of the Imperial Guard, he went as far as his brilliant imagination could lead him; he exhausted all the resources of his fancy in pourtraying the "Seides"* of Bonaparte, whom we have admired for the last fifteen years. M. Vitet, on the contrary, resolving to be rigidly historical, declined to represent his "Catherine de Medicis," or his " Abbé d'Elbene," in the energetic colours in which his imagination might have clothed them. The historical scenes of the "Barricades" must not be compared to the historical scenes of Shakspeare; first, because no poet who ever lived, is comparable to your great dramatist; and secondly, because thirty contemporary writers have described in their memoirs, with picturesque minuteness, the President Brisson, and other characters; and M. Vitet is above all things anxious to be accurate and historical. He had a good reason for this. There is such a possibility of the renewal of scenes like those of the Barricades and the League, that the Paris Prefect of Police forbade the advertizing of M. Vitet's work. This positive fact will explain all that I could tell you.

The " Barricades," therefore, is only the echo of time past, or history in dialogue, and not dramatic poetry. It is said in Paris, that a celebrated English General, who is, in truth, not much distinguished for talent or information, declares that he is acquainted with the history of certain kings of England, only through Shakspeare's plays. This is precisely the sort of praise that may be bestowed on M. Vitet's volume. His readers, will doubtless be impressed with recollections less brilliant and vivid than those which are left by such characters as Falconbridge, for example; but these recollections will be strictly correct, and this is very desirable, when one reads of events which took place in 1588, and which may possibly occur again in Paris. The procession of the 3d of May in no way diminished the interest excited by the severe pamphlet, which M. Vitet directed against the Jesuits. In the literary world, great praise is bestowed on four dialogues attributed to M. Leclerq, the celebrated author of the "Proverbes." These dialogues exhibit a Jesuit endeavouring successively to convert, first, an old emigrant Marchioness of sixty; secondly, the Countess, her daughter, and finally, a young Viscount, the son of the Countess, and the grandson of the Marchioness. The young gentleman is a Captain in the Royal Guard, and the Jesuit hopes to gain him over by the promise of promotion. These dialogues are not less witty than some of Voltaire's facetia; but it is not quite certain whether they are the production of M. Leclerg.

At all events there is no doubt of Leclery being the author of a charming Vaudeville, which was produced a few evenings ago at the Theatre des Varietés, under the title of " Monsieur François, ou chacun sa manie." Three speculating poets took it into their heads to make some alterations of M. Leclerq's "proverb," entitled "l'Esprit de Servitude." They suppressed certain passages, and made a new denouement of half a page, and, having completed their job, they received a round sum for their pains. The public, however, must be grateful to these gentlemen, for to them we are indebted for M. Leclerq's new comedy. This clever writer has introduced into his piece the character of an old valet, who continually reminds us of those Prefects, Chamberlains, and Generals of Napoleon, who, though loaded with riches, are continually soliciting employments from those who have superseded their old master at the Tuileries. These men, though decorated with splendid cordons, must be in service, no matter whom they serve. But M. Leclerq could not venture to represent them in their real characters.

Our fashionable society has the same sort of feeling as the President who disliked the "Tartuffe," of whom Moliere in addressing the Public said— Nous aillions vous donner Tartuffe, mais Monsieur le premier President ne veut pus qu'on le joue.†

* "Seides," an allusion to "Mahomet," a tragedy of Voltaire.

The equivocal turn of this theatrical apology, which depends upon the twofold sense of the pronoun le, is not translatable. The phrase may mean:

"We wished to give the Hypocrite, but the First President would not allow us to represent it, or him."

In the same way our Fashionables, who form what is called good company, do not like to see their follies taken off. By their hisses they have, since the Court, as well as the Saloons of our Duchesses, has assumed an influence over manners, more than once endeavoured to stamp on all such ridicule the character of " bad taste." Such ridicule has doubtless a tendency to bring the manners of the higher classes into discredit, and hence the desire to suppress it. With this view the Duchess of Duras is said to have procured the interference of the Police to put a stop to the performance of the Melodrame entitled L'Auberge des Adrets, in which one of the bandits affects the manners of the great.

