applied the candle she had brought with her : the fagot blazed away in a minute, but the wood, vot being dry, after a little smoke, a fiz, and a fitful flame, went out, as the saying is. La fille blew with the bellows, but it would not do; and after a few “ pestes,” diables," &c., and a little coquetting with the obstinate triumvirate, who would not take fire, she applied the rest of her fagot beneath. The circumstance of my not having made any observation on all these difficulties, which a Frenchman, no doubt, would have done, must, I think, have appeared strange to her, for I saw her look round with that kind of air which marks the consciousness of something unusual : she seemed to look at me with surprise, and, as most people do on anything new in certain situations, with a kind of involuntary sense of apprehension. She knew I was awake: she, no doubt, thought me either melancholy or mad. In her hurry to get the affair completed for which she was there, she went down upon one knee, poked the candle into the fagot, and hastily put it down again behind her. It caught the bustle the projecting mass of muslin, silk, or cotton, as might be—and began to blaze upwards towards her high cap, unperceived by her. Without saying a word, such was my precipitation, I dashed out of bed, and was not only close behind her in a second, but patting her upon the back and squeezing her as close as possible that I might extinguish the flame. Wholly unconscious of the cause of the assault, her perturbation may be easily conceived : in the extremity of her amazement and alarm she could find no better words than “au voleur! au voleur ! la violence ! la violence!" which she screamed in a key proportionably loud as I continued to entreat, explain, supplicate, exhort; for, as soon as the flame was extinguished, not being able to see the marks it had left behind, she would not believe a word I said. So wholly was I absorbed in the endeavour to dismiss from her mind the important, the vital error under which she laboured, that I entirely forgot the costume in which I then was; and, while we were thus engaged--in the midst of this lively tête-à-tête—the door opened, and in rushed two or three persons, whom her screams had attracted. As they were open to the proof of ocular demonstration, and saw upon the singed "bustle” evidence of my innocent motives, the matter was soon set at rest, and I crept into bed again, thinking that my first night at Paris was one of more than ordinary misadventure.

(To be continued.)

THE ROCKING-HORSE.

The Garden of the Tuileries,

As travell'd Britons know,
Midst goodly groves of orange trees,

Hath statues, white as snow.
One morning, Indolence my guide

This garden-ground I trod, With maiden, tripping at my side,

Some four years old and odd. With loving eyes, serenely sweet,

And happy, thoughtless words; And lustrous face, and dancing feet,

And voice so like a bird's ! She spoke, and sombre thoughts grew bright

She laugh d-'twas sorrow's knell;
As wicked imps, 'tis said, take flight,

At sound of holy bell.
She prattled of each marble form,

So life-like in its air-
The hero in the battle-storm,

The beautiful, the fair.
Of cold Diana's placid face-

Of Shepherd with his flute-
And then the wondrous Centaur-race

Did touch the talker mute.
Her simple brain was overwrought

With Goddess, God, and King;
And like a shadow fell deep thought

Upon her marvelling. (So walk'd she on, but who may tell

What forms she brought awayTo stand reveal’d at mem'ry's spell

And glad some distant day? For lovely things that lie around

Our childhood's seeming night, Come forth like buried art, new-found

Fair Hebes, brought to light.) Well, leisurely we bent our walk

Where constant plenty yields
Perennial store of dust and chalk,

To famed “ Elysian Fields."
Now, ere you reach that happy plain,

Since, reader, you have eyes-
You can't but stare at statues twain

Of Herculean size;
That, trump in hand, rein each a steed

Impatient of the check-
A winged beast of fiery breed,

And " thunder-clothed " neck

The little maiden stood and gazed,

Then cried with all her force,
(And towards the steed her finger rais'd,)

“ Pa, that's a—Rocking-Horse !"
"A Rocking-Horse! No, no, my child,

It is the horse of Fame;
And they who mount that creature wild

Enjoy a lasting name."
“And who lives there behind the wood ?"

Then ask'd the simple maid;
And pointed where the palace stood,

In massive might array'd.
“ There Philip lives, the kingly lord

Of Frenchmen stout and true;
And there King Charles had bed and board,

And so had Lewis, too.
"And Buonaparté, England's foe--"

“ What, all these kings at once,
Or all a long, long time ago

Inquired the little dunce.
“ No, not so long: attend and hear,"

And straight I had begun,
When fancy saw the shades appear

Of monarchs, one by one.
Doom'd “ Louis Capet,” stript of might

Napoleon on the rock-
The Eighteenth Louis-Charles, a wight

Design’d for monkish frock.
And all like April sunbeams fled,

Save one, and one alone,
Spared from the exiled and the dead

To sit a brittle throne.
If thus, I thought, the lords of earth

Are but the toys of fate,
A passing ray their royal worth,

And shadows all their state-
Let whosoever bridle Fame,

Turk, Frenchman, Grecian, Norse-
East, west, north, south-the steed's the same-

'Tis but a-Rocking-Horse !

Paris, 1838.

D. J.

Oct.-VOL, LIV, NO. CCXIV.

P

ORTOLANS AND CHAMPAGNE.

