoat (we can't say feather, you know :) keep close now for my Joe Manton: you shall see how I'll pepper him. Pray don't,' says my companion. 'A Tomkins is a Tomkins after all, and has his feelings as we have.' 'Stuff!' says I: Tomkinses don't feel as we do. They're not Christians, for they do not do as they would be done by. They're not reasoning beings, for they do not see a leg's a leg. They're not made of the same sort of stuff; and so if they bleed, it does not signify if they die of a torturing fracture, who cares? In short, it's no use talking. There's no end of these things. So here goes. Now if I hit him, he is killed outright, which is no arm to any body; and if I wound him, why he only goes groaning and writhing for three or four days, and who cares for that?'" "Upon my soul, if I listen, you'll make a milk-sop of me. Consider-think of the advantages of fresh air and exercise; of getting up in the morning, and scouring the country, and all that." "Excellent: but, my dear Tomkins, the birds are not bound to suffer, because you want fresh air." "But it's the only time of the year, perhaps, that I can get out and I must have something to do-something to occupy me and lead me about." "The birds, Tomkins, are not bound to have their legs and thighs broken, because you are in want of something to lead you about." 66 Well, you know what I mean. I mean that we must not look too nicely into these things, as somebody said about fish; or we should fret ourselves for nothing. The birds kill one another." "Yes, from necessity; for the want of a meal. But they do not torture-or if they did, that would be because they did not reason as well as you and I, Tomkins." "What I mean to say is, that there's pain in the world already: we cannot help it; and if we can turn it to pleasure, so much the better. This is manly, I think." "Well said indeed. But to turn pain into pleasure, and to add to it by more pain, are two different things, are they not? To bear pain like a man, and to inflict it like a sportsman, are two different things." A sportsman can bear pain as well as any body." "Then why does he not begin by turning his own pain into a pleasure? As it is, he turns his own pleasure to another's pain. Why does he not begin with himself?" "How with himself?" "Why you talk of the want of amusement and excitement. Now to say nothing of cricket, and golf, and boating, and other sports, are there no such things to be had as quarter-staves, single-stick, and broken heads? A good handsome pain there is a gallant thing, and strengthens the soul as well as the body. If there must be a certain portion of pain in the world, these were the ways to share it. But to sneak about, safe one's-self, with a gun and a dog, and inflict all sorts of wounds and torments upon a parcel of little helpless birds, Tomkins, you know not what you are at, when you do it; or you are too much of a man to go on." "I cannot think that we inflict those tortures you speak of?" "How many birds do you wound instead of kill? Say, upon an average, twenty to one, which is a generous computation. How many hundred birds would this make in the course of the day? How many thousands in the course of a season? To bring them down, and then be obliged to kill them, is butcherly enough: but to lame, and dislocate, and shatter the joints and bodies of so many that fly off, and leave them to die a lingering death in their agony,-I think it would not be unworthy of some philosophers and teachers, if they were to think a little of all this as they go, and not talk of the "sport" and the "amusement" like others; as if men were to be trained up at once into thought and want of thought, into humanity and cruelty. Really, men are not the only creatures in existence; and the laugh of mutual complacency and approbation is apt to contain very sorry and shallow things, even among the "celebrated" and "highly respectable." I don't speak of you, Jack; but of those who make a profession of thinking, which you know you are not under the necessity of doing. But what's the matter?" "I've got the d-dest toothache come upon me. It's this cursed draught. Of all pains the toothache is the most horrible. I've no patience with it." "I'll shut the door. There-now never mind the toothache, for I'll bear it capitally." "You hear it! That's a good one. Very easy for you to bear it; but how the devil can I?-Hm! hm! (writhing about) it's the cursedest pain." "Stay-here's some oil of cloves Mrs. Wilton has brought you. How does it feel now?" "Wonderfully. The pain is quite gone. It was very bad, I assure you. You must not think I am wanting in proper courage as a man, because it hurt me You know, Harry, I can be as bold as most inen, though I say it who shouldn't." So. My dear Jack, you have as much right to speak the truth, as I have. The boldest of men is not expected to be without feeling. An officer may go bravely into battle, and bear it bravely too, but he must feel it: he cannot be insensible to a shattered knce." "Certainly not." "Or to a jaw blown away-" "By no means." "Or four of his ribs jammed in—” "Horrible!" "Or a face mashed, and his nose forced in-” "Don't speak of it!" "Or his two legs taken off by a cannon-ball, he being left to fester to death on a winter's night on a large plain." "Upon my soul, you make my flesh creep on my bones." "A gallant spirit is not bound to feel all this, or even to hear of it, without shuddering, even though the battle may be necessary, and a great good produced by it to society." "Certainly, certainly, God knows." "It is only a woodcock or a snipe that ought to bear it without complaining: your partridge is the only piece of flesh and blood that we may put into such a state for no necessity, but purely for our sport and pleasure." "How? What's that you say?" "I say it is none but birds that we may, with a perfect conscience, lame, lacerate, mash, and blow their legs and beaks away, and leave, God knows where, to perish of neglect and torture, they being the only masculine creatures living, and not to be lowered into comparison with soldiers and gallant men." Hey?-Why as to that-Hey? What? 'Fore George, you bewilder me with your list of tortures. But how am I to be sure that a bird feels as you say?" "It is enough that you know nothing certain As you are not sure, you have no right to hazard the injustice, especially as you cannot help being sure of one thing; which is, that birds have flesh and blood like ourselves, and that they afford similar evidences of feeling and suffering. Allow me to read you a passage that I cut the other day out of an old review. It is taken from Fothergill's Essay on the Philosophy, Study, and Use of Natural History; a book which I shall make acquaintance with as soon as I can. Here it is. "It may, perhaps, be said, that a discourse on the iniquity and evil consequences of murder would come with a bad grace from one who was himself a murderer. Who can describe that which he has not seen, or give utterance to that which he has not felt? Never shall I forget the remembrance of a little incident which occurred to me during my boyish days-an incident which many will deem trifling and unimportant, but which has been particularly interesting to my heart, as giving origin to sentiments, and rules of action, which have since been very dear to me. "Besides a singular elegance of form and beauty of plumage, the eye of the common lapwing is peculiarly soft and