flirtations characterize the Saturday evening. | saunter by the shore after breakfast, we perEvery one, of course, goes to church on Sun-ceive, well out in the Frith, a steamer day morning; no Glasgow man who values decked with as many flags as can possibly be his character durst stop away. We shall not displayed about her rigging. The strains of soon forget the beauty of the calm Sunday on a band of music come by starts upon the that beautiful shore: the shadows of the dis-breeze; a big drum is heard beating away tant mountains; the smooth sea; the church- when we can hear nothing else; and a sound bells, faintly heard from across the water; the of howling springs up at intervals. Do not universal turning-out of the population to fancy that these yells imply that anything is the house of prayer, or rather of preaching. wrong; that is merely the way in which It was almost too much for us to find Dr. working folk enjoy themselves in this counCumming here before us, giving all his old try. That steamer has been hired for the brilliancies to enraptured multitudes. We day by some wealthy manufacturer, who is had hoped he was four hundred and odd giving his "hands" a day's pleasuremiles off; but we resigned ourselves, like the sailing. They left Glasgow at seven or eight Turk, to what appears an inevitable destiny. o'clock: they will be taken probably to This gentleman, we felt, is really one of the Arran, and there feasted to a moderate exinstitutions of the country, and no more to tent; and at dusk they will be landed at be escaped than the income-tax. the Broomielaw again. We lament to say Morning service over, most people take a that very many Scotch people of the workwalk. This would have been regarded in ing class seem incapable of enjoying a holiScotland a few years since as a profanation day without getting drunk and uproarious. of the day. But there is a general air of We do not speak from hearsay, but from quiet; people speak in lower tones; there what we have ourselves seen. Once or are no joking and laughing. And the Frith, twice we found ourselves on board a steamer so covered with steamers on week-days, is crowded with a most disagreeable mob of to-day unruffled by a single paddle-wheel. | intoxicated persons, among whom, we grieve Still it is a mistake to fancy that a Scotch to say, we saw many women. The authoriSunday is necessarily a gloomy thing. ties of the vessel appeared entirely to lack There are no excursion trains, no pleasure both the power and the will to save respectatrips in steamers, no tea-gardens open: but ble passengers from the insolence of the it is a day of quiet domestic enjoyment, not "roughs." The Highland fling may be a saddened but hallowed by the recognized very picturesque and national dance, but sacredness of the day. The truth is, the when executed on a crowded deck by a manfeeling of the sanctity of the Sabbath is so iacal individual, with puffy face and bloodingrained into the nature of most Scotchmen shot eyes, swearing, yelling, dashing up by their early training, that they could not against peaceable people, and mortally enjoy Sunday pleasuring. Their religious drunk, we should think it should be matter their superstition if you choose, would less of æsthetical than of police consideramake them miserable on a Sunday excur- tion. Unless the owners of the Clyde sion. steamers wish to drive all decent persons from their boats, they must take vigorous steps to repress such scandalous goings-on as we have witnessed more than once or twice. And we also take the liberty to suggest that the infusion of a little civility into the manner and conversation of some of the steam-boat officials on the quay at Greenock, would be very agreeable to passengers, and could not seriously injure those individuals themselves.

sense,

The Sunday morning service is attended by a crowded congregation: the church is not so full in the afternoon. In some places there is evening service, which is well attended. We shall not forget one pleasant walk, along a quiet road bounded by trees as rich and green as though they grew in Surrey, though the waves were lapping on the rocks twenty yards off, and the sun was going down behind the mountains of Cowal, to a pretty little chapel where we attended evening worship upon our last Sunday on the Clyde.

What sort of men are the Glasgow merchants? Why, courteous reader, there are great diversities among them. Almost all Every now and then, as we are taking our we have met give us an impression of shrewd

ness and strong sense; some, of extra-ing up particulars as to Glasgow matters ordinary tact and cleverness-though these according to our taste wherever we went, last are by no means among the richest men. our sojourn upon the Frith of Clyde pleasIn some cases we found extremely unaffected antly passed away. We left our hospitable and pleasing address, great information upon friends, not without a promise that when general topic-in short, all the character- the Christmas holidays come we should visit istics of the cultivated gentleman. In others them once more, and see what kind of thing there certainly was a good deal of boorish- is the town life of the winter time in that ness; and in one or two instances, a ten-warm-hearted city. And we shall certainly dency to the use of oaths which in this go,-for ten hours and a half will take us, country have long been unknown in good unless in the interim we should be apsociety. The reputed wealth of some Glas- pointed Attorney-General, which we should gow men is enormous, though we think it have been long ago if preferment at the bar not unlikely that there is a great deal of went according to merit. We think it very exaggeration as to that subject. We did, likely that a few days in Glasgow then may however, hear it said that one firm of iron make us acquainted with some Scotch manmerchants realized for some time profits to ners and customs, some talk about which the extent of nearly four hundred thousand may prove interesting to the readers of a-year. We were told of an individual who Fraser. And, meanwhile, as the days died worth a million, all the produce of his shorten to chill November,-as the clouds of own industry and skill; and one hears London smoke drift by our windows,-as incidentally of such things as five-hundred- the Thames runs muddy through this mighty pound bracelets, thousand-guinea necklaces, hum and bustle away to the solitudes of its and other appliances of extreme luxury, as last level,—we recall that cheerful time not unknown among the fair dames of Glas- with a most agreeable recollection of the gow. kindness of Glasgow friends,-and of all

And so, in idle occupations, and in glean-that is implied in Glasgow Down the Water.

