Thus we see that the assumed prince has no intention of plunging France again into the horrors of a revolution; he no longer wishes to ascend the throne; all he wants, is to have his civil right restored to him, as any other subject. It is in this he speaks from his heart; but we will say no more; our readers will judge how much dependence is to be placed on his promises.

In translating the Dauphin's account of his misfortunes and claims into English, the Hon. and Rev. Mr. G. G. Perceval has declared, that his sole motive for so doing, is simply to present a most interesting historical question before the public, not to disturb the government of France. The misfortunes experienced by the royal family of that country, he says, excited in his breast the most painful interest. Of this melancholy chapter of royal suffering, no part seemed to him more truly shocking and revolting, than the treatment of the illustrious martyr's children: especially of the young prince who had the misfortune of being heir to his father's crown; the brutal treatment of whom, he continues, gave rise in his breast to feelings of inexpressible disgust against the "human demons who were his persecutors"-feelings which only subsided, under the belief that he had passed through these tribulations into a better state, and had been united, without fear of another separation, to those of whose tenderest affections he had ever been the cherished object.

These sentiments are commendable; and we believe will be partici pated in by every friend of humanity. As for the rest we are glad that Mr. Perceval has translated the book, for as a collection of documents relating to an important historical question, the volume is valuable.

We cannot do better than conclude this article with some observations made in the French preface, on the inscrutable decrees of Providence and on the direful effects of Divine wrath when provoked by repeated offences against its just decrees.

"If the reader," says the writer," should feel within him a righteous indignation against the relentless persecutors of the prince, or if he should detect some little murmurings against that Providence which has suffered an innocent victim to groan under such a long oppression, let him call to mind this terrible threat of Scripture, 'I will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children even to the fourth generation."

"Monarchs, like gods upon earth, have thought themselves free from every restraint, and provided they have kept clear of tyranny, their dissolute morals, the source of national corruption, have been applauded; but the judgment of the Most High is very different from that of man, and they who think themselves mighty against him, require with might to be chastised. In vain does Louis the XIVth, cover the scandal of his adulteries with the royal robes. By the side of that disgraceful offspring, his legitimate descendants will in his old age disappear. And lest the judgments should pass unobserved, it is in the hereditary line that three generations are in an instant overwhelmed.

"Spared as if by over sight, Louis the XVth, far from profiting by a lesson so severe, outdoes if possible his great-grandfather's

immorality; his son dies without coming to the throne, which his grandson only occupies to pass from it to the scaffold; the eldest son of this latter already awaited him in the tomb.

"Spared also like Louis the XVth, Charles Louis Dauphin of France, has no better habitation than a dungeon. Misfortune seized him in his tenderest infancy. If Providence leaves him to breathe awhile, it is only that, by becoming the father of a family, he may offer new victims to inexorable justice; it is only to satisfy, by pangs of hunger, the extreme rigour of the Lord's vengeance in the fourth generation.

"A victim from his very cradle, his sufferings were long an impenetrable mystery to him; his reason rebelled against unmerited afflictions; now that he understands it, it is only by humble solemn submission that he can soften the rigonr of divine justice.

"Now therefore, O Kings! receive instruction! learn, ye people, what are the chastisements of the Almighty. And you, reflecting reader, recognise in this inexplicable series of misfortunes the indelible stamp of legitimacy.'

We wish that this had been less French and less fine; but there can be no doubt that the writer sincerely thinks himself to be the Dauphin. That Monsieur Le Baron de Capelle should have taken the absurd interest that he appears to have done, concerning the attempt on the life of the claimant, is, to say the least of it, extraordinary. Why so solicitous to spread the report, that the assumed Duke of Normandy had procured, or attempted his own colourable assassination?-and why so unwilling to stand by the consequences? Who is Mons. G. Aiguillor, the author of the disgraceful letter to the publisher of the volume that has excited these brief remarks?

AUTHORS AND ACTORS;
OR,

LIBRARY COLLOQUIES, AND GREEN-ROOM DIALOGUES.

1.

GREAT is the power of books in the estimation of reading men; nor small in theirs who read not. Two magics, the black and the white, have been supposed their property by the latter; and more than magic implies is known to belong to them by the former. No wonder that spiritual influence has been attributed to their possession, since it would be hard, even in the abstract, to tell how that which they impart is imparted-how those barren signs should suggest sounds-sounds communicate words-words communicate thoughtsthoughts, ideas and ideas-what? Being and God! Would we raise a Spirit-take up a book, and one stands face to face with us, even the spirit of the writer. The ghosts of the dead, and the wraiths of the living, are with us, equally! In a word, every one who reads a book is a ghost-seer.

Our library is to us a land of enchantment-an isle of necromancy; like that of Prospero, peopled with the supernatural, and full of sweet sounds and noises, that give delight but hurt not. It is the palace of vision, and the chamber of dream. Things of beauty haunt it which are joys for ever; aerial things, and godlike shapes, and virgin loves, and infant fancies, and cherub imaginations, and seraph principles- adorations and glories, ardours and powers and thrones-genii and demons-demigods and gods. And with all these we converse, and intermingling embrace-immortalities and shadows that are realities, and realities that are shadows, and both ideal. We are in another world-even the World of Books!

