"Cast your eyes on this figure; after a certain course of intemperance you yourself will resemble it. Drink then, and be as happy and as healthy as I am !"

UNREGULATED GENIUS.

In his "Letters on the Study of History," Lord Bolingbroke says: "Genius without the improvement of experience is what comets once were thought to be a blazing meteor irregular in his course and dangerous in his approach; of no use to any system, and able to destroy any."

COPYRIGHT.

"I MIGHT say that neither England nor France has afforded such instances of barefaced baseness as are to be found among the literary men of modern Italy. To what is this to be attributed but to the utter impossibility of their securing their independence by their honest labours? for what can be the value of a copyright which, perhaps, does not extend ten miles from the seat of the press? Literary property is absolutely worth nothing in Italy: it is evident therefore that literary men must be at the entire disposal of him who can pay them, and their baseness is to be considered as a matter of necessity."*

A still more signal illustration of the above assertion is offered by America, where with a few eminent exceptions, as praiseworthy as they are rare, the miscalled literati are mostly editors of newspapers-men of little character, less talent, and no education, whose genius is exhibited in national vanity, party venom, and personal abuse. With these worthies are leagued a band of printers and paper-makers, constituting with their brother pirates and smugglers of France and Belgium, a vast and not unorganised conspiracy, which is rapidly lowering the value, and thereby degrading the quality of English lite

rature.

That the underselling and cheapening system must first deteriorate and finally extinguish the works of genius, I hold to be unquestionable. You cannot annihilate copyright, and retain such authors as are worth preserving. He who desires a superior light from his lamp must take care to supply it with oil of the best price: if he feed it with a cheap and trashy substitute, he must expect its rays to be barely sufficient to make the darkness visible. He may change his old lamp indeed for a new one, like the gulled simpleton in the Arabian tale, and think he has made a capital bargain; but alas! he will find that the charm exists no more-that the spirit of the old lamp has fled, and with it the power and the riches that it placed at the disposal of its owner.

Such must be the result of the transition state in which English literature is now placed. Men of education and talent and a proper spirit will not throw pearls before swine-will not

Strictly meditate the thankless muse,

when the guerdon is beneath their notice, and their fellow-labourers unworthy their companionship. They will neither stoop to pick up

* Rose's "Letters from the North of Italy," vol. i., p. 290.

coppers with the "penny-a-liners" of the newspapers, nor will they compete with clowns in climbing up a greased pole for the chance of the leg of mutton that crowns its summit. In some little time two decent classes of writers will still exist-the amateur lady and gentleman dabblers will continue to scribble for the sake of the distinction that has hitherto attached to authorship: but as literature becomes vulgar and of mauvais ton, a declension that will speedily occur, they will throw away their pens, and resign fashionable novels for some novel fashion.

The second class will consist of those professional writers who are both loth to abandon a pursuit which they have hitherto cultivated with pleasure and profit, but who, when they find that they cannot make the publishers bid up to the fair value of their works, will infallibly lower their commodity to the price, by diffusing over three volumes the quantity of thought which they used to condense into one. A brewer told a cheap customer who complained of his beverage, that he had three sorts of beer-the best table, the common table, and the lamen-table-and that he could not afford to sell the first at the price of the last. Nor can an author. If the public will pay for swipes only, he can sell them swipes only. Watering his production s will, however, be the "head and front of his offending." His position in society and his sense of rectitude will not allow him to adulterate it with any noxious ingredients. But when this class has passed away, there is too much reason to apprehend that it will be succeeded by less scrupulous as well as less gifted caterers-by brewers of mischief, whose perilous trash will be as cheap as it is nasty, and as nasty as it is cheap.

LORD BOLING BROKE.

LORD BOLINGBROKE in his "Reflections upon Exile," while he contends that every man may bear his trials and conquer his difficulties by the sole assistance of philosophy and reason, speaks slightingly of the healing influences usually ascribed to old Father Time, whom he contemptuously designates as the physician of brutes. The following extracts are from the same work:

"Let nothing appear so agreeable to us as our own understanding.No man suffers by bad fortune but he who has been deceived by good. -Whatever is our best possession is our safest-lies beyond the reach of human power-can neither be given nor taken away.-Few men who are unhappy under the loss of an estate, would be happy in the possession of it.-Happy is that man who can say with Scipio, Innocuas amo delicias, doctamque quietem.'-Much pains are taken and time bestowed to teach us what to think, but little or none of either to instruct us how to think. You may do every thing for yourself but think.-No man has a right to be benefitted by those who have preceded him, without seeking to benefit those who are to follow him."

A CARNIVAL ADVENTURE.

ONE of the first visits I received on arriving in Paris towards the close of the last Carnival, was from my friend Charles Bussy.

Bussy is an exceedingly pleasant fellow, five-and-twenty years of age, six feet in his stockings, and possessing a handsome, intelligent countenance, irreproachable whiskers, twenty thousand francs a year, and an inexhaustible stock of small talk. Of no profession, his favourite, and indeed sole occupation, is to make himself agreeable to the fair sex; and taking into consideration the qualifications enumerated above, and the assiduity with which he follows up his pursuit, it may be presumed he is not always unsuccessful.

After turning over every thing in my room, smoking a pipe of Turkish tobacco, telling me all the on dits of the day, and exacting in return an account of my adventures since we last met,

"What are you going to do to-night ?" he inquired.

"Dine with P. Afterwards, nothing."

"There is a masked ball at the Opera House. I am going, and you must come with me."

