fairer portion of the creation to their festal assemblies, they might have suppressed as useless one half, at least, of their table code. Their banquets would not have been probably so learned and instructive, but would certainly have been more gay, graceful, and agreeable. In this point, I think, we have another decided superiority over our predecessors of Greek and Roman lineage, and are, at least as far as concerns sociability, wiser in our generation than the wise ones of antiquity.

D. S.

LONDON LYRICS.

St. James's Park.

"TWAS June, and many a gossip wench,
Child-freighted, trod the central Mall;
I gain'd a white unpeopled bench,
And gazed upon the long Canal.
Beside me soon, in motley talk,
Boys, nursemaids sat, a varying race;
At length two females cross'd the walk
And occupied the vacant space.

In years they seem'd some forty-four,
Óf dwarfish stature, vulgar mien;
A bonnet of black silk each wore,
And each a gown of bombazeen :
And, while in loud and careless tones
They dwelt upon their own concerns,
Ere long I learn'd that Mrs. Jones

Was one, and one was Mrs. Burns.

They talk'd of little Jane and John,

And hoped they'd come before 'twas dark,
Then wonder'd why with pattens on

One might not walk across the Park :

They call'd it far to Camden-town,

Yet hoped to reach it by and by;

And thought it strange, since flour was down,
That bread should still continue high.

They said last Monday's heavy gales
Had done a monstrous deal of ill;

Then tried to count the iron rails

That wound up Constitution-hill:
This 'larum sedulous to shun,

I donn'd my gloves, to march away,
When, as I gazed upon the one,

Good Heavens!" I cried, "tis Nancy Gray."

'Twas Nancy, whom I led along

The whiten'd and elastic floor
Amid mirth's merry dancing throng,
Just two and twenty years before.

Though sadly alter'd, I knew her,

While she, 'twas obvious, knew me not;

But mildly said, "Good evening, Sir,"

And with her comrade left the spot.

Is this," I cried, in grief profound,
The fair with whom, eclipsing all,
I traversed Ranelagh's bright round,
Or trod the mazes of Vauxhall?
And is this all that Time can do?
Has Nature nothing else in store?
Is this of lovely twenty-two,

All that remains at forty-four?

Could I to such a helpmate cling? Were such a wedded dowdy mine, On yonder lamp-post would I swing, Or plunge in yonder Serpentine!" I left the Park with eyes askance,

But, ere I enter'd Cleveland-row, Rude Reason thus threw in her lance, And dealt self-love a mortal blow: "Time, at whose touch all mortals bow, From either sex his prey secures, His scythe, while wounding Nancy's brow, Can scarce have smoothly swept o'er yours:

By her you plainly were not known;

Then, while you mourn the alter'd hue Of Nancy's face, suspect your own

May be a little alter'd too."

The Newspaper.

CURES for chilblains, corns, and bunnions,
Welsh procession, leaks and onions;
Sad Saint Stephen bored by praters,
Dale and Co. champagne creators;
Spain resolved to spurn endurance,
Economic Life Insurance ;

Young man absent from his own house,
Body at Saint Martin's bonehouse;

Search for arms in county Kerry,

Deals, Honduras, Ponticherry,

Treadmill, Haydon, Tom and Jerry.

Pall-Mall, Allen, chairs and tables,

Major Cartwright, iron cables;

Smithfield, price of veal and mutton,
Villa half a inile from Sutton;

Yearly meeting, lots of Quakers,

Freehold farm of forty acres ;

Duke of Angouleme, despatches,

Thatch'd-house tavern, glees and catches;

Coburg, wonderful attraction,

Plunket, playhouse, Orange faction,

Consols eighty and a fraction.

Sales of sail-cloth, silk and camblet,

Kean in Shylock, Young in Hamlet;
Sad effects of random shooting,
Mermaid tavern, box at Tooting,
Water-colour exhibition,

Kemble's statue, Hone's petition;
Chateaubriand, Cape Madeira,
Longwood, Montholon, O'Meara ;

Jerry Bentham's lucubrations,
Hume's critique on army rations,
Ex-officio informations.

