nation would have been welded in the war, as in a furnace, into one; but admit that we are over-sanguine, that Italians are less persistent than Spaniards, worse led than Mexicans, more disorganized than Frenchmen before Valmy; admit, in fact, defeat, and what would have been the result? A peace which would have left Italy, perhaps, without Sardinia, but have left her also a nation defeated with difficulty and cost by the first army in the world. As it is, the Italians are a nation defeated by no fault of their own by a despatch. If in the combinations of the future they attack Napoleon, the world will say that Italy fights best behind the German shield; if they join him, that the Emperor has taught her to recognize her position as a depend ant. controversy which is to decide the future of a nation and the position of a world-wide creed, than if she had sunk to the position of Holland or Norway. From the Saturday Review, Nov. 9. COMPLIMENTARY DINNERS. THREE complimentary dinners within as many days seem to show that the era of silver teapots has passed away, to be succeeded by an era of banquets and toasts. Ten years since, the departure of Dr. Macleod for India would assuredly have been commemorated by a teapot; and Mr. Trollope's family would have been presented with a full-length portrait in oils of its eminent chief; while Mr. Dickens might have had as many silver services and portraits as his sideboards and his walls could contain. All this has changed. To nobody above the lowly rank of a curate is a teapot ever presented in our day. But the spirit of combined fussiness and reverence manifests itself in other forms, on the undeniable practical principle of Satan always finding some mischief for idle hands to do. The eminent man may escape his teapot; but he cannot hope to miss the complimentary banquet. Indeed, to go a long way from home, either to the extreme East or to the extreme West, must in time grow to be an indirect test of a man's position. No man It is very useless to speculate on the future when it depends on the will of one man who does not hesitate to undo his own work, who, for aught the world knows, may attribute the ill luck of the last two years to the influence of the Papacy in heaven, and who has already set at naught every prediction based upon his character, his interest, and his career, but the balance of uncertain probabilities suggests some course of action like this. The Emperor of the French will retire from Rome for the present, but not from Civita Vecchia, which he keeps in order to paralyze Italy; will supply funds for the maintenance of a nominally Papal force, and will endeavour to induce other powers to share his respon sibility. Much time will be lost in an attempt to secure a general Congress, which will fail, because the actual rule of man-may be called illustrious until he has gone kind is not in Catholic hands; and much either to India, like Dr. Macleod, or to more in endeavouring to assemble a Cath- America, like Mr. Dickens, and thus stimuolic Congress, which will also fail, because lated his friends to give him a dinner. The the Catholics must consider the Pope, and thirst for glory will be measured by his his Holiness will be content with noth- hunger for a banquet in Great Queen ing short of the restitution of "the rights Street. The Freemasons' Tavern is rapof St. Peter." Meanwhile, Rome will en- idly becoming the only genuine Temple of dure, and the Italians will wait, until Pio Fame. Banquets to successful littérateurs Nono dies, when his successor will probably are coming as thick as blackberries, and prove just as intractable and courageous. they possess a great many peculiar advanThis, we say, is the balance of probabili- tages over the old way of testifying respect ties, but almost anything, a revolt in Flor- and admiration. They are cheaper, to ence, an émeute in Lyons, a movement in begin with. Nobody gives more than his South Germany, the death of Victor Eman- neighbour; and men who would have felt uel, or that of Napoleon himself, may alter bound to put down their ten or twenty the whole course of history. All that is pound note for a teapot, or a purse, or a porcertain is that Napoleon has no intention trait, can now win equal renown at the more of surrendering the hall key to the Italian moderate cost of one guinea. Then, again, house, that Italy has been bitterly humili- you do not altogether lose sight even of this ated byher firmest ally, that the Italian dy-small sum. Plate is unsocial. The subnasty is unequal to the situation, and that scribers cannot get any personal fun and England takes no more part in the grand enjoyment out of the teapot. The hero of the hour carries it away in a bag of green must remain a mystery. That men do enbaize, and for the persons who have paid tertain this preference is also likely to refor it this is an end of the transaction. A main a fact. From the reports of the dinner, on the contrary, is thoroughly and speeches made at the three complimentary emphatically social. We give our divine or dinners of last week, it seems, that, on each novelist a dinner; but then, in this very act, occasion, the Chairman and the hero of the we also invite ourselves to help him to eat it. evening contrived to steer clear of sheer In giving him a dinner, we give ourselves nonsense and vacuity. But for the rest, one at the same time; and as there are don't let us reason about them; listen and many persons who really like taking their look, and pass on as swiftly as may be. food in the glare of a thousand jets of gas, amid a dreadful din and bustle and hubbub, this is somewhat of an argument for them at least. Other persons, or perhaps the same persons, are also cast in so mysterious a mould as to be willing to endure an endless quantity of speech-making from others, on the bare hazard of getting a chance of making a speech of their own. In the old teapot scheme, there was no room for gratifying more than one man with a taste for oratory, or at most two. The astounding institution of a score of toasts