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TWO THINGS MARKED IN READING.

THE best things in the world are undesigned, as the best pleasures are uncontrived and unforeseen. In the programme of an article in an English Review on the Parisian Letters of the Vicomte de Launay, (Madame Girardin,) the reviewer falls into a digression on the contrast between the position of men of genius in England and France; and in so doing, draws a picture of English servility to rank, which, if done by any other than an Muskau's.

at Pimlico! Indeed, a man who after living much abroad, returns to his own country, will find there is no meanness in Europe like that of the freeborn Briton. A woman in middle life is afraid of her lady's-maid if the latter has lived in a lord's family previously. In the days of the existence of the C club, young men used to hesitate and make apologies before they avowed they belonged to it; and the reason was not that the members were not as good as themselves, but because they were not better. The club was ruined because there were not lords enough in it. The young barristers, the young artists, the young merchants from the city, would not, to be sure, speak to their lordships if they were present, but they pined in their absence-they English pen, would be worse abuse than any of Puckler sought for places where their august patrons might occasionIt would be impossible perhaps for a journal here to pro-ally be seen and worshipped in silence; and the corner of duce any series of London letters similar in kind to those of Waterloo Place is now dark, and the friendly steam of dinwhich we are speaking. The journalist has not the positionners no longer greets the passers-by there at six o'clock. in London which is enjoyed by his Parisian brother. Here How those deserters would have rallied round a couple of the journal is everything, and the writer a personage stu- dukes were they ever so foolish, and a few marquises no diously obscure ;-If a gentleman, he is somehow most care- wiser than the author of a certain Voyage to Constantinople. ful to disguise his connexion with literature, and will avow Thus, as it seems to us, the great people in England have any other profession but his own: if not of the upper class, killed our society. It is not their fault: but it is our meanthe gentry are strangely shy and suspicious of him, have We might be very social and happy without them if vague ideas of the danger of "being shown up" by him, and we would: but follow them we must, and as in the good old will flock to clubs to manifest their mistrust by a black ball. vicar's time, the appearance of Lady Wilhelmina Amelia Society has very different attentions for the Parisian jour- Skeggs amongst us, (whom we will ask), instantly puts a nalists, and we find them admitted into the saloons of am- stop to the joviality and free flow of spirits which reigned bassadors, the cabinets of ministers, and the boudoirs of la- before her ladyship's arrival; and we give up nature and dies of fashion. When shall we ever hear of Mr. This, blindman's buff for stiff conversations about "Shakspeare theatrical critic for the "Morning Post," at Lady Londonder- and the musical glasses." This digression concerning Engry's ball, or Mr. That, editor of the "Times," closeted with lish society has, to be sure, no actual reference to the subSir Robert Peel, and "assisting" the prime minister to pre-ject in hand, save that moral one which the reviewer pare a great parliamentary paper or a queen's speech? And, sometimes thinks fit to point out to his reader, who travelling indeed, with all possible respect for the literary profession, with him in the spirit to foreign countries, may thus their we are inclined to think the English mode the most whole- manners noting, and their realms surveying, be induced to some in this case, and that it is better that the duchesses, think about his own. the ministers, and the literary men, should concert with their kind, nor be too intimate with each other.

ness.

Leigh Hunt tells love stories delightfully-with a sort of kitchen-fire-side familiarity which is charming in the most refined writer of the age. Here is one which turns upon a' phenomenon that occurred during the earthquake which destroyed Messina.

