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They are beyond question the most active agents in disseminating among the public the political or literary opinions of all sides, and yet they never quarrel. It was truly refreshing, during the angry contest between Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Colonel Evans, and Mr. Bickham Escott, to see their ambulatory agents mixing at street-corners, and other places where placardmen do congregate, with the most harmonious cordiality. They did their duty, but they never suffered it to interfere with their private friendships. It is highly probable that few of them read Ariosto, at least with critical eye, but their conduct much reminded us of the panegyrics in Orlando Furioso on the mutual courtesy of the ancient knights towards each other. We murmured to ourselves, O gran bontà de' cavalièri antichi, and so forth; and rejoiced to find that glorious characteristic of the chivalry of the Round table revived under our own eyes by the corporation of placard-bearers. All around in Covent-garden, every thing was indignation; the very cabbages and turnip-tops were moved; orators spoke on the hustings and off the hustings in all the fervour of excited zeal; the eyes of the market, the town, the county, the kingdom, the continent, the world, turned with anxious glare on the result of the contest; and there, meanwhile, "in the hot-press and tumult of the hour," the very men whose hats and bosoms, and sides and bellies, were stuck with the most impassioned cries and watchwords of their respective parties, whose hands uplifted the banners which waved above the conflict as the guidestars of the current of war, walked about with all the cocluess of the peripatetic school, to which they unquestionably belong. It was something truly cheering to those who wish for the banishment of the angry passions from the human breast, to witness the philosophical air of abstraction which these sages exhibited; they were in politics, but not of them: like the Public Ledger, they were open to all parties, but influenced by none; and evidently being of opinion with Swift, that party is the madness of the many for the gain of the few, suffered not their minds to be disheartened by any such insanity, meditated upon their own gaius, and thought ouly on their shilling a day and their board. WE cannot afford rhymes to the hero whom we have above depicted; he is decidedly a subject for the pedestrian Muse of prose. He is No. 1. of our Londou Characters: as Shakspeare, or somebody else, advises us to catch the ideas as they fly, we fix the idea-bearer as he runs. It was impossible to refrain from taking him (graphically, we mean, for we do not belong to the police, "whether it be new or old,") as we saw him scudding along with the rapidity of a hare, at the Coldbath-fields meeting of last week, which of course we attended. "Britons, be firm!" spoke the valorous placard on the breast. "Let this particular and individual Briton run for his life!" spoke the more discreet monitor within the breast. There was no delay in making the decision-the motion was carried, and a very Interesting race! We here consign one of the fraternity to rapid motion it was. The poor National Convention was run away wood. What to him was Lee? no more than governor Le of Canwith in a van; the new constitution, and the members of it, were ton; and, as for the eminent chairman, Mr. Mee, our running friend equally knocked on the head: and why should our friend the bill-would willingly have quoted Virgil, had he happened to have known sticker have pasted himself against the wall merely to be torn down by the police? If his placard was stationary, it was no reason that he should be him; and exclaiming to the police, "MEE, MEE-in MEE convertite telum," left the National Convention to its fate, with the sole regret that he did not insist on his shillings before operations com On the whole, the world of politics might take a useful lesson menced. REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. Characteristics of Goethe. From the German of Falk, Von Muller, &c., with Notes, original and translated, illustrative of German Literature. By Sarah Austin. Three Vols. London, 1833. Wilson. [Unpublished.] Heidelberg; I think he could not be much above nineteen. He assured me, in perfect earnest, that his opinions were all made up; and that, as he knew what he was about, he was determined henceforward to read as little as possible, and to endeavour to develope his views of human life, uuaided, by his own observations on society, without suffering himself to be diverted or hindered by the "About this same time an amateur theatre was opened at WHATEVER opinion may be formed of his merits, it will talk, the books, or the pamphlets of others. That's a glorious bescarcely be denied that Goethe was one of the most ex-ginning! When a man starts from zero, his progress must needs be striking!'" traordinary men of his time. His mind was of a perfectly original cast, its character exhibiting little affinity At one period of his life Goethe entered deeply into with any other to which the history of literature intro-Private theatricals. Most amateur companies meet with duces us. It was not marked by the peculiarities of the strange accidents, and that of Goethe was not exempt period in which he lived; and, in the most brilliant age of from them. The following is an instance. German literature, he seems to have caught little or nothing of the spirit of his great contemporaries. His Weimar, in which Goethe, Corona Schroeter, Bertuch, Von