but lamely with "state it" (ii. p. 67). Nor is the conventional pronunciation of "Africa" favourable to a rhyming with "law" (ii. p. 4). We observe, too, an occasional confusion of the will and shall (e. g. ii. pp. 120, 133, 352). And certain Hibernicisms affecting the metre are also notice-worthy: "Born," for instance, being made to do double duty, in what we will call the syllabic augment "arms" requiring to be pronounced arrums, &c.

But we have dwelt longer than is agreeable to our sense of proportion, and of justice, on the minor blemishes of Mr. M'Carthy's performance; and, in taking leave of him, would fain leave a "last impression" of the gratification and interest which we have felt in a perusal of these two volumes. In which mood, we commend them as a dainty dish to set before every lover of dramatic literature-native or foreign, new or old.

THE ELF-KING'S BRIDE.

FROM THE DANISH OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
BY MRS. BUSHBY.

'MIDST the tents of the foe deep stillness reigned-
And the slumb'ring troops dreamed of battles gained;
But one, though he feared not the morrow's fight,
Kept his lonely vigil the livelong night.
He leaned on his sword, and sang the wild lays
That had gladdened his heart in youthful days.

He gazed on the stream that was rushing by-
Like the moon through a mist gleamed something nigh;
In the breeze there fluttered a pale blue snood,
And a lovely female before him stood.

She seemed to his song to be listening, while
She greeted the singer with many a smile.

Love formed not the theme of his thrilling strains,
He sang of his childhood's joys and its pains;
The Mermaid whispered of pleasures to come-
And sudden the warrior's voice was dumb.
From the sedgy bank he saw her arise,
While her beaming look was fixed on his eyes.
Her soft cheek grew pale, and grew red by turns-
As ever it is when kindling love burns;
She snatched up his hand-to her heaving breast
With passionate gestures that hand was pressed.
He murmured his love-when starting, she cried,
"Hush, stranger—for I am the Elf-King's Bride!
Ah! why did I list to thine accents so sweet?
Farewell! for never again shall we meet."
She vanished-the stream seemed higher to swell,
While rose at that spot, as if by some spell,
A lovely green plant: a moment it stood-
Then faded and slowly it sank in the flood.
In the enemy's camp the trumpets sound—
Away! where conquest or death may be found!

THE EPILOGUE OF 1853.

THE year that is now fast closing upon us, if not absolutely Annus Mirabilis, may fairly put in its claim for some share of distinction. The two great categories of Fact and Opinion, which make up the sum total of our existence, have been very adequately represented during the last twelve months, and whatever rank the year 1853 may eventually hold in the world's annals, it will assuredly not be remembered by those who survive it as a dull one. There has been movement, of one kind or other, throughout, and, according to our annual custom, we will just glance at some of the most prominent occurrences.

Leaving the serious aspect of events to be discussed elsewhere-by the Patres Conscripti, or "heavy fathers" of the Senate, if they will-we shall address ourselves chiefly to subjects which will admit of being lightly touched upon. From this category we do not altogether exclude politics, though such matters require to be approached almost as cautiously as one would handle a hedgehog.

There is the Turkish question, for instance. Though everybody in England-always excepting Mr. Cobden, who, like the late Tom Hill, enjoys his own" private view" of everything-is of one mind with respect to the treatment which the Sultan has received at the hands of the Czar, no two are agreed upon the course that should have been taken "to make things pleasant" to them both. It is true that there has been a vast amount of unanimity amongst the diplomatists of Constantinople, Vienna, and Olmütz, but this unanimity has merely had for its object the absolute stultification of the human understanding. It was not for the purpose of convincing the Emperor of Russia that he was wrong, that the representatives of the four great powers drew up the celebrated "notes," which have admitted of so many " queries," but simply to show an admiring world how skilfully words might be made to express anything but what they were really supposed to mean. Like the "Précieuses Ridicules," their chief desire has been to avoid coming to the point. Put a lover in the place of a negotiator, and Madelon's rules define at once the course they have adopted. "Il faut qu'un amant, pour être agréable, sache débiter de beaux sentiments, pousser le doux, le tendre et le passionné, et que sa recherche soit dans les formes." No one can say that the diplomatic suit has not been urged in all its forms, with a profusion too of the finest sentiments, with the gentlest pleading-with everything, in short, to make it agreeable to the Imperial Coquet. The whole process has been about as edifying as the single combat fought between Gymnast and Captain Tripet, wherein the former "suddenly fetched a gambol upon one foot, and turning to the left hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round, just into his former position, without missing one jot," and the latter, after making a summerset in the air, "turned about like a windmill, and made above a hundred frisks, turns, and demipommadas;" though we quite agree with Corporal Trim, that "one home-thrust of a bayonet was worth it all." And Omar Pasha seems to have been of this way of thinking as well as ourselves.