“Scilicet uxorem cum alote, fidemque, et amicos,

Et genus, et formam, regina Pecunia donat:

Ac bene nummatum decorat Suadela, Venusque."-HORAT." 6 How the deuce come I to be interested in a man's fortune, unless I am his steward or his tailor ? Indeed, knowledge and genius are worth examining into; my understanding may be improved, or my imagination gratified; but why such a man's being able to eat ortolans and drink French wine is to recommend him to my esteem, is what I cannot readily conceive.”-FOOTE's KnighTS.

an answer.

This is a shrewd question of our English Aristophanes, and it merits

In undertaking an investigation of the matter, it is some comfort to be sure of the fact: for no one will doubt that riches are, in the abstract, an object of universal veneration in our isle; or that the aristocracy of wealth is as simply worshipped by Englishmen, as that of the herald's office.

Such being the fact, there must be a cause as universal as the effect; and, let Foote say what he pleases, we cannot doubt that there is some subtle connexion between a man and his money, which renders him the amiable, intelligent creature, which he is unanimously voted to be. Perhaps it is with riches as with electricity; and as the proximity of a body negatively electrified places, by induction, its neighbour in the opposite state of positive electricity, so the negative respectability, the vileness, corruption, and filthiness of the lucre itself, may, by a similar process, insinuate into its happy possessor a corresponding overdose of positive excellence. Without, however, relying too much on this analogy, which we confess is nothing more than a happy guess, let us proceed to inquire whether there may not be some more obvious reasons to account for the esteem in which the wealthy are held—reasons which will acquit plutidolatry of much of its imputed weakness. And first of all, it must occur to persons much used to such investigations, that the most inveterate worshippers of wealth are chiefly to be found among the seedy part of the community. A French officer once reproached his Swiss comrade with serving for pay, while he and his countrymen served for honour. “ Yes,” replied the other, “it is true; but every one fights for what he has not." So, too, is it with all our exertions; all objects of desire must be out of immediate possession ; and all objects of admiration somewhat beyond our actual reach. Why, for instance, do women fall in love with a beard and moustaches, but because all the macassar oil in London (an article which, it has been said, made the hair grow on an old trunk) will not procure them such a commodity for their own faces : and every point of female beauty on which the men dwell with the greatest delight, is precisely the point in which they have nothing themselves to boast. It is not a legitimate objection to this aphorism, that simile gaudet simili, or, as Martial better expresses it

“ Uxor pessima, pessimus maritus

Miror non bene convenire vobis :" for this sympathy is by no means founded on esteem, there being for the most part too much rivalry between the parties for hearty admiration. Like seeks like, not for liking, but on the Owenite principle of co-operation; and we very much doubt, maugre the name of the thing, whether Owen’s parallelograms and harmony have so mueh to do with each other as their inventor imagined.

Further, every one is desirous of wealth, and generally puts forth all his energies in seeking to attain it. Every one likewise is apt to indulge in a sufficient self-esteem. What, then, is more natural than that the poor man who has laboured all his life to scrape a little money together, and laboured in vain, should imagine that he who has succeeded must be a very clever fellow ? People, we are aware, will, in such cases, flatter their own self-love by publicly imputing their neighbour's well-doing to that ideal nonentity, good luck; but still in their heart of hearts they know to the contrary: and, if Sir Balaam himself “ calls God's providence a lucky hit,” his friends are seldom behindhand in attributing the matter to personal merits, derived from an instigation of another sort. Certain also it is that the poor do nothing but wonder at those who have crept into wealth ; and wonder, as Zanga tells us, " is involuntary praise.” Whenever, therefore, we see a poor devil with his thread bare coat buttoned tight over his no-shirt, who cringes, and fawns, and gives the wall to a snug, comfortable, well-dressed passer-by, his quondam intimate, we take it as a mere admission of the moral and intellectual powers of the man of wealth, a real knocking-under to superior adroitness and applicability. Money, then, is interesting as the sign of all the good qualities by which it has been accumulated ; and a man's being " able to eat ortolans and drink French wine,” if he be the architect of his own fortune, is a guarantee for his possessing all the knowledge and virtue which are sine quâ non to the operation.

With respect to hereditary wealth, indeed, this motive cannot apply ; and more especially they of the landed interest are very generally considered as better qualified to dissipate than to accumulate. We must look, therefore, a little further for the causes of squire worship. Wealth, in itself, is power, and power is an awful thing; else wherefore is the devil to be “ honoured for his burning throne?” But landed wealth besides its proper pecuniary influences, wields all the minor authorities of the law, hectors over pheasants and partridges, stops up by-paths, and opens carriage-roads for its own convenience, returns members to parliament, frightens parish-officers out of their propriety, and holds the vicar himself in respectful check; no wonder, therefore, that a man of acres is adored, though he be a fool or a sot; or that his agent or his gentleman's gentleman is propitiated through the whole vicinage of his possessions. Not, however, that we believe the connexion, in these cases, to be purely symbolical either of talent or of power. On the contrary, we hold that there is a real, though mystical, virtue in “ the blunt,” which passes, like the Barony of Arundel, with the fee simple, to each new possessor.

That wealth really does, like honours, change men's manners—that a saint in crape is really twice a saint in lawn-appears also with great clearness of evidence in the reports of police offices, where dress tells so much in favour of the accused. The man who buys his clothes of a tailor, and on coming before the magistrate hands up his card to the bench, makes a much better impression upon justice, than he who deals