Einsiedel, and others, took the most lively and active interest. On one occagenius was altogether averse to metaphysics; he had a sion, the Jealous Husband (Der Eifersuchtige Ehemann,) was decided repugnance to the super-sensual, and his philo-played; the part of the lover was allotted to Herr von Einsiedel. sophy was that of experience. This remarkable dissimi- Unfortunately, however, just before the time of performance, he larity from the eminent men who surrounded him is, of was attacked by a sudden indisposition. The parts could not be course, the subject of frequent remark in the work before recast at so short a notice, and, to the great disappointment of all us, as in the following passage, relating to the difference the party, the whole thing was at a stand. between Herder and Goethe. "As the difference between him and Herder was a serious one, even the extraordinary qualities which distinguished both rendered a reconciliation impossible. With Herder, all forms became ideas; nay, he soon reduced even all historic facts into Ideas, towards a history of the human race.' On the contrary, in Goethe, all ideas became transmuted into forms. He would have liked, as we have seen above, to renounce the imperfect medium of language; to speak, like nature, in symbols, and to throw his whole imagination, with the vividness and reality of sense, into the existence of a flower or a star." "At this juncture, a bold Saxon Rittmeister (chef d'escadron), offered to undertake the part. On the third day he went to Herr more dashing and good-natured than skilled in such matters, von Einsiedel, and asked him to hear him recite it. It promised to go off tolerably, especially as they could reckon on a good prompter; but, when it came to the performance, the result was very different, and the enterprising Rittmeister was in the greatest perplexity. He looked as red and hot as if he were charging at the head of his squadron of hussars, and were just going to hew down an enemy: however, he recovered himself a little, and went on with his part till the scene in which he is surprised with his mistress by the jealous husband, and stabbed with a dagger. Here he suddenly forgot the catch-word, stammered and blundered, over and over, while Bertuch, who played the jealous husband, and had been waiting a long time behind the scenes, dagger in haud, could not come on. The Rittmeister now began the part again, when suddenly We have not time this week to take our proposed view of Goethe's character and genius; we shall therefore make few extracts from these interesting volumes, and for the present reserve our critical opinion. Have our readers any curiosity about Goethe's Wal-Bertuch, by the advice of Goethe, who superintended the whole, purgis Sack? If they had ever had the management of rushed on the stage, and tried to put an end, ex abrupto, to the life a periodical, they would not be ignorant of its use and lutely would not fall. In vain did Bertucli repeatedly shout into importance. But Goethe shall speak for himself. his ear, Devil take you, fall then!' He did not move from the "Pardon me,' interrupted I, you spoke just now of a Wal-spot, but remained standing as stiff as a post, perfectly erect, by the purgis sack. This is the first word I ever heard fall from your lips side of his beloved, reiterating his assurances to the bystanders, who on the subject. May I know what that is?' "The Walpurgis sack,' auswered Goethe, assuming the stern solemnity of an infernal judge, is a sort of infernal pocket, case, bag, or whatever you like to call it, originally destined for the reception of certain poems which had a near connection with the witch scenes in Faust, if not with Blocksberg itself. As often happens, its destination expanded itself; just as hell had at first but one apartment, but afterwards had limbo and purgatory added to it, as wings. Every bit of paper that falls into my Walpurgis sack falls into hell; and out of hell, as yon know, is no deliverance. Nay, if I were to take it into my head (and I am not ill inclined for it today) to seize myself by the forelock, and throw myself into the Walpurgis sack-by my faith! what's in is in, and can never get out, even were it my own self. So rigorous, I would have you know, am I about my Walpurgis sack, and the infernal constitution I have granted to it. In it burns an unquenchable purifying fire, which, when it seizes its prey, spares neither friend or foe. I, at least, would not advise any body to go very near it. I am afraid of it myself.'" Our elders are frequently complaining that the youth of the present day are very different to those of the bygone times-forward, self-sufficient, and headstrong. As, in these times, it must be a curiosity, we have great pleasure in extracting the portrait of a modest young man. “‘I had a visit lately from a young man who was just from of his unhappy rival by a vigorous thrust; but the Rittmeister abso · were conjuring him to fail, that he had not yet got to the word. In this state of things, equally distressing to the manager and to the other performers, the former took a heroic resolution, and called out with a thundering voice from behind the scenes, If he will not fall in front, stab him in the rear; we must get rid of him in one way or other; he'll ruin the whole play. At this decisive appeal, Bertuch, who was then a very energetic person, though now become somewhat feeble and indecisive, manned himself. Die!' cried he, with a terrific voice; and at the same instant aimed such an emphatic blow at his antagonist, that he was completely thrown off his guard