redressing wrongs, or setting the world to rights. The last Prospectus sent to me in her ladyship's name, with four and twenty Queen's Heads, all of a row upon the cover, was "A Proposal for the formation of an Antiworks-of-Fiction Society; for the promotion of Matter of Fact;" offering premiums to nonnovel-readers, and bonuses to total-abstainers from romance; the perusal of a Magazine to be finable, and of a poem, expulsion from the society.The Prospectus did not particularize the historical books that were to be included under the head of works of fiction; but it strikes me that such a project opens the door to singular condemnations. For the name of CECIL or even Ormington to appear in the lists of such an Association, were to publish an epigram upon myself. For there is a vast deal of romance in me yet. I am only what the Aberdeen metaphyscians would call a hypothetical realism. -I appear to eat well,-drink well,-sleep well. Et cependent il est d'horribles agonies Il est plus d'une croix au Calvaire de l'ame, Toute ame est un sépulcre où gisent mille choses, Dorment ensevelis ; On retrouve toujours les larmes sous le rire; Les morts sont les vivans, et l'homme est à vrai dire Une nécropolis. Les tombeaux déterrés des vieilles cités mortes Les chambres et les puits de la Thèbe aux cent portes, Ne sont pas si peuplés! On n'y recontre pas de plus affreux squelettes Un plus vaste fouillis d'ossemens et de têtes Aux ruines mêlés. L'on en voit qui n'ont pas d'épitaphe à leurs tombes, Et de leurs trépassés font comme aux catacombes Un grand entassement; Dont le cœur est un champ sans croix ni pierres, Et que l'aveugle Mort, de diverses poussières, D'autres, moins oublieux, out des caves funébres Où sont rangés leurs morts comme celles des Guébres Ou des Egyptiens; Tout autour de leur cœur sont debout les momies, Et l'on y reconnait les figures blémies De leurs amours anciens. Dans un pur souvenir, chastement embaumée, Ils gardent au fond d'eux l'ame qu'ils ont aimée La mort habite en eux au milieu de la vie Ils s'en vont poursuivant la chère ombre ravie Qui leur sourit encore ! My Public must pardon my endeavouring to depict the state of my heart and soul, in any other tongue than the Queen's English.— It pretended to understand and admire French. tragedy acted by Mademoiselle Rachel, because she was the fashion; let it admire and understand French poetry, quoted by CECIL,for the same reason. no At all events, be it understood, matter through what language or exposition,— that, in spite of the familiarity with which it contemplates me driving up St. James's Street in my Brougham, on the damp days when twinges of the gout remind me as accurately of my age as Burke's peerage, they behold in me as it were, A HAUNTED MAN!-My brain has galleries, my heart chambers, as full of spectres as those of the Castle of Otranto!— Some of these "cheres ombres ravies" I have pourtrayed in prose, I flatter myself not very inferior to the verse of Byron in depicting his Francesca who Was so slight and transparent of hue, You might have seen the moon shine through! Emily,-Helena,-Franszetta,-the idols of my boyhood,―Nunziata, Theresa, Mary, Clémentine, the deluders of my middle age,-have been successively called up before you.-But I alluded, if you remember, in my last volume, to a certain Viscountess of whom I promised you "more hereafter;" and in my first, ventured to shadow forth a fatal remembrance of the follies of my F. O. days, which I would fain have consigned to oblivion.— It would be doing you injustice were I to defraud you of a brief relation of these two piquant adventures; and if I have time, a chapter or two shall be added to this present volume, to describe two of the most painful apparitions which ghostlify the chambers of my brain. I am almost ashamed, at the years of which the Peerage accuses me, to plead guilty to such fickleness of nature. But be it remembered, that even that best of men, Wilberforce, had an especial clause in his prayers, on entering into the holy estate of matrimony, against his "volatility of nature !”—and if William Wilberforce confessed to being volatile, what chance for CECIL?-If these things were done in a green tree,—eh ?— I have also a budget of politics to inflict upon you. I have hardly patience to wait for the meeting of Parliament, in order to give tongue to the ULTRA-CONSERVATISM, which is to form the basis of the CECIL-ian administration. You shall hear what you shall hear of "that glorious English aristocracy, which has braved a thousand years the rabble and its sprees, a body more essentially conservative, my lords, than the ancient Germanic Empire, |
