residence. And in one passage of the play-if we are either to learn a moral, or to be roused to emotion-she must appear to us as if waking from a busy dream, in which she has felt herself clothed with attributes that she detests and disowns. She must be seen unlearning in a moment, at the edge of the precipice, the false and deluding manners that have conducted her to it, and returning to those ways of simplicity undisguised, and virtue freed from artificial follies, to which she had been accustomed during her youth and childhood, and from which she could not have wandered, without exhibiting that appearance of restraint in her movements, which is the sure mark of an imperfect and ill-tutored hypocrisy.

Such is Miss Kelly's Lady Teazle. I must not abuse the courtesy of those readers who may have accompanied me thus far, by asking them to travel farther, that I may notice her admirable performance of this difficult and complex character. Tempting as the theme is, the bulk to which my chapter has already grown warns me to forbear. I shall merely ask this simple question of those who deem themselves the patrons of the drama,-Are we to be denied a repetition of that performance? For the present, Miss Kelly, or the managers, or it may be both, have yielded to the clamour of CANT, and, after two or three trials of the public taste, she has ceased to perform Lady Teazle. I must say, I think this is not dealing quite fairly with the

public. Sufficient opportunity was certainly not given to the town, of forming a mature and correct judgment upon this departure from established precedent. As far, indeed, as the sense of a delighted audience, loudly and warmly expressed, might be considered as an evidence of success, nothing could be more successful than the experiment. But some (and only some) of the newspapers censured and sneered, and Miss Kelly, or (for where we have no certain knowledge we must be cautious) the managers, or both,— got frightened!

There is yet a remedy for the lovers of the drama. I trust it will be applied. It is only necessary, when the town fills, that an inquiry should be made, coming from one or two fashionable names," When Miss Kelly shall next play Lady Teazle?" The actress and the managers would soon take the hint; all who possess taste and descrimination would assist by their presence and applause; a far more numerous host would follow the fashion; genius, for once at least, would be freed from the degrading bondage that, in this department, has been for some time settling upon it; and the rights and privileges of The Stage would be asserted, spite of all the pert dogmatism, and all the pointless flippancy of ALL THE CANTERS.

London, January 2, 1826.

II

THE FRENCH GLOBE AND

IN our December Number we made some remarks on the present state of French literature, which were of course characterized by our usual Rhadamanthian impartiality. What we said, we do not in the least recollect, but have no doubt that it was particularly good. Needless is it to say, that if we censured, we did so with our universally acknowledged good manners, tempering the austerity of the judge with the benignity of a father; and if we praised, administering the bonbons of panegyric with the grace of Mr Ambrose setting down a platter of powldowdies. Such, our readers know, is the common mode of proceeding in our pages.

Among other affairs, we praised the

signature of French Viscounts, and discuss the literature of France.

"Since our labours commenced, and we have begun to.study the literary journals of Great Britain, we have been frequently struck with the trifling nature of their correspondence with France, [This refers of course to the correspondence of Beyle, and other such raff, with the Magazines of Cocagne,] and the credulity of our neighbours, with respect to communications, which, when read in Paris, would make people shrug up their shoulders. There is really a commerce of scandal going on-a trafficking of names and anecdotes. Our works are never analyzed or judged, but the men who have written them, and these letters cannot be better compared to anything than to certain drawing-room conversations, where the most important questions are decided by a word, and the most celebrated men criticised with impertinence. There is no desire of displaying either literature or sound criticism, but solely of exciting curiosity by stories, or a sort of confidential communications which have apparently been picked up by surprise by slipping into literary circles. Too often, enemies, by employing their perfidious weapons, can calumniate honest men, (hommes honnétes, translate it as you like,) and impudent friends throw ridicule on modest labours by absurd eulogiums. Such may be the result of an article in Blackwood's Magazine for December, which a friend has denounced to us, and against which we hasten to enter our protest."

Ho! said we, by the word of an old game-cock, but that is a pretty return for civility. May we be rammed into Queen Anne's pocket-pistol, and sputtered over into Calais Green among the rascally rope-twisters of that rascally region, if we don't make these honest fellows remember us some little. We do not know what is going on in the centre of Paris! We who could tell you the tittle-tattle, chitchat, gibble-gabble of the backstairs of the palace of Timbuctoo! We slip into literary circles! We who are courted wherever we go, and by common consent put at the head of all feasts where good men most do congregate. Punished shall the Globe be. It is decided upon. The laws of the Medes and the Persians never were more irrevocable than this our dictum. Let

the next Number, said we to the Secretary, be placed under our own eyes forthwith. Ay, ay! sir, said Mullion.

