Swear, that like Marcus Curtius, you would leap into the gulf to save it!-that, like Publius Horatius Cocles, you would defend the bridge, no matter whether Westminster or Waterloo, against another Porsennathat, in fact, like Mutius Claudius Scævola, you would lay your right hand on the glowing embers, to convince an invader of the intrepidity of the foes whom he dared to attack. Talk of making a speech! After that

Ye little stars, hide your diminished heads.

When, then, you do want a touch of true oratory, come to me; and if I do not give it you 'in King Ercles' vein,' I will in little BEN'S."

"All that is wonderfully fine, Sophy-I may say magnificent; but could you not contrive to neatly dovetail it into my original matter? for, to tell you the truth, I should not like to lose my labour."

No, David, no, ce n'est pas possible; your labour is like another that I wot of Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus.' You ramble so from the starting-point, there is no congruity maintained from your premises to your sequence; you commence with generalities respecting the universal prodigality of all classes, and then, lo! without that gradual introduction, that necessary preliminary which prepares the mind for individuality, you empty the seventh vial of your wrath upon us poor unprotected females. Fie upon you! fie upon you! You, the husband of a poetess, and a pretty woman too! What will Mrs. Grundy say to such a want of gallantry? Why, that

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

"Well, then, draw me up a little taking speech in your own peculiar manner. I am indifferent upon what subject, having discovered that I can speak fluently and eloquently, and that without having had to practise, like Demosthenes, by the sea-shore with a pebble in my mouth to correct a natural impediment of articulation."

"Well, if you promise never again to be guilty of the heinous heresy of asserting that women, like the sons of Levi, take too much upon themselves, I will write something that shall make every individual hair of the president's wig to stand on end

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine."

"I promise, Sophia."

"Mind then, David, that I have not to say, by your violation of it,

And be this juggling fiend no more believ❜d,

That patters with us in a double sense;

That keeps the word of promise to our ear,
And breaks it to our hope.

But, bless me! the iron tongue of mid-day hath tolled twelve. How am I squandering the sole portion of time I can call my own-the precious present! how am I forgetting the

the

Be wise to-day, 'tis madness to defer!

Procrastination is the thief of time

The gay to-morrow of the mind, which never comes,

and the mille et une other prophetic hints pregnant with warning to the dilatory and the desultory. The age, David, stirred as with an electrical shock, keeps moving; and we must be stirring as the times, we must go

ahead with events. Modesty must lay aside her veil, and apathy must quit his pillow; the very stones must prate of our whereabouts;' young men must see visions, and young maids must dream dreams;' and all must facilitate the march of intellect, now striding through the length and breadth of the land in its no longer fabulous seven-league boots. Oh, my, David! if I am not positively overcome with the grandeur of my own conceptions!"

"And I am quite out of breath with listening to the gigantic sketch of your vivid and fertile imagination, Sophy. Put that last idea into my speech by way of a climax."

"Yes; but leave me now to collect my thoughts, to` dive into the well of truth, and to draw up from its deeper depth that startling fact which shall astound the world."

Mr. Watson silently obeyed the inspired Pythia of his domestic Delphos, betaking him to his meditations and his cigar, and Mrs. Watson, as soon as the door closed on him, to her desk, to concoct that peroration which in the evening did indeed astonish the president and the members of the Narcotic Club.

II.

Is't not enough plagues, wars, and famines rise
To lash our crimes, but must our wives be wise?

YOUNG'S Love of Fame.

"Now, Martha, I must have the house cleaned thoroughly from attic to cellar; for, with my own peculiarly kind and considerate friends I am obliged to blend some odiously spiteful wretches, who pry into every hole and corner to detect any trifling oversight, that they may have the malicious pleasure of protesting that I neglect my domestic affairs for the sake of pursuing a fugitive celebrity which I shall never overtake. Alas! alas! it is the curse of excellence to be so maligned!"

"But how can the house be cleaner, ma'am ?"

"How? Very easily! A house, Martha, is like a book, always open to revision and improvement. And, Thomas, you must be on the alert too! Why, you are yawning already; one would suppose that you were sleepy."

"So I am, maʼam; only three or four hours bed last night."