by this manœuvre in flank, and fell to the ground. At the same instant, four sturdy scene-shifters were sent on the stage by Goethe, with positive orders to drag the dead man off, whether he would or not. This was faithfully executed; and, to the extreme joy of the spectators, the performance went on without interruption." For a specimen of imperturbable coolness, commend us to one of Goethe's countrymen, Klinger by name. "Klinger, as is well known, was Goethe's countryman. A friend of mine, with whom I was once talking about him, his writings, he was made general, told me that one morning Klinger went to Goethe, took a large packet of manuscript out of his pocket, and began to read aloud. Goethe bore it for a time; but at length he sprang from his seat, exclaiming, What cursed stuff is this you have been writing again? The devil may bear it if he can!' and his residence in Weimar, and his departure for Petersburg, where ran away. This, however, did not in the least degree disconcert Klinger, nor disturb his equanimity; he rose quietly, put his manuscript in his pocket, aud merely said, 'Curious! this is the second man with whom this has happened to me today!' Wieland declared that, if it had been his case, he should have found it difficult to preserve such composure. Goethe replied, 'So should I. But, the very thing that proves Klinger to have been born to be a general is, that he has such confounded coolness and assurance. have often predicted it in former times.'" I and other people's, and hatches them with infinite patience; but to whom it sometimes happens to have a chalk egg put under her instead of a real one; a trick at which she takes no offence. "That is either Goethe or the devil,' cried I to Wieland, who sat opposite to me at the table. Both,' replied he; he has the devil in him again today; and then he is like a wanton colt, that flings out before and behind, and you do well not to go too near him.' "Gleim used to dwell with uncommon glee on this escapade f Goethe's, as did Wieland, from whose mouth I heard and collected the chief features of the story, as I have just related it. From these specimens, our readers will probably become anxious to read these volumes as soon as they are published. In the meantime, we shall return to them in our next number. During a great part of his life, Goethe knew little recreation, except a change of one mode of exerting the mind for another. Not only were his acquirements multifarious, but his facility of composition must have been very great. He appears, among his other accomplishments, to have possessed extraordinary powers of improvisation. The following anecdote is given on the Eben Erskine; or The Traveller. By John Galt, Esq. Author of authority of Gleim, distinguished by his popular songs, and his exertions to restrain the overwhelming torrent of the French revolution. ་ "Shortly after Goethe had written his Werther,' said the venerable Gleim to me, one day, 'I came to Weimar, and wished to know him. I had brought with me the last Gottingen MuseuAlmanack as a literary novelty, and read here and there a piece to the company in which I was passing the evening. While I was reading, a young man, booted and spurred, in a short green shooting jacket thrown open, had come in, and mingled with my audience. I had scarcely remarked his entrance. He sat down opposite to me, and listened very attentively. I scarcely knew what there was about him that struck me particularly, except a pair of brilliant black Italian eyes; but it was decreed that I should know more of him. "The Ayrshire Legatees, Lawrie Todd, Stanley Buxton, &c." 3 Vols. London: 1833. Bentley. LADY SLIPSLOP, when she receives this work from the library, will most likely yawn over the first chapter, and never have courage to attempt the second. The butchers' ladies in Whitechapel will be disappointed with it, for it does not say a word about Almack's, or the fashionable world. In truth, it would be difficult to give the precise character of this work: it is an essay on metaphysics, rather than a narrative of adventures,--a very masterly and delicate sketch of some minute yet pleasing shades of human character, which no man of our time, except Goethe, perhaps, could have imagined or pourtrayed with the felicity of Mr. Galt. "During a short pause, in which some gentlemen and ladies Mr. Bulwer and Mr. D'Israeli, in the romances with were discussing the merits of the pieces I had read, lauding some, which they have favored the world, have been pleased to and censuring others, the gallant young sportsman (for such I took give us only so many volumes of comment on one indihim to be,) arose from his chair, and, bowing with a most courte-vidual character. Thus, the trifling dandy, Pelham, is the ons and ingratiating air to me, offered to relieve me from time to time in reading aloud, lest I should be tried. I could do no less than accept so polite an offer, and immediately handed him the book. But, oh! Apollo and all ye Muses, not forgetting the Graces, what was I then to hear! At first, indeed, things went on smoothly enough. Die Zephyr'n lauschten Die Sonne Verbreitet ihre Licht mit Wonne. vapid philosopher, Devereux; and the young Duke, he of the velvet shoes and mother-of-pearl buckles, is no other than the ranting, rhyming Alroy. As for the startling incidents and characters which these writers employ, they require no great stretch of genius to imagine or depict: it is easy to pourtray these prominent rocks and gaudy foregrounds of the poetical landscape; but the faint tints and shadows-the delicate distances, demand