SIR, A few days since, in speaking of the French feminine article une, I called it a monosyllable; upon which I was told by a bystander that it was a word of two 6, 4, 3, 1 syllables. He did not, however, prove his assertion to my f 6, 4, 22, 1 satisfaction, and we both, therefore, agreed to refer the 6, 4, 2, 16, 4, 2, 111 disputed point to the editor of the Kaleidoscope, or some, 4, 1 of his correspondents. By inserting this query you will,

THEATRE.

your congregation, and being desirous that there should be
no bar to their exertions in future, they beg to present for
your inspection a specimen of the thorough bass state of Amateur Performance on Saturday next.-We rejoice
the books necessity compels them to use, which is such as to find that, at the suggestion of most of the benevolent
to make their very hearts trill. Under these circumstances, individuals who have taken boxes for this occasion, one-
they raise their voices in alt to inform you, that, as they half of the profits of the performance will be given to a
cannot rest in this bass condition, unless their establish- Liverpool Charity; and the mode of deciding to which
ment is set in a different key, they will quickly be obliged charity the money shall be devoted is as follows:-All
to have recourse to counter measures, and betake themselves persons going to the Theatre are recommended to purchase
to a fugue. This is the tenor of their song, in which they tickets, instead of paying at the doors, and to mark upon
will never quaver, as they can assure you they are all in the back of each ticket the name of any institution which
one tune. Hoping that you will not take such a crotchet they may prefer. The committee of management will
into your heads as to be offended at their remonstrance, then appropriate the money to the institution which is
and trusting, that as the organ of the congregation you named on the greatest proportion of tickets in respect of
will be instrumental in performing your parts with your value. We understand that the performances are likely
accustomed facility of execution, your petitioners, as in to afford great pleasure, and we sincerely hope the house
duty bound, will ever sing.
will be crowded.-See adv.

NEW ARRANGEMENT OF

GOD SAVE THE KING.

We have selected the following piece for this week's Kaleidoscope, because a new arrangement of "God save the King" cannot fail to be acceptable, especially when it is known that it is from the pen of a gentleman ranking very high in the musical profession, who, some years since, resided in Liverpool, and for whom his numerous friends feel undiminished friendship and esteem. The talented correspondent of the Harmicon, who signs W. S., has accompanied his new arrangement of the national air with some very judicious remarks upon the ordinary performance of the song at our theatres, concerts, &c. We strongly recommend a perusal of the whole of the article in the Harmonicon to such of our musical readers as have access to that valuable work, as we must confine ourselves here to the air and accompaniments, with a few brief prefatory notes. After observing that "God save the King" is more repeatedly brought before the public than any other song, and frequently sung twice or three times in the course of an evening, the writer very properly comes to the conclusion, that as much variety as it will admit of ought to be introduced, to prevent that monotonous effect which the finest composition cannot escape, if continually repeated in any uniform style. The different modes by which our author would obtain the requisite variety are,-First, by adding to the air more or less ornament. Secondly, by harmonizing it as a trio, quartetto, &c. Thirdly, by changing the bass and the harmonies. The writer pays some well-merited compliments to some eminent professional gentlemen who have employed their talents upon the embellishment of the national air, makes favourable mention of Mr. Attwood's coronation anthem, on which that composer has very ingeniously contrived to engraft this fine air, and under cover of a different measure, and a completely distinct harmony from that commonly employed, to elude actual discovery, till a considerable number of bars have passed."-" The late Mr. Webbe, the celebrated glee composer (continues our writer) constructed a glee for four voices, expressly to exhibit Mrs. Billington's great powers in our national anthem. The three subordinate voices performed a perfect trio, which they afterwards repeated, while the soprano voice chaunted God save the King,' forming together an excellent quartette, although in different measures, and independent of each other." An adaptation of it also as a vocal quartetto, by Mr. S. Webbe, departs in its harmony from the common-place track, and produces a rich and impressive effect.

Is the natural history of animals; or the knowledge of the formation, appearance, habits, and dispositions of animals. As men and women are animals, it tells us about them; for instance, about their bodies, about the blood, flesh, bones, sinews, joints, and all the different parts of the body. It explains to us, as far as can yet be explained, how they live, how they move about, how they feel and think, and how they should be treated; but in all these things there is a great deal that has not yet been discovered,

and that we cannot understand.

