minuteness, as it will give you at the same time the account of the country near Göttingen. I hope to leave this place in about a fortnight, but Sara must not be uneasy if I am home a week later than she expects: it may be a week earlier, but as I pass through Brunswick, &c., I may perhaps have opportunities of acquiring information about Lessing, which it were criminal in me to neglect; but I pine, languish, and waste away to be at home, for though in England alone I have those that hate me, yet there only I have those whom I love. God bless my Friend!

S. T. COLERIdge.

WEEDS AND FLOWers.

No. III.

BY BARRY CORNWALL.

1. SOLITUDE.

HERE let us turn and gaze. O Solitude!
Long-loved, long-lost, so many years my friend,
Companion never rude!

And do we once again together bend

Our steps into the forests dark and green,

The calm, grave forests, where nought else is seen?

Lo! what cool welcomes, in this burning day,

The sweet trees give us! Say,

Can the still desart, or the stiller sea,

(The summer ocean where no billows be,)

Match the green silence which is here alway,

From March to sunny May,

From May until the fresh October morn

When Autumn winds her horn,

Chasing the winged leaves from every wood?

O Solitude! O social Solitude!

Companion of grave joy (as well as grief),

The pleasure is not brief,

Nor worthless, which we glean and share with thee

Under the greenwood tree!

The thoughts which there spring up, like sylvan flowers,

Survive and bloom through all life's after hours,-

Through stormy passions, and through winter days,

More surely than the joy (yet, is it thus?)

We gather when the summer torches blaze,

Or merry masque, or in the dance's maze,
At midnight in the city populous!

2. THE SPARTAN MOTHER.

Begone to the battle, my son!

The world of renown is before thee!

If thou diest,-why thy glory is won;

If thou livest,-Oh! thy country and I will adore thee!
Ay, thy mother will bow

To a conqueror's brow;

So, begone to the battle, my son!

Arm, arm for the battle, my son !

Bright Justice looks down on the quarrel; Fierce wrongs on thy country are done;

Doth thy forehead, my brave one, not ache for the laurel? Shall the land of thy birth

Be disgraced on the earth?

Oh, away to the battle, my son !
However the day may be won,

Whoe'er write the record of glory,
Do thou what by man may be done,

And the heart of thy mother shall swell at the story. Now, away to the fight,

Like the spear in its flight!

Oh, begone, and-come back from the battle, my son!

3. AN OLD STORY.

The lady of the castle sits

With crimson cheek and restless eye,
And a heart that bounds and stops by fits,
Gazing upon the wild and blackening sky.

She heareth not the roaring rain,

She sees no storm go sweeping by ;
But sigheth out her soul in pain,
Ah! is there love-or peril-nigh?

What means the lonely torch that throws
Its guilty fire upon the night?
What mean those cries and random blows,
That shake the thicket on the right?

A shout-a scream-a deadly word,
The blaze and bursting of a gun;
And nothing more is seen or heard,
All's o'er the fight is lost and won.

No murmurs did the lady cast,

Her cheek alone (which waned to pale)
Told us she might lament the past,
And gave us subject for our tale.
She died, without a word or sign,

And when the toil of life was o'er,

The last one of a noble line

Was hid in dust for evermore.

Oh, fond, fair orphan! Beauty's child,
By tender passions overblown!

What pity that the heart is blind,
And cannot save the gentle mind!
Which thus (how oft!) by a fate unkind
Is wreck'd and overthrown!

MONTHLY COMMENTARY.

The Session of Parliament-A Mem. for Managers-The Princess Victoria's Visit to Holkham-Satirical Honours.