expressive: it is large, black, and full of lustre, rolling, as it seems to do, in liquid gems of dew. I had shot a bird of this beautiful species; but, on taking it up, I found that it was not dead. I had wounded its breast; and some big drops of blood stained the pure whiteness of its feathers. As I held the hapless bird in my hand, hundreds of its companions hovered round my head, uttering continued shrieks of distress, and, by their plaintive cries, appeared to bemoan the fate of one to whom they were connected by ties of the most tender and interesting nature; whilst the poor wounded bird continually moaned, with a kind of inward, wailing note, expressive of the keenest anguish: and, ever and anon, it raised its drooping head, and turning towards the wound in its breast, touched it with its bill, and then looked up in my face, with an expression that I have no wish to forget, for it had power to touch my heart, whilst yet a boy, when a thousand dry precepts in the academical closet would have been of no avail." "Well now, Harry, that's touching; d--mme if it isn't. He's right about the precepts. You have saved 'em from being dry, eh, with your claret; but all that you have said hasn't touched me like that story. A lapwing! Hang me if I shall have the heart to touch another lapwing." "But other birds, Jack, have feelings, as well as lapwings." "What do you say, though, about Providence? Bilson said some famous things about Providence. What do you say to that?" 66 Oh, ho! what he "Admits and leaves them Providence's care'Does he ?-You remember the passage, Jack, in Pope : "God cannot love (cries Blunt with tearless eyes) The wretch he starves; and piously denies. The humbler bishop, with a meeker air, Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care." Or if "But we are Providence, Jack. Nay, don't start; I mean that our own feelings, our own regulated feelings and instructed benevolence, are a part of the general action of Providence, a consequence and furtherance of the Divine Spirit. You see, I can preach as well as Bilson. Humanity is the most visible putting forth of the Deity's hand; the noblest tool it works with. this theology doesn't serve, recollect the fable of Jupiter and the Waggoner. Are we content with abstract references to Providence, when we can work out any good for ourselves, or save ourselves from any evil? Bilson wait for Providence to induct him to his living? Did he not make a good stir about himself? Push him into a ditch the next time you meet him, and see if he will not bustle to get out of it. Leave him to get out by himself, and see if he does not think you a hard-hearted fellow. Wing him, Jack, wing him; and see if he'll apply to Providence or a surgeon." Did ". · Eh? That would be famous. I say I must be going though; it's getting dark, and I must be in town by nine. Well, Harry, my boy, good by. I can't say you've convinced me; you know I told you I wasn't to be convinced; but I plainly told you I don't like the story of the lapwing; it makes the bird look like a sort of human creature; and that's not to be resisted, dainme if it is. So I'm taken in about lapwings. Adieu." "Well, Jack, you shall say that in print, and perhaps do more good than you are aware. Have you any objection ?" "Not I, 'faith; I'd say it any where, if it came into my head.-But how? In the Sporting Magazine?" Why I'm afraid we can hardly attain to such eminence as that, especially on such a subject." 66 "I was thinking so. Oh, I see you'il pull your hive about my ears. Well, so be it. Adieu, Harry; I'll send you the books." "Adieu, honest Jack, jolliest of the myrmidons of young-eyed Massacre.'" CARACTACUS. From the Isle of the West the captive came, From his western isle to the Roman gate, While the coward will fly to the dagger or bowl, From his dungeon gloom to the glare of day A hue pass over of darker shade; Mayhap 'twas a gleam of his island earth, In blood to the last he had done and dared, Claudius sat on the world's proud throne, That empire which stretches from Afric's pyres Seem to comport with none but him. Sudden the tramp of feet draws nigh, The portal arch fixes every eye. "I am conquer'd, a prisoner, my crown is with theǝ; I fought that my country, my race might be free. If this be a crime in a Roman eye, ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE. this frightful piece of domestic history had been ought upon the modern stage, the dramatist, in consequence of the hero's setting his house on fire, would probably have called it (not with thorough applicability, but that does not signify to a good play-bill) the "Sardanapalus of Private Life." It is impossible, of course, to pronounce complete judgments on the parties concerned, in this or any other tragedy. To judge all, it is necessary to know all. But the writer tells us, that if Lady Kyte had begun with a little less anger, it is probable that no tragedy would have taken place. Loving-kindness does not always effect what it wishes; but it is the only sure card to play, whether to do away evil or to lessen it. And that man must be stupid or a monster, who would not adore, above all other women, the wife that with a real love for his person, should have treated him kindly in a matter like this. Sir William Kyte was a baronet of very considerable fortune and an ancient family, and on his return from his travels, had so amiable a character, and was reckoned what the world calls so fine a gentleman, that he was thought a very desirable match for a worthy nobleman's daughter in the neighbourhood, of great beauty, merit, and a suitable fortune. Sir William and his lady lived very happy together for several years, and had four or five fine children, when he was unfortunately nominated at a contested election to represent the borough of Warwick, in which county the bulk of his estate lay, and where he, at that time, resided. After the election, as some sort of recompence to a zealous partizan of Sir William, Lady Kyte took an innkeeper's daughter for her own maid; she was a tall, genteel girl, with a fine complexion, and seemingly very modest and innocent. Molly Jones, for that was her name, attracted Sir William's attention; and after some time the servants began to entertain some suspicions that she was too highly in her master's favour; the housekeeper in particular soon perceived that there was too much foundation for their suspicions, and knowing that the butler had made overtures to Molly, she informed him of the circumstance, and his jealousy having rendered him vigilant, he soon discovered the whole affair, and found that it had proceeded much further than was at first apprehended. The housekeeper made use of the butler's name, as well as his intelligence to her lady; and this threw everything into confusion; Lady Kytes's passion soon got the better of her discretion: for, if instead of reproaching Sir William for his infidelity, she had dissembled her resentment till his first fondness for this new object had abated, she might probably have reclaimed her husband; who, notwithstanding this temporary defection, was known to have a sincere regard and esteem for his lady. The affair being now publicly known in the family, and all restraints of shame or fear of discovery being quite removed, things were soon carried to extremity between Sir William and his lady, and a separation became unavoidable. Sir William left Lady Kyte with the two younger children, in