That part of the natural history of men and women, which tells us what men and women did before we were born, and since that time, is called History. We are not sure that all histories are quite true; because the people who wrote them might have been mistaken, or might have written that which they knew did not happen: however, when different writers of history, who did not know one another, and had not seen what one another wrote, tell us the same thing, it is more likely to be true than when only one writer tells us so.

It is more difficult to tell whether what we read in history is true or not, than whether what we read about the earth and its productions is true, because we can see the earth and what is on it, but we cannot see what happened before we were born, nor (if it be long since) even see the persons who were there when any event happened.

That part of Mineralogy which tells us about the interior (or inside) of the earth, and about large mineral masses, is called Geology.

We know very little of Geology, because we have never
been able to get more than two miles into the earth. Now
it is 8000 miles through the earth, so that we must have
gone 4000 times farther than two miles to see what was all
through the earth.

Now I will tell you what the arts are that I mentioned
to you.
AGRICULTURE.

The greater part of the food we eat is produced from
the ground. Agriculture is the art of producing this food.
It is by far the most useful and necessary employment in
the world, because we could scarcely live without it.

MANUFACTURES.

Every thing we wear, and every thing we use, except
food, is produced by manufactures. The greater part of
these things is made by machines. One machine often
does as much work as a great many men and women.
New machines are found out almost every day.
Small manufactures are often called trades; for instance
the trade of a shoemaker, tailor, &c.

ARCHITECTURE

sincerity prejudiced many in his favour, and made him pass for a writer who had penetrated into the inmost cesses of the Cabinet: but the public were at length deceived, and were convinced that the historical anecdotes which Varillas put off for authentic facts, had no founda. tion, being wholly his own inventing; though he enden. voured to make them pass for realities by affected citations of titles, instructions, letters, memoirs, and relations, all of them imaginary!"

Thevenot, librarian to the French King, was never out of Europe; yet he has composed two folio volumes of "Voyages and Travels," 1696, by information and me moirs which he collected from those who had travelled; but travels at second-hand must be pregnant with erroti

of all kinds.

Gemelli Carreri, a Neapolitan gentleman, for many years never quitted his chamber: confined by a tedio indisposition, he amused himself with writing a Vonag round the World; giving characters of men, and descrip. tions of countries, as if he had really visited them.

Du Halde, who has written so voluminous an account of China, compiled it from the Memoirs of the Missiona ries, and never travelled ten leagues from Paris in ha life; though he appears, by his writings, to be very fa

Is the art of building the houses in which men and wo-miliar with Chinese scenery.
men live. A hut is a very small house, which was easily
built, and which has only one or two rooms. A palace is
a very large house, which contains many rooms, and which
costs much trouble in building.

DRAWING

Is the art of representing objects, so that a person who sees the drawing may know what the object is like, although he has never seen the object itself. The more like the drawing seems to the object it is meant to represent, the better it is done. Most drawings are made on paper, canvas, or ivory. Drawings of persons are called portraits. Sculpture is the art of representing objects by cutting wood or stone like them.

MUSIC

Is the art of producing pleasant sounds, by means of the voice or of different instruments. The knowledge of the rules required to compose music is called Thorough Bass.

Most of these sciences might be included under CHY. MISTRY, (and even many of the arts depend upon it) for Chymistry is, in fact, the knowledge of the properties of all substances, and of the manner in which all simple substances are combined, and all compound substances decomposed.

Under Chymistry, however, is generally understood, the knowledge of some of the properties of such of the simple substances as we have already discovered, and of a few of their combinations, as well as the way to make some of these combinations. Even in this contracted signification, Chymistry includes a part of the sciences of Zoology, Botany, and Mineralogy. The substances it tells us about at present are chiefly minerals; so that it is the most connected with Mineralogy.

We do not know nearly so much about Chymistry as we may expect to know when people have paid more attention to it and tried more experiments.

In order to get an easier knowledge of the sciences and arts, we learn to read, write, and to understand languages, the arithmetical signs, and the musical notes and signs. But these are not real knowledge. We only learn them that we may be able to acquire knowledge by means of them. All real knowledge is not included in any of these, but only in the arts and sciences.

