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Autocrat holds up an open Bible, on which is blazoned in large capitals,

'LET EVERY SOUL BE SUBJECT TO THE HIGHER POWERS; FOR THERE IS NO POWER BUT OF GOD: THE POWERS THAT BE ARE ORDAINED

OF GOD.'" On looking in the mirror, I saw at a great distance the same figures, all with their backs turned to each other; but every one trying to peep over his shoulder, jealous of his neighbour; an immense number of printing-presses all employed; and above, there was an open Bible, richly illuminated, on which was inscribed in golden letters, "Now, THEREFORE, BE WISE, O KINGS! AND BE TAUGHT, YE JUDGES OF

THE EARTH.

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"Presto!" cried my companion. "Look here, see Ferdinand fumbling in an empty purse, while he is dictating a decree to his Secretary for the subjugation of Spanish America; on the table lies a paper, docqueted, Scheme of the Sinking Fund.'" I looked in the mirror; the royal purse had lost the bottom; the scheme of the Sinking Fund floated in air, a few inches above the table, and burst like a soap-bubble; and a South American coolly lighted his hookah with the decree against the freedom of his country.

"There," cried the mistress of the ceremonies, "behold the West Indian planters tearing the Registry Act,-burning Missionary chapels, uttering execrations against Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Bathurst, and rivetting the fetters of the trembling negroes." On raising my eyes to the reflector, the actors continued the same, but the objects differed: instead of the Registry Act, the planters had torn the charter of their rights as Britons; and such was their frenzied haste, that they applied their torches to their own plantations, instead of religious chapels; while they were so reckless in hammering closer the fetters of the slaves, that two out of every three strokes fell on their own shins.

"We shall leave the thorny walks of politics for the flowery and delightful fields of love," said she. "Behold a fond and loving couple, -the lady is coming over a window on the second floor, and is in her sixteenth year, the youth, who re

ceives her at the bottom of the lad der, is a lieutenant upon half-pay, but his father is rich. He clasps her in his arms, conducts her to a postchaise, which gallops off to Gretna Green, while the tender pair sit,

Like turtle doves, so fondly billing,
Or Will and Mary on a shilling."

On glancing at the mirror, which might be termed "Time's Telescope," I beheld the fair in faded mourning weeds, with an infant in her arms, and another by her side, kneeling and weeping at the feet of her father-in-law, while he turned away, with a frown of scorn on his brow.

"Here comes a pair who have no occasion to match clandestinely; the bride is a gay, rich, and wanton widow, fat, fair, and forty; the bridegroom, who was her late husband's clerk, attained his majority yesterday. They were united in the morning, and are just retiring for the night, at an inn, to which they have driven on the wings of love; and now all is Elysium around them; not less bright is their sky after breakfast next morning, when his bride, affecting to blush, ogles him fondly, and puts into his hands a check for her deposits in the bank, to be transferred in his name." In the glass above I saw a very different scene. The lady was sitting alone, and seemed to have been weeping; a watch on the mantelpiece shewed it was past midnight, and she was in the attitude of listening to every passing sound. Another compartment of the picture exhibited a group around the gaming-table, among which I recognised her husband; he had just thrown the dice,— kicked them and the dice-box in the fire, left the room grinding his teeth,-met a girl in the street, took her on his arm, and accompanied her to her lodgings.

"Here comes another pair, on their way to the temple of Hymen; the bridegroom is rich, both in years and worldly wealth; for he has passed his grand climacteric, and he holds stock to the amount of ten thousand pounds, exclusive of shares in banks, canals, and other profitable commercial concerns; the bride is a blooming beauty of nineteen, was

the playmate of his youngest daughter, and has now become so necessary to the old man, that he has confirmed the proverb; There is no fool like an old fool.' See, there, they have returned from the altar; he is leering on her with all the fondness which his watery eyes will permit, and is about to say something very kind and tender, but is interrupted by a violent fit of coughing; however, he has settled on her an annui ty of three hundred pounds for life; he is fond, she is grateful, and they must be happy." Let me look in the mirror. Like some of Hogarth's pictures, it represents different scenes at successive periods. She has nursed him for ten long and lingering years, and during the last seven, her regard has increased; for she has nightly prayed, most fervently and devoutly, that he might speedily be removed beyond the reach of every earthly affliction. He is sitting with his gouty leg on a stool, while she kneels and smooths the downy pillow on which it rests. The servant hands a letter to her mistress; she reads, and puts it hastily in her pocket, a glow suffusing her cheek. Was that a twinge in his great-toe which distorted her husband's features so horribly? Oh no! it was a pang at the heart, caused by a disease still more keen and incurable, -he writhes in a paroxysm of jealousy; while she turns away with a smile of silent contempt curling her pouting lip.

