sagacity of statesmen, and by that true Christian charity, that really disinterested benevolence, which will always be found among individuals in every age and country. These institutions stand firm, and flourish, because the English pride themselves upon their existence, and on the comparative național superiority which results from them. If they refused to support them, they would not have them to boast of. It is to the indefatigable exertions of enlightened and disinterested, and sometimes of interested, individuals, that all the public charities of London owe their establishment; and when I describe to you the manner in which their funds are raised in the first instance, and kept up from time to time, you will see that I am not very far from being correct in attributing their support to personal vanity, turned, it is true, to, an admirable account; but an account to which the wise and good may turn every thing. When it is intended to raise funds for the establishment of a charitable institution of any kind, the first step is to call a public meeting, by an advertisement in the newspapers of the day; in which it is stated that the meeting will be attended by such and such persons, who are well known as eloquent public speakers. This meeting is open to any person of decent appearance who may choose to attend; and thus another of the characteristics of an Englishman is appealed to his curiosity. At this meeting the purposes and views of the proposed institution are stated, and eloquent speeches are made by persons who come prepared for this purpose, showing the advantages that will result to all classes of the community from the establishment of it, and containing appeals to the passions of the hearers, their interest, and, lastly, to their vanity; for it is usually understood that the names of the persons subscribing will be published in the newspapers. This is the only appeal which an Englishman's boasted reason will not enable him to withstand. As to the general utility of the plan, that is no concern of his; the appeals to his passions in favour of his suffering fellow-creatures he feels for a moment, but the next moment he laughs at the weakness of allowing himself to be so worked upon; endeavouring to show that assisting in the proposed establishment will conduce to his personal interests, he considers as a piece of mere impertinence as if he does not know what his own interest is better than any one else can tell him! But this last appeal to his personal vanity, this certainty of reading his own name in print, and of having it read by hundreds of thousands of his fellow-countrymen, is not to be resisted: so he pays his guinea, and goes home, perfectly satisfied if the promise thus made is duly fulfilled, and perfectly careless as to the application of his bounty; but sorely vexed and disappointed if, in printing the said name, any mistake should occur in the initials or orthography, and greatly scandalized that the persons who undertake to attend to these things do not perform their duties better! There are several other means resorted to of raising funds for these purposes; all equally ingenious with the above mentioned, and equally appealing to the same characteristic feeling. At the meeting which I have described, a committee is Ee 3 usually usually appointed, to carry the details of the plan into execution. If the funds already collected are not considered as adequate to their purpose, the gentlemen of wealth and consideration, who form the committee, go round, two or three together, in their respective neighbourhoods, where their names and persons are likely to be known, and call at the houses of the different inhabitants, requesting a personal interview, and stating their names and their objects in calling. Now, for a substantial tradesman, or a retired merchant, (and these are always the class of persons thus called upon,) to refuse so small a sum as a guinea, when it is sued for by such respectable gentlemen as those before him, would look very mean indeed; and besides, in the case of the tradesman, it might injure his business to a greater amount; so he pays his guinea as a tax on his consequence and respectability, and never enquires what has or is to become of it!' About forty letters are contained in the first volume, and about thirty in the second. The supposed traveller is conveyed from Dieppe to Brighton and thence to London, where a long pause is made to survey the Elgin marbles, St. Paul's, the Parks, and public buildings. A great portion of tedious matter also occurs about the drama, and the fine arts, and all the actors and painters are minutely and separately criticized by name; while the state of science and prose literature is less completely surveyed. A journey is undertaken to Windsor, which diversifies the topic, and closes the first volume. Then follows a minute examination of all the living poets; and here, in order to display the author's criticism, but not in order to hold it up to approbation, we copy a short paragraph. I shall speak more particularly of Wordsworth first; because, for my own part, I have no doubt whatever that he is, in all the best senses of the word, a greater poet than Byron; and that while he, under any conceivable circumstances, must have been a poet, Byron, if he has not been made a poet by circumstances, might have been prevented by them from being one; in fact, that Wordsworth became a poet by the immutable will of nature, and without the power of becoming otherwise; but that Byron has been made a poet by the resistless strength of his own passions and his own will.' Is it conceivable that any Frenchman should have such a taste in poetry as this? Lord Byron is an European classic, formed to delight the inhabitants of cities, the scholar, and the philosopher: but Mr. Wordsworth is only the classic of the Lakes; and it requires the leisure, we had almost said the ennui, of a solitary mountain-residence, to be able to attend to his minute portraits of nature, and to the little things on which he aims at building an interest. Lord Byron has the dan dangerous vivacity of the stage; Mr. Wordsworth the wholesome absorption of morning prayers. After long essays on the least of our little poets, the author recommences his livelier rambles; and the following notice of the great coach-rendezvous in St. George's Fields, the Elephant and Castle, is a new delineation. We will now cross Westminster Bridge, for the purpose of showing you a scene more characteristically English than any other we have yet met with. This is a spot where meet in one point all the outlets from London to the great Surry, Sussex, and Kent roads, leading to all the most frequented sea-port towns 'and watering places on the coast, and also to a great proportion of the most favourite country towns and villages which are chosen as the summer-residences of the inhabitants of London. This spot is in the front of an inn, or public house, called the Elephant and Castle; at which every public conveyance that for a passes stops short time, both in going and coming. I believe this is a rule to which the drivers of these vehicles make no exception, whatever their haste may be, or whether they have occasion to stop there or not. This produces a scene altogether singular in its effect, and perfectly novel and unaccountable in the eyes of foreigners, who have no notion, till they see its consequences exhibited in so lively a manner