glance of such a being in the shadows of the Coliseum; that Keppel once saw something of the sort on the mound of ruined Babylon; that Walpole was startled by a figure resembling his debutant from behind a column of ancient Pæstum ; that Denham firmly credits he beheld such a man in a mailed warrior of the descendants of Jugurtha, but his vizor was lowered. It has been mentioned by Lord Strangford, that when he was at the Brazils, seated beneath the shadow of a lofty palm, and subsequently in a procession at Constantinople, immediately preceding the Sultan, there was such a man. It is whispered that his sojourn for life is established at Calais. It is said, a most affecting interview had place not long since between him and his lordly successors, the Earl of Stair and Lord Reay. It was a consommé restaurant to the exile; une sauce piquante for the visitors ;--if it reminded the latter of a roti au pauvre homme, he was not a maitre d'hotel froid, but lié to the olden time and absent things. After Vermanton and Pomard, Pic-Pouille and Sauterne, Chablis and Saint Perey with l'Ai and Epernay, had been fitly discussed, and Quillac's factotum dismissed, ere they yet had bested them to Rivesalte and Rota, thus bespoke him the Ex-Emperor of Bond-street. "After that sad affair of the Palais-de-Bauf-excuse my attachment to alimentary phraseology where I was rather too much au naturel, more so even than any Poularde à la Duchesse might have been-my enemies the beccassines, (may they be all grillés dans leurs propres jus!) considering me rather a Poulet à la Tartare, than à la parole, or deeming me capable of a farce d'Oseille, with a degree of vulgarity worthy of aufs à la tripe, and the cruelty of chicorée sauvage, which it demanded a heart dressed à la Macedoine to resist, determined to render me a pain-perdu, or a raie au beurre noire. Had there been amongst them a poire de bon chrétien there might have been hope; but to avoid these disappointed brochets au bleu, I had recourse to my cervelle to save myself from being flambé; so here am I a hors-d'œuvre,--friends all cold as œufs à la neige ;-my state and fashion now but a crepe, deserted even by the beau sexe, and nothing, nothing left resembling them even in title, but the Charlotte de pommes you see before me." I know not who is the great gastronomist of Paris since the eclipse of Cambacères, and the fall of the Abbé de Pradt. When the news of Bonaparte's earlier reverses in Russia arrived, the cuisinier of the former most characteristically vented his indignation-not against the Russians or their inhospitable winter, but against the Emperor himself, in exclaiming "Diable! that man is so little heedful, that he will never pause until some day he will endanger my master's digestion." Apropos to eating-the city feast was rather abruptly terminated. The Lord High Admiral said he never saw the Crown and Anchor in closer intimacy before; while Sir William was never so enlightened by the sconce. Lord Eldon was just complaining of a want of celery; the Earl of Fife making the most of his curry; Sir Thomas Lethbridge priding himself on the calf's head he possessed; Mr. John Wilks fattening on bubble and squeak; Horace Twiss thinking of a trifle; Waithman protesting his adherence to flummery ; Bish swearing he had foregone puffs; Sir John W. Gordon seasoning his plate with camp vinegar; Monsieur Falck dilating on the merits of an orange pudding; Croker calling for potatoe pie; Mr. Lamb declaring he had quite enough of Spanish fritters; Rothschild inquiring for stock-fish; Farebrother regaling himself with all the comfort to be derived from a good sole; (the Recorder preferred carp and pig's head;) Mr. Brougham injudiciously enough indulging himself in highly peppered crab; Lord Alvanley sending away his beef a-la-mode as quite overdone: Sir Francis sustaining the merits of Hunter's beef as far better for the constitution than the roast beef of Old England; Lord Bexley, doubtful whether he should not prefer mince; Wilmot Horton expatiating on the "Report," and having just ended a hash; Mr. Malthus protesting calf's liver roasted was his aversion; Wood sighing for soupe à la Reine; Sir William Knighton making faces at a Rhubarb tart; Mr. Nugent smiling at his macaroni; the Duke of Saint Alban's boasting of a spare rib, to which he seemed much attached; Lord Londonderry looking for pepper-pot; Mr. Aulgeo