wings, of course,) like a couple of human bees or doves, extracting delight from every flower, and with delight fill ing every shade. There is something too good in this to dwell upon; so we spare the fears and hopes of the prudish. We would lay her head upon our heart, and look more pleasure into her eyes, than the prudish, or the profligate ever so much as fancied.

"Item, books. Shakspeare and Spenser should write us new ones! Think of that. We would have another Decameron: and Walter Scott (for he will be there too; we mean to beg Hume to introduce us) shall write us forty more novels, all as good as the Scotch ones; and Radical as well as Tory shall love him. It is true, we speak professionally, when we mention books.

We think, admitted to that equal sky, The Arabian Nights must bear us com

pany.

When Gainsborough died, he expired in a painter's enthusiasm, saying, "We are all going to heaven, and Vandyke is of the party."-He had a proper foretaste. Virgil had the same light, when he rep resented the old heroes enjoying in Ely sium their favourite earthly pursuits; only one cannot help thinking, with the natural modesty of reformers, that the taste in this, our interlunar heaven, will be benefitted, from time to time, by the knowledge of new comers. We cannot well fancy a celestial ancient Briton delighting himself with painting his skin, or a Chinese angel hobbling a mile up the Milky Way in order to show herself to advantage.

"For breakfast, we must have a tea beyond anything Chinese. Whoever makes the sugar there will be cows for the milk. One's landscapes cannot do

without cows.

"For horses we shall ride a Pegasus, or Ariosto's Hippogriff, or Sinbad's Roc. We mean, for our parts, to ride them all, having a passion for fabulous animals. Fable will be no fable then. We shall have just as much of it as we like; and the Utilitarians will be astonished to find how much of that sort of thing will be in request. They will look very odd, by-the-bye, those gentlemen, when they first arrive; but will soon get used to the delight, and find there was more of it in their own doctrine than they imagined.

"The weather will be extremely fine, but not without such varieties as shall hinder it from being tiresome. April will dress the whole country in diamonds; and there will be enough cold in the winter to make a fire pleasant of an evening. The fire will be made of

sweet-smelling turf and sunbeams; but it will have a look of coal. If we choose, now and then we shall even have inconveniences."

As a poet, Leigh Hunt unites in a remarkable degree the best elements of the sensuous and the spiritual. There may be in his Muse too much of the "earth earthy" for the taste of the transcendentalist, but it is always so intermingled with a buoyant ethereal nature, and a vivid imagination, that the reader is willingly mastered by a charm, equally persuasive and legitimate.

The fashion with certain critics has been to speak of Hunt as a mere poet of fancy, whose abounding animal vigor and joyousness have stood in the place of the higher qualities of genius. This, we think, is unjust. His poetry does not pretend to be of the highest kind, yet it is all but perfect in its way. Everybody must, or, at least ought to acknowledge that his verses possess a peculiar "smack" of originality. They resemble a light, and sparkling, yet potent cordial, the sweetness whereof is tempered by a strong "body" which gives flavor and consistency to the whole. He is singularly gifted with sentiment and tenderness, and the warm glow of household affections, but passion, also, is among his endowments, and its invariable concomitant,-the imaginative faculty. Still, the great charm of his poems, is undoubtedly their pervading humanity. In his highest flights, he never loses sight of the earth. but-it is the earth in its aspects of beauty. The philosophy, so to speak, of his poetical creed, is summed up in the following stanza by himself:

"Our fairest dreams are made of

truths, Nymphs are fair women, angels, youths,

And Eden was an earthly bower: But that the sweetest thoughts that Not that the heavens are false, oh no!

grow,

In earth, must have an earthly flower: Blest if they know how sweet they are,

And that Earth also is a Star."

There is one result which always follows the reading of Leigh Hunt's poetry, calculated in itself to preserve its popu-. larity. We allude to the exhilarating sensation, partly physical, partly intellectual, which it seldom fails to awaken. We are placed en rapport with the most amiable, and healthful feelings of our nature.

A light, clear, though not dazzling, is borue in upon our souls, and communicates its effluence abroad over the universe. We are tempted to meet our very enemies with a smile, and even, perhaps, to shake them by the hand.

Apropos of the death of Lord Seymour, a Paris paper relates the following droll story. Whether the leading incident is more true than the threatened diplomatic difficulty, it is hard to tell:

Not a folly could be perpetrated in Paris, nor could there be a noisy party, a masquerade, or any orgie, character

air,-

A child--a friend--a wife-whose soft heart sings

In unison with ours, breeding its future wings."

Here we must leave our poet, whom we cannot think of as either "dead" or "sleeping," but as elevated to some sphere of happy activity, wherein the powers so well employed on earth, shall expand and brighten in a ceaseless progress upwards. He himself, was accustomed to look upon death with no feel ing of horror or aversion. "Death" he said quaintly, but not irreverently, "is an imposition on the public. It resembles the threatening faces on each side of the Treasury. Or rather, it is a necessary bar to our tendency to move forward. Nature sends out of her hand with such an impetus towards increase of enjoyment, that something is obliged to be set at the end of the avenue we are in, to moderate our bias, and make us enjoy the present being."