possession of the Mansion House in Warwickshire; and retired himself with his mistress, and his two eldest sons, to a large farmhouse on the side of the Cotswold hills. The situation was fine, plenty of wood and water, and commanded an extensive view of the vale of Evesham: this tempted him to build a handsome box there, with very extensive gardens planted, and laid out in the luxurious taste of the age; and not content with this, before the body of the house was quite finished, Sir William added two large side fronts, for no better reason than that his mistress happened to say, "what is a Kite without wings?" The expense of finishing this place, which amounted at least to £10,000., was the first cause of Sir William encumbering his estate; and the difficulties in which he was involved making him uneasy; he, as is too often the case, had recourse to his bottle for relief. He kept what is called a hospitable table, and being seldom without company, this brought on a constant course of dissipation and want of economy, by which means his affairs in the course of a few years became almost desperate. There was taken into the family about this time a freshcoloured country girl, in the capacity of a dairy-maid, with no other beauty than what arises from the bloom of youth; and as people who once give way to their passions know no bounds, Sir William, in the decline of life, conceived an amorous regard for this girl, who was scarce twenty; this event produced still further confusion in the family. Mrs. Jones soon observed this growing passion in Sir William, and either from resentment or the apprehension, or perhaps the real experience of ill usage, thought proper to retire to Cambden, a neighbouring market-town, where she was reduced to keep a little sewing-school for bread. Young Mr. Kyte, whether shocked at this unparalled infatuation of his father, or as was commonly said, finding himself exposed to the continual insults of his female favourite, sought an asylum and spent most of his time with a nobleınan, a friend of his, in Warwickshire. Sir William, though he had now a prospect of being successful in this humble amour, and of indulging it without molestation, yet began at length to see the delusive nature of all vicious pursuits, and though he endeavoured to keep up his spirits, or rather to drown all thought by constant intoxication; in his sober intervals he became a victim to gloomy reflections; he had injured a valuable wife, which he could not now reflect upon without some remorse; he had wronged his innocent children, whom he could not think upon without the tenderest sentiments of compassion. His son, who had been a sort of companion to him for several years, had now left him through his ill usage, and as Mrs. Jones had for some time been useful to him, he was shocked at being deserted even by the woman for whose sake he had brought this distress upon his family; and he found himself almost alone in that magnificent, but fatal mansion, the erecting and adorning of which had been the principal cause of ruining his fortune. Tormented by these contending passions, he had for a week raised himself by constant inebriation to a degree of phrensy, and behaved in so frantic a manner that even his new favourite could day on which he executed his fatal resolution, he sent bear it no longer, and had eloped from him. On the for his son, and for his new mistress, with what intention can be only conjectured, but luckily neither of them obeyed the summons. Early in the evening, it being in the month of October, the butler had lighted two candles as usual, and set them upon the marble table in the hall. Sir William came down and took them up himself, as he frequently did; after some time, however, one of housemaids ran down stairs in a great fright, and said, "the lobby was still all in a cloud of smoke." The servants. and a tradesman that was in the house upon business, ran immediately up, and forcing open the door whence the smoke seemed to proceed, they found that Sir William had set fire to a large heap of fine linen, piled up in the middle of the room, which has been given by some old lady, a relation, as a legacy, to his eldest son. While the attention of the servants was entirely taken up with extinguishing the flames in this room, Sir William had made his escape into an adjoining chamber, where was a cotton-bed, and which was wainscotted with deal, as most finished rooms then were; when they had broken open this door, the flames burst out upon them with such fury that they were all glad to make their escape out of the house, the principal part of which sumptuous pile was, in a few hours burned to the ground, and no other remains of Sir William were found next morning, than the hip-bone and the vertebiæ, or bones of the back, with two or three keys, and a gold watch, which he had in his pocket. This was the dreadful consequence of a licentious passion, not checked in its infancy. SPECIMENS OF CELEBRATED AUTHORS. SECOND SPECIMEN OF ST. EVREMOND. His opinion of the best food; and of the English and their comedies. at once. It is not easy to give a complete specimen of an author His qualities are often various, and demand various samples. Those of St. Evremnod, for instance, are a gallant good-nature, a refined epicurism (in the ordinary sense of the word), great good sense in judging of common life, and now and then a disposition to banter; which last is said to have so pervaded his manners (that is to say, the spirit of it, or the disposition to undervalue and to look at the petty side of things), as to give him a "sneering physiognomy." There is a look of this kind in some of his portraits, though not all; and it is easy enough to suppose, that a man of St. Evremond's fine, but not profound, sense, falling upon the times he did, and on such a court as Charles the Second's however he may have accommodated himself to circumstances, may have had misgivings about human nature, calculated to give this turn to his countenance. Of the good-natured gallantry we have given a sample. The banter we must keep for another time. Here follow specimens of the refined epicurism, and the solid judgThe first is part of a letter written to a friend ment. in exile. JUDICIOUS EATING (if you can afford it). You'll tell me, perhaps, that I was not of so gay a humour in my own misfortunes, as I appear to be in your's; and that it is ill-breeding in a man to bestow all his concern upon his own misfortunes, and be indifferent to, nay, and even merry with the calamities of his friends. I should agree with you in that if I behaved myself so; but I can honestly affirm to you that I am little less concerned at your exile than yourself; and the little mirth which I advise you to, is in order to have a share of it myself, when I shall find you capable of receiving it. As to what relates to my own misfortunes, if I have formerly appeared to you more afflicted under them than I seem to be at present, it is not because I was so indeed. I was of opinion that disgraces exacted from us the decorum of a melancholy air, and that this apparent mortification was a respect due to the will of our superiors, who seldom bethink themselves of punishing us, without a design to afflict us. But then you are to know that under a sad outside and mortified courtenance, I gave myself all the satisfaction I could find in myself; and all the pleasure I could take in the conversation of my