PECULIAR CHARACTERISTIC OF METEORIC ceiveth life, it chippeth, it putteth forth a blade, STONES.-There is one character which is pecu- and groweth into a stalk. There also appeareth liar in the meteoric stone, and which proves to an ear: it also sweetly blossoms, with a full kerbe of high significance, viz: its substance is nel in the ear. It is the same wheat, yet behold composed of various mineral ingredients which how the fashion doth differ from what was are identical with matters of familiar occurrence sown! And our brawn will be left behind, upon the earth; but amidst these iron is found in when we rise again. The body ariseth, as to great abundance as it is never found on the the nature of it, the self-same nature; but as earth; that is, in a native or nearly pure me- to the manner of it, how far transcendant! tallic and uncombined state. On the terres-"The glory of the terrestrial is one, and the trial surface iron is always mingled with diverse glory of the celestial another!"-John Bunmatters, from which it has to be extracted by yan art when it is required as a pure metal. The omnipresent and corrosive oxygen of the air alone prevents it from maintaining such condition long; this rusts and eats it away. Oxygen and iron have so irresistibly strong an attraction or affinity for each other that they THE interiors described in this interesting litinvariably combine when they are left together. tle work are those of the religious houses of Thus, then, the unoxydized and purely metallic Belgium. The account is varied with sketches condition of iron in the aerolite proves that it of scenery, extremely well drawn; incidents of comes from a situation in which there is no oxy-travel, often very entertaining; and clever and gen; that is, from beyond the bounds of the atmosphere, and that it is, therefore, altogether

unterrestrial.

Flemish Interiors. By the Author of "A
Glance Behind the Grilles. " Longman and
Co.

amusing portraitures of characters of note. The book is a very attractive one; the style that

of a scholar and man of refinement. No tourist in Belgium, whether seriously interested in the EMBLEM OF THE RESURRECTION FROM A pious institutions of that country, or only actuGRAIN OF WHEAT.-There is a poor, dry, and ated by the ordinary curiosity of a rambler on wrinkled kernel cast into the ground; and the continent, could take a more agreeable or there it lieth, swelleth, breaketh, and, one useful companion along with him than the volwould think, perisheth. But behold, it re-ume before us.-Examiner.

THE DRAMATIC CENSORSHIP AND THE interfered so offensively with the rights of

the publication of the opera by subscription, | arbitrary power is vested in the lord-chamthe sympathy universally felt for the author berlain to expunge a part, or suppress the is said to have fully indemnified him for the whole, of any dramatic pieces which may be pecuniary loss he had sustained by the ex- offered for representation on the stage. The clusion of his production from the stage. measure, though in a constitutional point of That pecuniary loss, however, could not be view it was one of no ordinary importance, estimated with any degree of certainty. since it gave to an officer of the household, as Gay was in the zenith of his reputation; he was observed by Lord Chesterfield in his had just realized upwards of £2000 by an celebrated speech on the second reading of opera of which the success had been unpre- the bill, a more absolute power than we incedented, and he had a fair right to expect a trust even to the sovereign-though it aimed, considerable accession of fortune from a indirectly, a blow at the liberty of the press piece which, whatever may have been said of its inferiority to the Beggar's Opera, abounds in strokes of pleasantry not unworthy of its author, and is in its lyrical parts fully equal to his more celebrated production. It is as an invasion of literary property that the themselves-appears to have passed without lord-chamberlain's arbitrary and illegal suppression of this opera appears in the most odious light; and it is by considering in this point of view the act which established the existence of the dramatic censorship, that we are enabled to form a correct estimate of the unjust and oppressive characer of the

measure.

though it imposed shackles on a branch of our literature, and created a monopoly in theatrical property, as objectionable on general principles of commercial policy as it is injurious to the interests of the monopolists

much opposition. The speech of Lord Chesterfield on the second reading of the bill is the only evidence which remains to us of its having met with any opposition in its progress through the Houses. In the Commons, it seems to have been hurried through its several stages with as much precipitation and as little discussion as an ordinary turnpike bill. It was ordered to be brought in on the 20th of May, 1737. It was read a first time on the 24th, a second time on the 25th, committed and ordered to be reported, with its amendments, on the 26th, reported-all the amendments but one being agreed toon the 27th, and passed on the 1st of June, when Mr. Pelham was ordered to carry it to the Lords. In the Lords, it was read a first time on the same day, a second time, after a debate, on the 2d of June, and the third time on the 6th of June. It was returned to the Commons on the 8th, and received the royal assent on the 21st.

