or mental faculties, and has several extensive undertakings of a literary nature in contemplation." We sincerely wish him all the felicity which his long and well-spent life should insure. Of Sir John it may truly be said, in the complimentary couplet, which is cited by one of his correspondents, that he will ever be considered among those

Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes,
Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo.

AUTUMN.

THE leaves are sere; along the woodland side,
Making wild music, thy chill gale sweeps by:
O melancholy Autumn! a pale bride

In robes of sadden'd brown, with downcast eye.
Now weak, faint sunbeams play

Upon the spoils of summer's glowing day,
And low cold clouds move fast and heavily.

Now the dull beetle stills its hum,
The sunlight hours are short become,
And loneliness, and more than sadness
Are on the soul that late was gladness.
The last lorn leaf falls from the tree,
Like time into eternity.

Nature, so late in pomp and state,
Decay is making desolate ;

And skeletons and wrecks are rife,

Where earth was lately bright with life.
It is the death-bed of the year,

That borne away must disappear

On waves of shade, t'ward shores unknown,

Where all the past of earth have flown

Where all to come of earth must fly,

That move or think beneath the sky.
Where Thou art fled whose beauty's hour
Seem'd far beyond destruction's power-
Ah! fleetest fled, yet, loveliest one,
That memory hoards of shadows gone!
Go, Year, with thy pale autumn guest,
Go, to the death-bed of thy rest!
Sweet is thy season's mournful hue
To those who, school'd in wisdom true,
Spurn the vain earth with spirit free,
Nor reck their own decline with thee,
In this thy third and waning stage,
To where all end their pilgrimage!
Thou hadst thy days of brightness-thou-
Sad Autumn, of the pallid brow!
When thy own skies were clear and cold,
Thy hoar-frost covering field and fold;
When the brisk sportsman wiled away
With dog and gun the short'ning day;
And, as if lifted from the earth,
My soul seem'd call'd to second birth.
Though fleeting such fair glimpses be,
Through clouds of gloom that circle thee,
Yet, Autumn! in thy sober mien,
Expression's grace is always seen,
And better far that charm of nature,
Than beauty with unspeaking feature!

Ω.

THEATRICAL POLITICS.

To let slip no opportunity of acquiring information is, according to the opinion of some, one of the first maxims of wisdom. honestly confess, we do not wish to lend ourselves to a system so eraWe ving and unbounded; such aspirations do not inflate our bosoms. If it could be brought about without toil and hardship-if the primeval curse, the sweat of our brow, did not attend it; then indeed could we join heart and hand in the cause of enlightenment. But labour is a condition of humanity which we would seek fair opportunity to mitigate and evade, instead of aggravating of our every own accord its original intensity, and voluntarily thrusting ourselves into the sphere of its most arduous operations. However philosophers may feel on the subject, when they dilate on the pleasures of pure reasoning, and the luxury of acquiring knowledge; we, of common mould, must candidly own our infirmity, and avow that we have made a compromise of the matter, stipulating with ourselves that having investigated so much with tolerable accuracy, we may be allowed, for our pains, to take the remainder upon trust.

"It is a

On no other terms could we consent to enter any walk of life, where we had either to propound propositions, or to hearken to those of others. We could not doom ourselves to a continued course of ratiocination in either case, and would yearn to be ever and anon refreshed by some few divergencies from a pursuit so self-denying and severe. Some space must be left for passion and imagination. Nay, we would go farther still less trifling,-Lord Londonderry would perhaps say, even some few a jest, a little harmsnatches of buffoonery, are occasionally necessary to enable us to bear with equanimity the burden of deep reflection. pleasant thing now and then to play the fool," as the poet hath written. Horace meant that, for instance, a conscript father having returned from the senate-house might find legitimate enjoyment in tumbling over head and heels in his own porticos. Now we, and the noble Lord above-mentioned, would extend the proposition, and aver that he should be fully entitled to perform that evolution whilst still within the walls of the Roman parliament. The fact is what we require is some substitute for direct argument, which shall rather minister to our entertainment, or at least leave us in a state of mental repose, instead of exacting that unceasing and severe vigilance which the process of pure reasoning so imperatively demands.

One thing is evident-that politics must be the field in which we should have most facilities for acting upon such a system, for where else can we so often and with impunity enjoy and luxuriate in the various resting-places of the mind?