But with this next Number came calmer thoughts. We perused it with satisfaction, and saw that the Frenchmen had been imposed upon, and were not deserving of the castigation which we had intended most unmercifully to bestow upon them. They had seen their error, and being, as we take it, Papists, had thumped their stomachic region, exclaiming, "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa !" Here is what they said translated into the language of George the Fourth, whom God preserve.

(From Le Globe of the 22d Dec. 1825.)

"Our last Number contained a note written with some rudeness, (brusquerie) on an article of Blackwood's Magazine, which, in consequence of some vague information, had excited in us serious uneasiness, (vives inquietudes.) We had been told that much praise had been bestowed on the Globe, and in particular on two of its editors, but that some writers, whom we love, had been, as we may say, sacrificed. The horror we have against coteries, the very criminal abuse which we have seen made of political and literary correspondence, the natural fear that praises coming to us from beyond sea might give us some resemblance to the quacks whom we have blasted, and wish always to blast, the desire of guarding our English readers promptly against false or rash decisionseverything, in fact, combined to give our remark a vivacity which the Editor of Blackwood will easily pardon

Certainly not a doubt of it-give us the hand. Now you may continue,

"There is an uneasiness concerning one's honour which all elevated minds can comprehend, and in such a case the delay of a day is too long. Au reste, although our expressions only attack generally the criticisms of British writers on our literature, and cast but a vague imputation on Blackwood's Magazine, yet, if we have offended, our reparation comes immediately."

Say no more about it, Monsieur Le Globe-we forgive and forget. Perge.

"We have to-day read with attention the article in question, and can affirm that it contains just information

on the actual state of French literature, although summary, and a little personal, in the manner of our neighbours. He alludes to the Edinburgh Review, the personalities of which are a disgrace to the present age.]-Le Globe is there appreciated, we may say without any mock-modesty, as it desires to be: it has not caused the revolution which has been operating in our criticism, but it is its most striking symptom; and if honesty, impartiality, and courage can claim any esteem, we can accept this recompense with as much frankness as we display in rejecting eulogiums which would set too high a value on our modest labours. We only regret, that, in praising one of our fellow-labourers, the English critic has made unfavourable reflections

(établi un rapprochement peu favorable,) on the young and celebrated translator of Plato, whose eloquent lessons have re-animated philosophical studies in France. We also can scarcely comprehend how he has forgotten the great work of Mons. Thiers on the French Revolution, when the work of Mons. Mignet is so well and justly appreciated; and, finally, why should we not blame the rather cruel jokes against a young and estimable writer, who has shown old Bentham the most delicate attentions, and who deserved, without doubt deserved, a different return from English writers?"

Spoony this, Mounseer! Old Jerry the Bencher and we are not pot-companions; and therefore we do not feel ourselves called upon to puff everybody who happens to stuff the intestinal canal of the ancient sage with Bifteck de Mouton a l'Anglaise. As to the translator of Plato and Thiers, we shall speak of them hereafter.

"This circumstance naturally leads us to say a word on Blackwood's Magazine. This miscellany has enjoyed, and still enjoys, in England a great reputation. It has been for a long time the wittiest and most mischievous antagonist of the Whighs. Droll, audacious in its pleasantries, sharp in its personalities, it may be considered as the true representative of English humour, (sic in orig.) and the satirical good sense of the Scottish. It has been more than once the torment of the grave Edinburgh Review, and has with success supported the Quarterly, too often unhappy in its political and literary quarrels.'

Come-that's pretty-and, consi

dering it is from a Frenchman, true enough. As for the Whighs, as Mounseer pleases to call the vagabonds, we have pestered them a trifle, as they pretty well know. The Edinburgh Review we have, we flatter ourselves, tormented in the sorest of all possible ways, as anybody will prove to their own satisfaction, by reflecting that we have driven away from writing in it some of the people who unwittingly became connected with it; and have effectually prevented them from getting new recruits from any quarter, but the stinking Swiss of the pressthe vomit of Cockneyland. As for the Quarterly, we have always supported it, and on many occasions kept it out of the dirt. We are sorry to say that the Quarterly did not always do the decent thing by us. But pocas palabras. We can fight our own battles, caring not the tenth part of the most rotten fig's-end that ever dangled from a fig-tree for the good or ill word of any other periodical that flies, walks, or crawls.