But, perhaps, the oddest part of the whole affair is the wonderful way in which the Coalition Cabinet has held together in the midst of the

general clash of opinions, with the fighting-men gesticulating outside the booth, and the tumblers and vaulters playing at "soft sawder" within. To listen to the speeches made at Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Halifax, you would fancy that nobody could settle the business but Captain Sword; to take the inspirations of Downing-street for your oracle, he must of necessity be superseded by Captain Pen. There is, to be sure, a third party, whom, for want of a better name, we will call Captain Palaver. He it is, ripe with information "short only of that of the first parties acting in these proceedings," who "studied the Eastern question twenty years ago, as Mr. Tait, the publisher, can state," and now comes forward with a plan of pacification which appears greatly to have gladdened the long-eared") listeners at the long-headed (we had almost written " Music Hall of Edinburgh when the "Peace" Society held its last meeting there. No longer disposed to "crumple up" Russia-a feat which he undertook to perform some two or three years ago—Mr. Cobden has settled it in his own mind that Turkey must go to the wall.

"I tell you," he says, "from my own knowledge of the Turkish empire" (the best assurance we can desire for being at ease as to the issue), "that not only all the king's horses and all the king's men, but not all the horses and all the men of all the Emperors in the world, can maintain the Mohammedan population in Europe;" and then, to gratify the fanatical part of his audience, he adds: "They are going to fight for the maintenance of Mohammedanism in Europe!"-and pious Saunders, who never had an angry word with his neighbour on religious questions, responds to this declaration with loud shouts of applause. Will Mr. Cobden tell his Edinburgh friends how much nearer akin to their own profession of faith the subjects of the Porte will be when they have embraced the religion of the Greek Church ?—of that section of it of which "the most Mr. Cobden's charitable orthodox" Emperor of Russia is at the head? advice, in perfect keeping, too, with his peaceable professions, is to let the with Russians and Turks fight out a quarrel which, he admits, is provoked by the Czar and based on the grossest injustice. But he cannot part the subject without a prophecy, though he is certainly the most unlucky prophet who ever vaticinated. However, he continues, don't be afraid of war; wars don't happen on the Danube in November or October." "We are not going to fight on the Danube in the month of November." If Mr. Cobden had only had a little more information, just to place him on a level with and not "short" of that possessed by "the first parties in these proceedings," he would have waited till the month of November before he delivered himself of this oracular assertion. What say the telegraphic despatches from the Danube? "On the 2nd and 3rd of November the Turks crossed the Danube from Turtukai to Oltenitza, On the 4th, General Pauloff atto the number of about 18,000 men. tacked them with 9000 men, and, after a brisk cannonade, a combat with the bayonet took place between the two armies, &c." This looks rather like fighting on the Danube though Mr. Cobden is quite capable of denying it, if it suits the purpose of the moment and procures him a bray of applause.

But however indifferent to the fate of Turkey, however willing to follow the sage counsels of Captain Palaver and suffer the "foul paynim" to be "crumpled up" by the fouler Muscovite, the wise men of Edin

burgh have not forgotten-when did Scotchmen ever forget-themselves! It is now exactly two hundred and fifty years since "bonnie King Jamie from Scotland came," trooping over the Border with a following whose alacrity to settle down upon the fair pastures and broad meads of England has only been equalled by the repugnance which their descendants have invariably shown to return to the barren heaths and bleak mountains of their native land. Of the manner of their coming and the sudden metamorphosis attendant upon it, the following lines give a lively picture: Now Scot and English are agreed,

And Saunders hastes to cross the Tweed,
Where, such the splendours that attend him,
His very mother scarce had kend him.
His metamorphosis behold,

From Glasgow frieze to cloth of gold;
His backsword, with the iron hilt,
To rapier, fairly patch'd and gilt;
Was ever seen a gallant braver!

His very bonnet's grown a beaver.