THE SESSION Of Parliament which commenced on Tuesday, the 19th of February, was closed on Thursday, the 10th of September, by the King in person. Nearly seven months have therefore been occupied-a period of unusual length-and yet it is impossible for us to record that any measures of large public benefit have been passed by the three estates of the realm. "Flint Glass" was, indeed, relieved from taxation by the Budget of 1835; but other relief was not extended in any shape to the agriculturists, the manufacturers, the artizans, or those who are interested in the "shipping" of Great Britain. On the 10th of September the country was pretty nearly in the same position as on the 19th of February; and this would be very gratifying intelligence, if we could persuade ourselves that at the beginning of the year 1835 our state of prosperity was such that improvement was impossible, or at least unnecessary. Meanwhile, the two great parties by whom the venerable Whigs and Tories of past times have been displaced, are putting forth their energies to obtain or retain power. The Conservatives are busy in all the towns and counties of Great Britain. They consider that recent events have greatly enlarged their influence, and that moderate principles are gaining ground from day to day; that appeals to the good sense and reflection of the people must, in the end, triumph, and that although they may be for a time led astray by wild theorists, the sober judgment of Englishmen will still lead them to confide in rulers who, while they avoid rash speculations on the one hand, are studying how they can introduce useful changes on the other. The ultra-Radical party are also on the alert. It was impossible not to foresee that the recent contest between the House of Peers and a majority of the House of Commons, would lead to an appeal to the people-an appeal to be made either directly or indirectly. The results of the registry of votes were unquestionably not such as to justify our present Ministers in an attempt to strengthen their numerical force by a dissolution of Parliament they therefore prudently accepted the Corporation Reform Bill as amended by the Lords, rather than retire from office, or abide the issue of a new election. Some of their partisans are occupying the period of the recess by seeking to raise throughout England an outcry against one of the three branches of the Legislature. They are labouring to excite hatred against the Peers; and are employing agents and arguments both equally un-English. In England there is, and always has been, a stern love of truth and justice; those who calculate on destroying the glorious characteristic of the English people will find they have deceived themselves while working to deceive others. The chief agent to whom we refer is Mr. Daniel O'Connell, who has found in several of our large towns and cities persons eager to receive him as a visiter, and willing to listen to his Irish mode of mis-stating facts. The curious have assembled in crowds to hear him; such places as Newcastle and Glasgow have enjoyed rare treats; but according to all accounts he has found much less pliable materiel to work upon than in his own less reflective and more excited country. It is evident in all his speeches that he is perfectly aware his Scotch and English auditors are not to be addressed in the style he adopts in Ireland. He cannot talk to us as to the "hereditary bondsmen"-we have no gross wrongs to complain of-no terrible evils to be averted-no rights unacknowledged-no oppression to be protested against. It is to the woes and wants of Ireland, therefore, that he principally

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alludes during his progress through England; but he takes especial care to exhibit only the dark side of the picture, keeping out of sight the startling fact that the Irish peasant pays nothing for the protection he receives from the State-that in Ireland direct taxation is unknown, and that the poor obtain relief only when their claims to such relief have been made good in England. The persons he has met wherever he has spoken are precisely those who would comprehend and appreciate such a comparison between the Irish and English labourers and artizans; and O'Connell is not thoughtless enough to exceed his instructions, by explaining the whole matter to his hearers in the North. We have no doubt that the results of these journeyings from place to place will be so many mere nothings, and that ere long O'Connell will assume his old tone of abuse against England and everything English." This event of the month is one that we could not pass over without comment. The newspapers are full of the speeches of the Member for Dublin; they are certainly" vain repetitions," and those who have read one are completely conversant with the other. Nevertheless they serve to amuse, if they do not alarm, now that the adjournment of Parliament has left us little to think about in the way of public affairs. His ravings against the Peers make us laugh. When the great leader of the Irish mob speaks of the moral power of the Upper House, he may find hearers ignorant enough to believe his assertions; not so, however, when he talks of the physical incompetency of their Lordships, and promises to find a sturdy kitchen-maid to " whop" them all with a broom-stick. Our thoughts at once revert to the muscular arms of Lord Winchelsea, and the horsewhip of Lord Alvanley.

A MEM. FOR MANAGERS.-The closing of one pair of Houses has left the town at leisure to speculate upon the opening of another pair, equally involved in disaster, equally creative of anxiety, though relieved for some two or three seasons past from all risk of "collision," by being both under the same control, that of Mr. Premier Bunn. The Siamese system, however, has not succeeded, and a separate maintenance is the consequence. Mr. Bunn retains Drury; and up to almost the last day of the month, everybody in the world is to have Covent-garden. Even Mr. Fitzball has been for a considerable number of seconds on the brink of the lesseeship, as Jack Cade was once almost Prime Minister. He (not Jack) was to have commenced the season with his own inimitable drama, called " Jonathan Bradford"-a production which, although it has been played for a thousand nights together in scores of theatres, has never had its due place assigned it in the dramatic literature of the country. It has scarcely been read at all, though heard and seen by the whole world. The exquisite poetry, the harmony, the dignity, the loftiness, of such passages as the following, have consequently escaped the higher class of critics. The reviews, we must say, have preserved a shameful silence respecting this extraordinary drama.