friends. After having found the variety of that grave temper we learn from morality, I should grow ridiculous myself, if I c ntinued so serious a discourse, which makes me proceed to give you some advice that shall be less troublesome than instructions. Adapt as much as possibly you can, your palate and appetite to your health: tis a great secret to be able to reconcile the agreeable and necessary in two things, which have been almost always opposite. Yet after all, to arrive at this great mystery, we want nothing but sobriety and niceness; and what ought not a man to do that he may learn to chuse those delicious dishes at his meals, which will keep both his mind and body in a good disposition, all the remainder of the day? A man may be sober without being nice, but he can never be nice without being sober. Happy is the person that enjoys both these qualities together! For thus his pleasure is ever inseparable from his diet. Spare no cost to get Champagne wines, though you were 200 leagues from Paris. Those of Burgundy have lost all their credit with the men of good taste, and scarce do they preserve a small remainder of their old reputation with the citizen. There is no province that affords excellent wines for all seasons but Champagne. It furnishes us with the Vin d'Ay, d'Avenet, and d'Auvilé till the Spring; Tessy Sillery, and Versenat, for the rest of the year. you If ask me which of all these wines I prefer, without being swayed by the fashion of the Tastes, which false pretenders to delicacy have introduced; I will tell you that the Vin d'Ay is the most natural of all wines, the most wholesome, the most free from all smell of the oil, and of the most exquisite agreeableness, in regard of its peach-taste which is peculiar to it, and is in opinion, the chief of all tastes and flavours. Leo X., Charles V., Francis I., and Henry VIII. had each of them their house in or near Ay, in order to the more curious getting their quantities of wines. Amongst the greatest affairs of the world, in which those princes were more or less concerned, it was not the least of their cares to have the Vin d'Ay in their cellars. Be not too desirous of rarities, but be nice in your choice of what may be had with convenience. A good, wholesome, natural soup, which is neither too weak nor too strong, is to be preferred for common diet before all others; as well as for the exactness of its taste, as for the advantage of its use. Tender, juicy mutton, good sucking veal, white and curious barn-door fowls, well fed but not crammed; fat quail taken in the country; pheasant, partridge, and rabbit, all which have an agreeable natural savour in their taste, are the true meats which may help to furnish your table all the seasons of the year. The WoodHen is particularly to be esteemed for excellency, but it is not sought after where you or I are, by reason of its so great rarity. If an indispensible necessity obliges you to dine with some of your neighbours, whom either their money or dexterity hath excused for serving in the Rear-van, conmend the hare, the stag, the roe-buck, the wild-boar, but eat none of them: let even ducks and teal have your good word too. Of all brown meats, the snipe alone is to be commended, in favour of its taste, though it is somewhat prejudicial to health. Look upon all mixtures, and kitchen compositions, called Ragouts, or kick-shaws to be little better than poison. If you eat but little of them they will do you but little hurt; if you eat a great deal, it is impossible but their pepper, vinegar, and onions must ruin your taste at last, and soon cause a alteration in your health. Sauces, if you make them yourself, as simple and plain as possible, can do no harm at all. Salt and orange are the most general and the most natural seasoning. Fine herbs are wholesome, and have something in them more exquisite than spices; but they are not equally proper for everything. One must use them with judgment in meats where they are most agreeable, and distribute them with so much discretion that they may improve the proper taste of the meat, without making their own discerned. Having thus discoursed to you of the qualities of wines, and the properties of meats, 'tis necessary to come to the most proper counsel for the adapting of the palate to the body Let nature incite you to eat and drink by a secret disposition, which is lightly perceived, and doth not press you to it through necessity. Without appetite the most wholesome food is capable of hurting, and the most agrecable of disgusting us. With hunger the necessity of eating is a sort of evil which causes another after the meal is over, by making us eat more than we should. The appetite (vulgarly called a good stomach) prepares, if I may so speak, an exercise for our heat in the digestion whereas greediness prepares labour and pain for it. The way to keep us always in good temper is to suffer neither too much emptiness, nor too much repletion, that so nature may never be tempted to fill itself greedily with what it wants, not impatient to discharge its load. manners. The English and the Comedy. There is no comedy more conformable to that of the ancients, than the English, as for what relates to the It is not a mere piece of gallantry, full of adventures and amorous discourses, as in Spain and France; but a representation of the ordinary way of living, according to the various humours, and different characters of men. It is an Alchymist, who by the illusion of this art, feeds the deceitful hopes of a vain Curioso. It is a silly credulous coxcomb, whose foolish facility is continually abused; it is sometimes a ridiculous politician, grave and composed, starched in everything, mysteriously suspicious, that thinks to find out hidden designs in the most common intentions, and to discover artifice in the most innocent actions of life. It is a whimsical lover, a swaggering bully, a pedantic scholar, the one with natural extravagancies, the other with ridiculous affectations. The truth is, these cheats and cullies, these politicians and other characters so ingeniously devised, are carried on too far, in our opinion; as those which are to be seen upon our stage, are a little too faint to the relish of the English; and the reason of that perhaps, is, because the English think too much, and we, And, indeed, we are satisfied with the first images of The truth is I never saw men of better understanding It is not to be denied but that the representation of There are some plays which have in a manner two Rules are to be observed for avoiding confusion; good sense is to be followed for moderating the flight of a luxurious fancy; but rules must not so constrain the mind as to fetter it; and a scrupulous reason ought to be banished, which adhering too strictly to exactness, leaves nothing free and natural. They who cannot attain a genius which nature hath denied them, ascribe all to art which they may acquire; and to set a value upon the only merit they have, which is that of being regular, they employ all their interest to damn any piece that is not altogether so. As for those that love the ridicnle; that are pleased to see the follies of mankind; that are affected with true characters, they will will find some of the English comedies as much, or perhaps, more to their relish, than any they have ever seen. Our Moliere, whom the ancients have inspired with the true spirit of comedy, equals their Ben Jonson in representing