Supported by this trustful philosophy,

watchmen, which was not all put down to the account of Lord Seymour. This afterwards became to him the source of real annoyance. That bad reputation of Lord Seymour once prevented a great diplomatic complication in France. It was in the year 1825, towards the end of January, that M. de Rothschild gave a grand ball. The invited guests were so numerous, and the file of carriages so long, that for nearly nine hours the passage in the Rue Lafitte and on the Boulevard was entirely intercepted. Some young gentlemen who had been dining at the Maison d'Or, and who wished to go to the Opera, vainly attempted to cross the street. The carriages touched each other, and it was found absolutely necessary to take a very circuitous route, or else to pass under the horse's bellies. One of our thoughtless young men then had recourse to one of those comic expedients which champagne inspires, and which do not suggest themselves until after dinner. At that moment the progress of the carriages was stopped. Right before him was a large and ancient coach, drawn by two powerful German horses. Our imprudent youth very gravely approached, segar in mouth, opened the coach door, let down the footboard, entered the carriage, lowered the glass of the next coach d or, passed his arm outside, opened the other side, and leaped over into the other side of the street before the occupants of the carriage, thrown into a state of stupefaction, could have time to ask what he wanted.

"The companions of the young man followed him, and the whole of their society passed by that means; then other persons, simply passing that way, stopped on their march, or pressed by their business, or their pleasure, seeing that carriage open-serving, so to speak, as a bridge for persons on foot-imitated our young madman, and more than two

hundred persons thus passed through that respectable coach. But that coach belonged to a German diplomatist, who was gravely seated at the side of the baroness, his wife. You may judge of their stupefaction. But the passage was effected before they could seek an explanation of such a strange adventure. They did not understand it until some time afterwards, and then German patience gave place to the most violent anger. On entering the saloons of M. de Rothschild, the diplomatist was as red as a cock's comb. His gray eyes flashed like fire. He recounted the adventure, and the insult which had been shown towards him. His auditory could not avoid laughing, which completed the exasperation of the German. The same evening he addressed a diplomatic note to the President of the Council concerning the violation of his coach. A great many notes were exchanged. The diplomatist demanded his passports. The President of the Council feigned that he wished to do him justice. An inquiry was ordered for the discovery of the name of the guilty party-that is, of him who first crossed through the coach.

"The inquiry was fully successful, and some days afterwards, the diplomatist was convinced that the guilty party was none other than Lord Seymour. France was free from blame, and now it was to England that he had to make his complaints. That changed the whole state of things. At that period, France did not know, as at present, what to do, in order to cause herself to be respected abroad, and it was believed that people were permitted to do as they pleased with her. But in the case of England, there was more respect. The diplomatist, now satisfied, ceased to importune the authorities with his troubles. It must be added, that Lord Seymour was a complete stranger to the whole of that affair; that it was not he who had gone through the carriage; and that the President of the Council of Ministers had cleverly profited by his reputation to turn away the storm which menaced France."

The New York Times of Saturday, 18th September, publishes the following editorial, under the caption of "The danger of playing with edged tools."

"Two enterprising gentlemen of London, famous in the small world of facetious literature, Mr. George Augustus Sala, the double,' or 'fetch,' of Dickens, in Household Words, and Mr. Edmund Yates, who won a short-lived distinction by describing Mr. Thackeray's nose with photographic and unpleasant accuracy, are now engaged in concocting what is intended to be a highly humour

ous account of an imaginary invasion of England by the French. A pair of fluent pens, unrestrained by any considerations of international decency or propriety, may no doubt turn out an extremely quizzical picture of the redbreeched Gauls and their adventures among the hedge-rows of Kent and Sussex.

The joint work of the lively London scribes will probably be almost as good reading as were those brilliant descriptions of the defeat and annihilation of the invading British, which were cur rent among the Chinese at the time of the recent Elgin war. It will be hard, even for the Cockney imagination, to transcend the great daring and valour displayed by the blue-buttoned Mandarins-on rice-paper. But the announcement that a work of this kind has been gravely undertaken, offers a curious commentary upon the actual state of the relations between France and England, and Messrs. Sala and Yates must not be surprised if foreigners should mistake their elaborate jocularity for a va riation of that pleasing and popular process known as 'whistling to keep one's courage up.'

The mere indecency of insulting a friendly nation by concocting narratives which are to represent it in the light of a nest of pirates, is not perhaps worth mentioning. But what would become of the litterateurs and their laugh, if the proof-sheets of their little book should happen to be corrected by a French drill-sergeant under the shadow of St. Paul's?"

