APRIL is at once the most juvenile of all the months, and the most feminine-never knowing her own mind for a day together. Fickle as a fond maiden with her first lover;-coying it with the young sun till he withdraws his beams from her-and then weeping till she gets them back again. Highfantastical as the seething wit of a poet, that sees a world of beauty growing beneath his hand, and fancies that he created it; whereas it is it has created him a poet: for it is nature that makes April, not April nature. April is, doubtless, the sweetest month of all the year; partly because it ushers in the May, and partly for its own sake-so far as any thing can be valuable without reference to any thing else. It is, to May and June, what "sweet fifteen," in the age of woman, is to passion-stricken eighteen, and perfect two and twenty. It is, to the confirmed Summer, what the previous hope of joy is to the full fruition-what the boyish dream of love is to love itself. It is, indeed, the month of promises; and what are twenty performances compared to one promise? When a promise of delight is fulfilled, it is over and done with; but while it remains a promise, it remains a hope: and what is all good, but the hope of good? what is every to-day of our life, but the hope (or the fear) of to-morrow?-April, then, is worth two Mays, because it tells tales of May in every sigh that it breathes, and every tear that it lets fall. It is the harbinger, the herald, the promise, the prophecy, the foretaste of all the beauties that are to follow it -of all, and more-of all the delights of Summer, and all the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious" Autumn. It is fraught with beauties itself that no other month can bring before us, and "It bears a glass which shows us many more." As for April herself, her life is one sweet alternation of smiles, and sighs, and tears-and tears, and sighs, and smiles-till it is consummated at last in the open laughter of May. It is like-in short, it is like nothing in the world but "an April day." And her charms but really I must cease to look upon the face of this fair month

generally, lest, like a painter in the presence of his mistress, I grow too enamoured to give a correct resemblance. I must gaze upon her sweet beauties one by one, or I shall never be able to think and treat of her in any other light than that of the Spring; which is a mere abstraction-delightful to think of, but, like all other abstractions, not to be depicted or described.

Let me inform the reader, that what I have hitherto said of April, and may yet have to say, is intended to apply, not to this or that April in particularnot to April eighteen hundred and twenty-four, or fourteen, or thirty-four; but to APRIL par excellence that is to say, what April ("not to speak it profanely") ought to be. In short, I have no intention of being personal in my remarks; and if the April which I am describing should happen to differ, in any essential particulars, from the one in whose presence I am describing it, neither the month nor the reader must regard this as a covert libel or satire. The truth is, that, for what reason I know not-whether to put to shame the predictions of the Quarterly Reviewers-or to punish us islanders for our manifold follies and iniquities-or from any quarrel, as of old, between Oberon and Titania-but certain it is, that of late

"The seasons alter; hoary-beaded frosts

is

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hyems' thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: the Spring, the Summer,
The chilling Autumn, angry Winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and th' amazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which."

in her happiest mood, that I speak. It is of April, as she is when Nature What a sweet flush of new green has started up to the face of this meadow!--And the new-born daisies that stud it here and there, give it the look of an emerald sky powdered with snowy stars. In making our way between them, to yonder hedge-row, that divides the meadow from the little copse that lines oue side of it, let us not take the shortest way, but keep religiously to the little footpath-for the young grass is as yet too tender to bear being trod upon. I have been hither

to very chary of appealing to the poets in these pleasant papers; because they are people that, if you give them an inch, even in a span-long essay of this kind, always endeavour to lay hands on the whole of it. They are like the young cuckoos, that if once they get hatched within a nest, always contrive to oust the natural inhabitants. But when the daisy-"la douce Marguerite"-is in question, how can I refrain from pronouncing a blessing on the bard, who has, by his sweet praise of this "unassuming common-place of nature," revived that general love for it, which, until lately, was confined to the hearts of "the old poets," and of those young poets of all times, the little children?

"When soothed awhile by milder airs,

Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly shades his few gray bairs;

Spring cannot shun thee;

And Autumn, melancholy wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee."

Thou art the poet's darling.