And this leads us back to The Globe. There is, as everybody knows, a sort of dirty and scoundrel-like clamour against us-such a squeaking as one might imagine to come from a very second-rate and under-bred kind of rat-hole-to be heard every now and then among vermin, deserving to be altogether spat upon. Among the coteries where those animals congregate, (and which we shall break up some of these days with a hammer that will strike once, and strike no more,) it is laid down as a sort of ruled point, that we are not regarded by any one but the red-hot partizans of Toryism. Were it even so, we should not repent. For the milkand-water men, we never had any feeling but steady and cool contempt. But violent as we avowedly are in our politics, we are not unreasonable, and feel anxious for the suffrages of the good, or witty, or wise, of every party. We have obtained these at home from every one but the mere rascal fag-end of Whiggism, or the dirty off-scouring of the starveling periodical press; and without setting any undue value on the above critique of The Globe, (which is only one of a hundred of the same kind,) we beg leave to ask, what foreign periodical has ever mentioned the New Monthly Magazine, written, as many of its articles are, by folks who have their own reasons for living abroad, and who, of course, fish for

foreign panegyric? Or who has ever mentioned the London, except to say that it was fallen into the hands of the Cockneys?

On looking over that last paragraph, we find it reads as if we were in savage mood. Yet we are not-we are cool as a dog's nose in December. What we have said will be gall and vinegar to the heart of some miscreants, who will live henceforward in trouble, month after month, trembling lest the big stone should come down to crush them. Is there any blackguard connected with the press whose father was caught shop-lifting? Is there any sneaking ruffian, who is the son of a hypocrite swindler, that dare not account for the conduct of his life, but skulks away when questioned ?-We pause for a reply. By the word of a warrior, if we be vexed-if we again hear things, anything like what we have heard, out with the cuchillo. There is no reason that we should be insulted, without making the insulter smart for it-and where? Where? Why, on the raw ! Let those for whom the above hints are intended take warning. We have the power, and wE'LL USE IT!

So far for that. The Scotch nation has been abused and humbugged considerably on its propensities. A la bonne heure. We should be sorry that in these witless times any of the common-places of wit should be cut off. We should be grieved to the soul were the impresssion to go forward that we

We

were a nation of gentlemen. should call for the last rites of religion, if we thought anybody seriously styled us Modera Athenians. No, No, No. Sawneys we are, and Saw. neys will we die. We never will screw up our mouths to call a flúe a flee-nor shall we ever, in the universal degeneracy of the times, give up whisky-toddy for sauterne, or any other modification of vinegar, howsoever called. Therefore shall we joy in the vernacular proverb of " Claw me, Claw thee." Flatter us, and we flatter you. Say the civil thing, and you find it returned. As for the uncivil thing, we hope our character is now too well established to make it necessary for us to say, that any one who wishes for that commodity need only send us a sample, to be quite sure of getting something better done on the same pattern, sent back in any quantity required, by next post. But there is no need of this just now. Le Globe, sans jest, is a capitally good paper, whether it praises us or not; and it is the only independent publication in Paris. The Frondeur, Pandore, Corsair, &c. are trash. Its articles are often very witty, and sometimes very clever.

As a specimen of their way of belabouring an ass, we give the following notice of a spoon, which appeared on the 3d of January in The Globe. The author of the book reviewed seems to be a sort of Wicount de Tims.

En lisant cette epigraphe des Nouvelles provinciales, nous nous sommes figuré que l'auteur s'etait devoué, comme il le dit, à la haine du pouvoir, pour nous rendre service en nous devoilant les arcanes des gouvernements. Helas! nous n'avons rien appris, et cet honnête provincial s'est moqué de nous. Nous sommes persuades cependant, qu'il n'y a point mis de malice, et qu'il s'imagine avoir

fait un livre profond, un livre qui doit attirer sur lui l'attention de l'autorité, en compilant dans nos journaux tous les lieux communs que les partis se renvoient l'un à l'autre comme des arguments sans réplique. On dirait quelque prefet reformé qui, ne sachant que faire de son temps, s'est mis à étudier la haute politique dans les cafés et dans les cabinets litteraires : charmé d'une lecture qui nourrissait son me

contentement, il n'aura pas pu résister au désir de nous communiquer tant de belles choses qu'il apprenait pour la première fois.