For the truth is, the parties have exceedingly few interests in common. The only place in England we know of where the great and the small frankly consort, is the betting ring at Epsom and Newmarket, where his grace will take the horse-dealer's odds and vice versa-that is the place of almost national interest and equality, but what other is there? Giuseppe, a young vine-grower in a village at the foot of At Exeter Hall, (another and opposite national institution,) the mountains looking towards Messina, was in love with my lord takes the chair and is allowed the lead. Go to Maria, a daughter of the richest bee-master of the place; Guildhall on a feast day, my lords have a high table for and his affection, to the great displeasure of the father, themselves, with gold and plate, where the commoners have was returned. The old man, though he had encouraged crockery, and no doubt with a prodigious deal more green him at first, wished her to marry a young profligate in the fat in the turtle sonp than falls to the share of the poor suf- city, because the latter was richer and of a higher stock; ferers at the plebeian table. The theatre was a place but the girl had a great deal of good sense as well as feel. where our rich and poor met in common, but the great haveing; and the father was puzzled how to separate them, the deserted that amusement, and are thinking of sitting down families having been long acquainted. He did everything to dinner, or are preparing for the Opera when three acts of in his power to render the visits of the lover uncomfortable the comedy are over. The honest citizen who takes his to both parties; but as they saw through his object, and love simple walk on a Sunday in the park comes near his betters, can endure a great deal, he at length thought himself comit is true, but they are passing him in their carriages or on pelled to make use of insult. Contriving, therefore, one day horseback,-nay, it must have struck any plain person who to proceed from one mortifying word to another, he took may chance to have travelled abroad in steamboat or rail- upon him, as if in right of offence, to anticipate his daugh. road, how the great Englishman, or the would-be great, ter's usual attention to the parting guest, and show him out (and the faults of a great master, as Sir Joshua Reynolds of the door himself, adding a broad hint that it might be as says, are always to be seen in the exaggerations of his imi- well if he did not return very soon. tators,) will sit alone perched in his solitary carriage on the fore-deck, rather than come among the vulgar crowd who are enjoying themselves in the more commodious part of the vessel. If we have a fault to find with the fashionable aristocracy of this free country, it is not that they shut them- "What," said the poor lad, losing all the courage of his selves up and do as they like, but that they ruin honest folks anger in the terrible thought of his never having any more who will insist upon imitating them: and this is not their of those beautiful lettings out of the door by Maria-"what! fault-it is ours. A philosopher has but to walk into the do you mean to say I may not hope to be invited again, Bedford and Russell-square district, and wonder over this even by yourself?-that you yourself will never again invite sad characteristic of his countrymen; it is written up in theme, or come to see me?" large bills in the windows which show that the best houses "Oh, we shall all come, of course, to the great Signor in London are to let. There is a noble mansion in Russell- Giuseppe," said the old man, looking scornful" all cap in square, for instance, of which the proprietors propose to hand." make a club-but the inhabitants of Bloomsbury who want a club must have it at the west end of the town, as far as possible from their own unfashionable quarter; those who do inhabit it want to move away from it; and you hear attorneys' wives and honest stockbrokers' ladies talk of quitting the vulgar district, and moving towards" the court end," as if they were to get any good by living near her majesty the queen

"Perhaps, Signor Antonio," said the youth, piqued at last to say something harsh himself, "you do not wish the son of your old friend to return at all?"

"Perhaps not," said the bee-master.

"Nay, nay;" returned Giuseppe, in a tone of propitiation; "I'll wait till you do me the favour to look in some morning, in the old way, and have a chat about the French; and perhaps," added he, blushing," you will then bring Maria with you, as you used to do; and I wont attempt to see her till then."

"Oh, we'll all come, of course," said Antonio, impa

tiently; "cat, dog, and all; and when we do," added he, in a very significant tone, "you may come again yourself." Giuseppe tried to laugh at the jest, and thus still propitiate him; but the old man, hastening to shut the door, angrily cried, "Ay, cat, dog, and all, and the cottage besides, with Maria's dowry along with it; and then you may come again, and not till then." And so saying he banged the door, and giving a furious look at poor, pale Maria, went into another room to scrawl a note to the young citizen.

There

THE CAT BY THE FIRE. A BLAZING fire, a warm rug, candles lit and curtains drawn, the preference of a kettle to an urn, as the third or fourth the kettle on for tea (nor do the "first circles" despise tention,-it is a scene which everybody likes unless he has may do,) and finally, the cat before you, attracting your at a morbid aversion to cats; which is not common. are some nice inquirers, it is true, who are apt to make un. easy comparisons of cats with dogs,-to say they are not so loving, that they prefer the house to the man, &c. But odious," our readers, we hope, will continue to like what is agreeably to the good old maxim, that "comparisons are likeable in anything, for its own sake, without trying to ren

The young citizen came in vain, and Antonio grew sulkier and angrier every day, till at last he turned his bitter jest into a vow, exclaiming, with an oath, that Giuseppe should never have his daughter, till he, (the father,) daughter, dog, cat, cottage, bee-hives and all, with her dowry of al-der it unlikeable from its inferiority to something else-a mond-trees to boot, set out some fine morning to beg the young vine-dresser to accept them.

process by which we might ingeniously contrive to put soot into every dish that is set before us, and to reject one thing Poor Maria grew thin and pale, and Giuseppe looked little better, turning all his wonted jests into sighs, and often after another, till we were pleased with nothing. Here is a interrupting his work to sit and look towards the said al- good fireside, and a cat to it; and it would be our own mond-trees, which formed a beautiful clump on an ascent fault, if, in removing to another house and another fireside, we did not take care that the cat removed with us. Cats upon the other side of the glen, sheltering the best of Antonio's bee-hives, and composing a pretty dowry for the pret-would have creatures considerate towards us, we must be cannot look to the moving of goods, as men do. If we ty Maria, which the father longed to see in the possession of the flashy young citizen.