turning with scorn from a roasted pigeon, saying he had a green gage by him; the Lord Chief Justice, whatever favour he evinced for a Chicken, refusing Wild fowl; Justice Park handling a black cap; Mr. Wallace regretting mint sauce; Sir Isaac Coffin analyzing a sponge cake; Sir John Leach pronouncing the Rolls excellent; the legal Chief of the Exchequer refusing an Irish stew, in asserting his determination not to leave the Baron; while Sir William, with a magnum bonum before him, held it tight against the grasp of Mr. Deputy Drinkall;-all of great and noble, vile and vulgar, were in action, when the fearful catastrophe occurred. Much as he was attached to the Tower, "London's shame," but not its lasting shame on the present occasion, and yet more to the Crown, the Duke would have given up the constableship at the moment with even greater pleasure than he seized the arm that constituted him Commander-in-Chief; while as for the Lady Mayoress, she was castled and check-mated at the same moment. With Sir William it was yet a more awful affair; he thought of his Edinburgh dress, and swore he should be "kilt." British claret flowed on every side; but whatever might occur to Lord Mayors, Lord High Admirals, or Constables, the "father of the city" was saved with the magnum under his cut-velvet-clothed arm. There seems, there is yet much mystery in the cause of the accident. Rothschild swears that since 1825 he never witnessed such a fall or crash. The Recorder shook his head (but there was nothing in that) and looked significantly at Alderman Farebrother. The Prince evidently avoided Croker the rest of the evening; Bish is said vehemently to suspect Price as stageproperty manager on the occasion; a justice looked very doubtingly on a brother; Sir Thomas gave a keen side-long glance at Brougham; Lord Palmerston deemed it an error in calculation of his Scotch friend; Lord Eldon entertains some doubts on the subject, and in examining the wound on his forehead, advised the Lord Mayor to call for affidavits on that head, but hinted sotto-voce somewhat of O'Connel and the Unitarians; Lord Londonderry swore it was nothing more than a proposed removal of rubbish; and Mr. Wilmot Horton proposes a report to cast light on this emigration of the lamps; while the Lord Mayor says he never felt the weight of the Tower ward so strongly before. But how did the business end? The select adjourned to another apartment, where they renewed the unhappily interrupted revels: there they toasted the late Lord Mayor Brown. Sir William gave Church and King; Wood, the March of Intellect; Atkins, the downfall of Tailors; Key, the Missionary Tract Societies; and Farebrother strove to speak, but was evidently a going," as if he had been knocked down by his own hammer. The Master of the Fishmongers' Company gave the Great Seal, in honour of the Chancellor; the Stationers' the Duke of Buckingham, and the Members for Reading; the Bakers', the Master of the Rolls, Spring Rice, and Sir John Pollen; the Joiners', the Duke of St. Albans; the Vintners', the Duke of Gordon; the Glaziers', that eminent and pains-taking man William Cobbett; the Cooks', Lord Chief Justice B-, Lords Sandwich and Stowwell; the Bowyers', the Great Captain who made the French quiver, and the Grand Sultan for his encouragement of the Bowstring; the Needlemakers', the Memory of the Earl of Lauderdale, and Mr. Poyntz; the Blacksmiths', Lord Eldon, who struck when the Bar began to evince unseasonable heat; the Tylers', the Duke of Sussex; the Skinners', the Collectors of Taxes throughout the Metropolis; the Goldsmiths', Lord Goderich and Mr. Gold-burn; the Drapers', M. A. Taylor and Mr. Scarlett; the Merchant Tailors', Lord Spencer; Cordwainers', Admiral Legge; Butchers', Bishop of Oxford, F. Lamb, and Mr. Ramsbottom; Patten-Makers', Serjeant Onslow, and Messieurs Raine and Wetherall; the Carpenters', that of the old Chip, Alderman Wood; the Cutlers', General Keane; the Fruiterers', the Prince of Orange, Lord Somers and Mr. Peel; the Spectacle Makers', the two Members for Eye; the Brewers', Lord Beerhaven and the Members for Beeralston; the Barbers', Lord Wigton and General Baird; the Scriveners', Lord Say and Sele, and Messieurs Bond and Grant; the Sadlers', Mr. Ryder; the Card-makers', the Members for East and West Loo; the Undertakers', Lords Kilworth, Sir Isaac Coffin, Lord Kirkwall, and Lord