on this spot, of the perfect mania that the English have for moving about from one place to another. There is not a merchant of respectability, and scarcely a substantial tradesman, or upper clerk in a public office, who does not, after business hours, — viz. four o'clock, either mount his horse or chaise, or some public conveyance, and go home from four to ten or twelve miles to dinner, every day of his life during the summer season; and many do this constantly during the winter too, and return in the same manner to business again by nine or ten in the morning. But it is chiefly the meeting of the public stages at this spot which causes the extraordinary life, bustle, and animation of the scene to which I am directing your attention. From whatever part of the metropolis the stages going the different roads (to the counties before mentioned) start, they all stop here; so that persons who do not choose to take their places for any particular hour, or who choose to save half an hour in the time of starting, or who do not know and will not take the trouble to learn at what hour and from whence the stages start by which they wish to travel, are sure to be right if they come here; for here they all meet and stop; and there are such an extraordinary number of these stages run to all the frequented towns, that you never need wait long without finding a place in one or other of them. For example, during the season when Brighton is frequented, from seven o'clock in the morning till ten at night there are stages pass this spot upon an average every half hour!- and from about eight to ten or eleven in the forenoon, there are frequently three or four Brighton stages to be seen standing here at the same time; all of them supplied with capital horses, and fitted Ee 4 out out in the most admirable manner; and many of them performing the journey (of eighteen leagues) in six hours. There are said to be no less than seven hundred stages in summer, and five hundred in winter, stop at the door of this inn daily throughout the year. By this you may form some idea of the scene which this spot constantly exhibits. And it is astonishing to observe the admirably cool, deliberate, and methodical manner in which all this immense traffic is conducted. There is never the slightest appearance of hurry or confusion. All goes on as if by clockwork. There is one man belonging to the inn who can tell you to a minute what time any stage you may enquire for will be at the door; and you may go into the house, and observe at your ease all that is passing, secure that when it does arrive, and is about to start again, he'll send the coachman in to call you. But the scene outside is the most enlivening. Fancy to yourself twenty stages of different forms and colours, all handsomely decorated, and drawn by blood horses, harnessed and caparisoned in as elegant a manner as those of gentlemen's equipages are with us; within and on the top of which are seated from ten to eighteen well-dressed passengers for here every body but respectable females and old people prefer going on the outside. Fancy these vehicles to have either just drawn up, or to be on the point of starting again, or some of them started, while others are arriving to take their places; thus causing a perpetual motion, bustle, and change among them. Round every one of these you may suppose several persons collected, either taking leave of friends who are going on their journey; or making enquiries for, or welcoming friends whose arrival they had been waiting in expectation of; or preparing to start themselves, but uncertain, among the multiplicity of conveyances that offer themselves, which they shall go by. Add to these, persons offering for sale fruit, cakes, &c.; others with a supply of the daily newspapers, which the travellers may not have had an opportunity of procuring before they left home; others arriving with, or carrying away the luggage of the passengers, &c. &c.; the whole enlivened by the perpetually recurring signals of the drivers, signifying that they are ready to start, "Now, Sir, if you please," and the invariably repeated question of " All right?" before they do start: -fancy all this to occur in the open street, at the meeting-point of five populous roads, up and down every one of which streams of pedestrians and of conveyances of all kinds are perpetually crossing and recrossing each other; and add a few of the associations connected with the circumstances that make up the subject of contemplation; and you have before you a scene that, in its kind, is not to be paralleled in the world.' Some merit is displayed in the description of a Christmas pantomime: but it is chiefly a quotation from another observer. In treating of the periodical literature, no conspicuous felicity of judgment is displayed. A trip to Richmond, to Hampstead, and to Oxford occur, but Cambridge is overlooked; and the work closes with a sketch of the pageantry at the coronation. If a future edition be published, we recommend a considerable abbreviation of this correspondence; half the letters being superfluous, and talking of well-known things in a very usual way, but much too knowing for a transient French visitor. Still the work seems adapted for provincial circulation, and may give to domesticated persons, or to the young who cannot afford to travel, a welcome idea of the metropolis. ART. X. The Vespers of Palermo; a Tragedy, in Five Acts. 8vo. 3s. Murray. 1823. THE HE tragedy now before us is understood to be the production of Mrs. Hemans, and has been lately represented at Covent-Garden theatre, but with dubious success; and we must attribute this degree of failure to certain errors in the construction and developement of the plot, the whole drama being full of fine diction and poetic feeling. As our comments will be unintelligible without some previous knowlege of the fable, we shall give a slight sketch of it. Every reader is of course acquainted with the history of the Sicilian Vespers, on which this drama professes to be founded. During the dominion of the French, the Count di Procida, a Sicilian nobleman, is here supposed to return to his country, burning to liberate it from the yoke of the foreigner: he finds hearts resolved and hands ready to assist him in his enterprize; and, among others, his son Raimond di Procida, whom he had not seen since infancy, and who is passionately attached to Constance, sister of Eribert, the alien viceroy. Among all the hearts devoted to liberty, none is more determined than that of Vittoria, a Sicilian lady of large possessions, formerly betrothed to the murdered Conradin, and whose hand is sought by Eribert. The conspirators at length determine to asssasinate their enemies; and the marriage-festival of Vittoria is, with her consent, appointed for the perpetration of the sanguinary design: but Raimond di Procida refuses to act any part in so treacherous a transaction, and succeeds in saving Constance from the universal massacre. Intelligence of the conspiracy having been communicated, though in vain, to the French, Raimond is supposed to be the person by whom the disclosure has been made; and his father, urged on by Montalba, a gratuitously malignant personage, determines to sit in judgment on his son. Raimond is accordingly condemned; and, though the Count privately endeavours to prevail on him to escape, he refuses to tarnish his fame by such an act, and awaits his death. In the |