One morning, after a very sultry night, as the poor youth sat endeavouring to catch a glimpse of her in this direction, he observed that the clouds gathered in a very unusual manner over the country, and then hung low in the air, heavy and immovable. Towards Messina the sky looked so fiery, that at first he thought the city on fire, till an unusual heat affecting his own skin, and a smell of sulphur arising, and the little river at his feet assuming a tinge of muddy ash-colour,

he knew that some convulsion of the earth was at hand.

His immediate impulse was to cross the ford, and, with mixed anguish and delight, again find himself in the cottage of Antonio, giving the father and daughter all the help in his power. A tremendous burst of thunder and lightning startled him for a moment; but he was proceeding to cross,

when his ears tingled, his head turned giddy, and while the earth heaved beneath his own feet, he saw the whole opposite side of the glen lifted up with a horrible deafening noise, and then the cottage itself, with all around it, cast, as he thought, to the ground, and buried for ever. The sturdy youth, for the first time in his life, fainted away; and when his senses returned, found himself pitched back into his own premises, but not injured, the blow having been broken by

the vines.

But on looking in horrour towards the site of the cottage up the hill, what did he see there? or rather, what did he not see there? And what did he see, forming a new mound, furlongs down the side of the hill, almost at the bottom of the glen, and in his own very homestead?

Antonio's cottage.-Antonio's cottage, with the almond trees, and the bee-hives, and the very cat and dog, and the old man himself, and the daughter, (both senseless,) all come, as if, in the father's words, to beg him to accept them! Such awful pleasantries, so to speak, sometimes take place in the middle of Nature's deepest tragedies, and such exquisite good may spring out of evil.

so towards them. It is not to be expected of everybody, quadruped or biped, that they should stick to us in spite of sides, stories have been told of cats very much to the credit our want of merit, like a dog or a benevolent sage. Belike a dog, waiting at a gentleman's door to thank him for of their benignity; such as their following a master about remember the history of the famous Godolphin Arabian, some obligation over night, &c. And our readers may upon whose grave a cat that had lived with him in the stable

went and stretched itself, and died.

gently moves its tail. What an odd expression of the
The cat purrs, as if it applauded our consideration,—and
its face, as it looks up at us!
power to be irritable and the will to be pleased there is in
not prefer a cat in the act of purring, or of looking in
We must own, that we do
It reminds us of the sort of smile, or simmer

that manner.

(simper is too weak and fleeting a word) that is apt to be in a state of satisfaction. We prefer, for a general expresin the faces of irritable people when they are pleased to be sion, the cat in a quiet unpretending state, and the human countenance with a look indicative of habitual grace and composure, as if it were not necessary to take any violent steps to prove its amiability, the "smile without a smile,” as the poet beautifully calls it.*

be objected to poor Pussy, as boys at school get down their Furthermore, (in order to get rid at once of all that may bad dumpling as fast as possible, before the meat comes,) sports with a mouse before she kills it, tossing and jerking we own we have an objection to the way in which a cat it about like a ball, and letting it go, in order to pounce upon it with the greater relish. And yet what right have we to apply human measures of cruelty to the inferior reflectability of a cat? Perhaps she has no idea of the mouse's looks upon it as a pleasant moveable toy, made to be eaten, being alive, in the sense that we have,-most likely she -a sort of lively pudding, that oddly jumps hither and thither. It would be hard to beat into the head of a country squire, of the old class, that there is any cruelty in hunt

As to the unnatural cruelties, which we sometimes read of, committed by cats upon their offspring, they are exceptions to the common and beautiful rules of nature, and ac

For it was so in the end, if not in the intention. The old man, (who, together with his daughter, had only been stunned by terrour,) was superstitiously frightened by the dread-ing a hare; and most assuredly it would be still harder to ful circumstance, if not affectionately moved by the attenbeat mouse-sparing into the head of a cat. You might read tions of the son of his old friend, and the delight and reli- would only sneeze at it. the most pungent essay on the subject into her ear, and she gious transport of his child. Besides, though the cottage, and the almond trees, and the bee-hives, had all come miraculously safe down the hill, (a phenomenon which has frequently occurred in these extraordinary landslips,) the flower-gardens, on which his bees fed, were almost all de-cordingly we have nothing to do with them. They are tracestroyed; his property was lessened, his pride lowered; and when the convulsion was well over, and the guitars were again playing in the valley, he consented to become the inmate for life of the cottage of the enchanted couple.

