nel banco reale" "Oh!" I said, "as to the assicurazione, there will be no difficulty about that (we could as easily have paid the national debt); but the sum is preposterous, and any further discussion mere loss of time." Several other attempts convinced me that I could do nothing with the portfolio of foreign affairs, so I turned my thoughts to the home department, and finally secured the united talents of Young and Charles Kemble, to appear together in the various plays and characters in which their reputation was justly unrivalled. For the farces, we had already Tyrone Power, then in his noviciate as an actor of Irish characters, but rapidly developing the humour and ability which made him, in a very few years after, the most attractive star that visited our capital. A series of the noblest classic dramas in the language were on this occasion presented, in a style it would be hopeless now to look for, as the same materials are not in existence; but the result was, financial failure and a heavy loss to the management, as on no one evening did the receipts ever reach the actual expenses. The ways of the public are as unaccountable as those of fishes, who bite when they please, and not always when the most tempting bait is offered to them. And yet the converse of this dogma is a favourite theory with many writers and critics, who contend that the public invariably respond when adequate inducement is held out to them. I could enumerate endless instances on both sides of the question.

During the season of 1822-1823, Mr. Harris, then patentee, engaged the far-famed Madame Catalani for eighteen nights. In those days the audience were, in many respects, less exigeant than they are at present, and had not been accustomed to Italian operas fully mounted (a vile phrase, as Polonius would call it), with aggravated band and chorus, and all the other expensive appliances. Madame Catalani merely came forward and sang two or three detached songs, in a sort of

intermezzo, and not even in character. She shared on each night, after £50 first deducted to help the manager's expenses. The houses averaged nearly £250, and thus an enormous profit was achieved by both parties. In 1827, probably influenced by the recollection of this, Mr. Harris engaged Madame Pasta for nine nights; but, unluckily, secured her £100 per night for each performance. She appeared in scenes selected from Tancredi, Medea, Romeo e Guilietta, and other popular operas, and a failing season was expected to retrieve itself by the astounding effect and attraction of her mighty genius. It was a dream not destined to be realised. Again the public declined the bait; the nightly receipts fell far below the sum secured to the lady alone, and the ninth performance closed on an empty exchequer, leaving us, as the bankers say, with no effects" to meet an army of demands. Mr. Harris, the proprietor, was in London, and I, his prime minister, with my subordinate cabinet, in utter despair. I felt, like Othello, "perplex'd in the extreme," and at last resolved on a desperate expe dient to raise our falling fortunes. With much difficulty, and vast expenditure of eloquence, I succeeded in persuading the great prima donna to re-engage for two additional nights, to take a moderate share of the receipts, with no specific sum secured, and to sing, in English, "Cherry Ripe," "Cease your Funning," and "God save the King." My old and valued friend, Terence Magrath, undertook to teach her the airs, and laboured with unceasing zeal to expound their hitherto unheard of mysteries. This time the public gorged ravenously; the two houses overflowed in every part-the English songs were rapturously encored, although perfectly unintelligible, as far as the words were concerned, which might as well have been Hebrew or Sanscrit; the treasurer grinned with delight; and an actual profit of thirtyeight pounds wound up an ominous speculation, which had very nearly closed with the loss of several hundreds.

"ALL men have fancy, few have taste." The eccentric General Meadows, well known in the history of Indian warfare, once headed an order

on the fashion of wearing cocked hats, with this comprehensive sentence, as quoted by Sir William Napier, in one of the pamphlets connected with his

immortal history. And wisely has Providence ordained that our fancies and pursuits should be as various as our physiognomies; else, had we all the same bent, we should be perpetually jostling each other on the narrow highway of this busy world of ours. As it is, there is ample room for all; and if fifty men set out on a journey, each contrives to find a separate path, and a different resting-place, according to his personal habits, or in the phraseology of a once popular science, according to his phrenological development.