"Jon.-I've brought the lemons and the nutmegs, Ann;

The sugar and the comfits for the children.

And look you here,-what think you this is, Ann?
Ann.-I do not know.

Jon. My worthy guest's asleep. I will not wake him.'
I'll place upon the table the Canary and water.

He said not if a lemon he would like.

No matter;

The lemon, too, I'll leave,-this knife also.
Then if he wakes, why, he can help himself.
So-softly, softly, softly."

[Exit.

We quote literally. This, it will be owned, is rather unlike anything which Sheridan Knowles can do in the way of calling the dramatic spirit from the vasty deep; yet we doubt whether its sweetness would not be lost on the desert air of Covent Garden. It is too natural, too true, too exquisitely simple and touching for effect. The degenerate public will not listen. It is a disgraceful fact, that the few people who do go to the large houses, go to see; the poetry of the very finest and costliest spectacles is listened to by nobody but the prompter. No, we fear that even Jonathan would not tell; though there is a Jonathan who has, indeed, pointed out the path to success so plainly, that the blind may see it. It is indicated by a fact recorded in the "New York Mirror," that a young lady has "dramatized Mrs. Butler's Journal," and that the same " is in rehearsal at the Bowery Theatre." Here then, at last, is a novelty. There is something new under the sun; and to what an endless succession of new things does it point! Dramatize" Mrs. Butler's Journal?" If that may be done, why not adopt the suggestion of a weekly contemporary, and dramatize "Johnson's Dictionary?" Why not adapt the new Municipal Bill for stage representation? or the Almanac for 1836 ? or Hervey's Meditations," or Fish-sauce? or the London Directory? or all these, and hundreds of other capable subjects in succession. Want novelties! Why, novelties are so common as to be positively hacknied. Let the new lessee Americanize his system. Let him dramatize the days of the month, and miscellaneous comments upon society. The whole world would be attracted by a play-bill setting forth a series of original personifications. A Flippant Remark, by Mr. Vining.

An Indelicate Allusion, Mr. John Reeve.
A Profound Sentiment, Mr. Cooper.
A Sagacious Opinion, Mr. Farren.
An Inuendo, Madame Vestris.

A Bitter Sarcasm, Mrs. Glover.

A Double Entendre, Mesdames Humby and Honey.

And so on, through all the commentaries and the company. Mr. Fitzball could fit them all, down to the supernumeraries; who might personate the shabby passages and loose observations.

THE PRINCESS VICTORIA'S VISIT TO HOLKHAM.-A little Princess may produce a vast convulsion. Her acceptance of an invitation to an evening party at No. 10, instead of No. 11, may throw a nation into a panicher going to Norfolk, instead of Suffolk, may shake a realm-her wearing a green sash instead of a red one may agitate all Europe. We should deeply regret anything that might tend to diminish the fervent feelings with which the opening character of the youthful Heir-presumptive to the throne has inspired all classes of her (probably) future subjects. She is high in favour; and the amiable character of her parent and guide gives assurance that the general hope will not be disappointed-that the blossoms of promise will be succeeded by pleasant fruits by-and-by. We would fain, therefore, avert the perils of the storm which is gathering over her head, in consequence of her present visit to Mr. Coke, at Holkham. The Princess, and those who have advised the visit, are represented as being guilty of a crime scarcely to be expiated, in visiting a person who, in his political vocation, delivered a strong invective against the grandfather of the Princess, George III. Really, we must be sadly off for a grievance, before we can accept this as an affair to be shocked about. The Princess was a mere child when that speech was spoken, and her uncle, the Duke of Sussex, has remained in habits of the closest friendship with the speaker ever since. This may be in good or bad taste; but example must be pleaded, on behalf equally of the Duchess and her daughter. The present King has, in the noblest manner, shown how easily he can forgive