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such a concession. It would be highly honourable to the Austrian Government to come to this conclusion for the sake of peace, but although Great Britain and France have coalesced to bring about a mediation on such a basis, and which, if unsuccessful, may be followed by a declaration of war on the part of France, still France must remember that after the withdrawal of the Sardinians into their own territory, the advance of a French army would no longer be an act of intervention but an actual invasion; Great Britain should also remember that the rights of Austria are supported not only by a fine army and a victorious general, but by the sympathy of all Germany and the eventual assistance of the Russian Empire, and both should remember that unquestionably, as at present circumstanced, no power on earth has any right to demand that which France and Great Britain has proposed to themselves as the basis of their mediation. It has been justly insisted upon by Mr. D'Israeli in the House of Commons, that while Lord Palmerston has connected himself with the military government of France in a mediation in Italy based on the pretended cause of liberty; that the claims of our oldest ally based upon solemn treaties and established territorial rights, have been overlooked in the enthusiasm created by a temporary success. The question assumes a very different character when that success has by Italian cowardice, ingratitude, and anarchy, been made to assume the character of the severest discomfiture and disaster. Nevertheless, although the facilities for a mediation successful to the Lombards, are no longer what they were a short time ago, it is still to be hoped it will do much good.

Between Austria and Piedmont the war is over, and Charles Albert in recruiting his army, may have objects nearer home to look to than another crusade for the thankless and sordid Lombards. But in other parts of Italy, the advance of the Austrian troops naturally gives rise to questions of great delicacy. If the state of Rome should become more desperate, they may even advance to the defence of the Pope, who is now completely at the mercy of his unruly subjects. In Tuscany the difficulties are great, and that flourishing little state, which was within the last few months one of the most prosperous in Europe, is on the verge of bankruptcy. In all these states, where Austria has no right to exercise any military or political supremacy, the mediation of France and England may be a salutary check to the Imperial generals, who are in reality wanted elsewhere. The insurrection of the Croats, the insubordination of the Tcheches, and the general spirit of rebellion among all the Sclavonian races, give promise of some employment to the Austrian troops elsewhere than in Italy.

The prompt remonstrance of the British minister at Florence has averted the danger of an Austrian occupation of the Tuscan territory as long as peace is preserved there. It is confidently asserted, that Lord Palmerston has received a very recent assurance from the Austrian government, that it accepted the general principle of the mediation with pleasure, and it must not be lost sight of, that the sooner the forces under Radetzky can be withdrawn from Italy, the sooner will a regular government, supported by a competent military force, be re-established in Vienna.

At the imperial city itself, in conformity with the declaration made by Archduke John to the Diet, that the war in Italy was not directed against

the liberal tendencies of the Italian states, but that its object was to maintain the honour of the Austrian arms, with complete recognition of the nationalities, the minister of the interior has stated, that the advance of General Welden's division across the Po, for the purpose of restoring the Duke of Modena to his dominions, was not authorised by the imperial cabinet; and in like manner, his attempted occupation of the Legations and his attack on Bologna, have been promptly disavowed. Such incidents indicate the most extreme moderation on the part of Austria; let there be the same on the part of France and England, and nothing can happen to interrupt peace. Every thing, however, is to be dreaded from France insisting upon terms that may prove irreconcileable with the weightiest interests of the Austrian empire. We shall, in such a case, stand in a false position, for nothing is more certain, than that in the present state of Europe, when it is impossible to tell what strange and terrible events may yet be in store for us, that from Austria we have nothing to apprehend; and further, as it has been justly remarked, that although she is now suffering from the misfortunes of an infirm sovereign, an unsettled cabinet, an unfinished revolution, and embarrassed finances; yet, such is her tenacious vitality, and such the deepseated resources of her military power, that in the event of more general warfare, Austria would probably still be found, as she has been of old, our safest ally on the continent of Europe, if Europe were threatened by military ambition or the excesses of revolutionary violence.

AN AUTUMN LAY.

BY J. E. CARPENTER, ESQ.

THE evening winds are singing,
Singing in the trees;

The ripen'd corn is waving,
Waving in the breeze;
The harvest moon is shining,
Shining in the night;
Bathing hill and valley

In floods of golden light!

