DULNESS 32-making war upon sense, tainly very prone to gambling, this is a vice which is chiefly confined to them. So much infumy attaches to the practice in any official or respectable station, and the law in such cases is so severe, that the better classes are happily exempt from it."-The Chinese, by SIR T. F. DAVIS. 32 The popular literature (trashy novels!) of the present day throws off all decent restraint, and gives elbow. room to the passions of the multitude. "Fire low," said Cromwell to his soldiers, "and you will be sure to hit them! Its plots are hung upon Tyburn-Tree. It is the vade mecum of the thief and the bully, a vocabulary of Newgate slang, a pocket-picking made easy. The most disgusting caricatures of human wickedness are pronounced masterpieces of a witty invention. Flash becomes household words, and if now and then a dash of no-meaning sentimentality be thrown in to sweeten the unsavoury mess, it is hailed as pure pathos by the delicate sympathies of Petticoat Alley and Hockley-in-the-Hole! An elève of a forensic free-and-easy who, after an idle, dreary day, vents his accumulated spirits, and restores the moral equilibrium at the Coal-hole or Cider Cellar, is made the hero to point a moral and adorn a tale. 66 "In the precious age we live in, Surely what a man can write I can read!" said Charles Lamb, who was a helluo librorum. As botanists allow nothing to be weeds, he would admit nothing to be wastepaper! "Nullus est imperitus Scriptor, qui Lectorem non inveniat," says St. Jerome. What a comfort for scribblers! Much of the (so-called) wit of the present day is begot by flatulence, born of fable, fed by folly, and nursed and maintained at the expense of virtue and the public. WOMAN'S LOVE--as warm as summer 33 If all Athens went mad about whistling like birds, all Europe (under the auspices of Peter the Hermit) went crazy about Crusades. The Mississippi, and the Tulip, mania (as lately as the year 1835, the bulb of a new tulip, called "The Citadel of Antwerp," was sold to M. Vanderninck, of Amsterdam, for £640!) turned the wits of France and Holland. Scotland became "daft" about the Isthmus of Darien; and the South Sea Bubble, Moonshine Companies and Railroads to Ruin have been the "bee in the bonnet" of Merrie England! All have paid dearly for their Whistle. 34"But happy they! the happiest of their kind! Whom gentle stars unite, and in one fate Their Hearts, their Fortunes, and their Beings blend-" sings Thomson, and the gentle Cowper is no less enthu siastic. "Domestic happiness, thou only bliss Of Paradise, that hast survived the fall." Yet how happens it that these poetical apostrophisers of conjugal blessedness should be bachelors? When "Thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part, And each warm wish springs mutual from the heart, This sure is bliss, if bliss on earth there be--" But what bliss can result from antagonistic tempers and tastes; from society without sympathy, talk without con verse, tenderness without ideas? To ensure happiness there must be no petty jealousies, 35 A French Painter, Nicholas Loir, in order to show how much love depends upon plenty, painted Venus warm. ing herself before a fire; and Ceres and Bacchus retiring to a distance. . . WOMAN'S TONGUE-uncertain thing! Are here as clever in their craft As when at fools, not with, I laugh'd,37 the vulgar offspring of conscious inferiority too tremblingly alive-no base-minded selfishness, incapable of intellectual enjoyment, and therefore obstructing it in others - no pitiful purse-pride-no spirit of contradiction, stinging itself with its own whimsies, and whipping others with the same nettles-no puritanism in Querpo, preached out of its senses, but not out of its iniquities happiness shall be found in the entire devotion and generous sympathy that anticipates every wish, brightens every hope, crowns every joy, and charms away every sorrow! True Dr. Burney, to whom-as times go-was meted out more than his proper share of matrimonial felicity, draws the following beautiful picture of his first wife. "And with all her nice discernment, quickness of perception, and delicacy, she could submit, if occasion seemed to require it, to such drudgery and toil as are suited to the meanest domestic, and that, with a liveliness and alacrity that, in general, are to be found in those only who have never known a better state. Yet with a strength of reason the most solid, and a capacity for literature the most intelligent, she never for a moment relinquished the female and amiable softness of her sex with which, above every other attribute, men are most charmed and captivated”. No wonder then that it was with such difficulty he tore himself from her converse in the morning, and flew back to it with such celerity at night... "Here" to adopt the eloquent language of Professor Richardson, "Love And, for as yet had Rome to pour, was the ruling passion; but Love ratified by wedlock, gentle, constant, and refined.".. It was a pretty conceit of the Philosopher, who, being asked, What was the best emblem of the marriagestate? went to his closet, and drew the picture of two oxen in a yoke, with the following motto underneath, "Draw equal." 36 The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields. Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall." England's Helicon. 1600. Ladies, it has been said, are the very reverse of their mirrors-the latter reflecting without talking, and the former talking without reflecting. 37 It was once remarked to Lord Chesterfield, that man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter. "True," said the Peer, " and you may add perhaps, that he is the only creature that deserves to be laughed at!" 38 The ancient Briton, majestic even in his semi-barbarism-the godlike Roman-the generous and valiant Celt --the hardy Pict and Scot-the Dane, and the noblest offspring of the great Scandinavian tribes, brave, adventurous and energetic-the industrious and liberty-loving Saxon-and the ever glorious Norman, infusing the ele ments of valor, intellect, and power into the blood of England have made us what we are. 40 So much mischief brew'd and brewing, 39 Mudfog, a Character. God save the Church! May ev'ry surpliced knave thee, too, Peep o'er the timber that thou should'st peep through! And all fears, but the right—the fear of God! 66 To which thy fav'rite tipple gives the zest- Mark the contrast! "Some of the meaner sort" of George Herbert's parish, says Walton, "who did so love and reverence him, that they would let their plough rest when his Saints-bell rung to prayers, that they might also |