This succession of gloomy pictures threw me off my guard, and I exclaimed, “Ah! are all your lovematches so unhappy?"

"So you have made a discovery!" cried the enchantress. "I saw the mirror; but had not power to remove it. Being now conscious, that, however you may continue to worship me in private, you will no longer mingle with the crowd at my annual festival, I shall speak with more plainness and sincerity. You ask if all my love-matches are unhappy? What other consummation is to be expected from those preposterous unions which take place under my auspices? In all those represented before you, there has been either imprudence or incongruity; but, even where there are not, less apparent

and latent causes often interrupt or annihilate the anticipated felicity. Look at another picture. See that bridegroom and bride; they are coeval in age, both young, and of equal rank in life; he kneels in rapturous adoration, while she smiles with so much sweetness, that uninterrupted happiness may be expected as the result of their union. Raise your eyes to the mirror, and see the pair in the last stage of their honey-moon,-with what indifference they now sit beside each other! They have not quarrelled, neither is there anger in either of their faces; but both express languor and disappointment. He considered her an angel, and she imagined him endowed with perfection, both physical and intellectual. He has now discovered that she is only a woman; and she has found him subject to the infirmities inseparable from human nature. Had not both indulged in visionary dreams, and expected to bask in the Paradise of Fools, they might have been happy.

"To shew of what rational love is capable, look at that picture now before you; the bridegroom is twentyfour and the bride three years younger. They are none of my votaries, and have never followed in my train ; there is a manly dignity in his air, and a melting tenderness in his eye, while he clasps the hand of his bride, whose cheek glows with the blush of virgin modesty. Their nuptial couch is trimmed with budding roses and evergreen myrtles, and the torch of Hymen diffuses a light around them, which, for brilliancy and purity, far outrivals any gas of human invention. Look in the mirror, through the long vista of years, forty of which have passed over their heads; you see them celebrating the anniversary of their marriage, seated at the head of their supper-table, with their children and grand-children around them: the roses have now faded, and the myrtle chaplets have lost their vernal green; but both still breathe a pleasing fragrance. He is the picture of winter, frosty, but kindly," as he presses her hand, while she leans on his shoulder, and sings, John Anderson, my jo!"

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"Look again; see that young lady at her toilette: Nature has given her

agreeable features; but, not content with pleasing, she wishes to fascinate; her eyes shine like stars, but she would have their brilliancy as irresistible as that of the lightning. Her dressing-table groans beneath a load of lotions and cosmetics of various kinds; Macassar oil had its day, but has now yielded to Kalydor; she paints both in white and red; pencils her eye-brows, and sleeps every night in chicken gloves. It would be impossible to give a catalogue of the instruments and ammunition she employs, as the artillery of love, which she never felt; and although she idolizes herself, she is one of my most devoted worshippers. Look in the mirror. Like the beauties beneath a tropical sun, she has sunk in premature old age; for not only is her skin withered and shrivelled, and her face wrinkled, but she has also lost her health, from the noxious qualities of her external applications. Although it is not my province, I am sure, that all who follow such practices,

Let them paint inch thick,
It must come to this at last.

"Here comes a young man in humble life; he has just got an eighth of a twenty thousand pounds prize in the State-Lottery. He has made a bonfire of the implements of his former occupation, and you see him with a large party, in a fashionable hotel; they have been drinking punch-royal, that is, brandy for spirits, and wine for water; and are now amusing themselves in pitching the glasses at the cornices of the room: they have just now knocked out a couple of the waiter's front teeth with the punch-laddle, and have ordered him to put them in the bill. The mirror will exhibit the last scene of this farce, or rather tragi-comedy. In two years, this man, who believed his wealth inexhaustible, is in want of a shilling to purchase his dinner, with the horrors of a jail staring him in the face; to obtain the first, and escape from the last, he enlists in a marching regiment, is sent to Jamaica, drinks new rum, and dies in a few weeks after his landing.