The summer time is dying,
Dying in the year;

The autumn nights are coming,

Coming very near ;
Every leaf is fading,

Fading day by day ;

The broad sun sets in crimson,

And morning tints are gray.

The swallows come together,
Together from the eaves;
Waiting for the falling,

The falling of the leaves;
All that made the summer
Beautiful to see,
Seems to be awaiting

But the time to flee!

THE OPERA.

WE have often grumbled, not a little, at the unhappy way in which the months have been divided, quoad the productions at the Operahouse. Just at the beginning of the month some startling novelty has made its appearance, and we have been obliged to repress that burning desire of spreading useful information, which is our honourable characteristic, and after a miraculous effort of patience, to come hobbling in with our old news, and entertain our amiable readers with some "QueenAnne's-dead" sort of communication. We believe-(we speak under correction, for we are not scientific in this department; we do not know what the central sun is, nor have we a clear notion of what Kepler really found out, when he discovered that "the squares of the periodic times of any two planets are to each other, in the same proportion as the cubes of their mean distances from the sun," nor do we-but we need not go on exposing our ignorance)-we believe, we say, that the moon has something to do with the regulation of the months, and we are the more inclined to believe it, as they are certainly not regulated by the stars, at least not the "stars" of the Opera. Surely the moon might manage better. For instance, what a provoking thing it is that the day on which Mademoiselle Lind makes her first appearance for a season, persists in being the 4th of May. The 4th of May!-there is a pretty day for the editor of a monthly periodical, who has seen his number just launched, and knows there will not be another till the 1st of June, when people will have read all the daily and weekly papers of the metropolis, and have seen every thing with their own eyes, and heard every thing with their own ears, and perhaps will come instructing him instead of waiting for him to instruct them, which is particularly annoying to a literary man.

-We just pause to confess that there is one weakness in the literary character, which we inherit from our intellectual ancestors, the old ecclesiastics. The priests of former ages, it is well known, liked to keep all the learning to themselves, and though the modern literary man is not a miser to hoard up his knowledge, he at any rate likes to enjoy a monopoly in doling it out. He does not like, at any rate, to learn from the layman, that is to say, the non-literary man. Such a state of things seems contrary to the natural order, he begins to feel like a cat, whose coat is rubbed the wrong way-and to think, like the Chorus who witnessed the wrongs of Medea,

ἄνω ποταμῶν, ἱερῶν
χωροῦσι παγαί.

If you doubt the truth of what we say, honest, unsophisticated reader, just go to a theatre on the first night of a five-act tragedy, and when it is over, thrust yourself into one of the knots of professed critics you will be sure to find in the lobby, and boldly fling into the midst of them your opinion of the performance. We only say, good reader, that if you find your opinion received with that respect which you have anticipated, and which, doubtless, its great soundness deserves, we shall be very much surprised.

But a truce to this! Rochefaucauld says somewhere, that we would rather tell of our faults, than not talk about ourselves at all, and we are misled by the candid, though injudicious propensity to which he refers. Let us see-what were we talking about before we came to the literary man and his weakness. Ah, true! we talked about the bad dis

position of the months. Could not the moon manage it better somehow or other? If a hymn to Diana would do any good, we are sure we could write a very nice one. We would begin with something quite -a comparison of the moon to silver,-and the episode about Latona, which we should introduce, would be most touching.

new,

*

It's a grievous thing to be informed of one's want of erudition, just as when one has been exposing the deficiency to an assembly, at once numerous and select. After we had gone on committing ourselves, down to that little galaxy of printer's stars, which separates this paragraph from the above, we opened an almanac, and, lo!-we were soon reminded that the new moon has nothing to do with the first day of the month, but that the lunar month is one thing, and the calendar month another,—so that we were about to put up prayers to the wrong goddess. It was just as if Father Matthew began supplicating Bacchus to prosper the Temperance cause. We must, therefore, satisfy ourselves with hymning the manes of Francis Moore, Physician, for if he did not invent the calendar months, we don't know who did.

