L.

REPEAL OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.

WHEN Louis the Fourteenth, according to SPENCE, found that all his persecutions of the Protestants were ineffectual, as to the recovering any number of them to the church, he sent for Archbishop Fenelon, who had always thought persecution for religion impolitic, as well as unchristiancomplained to him of the obstinacy of the Huguenots-and said he would have him go down, and try whether he could convert them with his preaching. That I will, with all my heart, Sire,' replied the Archbishop, if you will be so good as to call off your dragoons; for 'tis they that drive them so much farther from us."

LI.

DEAN SWIFT.

THE following anecdote of Dean Swift, I find recorded by Spence from the dictation of Pope. It displays the characteristic eccentricity of the author of Gulliver's travels: Dean Swift has an odd blunt way,' says Pope, ⚫ which is mistaken by strangers for ill-nature. "Tis so odd, that there's no describing it but by facts. I'll tell you one that just comes into my head: One evening Gay and I went to see him: you know how intimately we were all acquainted. On our coming in, Hey day, gentlemen,' says the doctor, what's the meaning of this visit? How came you to leave all the great lords, that you are so fond of, to come hither to see a poor Dean? Because we would rather see you than any of them.' 'Ay, any one that did not know you so well as I do, might believe you. But, since you are come, I must get supper for you, I suppose?' No, doctor, we have supped already.' Supped already! that's impossible: why 'tis not eight o'clock yet.' Indeed we have.' That's very strange; but if you had not supped, I must have got something for you. Let me see; what should I have had? A couple of lobsters? Ay, that would have done very well; two shillings: tarts;—a shilling. But you would drink a glass of wine with me, though you supped so much before the usual time, only to spare my pocket? No, we had rather talk with you, than drink with you.' But if you had supped with me, as in all reason you ought to have done, you must have drank with me. A bottle of wine; two shillings. Two and two are four, and one is five: just two and sixpence a-piece. There, Pope, there is half a crown for you; and there's another for you, Sir: for I won't save any thing by you, I am determined.' This was all said and done with his usual seriousness; and in spite of every thing we could say to the contrary, he actually obliged us to take the money.'

LII.

WARBURTONIANA, NO. I.

THE celebrated Warburton published an edition of Shakspeare, in which he took the most unwarrantable liberties of changing the text, of

ten manifestly perverting it, and as often rendering passages obscure, which in the original are perfectly clear. I annex a few specimens :

1. A beggarly account of empty boxes.'-Romeo and Juliet.

'I suspect,' says Warburton, that Shakspeare wrote

'A braggartly account of empty boxes.'

'Not but account,' says the sage critic, may signify number as well as contents. If the first, the common reading is right.'

Edwards, who published a book styled Canons of Criticism,' in which he gives a variety of proofs of the impertinence and folly of the alterations, asks, 'What are the contents of empty boxes?'

2. To fright the souls of fearful adversaries.'—Richard III.

I rather think,' says Warburton, he wrote the foule, (French,) crowd, or multitude.'

3. LAUNCELOT. The old proverb is very well parted between my master Shylock, and you, Sir. You have the grace of God, and he has enough.'

BASSANIO. Thou speak'st it well.'-Merchant of Venice.

'I should choose to read,' says Warburton, Thou split'st it well !'

4. And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.'-Love's Labor Lost.

We should,' says Warburton, read beauty's crete, i. e. beauty's white, from crete!'

5. All ready at a point.'-Macbeth.

At a point may mean all ready at a time; but Shakspeare meant more, and certainly wrote

All ready at appoint,' i. e. ‘at the place appointed!'

LIII.

RANDOLPHIANA.