more skill and labour, though they are neither seen nor appreciated so much. It is in these homely and quiet descriptions that Mr. Galt has always excelled. In the All at once, however, it was as if some wild and wanton devil novel before us he has taken a higher range than has had taken possession of the young reader; and I thought I saw the been his wont; and if he have not, from the very nature Wild Huntsman bodily before me. He read poems that had no existence in the Almanack; he broke out into all possible modes of the work, succeeded in making it as amusing as others and dialects. Hexameters, iambics, doggrel verses, one after an- from his pen, he has taken on himself an infinitely more other, or blended in strange confusion, came tumbling out in tor-difficult task, and performed it with wonderful truth, feeling, and delicacy. The somewhat more solid substantial fare of Voss, Leopold Stolberg, and Bürger, too, were delivered in such a manner that no one had any reason to complain. rents. "What wild and humourous fantasies did he not combine that evening! Amidst them, came such noble magnificent thoughts, thrown in, detached and flitting, that the authors to whom he ascribed them must have thanked God on their knees if they had fallen upon their desks. The first chapter is a very sweet and touching pro logue to the work. It contains so much natural humour and pathos, that we cannot refrain from quoting the whole of it. 66 "As soon as the joke was discovered, a universal merriment My father had been for many years borough-treasurer of spread through the room. He put every body present out of coun- Auchtercloots, and it was not until rather too well stricken in tenance in one way or another. Even my Mecenasship, which I had years that he married my mother. I was their only child, but the always regarded it as a sort of duty to exercise towards young au-old man did not long survive my birth, indeed I have no rememthors, poets, and artists, had its turn. Though he praised it highly on the one side, he did not forget to insinuate, on the other, that I claimed a sort of property in the individuals to whom I had afforded support and countenance. In a little fable, composed extempore in doggrel verses, he likened me, wittily enough, to a worthy and most enduring turkey-hen, that sits on a great heap of eggs of her own brance of him. I have always, however, heard him described as a gash long-headed carle, with just so much pawkie humour as showed that he knew the weak side of the baillies aud councellors, and had discretion enough to conceal his knowledge. My mother, before her marriage, had been long known in the town as Miss Jenny Seam; she was by profession a mantua-maker, and was the daughter of the famous Provost Seam, in whose reign a tremendous | lessness of the poor old woman, as she sat in the elbow-chair meal-mob burned the Tolbooth and the clerk's chamber, and by the fire-side, never molested her equanimity. Once only I recolcreated such an era in the history of the borough as never was heard of before. He died when she was a young lady, and in such meagre circumstances, that it was deemed advisable to have her taught a business. "Whether it was the want of riches, or some other worldly shortcoming, that hung about her mother and herself, I cannot undertake to say; but I have heard her tell that she was forty-two years of age before James Erskine, my father, made up to her, always adding, however, when she said this, I was not always so neglected. There undoubtedly were some striking peculiarities about this excellent lady, and many of them still flourish in my remembrance; she had withal such a stock of kind and gentle qualities, that at one time, I think, it would have been difficult for an orator with the eloquence of St. Paul to have persuaded me that she was not the loveliest of womankind; and I am sure that, even now, a greater would not convince me that in goodness she had a superior. "On the death of my father, who left her, even for her degree, in very straitened circumstances, she resumed her business, with which, and about eighteen pounds a year, she supported not only herself, but her mother, who was blind and infirm, and brought me up as became Provost Seams grandson, adding, in the fear of the Lord and the Christian religion. lect her saying softly, with a tear in her eye, little thinking her words were heeded, that it was a blessing that her mother was blind, and could not see their poverty, so much did the mind of the unhappy invalid run, in its paralytic frivolity, on the plenty that she had been accustomed to in her own house. "It was necessary to my mother's little affairs that we should have a servant: this was an orphan lassie, between ten and twelve years of age. Never was such perfect propriety seen embodied as in the quiet and methodical Mary. My mother herself had been her chief instructress, and a docile nature made all her lessons take complete effect. "As our household required but little service, Mary was commonly employed in assisting her mistress, and the young ladies that came from time to time to take lessons in dress-making; but she had three special objects of care, a linnet in a cage, a geranium in a flower-pot, and a cat that meditated all day long with the most philosophic composure at grandmama's hem, save when the blind lady happened with her foot to disconcert the cogitations of grimalkin. Three things could not be more strictly attended to than were these; but the utmost attention will not always be sufficient to insure security. One day, in cleaning the linnet, something