had no place in one of those more primitive ceremonials. Hence there were a score fewer speeches to be made, and perhaps three or four score more of disappointed men. It is true that against this must be set the fact that the majority of men, who know by painful experience the stammering imbecility and fatuousness of nine English speakers out of ten, have a strong interest in suppressing oratory. But these are the silent and peaceful many, here, as ever, led by the blatant and fussy few, who divide the speechifying among themselves, and fondly believe that their victims like and admire it. They are not wholly wrong. Wherever two or three Englishmen are gathered together, under any shadow of formal pretext, there is sure to be a certain feeling that the proceedings would be imperfect without a measure of solemn oratorical shuffling and mumbling. It is possible that there were some people present at the dinner to Mr. Dickens who would have felt that they had not had the full worth of their guinea, nor risen to the full significance of the rite, if there had not been, besides meats and wines, a full allowance of tumid and second-rate oratory into the bargain. To a sensible man, this may seem extremely funny and incredible; but then so do a great many other things which we are still constrained to admit as actually existing. How any body who could dine peaceably and meditatively at home or at his club on a piece of meat and a pint of wine, should yet prefer to eat mediocre mixtures in a noisy crowd with a cento of wearisome and, in the main, meaningless speeches to follow, It must be a serious nuisance, even to a vain man, to have to pay the penalty of a banquet, if he should venture to give up his employment, like Mr. Trollope, or to make a journey, like Dr. Macleod and Mr. Dickens. The fat and steaming adulation which is so common on these occasions - indeed for the sake of which, to a certain extent, they are got up- cannot be particularly pleasant even to men who enjoy their reputation. To have praises poured over him and down his back, which would be almost hyperbolical if applied to Shakspeare himself, must make a straightforward man, with some knowledge of himself and his powers, ready to shiver. The moderate-sized mortal perched on a pedestal lofty enough for Jupiter or Apollo must have honest qualms and misgivings. To be made into a Phaëthon against his will, and to be forced to course through the heavens, is a grievous fate for him, unless he be forgetful enough or ignorant enough of his own powers to believe, in the intoxication of the hour, that his adulators are doing no more than giving him his due. As a rule, we suspect these affairs afford much more pleasure to small men than to the big man. They are placed in an unusually fine and exalted position. They become the patrons, and therefore the more than equals, of the hero of their evening. The deep gratitude which is always so ostentatiously paraded by the guest is by them taken quite in earnest. They humbly persuade themselves that they have somehow placed the great author under an obligation; that they deserve very well of him; that, if he has written delightful novels, they, in turn, have provided for him a delightful treat of food and oratory. It is curious to think how many worthy men there are to whom to come into contact with persons of eminence even in this remote way is gratifying and elevating beyond description - to whom it is really a thing to be much thought of that they should have come under the bodily eye of Lord Lytton or Mr. Dickens, and perhaps, in the expansion of the hour of parting, should have seized the hand that wrote Pickwick or Pelham. This makes them actual friends, or at least acquaintances, of the great man, after a fashion. The contagion of glory is a wonderful force in all these affairs. For some very plain man, with a name absolutely and forever unknown beyond the limits of a very narrow private circle, to find that name blazoned in the public prints in company with peers and judges and poets, is to cease to be obscure. A ray or two from the divine halo which glitters round the head of the Chairman and the illustrious guest lights up even the humblest and most obscure of the stewards. To pay one's shot for dining with eminent literary personages is to receive some breath or two of the divine literary afflatus. Who dines with literary men must needs himself be literary; and to have a reputation for being this, especially in very rural and very commercial circles, is to have a right to lay down critical laws to one's neighbours. ousness of the form in which you clothe it. If you would dine tête-à-tête or in a party of four with the idol, the ceremony would be pleasant and intelligible. But fortunately nothing can be thought of more absurd than the notion of dining with the idol in the company of three hundred other persons. We often laugh at the American custom of serenading a political hero until he consents to come out upon the balcony and make a speech. Is our own practice of dragging the literary hero to Willis's Rooms, and there making him speak, a whit more rational? DEATH OF FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. OUR sheet of this day has the sad duty of recording the death of Fitz-Greene Halleck, the poet, last night, at his residence in Guilford, Connecticut, at the age of seventytwo years. Mr. Halleck was born in Guilford, Connecticut, in 1795. His mother was an Elliot, and a descendant of John Elliot, "the apostle to the Indians." Mr. Halleck came to New York in 1818, and entered the mercantile house of Jacob Barker, in whose employment he remained for many years. Afterwards he was in the service of John Jacob Astor, by whom he was nominated one of the trustees of the Astor Library. Since 1849 Mr. Halleck has lived in his native place, retired from business. The people who insist on finding good in everything may urge that, after all, this extraordinary system of banqueting is a mark of reverence and gratitude for great genius and worth, on the part of