dandyism, when they descend into the civilized regions of the earth. They have a faculty of imitation which hardens into a necessity; and the younger part of the imperial suite, if memorable for nothing else, were distinguished for the most extraordinary caricatures, of a mixture of French and German fashions. Alexander himself did not escape the name of "the Scythian dandy," though no man deserved it less. He was a bold, honest, high-spirited chieftain, who had done more to crush Napoleon than all the rest of the Alliance put together, and whose courage inspired the Allies, as his firmness sustained their counsels in the most difficult periods of the most try ing and terrible war that Europe had

ever seen.

"He dresses with taste, he is small in the waist,

I beheld him with Blucher and Platoff;

large house in Austin Friars. How ever, another James Smith taking chambers in the same building, considerable confusion arose, from the letters of each falling into the hands of the other. They met accordingly to remedy this inconvenience, and it was agreed that the only resource was, that either should take chambers some where else. The question then was, "which."

"Nothing can be more easily decided," said he. "You came last; and, as James the Second, you ought to abdicate.”

The stage was always his delight, and it must be acknowledged that it was then a much more amusing and intelligent establishment than it is now. It had a continual succession of pleasant performances; its performers were of a more popular order— and its actresses not unfrequently became the wives of men of rank and

ears,

But the Emperor rides with his hat off.

"He sits on a throne, with a leg on each

zone

No monarch on earth can be granderHalf an hour after dark, the rails in the park

Are scaled to behold Alexander!" James Smith, like every man of sense in England, and every man of principle, was a Conservative; but no man was less a talker on that most commonplace of all subjects, politics. His enjoyment was conversation; and he must have seen too many instances of the inroad which this trite verbiage

makes on it, to suffer himself to be led into the temptation. "My political opinions," he gallantly said, " are those of the lady who sits next to me; and as the fair sex are generally

Perplex'd, like monarchs, with the fear of change,'

I constantly find myself Conservative."

Some of his bon mots, on this and other subjects, were happy.

"Mr Smith," said a gentleman, across the table, you look like a Conservative."

"Certainly, sir," was the reply, "my crutches remind me that I am no member of the movement party.”

As solicitor, he had an office in a

caped his pen; and he gave a list of these marriages, in lines whose ease and liveliness were not unworthy of Boufflers or Chailie.

66

'Farren, Thalia's dear delight! Can I forget the fatal night,

Of grief unstained by fiction; (Even now the recollection damps,) When Wroughton led thee to the lamps In graceful valediction."

She married the Earl of Derby, after a long courtship, in which the lady conducted herself with as much prudence as the old earl did with gallantry. The next was Miss Brun ton, who married the Earl of Craven. "The Derby prize by Hymen won, Again the god made bold to run

Beneath Thalia's steerage; Sent forth a second Earl to woo, And captivating Brunton too

Exalted to the peerage."

The next was Miss Searle, a remarkably elegant creature, who, after delighting the metropolis by her dancing and grace as a pantomime actress, married Heathcote, one of the most fashionable men of his time.

"Awhile no actress sought his shrine When lovely Searle in Columbine

Each heart held" cabin'd, cribb'd in.” Her dark-blue eye and tresses loose, Made the whole town dub" Mother Goose "

Chef-d'œuvre of Tom Dibdin."

In Dibdin's pleasant memoirs, he gives the history of this chef d'œuvre with the parental particularity of one describing the progress of a favourite child. He had offered it to Harris, the manager, for three or four successive years, and each time met with a repulse; though Dibdin was a favourite, and the manager was reck oned remarkable for his tact in what was likely to please the audience. At length a Christmas pantomime having been delayed by its arranger, until there was a chance of there being no pantomime at all-a calamity which was not to be encountered under any circumstances-Harris, in his last perplexity, bade Dibdin show him his confoundedly stupid pantomime." It was performed, and was the most successful in stage annals. The whole town rushed to see it; it was played through a great part of the season, and its net produce was, as far as we recollect, upwards of L.20,000. Dibdin was elevated immediately to the laureateship of pantomime; he soared to the highest rank of clown and pantaloon bards; and Harris, though he never would acknowledge that he had been in the wrong, and called it a "confoundedly stupid pantomime" to the last, gave its author the patent of supremacy in providing all future sport for the Christmas holidays.

The next favourite of Hymen was Miss Bolton, a very pretty and well conducted young person, who married Lord Thurlow, nephew of the great lord.

"Thrice vanquish'd thus, on Thespian soil Heart-whole from Cupid's toil,

I caught a fleeting furlough; Gay's "Newgate Opera" charm'd me

then ;

But Polly sung her requiem when

Fair Bolton changed to Thurlow." Then followed the marriage of Miss O'Neil to Sir William Becher; an event which deprived the stage of a very striking performer; ineomparably the best actress since Siddons.