Wapping Docks choke full of barter,
Senna, sponges, cream of Tartar;
Willow bonnets, lank and limber,
Mops, molasses, tallow, timber;
Horse Bazaar, the Life of Hayley,
Little Waddington, Old Bailey;
Gibbs and Howard, Gunter's ices,
Thoughts upon the present crisis;
Sweeting's Alley, sales by taper,
Lamp, Sir Humphry, noxious vapour,
Stocks-Sum total-Morning Paper.

SYMPATHIES AND PREJUDICES.

"You are not young; no more am I go to, then, there's sympathy. You are merry, so am I; ha ha! then there's more sympathy. You love sack, and so do I; would you desire better sympathy?" Merry Wives of Windsor.

In moral, as well as physical anatomy, there are diseases that baffle the sagacity of the dissector. Many of our sympathies, and most of our prejudices, are among the number. Of one thing, however, we may be sure, namely, that the latter are the less dangerous of the two; and it may be well to bear that in mind when attempts at remedy have succeeded to efforts of discovery. This may startle my female readers, to whom sympathy, and sympathies, and sympathizing, are words that sound so sweetly, and to whose ears antipathy" is so loathsome. But let them beware of their favourites, for there is almost always a serpent under the roses.

66

Sympathy and antipathy may be called, in comparison with other qualities, the poetry of sensation. They are quite imaginative, vague, and unreal;-a sort of inspiration, out of all subserviency to rules or reasoning; finding objects without search; and developing themselves in the most unaccountable ways, in beings the least likely to possess them, and on occasions which set conjecture and calculation at defiance.

Let us see what we can make out as to the nature of these opposite qualities of sympathies and antipathies, the origin of which defies our speculation. We should, perhaps, begin with antipathies, as of least importance, for their worst effects are rarely of more than negative tendency. Sympathies, on the contrary, lead to absolute and positive ill when injurious at all. A man who feels a natural aversion to eels, spinach, parsnips, Jews, Frenchmen, &c. is, ten to one, deprived of a participation in a very good thing, or of an acquaintance with many a good fellow. But he or she whose sympathies lead him or her to favourite viands, liqueurs, or persons, run risks-which I need not enlarge on. And I must be here understood as not confounding sympathy, in this sense, with compassion-that "sympathy with other's" woe," one of the most exquisite feelings of our nature; but as taking the word in its metaphysical meaning, as the secret and involuntary spell which draws us towards objects, in the same proportion and with

ness as ever; but I am naturally glad to fly from the perplexities of sympathy, to bewilder myself awhile in the undefined and undefinable difficulties of its opposite.

Were antipathies entirely confined to human nature, it might be more ashamed of itself than it has reason to be, considering the actual state of the case. For, sharing as it does its uncontrollable aversions in common with all things animal and vegetable, as well as with the meaner productions of nature, it may console itself in the certainty that these repugnances are quite inseparable from moral as well as material existence, in its most sublime as well as its lowest gradations. Pliny, at the head of the naturalists, points out the animosity existing between stones, even as well as minerals and metals. The diamond, he remarks, is in dissension with the loadstone; while a particular stone of Ethiopia, which he specifies, repulses iron with as much force as the magnet attracts it. Among minerals and metals, gold and mercury unite together with an ardour equal to human friendships; while others oppose and fly off from their associates in the crucible, with as much sputtering and asperity as might be found among the whist-players of the most romantic and unsophisticated village in England. It is the same with plants. The vine has its peculiar attachments and enmities. It can live on excellent terms with the elm, and twines round the appletree with the most insinuating fondness; but the vicinage of a cabbage is mortal to its comfort, and sometimes even to its existence. It is unnecessary to swell the list of vegetable animosities; but let us look for a moment at animal dislikes. We can all understand the feelings that impel the sheep to shun the wolf, or the dove to fly from the kite. It is as needless to ask why, as to demand a reason for the rich man's shrinking from a doctor, or one in health from an attorney. But how are we to account for the terrible lion trembling at the crowing of a cock-the ponderous elephant waddling off at the sight of the ram-or the valiant war-horse shuddering at the odour of the camel? These are the extraordinary facts that force us into the mysteries of occult research, and the study of natural sympathies and dislikes. There can be no doubt that the secret in these instances, where the antipathy is possessed by the whole of one genus against the whole of another, consists in some mystery of organic construction, that we may indulge a hope of seeing one day discovered by Doctor Gall, for the elucidation and developement of his theories of amativeness and combativeness, and the confusion of the sceptics all over the world.