If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or some bright day of April sky,
Imprison'd by hot sunshine lie

Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare,
He need but look about, and there
Thou art a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

If stately passions in me burn

And one chance look to thee should turn,
I drink out of an humbler urn
A lowlier pleasure;

The homely sympathy, that heeds
The common life our nature breeds;
A wisdom fitted to the needs

Of hearts at leisure."

were a tailor itself, should lose his caste, and be sent to the Coventry of mechanics-wherever that may be. In fact, it cannot happen. On Easter Monday ranks change places-Jobson is as good as Sir John-the "rude mechanical" is "monarch of all he surveys" from the summit of Greenwich-hill—and when he thinks fit to say "It is our royal pleasure to be drunk"-who shall dispute the proposition? Not I, for one. When our English mechanics accuse their betters of oppressing them, the said betters should reverse the old appeal, and refer from Philip sober to Philip drunk; and then nothing more could be said. But Now, they have no betters, even in their own notion of the matter. And, in the name of all that is transitory, envy them not their brief supremacy It will be over before the end of the week, and they will be as eager to return to the labour as they now are to escape from it for the only thing that an Englishman, whether high or low, cannot endure patiently for a week together, is, unmingled amusement.

y!

But there is a sport belonging to Easter Monday, which is not confined to the lower classes, and which, fun forbid that I should pass over silently. If the reader has not, during his boyhood, performed the exploit of riding to the turn-out of the stag on Epping Forest ;-following the hounds all day long, at a respectful distance ;--returning home in the evening with the loss of nothing but his hat, his hunting whip, and his horse--not to mention a portion of his nether person;-and finishing the day by joining the Lady mayoress's ball at the Mansion-house; -if the reader has not done all this when a boy, I will not tantalize him by expatiating on the superiority of those who have. And if he has done it, I need not tell him that he has no cause to envy his friend who escap ed with a flesh-wound from the fight of Waterloo for there is not a pin to choose between them!

I have little to tell the reader in regard to London exclusively, this month. I must mention, however, that now is heard in her streets, the prettiest of all the cries which are peculiar to them

"Come buy my primroses!"—and but for which, the Londoners would have no idea that Spring was at hand. Now, spoiled children make "fools" of their mammas and papas;—which is but fair, seeing that the said mammas and papas return the compliment during all the rest of the year. Now, not even a sceptical apprentice but is religiously persuaded of the merits of Good-Friday, and the propriety of its being so called

since it procures him two Sundays in the week instead of one. Finally, -Now, exhibitions of painting court the public attention, and obtain it, in every quarter;-on the principle, I suppose, that the eye has, at this season of the year, a natural hungering and thirsting after the colours of the Spring leaves and flowers, and rather than not meet with them at all, it is content to find them on painted canvass !

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS, &c. THIS month has been less prolific than the preceding; and, altogether, we believe there is less of literary novelty at the commencement of the present season than has for some years been usual.

Theodore Hook's "Sayings and Doings, a Series of Sketches from Life," is at this time making considerable noise in the reading world. It is, indeed, one of the smartest productions of the kind that has appeared for many years. Four tales"Danvers," "The Friend of the Family,' Merton," and "Martha the Gypsey," compose the three volumes, more than onehalf of which, indeed, is occupied by "Merton." Each of these tales is founded upon an old Saying; the object of the author being to illustrate old sayings by modern doings; which doings, he assures us, are facts. Thus, for instance, the history of Danvers" indisputably proves that "too much of a good thing is good for nothing." Tom Burton, a young man of talent, acquirement, and manners, but of moder ate fortune, falls in love with, and marries the paragon of all that is lovely and excellent in woman "Health, peace and competence"-happiness in its utmost human perfection—are his. By the death of his rich old uncle from India, he is suddenly advanced to prodigious wealth. He takes the uncle's name (Danvers); purchases princely estates; obtains a seat in Parliament; blazes forth in a contested county election; patronizes men of genius collects books, pictures and articles of virtù, with all the ardour of a Fonthill cognoscenté; finds himself £200,000 in debt; is convicted of, and imprisoned for an election bribery which he never committed; and is ultimately reduced to an humble pittance of less than £1,500 a year.