On this occasion, however, the Operatic season has terminated most kindly for our purpose, the four extra nights just bringing it down to the 24th of August. A nice day that 24th,-just the sort of day we should pick out if we made our own Operatic almanac. We sit down to write, fired with the enthusiasm with which the last crowded audience took leave of their beloved Jenny Lind. The ocean in the pit with its billows of hats, hands, and handkerchiefs, is not only in our memory, but has scarcely left the retina of our physical eye-we almost see it now. The string of carriages which extended along the Haymarket, and was just lapped round the corner of Charles Street-and the line of gazers, assembled for the mere purpose of seeing the occupants of the carriages as they alighted-all this is a scene which we seem to still behold, and we hear the rattle of the wheels quite as plainly as the man, in the old joke, heard the footstep of the fly on the top of the Monument.

It was a great scene, that leave-taking of Jenny Lind. The audience were so determined, that that little slight Amina, whom they had just seen passing over the perilous mill-wheel, should come before them again and again, and hear more plaudits, and receive more bouquets. They loved to see that innocent-looking countenance dart forward from the curtain, and that incomparable trip, with which Jenny always runs towards the salutations of an audience. There was the feeling that she must not go, if one voice could hold her back-that an insupportable blank would be left when she disappeared.

And the Fates were benignant, for soon after Jenny's last curtsey before the curtain, the audience were allowed to see her once again. She sang the last verse of the national anthem, having, on every previous occasion, merely joined in the chorus. She even was encored, and then came a repetition of the former plaudits.

Did we not say, that when Jenny Lind made her first appearance this season, the Queen paid her first visit to the Opera after the Chartist disturbances, that the Swedish Nightingale was welcomed by the same voices which cheered her majesty, and that the names of Lind and Loyalty were associated together by something more than that link of an initial letter, which connected Monmouth and Macedon in the mind of honest Fluellin? And now the freshest impression left on the public mind is Jenny Lind singing

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE.*

This work is unde stood to be the production of Lady Emily Ponsonby, and a better disciplined mind than that of this amiable and accomplished young lady never undertook the task of instructing her sex.

The first illustration of the "Discipline of Life"-the varying love of Isabel Denison-is undoubtedly a true page taken from the book of nature; but we doubt much if it will prove very acceptable. Isabel Denison is the child of a poor curate's daughter, who had been abandoned by her military husband, and at the death of her mother, the young girl was brought up by a precise maiden sister. As a simplehearted country girl, only yearning occasionally after a father whom she has never seen, she gives her heart and plights her troth to the curate of the village, Herbert Grey, a kind of man and woman hater, who, having in early life met with a disappointment in love, had abandoned the law for the more congenial profession of the church.

Herbert Grey, with his moody, melancholy fits, by no means wins upon the affections; but still it is difficult to imagine why the same unfortunate person should be selected for two outrageous jiltings. Captain Denison returns from India, married, but childless; titled, successful, and rich; and claims his long-neglected daughter. Isabella, in consequence, exchanges country for town life, and is introduced to a new world-the world of fashion. Nor does she fail to succumb to the great temptation; her heart, almost without her own consent, passing into the possession of Lord Clarence Broke, the second son of a duke, and a gallant, handsome, and fashionable young soldier. Fine touches of nature come now into play. Roused by the incident of temporary separation to a consciousness of the precipice on which she stands, Isabel still never wavers between the sacrifice of her affections, and her duty to her plighted troth. But after many trying scenes and affecting situations, the young curate nobly abandons his pretensions, and even performs the marriage service, that is to unite one he has so much loved to another. Such is the first example of a character tried and improved by the common events of life. Herbert can only have felt how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong; and we must with Crabbe add we cannot maintain, that even hearts twice broken never heal again.

The interest of the story of "Country Neighbourhood" like that of its predecessor, is made to dwell upon the change that sometimes takes place in the affections; only in this case the gentleman is in fault, and the young wife is made to suffer for having innocently superseded her friend in the affections of the same person. The "Moat" is a more humorous sketch of the hesitations of a proud and precise old maiden aunt, between protecting and disinheriting two scapegrace nephews. The story is told with a charming simplicity, and there is a truth-like character and freshness pervading the whole work, which gives earnest of the most distinguished success.

* The Discipline of Life. 3 vols. Henry Colburn.

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