have been the first to despise. Even the American could see that the "remark was cold." He breakfasted with Sir Walter next morning, and found him in a silk douillette, which he had just purchased, "trying as hard as he could," as he pleasantly observed, "to make a Frenchman of himself." "He did not appear to be pleased with Paris. He went to the Princess's evening party. As a matter of course, all the French women were exceedingly empressées in their manner to the Great Unknown. And, as there were three or four very exaggerated on the score of romance, he was quite . lucky if he escaped some absurdities. Nothing could be more patient than his manner under it all; but as soon as he well could, he got into a corner, where I went to speak to him. He said, laughingly, that he spoke French with so much difficulty, he was embarrassed to answer their compliments. I am as good a lion as needs be, allowing my mane to be stroked as familiarly as they please, but I can't growl for them in French."" French compliments have, in no age, been good for much, and the story which Cooper told of himself, though by no means a bad one, could have been but little required for so keen an observer of the ways of men, and women too, as Sir Walter. "Pointing out a Countess in the party, I told him, that having met this lady once a week, at least, for several months, she invariably sailed up to me with the words- Oh Monsieur, quels livres!. -vos charmans livres que vos livres sont charmans!' I had just made up my mind that she was a woman of taste, when, one evening, she approached me, with the utmost sang froid, and said, Bon soir, Monsieur. Je viens d'acheter tous vos livres ; et je compte profiter de la première occasion pour les lire!"" Whether this story cured Sir Walter's vanity, or whether he had any to cure, there was no further time to ascertain. He left Paris next morning. ODE TO THE MEMORY OF CELLINI, THE FAMOUS CHASER, COINER, CARVER, AND SWORDSMAN. Benvenuto Cellini was one of the most singular men of a singular time. He was a Florentine, the son of a musician of the Court, and born in the At first year of the 16th century. His father had some talent for sculpturing in ivory, and his son suddenly exhibited strong symptoms of following his taste. He learned music with the idea of adopting it as a profession; but at the age of fifteen he determined to follow his more powerful propensity, and was bound apprentice to a goldsmithin those days, a dealer in antiquated matters of taste of all kinds, as well as in works of gold and jewellery. length, he tried his fortune at Rome, where his skill in the arts made him a favourite with the Pope, Clement VII. The Pope was besieged, in 1527, by the celebrated Constable of Bourbon; and Cellini became an engineer, defended the Castle of St Angelo, and boasted of having fired the gun which killed the Constable in the assault. He then took charge of the Roman mint, and distinguished himself by the beauty of his coinage. Weary of Rome, and, by the death of Clement, a favourite no longer, he made his way back to his native city, and there also superintended the mint. His restless mind took him to France, in the showy days of Francis I.; from France he hurried back to Rome-a luckless return, for he was charged with having plundered the papal treasures during the war, was thrown into prison in the castle which he had defended, and kept there for some years. The rest of his life was spent between France and Florence, and in designing works of every size, in various materials, and on the alternate subjects of the Christian History and the Heathen mythologies. His skill was held in the highest estimation; his carvings in ivory, gold, silver, and marble were kept in the cabinets of cardinals and princes, and he was not less remarkable too for his designs in enamelling and inlaying the costly coats of armour worn at the time. The cuirass which Henry II. of France wore when he was killed in the tournament was one of his works, and exhibits to this moment evidence of the richness, variety, and elegance of his invention. With all this taste and devotedness to the arts, Cellini had the fervour, or the fury of Italian passions. He fell furiously in love from time to time, and had no hesitation in fighting, stabbing, or perhaps poisoning his rivals. Those were the manners of the age. He thus threw himself frequently into the utmost hazard of retaliation by the dagger, or seizure by public justice. But he always found refuge in the laxity of the laws, or the vicious lenity of the priestly government which provides an asylum for every assassin, and an absolution for every crime. At length, after 70 years of casualty and celebrity, of popular fear