To read is to sleep; to sleep?-perchance to dream! To read is to die ;and then what dreams do come? To sleep?-to die? Ay, to the ordinary and every-day world; escaping from which, we find ourselves in another: and that other a world even after our own mind. For we hold this to be the true faith in regard to books, that every man reads himself in the book that he peruses. No two men ever read the same poem; but to every man the same apparent types in the same apparent order of arrangement, present, in reality, a different picture, reflecting, as in a mirror, the condition of his inmost self. It is but a glass in which he views his own likeness. He who would commune with his own heart and be still-let him take up a book—and read!

66

Even thus it is with us; and speaking from our own experience, we would add, that no man ever reads the same poem twice. With what different feelings have we at different periods perused the apparently same printed volume, and found therein more or less, or other, at this time than we had at that, and sometimes nothing at all. Shakspere's Hamlet has not always been pregnant to us, and The Midsummer Night's Dream has sometimes proved no open vision," but a blank void. What wonder, when even the unidea'd worldling looks not always on earthly things with none or the same emotions. Strong is creative passion, and will give life and utterance to moon, and star, and sunto hill, and tree, and stream, which at other times are mute as the deserts of Hades, and dumb as the wilderness of the unborn.

:

We are a magician, and can make all these things as we like; for us our wishes are realised facts. Facts? Not things done to us, but what we do: these are the only facts. We are a factor--a doer. Your poet is your only actor but this is a truth for the initiate. We cast not pearls before swine. One of these facts has happened to us, or we to it-while looking earnestly through the late series of THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE"-anxiously desirous of discovering, by much investigation, the Spirit of it. By a magical exercise of the will, as it were (the magnetical period of twenty minutes having elapsed), we saw distinctly as possible the well-natured and happy countenance of the late editor peer up through the pages. Every word, letter, each particle of type, formed itself into a portion of his features-then of his bust, gradually produced-and at length of his whole person. We were like Faust, when first visited by Mephistophiles; though this was not our first visit from Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds, but it was the first in which he had come in a manner supernatural, or preternatural, whichever would best describe the action and the law of the species of apparition, of which an example was granted to our editorial experience.

"

You do not expect," said he, taking up the subject of a former conversation, "to enter on your new duties, with such lofty assumptions, without considerable opposition?"

New Editor. Opposition? Principles such as I shall advocate have, in general, outsoared all opposition, being in themselves not only positive, but (if the word may be allowed) pro-positive; and, when legitimately worked out, reconciling the very elements of antagonism themselves, in the production of an artistic unity, which the artistic acknowledge as the proper offspring of truc legitimated art.

Old Editor. But, envy! There is one writer who will never forgive you for having been " classed, in a minor periodical, with those great poets, Milton and Wordsworth."

New Editor. He cannot be more displeased with the fact, if it be one, than I am.

Old Editor. How?

New Editor. I take it as no compliment. I would rather stand alone. I come after the poets named. Unless what I do shall be something other, or better, than they have done, I must needs be inferior to them as a man and an author; if the same, or worse, then am I a despicable imitator and essayist, and not worth the man's anger.

Old Editor. You will astonish him.

New Editor. He is easily astonished. But I forgive him-for his wrath proceeds from an error, not of judgement, but of belief. He suspects me of having written, anonymously, certain animadversions on his own productions, by which the sale of certain volumes has been ruined. It is a mistake—I never sanctioned even such a course of proceeding.

Old Editor. He takes you for the most truculent of critics and of persons. New Editor. He misjudges whom he knows not-the gentlest of mortals, and the meekest of writers.

Old Editor. Nevertheless, you express yourself with energy.

New Editor. I do, in the advocacy of principles: I speak of these boldly---without fear, without favour; as one standing between God and man, charged with the interpretation of truth. But I condescend not to personalities-no, not even when attacked. If I speak now, it is not for my own sake, but for his. A choleric temper always manifested will eat at last into his own heart— failing of effect on any other. This it must do, because of the world's familiarity with it, and consequent contempt for it.

Old Editor. For my part, I wish you every possible success.

New Editor. And I am proud of your experienced approbation, and shall be happy in your generously promised assistance.

Old Editor. You care not, however, for the squibs and crackers of the press. New Editor. They are mainly serviceable as advertisements-they attract attention. The sale of a work depends on its intrinsic merits, or extrinsic attractions. Neither are made by critical notices. These are but echoes, and in all cases of success denote a foregone conclusion.' Where they do not, no success follows.

Old Editor. I am happy that in our present relations I can give in my adhesion to the new standard without suspicion of temporizing; since, long previous to our personal acquaintance-I mean, in the last April No. of the "Old" Monthly-I praised highly your lecture on Poetic Genius as a Moral Power.

