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ing a joke, the author would have consummated a creation. Both Madame de Stael and Rousseau appear to me to have possessed this sort of imperfect knowledge. Both are great in aphorisms, and feeble in realizing conceptions of flesh and blood. When Madame de Stael tells us" that great losses, so far from binding men more closely to the advantages they still have left, at once loosen all ties of affection," she speaks like one versed in the mysteries of the human heart, and expresses exactly what she wishes to convey; but when she draws the character of Corinne's lover, she not only confounds all the moral qualities into one impossible compound, but she utterly fails in what she evidently attempts to picture. The proud, sensitive, generous, high-minded Englishman, with a soul at once alive to genius, and fearing its effect-daring as a soldier, timid as a man-the slave of love that tells him to scorn the world, and of opinion that tells him to adore it-this is the new, the delicate, the many-coloured character Madame de Stael conceived, and nothing can be more unlike the heartless and whining pedant she has accomplished.

In Rousseau, every sentence Lord Edouard utters is full of beauty, and sometimes of depth, and yet those sentences give us no conception of the utterer himself. The expressions are all soul, and the character is all clay-nothing can be more brilliant than the sentiments, or more heavy than the speaker.

In fact it is not often that the graver writers have succeeded in plot and character as they have done in the allurement of reflection, or the graces of style. While Goldsmith makes us acquainted with all the personages of his unrivalled story-while we sit at the threshold in the summer evenings and sympathize with the good Vicar in his laudable zeal for monogamy-while ever and anon we steal a look behind through the lattice, and smile at the gay Sophia, who is playing with Dick, or fix our admiration on Olivia who is practising an air against the young Squire comes-while we see the sturdy Burchell crossing the stile, and striding on at his hearty pace with his oak cudgel cutting circles in the air-nay, while we ride with Moses to make his bargains, and prick up our ears when Mr. Jenkinson begins with "Ay, Sir! the world is in its dotage”—while in recalling the characters of that immortal tale, we are recalling the memory of so many living persons with whom we have dined, and walked, and chatted-we see in the gloomy Rasselas of Goldsmith's sager cotemporary, a dim succession of shadowy images without life or identity, mere machines for the grinding of morals, and the nice location of sonorous phraseology.

That delightful egotist-half good-fellow, half sage, half rake, half divine, the pet gossip of philosophy, the-in one word-inimitable and unimitated Montaigne insists upon it in right earnest, with plenty to support him, that continual cheerfulness is the most indisputable sign of wisdom, and that her estate, like that of things in the regions above the moon, is always calm, cloudless, and serene. And in the

*Suckling's plays abound also in passages of singular beauty of diction and elegance of thought. I will quote one which seems to me to contain one of the most beautiful compliments a woman ever received. Orsabrin, a seaman if I recollect right, says to Reginella

"Have you a name too?

Reginella. "Why do you ask?"

Orsabrin. "Because I'd call upon it in a storm,

66

And save a ship from perishing sometimes!"

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same essay he recites the old story of Demetrius the grammarian, who, finding in the Temple of Delphos a knot of philosophers chatting away in high glee and comfort, said, "I am greatly mistaken, gentlemen, or by your pleasant countenances you are not engaged in any very profound discourse." Whereon Heracleon answered the grammarian with a Pshaw, my good friend! it does very well for fellows who live in a perpetual anxiety to know whether the future tense of the verb Ballo should be spelt with one 1 or two, to knit their brows and look solemn, but we who are engaged in discoursing true philosophy, are cheerful as a matter of course!" Ah, those were the philosophers who had read the world aright; give me Heracleon the magician, for a fellow who knew what he was about when he resolved to be wise. And yet,after all, it is our constitution and not our learning, that makes us one thing or the other-grave or gay, lively or severe !

For my own part I candidly confess that, in spite of all my endeavours, and though all my precepts run the contrary way, I cannot divest myself at times of a certain sadness when I recall the lessons the world has taught me. It is true that I now expect little or nothing from mankind, and I therefore forgive offences against me with ease, but that ease which comes from contempt is no desirable acquisition of temper. I should like to feel something of my old indignation at every vice, and my old bitterness at every foe.

