Though they flutter off the next moment, to carry their impertinences to the nearest student that they can call their friend, the tone of the book is spoiled; we shut the leaves, and, with Dante's lovers, read no more that day. It were well if the effect of intrusion were simply co-extensive with its presence; but it mars all the good hours afterwards. These scratches in appearance leave an orifice that closes not hastily. "It is a prostitution of the bravery of friendship," says worthy Bishop Taylor, "to spend it upon impertinent people, who are, it may be, loads to their families, but can never ease my loads." This is the secret of their gaddings, their visits, and morning calls: they too have homes, which are-no homes.

ELIA.

STARLIGHT.

THERE come no seasons there :-our earthly year
Varies from prime to fall, from flowers to snow,
And each new month fresh trophies still doth rear
To Change, the victor of all fields below;-
ye, fair heavens! for ever glow

But

ye, oh

In the young glory of your natal morn,

When first the realms of space were bade to know
Their starry kings, Creation's earliest-born,

Who should for aye on high yon sapphire thrones adorn.
Thus did ye shine upon the faded past,

Thus will ye shine on far futurity,

With living light, and beauty born to last

When the least earthly things of earth shall be

Passed, like the oar-foam from the settling sea.
your "sweet hour of prime :"*

Eternity is

Ye smile at ages; for your destiny

Hath bathed you in some skiey Styx, that time

Might blench no golden tress, nor dim one eye sublime.

Shine on-shine on-ye radiant thousand,† shine!

Ye hosts of heaven, whose everlasting march

Is one enduring triumph! Ye divine

Memorials, on the amethystine arch

Of Nature graven by God! Oh, ye who parch
The hearts of dust for what they may not know,
Tempting yon azure wilderness to search,
As if some glad oasis there did glow-
"Twas but a bright mirage, and will for aye be so!
Familiar strangers! Ye who from our youth
Gleam on our eyes to prove how dark and blind
Is human thought, where Fancy ekes out Truth,
And shadowy dreams usurp the place assign'd
To life's realities, from which the mind
Flies to ideal worlds, peopling the stars
With shapes of love and beauty-far behind
The truth of their bright mystery, which it mars,
Because it
may not pass Fate's adamantine bars.

* Milton.

The blue Pacific of Infinity,

Gemm'd with the sacred islets of the skies

This has been computed to be about the number of stars visible at once to the naked eye.

March

VOL. XVI. NO. LXIII.

T

Each isle a world upon a sapphire sea,
And every world perchance a paradise!
There only that sweet vision of the wise
And tuneful of past times is not a dream-
There only do those Blissful Isles arise,

Whose fame yet murmurs on the Muse's stream,
But whose proud shades did ne'er on mortal waters gleam.
Say, ye who shone on Zoroaster's eye,

And lit the midnight towers of golden Tyre,
Who smiled more purely, from a softer sky,
On Helen's grave and Homer's wakeful lyre-
Have ye known all, and must not man aspire
To aught beyond him? Shall no earthly ear
Drink, at dim midnight, from your shining quire
Empyreal music? Can we not draw near,
And read the starry tale of yon mysterious sphere?
No, for the stamp of clay is on the brow-
The fetter'd spirit yearns to soar in vain-
And the ambition of man's thoughts must bow
Beneath mortality's recoiling chain.

Yet is it sweet, though we can ne'er attain
The prize we woo, the lofty race to run:
What though it tempt to yon untrodden plain?
The eagle's burning goal can ne'er be won-

But he may pierce the clouds, and feel the nearer sun!
And this is much-for who would e'er forego,
Beautiful strangers! the delicious power

To make his spirit in your glory glow

At solemn midnight's solitary hour

To woo the gentle heavens with all their dower
Of thought from immemorial Eld bequeath'd?
Yon high Elysium holds full many a flower
With no Pierian laurel yet enwreath'd-

O that around my lyre one such its incense breathed!

Sweet, passing sweet, to fill those far abodes

With scenes more bright than this dim world e'er knew

With beings nobler than poetic gods

With winds whose breath is bliss-with streams whose hue

Pales the clear diamond, as they murmur through

Evergreen woods to seek a deep more fair-
With sacred flowers that shed immortal dew

Round the pure feet of them who wander there,

On starrier skies to muse, in happier fates to share.

But sweeter far to dream that in some world,

Some distant world, that gems the blue night's dome,
The spirit's wings, on earth in darkness furl'd,

May woo the soft winds of a lovelier home!

Ast Beauty sprung from the

pure ocean-foam,

May not Truth float on the rich depths of song ?-
But where, oh where, would fond conjecture roam?
Our clueless phantasies may stray too long

The labyrinthine bowers of Night and Heaven among.

*The Fortunate Islands.

J.