The mathematics forbid all such agreeable relaxations: there is not a single appeal to the passions in all Euclid; wit is outlawed from algebra. Drollery and the differential calculus are two different things. Babbage and Poisson have pronounced that mechanics is not poetry. Davy has locked the door of chemistry against any thing but induction, and has exhausted its retorts of every thing imaginary. In anatomy, Bell and Bichat have averred December, 1831.-VOL. II. NO. VIII.

2 E

that fancy has nothing to do with our organization, and that no hypothesis, however tasteful, must evade the test of the dissectingknife; whilst by that perpetual itch for improvement, which amounts to a disease, metaphysics has of late been ranked by the French physiologists in the category of exact sciences, and subjected to all the rigour of demonstrative investigation. It was otherwise in the good old times of Harris and of Cudworth; and a taste for the marvellous was then all that was requisite for the analysis of mind. Now, notwithstanding that the Lunatic Asylum of Germany has made laudable efforts to stop the progress of the evil,-and Kant, and his French disciple Cousin, have raised the standard of mysticism again, a plodding and matter-of-fact age has opposed all their exertions, and set its seal on the heresy it was their duty to decry.

Where then can we, who feel a distaste for labour, find rest and refuge, save in the field of politics? In that grateful soil the passions and imagination may have full play, and we are not liable to be called to account for petty deviations from the line of argument, or for slight adumbrations of the truth. Here we are not exposed to the scrutiny of an austere logic or a harsh analysis.

Long before Edmund Burke flung his dagger on the floor of the House of Commons, Theatrical Politics had been held in the highest estimation; and superseding in great measure the onerous task of reflection, have since continued on manifold occasions to administer to the comfort of orator and audience, journalist and pamphleteer, that salutary relief from mental toil, which the rigour of exact thinking so inevitably imposes. Theatrical Politics-What are Theatrical Politics? There is no description of them perhaps to be found in the Philosophical Dictionary, or the Encyclopedia Britannica: you need not on this account, however, doubt that such a science has existence. Acting as I generally do on the principle of saving myself trouble, I shall not here set about providing you with its elaborate definition. The dagger of the political Roscius may, if you be not very obtuse, give you a pretty broad hint of its nature; and the illustrations which I shall subjoin will, I should think, supply you with its complete analysis. In passing, it may be well to state, that having hitherto recommended the study and practice of the science of Theatrical Politics on the grounds of its saving labour, and ministering in a general manner to our comforts and convenience; rising with my subject, I would now extol it on the score of higher merits than merely those of an epicurean cast, and would advocate the system as one by means of which all potentates, statesmen, public orators, king's-men, and men of the people, Whigs, Tories, movement parties, and anti-movement parties, may attain the more important object of effecting, not only with the greatest facility, but with the strongest assurances of success, the advancements of their interests and the triumph of their schemes. When reasoning and persuasion, and all the received modes of convincing on the one hand, have been known to fail; when intrigue, finesse, coups d'état on the other, have been equally unsuccessful; a little stage-trick, a clap-trap, a tableau, a rareeshow, or some such contrivance of Theatrical Politics, played off with a tolerable share of ingenuity, has signally baffled the enemy, and accomplished the purpose at once.

But our illustrations shall develope the powers of the system. What is the most effective passage in the works of the great political tragedian whom we have above alluded to? Undoubtedly that in which Marie Antoinette is pourtrayed in the zenith of power and of loveliness; and the whole description is thrown into the form of a drama.

Is it not a well ascertained fact in history, that the performance of Burke's tragedy of the French Revolution, along with his occasional histrionic displays on the same subject in the House of Commons, had the most powerful effect in influencing the opinions of the whole English nation, and in obtaining for the tragedian a pension of 9001. per annum? Look again to that great effort of this master of his art the trial of Warren Hastings. Was not Westminster Hall upon this occasion converted into a theatre; and all the great transactions of Indian politics both dramatized and performed, Burke and Sheridan walking in sock and buskin, from the first act to the last? Had we not great Moguls and Sultans, Rajahs, Begums, and Zemindars, elephants and tigers, and all kinds of wild beasts, and infantry and cavalry, and fire and sword, brought before us in a species of scenic declamation. The denouement, it is true, was not conceived by the public to involve the best of morals. Guilt was thought to have come off triumphant, and virtue to have been sent a-begging; but when was there ever such a display of theatrical rhetoric, or who could refuse the illustrious mimes the reputation of surpassing genius and a pure philanthropy?