After all, as we know, or fancy that we know mankind, there is a certain dimness that falls upon the glory of all we see. We are not so confiding of our trust-and that is no petty misfortune to some of us; without growing perhaps more selfish, we contract the circle of our enjoyments. We do not hazard-we do not venture as we once did. The sea that rolls before us proffers to our curiosity no port that we have not already seen. About this time, too, our ambition changes its character-it becomes more a thing of custom than of ardour. We have begun our career-shame forbids us to leave it; but I question whether any man moderately wise, does not see how small is the reward of pursuit. Nay, ask the oldest, the most hacknied adventurer of the world, and you will find he has some dream at his heart, which is more cherished than all the honours he seeks—some dream perhaps of a happy and serene retirement which has lain at his breast since he was a boy, and which he will never realize. The trader and his retreat at Highgate are but the type of Walpole and his palace at Houghton. The worst feature in our knowledge of the world is that we are wise to little purpose-we penetrate the hearts of others, but we do not satisfy our own. Every wise man feels that he ought not to be ambitious, nor covetous, nor subject to emotion-yet the wisest go on toiling, and burning to the last. Men who have declaimed most against ambition have been among the most ambitious; so that, at the best, we only get wise for the sake of writing books which the world seldom sees till we are dead—or of making laws and speeches, which, when dead, the world hastens to forget. "When all is done, human life is at the greatest and the best but like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over."

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* Sir William Temple.

A.

THE CHOLERA MORBUS.

ON HEARING IT SAID THAT THIS DISEASE ONLY ATTACKED THE POOR.

It comes! it comes! from England's trembling tongue

One low and universal murmur stealeth ;—

By dawn of day, each journal is o'erhung

With starting eyes, to read what it revealeth,
And all aghast, ejaculate one word-

THE CHOLERA-no other sound is heard!

Had Death, upon his ghastly horse reveal'd,

From his throat-rattling trump a summons sounded,

Not more appallingly its blast had peal'd

Upon the nation's ear;-awe-struck, astounded,
Men strive in vain their secret fears to smother,

And gaze in blank dismay on one another.

Now are all cares absorb'd in that of health;

Hush'd is the song, the dance, the voice of gladness,

While thousands in the selfishness of wealth,

With looks of confidence, but hearts of sadness,
Dream they can purchase safety for their lives
By nostrums, drugs, and quack preventatives.
The wretch who might have died in squalid want,
Unseen, unmourn'd by our hard-hearted blindness,
Wringing from fear what pity would not grant,

Becomes the sudden object of our kindness,

Now that his betters he may implicate,

And spread infection to the rich and great.

Yet still will wealth presumptuously cry

"What, though the hand of death be thus outstretched;

It will not reach the lordly and the high,

But only strike the lowly and the wretched.

Tush!-what have we to quail at? Let us fold

Our arms, and trust to luxury and to gold."

They do belie thee, honest Pestilence!

Thou 'rt brave, magnanimous, not mean and dastard;
Thou 'lt not assert thy dread omnipotence

To

In mastering those already overmaster'd

By want and woe,-trampling the trampled crowd,
spare the unsparing and preserve the proud.
Usurpers of the people's rights! prepare

For death by quick atonement.-Stony-hearted
Oppressors of the poor!-in time beware!
When the destroying angel's shaft is darted,
"Twill smite the star on titled bosoms set,
The mitre pierce, transfix the coronet.
Take moral physic, Pomp! not drugs and oil,
And learn, to broad philanthropy a stranger,
That every son of poverty and toil,

With whom thou sharest now an equal danger,
Should as a brother share, in happier hours,

The blessings which our common Father showers.

O thou reforming Cholera! thou'rt sent

Not as a scourge alone, but as a teacher,

That they who shall survive to mark the event

Of thy dread summons, thou death-dealing preacher!
By piety and love of kind may best

Requite the love that snatch'd them from the Pest.

H.

CHATEAUBRIAND AND LOUIS PHILIPpe.

(From our Paris Correspondent.)

THOUGH far from deserving all the honour of the comparison, M. De Chateaubriand is a kind of political Lord Byron, at least, according, not to our individual, but to the vulgar, notions of the latter. He is interesting and repulsive, amiable and detestable; now formidable for his talents, now only remarkable for his eccentricities. His character is not of the best, being a roué of public life, as Byron was of private the errors of both, being redeemed by a multitude of generous and noble acts. There is similarity despite the inequality betwixt their literary powers, both delighting in the sublime of exaggeration, and only preserved by their genius from tumbling each instant into the ridiculous. Both were endowed with unexampled mastery over their respective languages. The English language in Byron's hand was, as he pleased it, a plaything or a thunderbolt; like Aaron's staff, now a rod to walk tranquilly and lordly withal, now a serpent devouring its neighbours. Chateaubriand has a similar power, longo intervallo in sooth, over the French, which is far less plastic and manageable. Except Montaigne, Voltaire, and Paul Louis Courrier, he has made more than any Frenchman of his language, which resembles a splendid suit of armour, adorning the wearer indeed, but demanding and exhausting all his strength to support its weight.