To conquer these antipathies is rather the business of custom than reason, another proof of our imperfection, stamping us too plainly "things of habit, and the sport of circumstance." We should, nevertheless, labour to overcome them, and throw ourselves in the way of the best remedies we can find, meeting as often as possible the persons we dislike on the most unreasonable grounds-as manner and appearance, the cut of their coats, or the colour of their eyes. We should read, too, not exactly treatises or sermons, to prove the absurdity, of which we are all sensible, but powerful delineations in poetry or prose of the dangers attending our malady, as well as overdone exhibitions of its effects for ridicule and caricature are weapons as effective against prejudice, as is wisdom. Who that has read Miss Baillie's "De Montfort" has not shuddered at the possible excess to which he

himself might be led by a wanton or irresistible enmity? Or who, on the other hand, has not started back in surprise and indignation to find that the hatreds of men seem to justify a malignant writer like Helvetius in uttering such a sentiment as this: "Men love their grandchildren, because they see in them the enemies of the grandchildren of their enemy." Such writers as the two last cited serve, in their most opposite objects and styles, to help us towards the cure of unprovoked personal antipathies, respecting which alone it is worth while to take any trouble-and with them, after all, not half so necessary as with ill-regulated sympathies. Once again, then, I beg to warn my fair readers, who have gone with me thus far, against every yearning they may feel towards such general objects of sympathy with their sex as red coats, ogling eyes, pieces of poetry, Waterloo ribbons, fine speeches, and mustachios. We have all our weaknesses; and who may tell how many of the ten thousand lovely girls, ascertained by nice calculation to read monthly every line of this work, are at the moment of cutting open this identical page, on the point of yielding to some one of those treacherous sympathies just now enumerated? Who knows that this warning against these perilous sappers and miners may not make her repulse their next approach,

"Like the plant whose closing leaves do shrink

At hostile touch?"

Aware of the efficacy of a sly hint, in cases where many a set discourse may fail, I shall not farther press the topic, always liking to do good, as it were, by stealth. And to remove every thing like gravity from the minds of readers, gentle or simple, I will wind up the whole by mentioning the most profoundly ludicrous point connected with the subject, in its most extended meanings and applications. This is the theory of national antipathies,-a monstrosity gravely contended for in "the good old times," and affording matter to a sapient writer in the seventeenth century, for a goodly treatise on the delectable doctrine. This worthy was a Spanish doctor, by name and title Don Carlos Garcia, who published, at Rouen, in 1627, a book entitled Antipatia de los Franceses y Espagnoles. This furnished materials, some time afterwards, for a tract on the same subject by La Mothe le Vayer, whose object was to nourish the dislike then subsisting in France against Spain; and he hoped, by arguments or assertions like the following, to convince his countrymen that this feeling was not less national than natural. "The Frenchman is tall, the Spaniard short; the one has the skin generally fair, the other dark; the Frenchman eats much and quickly, the Spaniard sparingly and slow; the Frenchman serves the boiled meat first, the Spaniard the roast; the Frenchman pours the water on the wine, the Spaniard the wine on the water; the Frenchman speaks freely at table, the Spaniard does not say a word; the Frenchman walks after dinner, the Spaniard sits still or sleeps. The Frenchman, in order to make a sign to any one to come to him, raises his hand and brings it towards his face, the Spaniard, for the same object, lowers his, and motions it towards his feet; the Frenchman kisses a lady on saluting her, the Spaniard looks on such a liberty with horror; the Frenchman esteems the favours of his mistress in proportion as they are known, the Spaniard values nothing so much as secrecy in love. The Frenchman wears his clothes of one fashion, 2 M

VOL. VII. NO. XXX.