"Those wounds some substitute might heal;

But what bold mortal bade O'Neil

Renounce her tragic station-
Taste, talent, beauty to trepan:
By Jove! I wonder how the man
Escaped assassination.

I felt half bent to wing my way
With Werter, on whose table lay

This was one of the theatrical mar.. riages. Mercandotte was a beautiful girl, a Spaniard, who appeared as a danseuse at the Italian Opera; Hughes Ball was a young man of the fashionable circles, who, from his fortune, and his lavish expenditure of it, was called the "Golden Ball;" but the verse does some slight injustice to the parties, there was no elopement, the marriage was regular, and we have never heard of any of the natural consequences of elopement in their instance. We believe that Mercandotte was as blameless a wife as she was a beautiful woman.

To complete the number, we have seen the following stanza-written, we have not heard by whom.

Last of this dear, delightful list,
Most follow'd, wonder'd at, and miss'd,
In Hymen's odds and evens:
Old Essex caged our nightingale,
And finish'd thy theatric tale,

Enchanting Kitty Stephens."

The late Earl of Essex, a man of accomplishment in his day, and of taste to the end, married Miss Stephens a few years since, and on his death left her a large dower. Her conduct had always been meritorious, and her character was as unstained as her style was pure, delicate, and English. She had been for a long period in the first rank of native singers, and by her prudence and popularity had made a handsome fortune before her retirement from the stage.

But he could be grave, and some of his verses exhibit powers which might have obtained a higher name. An ode to Sentiment-evidently modelled on Gray's Ode to Adversity," Daughter of Jove, relentless power," has fine lines. They were provoked by the intolerable "pathetic" of vulgar co. medy.

Daughter of dulness, canting dame,

Thou nightmare on the breast of joy, Whose drowsy morals, still the same, The stupid soothe, the gay annoy ; Soft cradled in thy sluggish arms,

Even footpads prate of guilt's alarms, And pig-tail'd sailors, sadly queer, Affect the melting mood, and drop the pitying tear.

It shed such soft and balmy power,
That cot and castle, hall and bower,
And spire and dome, and turret height,
Appear'd to slumber in the light."

Then comes the pleasant burlesque

"Soliloquy, with clamorous tongue,

That brings the Lord knows what to

view;

And Affectation, pert and young, Swearing to love the Lord knows who,

Still round the midnight caldron caper, Warm Charity, with Newland's paper." Still, his " Imitations" are the most carefully executed of all his performances. They are among the most dexterous in the language. The the charms of an imitation is to give character without caricature, and to touch upon the oddity of the origi nal without offence to either the author or the reader. In this sense what can be better than the commencement of the Imitation of Kehama? Southey himself must have laughed at it.

"I am a blessed Glendoveer!

'Tis mine to speak, and yours to hear.
Midnight! yet not a nose
From Towerhill to Piccadilly snored.
Midnight! yet not a nose

From Indra drew the essence of repose.

See with what crimson fury,

Scott loved to astonish the ear; those sudden and startling plunges from the softest words and gentlest images into expressions on the very verge of extravagance.

"As Chaos, which, by heavenly doom,
Had slept in everlasting gloom,
Started with terror and surprise
When light first flash'd upon her eyes,
So London's sons in nightcap woke,
In bedgown woke her dames,

For shouts were heard 'mid fire and smoke,

And twice ten hundred voices spoke'The playhouse is in flames." "

The volumes give some of his let. ters, which are written in the easy and unaffected style of his general conversation. We think that more of them ought to have been given, for more undoubtedly might have been found. He was perpetually corresponding ; and as he always carried on a sort of Platonic passion with the whole sex, or at least with all the young and agreeable of them, who came in his way, we recommend the search to the editor for his next edition. In one of these letters he mentions having met the Guiccioli, who gave him some

the walls of Drury.

"Tops of houses, blue with lead, Bend beneath the landlord's tread, Master and prentice, serving-man and lord,

Nailor and tailor,

Grazier and brazier, Through streets and alleys pour'd. All, all abroad to gaze,

And wonder at the blaze."

The Imitation of Scott has even

some of the graces of his rich and picturesque style, where natural objects are to be described.

"On fair Augusta's towers and trees
Flitted the dreary midnight breeze,
Curling the foliage as it past,
Which from its moon-tipp'd plumage cast
A spangled light, like dancing spray,
Then reassumed its still array.
When, as night's lamp unclouded hung,
And down its full effulgence flung,

recollection of the lordly poet is interesting, yet we wish that it had come from a purer source than the Italian.

