death of Guido, the most illustrious of his fellow-citizens continued to lament him as if he had but recently died. It is addressed to the son of the King of Naples. "The most eminent, after Dante and Petrarch, is the delicate Guido Cavalcanti, a Florentine; a dextrous dialectician, and the most distinguished philosopher of his age. He was elegant and graceful in his person, noble in his descent; in his writings he united, beyond all others, beauty, ease, and originality; in his inventions he was sagacious, splendid, and admirable; in his expression deliberate, copious, and sublime; in his arrangement regular, wise, and skilful. All these happy endowments were adorned with a style at once sweet, enchanting, and novel; and if they had been displayed in an ampler field, would undoubtedly have commanded the highest honours. But, above all his other works, there is one canzone, in which this charming poet has described every quality, virtue, and property of love." To this canzone some have applied the epithet divine, but though it has been studied for centuries by many acute scholars, we do not find any who have succeeded in understanding it. Its celebrity and obscurity have, however, given birth to seven long commentaries, some in Italian, others in Latin, and two of them still unedited; yet the more their authors have paraded their metaphysics, the more unintelligible has their text become. Although the canzone is always printed in the Appendix to every edition of Petrarch, who seems to have held it in much esteem, still, for the last two centuries, it has been more frequently spoken of than read. This, indeed, is the case with all of Guido's poetry. Lorenzo de' Medici seems to have been his last panegyrist, and since that time his high reputation rests rather on the magni nominis umbrá, than on any of his remaining works.

Some of the compositions of Guido were published by fragments in different collections, and others remained unedited until 1813, when Signor Cicciaporci of Florence gathered them together and gave them to the world from a pious duty of consanguinity; a duty which would have been better performed, if instead of a long and useless preface, he had prefixed to his edition an accurate biography of his ancestor. Of the precise date of his birth we have no account: the year, place, and circumstances of his death are equally unknown. Having been exiled, under the magistracy of Dante, as one of the chiefs of the Guelph party, to a spot infected with the mal-aria, he was recalled, on the pretext of its unhealthiness, by his friend, which drew upon him the imputation of partiality, and was one of the causes of his own banishment. From this year-the last of the thirteenth century-we find no authentic mention of Guido, except that he was expelled a second time; and from a poem, composed during his exile, we learn that his illness left him few hopes of life. It is written in a tone of truth and passion, which gives it a value, in the absence of others, as an historical document. We shall cite from it some passages, and the more willingly as it appears to be one of the most poetical of his compositions.

Perch'io non spero di tornar giammai, Since these eyes no more shall see

Ballatetta, in Toscana,
Va tu leggiera, e piana
Dritta alla donna mia.

My native fields of Tuscany,
Go, little Song, and softly bear
Thy homage to my lady fair.

The Auctioneer and the Lawyer.

A CITY Auctioneer, one Samuel Stubbs,
Did greater execution with his hammer,
Assisted by his puffing clamour,

Than Gog and Magog with their clubs,
Or that great Fee-fa-fum of war,

The Scandinavian Thor,

Did with his mallet, which (see Bryant's

Mythology) fell'd stoutest giants

For Samuel knock'd down houses, churches,

And woods of oak and elms and birches,

With greater ease than mad Orlando

Tore the first tree he laid his hand to.

He ought, in reason, to have raised his own
Lot by knocking others' down;

And had he been content with shaking
His hammer and his hand, and taking
Advantage of what brought him grist, he
Might have been as rich as Christie ;-
But somehow when thy midnight bell, Bow,
Sounded along Cheapside its knell,
Our spark was busy in Pall-mall
Shaking his elbow,-

Marking, with paw upon his mazzard,
The turns of hazard;

Or rattling in a box the dice,

Which seem'd as if a grudge they bore
To Stubbs for often in a trice,

Down on the nail he was compell❜d to pay
All that his hammer brought him in the day,
And sometimes more.

Thus, like a male Penelope, our wight,
What he had done by day undid by night,
No wonder, therefore, if, like her,

He was beset by clamorous brutes,
Who crowded round him to prefer
Their several suits.

One Mr. Snipps, the tailor, had the longest
Bill for many suits-of raiment,

And naturally thought he had the strongest
Claim for payment.

But debts of honour must be paid,
Whate'er becomes of debts of trade;

And so our stilish auctioneer,

From month to month throughout the year,

Excuses, falsehoods, pleas alleges,

Or flatteries, compliments, and pledges.