These considerations have induced M. Leclerq, who, in general tone and delicacy of manner, may without exaggeration be compared to La Bruyere, to give us a picture of the "Spirit of Servitude" only in an old Valet de Chambre. Monsieur François is a footman retired with a good income. He ought to be quite happy, but like most men who, without experiencing the infirmity of age, abandon an employment to which they have been habituated, Monsieur François is quite miserable, because he is no longer in service. A Count, his neighbour in the country, is going to give a grand fête, and he has promised to supply him with a Valet de Chambre; but the man whom he has destined to fill this honourable situation succeeds to an inheritance; and M. François, resolved to keep his word with the Count, once more puts on his much-loved livery. But the Count has invited to the fête Madame François, a woman of a more ambitious spirit than her husband. Your English aristocracy must not condemn this incident as improbable. On entering the drawing-room, what a horrible spectacle presents itself to the eyes of poor Madame François! She sees her husband in livery. To enable you to appreciate the humorous details of this little piece, it would be necessary to quote them, and for this I have not space. The ostentatious Madame François, who has married the handsome valet for pure love, and who cannot endure to hear him addressed familiarly by his Christian name-and the regret with which poor François calls to mind the happy days when he was in service altogether form a highly finished comic picture. M. Leclerq would be a great dramatic writer if he possessed more energy. Utinam fuisset vis comica! But he is gifted with so much wit, that he is afraid of being energetic: he dares not venture to be forcible, lest he should be accused of bad taste. our present refined taste of civilization, this is the shoal on which all our witty writers are wrecked. It is impossible to read in succession, the sketches of M. Leclerq, without feeling the disagreeable effects of the monotony which the author's timidity produces.

In

The poor Academie Française has again rendered itself ridiculous by the election of M. Guiraud, who was described by MM. Droz and Briffant, as a young man of irreproachable character. But Paris contains five hundred writers as powerful, or I should rather say as feeble, as M. Guiraud. Such is the choice that has been made in a country which boasts of a Béranger and a Lamartine. M. Guiraud is patronised by the priests, because he wrote a dull tragedy on the profoundly tragical subject of the Macchabees.

LLYN-Y-DREIDDIAD-VRAWD,

OR, THE POOL OF THE DIVING FRIAR.

GWENWYNWYN withdrew from the feasts of his hall:
He slept very little, he pray'd not at all:
He ponder'd, and wander'd, and studied alone,
And ceaselessly sought the philosopher's stone.

He found it at length, and he made its first proof
By turning to gold all the lead of his roof:
Then he bought some magnanimous heroes, all fire,
Who lived but to smite and be smitten for hire.

With these on the plains like a torrent he broke:
He fill'd the whole country with flame and with smoke:
He kill'd all the swine, and he broach'd all the wine:
He drove off the sheep, and the beeves, and the kine—
He took castles and towns: he cut short limbs and lives:
He made orphans and widows of children and wives :
This course many years he triumphantly ran,

And did mischief enough to be call'd a great man.

When at last he had gain'd all for which he had striven,
He bethought him of buying a passport to Heaven:
Good and great as he was, yet he did not well know,
How soon, or which way, his great spirit might go.
He sought the gray friars, who, beside a wild stream,
Refected their frames on a primitive scheme :
The gravest and wisest Gwenwynwyn found out,
All lonely and ghostly, and angling for trout.

Below the white dash of a mighty cascade,

Where a pool of the stream a deep resting-place made,
And rock-rooted oaks stretch'd their branches on high,
The friar stood musing and throwing his fly.

