ago, by writers ambitious of a reputation for acquaintance with the Hterature of modern France, about their wit, and their elegance, and other accomplishments of those more than demi-reps; and their meretricious charms, it was hinted, might even, if too fondly contemplated, have the power to eclipse the soberer lustre of the character of our British female worthies. TICKLER. Whereas their dulness was nearly equal to their profligacy; and the learned lovers, Presidents of Philosophical Societies, and so forth, whom their insatiable licentiousness disgusted, their wearisome stupidity sent asleep. NORTH. Eternal contempt, Tickler, in spite of all the fulsome eulogies by their friends on this side of the channel, must pursue the memory of the few philosophers who are not already forgotten, that were not ashamed to submit their scientific speculations-aye, their moral reflections on conscience, and their inquiries into the origin of evil, and their conjectures on the mysteries of God's Providence, to the feelings, and opinions, and judgments of weak and wicked women, whose last favours were lavished with a profusion, in which freedom of choice was lost on their parts, and freedom of rejection on that of their favourites, on an endless series of grinning and grimacing Abbés, and Esprits Forts, and Academicians, all muttering, and mowing, and chattering, and scraping, and bowing, and shrugging their shoulders complacently to one another, with hatred and jealousy, and envy, and rage, and revenge, boiling or rankling in their hearts! SHEPHERD. Order-order-chair-chair! Tickler, tak North through hauns. What? James! TICKLER. SHEPHERD. Ae flash o' your ee sets me richt. Oh, sirs! what a glorious galaxy o' female genius and virtue have we to gaze on, with admiration pure and unreproved, in our native hemisphere. There-that star is the large and lustrous star o' Joanna Baillie; and there are the stars o' Hamilton—and Edgeworthand Grant-and Austen-and Tighe-and Mitford-and Hemans! Beautiful and beloved in all the relations of Christian life, these are the WOMEN, Mr North, maids, wives, or widows, whom the religious spirit of this Protestant land will venerate as long as the holy fires of a pure faith burn upon her altars. These are the LADIES, Mr Tickler, and thank God we have many like them, although less conspicuous, whom to guard from insult of look, whisper, or touch, what man, English, Scotch, or Irish, but would bare his breast to death? And why? Because the union o' genius, and virtue, and religion, and morality, and gentleness, and purity, is a soul-uplifting sight, and ratifies the great bond of Nature, by which we are made heirs of the immortal sky. NORTH. Timothy, you and I had really better be mum till morning. TICKLER. He beats us both at our own weapons-and I begin to think I stutter. Mr AMBROSE enters. SHEPHERD. As sure's death, there's the oysters. O man, Awmrose, but youv'e the pleasantest face o' ony man o' a' my acquaintance. Here's ane as braid's a mushroom. This is Saturday nicht, and they've a' gotten their bairds shaved. There's a wee ane awa' down my wrang throat; but de'il a fears, it'll find its way into the stamach. A waught o' that porter gars the drums o' ane's lugs crack and play dirl. TICKLER. They are in truth precious powldoodies. More boards, Ambrose, more boards. SHEPHERD. Yonner are half-a-dizzen fresh boards on the side-tables. But more porter, Awmrose-more porter. Canna ye manage mair than twa pots at a time, man, in ilka haun'? For twunty years, Mr North, I used aye to blaw aff the froth, or cut it smack-smooth across wi' the edge o' my loof; but for the last ten or thereabouts, indeed ever since the Magazine, I hae sooked in froth and a', nor cared about diving my nose in't. Faith, I'm thinkin' that maun be what they ca' BROON STOOT; for Mr Pitt and Mr Fox are nearing ane anither on the wa' there, as gin they were gaun to fecht; and either the roof's rising, or the floor fa'in', or I'm haflins fou! TICKLER. Mr Pitt and Mr Fox! why, James, you are dreaming. This is not the Blue Parlour ! A Pscychological Curiosity! NORTH. SHEPHERD. Faith it is curious aneuch, and shows the power o' habit in producing à sort o' delusion on the ocular spectrum. I