"And how many would you have, pray? You've heard of the great John Wesley, I dare say ?"

"No, ma'am, I haven't. I've heard of the great Dan Lambert-the great Dan O'Connell, but I never

"Oh! how torturing to a sensitive and cultivated mind is this unlettered ignorance! I mean great in mental, not physical magnitude, idiot! great in subduing the vulgar claims of nature great in despising the discovery of him on whom the gross and sensual Squire of the mad Don Quixote would have bestowed a patent, the inventor of sleep-he never indulged in more than three hours-which only shows, that with a slight effort it might be dispensed with altogether, for, although Shakspeare does laud it to the skies, he was obliged to admit that it was too common to visit the eyelids of kings, preferring those of a horrid rude cabin-boy. And Young declares that it is nature's sweet restorer, which

certainly implies the more animal part of creation, such as pigs, poultry, and ploughmen-not for the superior and soul-soaring beings who do understand the moral economy of time-who do comprehend the occult signification concealed in the apparently frivolous assertion

That the best of all ways

To lengthen our days

Is to steal a few hours from night;

which, I have no doubt, was practised by the patriarchs. But what on earth are you standing idling there, both of you?"

I thought that you meant me and Martha to stay and hear you out, ma'am."

"Not at all-not at all! How could either of you discern the sublimity of the ratiocination—the astute and intricate concatenation of my soliloquy ?"

"Very true, ma'am-how could we indeed ?"

"Martha, the very first and most essential quality in a servant is never to answer a question, but to remain awfully dumb through respect before her mistress; observe that deference in future. And now go and attend to your servile avocations, for I have much to think of alone.I wonder what Charlotte is really like, and when she will arrive?" continued Mrs. Watson, after Martha and Thomas withdrew. "I hope I shall find her useful in transcribing my manuscripts; she writes a genteel running hand. And I also hope that she has not my taste for poetry, as two stars could not revolve in the same orbit; I hope, however, that she has sufficient sentiment to duly appreciate that talent in another which nature may have denied to her. Why should I fear it? for

Duller would she be than the fat weed
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,

not to stir at my effusions. The worst of it is, being independent, and coming as a visitor, I shall have to solicit as a favour that which I could have commanded as a right, had she been only a poor relation; then Watson; in his utter ignorance of real effect, will have a large party to meet her, where I shall form merely a simple unit in the overpowering crowd; whereas, if I could have received her in my cabinet de travail, surrounded by irrefragable proofs of my devotion to the Muses, my classic tomes, my bust of Shakspeare, my statuette of Sappho, my intaglios, my shrine, and my mummy, she would at once have bowed to my superiority. Well, well! Watson being her guardian, and I being his wife, will still give me an immense influence over her; and her having been so long on the Continent is quite providential, as I can brush up my French, study her style, and pop her into a taking story. So I shall turn her to good account after all, I am convinced; and then she can amuse Watson while I am busy, which will relieve me of a load of anxiety; for really and truly, to one wedded to poesy as I am, to be wedded to his matter-offact prejudices, too, appears to me, if I may so express it, a sort of bigamy-a spiritual and material union-for which there is no law of divorce, but which the intellectual mind naturally repudiates. Hence the incessant misunderstandings of the literate and the unschooled-the repulsion of the refined for the coarse and common. Ah! I should have been content to have been the bride of the divine Apollo, and not have

debased myself as I have by a mésalliance with a mortal whose best praise is that he is good and worthy-only good and worthy for a husband for such a woman! It is preposterous! Good and worthy as he is, he struggles hard enough against yielding submissively to my wishes, and seems unconscious of the delicacy of my nerves, the acuteness of my sensibility, the necessity of non-contradiction-barbarously designating caprice that which is only the effect of those inexplicable lights and shadows of the ever-varying emotions thrilling the genus irritabile, who, like the natives of a tropical climate, when exposed to the pelting of the pitiless storm of a boreal one, recoil shiveringly from the keen and cutting blast; or, what is perhaps more apposite still, like a febrile invalid seated at an over-loaded banquet, who, unable to relish one morsel, turns stomach-sick from the sight of those who are swinishly devouring all. I feel the chill of the poor frost-nipped Asiatic-I feel the loathing of the disgusted dyspeptic-but I must endure my fate unrepiningly, for

Suffering is the badge of all our tribe.