A home-keeping" friend of mine, who had never crossed the channel, some time ago, in a fit of sudden desperation, resolved to visit England on a tour of pleasure, with his family; his avowed object being to look at and inquire into every thing scarce or curious in that terra incognita; and the terminus of his pilgrimage being, of course, the mighty, modern Babylon! He came to consult with me as to his route; what places he should stop at, where there was any object of note worth seeing, the best mode of travelling; and, in short, to obtain some sort of clue or guide through the labyrinth of perplexity and responsibility, in which he was rashly going to entangle himself. He was evidently nervous and frightened, but still determined; and when I hinted something about the advantage of stopping at home, he said he had stopped at home too long; that his contemporaries were getting beyond him, and assumed undue importance because they had actually been in strange places, which he had hitherto only heard or read of.

I felt considerably puzzled; as although I had known him for a good segment of years, our intercourse had been more on matters of business than taste, commercial rather than intellectual, and partaking largely of cases in law, complicated briefs, and bills of costs. I had never much studied his peculiar idiosyncrasy, if I may be pardoned for adopting a favourite term of modern invention, which I don't think I thoroughly understand. I wish some one would write a short essay or exposition on this word, for the benefit of country gentlemen, and unimaginative citizens.

"As pleasure is your object," said I," and relief from business of every kind, you'll not mind expense. You'll

not faint at the apparition of an extra five pound note ?" "Not at all," said he; "I've plenty of money-I've laid by a certain sum for the purpose, so I mean to enjoy myself, and see all that I can within the time." "How much time have you allowed yourself?" "Two months." "Good; a great deal may be done in two months, with money and activity. You must see every thing; let me consider-what road shall I recommend?—where are the most interesting objects? Do you care for cathedrals or old churches?" "Not I; they are all alike; zigzag windows and doors, and queer-looking pillars with hard names I never could recollect. When you've seen one, you've seen twenty." There's more in that, thought I, than appears on the surface, and he is a good deal nearer to the fact than he is aware of; but let it pass. "Or for colleges?" continued I. "Devil a bit; I had enough of them at old Trinity." "Or for rare and curious libraries ?" "Oh, as to libraries, we have plenty of that sort of thing here, and capital ones, too; when I travel, I don't want to be bothered with libraries." We are getting over the ground, thought I, at high-pressure speed. There's no use in proposing a visit to Oxford, or Cambridge, or York, or Lincoln, or Canterbury, or the Bodleian Library, or the British Museum, or the matchless wonders of Althorp. I wonder whether he has any turn for old castles.

"Would you like to see Kenilworth, Conway, Caernarvon, or Warwick Castle, or Windsor?" "Windsor! Yes; I've heard about Windsor, where the Queen lives and walks on the slopes, every morning, as I always see in Saunders; but as to old castles, generally, why I don't care a farthing for them." "Well, never mind them; what are they after all but mere walls, without roof or furniture, and no use to any one. Of course you don't want to see Wales, as you've been in Wicklow?" "Oh, bedad, no. Wales, after Wicklow, won't do at all. And as to mountains, anywhere, they look very well in pictures, but they are generally hid behind fog, or mist, or something else, and I'm a poor hand at the climbing. I prefer the high road, and an easy going car." Here he laughed heartily at his own joke, as he thought it, which gave me time to think what I should next propose. My stock of sugges

tions was nearly exhausted. "There's no advantage," said I, "in a roundabout and expensive journey through Wales, for the mountain-passes, and the ruined castles, and the lakes, and the Menai Bridge, are all familiar to us in every print shop, and every body knows they are sadly overrated." "Faith, I believe so." "I'll tell you your plan," said I, "I've hit on it to a point. Get over to Liverpool by the mail packet. The moment you land, box yourself and your party tight into the first train that starts; ask no questions; don't stir for your lives; you'll have nothing more to pay; you'll not be annoyed with seeing anything, and you'll find yourself in London before you can turn round. What do you think of that?" "A capital plan; I don't doubt but your right," said he, shaking me by the hand; "and I am very much obliged to you for the hint." With this he left me, determined to visit England, and see all the marvels of Saxony, on this last and most improved principle.