Graves; while the Up-holders' gave the Lord High Admiral, with nine times nine. His Royal Highness during the time kept to Port; His Grace had been used to Tonnerre ; Moore made the most of Sherry; General Palmer said the Bourdeaux was invaluable; Rothschild made faces at the mention of Lafitte; Lamb refused to have any thing to do with Catalonia, observing he would rather have Lisbon; Faro was proposed but objected to by Aulgeo. Lord Exmouth said he would adhere to the taste of Bronté, while Lord E-chose Saint-Gilles. HAUNTED GROUND. "And slight, withal, may be the things which bring Aside for ever :-it may be a sound, A tone of music-summer's breath, or spring, A flower-a leaf-the ocean-which may wound, Striking th' electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound." BYRON. Are thy thoughts wandering to Elves and Fays, Have I not, under these whispering leaves, Song hath been here, with its flow of thought, Are there no phantoms but such as come But I may not linger amidst them here, And a thrill on the chords of the stricken mind. Away, away! that my soul may soar Here from its wing it may never cast The chain by those spirits brought back from the past. Doubt it not-smile not-but go thou too, Go thou when Life unto thee is changed, Oh! painfully then, by the wind's low sigh, Thou wilt feel thou art treading on haunted ground. F. H. OPINIONS FOR 1828. "Another, and another follows still."-SHAKSPEARE. WELL!-there goes another year, and, thank heaven! no bones broken in the passage. Life is surrounded by so many perils, not only by the graver accidents of appetites, diseases, and doctors, by war, pestilence, and famine, but by so many deadly trifles, so many paltry fatalities,-orange-peels and pea-shells that will lie under our feet, old women's petticoats on hedges that will frighten our horses, herringbones that will stick in the throat, crumbs of bread that will go the wrong way, sheets that will be damp, and doses of salts that will be oxalic acid, that it is a perfect marvel how we contrive to shuffle or glide, slip or wriggle in safety, from the 1st of January to the 31st of December. To think that there should be so many ways out of the world, and that mortal man should live in the fear of Malthus! If life be indeed desirable, (and we all know in London how very dear it is,) you and I, reader, have drawn a prize this 1st of January which many a better fellow, who began last year with us, has not lived to attain. Now, if I was a clergyman, and had you locked up in a pew, I could talk to you for fifty minutes on this theme (though an orthodox preacher should never exceed ten); I could tell you an infinite number of good things you know as well as I do; and above all, as Madame de Sevigné says, vous ennuyer pour l'amour de Dieu." But the New Monthly is no place to be "given to allicholly and musing" in; and, moreover, if I were in a pulpit, I should be too generous to take such a dirty advantage, merely because I was a step or two higher in the world than my auditors. The fact is, that, writing of opinions, I was thinking of him who has operated such a change in our modes of thinking, since last I touched on this matter; and of the suddenness with which death cut him short, at the very starting-post of a brilliant career: and this made me wonder at certain worthless and impertinent persons, who must for the present be nameless, and who have the face to live on in their nullity or wickedness. 66 Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and he no breath at all?” Even now I cannot think with patience of the self-satisfied grin of these apes over the dead lion! But, alas! And, "Fortuna sævo lata negotio, Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax, Transmutat incertos honores-” "Thus do the hopes we had in him touch ground, In the short duration of Mr. Canning's premiership, he contrived, among other good works, to play the very devil with the grave noddles of that respectable part of the public who set their sentiments by those of the Government, as they set their watches by the Horse Guards; and who contrive that their opinions, like their movements, shall never be a minute before, or behindhand, with the dial of the constituted authority. Never was there such a sudden "to the right about." No time was allowed for saving appearances. Toryism was cast overboard in a Jan.-VOL. XXII. NO. LXXXV. C |