of complicated causes, could assign the exact influence of each in the production of their common effects. But the ardour of his feeling, and the quickness of his fancy, sometimes betrayed him into errors. Strong as his judgment was, it did not always watch and control their excesses. The elegance of his style and sentiments, accordingly, degenerates, at times, into affectation, and their animation into extravagance. From the general vigour of his powers, he has thrown beauties into many passages which few writers, in any age, have rivalled, and which none have surpassed; but, from an undue balance, occasionally existing among these powers, certain passages are overwrought and deformed by those attentions that were meant to improve them.

Shakspeare and Tacitus are, perhaps, the two writers who leave upon the minds of their readers the strongest impression of the force of their genius. Splendid beauties in each are but eclipsed by faults which would have cancelled the merit of ordinary performers. We should, indeed, have no standard for measuring their excellence, did not the poet sometimes shock us with his extravagancies, and the historian with his conceits.

The writings of Tacitus were rated beneath their value by those who pretended to judge of them, in the last century. Mere philologists might, indeed, detect impurities in his style, and falsely ascribe that obscurity to a fault in his diction, which, in fact, had its seat in the depth of his thought. Being void, however, of that science which alone makes literature respectable, no words could unfold to them those beauties upon which he meant that his reputation should rest. D'Alembert, and other French critics, whose merit entitled them to direct literary opinions, saw the value of his works, and removed, in some degree, the prejudices that subsisted against them. Gibbon tells us that, "if we can prefer personal merit to accidental greatness, we shall esteem the birth of the emperor TACITUS more truly noble than that of kings; that he claimed his descent from the philosophic historian, whose writings will instruct the last generations of mankind." That the emperor did not feel himself dishonoured by the connexion, appears from his giving orders, that ten copies of Tacitus should be annually transcribed, and placed in the public libraries. From the works of his immortal ancestor he expected

VOL. III..

that his subjects would learn the history, not of the Roman com'monwealth alone, but of human nature itself. By rescuing a part of these from destruction, he acquired a right to the gratitude of posterity; because he preserved a mine, in which, the longer and the deeper we dig, we shall find the richer ore.

LADY HAMILTON.-Among the works of one of the French writers there is an amusing comedy, entitled The False Duke of Burgundy, the plot of which is taken from the Arabian Tales. A drunken fellow is picked up in the streets, and clad with the habiliments of royalty. He awakes on a throne, and finds himself surrounded by courtiers, who render him all the attentions due to a monarch. As soon as he goes to sleep, he is clad in his old garments, and placed where he was found the preceding night. When he awakes he thinks he has enjoyed. a delightful dream.

occur.

How many of these dreamers do we daily behold! The magic wand of the orientals never produced any thing more extraordinary than the sudden elevations which we have witnessed in our own days, and the awful instances of downfal which so frequently We might designate the political events of the last five and twenty years as The Thousand and One Nights of Europe; since they are quite as wonderful as the tales to which we allude, and they are not less calculated to prevent a monarch from sleeping. Those political meteors which have glittered in the revolutions of empires have not been confined to the horizon of France. Among those individuals, whom fortune seems to have elevated, only that their fall might be more terrible, may be mentioned the person, under whose name these remarks are introduced. This lady, who played so magnificent a part in the theatre of Europe, this modern Ariadne, who caught in her net the hero of Aboukir and Trafalgar, commenced her career in the humble employments of a nurse and waiter at an inn. A young libertine was the first to discover this treasure of charms. He drew the youthful Emma from obscurity, but abandoned her in a few months, and the unfortunate girl was very soon enlisted in the ranks of those miserable wretches,

Qui, sur la fin du jour,

De quartiers en quartiers colportent leur amour.

Whilst she was in this occupation, she sat to Romney, the painter, in puris naturalibus. From him she passed into the possession of a young Englishman, whom she nearly ruined by her extravagance. His uncle, sir William Hamilton, then ambassador at Naples, interposed to break these disgraceful bonds; but it was only to assume them himself, in a more permanent manner. He relieved the young lover both of his debts and his mistress, and she became lady Hamilton. Here her splendid career commenced. The events of the war brought lord Nelson to Naples, staggering under the laurels which he had acquired. The bowers of beauty were not less propitious to his wishes than the tented field and the vexed waves. Until this period we have seen nothing more than a beautiful woman, who sustained her march by smiles and blandishments; but as soon as she had conquered the conqueror, she, who had never been cruel to any one, changed her character, and the cooing bird became an odious fury. When Nelson first arrived at Naples, she was not married, and the nobility of that city would not allow her to be admitted into their society. She vowed to be revenged; and she treasured up the contempt of the Neapolitans, in the same manner as the infamous Collot d'Herbois remembered the hisses of the Lyonese. At the end of one of those rapid revolutions, which were then so common, lord Nelson entered the port of Naples, the conqueror of the city, but the slave of his passions, to a degree which has cast an indelible blot upon his name. Without waiting for the return of the king, who was the only lawful judge to decide upon the conduct of some of the rebels, she made so fatal an use of the influence which she had obtained, as to bring her personal enemies, as she considered them, to the block or the halter. From the yard-arm of a frigate she saw suspended an aged prince, and she is said to have remarked that nothing perfumed the air so well as the blood of a traitor.