"When he (Byron) dined with me," said the lady, "he ate no meat. Still haunted by a dread of growing fat, he very much injured his health; yet his figure notwithstanding grew larger. Oh, he was very handsome -beautiful eyes and eyelashes. I had occasion to go to Ravenna upon some family business. We settled that he should not accompany me. At that time several people were plaguing him to go to Greece. Ah!" he said in a sportive manner, 'let fourteen captains come and ask me to go, and go I will.' Well, fourteen captains came to him, and said, 'Here we are, will you now go.' He was ashamed to say he had only been joking, so it ended in his undertaking to go. He was not well when In Greece they wanted

he set out.

to bleed him he would not be bled, so he died."

The countess seems to have told her story without any of the embar rassment which might have been presumed on the occasion; but they order those matters in a peculiar way on the other side of the Channel.

"Count D'Orsay set me down in Craven Street. What was all that Madame Guiccioli was saying to you just now?' he inquired. She was telling me that her apartments are in the Rue de Rivoli, and that if I visit ed the French capital, she hoped I would not forget her address.' What! it took her all that time to say that?"Ah, Smeeth, you old humbug, that won't do.'

In the spring of 1839, a violent attack of influenza, aggravated by a severe access of gout, completely de

ranged his whole system, and condemned him to a five months' confinement. From this he rallied by an excursion to Tunbridge wells; but towards the close of the year he sank again. Though an abstemious man, he had suffered from the gout for many years; had for the latter years of his life been forced to use a stick, which at last was superseded only by a crutch; and he finally shrunk from society, and lay upon the sofa, until that too was to be exchanged for a calmer place of rest. He had always expressed himself anxious that his last illness should not be attended with protracted pain; and this he was spared. He died on the 24th of December 1839, in his house in Craven Street, London, in the 65th year of his age, and was buried in St Martin's Church.

THE Royal Academy have just closed their Exhibition, not without the parting malediction of Joseph Hume, and the benediction of better men. Either circumstance is no small praise. There are, who in the bitterness of a discontented spirit, revile the very sun setting in his glory, and would will his never rising. Some are envious of splendour they cannot reach, and hate the mind that produces it. But we need not repeat such truisms; our task is to make our comments upon the works exhibited; and we resume these, our annual remarks, with feelings of the greatest good, will to the Royal Academy, and the British artists, not members, who have contributed works of very great merit.

We shall, nevertheless, offer our criticism with great freedom; and, if it be occasionally severe, we can with safety assert it will be with out personal dislike to any artist. "Amicus Plato, magis amica veritas." Remembering many former Exhibi. tions, we cannot but congratulate artists in general and the public, upon the gradual disappearance of vulgarities, and rejoice to find the arts taking higher ground. There is now little taste for that style of painting which was termed "Low Life." May the day be not far distant that shall see its total extinction! The wonderful mechanism of the Flemish school, the admiration and high value set upon works merely on that account, in defiance of subject, have too long fostered a bad taste; we are happy to see that the more gross and vulgar of that school are less sought after, and a growing competition for the elegant familiar. It is in this particular line that our present artists excel: and as it is one that admits of much feeling, tenderness, and beauty, its ascendency may be admitted without regret. It cannot be denied, at the same time, that we are making advances in a higher walk, scarcely pari passu. It is said that many hundred pictures have been rejected this year if they were worse than some that are exhibit ed, they must have been bad indeed. Surely it would be more kind to reject, than to place a picture where it cannot be seen; and where only the

staring number and reference to the catalogue" damn with the faint praise" of having been admitted. And it is most absurd to hang pictures at the very top of the room, which, for their size and subjects, require to be seen near-if they will not bear the nearer view, reject them altogether. It should seem as if many an artist were thus victimized to the fancy of exhibiting a pyramid of frames. The smaller the pictures, the higher they are placed. A certain order and symmetry of framework is thus preserved; but it leads to a suspicion that the carver and gilder had been consulted in the display, and not the artist. When shall we have picture and statue galleries upon a good principle? They are all ridiculously too high. The strained eye seldom sees even correctly, and more seldom with pleasure. It is subjected to an intolerable glare; and the attitude is painful. Pictures should rather be placed below the eye than above it. There should be no straining of the sight. The softening of the eyelash and shade of the brow is advantageous to every effect of the pencil; and not a little so in that they furnish the spectator with a natural repose, and unconstrained leisure, without which the mind of taste can scarcely receive pleasurable sensations through the eye. We have more than once ventured to give hints upon this subject; and do so now the more readily; because we perceive an intimation from Sir Robert Peel, and believe it to be the general wish both in and out of parliament, that a gallery more worthy the nation should be constructed.

There has been again, this year, a lamentable lack of landscapes. Scenic views indeed there are; but very few pieces that can lay claim to be considered landscape, and those of no high pretensions. Perhaps there is not a decent attempt at composition in that walk of art. It may be said, in answer to this, what are the pictures of Turner, of Stanfield, of Martin, of Lee, of Creswick? They may be very bad or very good-but landscapes they are not. What then do we mean by landscape? The art of composing from natural scenery, in the same manner that historical painting is