truly the various humourous and different ways of men, both observing in their characters a just regard to the peculiar taste and genius of their own nation. I believe they have both carried that point as far as the ancients ever did. But it is not to be denied but that they had a greater regard to their character than to the plot, which might have bee better laid together, and more naturally unravelled. One of Shadwell's Plays. A WORD ON SIR, ENGLISH WOMEN VINDI- To the Editor of the London Journal. For some reason or other I do not receive my London Journals till Saturday; but, nevertheless, I have caught a glimpse of the last No. through the window-panes of the booksellers, and perceive the attack-nay, let me use a gentler term, the mild reproof of the fair "Old Boy.' Delighted am I to think that anything of mine has attracted the bright eyes of a lady, and grateful also that she has treated an old beau so considerately. Her letter is like a Barbary comfit-sweet and sugary outside, but of sufficient pungency within, to give it zest. I could bear such gentle brainings with a lady's fan every day of my life, and be thankful into the bargain. "Old Boy," however, must graciously condescend to pardon me if I make a remark or two on her letter. In these I will be as brief as possible. In the first place, then, I never said that the place in which I beheld the deplorably dressed ladies was a bazaar, nor even a "fashionable shop," in the common sense of the term. It was no place for the sale of nicknacks and gew-gaws-the frequenters of such shops are entitled to the full measure of "Old Boy's" censurebut it was a good, honest, downright boutique where in their carriages in a most laudable manner. ladies come to buy a yard of stuff, and then drive away Illdressed they certainly were, and of the "middle or poorer orders" they certainly were not, as the footmen with gold-headed canes at the door amply testified. "Old Boy" says that French ladies are parchment skeletons. Undoubtedly there may be such between the Belgian frontier and the Pyrenees, but the average French women are better, fuller formed, and withal morc graceful, than any three women out of six, from Regent's Park to St. James's. Of their faces I say nothing. What was the remark of a young Frenchman to me only the other day, on his first visit to England? "We should run after them at Paris for their facesbut, Mon Dieu! their feet, their teunnuw, how ugly!" It is seldom one sees an English woman of proper dimensions-she is either too thin and lank, or too fat and stumpy. There is with us no medium between the dome of St. Paul's, and London Monument. My fair opponent seeins mightily smitten with our delightful home parties. Sir, I have never stood in maxim, "make the best of what you have," than at more need of Job's especial virtue, and your golden some of the aforesaid delightful English home parties. If" Old Boy" is as enchanted with them as she professes to be, I never knew or heard of any one who, in the way of amusement, was grateful for so little, and that little so indifferent. English sprightliness, God help us, is a most soporific affair. Lastly, French ladies, according to your correspondent, are never satisfied unless you make love to them. This information can at most be but second-hand-for can "Old Boy," as a woman, conscientiously say, that she ever beheld a gentleman make a "tender declaration" If she cannot, to a French lady, with her in the room? then she must have obtained the important proof of French levity and French female inferiority to us in from the gossipings of others. intellectual pleasures, not from her own experience, but Moreover those others must have been men, and in the assertions of men who kill time with love declarations, I put but little trust. "Thou hast mis-spoke, mis-heard-tell o'er thy tale again." I have been accused of being brusque. It is better to be brusque and sincere in your brusquerie, especially when a service is intended, than to be mealy-mouthed and false. It is my love for my countrywomen that prompted me to raise such an outcry against their style of dress. I am so enamoured of their faces, that I would their figure, air, carriage, and every thing else about If we do not try we shall never them, were perfection. mend, and if we never mend, we shall become the butt of the rest of Europe. The very "thick ancled, trainoil eating Russians," will excel us in the matter of dress and manners. Whatever brusquerie there is in me, I It is not well to be harsh with men, ask pardon for. much less with women-so I hope that "Old Boy" will cast a glance of sweet reconciliation on OLD CRONY. Evergreen Lodge, August 14, 1834. INTOLERANCE. (From Dr. Bouring's "Minor Morals," lately published.) "THERE was a very droll dispute at school to day, papa!" said George: one boy insisted that a Latin verse was written one way in the original, another declared it was written another way: the quarrel became so hot that we expected it would have ended in blows; when one of the bigger boys recommended that each should bring his book: and it was found that each had quoted the passage correctly from his own copy, but they had different editions, and the text was different." "It was," said Mr. Howard, "only a small display of that intolerance of which there are too many great exhibitions in the world. Each boy thought himself right, and had good reason for thinking so; but there was not the same reason for thinking the other wrong. He had seen his own book with his own eyes, and had, therefore, very sufficient evidence for himself; but he could not know what evidence the other had had. Hence the folly of expecting everybody to think as we think. They will think as we think, if the same reasons are given to them, and if those reasons influence them as they influence us. If they have other reasons unknown to us, or if our reasons appear to them not to warrant our opinions, they cannot think as we think it is impossible, and there is no help for it. "But what ought to be helped, and ought to be avoided, is our attempting to punish others because they do not see as we see, or think as we think. This is persecution. "When I was in Lisbon, I was accompanied by a Monk to the church of St. Anthony. You have heard, perhaps, that the armorial bearings of that beautifully-situated city, are a vessel dismasted, but guided through the waters by two crows, one seated on the prow and the other on the stern of the ship. The device is in honour of a miracle said to have been wrought in favour of St. Anthony, the patron saint of the Tagus, who, when at sea, sailing on a mission to the heathens, fancied himself lost for all the crew of the vessel in which he had sailed had perished of plague, and he was left, wholly ignorant of navigation, to the mercy of the waves. In his despair, he knelt down to pray, when he saw two black pinioned birds descend from heaven, one of which seized the rudder, and the other perched on the bow of the ship: by these he was safely conducted to Portugal. And among the majority of the Portuguese there is no more doubt of the miracle than of the ordinary events of which they have been witnesses themselves. "Did you believe the story, papa?' enquired Edith. "By no means; and, though I never said any thing which should show that I felt contempt for the credulity of the Portuguese, yet I have no doubt they considered me somewhat heretical.' ""Come,' said the monk, 'with me to the Igreja de San Antonio, and I will give you such evidence as shall be irresistible.' We walked together under the magnificent arches of the church,-between avenues of pillars, on many of which the miracles of the Saint were recorded, and we reached a narrow staircase at the foot of the tower. 