In personal respects the comparison may be followed closer. Chateaubriand is noble, inheriting all the prejudices and few of the advantages of rank; poor, as Byron was, for his caste; looked down upon by his fellows, and obliged to have recourse to the plebeian's noblesse, viz. genius, for pre-eminence. Bred amongst a people with whom unbelief was a dogma, Chateaubriand ran tilt against received opinions, and asserted religion, when the Church had not a votary. Byron, we know, did the same contrarywise, and assailed the religious dogmas of his countrymen with a chivalrous spirit of contradiction. And now Chateaubriand has succeeded by his political paradoxes, misfortunes, and talents, in placing himself, with respect to the French public, in much the same station that Byron held in the eye of the English. He is by himself a puissance-how is this to be translated?— -a crowned head, the crown being but laurel, which all parties reverence, court, and dread. A victim to his liberal principles, Chateaubriand resigned his embassy, on the appointment of Polignac ; a victim to his royalism, he is now without place or means of support, except his pen. With a blundering foresight, worthy of the economy of a poet, he deposited his savings in the Dutch funds, as then the most secure in revolutionary Europe, and the most likely to stand firm by the political exile. On the contrary it proved, that in the political tempest the Dutchman's sheet-anchor was the first to drag. Now Chateaubriand is the Carlist, the only man in France, who dares hold out for the discarded race; (the Journal des Debats, so long the organ of his opinions, has here forsaken the noble Viscount's guidance ;) and, moreover, he is the only man whose Carlism the French can pardon.

Twice since the revolution of July, has M. de Chateaubriand come forward with a pamphlet. He spoke in the Upper Chamber for the Duke of Bordeaux; that scouted, his device has since been war to Dec.-VOL. XXXII. NO. CXXXII. 2 N

the present order of things. His first pamphlet went to prove that an elective monarchy was an absurdity; that it could not endure. Or, that in order to endure, one of two alternatives was requisite ; viz. either to declare war, occupy Belgium, run the same muck against Europe that Napoleon had failed in, and acquire that baptisin of blood,' which alone, it was argued, could consecrate a new dynasty. 'If you do not make war,' cried M. de Chateaubriand, to Louis Philippe, the French will never respect you. Their pretended love of liberty is a farce; it is glory they love, and without glory they will never live. See the unquiet population; how with the least pretext it rises in tumult; how men grasp at the old revolutionary ideas! see the clubs and the press driving still on to anarchy. Nothing but war can occupy and satisfy these men. In avoiding it, you will be driven upon the other alternative-tyranny, proscriptions, and those arbitrary means, that both Napoleon and the Bourbons were compelled to use.'

Unfortunately for M. de Chateaubriand's character as a prophet, Louis Philippe has adopted neither of these alternatives. He has neither declared war abroad with Europe, nor with Liberty at home. He has gone on quietly, peaceably, steadily, and surely in a middle course, repressing tumultuous mobs by patience, and wearing out, rather than crushing, sedition. Yet he reigns, and his throne acquires daily more solidity. Mobs are at an end. The sounds of war have died away. The funds rise like a thermometer in June, and Perier is hailed as the Richelieu of his time.

M. de Chateaubriand is profoundly vexed at all this. It should not have been so; and he has just issued another pamphlet to prove it: a pamphlet, in which every power, and interest, and argument are brought forward, that are at all hostile to the existing government; no matter how little consistent or compatible with each other. Since royalist feelings can be no longer appealed to, M. de Chateaubriand appeals to the republicans, to the men of the mouvement, and calls to the anarchists to raise the standard of Henry the Fifth. What a coalition that of Wilson Croker and Henry Hunt is a marriage within the affinities, compared with it.

"Why should a republic be considered to be an unachievable chimera ?" exclaims the royalist pamphleteer. "Since the discovery of representative government, it has been proved that the system of representation may be realized by a great people in a republican, as well as in a monarchic form. A republic possesses incontestable advantages. It is cheap. It is noble. It assigns to different degrees of intellect their natural ranks."

He then quotes Samuel's advice to the Israelites, dissuading them to choose a king, and continues:

"If a republican government had been the result of the revolution of July, it would have set many consciences at ease. In swearing allegiance to it there could have been no treason; it would have been merely a change of principle, not one king substituted for another. There would not have been an usurpation, but merely another order of things. As for me, who am republican by nature, monarchic by reason, and Bourbonist from honour, I should have far sooner become reconciled with a democracy, since the legitimate monarchy was impossible, than with the bastard monarchy, which has been octroyed to us by the Lord knows whom."

Now, we have no dissent to express from M. de Chateaubriand's

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