Some time after, I ascertained that he never penetrated as far as London at all, but broke down at Cheltenham, where he saw so many Dublin faces, and met so many familiar acquaintances, that he thought he was in Sackville-street, and found it impossible to tear himself away from the enchanting novelty. So there he lingered out his two months' furlough, as perfectly entranced as Rinaldo, when spell-bound by Armida, or Ulysses subdued by the intoxicating cup of Circe. He came home in ecstacies

with his tour, not caring a fig for London, but determined to visit Cheltenham again, with the earliest opportu nity. His case reminded me of a jovial Londoner, who, soon after the peace of 1815, rushed over to Paris, in an agony of excitement, to see the wonders so long excluded from Cockney optics. He spent the entire summer there, and returned to England, almost mad with delight; but when questioned by his friends as to what he had seen in the French metropolis, frankly confessed that he had seen nothing at all. "All he knew was, he lived in Rue St. Jacques (pronounced Jack). Paris was the finest place in the world. He thought he was in London all the time. He met all his familiar associates, Tom Johnson, Bill Watson, Ned Taylor, Harry Sims, and all the rest of them. They dined, and got drunk together, every night, and he'd go again, next year; he'd be if he wouldn't."

This section of our fellow-beings forms a numerous species, who walk the world in thousands, making money by bushel-loads, and are usually reputed, among their compeers, as "devilish shrewd, clever fellows." So be it. Useful, no doubt, they are in their generation; and, although lacking somewhat in the high scale of intellectuality, and the faculties of refined enjoyment, they form amusing as well as profitable subjects of contemplation to many more who love to suck wis dom from practical observation, and like to study man, and his peculiarities, in a variorum edition.

Some fifty years ago, my great grandfather journeyed to Bremen, where, for several days, he was detained on business. One dark winter's evening, as he was strolling about, near the Cathedral, he remarked, at the angle of a lonely street, a little shop, in the front of which hung two boards, red painted, and purporting to represent violins, thereby indicating the business carried on within, or rather intended to be carried on; for the whole stock was composed but of a trombone, suspended at the wall, a violoncello, bereft of strings, some three or four bows, and a tenor violin, which the master of the establishment was busy mending. With these exceptions, the place was perfectly empty, and, despite of the showboard affixed over the door, resembled a burgher guard-house rather than the shop of a musical-instrument maker.

The agonising wick of a half-burned candle projected its gloomy tints over the man working in this wretched abode. Little did he appear to care about perfecting the work in which he was engaged, for now and then he would lay aside the instrument, leave his chair, and stride up and down, his glance fixed, his movements abrupt and hurried, as a man haunted by some deep and torturing thought.

Partly through curiosity, and partly to shelter from a sudden snow-shower, my adventurous kinsman entered the shop, and, despite his being totally unacquainted with music, requested to be shown some violins.

"Violins!" brusquely responded the man. "Don't you see that I have none? I don't sell violins, unless you wish to take a bargain of this violoncello; it was given me as payment for mending the instruments belonging to the orchestra of the Learned Dogs.' Yes, sir," reiterated he, as my grandfather expressed a sneering incredulity, "and very successful concerts they were, too, for the members of the Great Council unanimously expressed their satisfaction. Come, buy my violoncello; I'll let you have it for ten crowns; here, lay down twenty florins an I it is yours."

My relative objected that he could

not possibly purchase a violoncello, as he actually stood in need of a violin.

To this conclusive argument, the intrument-maker replied in so strange a manner, that his interlocutor at once suspected him to be something of a maniac, and his doubts were soon removed when he saw him walk about and make extraordinary gestures; moreover, at this moment an old dame came in, shrugging her shoulders, and beckoned that the poor fellow was not right in his mind.

The next day my grandfather left the town, without otherwise thinking of the strange being with whom he had come in contact. Three years afterwards, having returned to Bremen, he observed that the shop was closed, and on the dilapidated shutters remarked large red crosses, a circumstance which naturally awoke his attention. At supper-time he communicated his observations to his host, and told him of the strange reception he had met with, in that very shop, three years previous. The magistrate (for my grandfather's host was no less than the chief police magistrate) was an amiable man and a witty narrator; he made no difficulty in satisfying him on the subject, and at once recounted the following authentic story:

Tobias Guarnerius was the name of that instrument-maker. Barely could he, by his exertions, support his aged mother, whom you saw in his house, where she had been living since the death of her son's wife.