+ Alluding to the mythological account of the nativity of Venus, thence called Aphrodite, i, e. the foam-born.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF EVELYN.

a

IV. A CHARACTER OF ENGLAND, as it was lately presented in a Letter to a Nobleman of France. With Reflections upon Gallus Castratus. The Third Edition. 1659-It has been doubted whether this tract was written by Evelyn. Dr. Kippis appears to have been the first who attributed it to him, on what authority we know not. Nothing is said of it in Evelyn's Memoirs recently published; nor is it found in the list of his productions made out by himself and sent to his friend Dr. Plot. The editor of the Miscellaneous Writings, however, looks upon its authenticity as proved by passages from his other works. We confess we are still in doubt. We think we discern additional reason for being so, in the style of writing, which is less scholastic and artificial than usual. But the sentiments are Evelyn's. There is an impartiality of censure on the manners of Cavaliers as well as Roundheads, such as he afterwards found too much reason to feel, though he might not have thought equally fit to publish it; and the tract altogether is curious. It is amusing to see what a dissatisfied observer of the then order of things in England found fault with; in what respects it differed from present manners; and how far the picture may still afford us hints for reformation. We shall briefly sum up the author's charges. He complains, that the ministers of public worship were vulgar and tedious, and that whole Presbyterian congregations might be seen sitting with their hats on ;-that there was a terrible number of alehouses, and that the gentry were extremely given to drinking ;that the organs, taken out of their churches, were set up in taverns ;-that ladies of the greatest quality suffered themselves to be treated in these taverns, where they "drink their crowned cups roundly, daunce after the fiddle, kiss freely, and tearm it an honourable treat;"-that there was sort of perfect debauches, who style themselves Hectors, that in their mad and unheard-of revels pierce their veins to quaff their own blood, which some of them have drunk to that excess that they have died of that intemperance" (most probably an exaggeration about the Cavaliers) ;-that these Hectors were a professed atheistical order of bravoes, composed for the most part of cadets, who spending beyond their pensions to support their extravagancies ;” (there seems to have been too much foundation for the following singular charge) "practise now and then the high-way, where they sometimes borrow that which they often repay at the gibbet;"-that there was an avowed society of ladies (to "match") who "boasted of making all advantages at play ;" -that "the gentleinen separate from the conversation of the ladies to drink; or else to whisper with one another at some corner, or bay-window, abandoning the ladies to gossip by themselves ;"-that "they were eminent for the absurdity of their modes and fashions, varying them ten times for the French once, and every one affecting something particular, as having no standard at court;"-that the women were much affected with gaudrie, nothing being more frequent than to see an ancient ladie wear colours;" (what would he have said now-a-days to their young wigs?)-that servants are suffered to go clad like their mistresses; that notwithstanding the shyness of the ladies and gentlemen to one another, yet, "when once they grow acquainted, it passes into expressions and compellations extremely new to the usages and style of France; as "Tom P. was here to-day"-"I went yesterday to the course with Will R.; and Harry M. treated me at such a tavern ;"—that the ladies, nevertheless, were not more obliging and familiar than the lords were difficult and inaccessible ;-that a dancing-master had the boldness to take forth the greatest ladies, and they again the dancing-master, who performed the greatest part of the ball;-that the course in Hyde-Park was a wretched business of jades and hackney-coaches, and people paid to boot for entering it;-that in returning from Hyde-Park, the fashion was to alight at the Spring Garden, where the ladies were famous for walking fast ;-that it was the cus*Continued from page 49.

tom in this place, where the thickets were contrived accordingly, for sonre of the young company to stay till midnight, and take refreshment at a cabaret in the middle of it, the men paying all expenses, and enriching the insolent owner; that the lawyers at the bar were bad orators, and supplied the defects of their cause with abusing one another ;—that horsemen rode as if an enemy were behind them, and all the coaches in London seemed going for midwives; that every man, however appetites might differ, was obliged to sit at table, till all had done eating;-and last, not least (Madame de Stael would have liked to see this), that visits were insufferably long and tyrannical; ladies, if unacquainted, sitting and staring at one another as if they had never seen one of their own sex before; silent and fixed, in general, as statues; or if talking, talking with censure and sufficient confidence; so difficult," says the author, "it is to entertain with a grace, or observe a mediocrity."-There are but two things in all England that he approves of; the sports, and the green fields. One of the sports, the bowling-green, has since gone out of fashion; which we think a pity. The green fields are not equally at the mercy of courts and fine gentlemen; and for this we never cease to be grateful.

V. AN APOLOGY FOR THE ROYAL PARTY; written in a Letter to a Person of the late Councel of State. By a Lover of Peace and of his Country. With a Touch at the Pretended "Plea for the Army." 1659.