That senator, who, emulating Burke's example, dashed on the floor of St. Stephen's a quartern loaf, enacted a scene also of no ordinary interest; and thus giving a lively picture of the destitution of the people, succeeded in graphically associating his sympathies with the popular cause. The tears of Lord Eldon were shed in the true spirit of theatrical policy. A few drops of rheum thus judiciously poured forth supplied the place of a deduction, and the argumentum ad lachrymas came with much stage-effect in the room of the argumentum ad absurdum. Sir Charles Wetherell's sans culotte-ry, and Lord Londonderry's tumbling, are illustrations of the nature of the system. Court pageants and state ceremonies are also specimens

on a large scale.

We grieve to find that, with respect to the late coronation, two opinions have been held. Whilst on one side it was proposed to celebrate that performance with all its usual pomp, and to furnish on a late occasion as magnificent a spectacle as was customary in the good old times; on the other, a tasteless, plodding, matter-of-fact set of men were for divesting it of most of those appendages which are at once its most brilliant and most imposing characteristics. Now we, who are thoroughly imbued with a sense of the use and importance of Theatrical Politics, cannot but feel a just alarm when doctrines so inconsistent with it are broached; and we implore of those who hold the same sentiments on these subjects as we do, however they may wink at any petty hostility which may be exhibited against the system, to oppose themselves, if it be not yet too late, to those open and deadly attacks which seem as it were to threaten its utter demolition. The Reform Bill is nothing in comparison to the sweeping alterations which were made in the ceremony of the coro

nation. To advert to no others-look at the omission of the champion. It was not enough that grand-butlers, and grand-falconers, and grand-chamberlains, and grand-God-knows-what, were all," at one fell swoop," consigned to obscurity-but the champion also was left to consume the flower of his chivalry neglected and unhonoured. Now in our humble opinion the champion is the principal personage in the play; you might as well leave the clown out of the pantomime. Take Mr. Dymoke and his charger out of the piece, and we would much prefer going to Sadler's Wells.

The rash and innovating spirit of the times is monstrous! Then again, forsooth, my Lord Grey decreed that the Peers, with the exception of two or three, should be unceremoniously thrust out of the dramatis personæ, or at most only allowed to play the part of mutes or walking characters. Here was a thick-and-thin meaNo wonder a Noble Marquis felt indignant when he first heard the doctrine promulgated in an august assembly. Such heresy a few years back would have been tied to the stake.

sure.

But the subject is to be viewed on higher grounds. We confess we do not understand these reforms, as connected with motives of much more serious import. Had we any thing to say to the matter had we any influence in the arrangements of the Theatre Royal," instead of lopping off and trimming the paraphernalia of its scenic displays, we would multiply and increase them to the utmost of our power. Commend us to the times when kings wore their crowns, and sat on thrones with sceptres in their hands every day; and that this was the custom the pictures of those illustrious monarchs plainly evince. The science of kingship was then properly understood, now we have scarcely a smattering of it. What must all this come to in the end? If you take away all these props, how is the monarchy to be supported? If you divest it of its theatrical attributes, what will be left? A great deal is said about a king's reigning in the hearts of his people. Now this is a manner of reigning that we are unaccustomed to, and we are an enemy to innovation. Our Henrys, and our Edwards, and our Charless, and our Georges, of happy memory, were wont to assert their dominion after a more right-royal fashion, and these are the men for our money. On the whole, we fear that the system of Theatrical Politics in this country, although it still continues to be favoured, has not of late met with that full encouragement of which we conceive it to be so markedly deserving.

France is the climate after all where the science is best understood, and is practised indifferently by king and people, priest and laic, monarchist and republican, movement party and anti-movement party, and on the largest and most comprehensive scale. For ages has the genius of the French nation been exercised in this sphere. What was the whole reign of Louis XIV., to go no further back, than one continued drama, in which the monarch played the part of a warrior, a man of letters, and a religious devotee, and thus won the admiration and confirmed the fealty of his subjects?-True, he never saw a battle, never read a book, never said a prayer; but then he moved with all the splendour of a court in the rear of the army that marched to Holland. He instituted with suitable pomp the academy of state philosophers and poet-laureates, and he never