For a hundred years the "braw callants" fattened individually on the "Southron pock puddings," and then came the "Union," which opened the door to the whole collective nation. An idea has generally prevailed that Scotland and Scotchmen have derived at least much benefit from this legislative measure as England and the English, but we have been suddenly awakened from this delusive dream by a trumpet-blast from the aforesaid Music Hall of Edinburgh, announcing that the wrongs which Scotland has so long and so silently endured can now be borne no longer. Her grievances, it appears, are many and deep. We learn from more than which the one eloquent expositor of what they consist. The text upon chivalrous chairman of the Edinburgh meeting descanted was somewhat perilous for his argument. "You may," said the noble earl, “make a Scotchman discontented, but you will never make him an Englishman;" that is to say, "give a Scotchman all you have got and he will be a Scotchman still." The Scotchman, then, is "discontented" because the British Museum and the National Gallery (he is quite welcome to the last-named building if he will only undertake to remove it) are not transferred to Edinburgh; because the dockyard at Portsmouth and the arsenal at Woolwich are not removed to the flats of Musselburgh or the crags of Burnbogle. He is "discontented" because Dover is nearer to Calais than Loch Garvie; because the gardens of Hampton Court are kept up as a place of recreation for a handful of English citizens (as many in number, by the way, as the whole population of Scotland), while the park of Holyrood is thriftily-let to a Scotch market-gardener. He has also a notable cause for "discontent" in the degraded position of those two eminently Scottish animals, the red lion and silver unicorn, who are unjustly made to ramp on the wrong side of the royal escutcheon. We had for some time imagined that the British lion was the most ill-treated brute in creation, but as in the lowest deep there is always one still lower, so, "sounding the very base string of humility" growls the sandy lion of Scotland.

The canny Scot is "discontented" because his country has no separate Secretary of State, and is only represented in the Cabinet by the Prime Minister and the Lord Privy Seal; in the general body of the

Ministry by a Lord, and one of the Secretaries to the Treasury, and two Lords of the Admiralty; and in the Household of the Queen by a Scottish Lord Chamberlain and a Scottish Controller. The Gordons, Elliots, Campbells, Dundases, Murrays, Scotts, Hamiltons, Douglases, to say nothing of the "Legion" whose prefix is "Mac," have had, as far as our recollection serves, a tolerably fair share of the privileges of power, as well as of the cfficial loaves and fishes that have abounded since the establishment of the Union. Scottish generals have commanded in our armies, Scottish admirals have led our fleets to victory-they have had their reward as well as their renown,-Scottish lawyers have sat on the woolsack, and there is one at the present moment-highly esteemed and respected by all-who occupies the post of Lord Chief Justice of all England. We know of no situation of honour or profit,-to neither of which things are Scotchmen supposed to be insensible, that our friends north of the Tweed have not at some time or other enjoyed, we will not say to the total exclusion of Englishmen, but certainly to a degree that had more than once gone near to savour of monopoly. But it is a grievance for Scotland that she is "left to the tender mercies of a lawyer"-the Lord Advocate-who, we may observe, en passant, must of necessity be a Scotchman.

But we have not yet got to the end of our tether. "Scotland is not fairly represented in Parliament." This is not a peculiarly Scottish grievance, and we fear that Caledonia, with her three millions returning fifty-three members, must wait for redress until Middlesex, with a larger population and fewer representatives, has an equal measure of justice accorded. The eloquent author of the "History of Europe," who, par parenthèse, has been rewarded with a baronetcy, enumerates at considerable length the number of things that Scotchmen have given to England: "the steam-engine," "free trade," "Sir Walter Scott," &c. We might add to this list of gifts from a people so open-handed, but will content ourselves by asking, if the Scotch have never received an equivalent for their donations, however numerous? Scientific inventions, liberal institutions, the products of genius, can scarcely be said to be "given" by one nation to another. You may be proud of the man whose intellect or whose labour have benefited mankind; but while you profit by the results yourselves, you can assert small claim to generosity. Sir Isaac Newton did probably as much for science as Watt,-Sir Robert Peel rendered services no less eminent than Adam Smith,-Shakspeare has perhaps as many readers as Scott, but it is not the habit of Englishmen to say that they have made a present of their great men to this or that country. The universality of genius renders such a narrow distribution absurd.

But Sir Archibald Alison complains that Scotland is not garrisoned by English troops, in the same manner as Ireland; that she has no militia, like England. We have always fancied that the fewer the troops for the preservation of order-in Ireland they are there for that purpose and not for defence-the pleasanter for the country so spared. But the want of a Scottish militia is a grievance. Why? Because, says Sir Archibald, "in case of a war breaking out, if a descent were to be made from Russia-and the Emperor of Russia had always in the summer