able to some unnatural circumstances, of breeding or posi-
tion. Enormities as monstrous are to be found anong hu-
man beings, and argue nothing against the general charac-
ter of the species. Even dogs are not always immaculate;
with a shilling, for differing with him in politics.
and sages have made slips. Dr. Franklin cut off his son

He could never attain, however, to the innate delicacy of his child, and he would sometimes, with a petulant sigh, intimate at table what a pity it was that she had not married But cats resemble tigers? They are tigers in miniature? the rich and high-feeding citizen. At such times as these, Well, and very pretty miniatures they are. And what Maria would gather one of her husband's feet between her has the tiger himself done, that he has not a right to his dinown under the table, and with a squeeze of it, that repaidner, as well as Jones? A tiger treats a man much as a him tenfold for the mortification, would steal a look at him cat does a mouse ;-granted; but we have no reason to supwhich said, "I possess all which it is possible for me to pose that he is aware of the man's sufferings, or means any. desire."

Knowles, in the "Beggar of Bethnal Green."

thing but to satisfy his hunger; and what have the butcher and poulterer been about, meanwhile? The tiger, it is true, lays about him a little superfluously sometimes, when he gets into a sheep-fold, and kills more than he eats; but does not the squire or the marquis do pretty much like him in the month of September? Nay, do we not hear of venerable judges, that would not hurt a fly, going about in that refreshing month, seeking whom they may lame? See the effect of habit and education! And you can educate the tiger in no other way than by attending to his stomach. Fill that, and he will want no men to eat, probably not even to lame. On the other hand, deprive Jones of his dinner for a day or two, and see what a state he will be in, especially if he is by nature irascible. Nay, keep him from it for an half-an-hour, and observe the tiger propensities of his stomach and fingers,-how worthy of killing he thinks the cook, and what boxes of the ear he feels inclined to give the footboy.

Animals, by the nature of things, in their present state, dispose of one another into their respective stomachs, without ill-will on any side. They keep down the several popu. lations of their neighbours, till time may come when superfluous population of any kind need not exist, and predatory appearances may vanish from the earth, as the wolves have done from England. But whether they may or not, is not a question by a hundred times so important to moral inquiries, as into the possibilities of human education and the nonsense of ill-will. Show the nonentity of that, and we may all get onr dinners as jovially as we can, sure of these three undoubted facts,-that life is long, death short, and the world beautiful. And so we bring our thoughts back again to the fireside, and look at the cat.

Poor Pussy! she looks up at us again, as if she thanked us for those vindications of dinner; and symbolically gives a twist of a yawn, and a lick to her whiskers. Now she proceeds to clean herself all over, having a just sense of the demands of her elegant person,-beginning judiciously with her paws, and fetching amazing tongues at her hind-hips. Anon, she scratches her neck with a foot of rapid delight, leaning her head towards it, and shutting her eyes, half to accommodate the action of the skin and half to enjoy the luxury. She then rewards her paws with a few more touches;-look at the action of her head and neck, how pleasing it is, the ears pointed forward, and the neck gently arching to and fro. Finally, she gives a sneeze, and another twist of mouth and whiskers, and then, curling her tail towards her front claws, settles herself on her hind quarters, in an attitude of bland meditation.

What does she think of ?—Of her saucer of milk at breakfast? or of the thump she got yesterday in the kitchen for stealing the meat? or of her own meat, the Tartar's dish, noble horse-flesh? or of her friend the cat next door, the most impassioned of serenaders? or of her little ones, some of whom are now large, and all of them gone? Is that among her recollections when she looks pensive?