Damberger's travels lately made a great sensation, and the public were duped; they proved to be ideal voyages, made by a member of the German Grub-street, about his own garret! I am sorry to add that too many of our "Travels" have been manufactured to fill a certain size; and some which bear names of great authority were not written by the professed authors.

This is an excellent observation of an anonymous author:-Writers who never visited foreign countries, and travellers who have run through immense regions with fleeting pace, have given us Yong accounts of various countries and people, evidently collected from the idle re ports and absurd traditions of the ignorant vulgar, from whom only they could have received those relations which we see accumulated with such undiscerning credulity."

Some authors have practised the singular imposition of announcing a variety of titles of works as if preparing i? the press, but of which nothing but the titles have been written.

Paschal, historiographer of France, had a reason for these ingenious inventions; he continually announced such titles, that his pension for writing on the History of France might not be stopped. When he died, his historical la bours did not exceed six pages!

Gregorio Leti is an historian of much the same stamp as Varillas. He wrote with great facility, and hunger generally quickened his pen. He took every thing to lightly; yet his works are sometimes looked into for man anecdotes of English history not to be found elsewhere and perhaps ought not to have been there if truth had been consulted. His great aim was always to make book, so that he swells his volumes with idle digressions and, with a view of amusing his readers, intersperse many low and ridiculous stories; and gives to illustrio characters all the repartees and good things he collecte from old novel-writers.

Such forgeries abound; the numerous "Testamens Po litiques" of Colbert, Mazarine, and other great ministers were forgeries usually from the Dutch press, as are man pretended "Memoirs." I could point out, in the presen day, some remarkable instances of this kind; biographie woven out of letters, anecdotes, and all other documents en tirely surreptitious. The French have been flagrant f Trade or commerce is the system of arrangements, by gers. Ameng other pernicious effects of these shamefu which the productions of nature and of the arts are at pre-forgeries is that of over-loading the mind with a thousan sent distributed.

Any new fact in science is called a discovery; any new mode of producing, an invention.

No science or art is by any means complete. People are learning something new in all of them almost every day; that is, there are discoveries and inventions made almost every day.

Literature.

That part of Zoology which tells us about men and women is the most important science in the world; because you will grow to be men and women, and then you will find how very useful it is to know as much as is yet known about yourselves. Now, although every thing you will hear about yourselves does really belong to Zoology, yet there is so much of it, and it is so very different from the natural history of other animals, that it is generally found convenient not to include it under Zoology, but to divide it into a number of different sciences, which you will hear of when you are older, and better able to under-riosities of Literature:" stand them.

BOTANY

Is the knowledge of all substances that belong to the vegetable kingdom, therefore of all trees, shrubs, flowers, fruits, and other vegetable productions.

LITERARY IMPOSTURES.

false notions, and mistaking, at a distant day, the viles calumnies for historical truths.

Most of our old translations from the Greek and Lati authors were taken from French versions.

It is now, I believe, pretty well agreed on, that travels written in Hebrew, of Rabbi Benjamin of Tues of which we have a recent curious translation, are re apocryphal. He describes a journey, which if eve took, it must have been with his nightcap on; it be perfect dream! It is said, that to inspirit and give portance to his nation, he pretended he had travelled all the synagogues in the East; places he mentions does not appear ever to have seen, and the differe The following article is copied from "D'Israeli's Cu- people he describes no one has known. lates that he has found Jews to the amount of eight hundred thousand, of which about half are inc pendent, and not subjects of any Christian or Gentile vereign. These fictitious travels have been a source much trouble to the learned; particularly to those who zeal to authenticate them induced them to follow th aerial footsteps of the Hyppogriffe of Rabbi Benjam He affirms that the tomb of Ezekiel, with the library of

Some authors have practised singular impositions on the public. Varillas, the French historian, enjoyed for some time a great reputation in his own country for his historic compositions. When they became more known, Is the knowledge of the substances of which the earth the scholars of other countries destroyed the reputation he had unjustly acquired. "His continual professions of

is made.