'Follow me,' said the monk, ' and fear not.' I ascended after him the long, long winding stone steps, the darkness of the way being only lighted by distant gleams which broke through the narrow interstices left in the thick walls, and on reaching the top, the monk pointed out a huge cage, it was as large as an ordinary sized room, in which were two enormous black crows, gravely seated on a metal bar. Look there, Senhor,' said the monk, and bowed his head reverently before the crows; those are the identical birds which brought St. Anthony hither. And do you doubt the miracle now?' "I doubted it, and did not doubt the less in consequence of what I saw. And why did I doubt, Edith?' "I suppose papa, because you did not think they were the real crows that brought St. Anthony to Lisbon.' Even so, my love; and I did not believe that St. Anthony had been brought to Lisbon by crows at all; and the attempt to convince me that the two crows were still living, and had lived for many hundred of years, was one difficulty more to believe, and not one difficulty less.' "The monk's reasoning was what logicians call 'begging the question.' He took for granted, the very thing to be proved, that St. Anthony had been escorted by the crows, and thus fancied that his telling me the crows I saw were the real crows, was to weigh down all my experience of the habits of the animal, all my knowledge of natural history, and the very natural reflection, that it was much more likely that there should be a succession of crows provided by the monk and his brethren, as the old ones died, than that a perpetual miracle should be wrought in order to prove the truth of a very improbable story. Besides, I saw that the crows were richly and regularly fed, and I might have asked him why if the crows were miraculously preserved, all the expenses of nourishing them were not saved? "And did you not tell him, papa, that you could look through the whole of the imposture? said George. Did you not tell him that he was a rogue, and that you were not to be duped by his roguery?" "Softly, my impatient boy; that would neither have been prudent nor courteous; it would have done neither me, nor him, nor any body good. No good to me, for I should have been exposed to some danger; the Monk would have looked upon me with hatred, because my expression of incredulity would have implied contempt for his opinions, or distrust of his honesty and veracity; it would have done him no good, for it was his interest to persist in the fraud, and as to the facts of the case, he knew more about them than I did; and no good to any body else, for no body else was present. But it may do good now to you and to others, for to others you may tell the story, as I may tell it to others. "My purpose in telling the story was not to excite your scorn or dislike towards the Monk, who, though he could not believe, against the knowledge he had, that those identical crows really escorted St. Anthony up the Tagus, may have believed that St. Anthony was escorted by crows. I did not wish you to be angry with the Monk, or the Monk's tale, but I wish to ask you two questions. If I had really desired and tried to believe the story, could I have done so, in spite of myself?" No, indeed, papa, that would have been impossible," said the children at once. "You would not have been so foolish." "And if I could not have believed it, even though I wished to believe it, could I do so because the Monk, or any other person, wished one to believe it?” "Oh no! no!" they all repeated again and again. Well then, my children, the lesson I wish to teach you is this:-Never be angry with any person, merely because his opinion is not your opinion; never be angry because you cannot persuade him to change his opinion; and above all, never do him any injury, or hesitate about doing him a good, because his opinion and yours are different. Nobody can believe what he likes, however he may try to do so; at all events, if he hears all that is to be said on all sides of a question. Still less can any body believe according to the likings of others. Where you doubt, inquire. In your own opinion seek nothing but truth, because truth, after all, is the great thing. In your conduct to others, be guided by the rule that you should never cause useless pain. In the minds of the best men there is, always has been, and always, perhaps, will be, much difference of opinion as to what is true, but everybody knows and feels what is kind, and truth itself is most likely to be found when it is sought for by tolerance and benevolence. ACCOUNT OF THE ASSAMINS. (From Part 19 (just published) of the Penny Cyclopodia,—a publication which for compressed fulness and variety of information, executed with the greatest tact and judgment, and brought up to the most recent enquiries, may compete with the very costliest of its namesakes. We have long had it upon our conscience that we did not say this before, and have now a particular, reason for regretting that we did not do so. But this must not prevent our doing it). Assassins, a military and religious order, formed in Persia in the eleventh century. 1t was a ramification of the Ismaelites, who were themselves a branch of the great Mohammeden seat of the Shiites, the supporters of the claim of Ali's posterity to the caliphate. But among the Ismaelites there were many who were Mussulmans only in appearance, and whose secret doctrine amounted to this; that no action was either good or bad in itself and that all religions were the inventions of men. These unbelievers were formed into a secret society by one Abdallah, a man of the old Persian race, who had been brought up in the religion of the Magi, and was a hater of the Arabs and of their faith. After several bloody insurrections against the Abbaride caliphs, the Ismaelites succeeded in placing on the throne of Egypt a pretended descendant of Ismael, the seventh Imaum in the line of Ali, from whom the Ismaelites had taken their name. This descendant, whose name was Obeid Allah Mehdee, was the founder of the Fatemite dynasty, so called from Fatema, Mohammed's daughter. Under the protection of these princes a lodge of the secret doctrine was established at Cairo, and its members spread over a great part of Asia. Their ostensible object was to maintain the claims of the Fatemite caliphs to universal dominion, and to urge the destruction of the caliphs of Bagdad as usurpers. One of the adepts, Hassan Ven Sabah, thought of turning these instruments to his own advantage. He had filled high offices under the Sultan of the Seljucide Turks, but, on being disgraced, he went to Egypt, where he was received with distinction by the caliph, became a zealous adherent of the Ismaelite lodge; and, after many vicissitudes and wanderings, obtained possession, by the aid of his brethren of the hill-fort of Alamoot (or vulture's nest), situated to the north of Casvin, in Persia, and there, (A. D. 1090), established an independent society, or order, consisting of seven degrees, with himself at the head as Sheikh at jebel, i. e. sheikh of the mountain. Under him came three dai al Kebir, the