and kingly favour, of general contumely and European fame, this eccentric and extraordinary son of genius expired at Florence, and was honoured with a pompous burial in the Church of the Nunziata. ODE. Striker of medals and of men, In that fierce age When striking was the rage, And Rome the lion's den; And thou didst cut with chisel, sword and pen, What golden hours were thine, What dreams divine? Beneath the blue Italian skies Stamping the die that never dies. Hail to thee, carver bold, Wrapt in the Papal mantle's fold; Now monk, now warrior, always knave, Sage, madman, bandit, soldier, slave; Now deep in all art's deepest mysteries, Bidding the shapes of beauty round thee rise; Apollos, shedding round their living beams, Hebes, with cheeks like morning's rosy gleams. Nymphs, soft and fresh as their own crystal springs, Cupids, with bows of flame and purple wings, All clustering round thy shrine, Like spirits round the master of the mine. Then would the fit come on thee, and the steel Around thy rival's heart or head would wheel, Leaving thy gold unchased, to chase the foe. Then, touch'd by mighty love, All songs and sonnets, tears and sighs, never puts his pen to paper without "writing himself down an ass." Just twelvemonths ago, this person was a declared antagonist of O'Connell, and for fear his wrath should be unknown, wrote a letter to the Times, containing, among a tissue of ramblings, the following expressions: It is true, that I described Mr O'Connell as the greatest enemy of liberty. I lament that any act of Lord Melbourne's Administration should give the least cause for public suspicion, that it has ever been connected with Mr O'Connell. The changing, and continually insulting conduct of that individual, makes it extremely unpleasant to be considered in alliance with him. But I must beg you to believe that, with the utmost detestation of his voluntary mission of unconstitutional agitation, I have an unchanged conviction that on the continuance of the Government," &c. Poor Mr Beaumont has now come north-about, growls before the Agitator, and takes the short way to his heart by subscribing a few pounds to the Rent. Whe ther O'Connell's heart or his manners have exhibited peculiar captivations within the year, we may judge by the annexed specimen of his exhortation to peace, good order, and brotherly love, at the late assemblage of his Papist accomplices at Carlow. The subject evidently brings out all his Raphael still sticks in his The utter cutting off of the two joints of his tail there by Colonel Bruen and Mr Kavanagh, rankles in his venomous soul. He thus plays "the peaceful Agitator." venom. throat. "Boys, the name I call your enemies, do you call every friend of theirs you meet in the streets. Girls and women, when you meet the Bruenites, spit on them, spit in their faces, particularly if they are Catholic Conservatives. Write traitor on their doors with chalk, and tell your friends at home to do the same! You, who are wives of the Catholic electors, if your husbands do not vote for their religion, bless yourselves, and then swear on your prayer-books to separate from your husbands if they do not obey your commands! You who are their daughters, I tell you, if your fathers vote against you, spit in their faces, and call them the names I taught the boys to call them! I will send you two Reformers for your county honest Vigors and Ashton Yeates of London, who with Mr Hume sent me L.9000 to defray my expenses in Dublin. Did you hear of the Longford election? Well, I will tell you about Mrs Prunty, whose husband was taken away by that lick-spittle, swaddling fellow, Lefroy. She followed him to the hustings, dragged her husband off the table, and made him vote for White and the people, and by so doing saved his soul from damnation! (Cheers). Will you, women and girls, do the same? Mark every house where the owner opposes you. Don't you recollect 1798, when the bloody yeomanry, hid under the beds, and when the army entered the streets, they ran from their hidingplaces and butchered the people! I tell you, if the Tories come into power they will do the same." This language is quoted in the public papers, and has been undenied. But to what does it urge the passions of the furious and bigoted peasantry of Ireland? Neighbours are to spit in each other's faces, children in their father's faces. Wives are to separate from their husbands, and it is only by dragging them from the hustings, and making them vote for O'Connell, that the souls of those husbands, and of course of every body else who votes against him, can be saved from eternal fire. It is almost impossible to conceive that such language could have been uttered by any man. Let Mr Grote talk