drew aside the attention of Mary, and, to her utter consternation, the perfidious cat seized the bird. My mother, in the hubbub_to rescue it, threw down and broke the flower and flower-pot; while my grandmother, unable to conceive the cause of the dissonance, took it into her head that a spark from the grate had set her clothes on fire, and screamed in her terror at the utmost pitch of her "Our house was a respectable old mansion, (belonging to my grandmother, part of her tocher,) which had long seen the best of its days, but it had an air of gentility, that accorded with the traditions of my mother and her own; for, though feeble, old, and poor, she lived there in so much consideration with the town, that we were still esteemed as belonging to the most respectable voice." class of the inhabitants. Once a year my mother gave a solemn This is quite as delicate and true to nature as the tea-drinking to the select of the borough, together with the mi-opening to Wilhelm Meister, and is infinitely supenister, the master of the grammar-school, and Mr. Gauge, the rior to it in moral and pathetic effect. The hero of excise officer. On one occasion, which I well remember, we had the honour of entertaining no less a personage than Mr. Goul, who had, during the provostry of my grandfather, been the member for the district of boroughs to which Auchtercloots belonged. He happened to be passing through the town, where, as he was become an old man, he resolved to stop for the night; and, hearing at the inn that my grandmother was still alive, he sent to offer himself to take tea with her for auld lang syne. This was a great occasion; the minister and his consort were invited, likewise the provost and his better-half: a farl of short bread was sent as a present to my grandmother, to enhance the entertainment, by old Robert Dough the baker; and the minister's wife came a little earlier than the hour, and brought, in her own hand, in her black satin muff, a teacupful of marmalade. This avatar was a subject of exultation for many years afterwards; even when I left home it was still cherished with unfaded recollections, and the minister was said never to have been suspected of being so learned and jocose as he appeared to be on that evening. It was indeed the milliare aureum of time, and all things in my mother's chronicle were subsequently measured from that era. But though there was undoubtedly some good-humoured infirmity in my mother's reverence for those she deemed the great, it was but as a grain of sediment in the purity of her benevolence, in itself as boundless as the ocean. She was indeed one of those characters which Nature sometimes errs in creating, by withholding from them the means of gratification that should always accompany their feeling and delicacy. She was truly the kindest and most charitable of her kind; and I still recollect, with something of an exquisite anguish, her cheerfulness over content, after having reserved her tea for a needy widow, who had not recovered from the shock she had received by the loss of her bread-winner. There is no describing, however, the management with which my mother made penury comfortable; though not the first discoverer of the art of making coffee of beans, she long preceded Mr. Hunt in the application of that economical invention. The patience, however, with which she endured the peevishness of her aged and blind parent, was the constant halo that environed her character; the fretful humour and help • Hot water, milk, and sugar. the story proceeds, after a chapter or two, to accompany a gentleman on his travels. Major Verdure, whose peculiar feelings and history occupy the greater part of the novel, has been deserted by his wife; and hence the sorrows and the sufferings which Mr. Galt delineates. Before the Major quits England, the lady solicits and obtains, husband. The scene is thus given. through Eben Erskine, an interview with her injured "When we arrived at the hotel, the waiter showed us into an apartment where Lady Duncastle was sitting alone. She rose at our entrance, and received the major, her former husband, with the calmness and formality of a stranger. She took no notice whatever of me. "Her appearance was impressive and solemn, but less agitated than that of the major, who, without evincing any unmanly weakness, was deeply affected: he changed colour at the first sight, as if he had been pierced with the shoot of a sudden pang. "When we were seated, her ladyship spoke first. I was not only a listener, but a marveller; for her mauner made her seem as if of a superior sex to man. "I doubt, Major Verdure,' said she, if, in seeking this interview, I have done wisely; and yet my knowledge of your character is some assurance to me that it is not altogether a mere woman's caprice. I am a mother-' "She paused, for a rush of emotion interrupted her speech. "No one,' said she, resuming, can be more sensible of the predicament in which I stand before the world than I am myself; no mother ever more keenly felt the consequences of her conduct to her child. But, before I go further, it is necessary that I should explain to you why I ventured to exercise a parent's natural right, in requesting my daughter to come to me in town, without giving her time to consult you.' "Madam, you may spare yourself the trouble,' replied the major; my sister has informed me of the urgent manner in which you requested to see Eleanor before you went abroad; and, to save unnecessary explanation on that point, it may be some satisfaction to you to know, that, could I have been consulted, I would not |