She is a sprightly cat, hardly past her youth; so happening to move the fringe of the rug a little with our foot she darts out a paw, and begins plucking it and inquiring into the matter, as if it were a challenge to play, or something lively enough to be eaten. What a graceful action of that foot of hers, between delicacy and petulance!-combining something of a thrust out, a beat and a scratch. There seems even something of a little bit of fear in it, as if just enough to provoke her courage, and give her the excitement of a sense of hazard. We remember being much amused with seeing a kitten manifestly making a series of experiments upon the patience of its mother, trying how far the latter would put up with positive bites and thumps. The kitten ran at her every moment, gave her a knock, or a bite of the tail; and then ran back again, to recommence the assault. The mother sate looking at her, as if betwixt tolerance and admiration to see how far the spirit of the family was inherited or improved by her sprightly offspring. At length, however, the "little Pickle" presumed too far, and the mother, lifting up her paw, and meeting her at the very nick of the moment, gave her one of the most unsophisticated boxes of the ear we ever beheld. It sent her rolling half over the room, and made her come to a most ludicrous pause, with the oddest little look of premature and wincing meditation.

That lapping of the milk out of the saucer is what one's human thirst cannot sympathize with. It seems as if there

could be no satisfaction in such a series of atoms of drink. Yet the saucer is soon emptied; and there is a refreshment to one's ears in that sound of plashing with which the action is accompanied, and which seems indicative of a like comfort to Pussy's mouth. Her tongue is thin, and can make a spoon of itself. This, however, is common to other quadrupeds with the cat, and does not, therefore, more particularly belong to our feline consideration. Not so the electricity of its coat, which gives out sparks under the hand; its passion for the herb valerian (did the reader ever see one roll in it? it is a mad sight) and other singular delicacies of nature, among which perhaps is to be reckoned its taste for fish, a creature with whose element it has so little to do, that it is supposed even to abhor it; though lately we read somewhere of a swimming cat, that used to fish for itself. And this reminds us of an exquisite anecdote of dear, dogmatic, diseased, thoughtful, surly, charitable Johnson, who would go out of doors himself, and buy oysters for his cat, because his black servant was too proud to do it! Not that we condemn the black, in those enslaving, unliberating days. He had a right to the mistake, though we should have thought better of him had he seen farther, and subjected his pride to affection for such a master. But Johnson's true practical delicacy in the matter is beautiful. Be assured that he thought nothing of " condescension" in it, or of being eccentric. He was singular in some things, because he could not help it. But he hated eccentricity. No: in his best moments he felt himself simply to be a man, and a good man too, though a frail,-one that in virtue as well as humility, and in a knowledge of his ignorance as well as his wisdom, was desirous of being a Christian philosopher; and accordingly he went out, and bought food for his hungry cat, because his poor negro was too proud to do it, and there was nobody else in the way whom he had a right to ask. What must anybody that saw him have thought, as he turned up Bolt-court! But, doubtless, he went as secretly as possible,-that is to say, if he considered the thing at all. His friend Garrick could not have done as much! He was too grand, and on the great "stage" of life. Goldsmith could; but he would hardly have thought of it. Beauclerc might; but he would have thought it necessary to excuse it with a jest or a wager, or some such thing. Sir Joshua Reynolds, with his fashionable, fine-lady-painting hand, would certainly have shrunk from it. Burke would have reasoned himself into its propriety, but he would have reasoned himself out again. Gibbon! Imagine its being put into the head of Gibbon!! He and his bag-wig would have started with all the horrour of a gentleman-usher; and he would have rung the bell for the cook's-deputy's-under-assistant-errand-boy.

Cats at firesides live luxuriously, and are the picture of comfort; but lest they should not bear their portion of trouble in this world, they have the drawbacks of being liable to be shut out of doors on cold nights, beatings from the "aggravated" cooks, overpettings of children, (how should we like to be squeezed and pulled about in that manner by some great patronizing giants?) and last, not least, horrible merciless tramples of unconscious human feet and unfeeling legs of chairs. Elegance, comfort, and security seem the order of the day on all sides, and you are going to sit down to dinner, or to music, or to take tea, when all of a sudden the cat gives a squall as if she was smashed; and you are not sure that the fact is otherwise. Yet she gets in the way again, as before; and dares all the feet and mahogany in the room. Beautiful present sufficingness of a cat's imagination! Confined to the snug circle of her own sides, and the two next inches of rug or carpet.

TO THE MOCKING BIRD. WING'D mimic of the woods! thou motley fool! Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule

Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe: Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe, Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school; To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, Arch-mocker and mad Abbot of Misrule! For such thou art by day-but all night long Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song Like to the melancholy Jacques complain, Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong, And sighing for thy motley coat again.

WILDE.

DIARY OF TOWN TRIFLES.

(KEPT REGULARLY FOR THE NEW MIRROR.)

"If trifles engage and if trifles make us happy, the true reflection suggested by the experiment is upon the tendency of nature to gratification and enjoyment."-Paley.