To this, "the Albion," published in the same city, thus pleasantly replies:

"From Paris to London, by way of New York. is a roundabout route for censorship of the press. Nevertheless, it is one of the most conspicuous modes in which Imperialism keeps its vigilant eye upon the free speech of our English writers. Our lively neighbour here, the Times, smells eternal rats even in the proposed quiz of a couple of farceurs. Not content with levelling its shafts at the great Thunderer, it would give warning, in advance, to comic writers. Our youthful contemporary should bear in mind old Talleyrand's advice to the young diplomatist-not to betray too much zeal. This were wiser than treating a contemplated farce as a studied international affront, and suggesting that after all that great event may happen one of these days, which the Times ridicules us for surmising as a possibility.'

The Edinburgh Review thus begins most elaborate and bitter critique upo the life of Douglas Jerrold by his son:

The work before us is a Life, by a very affectionate son, of a father who well deserved his affection. It is written, as might be expected, in terms of warm panegyric. From that panegyric we shall scarcely find a single occasion to dissent, and yet, strange to say, we are deliberately of opinion that the character of Douglas Jerrold, as a moral and political writer, deserves, in some respects, the severest censure. So simply or so obstinately does Mr. Blanchard Jerrold ignore the imputations against his father's writings, that we must suppose him to be either ignorant of their existence, or unable to perceive their weight. His book reads like a Life of Napoleon or Frederic, written by a man who never happened to hear that unnecessary bloodshed is a crime.

We have no reason to doubt-indeed we have considerable reason to believe that much of the high praise bestowed by Mr. Blanchard Jerrold upon his father's character was deserved. Douglas Jerrold appears to have been a man of strict integrity and blameless life, a devoted husband and father, a faithful and affectionate friend, a generous and placable opponent. As a public writer, he was superior, not merely to vulgar cowardice and corruption, but to all petty and personal motives-as fearless of unpopularity as of persecution, as impervious to flattery as to bribery. He never praised but what he sincerely admired; he never attacked but what he honestly hated; and both his admiration and his hatred always sprang from humane and generous motives.

In saying this we have admitted much. We have admitted all, or very nearly all, which Mr. Blanchard Jerrold thinks it necessary to claim on behalf of his hero. But we have not admitted enough to satisfy any one who knows what the responsibility of a public writer really is.

The accusation which we bring against Douglas Jerrold may be summed up in a single word. He was a sentimentalist. He wrote to gratify his sympathies and antipathies, and not to bring out the truth. When anything struck him as painful, he wailed and whined over it without caring whether it was just and necessary or not. When anything struck him as ludicrous, he mocked and scoffed at it, without caring whether it was useful or not. A morbid sensibility and a grotesque imagination were his disqualifications as a guide of public opinion.

"Let no man pretend to think this a trifling accusation. It is one of the most serious that can be brought forward. It

imputes to the accused a complete deficiency in that high moral principle, without which no man deserves to be considered truly good or honest. It amounts, in fact, to this-that he persevered, year after year, in writing elaborate essays upon various subjects of the highest importance, respecting which he knew in his conscience that he had not done his best to form a clear and impartial judgment. How does such a writer differ from the wretched sycophants who are even now polluting the Parisian press? Only as a duellist differs from a hired assassin. The one outrages morality to gain his pay; the other to gratify his passions.

"Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, whose hereditary inability to argue, or understand argument, is painfully conspicuous throughout his book, actually believes that he can vindicate his father's memory as a writer by bearing testimony to his amiability as a man. He gives numerous instances of the acute sensibility and feminine tenderness of the heart, which distinguished Douglas Jerrold in his intercourse with his family and friends; and says that he, who saw his father daily en robe de chambre,' has a right 'to speak somewhat authoritatively to all who have slandered him by calling him cynic.' Whether a cynic may not possibly be a tender father, it is unnecessary to inquire. But it is obvious that the faults of which we accuse Douglas Jerrold are precisely those which are most commonly found in men of keen feelings and warm affec

tions.

"Moreover, were the facts reversed, There is no connection whatever bethe argument would still be worthless.

tween a man's character as an indi

vidual, and his conduct as leader or member of a numerous party. Old Trojan basking before the parlour fire is quite a different animal from old Trojan heading the pack with a sinking fox in view. The children, of course, are confident that their gentle playmate cannot possibly be the bristling, grinning monster who pounces open-mouthed on poor Reynard. But the huntsman knows better. Just such is the difference between Douglas Jerrold in the bosom of his family, and Douglas Jerrold writing for Punch. In settling a dispute be tween his children or servants, he may be the mildest and most impartial of men. But it does not follow that he is equally so, when the case is Poacher versus Squire, or Dissenter versus Bishop.

"We know how easy it will be to find personal friends who will speak somewhat authoritatively' in contradiction to our opinion. What will be the cry, 'Douglas Jerrold prejudiced and bigoted?