"Merton" shows that "there's many a slip between the cup and the lip." Blest with talent and character, he enters life with the most brilliant prospects. Enamoured of a beautiful girl, Fanny Meadows, he carries her off to Scotland, on the very borders of which, during a momentary separatios, he commits an assault and is taken before a magistrate. The loss of time, thus occasioned, proves fatal to his hopes: his pursuers arrive at the very moment of the

marriage ceremony. He quarrels with his rival, but is deprived of the honour of ineeting him by the circumstance of his rival's having been shot by another person an hour before the time of his appointment. Five hours after the time that it could prove serviceable, he receives a note from his adored Fanny, indicating a plan by which she might be rescued, and united to the man of her heart. He goes to London, gets inebriated for the first time in his life; sets out upon a nocturnal expedition; under an erroneous impression makes a forcible entry into the house of his mistress, and is taken captive by the guardians of the night. On the succeeding day he is seen by Miss Meadows under very suspicious circumstances with a lady of the strictest honour. His father undertakes to effect a reconciliation, but drops down dead as he is setting out for that purpose. Merton is patronized by a nobleman; he reads the newspaper announcement of the marriage of Miss Fanny Meadows; throws himself, in despair, into the arms of his noble friend's protegée, and then learns, to his utter astonishment and chagrin, that it was not his Fanny Meadows, but a cousin of hers, whose marriage had just occurred. Fortune still persecutes him. Arriving at his country house, he finds it just burnt down; and while he is searching amongst the ruins for his father's will, his wife elopes with a dashing Baronet. By the failure of a banker, upon whom he had neglected to present a draught, he loses a large sum. In the expectation of obtaining a divorce, he makes an arrangement for marrying his Fanny, but loses the verdict. He sets off to Yarmouth in Norfolk, when he ought to have gone to Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. He is apprehended by the officers of justice, brought to trial, found guilty, and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife's seducer. A few hours before the time appointed for his execution he effects his escape-goes to his wife's father-kills him by his appearance—is retaken, and led to the scaffold; when, just as he is about to be launched into eternity, the man believed to have been murdered, appears, and Merton is once more at large. Supposing his wife to be dead, there is now no bar to his union with Fanny Meadows; but, on

the very day before his intended marriage, he meets his wife a common prostitute. Mertou, still the victim of hopes and expectations, enters upon a large estate as. the declared heir of a Peer; but alas! it turns

out that his half-brother, and not himself, is entitled to the vast possessions. He buys a ticket in the lottery-it comes up a £20,000 prize-but he has been robbed of his ticket. At length, after encountering an almost innumerable host of equally promising and equally disastrous adventures, fate seems to be weary of her persecutions. His wife is dead-fortune has smiled glori ously upon him—he flies to throw himself and his possessions at the feet of his worshipped Fauny, and finds that she is—an inhabitant of another world! All this may be true, but certainly it is very unlike truth. "The Friend of the Family," is a villainous attorney, upon whose exploits we shall pause no longer than to say, that "all ends well" by his committing felo-de-se.

"Martha the Gypsey" is a very brief sketch.

These volumes display an extraordinary knowledge of life and nature, and a most happy talent for the delineation of character and manners. The satire is severesometimes, indeed, more severe than just ; yet most of the hits are very palpable; and, altogether, the style is so racy and piquant-there is so much truth and felicity in the sketches-that it is impossible not to be delighted with the work.

Galt's "Bachelor's Wife, a Selection of Curious and Interesting Extracts, with Cursory Observations," is a capital book; the best that we are acquainted with of its class, the "Curiosities of Literature" alone excepted. "It has been generally formed," observes the compiler, "upon the principle of affording specimens of the literature of different epochs, not indeed methodically arranged, but so chosen as to exhibit a more extensive view of the literary nind of the country, historically considered, than has been attempted in any previ ous selection of extracts." Whilst, however, we admit the excellence of the book, and accord it our warmest praise, we object most decidedly to the very clumsy and ineffective vehicle by which these delightful extracts are introduced. It is injurious to the many sensible and original observations of Mr. Galt, as too many readers, we are fearful, will be induced to pass them over without perusal. The fair Egeria is neither more nor less than an ideal blue stocking, who, by her learned conversation, imparts a charm to the lonely chambers of her spouse, Benedict, in the paper buildings. We admire intellectuality, if we may be allowed the coinage of a word, in the lovelier part of our species; yet we must confess we are not without our predilections for beautiful forms and faces of less assuming pretension. This, however, is not matter of opinion; and we can unhesi.