MINERALOGY

He cal

he first and second temples, were to be seen in his time at a place on the banks of the river Euphrates. On this, Wesselius of Groningen, and many other literati, travelled on purpose to Mesopotamia, but the fairy treasure was never to be seen, nor even heard of!

inscription and many certificates to be genuine, and found
among the ruins of the Alhambra, with other treasures of
its last king, who had hid them there in hope of better
days. This famous bracelet turned out afterwards to be
the work of Medina's own hands, and made out of an old
brass candlestick!

George Psalmanazar, well known in the literary world,
and to whose labours we owe much of the great Universal
History, exceeded in powers of deception any of the great
impostors of learning. His Island of Formosa was an
illusion eminently bold, and maintained with as much
felicity as erudition; and great must have been that eru-
dition which could form a pretended language and its
grammar, and fertile the genius which could invent the
history of an unknown people. It is said that the de-
ception was only satisfactorily ascertained by his own pe-
nitential confession: he defied and baffled the most learn-
ed.-The literary impostor Lauder had much more auda-
city than ingenuity, and he died contemned by all the
world. And Ireland served to show that great critics are
not blessed, necessarily, with an interior and unerring
tact. Genius and learning are ill directed in forming li
terary impositions, but at least they must be distinguished
from the fabrications of ordinary impostors.

GERMAN LITERATURE.

[From "A Tour through Germany, in 1824."]

[Continued from our last.]

The first on the list of impudent impostors is Annius of Viterbo, a Dominican, and master of the sacred palace under Alexander VI. He pretended he had discovered the genuine works of Sanchoniatho, Manetho, Berosus, and other works, of which only fragments are remaining. He published seventeen books of Antiquities! But not Javing any manuscripts to produce, though he declared e had found them buried in the earth, these literary farications occasioned great controversies; for the author ied before he had made up his mind to a confession. At their first publication universal joy was diffused among he learned. Suspicion soon rose, and detection followed. However, as the forger never would acknowledge himself is such, it has been ingeniously conjectured that he himelf was imposed upon, rather than that he was the impostor; or, as in the case of Chatterton, possibly all may not be fictitious. It has been said, that a great volume in manuscript, anterior by two hundred years to the seventeen folios of Annius, exists in the Bibliotheque Colbertine, in which these pretended histories were to be read; but as Annius would never point out the sources of his seventeen folios, the whole is considered as a very wonderful imposI refer the reader to Tyrrwhitt's Vindication of his Appendix to Rowley's or Chatterton's Poems, p. 140, for some curious observations, and some facts of literary imOne of the most extraordinary literary impostures was recently done by Joseph Vella, in 1794, who becoming an adventurer in Sicily, pretended that he possessed seventeen of the lost books of Livy in Arabic: he had received this purloined it from a shelf in St. Sophia's church at Conliterary treasure, he said, from a Frenchman who had stan tinople. As many of the Greek and Roman classics detected a similar impudent fraud immediately on inspec doom, or sends forth a revelation, and men wait on him

ture.

posture.

It is scarcely possible for a man who has written so much, not to have written much that is mediocre. Göethe having long since reached that point of reputation at which the name of an author is identified in the eyes of his countrymen with the excellence of his work, has been frequently overrated; and men are not wanting who augur that the best of his fame is past. But he can well afford to make many allowances for the excesses into which popular enthusiasm, like popular dislike, is so easily misled; for there will always remain an abundance of original, and varied, and powerful genius to unite his name for ever with the literature of his country. He himself said truly of Schiller, "that where the present age had been deficient, posterity would be profuse;" and the prophecy is already receiving its fulfilment. To Göethe the present has been A singular forgery was not long ago practised on Captain Wilford by a learned Hindu, who, to ingratiate him- lavish, and the future will not be unjust. From his youth self and his studies with the too zealous and pious Euro- he has been the favourite of fortune and fame; he has pean, contrived to give the history of Noah and his three reached the brink of the grave hailed by the voice of his sons, in his " Purana," under the designation of Satyav-country as the foremost of her great, the patriarch of her rata. Captain Wilford having read the passage, trans- literature, and the model of her genius. In his old age, cribed it for Sir William Jones, who translated it as a curious extract.--But it afterwards appeared that the whole wrapped up in the seclusion of Weimar, so becoming his was an interpolation by the dextrous introduction of a years, and so congenial to his habits, he hears no sounds forged sheet, discoloured, and prepared for the purpose of but those of eulogy and affection. Like an eastern potendeception, and which, having served his purpose for the tate or a jealous deity, he looks abroad from his retirewould not have been deceived had he seen this force his precept or his example; he pronounces the oracular moment, was afterwards withdrawn.-Sir William Jones ment on the intellectual world which he has formed by The forgery is preserved in Lord Teignmouth's Memoirs of that elegant scholar, p. 367.

tion.