"Look again at another of my steady worshippers; he whom you

now see seated at a table, with some slips of paper in his hand, is one who, despising steady and regular industry, still hopes to become rich at once; he embarked in various speculations, which have all ended in smoke; and for several years past, he has held to the extent of three whole tickets, as draughts upon Fortune, in every Lottery; by these measures he has exhausted a decent patrimony, and is now pennyless: the papers you see in his hand are shares of Lottery-tickets, the fate of which will be decided to-morrow. Let us consult the mirror for the result. All blanks! and Fortune's victim appears in the background, howling in a strait waistcoat.

"Permit me merely to mention the next pair of pictures; they might, perhaps, amuse you; but if you are familiar with the works of Hogarth, you will find them correctly delineated, under the titles of The Rake's and Harlot's Progress.' Those who form the subjects are fully conscious of being my constant followers; and although they sometimes, after a fit of sickness, or from other causes, talk of forsaking me, yet they generally Resolve, and re-resolve, and die the same.

"Let us now take a glance at a very different class, when we shall find those who consider themselves the disciples of Pallas, and the illuminati of the age. Behold that meagre-looking man,

With study pale, and midnight vigils

spent ;

he is seated at his desk, the floor on each side loaded with books in various languages, and a large bundle of manuscripts lies before him. He is busy, alternately writing and obliterating; the paper under his hands is such a medley of patchwork, as none but himself could attempt to decypher. Compared with it, the manuscript of Pope's Homer, deposited in the British Museum, is a clean and fair copy; he takes this pains, because, like the painter, he believes himself writing, if not for eternity, at least for posterity, as long as the language he employs shall be understood. He is an erudite, and has wasted the best years of his life in researches about which the world is

indifferent. Let us consult the mir ror for the result of his labours. See, he still sits as before, but paler and more emaciated, seems liker a ghost than a man, with a trembling hand he is still employed in correcting and interlining his MS. The printer's devil enters with a proof of the first sheet, he revises it with convulsive grasp,―the excitement is more than exhausted nature can support,-his head swims, the sheet drops from his hand, he falls back in his chair, and, with a smile playing on his lip, breathes his last. Surely you will acknowledge, that,

If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.

"Here comes another author, but of a very different species from our last; and believing himself the legitimate child of Apollo, and the favoured paramour of the Muses, he imagines his writings proceed from direct inspiration, and would therefore deem it sacrilege to blot a word produced by the fancied afflatus. He has finished his manuscript copy for the press, and is just now sitting for his portrait,

His eye in a fine frenzy rolling. It is to adorn the front of his volume, -a peep at the mirror will shew its reception. Can this be the son of Apollo, the favourite of the Muses, the child of soothing song, who writhes in agony, and, like a rabid animal, foams at the mouth? What book is that he is tearing in pieces with his teeth? It is a Review in which his volume has been criticised, and pronounced nonsense, and the author held up to ridicule as an incorrigible, ostentatious fool."

There now passed before me several visionary enthusiasts and dreaming philanthropists, which my companion asserted were her worshippers, while they imagined themselves employed in subverting her authority. But as their romantic pursuits were only in embryo, the mirror could not exhibit what they would ultimately produce.

"I shall close this exhibition," said the goddess, "by setting before

you the picture of one who has long been my principal favourite and most devoted follower, although I have now some reason to apprehend his apostacy." She paused, and I thought heaved a sigh. The portrait passed before me, and I beheld my own physiognomy. I attempted to raise my eyes to the mirror, but she stood right before my face, so as completely to intercept my view; and approaching with a sweet, fascinating smile, said, "Now, my dearly-beloved friend, grant me the favour of a parting embrace!" Her air and beauty were so bewitching, that I stretched my arms to clasp her slender neck, and, closing my hands on the flame of the candle on the table, thought I heard my_sage monitor say, "The votaries of Folly generally burn their fingers." I started with pain, woke from the reverie, and found mine blistered.