tatingly venture to assert, that the reader, brown or fair, masculine or feminine, will find Mr. Galt's "Bachelor's Wife" a very enchanting creature.

Songs," some account of the performance "Pride shall have a Fall, a Comedy with

of which will be found in our theatrical de

partment, is, we understand, from the able of "The Angel of the World," "Catiline," pen of Mr. Croly, the distinguished author "Paris in 1815," &c. It is dedicated, by permission, to Mr. Canning. Independently of its merits as an acting play, it will rank high amongst the reading dramas of the age. In the closet, its poetical beauties are contemplated with admirable efCuriosity is thus described :— fect. We shall offer one or two specimens.

Curiosity! Both man and woman would find life a waste True, lady, by the roses on those lips, But for the cunning of-Curiosity! She's the world's witch, and through the world she

runs,

The merriest masquer underneath the moon!
To beauties, languid from the last night's rout,
She comes with tresses loose, and shoulders wrapt
In morning shawls; and by their pillow sits,

Telling delicious tales of-lovers lost,

Fair rivals jilted, scandals, smuggied lace,
The hundredth novel of the Great Unknown!
And then they smile, and rub their eyes, and yawn.
And wonder what's o'clock-then sink again;
And thus she sends the pretty fools to sleep.
She comes to ancient dames, and, stiff as steel,
In hood and stomacher, with snuff in hand,
She makes their rigid muscles gay with news
Of Doctors' Commons, matches broken off,
Blue-stocking frailties, cards, and ratafia;
And thus she gives them prattle for the day.
She sits by ancient politicians, bowed
As if a hundred years were on her back;
Then peering through her spectacles, she reads
A seeming journal, stuff'd with monstrous tales
Of Turks and Tartars; deep conspiracies
(Born in the winter's brain); of spots in the sun,
Pregnant with fearful wars. And so they shake,
And hope they'll find the world all safe by morn
And thus she makes the world, both young and old,
Bow down to sovereign Curiosity!

The following is sung as a trio :

Tell us, thou glorious Star of eve!
What sees thine eye?
Wherever buman hearts can heave,
Man's misery!

Life, but a lengthened chain;
Youth, weary, wild, and vain;
Age on a bed of pain,
Longing to die!

Yet there's a rest!
Where earthly agonies
Awake no sighs

In the cold breast.

Tell us, thou glorious Star of eve!
Sees not thine eye

Some spot, where hearts no longer heave,
In thine own sky?

Where all life's wrongs are o'er,
Where Anguish weeps no more,
Where injured spirits soar,

Never to die!

One touch of the comic and we bave done. The subjoined is the prison harangue of the dissipated Torrento :

"Are we to suffer ourselves to be molested in our domestic circle; in the lovelines of our prison lives; in our olium cum dignitate? Gentlemen of the gaol! (Cheering) Is not our residence here for our country's

good?-(Cheering.) Would it not be well for the country if ten times as many, that hold their heads high, outside these walls, were now inside them?—(Cheering.) I scorn to appeal to your passions; but shall we suffer our honourable straw, our venerable bread and water, our virtuous slumbers, and our useful days to be invaded, crushed, and calcitrated by the iron boot-heel of arrogance and audacity?-(Cheering.) No! freedom is like the air we breathe, without it we die! No! every man's cell is his castle. By the law we live here; and should not all that live by the law, die by the law? Now, gentlemen, a general cheer: here's liberty, property, and purity of principle !(Cheering.)"