"He was the only workman of his profession in the town, and being of acknowledged practical ability, numerous musical artists and amateurs sent him instruments to repair. Through this, he might easily have led a comfortable and happy life; but, ten years before you chanced to meet him, he had been been visited by a real calamity. One fine morning he awoke a prey to a fixed idea, the realisation of which he unremittingly pursued, at the sacrifice of money, tinie, and health.

"Vain'y had his wife represented to him the ma-iness of his perversity, and vainly besought him not to reduce her to a state of misery; the poor woman

died, in a great measure from the grief she had experienced in seeing him squander the fruits of his labours. Still this dire occurrence stayed not the fever that possessed him. All he had,

had been ingulfed into the abyss open before him-at first his savings, afterwards the money he could borrow from his friends; at a later period, his furniture, his goods, and lastly a portion of his clothes. However, his unsuccessful attempts deterred him not from the insane project he contemplated. At one time he had been compelled, from want of money, to cease his experiments, but, nevertheless, still cherished the hope of obtaining a result such as should, at some not distant period, render him celebrated, and amply compensate him for his labour and sacrifices.

"It is but right to say, that, had he attained his end, it would have been to him a source of fortune. Having had in his possession a violin of Stradivarius, for which amateurs had offered him an immense price, he imagined he could imitate the make of that celebrated artificer. Therefore he set to work. By using the same sort of wood as that which Stradivarius employed, and copying with mathematical precision the shape and dimensions of that model instrument, he expected to obtain from his own violins sounds equally powerful and harmonious. Still, despite all efforts, there ever was some slight difference; every unsuccessful attempt was instantly followed by another, as each time he detected some imperfection to which could be ascribed the inferiority of his work; so the task was ever to be recommenced. This was a sort of vicious circle, wherein the poor man indefinitely turned-an apprenticeship which might have lasted a life-time.

"However, after numerous essays, he had modified his primitive idea. One day he succeeded admirably, making a violin of irreproachable imitation; still the instrument, fashioned by his hands, proved, in the end, so much inferior to the Stradivarius, that he arrived at the conclusion, that, in the creation of this chef d'œuvre, there lay some element of a preternatural kind, which he had hitherto neglected to call into action.

"Who knows,' he gravely said, one day, to a natural philosopher, who, by a novel application of the theory of

sound, pretended to lead him to the solution of his instrumental problem;

who knows but it is rather beyond the material world I should seek? words represent ideas, do they not? Now, the French instrument-makers call the sound-post the soul of a violin.' The soul! Do you understand me, sir? Perhaps, unwittingly, have I found, at last, the secret I have so long sought for.'

A half smile was the philosopher's sole response; and poor Tobias again lost himself more deeply than ever in the labyrinth of his researches.

"It chanced, one evening, that a customer brought a bow to be mended, and forgot in the shop a book which, for several days, remained in Guarnerius' possession. During his leisure hours (scarce were they, for when his hands worked not, his poor brain was busily engaged), Tobias scanned this book-one of those venerable monuments of German patience and erudition, in the introduction of which the author asserted, with unaffected modesty, that he would discourse de omni re scibili! and a few other subjects. Indeed, you could see next to a chapter on The best form of government,' this title The art of taming a shrew.' Another contained A receipt for making Cyprus wine;' 'A dissertation on the morals of the eleven thousand virgins;' and, lastly, An exaltation of the benefits of baldness.' A tone of peculiar bonhomie pervaded this shapeless work, and coaxed on the reader most pleasingly; so much did it attract our monomaniac that, during half a day, it diverted him from his haunting thoughts.

"Unexpectedly, at the reverse of a page, this heading caught his searching eyes: On the transfusion of souls!' Scarcely had he read these words when as though the revelation of his longsought-for secret were about taking place, he called out to his mother to close the shop, and having desired her to tell all visitors that he was absent from town, he madly rushed out and shut himself up in his chamber. He began to read that chapter which, in his mind's-eye, could not fail to be the most marvellous ever penned by philosopher.

"No human disappointment could be compared to that which awaited poor Tobias. But a second previously, he would willingly have given a pound of