I am

New Editor. You were one of the few critics who understood me. sure that it was not in reference to you, as supposed by some carpers, that the proprietors of this work considered, that an advantage belonging to the new editorship would be gained, in the fixed and permanent principles on which the Monthly Magazine would be now conducted. No the assertion was doubtless made in regard to periodical literature in general, which hitherto has been as the weather-cock to the wind. No, sir!-you have shown a mind of far higher aims; and in your tales I recognise a vein which only wants working to be profitable.

Old Editor. Your principles, so admired by me, whatever critics may think of them, are spreading fast and widely. See, in proof, a pamphlet which we have had by us now for some time, and have much admired.

New Editor. " Poetry as an Universal Nature; a Lecture delivered 8th June, 1838, at the Town Hall, Grimsby, for the Mechanics' Institution of that place; to which is added, The Poet, an Ode. By J. Westland Marston." The author tells us, that it would not be matter of great surprise to him, if the singular subject of his lecture should excite some little feeling of wonder and curiosity;" Of poetry (he proceeds) as mere mechanical versificationof poetry, as figurative language of poetry, as a heterogeneous mass of tropes, hyperboles, interjections, and similes, we have, I believe, not unfrequently heard; but of poetry, as the life of high and glorious principles in our beingof poetry, as a nature, which is universal as vitality itself-of poetry, as an inheritance, to which the man of mean station and unenlightened mind may prove a title, indubitable as his who can boast a rank the most elevated, and an intellect the most unlimited-of poetry, according to this interpretation, little indeed has been heard; and the endeavour to make manifest its right to the pre-eminent distinction which I unhesitatingly claim on its behalf, is a task, to accomplish which my will may be greater than my power; but in no

N. S.-VOL. I.

M

event can I regret the devotion of my energies to this labour, because, however unsuccessfully employed, I feel that the mere attempt to support the affirmations I have to make on the subject, will be an honour and a reward above my deserving.

"I regret, in some degree, that in explaining a new theory regarding poetry, or rather, in reviving an old one, I should want the sanction of age and experience. When one so young as myself presumes to assert positions which are somewhat extraordinary, and recognized by a comparatively small number, the kindest and most partial auditor is apt to inquire, whether the speaker's views are not more formed by enthusiasm and imagination than by reflection and judgement? My answer, however, to such an interrogatory would be briefly this :-The elements of my creed are so simple, that they may be understood by the commonest apprehension, although sufficiently sublime to elicit the sympathies of the most acute and expanded minds; so that while the sage may study, with improvement and delight, its lofty precepts, its alphabet may constitute the language of an infant's heart.

"What is poetry? We reply, love, beauty, and truth. What is a poem ? The lovely, the beautiful, the true. It is essential that we distinguish between the poetry and the poem : poetry is the cause, the poem the effect; poetry is the active life which manifests itself in various forms, the poem is its manifestation in one.

"We shall now consider poetry as an universal nature. "Poetry as an universal nature: What!' you will exclaim, do you mean to affirm that every one is a poet?' Not exactly so, but we mean to affirm that every one may become a poet. We affirm that the elements which constitute a poet are common to every human being, although in the mass their operation may be thwarted and obstructed.

"And how,' you ask, 'do we prove that poetry is common to all? We prove it by the universal law in creation, that whatever sympathises is precisely the same nature as that with which it sympathises. In the external world, one drop of water sympathises with another, and the two unite. By no process of chemistry could you compel water to coalesce with oil, because being of different natures they cannot sympathise. In actual life, you behold the intellectual man seeking the society of intellectual men; because the intellect in one sympathises with the intellect in the others. We might continue the parallel, by bringing before you all the various classes and coteries of life, and we should find in every individual, who helped to constitute a particular class, a feeling common to all its members-in fact a sympathy."

While perusing this passage, the spiritual apparition of Mr. Reynolds gradually faded from our attention, and at last from our vision. A new spirit emerged-that of the Lecturer, whose eloquent prelection we were perusing.

"Mr. Marston," we remarked, "that chemical simile of yours is hardly correct-water and oil have been blended."

J. W. Marston. No; both have been destroyed. The introduction of a third ingredient has effected an analysis of the other two.

Editor. No-only of one. The oil, but not the water, is decomposed. It may be done in two or three ways. For instance: when potash is mixed with water and oil, the oil is decomposed and becomes resolved into margaric, and oleic acids, and glycerine; and these unite with the potash, and thus become miscible with water. However, you are a better metaphysician than a natural philosopher. You understand poetry, at any rate, and deserve credit for believing, that whoever sympathises with poetry possesses the same feelings that animate the poet: ergo, poetry is an universal nature. Why are not all poets?

J. W. Marston. To such a question, alas! but one reply can be made :"Instead of yielding our obedience to poetic laws, we are, as a world, constantly rebelling against them. Poetry is love: we love not, or love only in a selfish form, and in a concentrated sphere. How few of us are willing to bestow