Of authors who have sold their names to be prefixed to works they never read; or on the contrary, who have prefixed the names of others to their own writings, for a certain remuneration; it is sufficient to mention the circumstances. As an anecdote from the Secret Memoirs of Literature, we may notice one of that encyclopedic genius, Sir John Hill: he owned to a friend once when he fell sick that he had overfatigued himself with writing seven works at once! One of which was on Architecture, and another on Cookery! This hero once contracted to translate Swammerdam's work on insects for fifty guineas. After the agreement with the bookseller, he perfectly recollected that he did not understand a single word of the Dutch language! Nor did there exist a French translation. The work, however, was not the less done for this small obstacle. Sir John bargained with another translator for twenty-five guineas. The second translator was precisely in the same situation as the first; as ignorant, though not so well paid as the knight. He rebargained with a third, who perfectly understood his original, for twelve guineas! So that the translators who could not translate feasted on venison and turtle, while the modest drudge, whose name never appeared to the world, broke in patience his daily

to venerate and obey. Princes are proud to be his companions; less elevated men approach him with awe, as a higher spirit; and when Goethe shall follow the kindred minds whom he has seen pass away before him, Weimar will have lost the last pillar of her fame, and in the literature of Germany there will be a vacant throne.

have been translated by the Arabians, and many were first known in Europe in their Arabic dress, there was nothing improbable in one part of his story. He was urged to publish these long-desired books; and Lady Spencer, then He had the in Italy, offered to defray the expenses. effrontery, by way of specimen, to edit an Italian transla. tion of the sixtieth book, but that book took up no more han one octavo page! A professor of Oriental literature n Prussia introduced it in his work, never suspecting the fraud; but it was nothing more than the Epitome of Florus. About this time he also gave out that he had a Code which he had picked up in the Abbey of St. Martin, but which he would not return, containing the ancient history of Sicily, in the Arabic period, comprehending bove two hundred years; and of which ages, their own istorians were entirely deficient in knowledge. Vella leclared he had a genuine official correspondence between he Arabian governors of Sicily and their superiors in Africa, from the first landing of the Arabians in that dland. Vella was now loaded with honours and pensions! t is true he showed Arabic manuscripts, which, however, id not contain a syllable of what he said. He pretended e was in continual correspondence with friends at Moacco and elsewhere. The King of Naples furnished him ontinually with great sums of money to assist his reearches. Four volumes in quarto were at length pub-bread! The craft of authorship has many mysteries of its own; shed! Vella had the adroitness to change the Arabic Januscripts he possessed, which entirely related to Ma- many memorable, though uncommemorated anecdotes. omet, to matters relative to Sicily; he bestowed several The great patriarch and primeval dealer in English litereeks' labour to disfigure the whole, altering page for rature, is said to have been Robert Green, one of the most age, line for line, and word for word, but interspersed facetious, profligate, and indefatigable of the Scribleri faumberless dots, strokes, and flourishes, so that when he mily. He laid the foundation of a new dynasty of liteublished a fac-simile, every one admired the learning of rary emperors. The first act by which he proved his Tella, who could translate what no one else could read. claim to the throne of Grub-street has served as a model le complained he had lost an eye in this minute labour: to his numerous successors-it was a cheating ambidexnd every one thought his pension ought to have been in-trous trick! Green sold his "Orlando Furioso" to two Every thing prospered about him, except his different theatres, and is supposed to have been the first ye, which some thought was not so bad neither. It was author in English literary history who wrote as a trader; length discovered by his blunders, &c. that the whole or, as crabbed Anthony Wood phrases it, in the language ras a forgery; though it had now been patronized, of celibacy and cynicism," he wrote to maintain his wife, ranslated, and extracted, through Europe. When this and that high and loose course of living which poets gene blind to the progress of the corruption, but the predomi. rally follow.

reased.

nanuscript was examined by an Orientalist, it was discorered to be nothing but a history of Mahomet and his fanily. Vella was condemned to imprisonment.