AND now for the afternoon* portrait of the sidewalk in

front of St. Paul's.

Half-past three.-The sidewalk is in shade. The orangeman sits on a lemon-box with his legs and arms all crossed together in his lap, listening to the band, who have just commenced playing in the Museum balcony. The principal listeners, who have stopped for nothing but to listen, are three negro-boys, (one sitting on the Croton hydrant, and the other two leaning on his back,) and to them this gratuitous music seems a charming dispensation. (Tune, "Ole Dan Tucker.") The omnibus-horses prick-up their ears in going under the trumpets, but evidently feel that to show fright would be a luxury beyond their means. Saddlehorse, tied at the Bank, breaks bridle and runs away. Three is universal dinner-time for bosses-(what other word expresses the head men of all trades and professions?)-and probably not a single portly man will pass under my window in this hour.

who would be ornaments of any society, yet who, I know, (by the men I see occasionally with them,) are unacknow. ledgable by the aristocrats up town. What a field for a Columbus! How charming to go on a voyage of discovery and search for these unprized pearls among the unconscious pebbles! How delightful to see these rare plants without hedges about them-exquisite women without fashionable affectations, fashionable hindrances, penalties, exactions, pretensions, and all the wearying nonsenses that embarrass and stupify the society of most of our female pretenders to exclusiveness!

Half-past six and after.-The flower-seller loading up his pots into a fragrant wagon-load. Twilight's rosy mist falling into the street. Gas-lamps alight here and there. The Museum band increased by two instruments, to play more noisily for the night custom. The magic wheel lit up and ground rather capriciously by the tired boy inside. The gaudy transparencies one by one illuminated. Great difference now in the paces at which people walk. Business men bound home, apprentices and shop-boys carrying parcels, ladies belated,-are among the hurrying ones. Gentlemen strolling for amusement take it very leisurely, and with a careless gait that is more graceful and becoming than their mien of circumspect daylight. And now thicken the flaunting dresses of the unfortunate outlaws of charity and

Four to five.-Sidewalk more crowded. Hotel-boarders lounging along with tooth-picks. Stout men going down towards Wall-street with coats unbuttoned. Hearse stop-pity. Some among them (not many) have a remainder of ped at St. Paul's and the Museum band playing "Take your time, Miss Lucy," while the mourners are getting out. A gentleman, separated from two ladies by the passing of the coffin across the sidewalk, rejoins them apparently with some funny remark. Bell tolls. No one in the crowd is interested to inquire the age or sex of the person breaking the current of Broadway to pass to the grave. Hearse drives off on a trot.

Five and after.-Broadway one gay procession. Few la. dies accompanied by gentlemen-fewer than in the promenades of any other country. Men in couples and women in couples. Dandies strolling and stealing an occasional look at their loose demi-saison pantaloons, and gaiter-shoes, newly sported with the sudden advent of warm weather. No private carriage passing except those bound to the fer. ries for a drive into the country. The crowd is unlike the morning crowd. There is as much, or more beauty, but the fashionable ladies are not out. You would be puzzled to discover who these lovely women are. Their toilettes are unexceptionable, their style is a very near approach to comme il faut. They look perfectly satisfied with their po sition and with themselves, and they do, (what fashionable women do not)-meet the eye of the promenader with a coquettish confidence he will misinterpret-if he be green. or a puppy. Among these ladies are accidents of feature, form and manner-charms of which the possessor is unconscious-that, if transplanted into a high-bred sphere of society abroad, would be bowed to as the stamp of lovely aristocracy. Possibly-probably indeed-the very woman who is a marked instance of this is not called pretty by her friends. She is only spoken to by those whose taste is common-place and unrefined. She walks Broadway, and has a vague suspicion that the men of fashion look at her more admiringly than could be accounted for by any credit she has for beauty at home. Yet she is not likely to be enlightened as to the secret of it. When tired of her promenade she disappears by some side street leading away from the great thoroughfares, and there is no clue to her unless by inquiries that would be properly resented as impertiI see at least twenty pass daily under my window * See the article on same subject in last number.

nence.

lady-likeness in their gait, as if, but for the need there is to attract attention, they could seem modest-but the most of them are promoted to fine dress from sculleries and low life, and show their shameless vulgarity through silk and feathers. They are not all to be pitied. The gentleman cit passes them by like the rails in St. Paul's fence-wholly unnoticed. If he is vicious, it is not those in the street who could attract him. The "loafers" return their bold looks, and the boys pull their dresses as they go along, and now and then a greenish youth, well-dressed, shows signs of being attracted. Sailors, rowdies, country people, and strangers who have dined freely, are those whose steps are arrested by them. It is dark now. The omnibuses, that were heavy-laden through the twilight, now go more noisily because lighter. Carriages make their way towards the Park theatre. My window shows but the two lines of lamps and the glittering shops, and all else vaguely.