Il a pris la forme épistolaire pour nous faire part de ses réflexions. I raconte à un provincial de ses amis ses conversations avec deux personnages, dont l'un est initié aux mystères de la congregation et de l'aristocratie, tandis que l'autre possède le secret des liberaux. Libèral lui-même, l'au teur donne le beau rôle à ce dernier. A leur première entrevue, il le surprend au milieu d'une profonde méditation, ayant devant lui les journaux de l'opposition. "J'étudie le present," lui dit son ami, " pour apprendre l'avenir." Apres quoi il entre en matière, et s'ecrie en parlant des ministres, Croient-ils, parcequ'ils vont en arrière, empecher les peuples de marcher en avant? Alors il deroule devant son interlocuteur la tableau des fautes et des crimes de l'administration. Ce qui l'irrite le plus, c'est l'impertinence de l'aristocratie. On peut dire même que c'est la seule chose qui le fâche serieusement; il revient là-dessus à chaque instant, et, à ses yeux, la veritable plaie du pays, c'est la difficulté qu'eprouvent les hommes nouveaux pour entrer a la cour. Ce n'est pas qu'il soit ennemi de la noblesse, bien au contraire; mais il en voudrait une personnelle qui tînt du prince ses parchemins. Puisque, dit-il, la nature a jeté tant d'inégalités entre nous, c'est à la loi humaine à les mettre en ordre, et à les ranger selon leur valeur. Il ne croit donc pas que ce soit à l'opinion seule à classer les hommes; il lui faut une classification legale, et tout irait à merveille si la nation nouvelle etait sûre d'etre convenablement partagée dans la distribution dos rubans. Mais, s'ecrie-t-il avec indignation, voyez-vous entrer dans les carrosses du roi des plebeiens illustres, ou des nobles suns merite? Le provincial, èmerveillé d'une si haute philosophie, s'empresse d'en faire part à son correspondant.

Ce correspondant en est encore plus emerveillé que son ami. Vous me decouvrez, lui ecrit-il, un horizon qui m'etait inconnu. Je marchais sur un sentier etroit et obscur, et vous m'ouvrez une voie claire et spacieuse. Votre liberal me parait nourri de sciences solides; son raisonnement est fort, et fixe l'attention. Votre royaliste est aussi VOL. XIX.

fort instruit pour un royaliste; car, pour toute ce qui est science, les royal istes en general ont un brevet d'exemp

tion.

Ce royaliste, en effet, est au moins aussi fort que son camarade le liberal dans la politique transcendante. Il debite gravement à l'homme de province des lambeaux du Memorial Catholique, de la Quotidienne et du Drapeau blanc ; et celui-ci, confondu d'admiration, s'ecrie que jamais il n'a rien entendu qui fût d'une si grande consequence, et d'un interet plus elevé.

En quittant son ami l'ultra, le provincial rencontre par hasard son autre ami le liberal, dans les Tuileries, où il passe rarement, craignant d'y voir de trop pres livrees de la servitude. Ce philosophe, ennemi de la cour, de clame long-temps contre l'aristocratie qui en occupe les entrees. C'est là, ditil, l'eternal sujet de nos plaintes. C'est ce mur d'airain que nous voulons renverser, c'est ce chemin qui conduit au trône que nous voulons nettoyer. Suivent quelques allusions au fameux chêne de Vincennes sous lequel nos rois faisaient si bonne justice, puis un morceau d'histoire où il enseigne à son auditeur, d'après le Journal de Paris, comme quoi nos princes se sont toujours jetes dans les rangs de leurs peuples pour combattre et dompter l'insolente aristocratie. Ce trait d'érudition ravit le provincial. De tant d'hommes qui etudient l'histoire, combien peu, dit-il, savent en tirer une aussi solide instruction!

Les maximes que l'histoire fournit au philosophe liberal ne sont pas moins admirables. Suivant lui, les nations n'ont ni croyances, ni passions, ni volentes, et les princes en font ce qu'il leur plaît. Si, par exemple, Catherine de Medicis l'eût voulu, toute la France eût été protestante. La destinée des grands peuples, dit-il, tient à ce fil: le cœur d'un roi contient le monde. Les gouvernements font les nations. La vie d'un peuple est dans la cime de son gouvernement, comme la vie des arbres est dans leur cime. Les nations s'agrandissent sous des ministres qui sont grands. Ces sentences, qui s'accordent si bien avec nos éternelles déclamations en faveur du siecle et de l'irrésistible empire de l'opinion, sont accueillies par le provincial avec la même admiration que tout le reste. On voit que l'auteur des Nouvelles provinciales a, pour les grands ministres et les rois

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