of intimidation now. What intimidation was ever equal to this? How long would the unfortunate person, thus anathematized and devoted to destruction, be suffered to live by the blood-thirsty rabble, to whom murder is already a sport and a trade? Yet we have the words published before our eyes (Times, January 30). Where are the laws? Could Satan, if he ap. peared in the human shape, utter fouler or fiercer abomination? The French are furious at the King's demands on them for the provision of his princes and princesses. Unquestionably it seems astonishing that an individual of his sagacity, who knows the slippery state of his throne, who has had sufficient reason to feel the precarious nature of his personal existence, and who is, besides, the possessor of the largest private income of any sovereign of Europe, that income being said to amount to the vast sum of a million two hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds sterling a-year! should give an opportunity to the lurking bitterness of France to turn him into such open scorn. One of the papers, a little, odd, witty, and, it must be acknowledged, now and then wicked journal, thus gives the public opinion in the shape of "Le Charivari. "A million, if you please!” "Any person found begging shall be punished by an imprisonment of from two months to three years, and at the expiration of the time conducted to the mendicity depot.'-(Article 427 of the Penal Code). "What we treated in our former number as a mere hypothesis is unluckily true. M. Molé has gone to the Chambers, and said, 'A million for the Queen of the Belgians, if you please!-500,000 francs a-year for the Duc de Nemours, if you please!' "Policeman, do your duty, take this beggar into custody. Have you forgotten the mendicity laws? "What! 500,000 francs a-year for the Duc de Nemours! And by what right, we should like to know? Because the prince has just entered on his oneand-twentieth year! Thus, accordingly, as the remaining younger branches of the Orleans family shall attain their majority, we shall be saddled with more hundred thousand franes a-year! Heaven be praised, this was not in the programme of July, 1830-it is not even to be found in the charter of 1836! "But, says M. Molé, the Duc de Nemours is a general, and he has been adopted, as well as his brother, by the army. Adopted! bless my soul! We have a poor nation, with very broad shoulders, for she adopts every thing that great folks wish her to adopt. Under the empire she adopted the King of Rome! In 1814 she adopted Wellington and the Cossacks! At a later period she was so good as to adopt Henri Dieudonné! and we see her now adopting the Duc d'Orleans, the Duc de Nemours, and so many others! As soon as these princes shall have children (from which visitation Heaven preserve us, as such princes will cost a million ahead!) France will, of course, adopt these infants. Go on, my lads, use no ceremony. Get as many children as you like. Increase and multiply. Do not mind the expense. You have France at your back, and she will be quite delighted to adopt your entire progeny." All this is unfortunate in the unsettled state of France. Public opinion is now keen in watching the private habits of kings. It expects generosity, dignity of mind, and self-control among those who are appointed to fill the high stations of the world. Louis Philippe's only weakness, at all times, seems to have been a passion for money; yet what is the amassing of money to a king, all whose wants are provided for by his position? And what can compensate a fallen king for the loss of his throne? A few acts of generosity, an avoidance of pressure on the public means, and the wise measure of making his giddy boys live on the pay of their various employments, and subsisting his daughters, as every private gentleman subsists them, out of his own immense income, would do him more good as a king than turning them all into state paupers, at the rate of a million apiece for every idler of his line, and do him more honour too. A fierce war is now raging between the Cathedral Chapters and the Bishop Commissioners for their revision. Sidney Smith has thrown all his wrath, wit, and Whiggery into a pamphlet, and he tosses and gores my Lords the Commissioners with the whole might of his prebendal horns. Without going into the merits of the dispute the wrath of the Whig prebendary is excessively amusing. There never was a happier instance of what a genuine Whig is. Sidney Smith has been notorious for the last thirty years as the most persevering, peevish, sneering, and noisy clamourer for spoliation of all kinds. The word reform, no matter of what, acted on him as a dose of laudanum on a regular opium-eater— roused him