When in the latter mood one day,

He squeezed his hand, and swore to pay.

"But when?"-" Next month.-You may depend on't

My dearest Snipps, before the end on't

Your face proclaims in every feature,

You wouldn't harm a fellow creature

You're a kind soul, I know you are, Snipps."

Ay, so you said six months ago,

But such fine words, I'd have you know,

Butters no parsnips."

This said, he bade his lawyer draw

A special writ,

The Gouty Merchant and the Stranger.

IN Broad-street Buildings, on a winter night,
Snug by his parlour fire a gouty wight
Sate all alone, with one hand rubbing
His leg roll'd up in fleecy hose,
While t'other held beneath his nose

The Public Ledger, in whose columns grubbing,
He noted all the sales of hops,

Ships, shops, and slops,

Gum, galls and groceries, ginger, gin,

Tar, tallow, turmerick, turpentine, and tin.

When, lo! a decent personage in black

Euter'd, and most politely said,—

"Your footman, Sir, has gone his nightly track, To the King's Head,

And left your door ajar, which I

Observed in passing by,

And thought it neighbourly to give you notice."

"Ten thousand thanks-how very few get

In time of danger

Such kind attentions from a stranger! Assuredly that fellow's throat is

Doom'd to a final drop at Newgate.

He knows, too, the unconscionable elf,
That there's no soul at home except myself."

"Indeed!" replied the stranger, looking grave;
"Then he's a double knave.

He knows that rogues and thieves by scores
Nightly beset unguarded doors;

And see how easily might one

Of these domestic foes,

Even beneath your very nose,

Perform his knavish tricks,-
Enter your room as I have done,

Blow out your candles-thus-and thus,

Pocket your silver candlesticks,

And walk off-thus.”—

So said-so done-he made no more remark,
Nor waited for replies,

But march'd off with his prize,

Leaving the gouty merchant in the dark.

TALMA.

AMONG the various objects of pleasure and of instruction which I proposed to myself in visiting Paris, one of the chief was the gratification which I expected to derive from witnessing the performances and cultivating the acquaintance of Talma. I arrived in the French capital in September 1819, and easily obtained an introduction to the great actor, who is remarkable for the frankness and amenity of his manners, and the readiness with which he communicates information upon every subject connected with his profession. He had just returned from a circuit through the provincial theatres, where, like our own performers of note, he had reaped a golden harvest, of which it was said he had great need, for he is possessed with a mania for building, and lavishes in the indulgence of his architectural propensities the large salary paid to him by the crown, which, with the more immediate profits of his profession, leave him an income of above 40007. a-year. He had exceeded, in this instance, the period of absence usually allowed to actors of eminence. I saw him at this moment of popular exasperation (for the French public are jealous of their rights in the genius of their distinguished artists), and when the ultra press took occasion to vent its political animosities for the offence which he was supposed to have committed in withdrawing himself from the admiration of Paris, to dedicate his talents to the more ignoble, but more profitable pursuit of provincial applause. It is scarcely possible that in England the merits of an actor should be estimated by his political tenets, or that he should be depreciated or extolled in a public paper, according to his sympathy with the editor in questions wholly unconnected with the stage. It is indeed well understood that an eminent performer of the day occasionally attributes the severity of some articles in the government journals to the liberality of his public notions; but it is pretty evident that no one annexes the least importance to his creed upon reform with the single exception of himself. But in Paris it is otherwise. The spirit of faction pursues the artist with as much inveteracy, as the senator, and Talma, who had indeed given some cause of complaint to his fellow-actors by his departure from their rules, and to the public by the splenetic manner in which he received an intimation of their displeasure, was laid open to invective of the most galling and malignant kind. He became exasperated, and refused to act. The committee of management had of their own accord put his name into the playbills, and given notice of his appearance upon several occasions-he announced indisposition, and the public anger was roused to an excess, which the misconduct of a minister would scarcely excite amongst ourselves. I was presented to him, at the moment that he was placed in this embarrassing condition, and when I had an opportunity of witnessing his genuine character as brought out by the vehement passions and resentments by which he was inflamed against the persons whom he designated as his bitter and envenomed foes. His temperament seemed to me to be of a boiling and indomitable quality, and he gave utterance to his indignation with gesture of the most impassioned kind. I was a good deal surprised at his communicativeness with an individual with whom he had had no previous acquaintance. Among the many grievances to which he alleged that