Alas! I soon found this saying of Experience more fully confirmed. Having passed three days in Edinburgh, I returned home, where the first object that claimed my attention was another letter from my cousin Emily, sealed with black. My heart misgave me as I opened it. My fears were more than confirmed; for it announced the death of my aunt, (an old maiden lady,) with this addition, that she so highly resented my neglect in not visiting her, that she caused her will, in which I was a legatee for three hundred pounds, to be delivered to her; and, still reluctant to cancel her kindness, she kept it below her pillow till within a few hours of her death, in the expectation of my arrival. When I came not, it was the last act of her life to destroy the will, leaving her whole effects to the heir-at-law.

Thus, Mr Editor, have the events of one day rendered to me retributive justice for the follies of many years; and by laying claim to sagacity, inspired only by my own cunning, I have lost three hundred pounds sterling, with the additional mortification of being forced to acknowledge myself

AN APRIL FOOL.

THE FISHER'S SABBATH.
"An' this war' off the day it's on."

THE poor man's Sabbath has been said and sung under a great variety of aspects. That rest from bodily labour, and that presence of moral delight, which the peasant experiences, or is at least entitled to enjoy, during the blessed Sabbath, could not possibly remain unnoticed in an age like the present. And it is indeed a most interesting and hallowing recollection, to contemplate the father, in the midst of his family, clothed in his best, and leisurely inquiring into the condition, and participating in the happiness of his children. I do not, in fact, know a more pleasing subject of reflection, than the little family knot squatted upon the top of some smooth and green eminence, basking, like a covey of partridges, in the Sabbath-evening sun, repeating and commenting upon the text of the day, and staminering out the half-committed psalm and question in the zealous and rigorous ear of parental piety and affection. Wo be unto him, whatever be his creed or his credentials before the public, who would convert the beautiful and healthful sky and breath of heaven into a vault of poisoned and morose confinement, and who would shut up, of a Sabbath afternoon, within the walls of a narrow and smoky abode, the poor pensioner on God's blessed sun and light, merely because his gloomy or hypocritical soul has demonized the divine and unbounded goodness of Heaven!

The shepherd's Sabbath, or that which is spent and enjoyed amongst the mountains, has likewise figured in poetical description, and has attracted that share of attention and interest to which it was so eminently entitled. With his Bible, his dog, his flock, and his mountain-cairn, or shieling, the shepherd may, at any time, convert the wide expanse of earth and sky into a temple, wherein to worship with fervour and elevated devotion. He cannot open his Bible without meeting with some allusion or reference to the actual state of

My Grandmother.

things around him,-to the green pasture, the pure stream, the munition of rocks, the flocks that stray, or that feed peacefully within the limits assigned to them. And he cannot, in the most casual manner, glance his eye over the surrounding landscape, without feeling it to be instinct, as it were, with a religious life, harmonized and softened down into a Sabbath expression.

I have often imagined, that the very crows were sensible of and enjoyed, with an appropriate relish, the advantages of a Christian day of repose. As you advance on your way church wards, they will sit and pick up the worms from a newlyploughed field, quite unmoved and unconcerned; and no feigned alarms, from presented staff or flapped plaid, will compel them to any considerable distance. Whilst, on a workday again, they will survey your most distant advance with suspicion, and take excellent care that you shall not approach within a hundred yards of them. So delicate is their weekday sense of human encroachment, that it is commonly supposed they can smell powder, as the camel does water, at an immense distance; and that they have actually scouts, or out-posts, stationed, whose office it is to give timely warning of danger.

The dogs, too, all instinct with intellect, as many of them are, are not unfrequently fully aware of the privileges of the Sabbath. I remember sitting in a muirland parish church, where "the blessing," at the conclusion of the service, was pronounced with the congregation sitting, in order to cheat the colleys out of their "scaling" howl. And I knew a clergyman, whose dog, Neptune, his constant and inseparable companion on other occasions, never offered to follow him when the bell rung to church.

Thus, Sir, there is scarcely a variety, either of the rational or of the irrational creation, which is not in one way or another influenced

* Vide "Sabbath among the Mountains."

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