THE BREVIARY.

Do the readers of the Mirror (one in a thousand) know anything of the funniest poem in the world, and one of the best and most poetical at the same time-ANSTER FAIR? It would be a treat indeed to those who were wholly ignorant of its existence, to see even an extract or two, but first let us record some critical and biographical notice of the work and its author. Anster Fair is not only eminently original, but it belongs to a class of composition hitherto but little known in the literature of Britain-to that species, we mean, of gay or fantastic poetry which plays through the works of Pulci and Ariosto, and animates the compositions of many inferior writers both in Spain and in Italy-which is equally removed from the vulgarity of mere burlesque or mock. heroic and from the sarcasm and point and finesse of satirical pleasantry-which is extravagant rather than ridiculous, and displays only the vague and unbounded license of a sportive and raised imagination, without the cold pungency of wit, or the practised sagacity of derision. It frequently relaxes into childishness, and is some. times concentrated to humour; but its leading character is a kind of enthusiastic gayety, a certain intoxication and nimbleness of fancy which pours out a profusion of images without much congruity or selection, and covers all the objects to which it is directed with colours that are rather

brilliant than harmonious, and combines them into groupes that are more lively than graceful. This effervescence of the spirits has been hitherto supposed almost peculiar to the warmer regions of the south; and the poetry in which it naturally exhales itself, seems as it could only find a suitable vehicle in their plastic and flexible idioms, or a fitting audience among the susceptible races by whom they were framed.

Born in a very humble condition of life, and disabled, by the infirmities of his person, from earning a subsistence by his labour, the future poet of mirth would probably have perished in helpless penury in any other country of the world. In Scotland, however, education is not very costly; and no condition is so low, as to exempt a parent from the duty of bestowing it, even upon the most numerous offspring. The youth was early initiated, therefore, in the mysteries of reading and writing; and after passing some years in the situation of clerk to a little mer. chant in one of the small towns of Fife, was at length promoted to the dignity of parish schoolmaster in one of the most dreary and thinly-peopled parishes in the same country, where he has ever since remained in unbroken cheerfulness and measureless content, on an income of less than thirty pounds a year. In his low and lonely cot. tage, in this cheerless seclusion,-with no literary society, with the most scanty materials for study, and the most dim and distant anticipations of literary distinction, he not only made himself a distinguished proficient in classical learning before he had attained his twenty-fifth year, but acquired a familiar acquaintance with the languages and literature of modern Europe, and cheered his solitude with the composition of verses remarkable for spirit and originality;-considered in connection with the author's condition, we think they are altogether surprising. The subject, which we do not think very fortunately chosen, is borrowed from some ancient legends, respecting the marriage choice of a fair lady, whose beauty is still celebrated in the ballads and traditions of Mr. Tennant's native district; and whose hand, it seems, was held out as the reward of the victor in an ass-race, and a match of running in sacks, a competition of bag-piping and of story-telling. Upon this homely foundation, Mr. T. has erected a vast superstructure of description, and expended a great treasure of poetry. He has also engrafted upon it the airy and ticklish machinery of Shakspeare's, or rather of Wieland's Oberon, though he has given the less adventurous name of Puck to his ministering spirit, who, with the female fairy to whom he is wedded, patronizes the victor in these successive contentions, and secures not only his success, but his acceptance with the devoted fair. The merit of the poem does not consist at all, as it appears to us, in the contrivance or conduct of the story, of which the outline is briefly as follows:-The blooming heroine, sitting one evening by her lonely parlour-fire, is startled by the sudden apparition of a gay and fluttering fairy, who presents himself among the dishes on her supper-table, and after many admonitions, directs her to proclaim to the world her resolution of bestowing her hand in the whimsical manner that has been already mentioned, and to appoint the day of the next fair or annual market at Anster (or Anstruther, in Fife) for this great competition. The orders of the tricksy spirit are accordingly obeyed; and a prodigious concourse of suitors and spectators, including the king and all his court, assemble on the day appointed. The description of their various and contrasted groupes, forms one of the longest and most spirited parts of the poem. The successive contentions are then narrated with great spirit and effect; and the victory falling of course in every instance to the favourite of the fairies, the denouement is brought about by the actual appearance of those alert personages at the grand supper which solemnizes the betrothment, where it is explained that they had been divorced and condemned to solitary confinement, till they should be able to bring about the events which had been that day accomplished. The great charm of this singular composition consists, no doubt, in the profusion of images and groupes which it thrusts upon the fancy, and the crowd and hurry and animation with which they are all jostled and driven along; but this, though a very rare merit in any modern production, is entitled perhaps to less distinction than the perpetual sallies and outbreakings of a rich and poetical imagination, by which the homely themes on