grand priors of the order; 3rdly, the dais, or initiated masters; 4thly, the refeeks, or companions; 5thly, the fedafees, or devoted; 6thly, the laseeks, aspirants or novices; 7thly, the prophane or common people. Hassan drew out for the dais, or initiated, a catechism consisting of seven heads, among which were, implicit obedience to their chief; secrecy; and lastly, the principle of seeking the allegorical, and not the plain sense in the Koran, by which means the text could be distorted into anything the interpreter pleased. This did away effectually with all fixed rules of morality or faith. But this secret knowledge was confined to a few ; the rest were bound to a strict observance of the letter of the Koran. The most effectual class in the Koran were the fedavees-youths often purchased or stolen from their parents when children, and brought up under a particular system of education, calculated to impress upon their minds the omnipotence of the sheikh, and the criminality as well as utter impossibi ity of evading his orders, which were like the mandates of heaven itself. These fedavees were clothed in white, with red bonnets and girdles, and armed with sharp daggers, but they assumed all sorts of disguises when sent on a mission. Mario Polo gives a curious romantic account of the garden at Alamool, to which the fedavee designed for an important mission, was carried in a state of temporary stupor, produced by powerful opiates, and where, on awakening he found everything that could excite and He was made to believe that was a gratify his senses. foretaste of the paradise of the prophet, reserved for his faithful and devoted servants, and thus became willing to encounter death, even under the most appalling forms, in order to secure a permanent seat in the abode of bliss. Marco Polo's narrative is confirmed by Arabian writers, and Von Hammer inclines to believe it true in the main; others attribute the visions in the garden to the effects of the intoxicating preparation administered to the fedavees. The name of haskish, which is that of an opiate made from hemp-leaves, is supposed to have been the origin of the word "Assassins;" others derive the latter from Hassan ben Sabah, the founder of the order. The word becoming familiar to the crusaders was by them carried to Europe where it was used as synonymous with that of Sicarius, or hired murderer, but the Italians have adopted it to signify a robber on the high road, without necessarily implying the crime of murder. The assassins, either by force or treachery, gained possession of many other castles and hill-forts in Persia. The Sultan Melek Shab attacked them, the doctors of the law excommunicated them, but the fedavees carried secret death among their enemies; the Sultan's minister, Nigam ul Mulk, was stabbed, and his master soon after died suddenly, it was supposed by poison. The Assassins spread into Syria, where they acquired strong holds in the mountains near Tripoli; and the Sultan of the Seljucides was glad to come to an agreement by granting them several districts. Hassan ben Sabah, having extended his order over great part of the Mohammedan world, died at Alamoot in 1124, after thirty five years' reign. He bequeathed his authority of Keah Buzoorg Oomeid, one of the dais of the order. Buzoorg renewed the war with the Seijucides, and Aboos Wefaut, his Dai al Kebir in Syria, entered into a temporary alliance with Baldwin II. King of Jerusalem, through the agency of Hugo de Pagens, grand master of the Templars, against their common enemies the Seljucide Turks. After this, the Assassins were sometimes on friendly terms, but oftener at variance, with the Christian princes of Syria and Palestine, as well as with their Mohammedan neighbours. To accomplish their object, they never scrupled to resort to assassination. In 1126 the prince of Mosul was stabbed as he entered the Mosque by Assassins disguised as Dervises; soon after, a caliph of Bagdad was killed likewise, and also a Sultan of Cairo, notwithstanding his Fatemite. The Syrian, or western branch of the Assassins, however, continued to exist for some years later under their Dai al Kebir, Massyad, not far from Beyroot, was their principal strong hold. The history of this branch is the most familiar to Europeans, being much interwoven with that of the Crusaders and of the great Sultan Sala-eddeen. The latter was several times in danger from the daggers of the Assassins. The Dai al Kebir Sinan, a man who had a reputation for Sanctity, sent in 1173, an embassy to Almeric, the Christian King of Jerusalem, offering, in his name and that of his people, to embrace Christianity, on condition that the Templars, who were their neighbours, would remit the annual tribute of forty thousand gold ducats which they had imposed on them, and live in future in peace and good neighbourhood towards them. Almeric was delighted with the offer, and dismissed the envoy with honour. The envoy, however, on his return to his territory, was killed by a party of Templars, led by Gaultier du Mesnil. After this, the Assassins resorted again to their daggers, which they had laid aside for many years. Among others, Conrad, Marquis of Tyre and Montferrat, was murdered by two fedavees in the market-place of Tyre, 1192. The reasons of this murder which some have ascribed to Richard of England, have been the subject of a long controversy, which Von Hammer does not succeed in elucidating. The assassins kept the Christians of Tripoli in continual fear. They levied contributions on the Christian princes for the safety of their lives; and they even demanded it of St. Louis, King of France, on his passing through Acre on his return from the Damietta expedition. Louis, however, indignantly refused. At last the Syrian Assassins were conquered, and their stronghold taken, by Bibars, the Mamluke Sultan of Egypt, fourteen years after the destruction of the Eastern branch by the Monguls. Many, however, found refuge in the mountains of Syria, and became mixed with the Yezeed Koords; and some of the tenets of the order are believed to still linger among them. Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen; also Sir John Malcolm's History of Persia; and Wilken's History of the Crusades. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, WHEN any one, whose judgment we respect, expresses approbation of an "article" of our writing, it gives it such a gloss in our eyes, that we are sometimes moved, in our vanity, to look at it again, in order to see what has pleased him, and read it by the glad light of companionship. For writing an article, and reading it over afterwards, are two very different things. In writing you give yourself up to your faith in the subject; you are absorbed in it; you do not think of criticism or objection; you are wrapped all round as in a bower of your own building, pleased with the task for its own sake, perhaps with the sense of power. We do not say it is always so; but generally, and when one is in the humour. But on reading over the article when it comes from the printer, the feelings are often very different. You doubt parts of it, perhaps dislike others; we do not mean for their want of truth, but their want of merit, of spirit. You suspect the public will not like it; that it is dull, common-place; that there is no reason why you should have called their attention to such old stories. You doubt, however true you may have been, whether the