A learned antiquary, says Mr. Swinburne, Medina Conde, in order to favour the pretensions of the Church in A great law-suit, forged deeds and inscriptions, which he buried in the ground, where he knew they would shortly be dug up. Upon their being found he published engra. vings of them, and gave explanations of their unknown characters, making them out to be so many authentic proofs and evidences of the assertions of the clergy.

The Morocco Ambassador purchased of him a copper bracelet of Fatima, which Medina proved by the Arabic

With a drop still sweeter, old Anthony de-
scribes Gayton, another worthy: "he came up to London
to live in a shirking condition, and wrote trite things
merely to get bread to sustain him and his wife." The
hermit Anthony seems to have had a mortal antipathy
against the Eves of literary men. The anecdote of Green's
ambidextrous manœuvre is this:-He sold his play to the
Queen's players for twenty nobles; but when the Queen's
players were in the country he resold it to the Lord Ad-
Was it after this that, in open
miral's for as much more."
defiance to the rival proprietors, he published his "Thieves
falling out, true Men come by their Goods; or, The Bell-
man wanted a clapper ?"

Since the mastiff, backed by the influence of Madame Jn, drove Göethe from the direction of the theatre, it has been rapidly declining from its eminence. He and Schiller had trained the whole corps dramatique, and created that chaste correct style of representation which formed the peculiarity of the Weimar school. Every thing like rant disappeared from the stage, but the opposite extreme was not always avoided; anxiety to observe the great rule of not “overstepping the modesty of nature," sometimes brought down tragedy to the subdued tone and gesture of serious conversation. The patience with which he drilled the performers into a thorough comprehension of their parts was most meritorious; it produced that accurate conception of character, the foundation of all histrionic excellence, which distinguished the stage of Weimar above every other in Germany, and which, now that the guiding hand and spirit have been withdrawn, is disappearing even there. It was a common saying, that elsewhere particular things might be better done, but in Weimar every thing was well done. The administration passed into the hands of Madame J—————n, who, now reigning absolutely in the green-room, has already contrived, by pride, and vanity, and caprice, to sow abundantly the seeds both of deterioration and contention. Bad taste in selecting, want of judgment in casting, and carelessness in performing, are become as common in Weimar as any where else. People are not

nating influence stands on that foundation which it is most difficult to shake; and, fortunately, no expression of disa private court theatre, where good breeding permits only pleasure is allowed in the theatre itself: it is regarded as approbation or silence. If a prince maintain a place of amusement for the public at his own expense, he may have some pretext for saying that you shall either stay away, or be quiet; but when he takes your money at the door, tainment, if it be badly cooked, or slovenly served up. he certainly sells you the right of growling at the enter

and accom

"C'est la petite Yorkiade." He requested the honour of
a glass of Malaga from the band of the Grand Duchess
herself, observing that he was getting old;
panied by the Grand Duke and his second son, Prince
Bernard, rode off to attack the enemy at Lützen.
[To be continued.]

Barometer
at

Feb.

noon.

METEOROLOGICAL DIARY.

[From the Liverpool Courier.]

noon.

Thermo- Thermo-Extreme State of) meter 8 meter during the Wind) morning

Remarks

Night. at noon.

8

29 94

43 0

48 0

36 0

9

10

S.E. Cloudy.

S.S.E. Fair. 36 0 S.S.E. Fair.

0 49 0 36 0

S.S.E. Fair.(shower

S.W. Fair-slight

38 0
40
38 0 47 0 34 0 S.E. Cloudy.
42 0 49 0 37 0 W. Fair.