wad hae sworn I saw the lang, thin, lank feegur, and cocked up nose o' Pitt, wi' his hand pressed down wi' an au thoritative nieve, on a heap o' Parliamentary papers; and the big, clumsy carcase, arched een, and jolly chops o' Fox, mair like a master coal-merchant than an orator or a statesman;-but they've vanished away, far aff, and wee, wee like atomies, and this is no the Blue Parlour sure aneuch. NORTH. To think of one of the Noctes Ambrosianæ passing away without évér a single song! SHEPHERD. It hasna past awa yet, Mr North. It's no eleven, man; and to hinner twal frae strikin untimeously, and on a Saturday nicht I hate the sound o't-Mr Awmrose, do you put back, ae round, the lang hand o' the knock. Yese hae a sang or twa afore we part, Mr North; but, even without music, hasna this been a pleasant nicht? I sall begin noo wi' pepper, vinegar, and mustard, for the oysters by theirsells are getting awee saut. By the tramping on the stairs I jalouse the play-house is scalin'. Whisht, Mr North! keep a calm sugh, or Odoherty will be in on us, and gar us break the Sabbath morning. Noo, let's draw in our chairs to the fireside, and, when a's settled in the tither parlours, I'll sing you a sang. [Curtain falls. Want of room obliges us to omit our usual Lists of Publications, &c. Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. Edinburgh. EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CXX. DECEMBER, 1826. VOL. XX. Contents. DI VASARI. A TALE OF FLORENCE. BY THE LATE CHARLES ED CIVILIZATION OF AFRICA. SIERRA LEONE.-LIBERATED AFRICANS, 872 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, NO. 17, PRINCE'S STREET, EDINBURGH; AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON; To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed. SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY JAMES BALLANTYNE & CO. EDINBURGH. SPEEDILY WILL BE PUBLISHED, BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EdinburgH; AND T. CADELL, LONDON, I. In One Volume Octavo, HISTORY OF THE PROGRESS AND SUPPRESSION OF THE REFORMATION IN ITALY AND SPAIN, DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. BY THOMAS M'CRIE, D.D. II. In 3 vols. post 8vo, ELIZABETH DE BRUCE. BY THE AUTHOR OF CLAN-ALBIN. O! good your Worship, tell it of all things; for I mightily delight in hearing of love stories. SANCHO PANZA. See how he shoots, borne on his car of fogs, over our city!" It was somewhere about the middle of the fourteenth century, or, to fix dates more precisely, in the autumn of the year 1343, that the great plague, described by various Italian writers, and especially by Boccaccio in his Decameron, for the sins or admonition of the Tuscans, fell upon the rich and beauteous city of Florence. The means by which this calamity, after spreading desolation through the Levant, and also through many of the maritime cities of Italy, was first introduced into Florence, have been matter of dispute. Some historians declare, that it first came in by the dealing of certain Jews; who introduced into the town, and bartered with the inhabitants, large quantities of condemned apparel-clothes belonging to the dead-which they had bought privately, getting them at a low market, in the infected city of Ancona. And of this suspicion, whether it was well or ill founded, the acVOL. XX. cused in the end bore the consequences; for, with only twelve hours allowed for preparation, in the fourth week of the disease, they were driven beyond the walls of the city; the streets in which they had dwelt being levelled with the ground, and themselves adjudged to death in case they attempted to return. Other writers, however, assert, on the contrary, that the malady itself was never 66 infectious;" but merely " endemic ;" and that it was not imported at all, but arose from some malaria, or general predisposition to disease in the atmosphere. And certain it is, which so far goes to set up the theory of these last speculators, that the weather, during the whole of the spring and summer preceding the visitation, had been unusually close and sultry. Foul and offensive exhalations had proceeded, in a remarkable degree, from all pools, and fens, and marshes, in the neighbourhood of the city. The 5 I |