the obscurities who crowd to dinners and reflected glory. Perhaps so. And to the veneration and thankfulness we can make no objection. On the contrary, his capacity for these profound emotions is one of the noblest parts of man's nature. It is the form assumed by these sublime sentiments against which it will very soon be high time for plain folk to protest. What is the hidden link which connects veneration with dining? Why, because I like to read skilful compilations of love-letters and ingenious analyses of the more complex phenomena of flirting, should I testify my esteem and love for the writer who can tread this lofty ground with such courage and success by going to eat my dinner in his society in a hot room with a great deal of gas, atmospheric and oratorical? The only answer is, that at least this is no more unreasonable than the ancient practice of presenting him with an utterly superfluous piece of plate. We might just as well have asked why the gracefulness of Mr. Trollope's love-letters, Mr. Halleck was by no means a volumior the vigour and fertility of Mr. Dickens's nous author, but the poems he wrote have genius for caricature, or the success with long been favorites with the public. He which Dr. Macleod has sown liberal seed possessed a peculiar vein of humor, exceedin an illiberal land, should have been re-ingly airy and graceful, and his versification warded with a teapot or an inkstand for is one of uncommon sweetness and melody. which they could have no sort of use. This, He delighted in rapid transitions from gay however, is the test of all these celebrations. to grave, and again in unexpected returns To introduce any consideration of utility is from the grave to the ludicrous. Yet when to exhibit a base insensibility to the gushing the mood was on him he was capable of emotions of the hour. Your good will is to strains inspired with the highest poetic enbe nicely measured by the entire preposter-thusiasm. There is not in the language a Mr. Halleck began to write verses in his boyhood. The Carliest piece which he thought worthy to appear in his collected poenis, the lines to "Twilight,” appeared in the Evening Post so long ago as 1818; and the ·Croaker" papers, by Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake, appeared in our journal the following summer. "Fanny," his longest poem, was written in 1819. In 1822-23 he visited Europe, and in 1827 published an edition of his poems. Several editions have appeared since. To keep my life thus cheery and bright, While thine is all over? finer martial poem than his Marco Bozzaris. | Why did God make me a brave bird-soul, literature. Mr. Halleck was personally a most agreeable man, and one of the pleasantest companions in the world. He was an unwearied reader, and used to say that he could think of no more pleasant life than would be afforded by a large library and abundant leisure. He was acquainted with several modern languages. He studied Portuguese that he might read Camoens in the original, whoseLusiad" has lost all of its simplicity and much of its narrative interest in Mickle's diffuse translation. His conversation was entertaining, pointed to a degree which made it almost epigrammatic, and enlivened with anecdotes, which he related with a conciseness and spirit that would have satisfied even Samuel Rogers. Why was I given Bold strong wings, A DINNER was given this day week to Mr Dickens, on his departure for a visit to the United States, at the Freemasons' Tavern, between three and four hundred persons being present, and Lord Lytton in the chair. The chief feature of the evening was the extravagant flattery which the principal speakers lavished upon each other, in a style, as somebody "more like a funeral sermon than truth." says, Lord Lytton said that Mr. Dickens wielded royal sceptre over the hearts of men, and that "humanity obeys an irresistible instinct when it renders homage to one who refines it by tears which never enfeeble, and gladdens it by a laughter that never degrades." The last is as strictly true of Mr. Dickens as the former is false. His pathos is rarely anything but sentimental, and usually even effeminate. Mr. Dickens himself illustrated this when he ended his speech of thanks by quoting the sentimental little sentiment from Tiny Tim, "God bless us every one." Then the Lord Chief Justice extolled Lord Lytton, "the poet, novelist, dramatist, thinker, critic, philosopher," and spoke of him as contributing to "the enjoy ment, edification, and instruction of the intellectual world in all these departments." Enjoyment is a matter of taste; and no doubt there is plenty of clever writing in Lord Lytton to enjoy; but we forget which of Lord Lytton's books are instructive and edifying. Then Lord Lytton praised "those remarkable talents which first became the admiration of our Parliament, and now reflect lustre on our Bench;" and so it went on. Do clever and able men enjoy themselves the more at these festivities for all this. coarse eulogy? We confess it seems to us in odious taste. - Spec tator. POETRY: By the Fire, 642. Lord Mayor's Carriage, 642. The Last Walk in Autumn, by John G. Whittier, 673. New Books THE LADY'S ALMANAC. Price, 50 cents. For the year 1868. Boston: George Coolidge. AMERICAN NOTES. By Charles Dickens. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Bros. Preparing for Publication at this Office THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS. By the author of "Heir of Redclyffe.' THE BROWNLOWS. By Mrs. Oliphant. LINDA TRESSEL. By the author of Nina Balatka." THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOP'S FOLLY. By Charles Lever. GRACE'S FORTUNE. ALL FOR GREED. PHINEAS FINN, THE IRISH MEMBER. By Mr. Trollope. Just Published at this Office 50 cents. THE TENANTS OF MALORY. By J. S. Le Fanu. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay cmmission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series,in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. The Complete work Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. |