To Correspondents,

GRATUITOUS SUPPLEMENT to the next KaleidoscopE—İN order, in some measure, to propitiate those of our readers who regard our musical department with a jealous eye, as excluding so much matter-more to their taste, we shall next week deliver gratis with the Kaleidoscope a supplement of four pages, which will also greatly forward our transiation of Edward.

on this subject, together with the chapter from the "Praetical English Grammar."

if Philo-Mechanicus has access to the Kaleidoscope of October 25th, he will find there a very explicit note addressed to him on the subject of his inquiry. There was no neglect on our part. We await his orders respecting the disposition

of the MS.

The liberty of hissing is as essential to the good constitu- pedantry; some have been thickly powdered over with it, tion of a theatre, as the liberty of the press to the consti- and, in so small a circle, shake off their learned dust on all tution of a state. Three-fourths of all the expenses, how-whom they jostle. One coterie forms a regular critical ever, come out of the pocket of the Grand Duke; for, to club. The gifted members, varying in age from sixteen the abonnés, a place in the boxes costs only ninepence every to sixty, hold their weekly meetings over tea-cups, evening, and in the pit fourpence. Spectators, who are wrapped up in as cautious secrecy as if celebrating the not abonnés, pay more than double this price; but these mysteries of Bona Dea. A daring Claudius once intruded, consist only of occasional strangers, and the students who and witnessed the dissection of a tragedy; but he had pour over every Saturday from Jena, and throng the pit. reason to repent the folly of being wise so long as he reThese young men have, in such matters, a thorough con- mained within the reach of the conclave. But altogether tempt for meum and tuum; with them it is always abonne- the ladies of Weimar are, in every thing that is good, a ment suspendu. They cannot imagine that any man favourable specimen of their country women. should have the impertinence to claim his place, if a The serious pursuits and undeviating propriety of constudent has chosen to occupy it; and they are ready to duct of the Grand Duchess herself, have had a large share maintain, at the point of the sword, the privileges of their in thus forming the manners of court and subjects. Her 'brotherhood. Schiller's "Robbers" never fails to bring the Royal Highness is a princess of the house of Dramstad ; whole university to Weimar, for they seem to find in the she is now venerable by her years, but still more by the bandit life something peculiarly consonant to their own excellence of her heart, and the strength of her character. ideas of liberty and independence. When the robbers open In these little principalities, the same goodness of disposithe fifth act with the song in which they celebrate the tion can work with more proportional effect than if it joys of their occupation, the students stand up in a body, swayed the sceptre of an empire; it comes more easily and and join vociferously in the strain. It may be thought directly into contact with those towards whom it should be trifling to say so much about a theatre, but the only thing directed; the artificial world of courtly rank and wealth❘ that gives Weimar a name is its literary reputation;-in has neither sufficient glare nor body to shut out from the this reputation the character of the stage formed a popular prince the more checquered world that lies below. After and important element, and exercised a weighty influence the battle of Jena, which was fought within ten miles of on the public taste. It is likewise almost the only amuse- the walls, Weimar looked to her alone for advice and proment to which the inhabitants of this celebrated village tection. Her husband and younger son were absent with have accustomed themselves. Thus their vanity is inte- the fragments of the defeated army; the French troops rested no less than their love of amusement; and though were let loose on the territory and capital; the flying pea- PUNCTUATION. We shall next week insert the letter of J. M. it may scarcely be thought advisable, in so poor a coun-santry already bore testimony to the outrages which are try, to take a large sum from the public revenue to inseparable from the presence of brutal and insolent consupport a theatre, there is no branch of expenditure which the inhabitants would less willingly see curtailed. They are irritated, therefore, that the influence of the queen of the boards, with their master, should act so injuriously in the histrionic republic: they had no fault to find with his gallantry so long as it did not violate the Muses. Let not this be ascribed to any general want of moral sensibility. We have no very favourable idea of German morality, and in the larger capitals, particularly those of the south, there certainly is no reason why we should; but Weimar is a spot of morality as pure as any in Europe. At Munich or Vienna, "Corrumpere et corrumpi sæculum vocator;" but the infection has not reached these Thuringians. It is as surprising to find in Weimar so pure a court, round a prince who has shown himself not to be without human frailties, as it is to find in Vienna a society, made up of the most unprincipled dissoluteness, round an emperor who is himself one of the purest men alive. Like all their sisters of Saxony, the ladies are models of industry; whether at home or abroad, knitting and needlework know no interruption. A lady, going to a rout, would think little of forgetting her fan, but could not spend half an hour without her implements of female industry. A man would be quite pardonable for doubting, on entering such a drawing-room, whether he had not strayed into a school of industry, and whether he was not expected to cheapen stockings, instead of dealing in small talk. At Dresden it is carried so far, that even the theatre is not protected against stocking wires. I have seen a lady gravely lay down her work, wipe away the tears which the sorrows of Thecla, in Wallenstein's death, had brought into her eyes, and immediately resume her knitting. The Weimarese have not yet found it necessary to put softness of heart so absolutely under the protection of the work-bag. They are much more attached to music than to dancing, and sometimes desperate struggles are made to get up a masquerade; but they want the vivacity, without which a thing of that sort is the most insipid of all amusements. The higher class leave the masquerade to the citizens, who demurely pace round the room in black dominos, and stare at each other in black faces. As might be expected from the literary tone which so long ruled, and still lingers round the court and society of Weimar, even the ladies have not altogether escaped a sprinkling of