And I can write about my daily and hourly oppressions, which is a safety-valve for the over-excited brain:

Give sorrow words: the grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.

So it does, thou Swan of Avon! And although a man utters that exquisite truism, it only forms the exception to the rule of the masculine gender's immunity to the feminine's birthright heritage of woe. Still, to be quite candid, it does render woman more interesting, and finds her an inexhaustible subject of complaint; for what would she be without her unmerited wrongs, her carking cares,' her cruel neglects, her heart-wearing anguish, and all the other ills to which she is heiress? Why, only fit

6

To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer;

while now, by these potent auxiliaries, these powerful adjuncts, she keeps up her consequence, and maintains the scales of the sexes equally balanced."

THE CARNIVAL AT VENICE.

BY NICHOLAS MICHELL.

O VENICE! though the iron conqueror now
Hath ploughed with sorrow-scars thy lovely brow,
And tears at times will blend with ocean's spray,
For Freedom tombed, and laurels reft away,
Mid the green billows glorious art thou yet,
A stainless pearl in living emerald set;
Beauty her sky-wove mantle o'er thee throws,
And oft, when flinging back thy veil of woes,
Thy fair face laughs again as in old hours-
Joy in thy halls, and witchery in thy bowers.
City of bounding hearts, to fancy dear!

Where tramp and whir of wheels ne'er jar the ear,
But noiselessly we glide with fairy speed,
The waves our street, the gondola our steed.

See through Eve's purple air St. Mark ascend!
The dying beams a hallowed lustre lend;
High on his pillar, flashes o'er the wave,
The lion "winged"—the emblem of the brave.
List! as the mellow sunset burns along

The crimsoned sea, the boatman's answering song;
Half sad, half gay, it tells of times gone by,
When Pleasure's star shone brightest in life's sky;
And yonder hear the lute's love-speaking tone,
Passion's sweet soul across the waters thrown;
While silvery sounds float 'round from vesper-bells,
Like notes the Tritons wind on pink-lipped shells.
Oh yes! the sea-born city, spite of ill,

Is Love's bright home, and Pleasure's favourite still
Her sons are gay of heart, her daughters' eyes
Rob light and laughter from Ausonia's skies.
The Carnival-the merry Bacchic time,

;

When smiles worn Care, and softens haggard Crime;
When the pale scribe forgets his dull employ,
The lame will dance, the vagrant sing for joy.
From morn to purple eve the pleasures there
Flaunt on the wave, make music of the air,
Knock at all hearts that, opening, let them in,
While Love, once scorned, his boldest wishes win.
The mask, the game, the dance, divide the day,
Wine crowns the board, and roses strew the way.
But, oh! when comes delicious veiling night,
With breath so cooling, and with stars so bright,
And looks a welcome down the witching moon,
Silvering the far-off hills, and smooth lagoon,
Then, Venice! is thy triumph; myriad lights
Deck the tall mansions, with their marble flights,
And shoots the gondola from each broad stair,
With glittering prow, and pennon streaming fair;
Graceful as gay, a thing of life she goes,
The waves all luminous around her close;
And beautiful the maids within; no gales

May wave their ebon locks, or lift their veils,

But, masks flung off, they gaily bare the brow

Raised to the moon-than moons more radiant now,
And gentle lips breathe sweet, to some loved star,
Song mixed with tremblings of the soft guitar.
And look! where other boats, like sea-birds, dart,
Their freights more young, and jollity each heart;
While some glide off, or chase the skiffs that flee,
And boisterous laughter rings, and shouts of glee.
Anon, across the silvery surge are borne
The mellow breathings of some plaintive horn;
Anon, quick fireworks, like rent rosy spars,
Shoot up to heav'n, and spread-new blazing stars:
Then booms loud cannon from the neighbouring shore,
Smoothing each billow with the long, long roar,
Which echoing, doubling round by cape and bay,
Rolls down the coast, and whispering dies away.—
O fairy scene! O city! Beauty's throne,
Scarce lovelier e'er in Eastern story shone ;
At hour like this all harsher thoughts depart,
Thou home of joy, thou city of the heart!