which the author is professedly employed, are constantly ennobled or contrasted, and in which the ardour of a mind evidently fitted for higher tasks is somewhat capriciously expended. It is this frequent kindling of the diviner spirit-this tendency to rise above the trivial subject among which he has chosen to disport himself, and this power of connecting grand or beautiful conceptions with the representation of vulgar objects or ludicrous occurrences, that first recommended this poem to our notice, and still seem to us to entitle it to more general notoriety. The author is occupied, no doubt, in general, with low matters, and bent upon homely mirth, but his genius soars up every now and then in spite of him; and "his delights" -to use a quaint expression of Shakspeare,

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Here broke the lady her soliloquy,

For in a twink her pot of mustard, lo! Self-mov'd, like Jove's wheel'd stool that rolls on high, 'Gan caper on her table to and fro,

And hopp'd and fidgeted before her eye,

Spontaneous, here and there, a wondrous show!
As leaps, instinct with mercury, a bladder,
So leaps the mustard pot of bonnie Maggie Lauder.
Soon stopp'd its dance th' ignoble utensil,

When from its round and small recess there came
Thin curling wreaths of paly smoke, that still,
Fed by some magic unapparent flame,
Mount to the chamber's stucco'd roof, and fill

Each nook with fragrance and refresh the dame;
Ne'er smelt a Phoenix-nest so sweet, I wot,
As smelt the luscious fumes of Maggie's mustard-pot.
It reeked censer-like; then (strange to tell)
Forth from the smoke, that thick and thicker grows,
A fairy of the height of half an ell,

In dwarfish pomp, majestically rose;

His feet, upon the table stablish'd well,

Stood trim and splendid in their snake-skin hose;
Gleam'd, topaz-like, the breeches he had on,
Whose waistband like the bend of summer rainbow shone.

His coat seem'd fashion'd of the threads of gold,
That intertwine the clouds at sun-set hour,

And, certes, Iris with her shuttle bold
Wove the rich garment in her lofty bower;
To form its buttons were the Pleiads old

Pluck'd from their sockets by some genie-power,
And sew'd upon the coat's resplendent hem;
Its neck was lovely green; each cuff a sapphire gem.
As when the churlish spirit of the Cape
To Gama, voyaging to Mozambique,
Up-popp'd from sea, a tangle tassel'd shape,
With muscles sticking inch-thick on his cheek,
And 'gan with tortoise-shell his limbs to scrape,
And yawn'd his monstrous blobberlips to speak;
Brave Gama's hairs stood bristled at the sight,
And on the tarry deck sunk down his men with fright.
So sudden (not so huge and grimly dire)

Uprose to Maggie's stounded eyne the sprite,
As fair a fairy as you could desire,

With ruddy cheek, and chin and temples white;
His eyes seem'd little points of sparkling fire,

That, as he look'd, charm'd with inviting light;
He was, indeed, as bonny a fay and brisk,
As ever on long moonbeam was seen to ride and frisk.
Around his bosom, by a silken zone,

A little bagpipe gracefully was bound,
Whose pipes like hollow stalks of silver shone,
The glist'ring tiny avenues of sound;
Beneath his arm the windy bag, full-blown,
Heav'd up its purple like an orange round,
And only waited orders to discharge
Its blasts with charming groan into the sky at large.
He way'd his hand to Maggie, as she sat
Amaz'd and startled on her carved chair;
Then took his petty feather-garnish'd hat
In honour to the lady, from his hair,
And made a bow so dignifiedly flat,

That Mag was witched with his beauish air;
At last he spoke, with voice so soft, so kind,
So sweet, as if his throat with fiddle-strings was lin❜d.
Lady! be not offended that I dare,

Thus forward and impertinently rude,
Emerge, uncall'd, into the upper air,
Intruding on a maiden's solitude;

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