VI. THE LATE NEWS FROM BRUSSELS UNMASKED, and his Majesty vindicated from the base Calumny and Scandal therein fixed on him. 1660.— The reader will see, by the date, that these tracts were written during the break-up of the Commonwealth. Evelyn's political writings are by far his worst; and upon these two he must afterwards have looked with especial mortification. Instead of answers, they are mere beggings of the question; besides which, the author is always painting the character of Charles after the beau ideal of a king existing in his own mind. When the king's conduct subsequently refuted these panegyrics, Evelyn must have felt dreadfully galled; as he indeed abundantly shows in his Diary. The royal party are here a set of worthy sufferers, compared with the Ludlows and Iretons; Hampden and others were signally slain" by an act of God's providence, whereas all cavaliers who underwent the same fate, died "in the bed of honour." Every leading Puritan is an unprincipled knave; while, tout au contraire, the young exiled king is a pattern of wisdom and good behaviour; never so much as uttering a profane oath; anxious above all things for the security of the Protestant religion; and the best man in Europe to fill a throne, even if he were not born to it. "Restore the king," says Evelyn, "and the merchant will be secure; trades immediately recover; alliances will be confirmed; the laws re-flourish; tender consciences considered; present purchasers satisfied; the soldier paid, maintained, and provided for; and, what's above all this, Christianity and charity will revive again amongst us; Mercy and truth will meet together; righteousness and peace shall kiss each other."" To read these sentences, and to call to mind all that actually took place, is like seeing how high one can jerk one's eyebrows with successive lifts of astonishment: and as to "righteousness and peace_kissing each other," read Hall the rope-dancer, and Bab Villiers !-Poor Evelyn! He may well have groaned in spirit, seeing what he afterwards saw at Whitehall. VII. FUMIFUGIUM; or, the Inconvenience of the Air and Smoke of London dissipated Together with some Remedies humbly proposed by J. E. Esq. to his Sacred Majesty, and to the Parliament now assembled. Published by his Majesty's command. 1661.-Our excellent countryman here gets again on his proper ground, proposing patriotic ameliorations, and laying siege to inodorous cities with his orchards and sweet herbs. Besides cleaning and enlarging the streets, and prohibiting the more noisome and smoky trades, he proposes to surround London with gardens and groves, abounding in odoriferous plants, the effect of which is to be like that of "the orange-flowers from the rivage of Genoa, and St. Pietro dell' Arena; the blossomes of the

rosemary from the coasts of Spain, many leagues off at sea; or the manifest and odoriferous wafts which flow from Fontenay and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of roses." This is involuntary poetry:

Of orange-flowers from the rivage of Genoa,

Or Pietro dell' Arena; or the blossoms

Of rosemary from the coasts of Spain, at sea
Many a league; or odoriferous wafts,

Which flow from Fontenay and Vaugirard,
Even to Paris in the season of roses.

Milton, whom the Fumifugium must have pleased, may be tracked in these. flowery urbanities :

now gentle gales

Fanning their odoriferous wings dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea North East winds blow
Sabean odors from the spicy shore

Of Araby the Blest, with such delay

Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheered with the grateful smell old ocean smiles.

Evelyn is for abolishing the smoke by "turning all the more noxious trades out of town at once;” a measure which has been justly thought to require more voices in its favour than one, or even than that of a well-meaning government. Enthusiastic men, however, often hit upon reforms which are ultimately adopted by the world, though in the first instance they are apt to put them in too summary or romantic a light. The greatest reformers are science and calamity. The Fire of London did for Evelyn, in some respects, what no eloquence could have effected so soon, in beautifying and enlarging the streets. For the rest, the editor of the Fumifugium, republished in 1772, is of opinion that chimneys should be carried higher into the air, that experiments should be made on their construction, and premiums offered for a method of charring sea-coal, so as to divest it of its smoke. He recommends also indulgences to such glass and sugar manufactories, brewhouses, &c. as should be built at the desired distance from town, and the prohibition of building any more within the city and suburbs; a method, which, rigorously persisted in, would in time, he thinks, remove all inconveniences. Some of these steps have been partially taken; but too many remain to be urged. The present age, however, is an age of improvements, and every thing may be ultimately expected from the great increase of science and experiment. One discovery on their parts effects more in an instant, than rhetoric, or even constant annoyance can do for centuries. It sets interest alive in new quarters: and old customs are outbidden in the money-market. At the same time, there is one thing to be considered; and this is, whether the smoke of London does so much harm as Evelyn supposes. In articles of food, a question is too often begged relative to adulteration. People forget, that although many, perhaps most adulterations are unwholesome, adulteration of itself does not imply unwholesomeness; nor, for a similar reason, is it certain that an enormous metropolis like ours, full of all sorts of conflicting airs and humours, would be better without smoke. Some inquiring persons have thought not. They doubt whether it does not tend to correct putrescence and too great a moisture. We speak impartially on this subject; for while we are writing, our head is aching with the smoke forced down our chimney by the wind, and the room is full of those little black atoms, which Evelyn speaks of as such a nuisance.

To the smoke our author attributes the colds and consumptions to which Londoners are subject. He thinks the quality of air we breathe is of more importance than the food we eat, seeing that "so little and indifferent nourishes and satisfies the most temperate and best educated persons ;" and his editor of 1772 is of the same opinion with regard to the air of the metro