To him said Gwenwynwyn :-" Hold, father: here's store,
For the good of the church, and the good of the poor:"
Then he gave him the stone: but, ere more he could speak,
Wrath came on the friar, so holy and meek :

He had stretch'd forth his hand to receive the red gold,
And he thought himself mock'd by Gwenwynwyn the Bold:
And in scorn of the gift, and in rage at the
He jerk'd it immediately into the river.

giver,

Gwenwynwyn, aghast, not a syllable spake:
The philosopher's stone made a duck and a drake:
Two systems of circles a moment were seen,

And the stream smooth'd them off, as they never had been.
Gwenwynwyn regain'd, and uplifted, his voice :-
"Oh, friar, gray friar, full rash was thy choice

The stone, the good stone, which away thou hast thrown,
Was the stone of all stones, the philosopher's stone!"

The friar look'd pale, when his error he knew;
The friar look'd red, and the friar look'd blue;
But heels over head, from the point of a rock,
He plunged, without stopping to pull off his frock.
He dived very deep, but he dived all in vain,
The prize he had slighted he found not again:
Many times did the friar his diving renew,
And deeper and deeper the river still grew.
Gwenwynwyn gazed long, of his senses in doubt,
To see the gray friar a diver so stout:
Then sadly and slowly his castle he sought,
And left the friar diving, like dabchick distraught.

Gwenwynwyn fell sick with alarm and despite,
Died, and went to the devil, the very same night:
The magnanimous heroes he held in his pay

Sack'd his castle, and march'd with the plunder away.

No mass on the silence of midnight was roll'd,
For the flight of the soul of Gwenwynwyn the Bold;
The brethren, unfee'd, let the mighty ghost pass,
Without praying a prayer, or intoning a mass.
The friar haunted ever beside the dark stream:

The philosopher's stone was his thought and his dream:
And day after day, ever head under heels,

He dived all the time he could spare from his meals.
He dived, and he dived, to the end of his days,
As the peasants oft witness'd with fear and amaze :
The mad friar's diving-place long was their theme,
And no plummet can fathom that pool of the stream.

And still, when light clouds on the midnight winds ride,
If by moonlight you stray on the lone river-side,
The ghost of the friar may be seen diving there,
With head in the water, and heels in the air.

NOTES ON THE MONTH.

THE NEW STREETS.-Though New Streets are daily growing about us, we still persist in christening them by names which are borne by half a dozen of the old ones, notwithstanding the inconvenience of which the practice is productive at once to ourselves and to foreigners. It is rare to find on the Continent two streets of the same name- -while in London, in this sense, almost "Each alley has a brother." As a matter of police, this ought to be reformed, if only on account of the crimes which the practice must frequently cover or conceal: and as a matter of national taste, it demands immediate amendment. It is a singular thing, that London should not possess a single street which derives its name from any individual famous in the story of our literature or arts: yet their names are surely at least as dignified and euphonious as those of the Johns, Adams, and Peters, whose "discriminative appellations" embellish the corners of so many of our streets and squares. The names of our poets, philosophers, and wits would surely furnish as many pleasant associations as the names of our peers, as Argyle, Somerset: or the name of a trade, as Baker, Brewer: or of a town, as Berwick, Marlborough: or of a plant, as Camomile, Hay: or of a bird, as Finch, Falcon, Swallow: or of a title, as King, Queen, Regent, Duke, Earl: or of a point of the Compass, as East, West, North, South: or of a day of the week, as Friday: or of a inetal, as Silver, Golden: or of a quadruped, as Lamb: or indicative of age, as Old, New: or the name of a Saint, as George, Martin, Mary, Nicholas: or of a thing, as Castle; or of nothing, as Soho, Tooley. What venerable associations would be connected with streets bearing the names of Wicliffe, Bacon, Harvey, Selden, Locke, Newton, Penn! what delightful and proud ones with the names of Chaucer, Queen Elizabeth, Spenser, Shakspeare, Butler, Milton, Dryden, &c. &c.! What historic recollections would be called up by Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, and Burke Streets! Then if we want names poetical in sound, Alfred, Sidney, Beaumont, Herbert, Waller, Evelyn, Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Congreve, Berkeley, "do become the mouth as well" as Wellington and Waterloo. The last is among the newest names of our new streets-and there is something almost ludicrous in its application to a place crowded with depôts of books, prints, and pictures, and LIFE ASSURANCE offices. In like manner the name of Maida is given to a sweet and quiet valley just on the verge of London-a spot of which the repose and beauty contrast signally with the images of battle and death associated with its name.