MUSIC.-Devin's arrangement of Rousseau's "J'aimait unt jeune bergère" shall appear in our next.

LITERARY IMPOSTURES-The article we have introduced in

page 270 is intended as a continuation of that of last week on the same subject, although inadvertently it is not so specified.

LANARK SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.-We have this day copleted our reprint of Mr. R. D. Owen's pamphlet on this subject, and have thus put our readers in possession of A valuable Tract of one hundred pages, abounding with proj tical wisdom.

ERRATUM IN THE LAST KALEIDOSCOPE.-An unlucky mistake occurred in a considerable part of the impression of the last Kaleidoscope, which we must trouble our readers to notice, in writing, at foot of two of the pages which were misplaced, if they find the mistake extends to their copy. At foot d page 257, the first page, please to write "Turn over three leaves for the continuation of this article"-and at foot of page 263, write, "Turn over three leaves for the fo tinuation of this article."

querors. The hope that she might be useful to the people
in this hour of trial, when it was only to her they could
look, prevailed over the apprehensions of personal insult
and danger; she calmly awaited in Weimar the approach
of the French, collected round her in the palace the greater
part of the women and children who had not fled, and
shared with them herself the coarse and scanty food which
she was able to distribute among them. The Emperor,
on his arrival, took up his abode in the palace, and the
Grand Duchess immediately requested an interview with
him. His first words to her were, "Madam, I make you
a present of this palace ;" and forthwith he broke out into
the same strain of invective against Prussia and her Allies,
and sneers at the folly of endeavouring to resist himself,
which he soon afterwards launched against the unfortu-
nate Louis à Tilsit. He said more than once, with great
vehemence, "On dit que je veux être Empereur de l'ouest
(stamping with his foot ;) je le serai, Madame." He was
confounded at the firm and dignified tone in which the
Grand Duchess met him. She neither palliated her hus
band's political conduct, nor supplicated for mercy in his
political misfortunes. Political integrity, as a faithful
ally of Prussia, had, she told him, dictated the one, and,
if he had any regard for political principle and fidelity to
alliances in a monarch, he could not take advantage of
the other. The interview was a long one: the imperial MR. CHARLES MATHEWS'S TRIP TO AMERICA. This
officers in waiting could not imagine how a man, who
reckoned time thrown away even on the young and beau-
tiful of the sex, could spend so much with a princess
whose qualifications were more of a moral and intellectual MUSIC.-We have received from S. S. some Music, for whi
nature. But from that moment Napoleon treated the
family of Weimar with a degree of respect and considera-
tion which the more powerful of his satelites did not ex-
perience. He used to say, that the Grand Duke was the
only sovereign in Germany who could be intrusted with
the command of a score of men; and he uniformly dis- Logic's pieces are not admissible; and if the writer wishes i
played for the Grand Duchess a very marked esteem.
He even affected to do homage to the literary reputation
of the town, and showered honours on the poets of Wei-
mar, while he was suppressing universities. The last time
he was in Weimar was before he led up his troops to the
battle of Lützen. When he learned that part of the con-
tingent of Weimar, as a member of the Confederation of
the Rhine, had joined the Allies, he only said, smiling,