It is with no slight feeling of satisfaction, that, after a lapse of several years, we hail the appearance of another historical romance. "Duke Christian of Luneburg, or Traditions from the Hartz," from the pen of that amiable and admirable writer, Miss Jane Porter. To this lady we are indebted for almost a new species-a species delightful and instructive as it was new --of literary fiction-the "Great Unknown," great as is his fame, is only a follower in her wake. Referring to the ancestry of our beloved Sovereign, to whom it is dedicated, the scene of the present production is laid in the age that immediately succeeded the Reformation; a period in which all Europe laboured under the most powerful religious excitement. Duke Christian is a hero of a spirit most truly chivalric; and, in the progress of his adventures, he is associated, or comes in contact with, nearly all the distinguished characters of the times. The picture of the English court in the reign of James I. is very ably drawn; much discrimination of character is displayed; and the more romantic incidents connected with the tender

passion are developed in all that delicate and soul-thrilling pathos which we have been accustomed to admire in the writer's earliest efforts. Altogether, the work is finely, nobly and beautifully written.

"Sir Andrew Sagittarius, or The Perils of Astronomy," in three volumes, is an amusing though not very well written book, abounding in light and playful satire.

A volume, entitled "Tales and Sketches of the West of Scotland," by Christopher Keelivine, consists of two tales: "Mary Ogilvie," and "The Love-Match;" and, what the author terms a " Sketch of Changes." In the first of these, George, a young man of fortune, returns from off his travels just as Mary Ogilvie, a lovely girl for whom, though of an inferior station, he had long entertained a boyish fondness, is on the point of bestowing her hand with reluctance upon another. His mind is agitated by contending passions-love for Mary, and a dread of incurring the scorn and ridicule of the world. The latter prevails; and, in a state bordering on distraction, he attends the marriage of his

early love. He subsequently forms a union of interest, and drags on a life of misery, continually haunted by the image of his lost Mary. However, Mary's husband is killed by a fall from his horse; George's lady meets with an accident which proves fatal; and thus the lovers, after a decent period of widowhood, are at length united. The hero of "The LoveMatch" is the son of a dissenting, clergyman in the West of Scotland, who rears a family of thirteen children upon a scanty stipend of £40 a year. These tales do not abound in incident; but they are pervaded by a strain of pathetic simplicity which renders them deeply interesting.

Miss Spence's tales of "How to be Rid of a Wife," and the "Lily of Annandale," (two volumes which were slightly intro duced to the readers of the Belle Assemblée authoress, inserted, with a portrait, in the in the course of the memoir of their fair number for last month), are distinguished, cal incident on which it is founded, and the first by the singularity of the biographithe second by features of a more romantic and poetic cast. The first gives develop

ment to an anecdote which is related of one of the Dukes of Chandos, to the effect that the nobleman alluded to, having first, rescuing a young and amiable, but rustic from an impulse of humanity, succeeded in female, from the barbarities of a coarse and tyrannical husband, was at length induced, upon the death of that husband, and after giving the fair one a suitable education, to yield himself to the united charms of her person, her heart, and her mind, and to make her his Duchess. The second is a tragic love story of the Scottish border, and contiguous parts of Cumberland. A short extract, comprizing the final sentences of the "Lily of Annandale," will af

ford a specimen of Miss Spence's style, and of the tone of feeling which her volumes discover :

'Many years had rolled away, and all recollection of Fleming was lost, except when Helen's disastrous story was revived, and her grave was visited by the curious trav eller, who heard,with tearful eye, the melancholy fate of one so young and beautiful.

'It was more than twenty years after these tragical events took place, that a stranger, wrapt in a cloak, was seen bending with feeble steps, wasted form, and haggard eyes toward the grave of Helen.

'A peasant passing homeward, with curious gaze, noticed his steps, as another stranger, of more humble guise appeared to watch at a short distance, with anxious and respectful look, the person who with mournful aspect tottered along.

'Still and solemn was the scene; on the grave wild flowers sprung, mingling with the long grass which in dewy drops waved over the silent stone.

'In mournful attitude, the stately figure. with bended knee and upraised hands, hung over the grave; but soon, with a piercing