1. THE history of the United States affords few instances of sublime heroism, good conduct, and consummate skill, equal to what were displayed by General Eaton in the attack and capture of Derne, by which he had every prospect of expelling the usurper, Jusef Bashaw, from the throne of Tripoli, reinstating the legal monarch, Hamet Caramalla, Bashaw, and procuring the release of our prisoners without ransom, when the injudicious and ill-timed interference of Tobias Lear snatched the glorious prospect from his grasp. A motion was made in Congress to award a sword to the general for his exploits, and an amendment was offered to strike out 'sword' and insert medal.' A long, frivolous, and unworthy debate ensued, in which considerable opposition was made to both the original motion and the amendment. Mr. Randolph declared that if Congress were so lavish of their rewards, (!!) it would finally come to pass that those who wore medals or swords would be more numerous than the rest of the community! To the great discredit of Congress,

the resolution and amendment were rejected, and this grand exploit was suffered to pass without any reward or mark of gratitude on the part of Congress. The legislature of Massachusetts, to its credit, redeemed the national character, by voting to the general a tract of land containing, as far as my memory serves me, ten thousand acres.

2. In one of Mr. Randolph's orations, he made a violent attack on the army of the United States, in which he did not spare that of the Revolution, but was as severe upon it as on the existing army. A Lieutenant Knight, an officer in the latter, feeling for the honor of the corps to which he belonged, determined to try the metal of the assailant. Singling him out in a box in the Chesnut-street theatre, he sought an opportunity to tread heavily on his toes, expecting to be immediately challenged for the offence. But in this expectation he was disappointed. Instead of sending a challenge, Randolph wrote a strong expostulatory letter to John Adams, the then President of the United States, complaining of the insolence of his myrmidons in endeavoring to intimidate and brow-beat members of Congress. Whether the president took any notice of the affair, and, if any, what, I cannot recollect.

LIV.

IMPORTANT LITERARY DEBATE.

LORD GRENVILLE, says Warburton, had long wanted to pass an evening with Pope. When his wish was accomplished, two hours were almost wholly taken up by his lordship in debating, and settling how the first verse of the Eneid was to be pronounced, and whether we should say Cicero or Kickers. This circumstance is alluded to in the Dunciad.

LV.

THE GERMANS.

ALTHOUGH the remark may be generally true, observes Mr. Dwight, that where there is feeling or intellect it will be visible in the countenance, it certainly is not applicable to the Germans. Their faces are the least expressive of any nation in Europe; and even when deeply interested in conversation, their countenances are not indices of their minds or their hearts.

LVI.

CONVERSATIONAL POWERS OF THE PARISIANS.

THE Parisian is so accustomed to conversation from his childhood, that he does it with the same ease and adroitness as a soldier performs his drill; and so early does he discover that grace is indispensible to his reputation, and indeed to his being endured in society, that it soon becomes a part of his being, and he rarely, if ever, suffers from embarrassment.

Philadelphia, October 17th, 1834.

M. C.

MILITANT ARIAS,-BY AN AMATEUR.

NOBODY is cynic or green-goose enough to deny that the present is the age of improvement. Every thing seems to be going onward with a rapidity, the strides whereof may be likened unto the tread of an army with banners. All kinds of systems, social, political, public and private, seem to be better fixed than they used to be. To account for these great emendations on any common hypothesis, would be ridiculous. Hypotheses are remnants of antiquity; and I believe the age can yet be found able to dispense with them altogether. The time is not distant, I fancy, when conclusions will be jumped at without argument, and when Truth herself (I believe I have hit the gender of that respectable stranger,) will come out of the well where her troglodyte limbs have so long been cooling, and lift her mirror on high to irradiate the benighted brains of every son and daughter of Adam.