After this she led her hero to Sicily, and kept him engaged in a round of dissipation and vice. It was believed that Nelson had been transported to the enchanted isle of Calypso. It must be confessed that the hero of Aboukir, transformed into a swain, does not appear very worthy of imitation, and that a Telemachus of forty-four years of age, deprived of an eye and an arm, is an

object more disgustful than interesting. But while he was im mersed in pleasures, his fleet was a prey to famine and disease. In vain did the rigid Trowbridge endeavour to tear him from the syren, who, more fortunate than Armida, detained him a willing prisoner to her charms. The ministry recalled their ambassador, and Nelson, in a fit of desperation, abandoned every thing. Without orders, he left his officers, his fleet and his army; and after exhibiting his mistress in several of the capitals of Europe, he returned to London, to disgrace by his conduct the country which he had honoured by his victories. His stay in the metropolis presents a course of conduct which makes the heart bleed by the melancholy conviction that so much greatness could be combined with so much littleness. The intrigues of the mistress caused a double separation of husband and wife; and the ambassador manifested his resentment, by bequeathing all his property to his nephew. But the revenues of Nelson were under her command, and during his life her days were passed in splendour and opulence. The moment that the battle of Trafalgar deprived her of this support, she became an object of universal contempt. Her creditors threw her into prison, from which place she was extricated by the benevolence of a magistrate. She then passed over to Calais, where she was arrested by disease, and the woman who had seen Naples and Palermo at her feet, ended her days in misery, neglected and forgotten.

We cannot say of her memoirs, which have been published, that they present only a bust. She is drawn at full length: she stands before the public as she was exposed to the eyes of Romney, without any concealment. But we hope that no one will ever imitate the artist in selecting her as a model.

THE idea of publishing by subscription is not of very ancient date, and it is only of late years that it has been frequently adopted. Its advantages are of an essential kind. It qualifies an author to write better, by setting his mind at ease; it enables a publisher to sell cheaper, by freeing him from risk, and it records, as patrons of literature, the names of men who might otherwise have bid adieu to the world, without leaving any proof of their ever having thought or acted but with the vulgar.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

THE FESTIVAL OF TWELFTH NIGHT.

THE day is so called from its being the twelfth in number from the nativity, or the day on which our Saviour was made manifest. It appears from 1 Collier's Ecc. Hist. 163, that "in the days of king Alfred, a law was made with relation to holydays, by virtue of which the twelve days after the nativity of our Saviour were made festivals." This accounts for the name, but the reason of the ceremonies which seem to be peculiar to the day in various countries, is not so apparent. In Brand's Antiquities the author says they all agree in the same end, that is, to do honour to the eastern magi, who are supposed to have been of royal dignity. In the Festa Anglo-Romana, p. 7. this passage occurs: "Of these magi or sages, vulgarly called the three kings of Collen, the first named Melchior, an aged man with a long beard, offered gold; the second, Jasper, a beardless youth, offered frankincense; the third, Balthazar, a black or Moor, with a large spreading beard, offered mirrh." In "the Bee-hive of the Romish church," anno 1569, the "even of the three kings of Collen" is mentioned as "the time when ali good catholics make merry and crie the king drinkes."" Selden says in his Table Talk, "our chusing kings and queens on Twelfth Night, has reference to the three kings." Brand gives a number of quotations to show that the custom prevailed in France, Spain, Rome, &c. The following description of it is extracted from the Universal Magazine, 1774. After tea a cake is produced, and two bowls, containing the fortunate chances for the different sexes. The host fills up the tickets, and the whole company, except the king and queen, are to be ministers of state, maids of honour, &c. Often the host and hostess, more by design, perhaps, than accident, become king and queen. According to Twelfth Day law, each party supports his character till midnight. It appears that the Twelfth Cake was made formerly full of plums, and with a bean and pea: whoever got the former was to be king: whoever found the latter was to be queen. Thus in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 376.

"TWELFE NIGHT, OR KING AND QUEENE,”

"Now the mirth comes

With the cake full of plums,