out of his lassitude, threw new life into his rotundity, and set him dancing, jesting, speechmaking, and romancing before all mankind. He declaimed, scribbled, growled, and joked for the Catholic Question. He wrote two articles on the heels of each other in the Edinburgh Review, to give reform in 1831 a push beyond the reserve of Lord Grey, or the bold ness of Lord Brougham, for which the latter Lord, in his easy way, called him "a confounded, troublesome, meddling priest." France, Poland, South America, Ireland, every part of the globe where a revolution gave sign of what the people could do, and the Government could not, were taken under his comprehensive wing. Siberia and Melville Island narrowly escaped. All this went on prodigiously to the taste of the reverend regenerator. In the mean time, the coming of his party into power gave him what, with all his love for Reform, he felt a very satisfactory style of applying the church revenues, and received a prebend in St Paul's-a comfortable sinecure, said to be worth about L.2200 a-year; with the reversion of a living, estimated at something more than a thousand! This certainly was handsome payment for his services; and no one can blame him for taking it, if others could be prevailed on to give it. But now the Cathedral Commissioners, having begun their work of Reform, propose to take away some of his patronage. His whole man is instantly up in arms. "What injustice, what outrage, what infamy!" the Whig exclaims. "Am I to be robbed? No-not all the Commissioners, Bishops, and Cabinet Ministers of the earth, Whig or not Whig, shall touch an inch of my patronage. What! if I am for Reform, does that imply that I meant to be reformed? What! if I have for thirty years written against sinecurists, lazy prebendaries, and velvet-lined stalls for fat parsons to fall asleep in, can any man in his senses suppose that I ever meant this to apply to myself? I have been a Whig from my college days, and a Whig while some of the loudest of the tribe now were waverers and Tories. But does any man of common understanding think that then or now I would not take all I could get, and keep all I got? Not a shilling shall my Lord Commissioners ever wring from me." This is all capital. The Whig has found out, at last, that the application of the plunder principle, though pleasant in the case of others, may be extremely awkward when it comes to one's own. The wolf is hit, and he howls against violence. The prebend has been all his life making the machine in which he is caught, and he is indignant at this parricidal use of his darling invention. Perillus was not more justly tossed into his brazen bull, nor roared more loudly at his own roasting. The whole is in the style of Colonel Oldboy, who provides a postchaise for a runaway pair, and on its being discovered that his daughter was one of the parties, and doubly furious at his own help to the elopement, cries out, "Confound the rascal! I thought the postchaise was to carry off another gentleman's daughter!" Of course, such sorrows are only laughable-"'Tis the sport to see the engineer hoist with his own petard." Having built the pillory with his own hands, he must abide the missive eggs. But, forgetting the farce of his agonies, we may still be diverted by the oddity of his book. We give one fragment on the spoliation, which now bows down his prebendal soul even unto the latchet of his shoes : "I met, the other day, in an old Dutch chronicle, with a passage so apposite to this subject, that though it is somewhat too light for the occasion, I cannot abstain from quoting it. There was a great meeting of all the clergy in Dordrecht, and the chronicler thus describes it, which I give in the language of the translation : "And there was good store of bishops in the town, in their robes goodly to behold. And all the great men of the State were there, and folks poured in in boats, on the Meuse, the Merve, the Rhine, and the Linge, coming from the isle of Beverlandt and Isselmond, Arminians and Gomarists, with the friends of John Barneveldt and of Hugh Grote. And before my Lords the Bishops, Simon of Gloucester, who was a bishop in those parts, disputed with Vorstius and Leoline the monk, and many texts of Scripture were bandied to and fro. And when this was done, and many preparations made, and it waxed towards twelve of the clock, my Lords the Bishops prepared to set them down to a fair repast, in which was great store of good things; and, among the rest, a roasted peacock, having, in lieu of a tail, the arms and banners of the Archbishop, which was a goodly sight to all who favoured the church. And then the Archbishop would say a grace, as was seemly to do, he being a very holy man. |