I say it is difficult to account for these grand emendations on any common cause; but I have one to which I refer them uniformly, and it is to my mind of a very satisfactory nature. Modern philosophers have discovered that, in the matter of light, the extremities of comets have scattered new substances into our atmosphere, and that when these eccentric characters are in perihelio, their tails are peculiarly bright and flashy. Now, my impression is, that the light of these comets,-thus generously disbursed from their hinder sides, in an intermittent diarrhoea of glory, is conveyed by some principal of induction to the mind of man; that the subtile rays act specifically upon some craniological bump of his head, inclining him to love, music, poetry, politics, horsestealing, or any thing of the sort, according to the character of the organ in which these rays may settle. To some, they convey high fiscal notions and a love of locomotion, as in the case of Mr. Nazro, the classical teacher, who has such rapid habits and extensive relations, and who charges $100,000 per year, for the finishing of a scholar in his Biblical Instruction. To my own mind, I am sensible that there has been conveyed a strong portion of light on the subject of musical adaptation, and my ears have been acted upon to a considerable extent by the same principle. I never witness any public amusement of late, that I do not begin to reflect on some way in which music might be made to help it on; and being an ardent though blind admirer of European customs, I join in that sublime chase in this science, and in all other matters of about the same importance, with which a large majority of my cometstricken fellow-citizens seem interested. But to my subject.

I was lounging, the other day, on one of the luxurious sofas of the Washington Divan, and sipping a cup of delicious coffee-unaccompanied, let me hint to the proprietor, by either rolls, crackers, or biscuitand looking at the fine paintings and various periodicals hanging_and lying around,-when I took up that elegant paper, Bell's Life in London, and straightway fell into a train of deep reflection, as I sent my eye up and down its columns, upon the great prevalence among the gentle

men of England, of those lofty and dignified amusements, so cheering to intelligent minds, which are yet almost unknown in this country. I worked myself by degrees into a paroxysm of high-bred indignation, that our imitative gentry had copied so sparingly from these great trans-atlantic examples, in pastimes so pleasing to humanity and healthful to the soul. I had touched the climax of my regret, when the following advertisement caught my gaze :

'COCKING. A main of cocks will take place on Wednesday the 6th inst. at the Royal Cockpit, West Green, Tottenham, for £5 the battle and £50 the odd, between the gentlemen of Middlesex and Kent-to fight in silver. Feeders, Gumm and Hawick.

"Three whole days' play will be fought at Bristol on the 19th inst. and the two following days, between the gentlemen of Gloucestershire and the gentlemen of Somersetshire, for £10 the battle, and £100 the main. Feeders, Grant, for Somersetshire-Bumm, for Leicestershire.'

As I peered over this notice, a train of luminous thought, rapid as the scintillations of a meteor, burst upon my mind. Why, said I to myself, has not this accomplished sport of cock-fighting been more extensively introduced into this meridian?-and why should it not be done to music? How few, alas! how very few of the intelligent gentlemen of this country have ever taken an interest in these gladiatorial rencontres between exasperated fowls or reflected upon the admirable manner in which their contests might be associated with the instrumental sounds and their jumps, pecks, and gaff-kicks, be timed with crotchet and quaver! To the honor of a few remote Kentuckians, or Indiana Hoosheroons, this eminent sport has found a few advocates in those distant quarters of our republic. Is it not time that the practice were forbidden to waste its exclusive elegance in the haunts of rural life, and that it were introduced into our cities? Should not cock-pits be built by the sale of stock, and capacious coops be laid in? Should not feeders be imported, to deliver lectures on the subject and ought there not to be competent composera engaged, who shall produce a series of militant arias, by means of which the cocks could fight with precision, and the ears of the audience be simultaneously deiectated? For the credit of the nation, and of the growing taste for operative, active music, I ask, can this solemn appeal be resisted? I think not.

Some churlish, old-fashioned denizens may deem this plan infeasible-but I can tell them otherwise. Let us secure the importation of one of those foreign fowl-supervisors. Bumm, for instance, Cockfeeder to the gentlemen of Leicestershire,'-let him be installed as manager of the New-York Metropolitan Cock-pit,-and let the musical department be entrusted to some passionate master of the science, who feels the spirit of his trade,-and I warrant me the concern will prosper beyond hope. Our people need to be advanced in these lovely refinements, and I ask leave to explain how it can be done.

Let the pit be opened as the theatres are at present. Let the curtain rise on the feathered combatants, standing each by his feeder, looking grim as Tophet, and his plumage quivering with impatience. Chanticleers, and fowls of that genus without distinction of sex, are peculiarly.