public will see the truth with your eyes, or care to see it no better painted. And then the necessity of correcting the press horribly aids these suspicions. It is going over your impulses in cold blood, examining the foot prints you have made in the vivacity of your first impressions; it seems as if you were going to retrace them mechanically in the public eye; and this too, without being sure that they are worth tracing at all. Conceive then what our pleasure must be, when those who have a right to judge, pronounce our little Journal to have done well, both in spirit and letter; acknowledge the veracity with which we profess to love the objects of our worship, and acquit us of having done them dishonour; nay, recommend our recommendations of them; and above all, though of various parties themselves, and therefore habitually disposed (as it might be thought) to countenance no neutral ground of any sort taken up by one who has fought hard in partizanship himself, unite heartily in approving this cultivation of one sequestered spot in the regions of literature, where party itself is negatived as of inferior good to the progress of mankind, and love enshrined as the only final teacher of all knowledge and advancement? No new religion, truly; an ancient and most proclaimed one; and too sacred and wonderful to have justice done it in these small chapels built for conventional persuasion. Yet herein, we, conceive, lies our merit, whatever it may be. It is our ambition to be one of the sowers of a good seed in places where it is not common but would be most profitable, to be one of those who should try to render a sort of public lovingkindness a grace of common-life, a conventional, and for that very reason, in the higher sense of the word, a social and universal elegance. We dare to whisper in the ears of the wisest, and therefore of the all-hearing and the kindliest-judging, that we would fain do something, however small and light, towards Christianizing public manners. If this effort, lightly as we presume to aid it, be too much for us,-if it be far too premature, too impracticable, too absurd,—if the old ways of advancing or benefitting mankind, are better, or not yet to be dispensed with,—and if the wise see nothing in this portion of our impulses but a mistake generated partly by suffering and partly by great animal spirits and an inveterate sanguineness, yet they will see, at any rate, that our mistake is a thing inclusive, that there are good things of necessity inside it, and that if we end in doing nothing but extending a faith in capabilities of any sort, and showing some thousands of our fellowcreatures that sources of amusement and instruction await but a touch in the objects around them, to start up like magic, and enrich the meanest hut, perhaps the most satiated ennui, we shall have done something not unworthy to receive the countenance of their unanimity. A ship, going on a voyage of discovery, is privileged from attack, by 'great nations. A little fairy vessel, laden with cargoes of pleasant thoughts, would, if it could appear, doubtless receive no lesss the grace of their exemption. We are constantly receiving letters telling us how rejoiced the writers are to see a paper of this sort set up, how it confirms or renews their hopes, how it brings back a feeling of youth to the old, makes considerate the petulance of the young, and brightens the aspect Do we take too much of the most familiar objects. All heartedness of men of all parties. Men only mistrust They are better one another, beoause they think mistrust universal, and that he is mistaken and undervalued in others. If all In addition to the acknowledgments we have made to nature, but desire all the best and noblest things for the world, whatever he may think of the amount of their possibility; and so desiring, he cannot but hail any belief in them, in the sincerity and durability of which he has become convinced; for he knows that such a belief is good for its own sake, and its own poetry, even should it end in producing no happier prose. There are a few words, at the beginning of his notice of this Journal, connecting us with the dearest of our friends, for which alone we should be inclined to love him, nine parts out of ten, had he said even nothing further: and he will not take it amiss, if we add, that we had another friend, with whom he would have shared a mutual admiration had he known him, and with whose writings should we ever find him getting better acquainted (for we can only think he has hitherto but impatiently glanced, not steadily looked at him), we shall love him the remaining tenth. He will know whom we mean; one, who was ¡dly said to be killed by the criticism of the Quarterly Review; but whose end, though assuredly none the happier for want of success, was long visible in a frame of extreme sensibility, and delicacy of organization, and was hastened by affectionate vigils at the bed cf a dying brother. Alas! hard are the trials through which we go: there is no doubt of that; and harder the thought that we might have done more to lessen those of others, and hasten better times; but in construing things kindly, we acquire a right to think kindly of ourselves; and Mr. Keats's Life was neither so short nor so unhappy as many might suppose it. He lived ten years to another's one. His thoughts, for the most part, were steeped in the riches of a generous heart and a luxuriant imagination. Good God! why are not all men of genius of one mind, like natural brothers? and why do they not make a point of knowing one another, and preventing unworthy impressions? They would carry the world before them (God willing). And so they will, we trust, some day, spinning it like ivory, with easy fingers; for goodwill is surely God's will, and "peace" and "goodwill" are to increase, both according to reverend prophecies and to new signs. Happy they, meanwhile, who can piece out imperfect pretensions with perfect love, casting out the fear even of being considered vain and assuming. TABLE-TALK. Adm iration and Contempt. Of unwise admiratio much may be hoped, for much good is really in it; but unwise contempt is itself a negation; nothing comes of it, for it is nothing.-Carlyle. Never do evil, solely on the ground that it is deserved. -Bentham TO CORRESPONDENTS. We are obliged to Mr. I. J. for the extract from the review of Mr. Landor's book; but another gentleman, who possesses a copy of the book itself, has been kind enough to lend it us. We fear we cannot gratify our friend D. G. in the regular addition to our plan which he proposes. It is much easier to wish to be able to do these things, than to do them. The "Return," from the German of Mückler, shall be inserted. Also the letters of J. D. and E. E. upon Goethe. We shall have much pleasure also in publishing the sonnet to Earine, but do not at present exactly understand the connexion between the last three words of the twelfth line and the context. We regret that we were unable to avail ourselves of the ticket sent us for the shew of Dahlias at the Zoological Gardens. But we shall forget neither the subject, nor the sender. T. D.'s paper shall be carefully read. What is the age of TENTATOR? and of the correspondent who writes on "Gallantry ?” We will refer Mr. W. of Kensington has obliged us. to the book he mentions. We shall gladly take up the subject recommended by W. J. LONDON: Published by H. HOOPER, 13, Pall Mall East. |