We hope that our hints-which have at least the merit of being newwill be attended to by some of the godfathers of the new streets, and that we may soon see blazing in all the pomp of architectural beauty a Shak

speare street into which those of Chaucer and Spenser lead on the one side, while on the other it diverges into Dryden and Pope Streets, or conducts to Newton Square. This is one thing, at all events, in which we may safely imitate the French Revolutionists.

out.

PAPAL THEATRICALS." Rome, April 12.—A new ordinance for the Theatres dictates the following:-The performances shall not begin later than nine o'clock and end at half-past eleven, except on Thursdays, when they may continue till twelve. Only a certain number of persons shall be admitted into the pit, and those who have no counter mark shall be turned Whoever puts on his hat shall be immediately turned out. Whoever stands up in the pit shall be arrested and pay 5 scudi. If the Contractor acts in the smallest particular contrary to the present ordinance, he shall pay a fine of 50 scudi. An actor who allows himself any unbecoming gesture, or uses an expression that is not in the prompter's book, shall be sent for five years to the galleys. No passage shall be repeated. Whoever disputes in the Theatre with an agent of the authorities shall be turned out. All expressions of disapprobation, as well as of enthusiastic applause, are forbidden on pain of imprisonment for not less than two or more than six months." (Morning Chronicle.)

This is a curious ordinance. We should like to know what are regarded at Rome as unbecoming gestures" in a tragic or comic actor, or what are to be regarded as tokens of" enthusiastic" applause on the part of the audience, and who are to be the judges of these important matters! It is needless to remark, that these absurdly severe regulations, which extend so far as to prevent a man from putting on his hat or standing up in the pit, must speedily ruin the Theatres altogether; and it is pretty clear that this is the object of those who promulgate them. It is amusing to speculate upon the introduction of a similar theatrical code here. Kean would of course have been long ago sent to the hulks for his "unbecoming" tragic shrug, and Liston imprisoned for five years for saying more than was set down for him in the prompter's book. Miss Paton and Miss Stephens would have lost all their encores; none of the " passages" in Weber's overtures would have been repeated, and we should all have been undoubtedly rewarded with imprisonment for the "enthusiastic applause" we could not have helped bestowing on Madame Pasta.

POETICAL JUSTICE.-In a little volume entitled the "Diary of an Ennuyée," we find the following sentence, which shows how dangerous it is for beautiful and eloquent and enthusiastic young ladies to meddle with the doctrine of political justice:—

"The commerce of Venice has so much and so rapidly declined, that Mr. H told us when first he was appointed to the consulship, 150 English vessels cleared the port, and this year only five. It should seem that Austria, from a cruel and selfish policy, is sacrificing Venice to the prosperity of Trieste: but why do I call that a cruel policy, which on recollection I might rather term poetical and retributive justice?

"The grandeur of Venice arose first from its trade in salt. I remember reading in history, that when a King of Hungary opened certain productive salt mines in his dominions, the Venetians sent him a peremptory order to shut them up; and such was the power of the Republic at that time, that he was forced to obey this insolent command, to the great injury and impoverishment of his States. The tables are now turned: the oppressor has become the oppressed."

The fair Ennuyée seems altogether to have overlooked the fact, that the "insolent" Venetians of whom she complains are totally different persons from the unfortunate and enslaved Venetians of the present day-and that it is precisely as just that the Venetians of 1826 should suffer for what was done by the Venetians of 1400, as that the Roman Catholics of the present day should expiate by their disqualifications the cruelties of Mary and the flames of Smithfield. But this exception to the Diary was perhaps inseparable from the tone and spirit of the writer. The Diary is a work of very