I declared my willingness, and accordingly towards midnight Bussy called for me, and we drove to the opera. We had been walking about the ball-room upwards of an hour, elbowed and pressed on all sides by the motley crowd, and sometimes amused by the lazzi and repartees of the masks; but no one had as yet accosted us, and my companion, I saw, was discontented that he should not be thought worthy of attention by any of the numerous fair ones who flitted around us, but whose beauty the envious mask and domino made it impossible to do more than conjecture.

No adventures to-night, Bussy," said I.

"Pshaw!" returned he, evidently a little vexed, "adventures at a masked ball! Not worth having."

At this moment, and as if on purpose to give me the lie, "Charles !" said a silvery voice behind us.

We turned hastily round. The voice was that of a lady, whose face was hidden under a black mask, but whose pink satin domino was so made as not entirely to conceal the elegance of the wearer's figure. Two small white hands, partially covered by the most coquettish-looking little black mittens, emerged from the loose sleeves of the dress.

"I will rejoin you in a moment," said Charles, leaving me, and in spite of his so recently expressed contempt for masked-ball adventures, running after the domino who was walking slowly away. He overtook her, and soon after I saw him offer his arm, which was accepted. I met them several times as they walked up and down the theatre, and they were always in a close, and what appeared, a most interesting conversation.

At last Charles came up to me alone, with sparkling eyes and a triumphant expression of countenance.

"Well," said I, "an adventure?"

"A delightful one," he replied. "The most charming creature, July.-VOL. LXVIII. NO. CCLXXI.

X

full of wit and coquetry. She knows me very well, but I cannot find out who she is."

"What did she say to you?"

"I will tell you. When I joined her as you saw, I said, 'You know my name, fair mask?'"

"It would appear so, since you answer when I call you."

"Do you know any thing more about me than my name?"

"I do, and I can tell you an adventure that happened to you last week."

“Indeed! Let us hear."

"You had a dispute at a ball about a lady, and you were going to fight a duel the next morning at Vincennes, when your antagonist made an apology."

"That is all very true; but where did the quarrel begin?"

"At the last ball given by Madame de R."

"You must have been at the ball to be so well informed."

"You are mistaken."

"Then you are a friend of the lady who was the cause of the quarrel."

"Wrong again."

"Perhaps you are the lady herself."

"Indeed I am not."

"You are a charming woman whoever

bility of seeing your face?"

"Perhaps If I were sure it would please you.'

"You wish to please me then ?"

"It is always agreeable to please."

"I am sure I shall find you pretty, for I love you already without knowing you."

"What sort of a face do you fancy me to have?”

"A face as elegant as your figure, as delicate as your foot, as soft as your hand-"

"My

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera," cried I, interrupting him. dear fellow, your story is like all masked-ball stories, and unless the end is better than the beginning-"

"It is exactly the end that I am coming to if you will only allow me," said Bussy, looking very mysterious.

"Well, you saw her face?"

"No."

"Then what do you mean by an end?"

"A rendezvous!" replied Charles, squeezing my arm very hard. "Oh! When and where, if I may ask the question."

"In five days; at the next ball here."

"Hum!"

And I thought of the nymphs and shepherdesses that the ball-givers station in their saloons with orders to make appointments with all the young men and induce them to return to the next ball.

"Surely," thought I, "they are not adopting that system at the opera."

Of course I would not spoil my friend's happiness by mentioning my suspicions.

"The day

"By what sign are you to recognise your fair one?" I inquired. "By a most charming and original token," replied he of the next ball I am to go in the morning to Mademoiselle X.'s flowershop in the rue Vivienne, and order a bouquet, arranged in such a manner that I may be sure to know it again. My incognita will send for it, and at night, at the ball, she will carry it in her hand."

The elegance of this idea dissipated my suspicions, and I acknowledged to Charles that his unknown friend began to obtain my esteem. He promised to let me know how his adventure went on and we left the theatre.

At noon the next day Bussy called upon me. He was pale and tired, and had evidently, instead of sleeping, been puzzling his brains as to who his pink domino might be.

"Here is a list of all the ladies of my acquaintance," said he, pulling a long slip of paper from his pocket. "I have been thinking the matter over, and I strongly suspect that my domino is the Baroness B."

As I knew the Baroness B. to be an arrant coquette, I told Charles he might very probably be right in his conjecture. This confirmed him in his idea, and he made up his mind that it was the baroness.

The day of the ball arrived, and at nine in the morning Bussy was at the flower-shop in the rue Vivienne ordering a most magnificent bouquet, in the centre of which he made them place a large flower that he was sure to recognise.

Throwing a Napoleon upon the counter, he told Mademoiselle X. to deliver the nosegay to a person who would call for it, but who would give no name.

She promised to do so, and in the evening when he called again, the bouquet had been taken away.

With a beating heart Charles hastened to the ball, and the next day came to me with his list again in his hand.

"I made a mistake," said he, " it is not the Baroness B."

"Who is it then?"

"It must be the Countess of O."

"How do you mean it must be? Do you not yet know to a certainty who it is? Did she not come to the ball?"

"She did; and I passed a most delightful hour in her society, but I neither saw her face nor learned her name. She lent a willing ear to my vows and protestations, but yet she could not make up her mind; there was some lingering feeling of remorse, or doubt of my sincerity; in short, I left her without having obtained more than a rendezvous for the day after to-morrow."

"Again at a masked ball?"

"Yes; but at the Opera Comique this time. I am to recognise her by the same means as last night."

"She wishes to see how far you will carry your perseverance," said I. "But what is your reason for promoting her? Why is she a countess to-day, when yesterday she was only a baroness?"

"Because I know no one but the Countess of O. who is to compare to her for wit and elegance of manner."

"The Countess of O. be it," said I, smiling; "but try to make more progress at your next interview than at the last."