This measure was introduced into the House of Commons, by Sir Robert Walpole, on the 24th of May, 1737. It bore to be a "Bill to explain and amend so much of the 12th of Anne, entitled an Act for the more effectual punishing of Rogues, Vagabonds, Sturdy Beggars, and Vagrants, as relates to Common Players of Interludes." The history of the bill is curious. A farce called the Golden Rump, said to be fraught with sedition and abuse of the government, had been offered to the manager of one of the theatres, who, either with a view of recommending himself to the minister, or of obtaining some reward for his forbearance, im- Such is the history of the playhouse bill, mediately put the manuscript into the hands as it has been handed down to us by the of Walpole. Walpole, who had long been younger Walpole. It was ostensibly introannoyed with the freedom with which the duced for the purpose of improving, or raismeasures of the administration had been at- ing new securities for the morality of the tacked and ridiculed in theatrical produc- stage, and left the stage precisely what it tions, determined on making this farce of was before. The power of supervision vested the Golden Rump a pretext for subjecting in the lord-chamberlain is expressly limited stage-performances to a system of control to new plays and to new scenes or additions which should effectually relieve the govern-made to old ones-a limitation well enough ment from all further annoyance of a similar calculated to suppress theatrical pasquinades description. He accordingly, after reading a number of extracts from this manuscript farce, introduced the measure by which the number of playhouses is limited and an

of a political description, and to cut off for the future this source of political annoyance; but it left all the licentiousness and immorality to be found in our dramatic literature,

mark. At a time when a pretender to the throne of these kingdoms existed, the lordchamberlain might perhaps have considered it prudent to object generally to the subject of this play, without reference to the manner in which the author had treated it; but it is most probable that the prohibition of Gustavus Vasa was occasioned by particular passages in the drama, in which liberal and patriotic sentiments were too prominently introduced to be palatable to the existing government. The following are, in all probability, some of the passages which gave the greatest offence:

"

"The tyrant spoke, and his licentious band

from the rise of the English stage down to | The subject of this tragedy is the successful the 24th of June, 1737, wholly untouched. attempt, on the part of Gustavus, to wrest It left the managers of theatres at perfect the Swedish crown from Christian of Denliberty to reproduce all the filth and obscenity scattered with no unsparing hand over the writings of our older dramatists; it left them at liberty to perform, without stint or curtailment, the plays of more modern writers, from which the sturdy nonjuror, Jeremy Collier, in his View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, had collected a mass of passages which could not be denied to afford ample color for his charge. If the stage, therefore, has become more pure, the improvement cannot be ascribed to the efficacy of a measure which left all its impurities uncorrected; if at the present day the comedies of Wycherley and Congreve are excluded from the stage, the exclusion is not to be ascribed to the virtuous discrimination of lord-chamberlains or their deputies, but to the refinement-we had almost said the fastidiousness-of the public taste. About thirty years ago, an attempt was made by the manager of Covent Garden Theatre to revive some of the comedies of Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Cib-"A cause like ours is its own sacrament: ber, after they had been subjected to such expurgatory alterations as seemed calculated to quiet the most scrupulous morality and to appease the fiercest virtue. The comedies were admirably acted, but the attempt failed; for the wit of these writers, after all that could be effected in the way of thinning its luxuriance, was found to be too strongly impregnated with licentiousness to be tolerated by a modern audience.

Of blood-stained ministry were loosed to ruin." "He has debauched the genius of our country, And rides triumphant, while her captive sons A wait his nod, the silken slaves of pleasure, Or fettered in their fears."

Some passages might be regarded with the more alarm, as they were not encumbered with any precise meaning:

Truth, justice, reason, love, and liberty,
Th' eternal links that clasp the world, are in

it;

And he who breaks their sanction breaks all law,

And infinite connection."

"Here I take my stand! Although contention rise upon the clouds, Mix heaven with earth, and roll the ruin onward; Here will I fix and breast me to the shock Till I or Denmark fall."

Whether, as a political security, the play- These speeches certainly savor a little house bill is at all more efficacious than as a of "hydrostatics and other inflammatory moral security, we shall enable the reader branches of learning; but an audience to judge, by bringing under his notice some whose loyalty could withstand the tirades of of the more prominent instances in which Ancient Pistol, against which the legislature the power of the censor has been exercised. afforded no protection, might well enough, Unfortunately, no portion of the Golden we should think, have escaped uncontamiRump has been preserved, by which we can nated by such patriotic effusions. Besides, judge how much danger to the government the effect of passages of this description is was averted by its timely suppression. But sufficiently counteracted by many others of although unfortunate in this respect, we a most unexceptionable tendency of these have still the means of judging of the species of dramatic composition which really excited the fears of the government in Brooke's tragedy of Gustavus Vasa, the performance of which was prohibited, by order of the lord-chamberlain, in the year 1739, when the play had arrived at the last rehearsal.

we shall give but one example. Gustavus,
though in the guise of a copper-miner, and
though fully participating in the toils of his
fellow-laborers, for

"His hands out-toil the hind, while on his brow
Sits patience, bathed in the laborious drop
Of painful industry-"