These great examples are sufficient for our purpose, and it would be invidious to add more. Without particularizing any, we may safely affirm that if the majority of successful advocates are not men of genius, they are men of very active and penetrating intellect, disciplined by the peculiar necessity of their profession to the strictest honour, and taught by their intimate and near acquaintance with all the casualties of human life, and the varieties of human nature, indulgence to frailty and generosity to misfortune. It is impossible to estimate too highly the value of such a body of men, aspiring, charitable, and acute; who, sprung from the people, naturally sympathize with their interests; who, being permitted to grasp at the honours of the state, are supplied with high motives to preserve its constitution; and who, if not very eager for improving the laws, at least keep unceasing watch over every attempt to infringe on the rights they sustain, or to pervert them to purposes of oppression. If they are too prone to change their party as they rise, they seldom do so from base or sordid motives, and often infuse a better spirit into those whose favours they consent to receive. but remain apart, and neither assist nor im- | ers are all as distinct and as ready for use as pede each other. The same speech, indeed, those of the most accomplished of Old Bailey may give scope to several talents; to lucid practitioners. His most remarkable faculty, narration, to brilliant wit, to irresistible rea- taken singly, the power of sarcasm, can be soning, and even to heart-touching pathos; understood, even by a Lancaster jury. And but these will be found in parcels, not blended yet, though worthy to rank with statesmen beand interfused in one superhuman burst of fore whom Erskine sunk into insignificance, passionate eloquence. The single power in and though following his profession with zeal which he excels all others is sarcasm, and his and perseverence almost unequalled, he has deepest inspiration-Scorn. Hence he can hardly been able to conquer the impediment awaken terror and shame far better than he of that splendid reputation, which to any other can melt, agitate, and raise. Animated by man must have been fatal! this blasting spirit, he can "bare the mean hearts" which "lurk beneath" a hundred "stars," and smite a majority of lordly persecutors into the dust! His power is all directed to the practical and earthy. It is rather that of a giant than a magician; of Briareus than of Prospero. He can do a hundred things well, and almost at once; but he cannot do the one highest thing; he cannot by a single touch reveal the hidden treasures of the soul, and astonish the world with truth and beauty unknown till disclosed at his bidding. Over his vast domain he ranges with amazing activity, and is a different man in each province which he occupies. He is not one, but Legion. At three in the morning he will make a reply in parliament, which shall blanch the cheeks and appal the hearts of his enemies; and at half-past nine he will be found in his place in court, working out a case in which a bill of five pounds is disputed, with all the plodding care of the most laborious junior. This multiplicity of avocation, and division of talent, suit the temper of his constitution and mind. Not only does he accomplish a greater variety of purposes than any other man-not only does he give anxious attention to every petty cause, while he is fighting a great political battle, and weighing the relative interests of nations-not only does he write an article for the Edinburgh Review while contesting a county, and prepare complicated arguments on Scotch appeals by way of rest from his generous endeavours to educate a people-but he does all this as if it were perfectly natural to him, in a manner so unpretending and quiet, that a stranger would think him a merry gentleman, who had nothing to do but enjoy himself and fascinate others. The fire which burns in the tough fibres of his intellect does not quicken his pulse, or kindle his blood to more than a genial warmth. He, therefore, is one man in the senate, another in the study, another in a committee room, and another in a petty cause; and consequently is never above he work which he has to perform. His pow Let no one of those who, with a consciousness of fine talents, has failed in his profession, abate his self-esteem, or repine at his fortune. A life of success, though a life of excitement, is also a life of constant toil, in which the pleasures of contemplation and of society are sparingly felt, and which sometimes tends to a melancholy close. Besides, the best part of our days is past before the struggle begins. Success itself has nothing half so sweet as the anticipations of boyish ambition and the partial love by which they were fostered. A barrister can scarcely hope to begin a career of anxious prosperity till after thirty; and surely he who has attained that age, after a youth of robust study and manly pleasure, with firm friends, and an unspotted character, has no right to complain of the world! In the deep discovery of the subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some inquirers, who, if two or three yards were opened beneath the surface would not care to rake the bowels of Potosi and regions towards the centre. SIR THOMAS BROWNE. never boisterous spirits; endowed with the rare faculty not only of divining one's wishes, but instantly making them his own; skilful in sweetening good counsel with honest flattery; able to bear with enthusiasm in which he might not participate, and to avoid smiling at the follies he could not help discerning; ever ready to indulge the secret wish of his guest "for another bottle," with heart enough to drink it with him, and head enough to take care of him when it was gone, he was (and yet is) the pleasantest of advisers, the most genial of listeners, and the quietest of lively companions. On this memorable day he had, with his accustomed forethought, given particular orders for our entertainment, and I hastened to enjoy it with him, little thinking how deep and solemn was the pleasure which awaited us. MEN have always attached a peculiar inte- | a better and wiser self. Blest with good but rest to that region of the earth which extends for a few yards beneath its surface. Below this depth the imagination, delighting to busy itself among the secrets of Time and Mortality, hath rarely cared to penetrate. A few feet of ground may suffice for the repose of the first dwellers of the earth until its frame shall grow old and perish. The little coin, silent picture of forgotten battles, lies among the roots of shrubs and vegetables for centuries, till it is turned into light by some careful husbandman, who ploughs an inch deeper than his fathers. The dead bones which, loosened from their urns, gave occasion to Sir Thomas Browne's noblest essay, "had outlasted the living ones of Methusalem, and in a yard under ground, and thin walls of clay, outworn all the strong and spacious buildings above them, and quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests." Superstition chooses the subterranean space which borders on the abodes of the living, and ranges her vaults and mysterious caverns near to the scenes of revelry, passion, and joy; and within this narrow rind rest the mighty products of glorious vintages, the stores of that divine juice which, partaking of the rarest qualities of physical and intellectual nature, blends them in happier union within us. Here, in this hallowed ground, the germs of inspiration and the memorials of decay lie side by side, and Bacchus holds divided empire with the King of Terrors. As I sat indulging this serious vein of reflection, some years ago, when my relish of philosophy and port was young, a friend called to remind me that we had agreed to dine together with rather more luxury than usual. I had made the appointment with boyish eagerness, and now started gladly from my solitary reveries to keep it. The friend with whom I had planned our holiday, was one of those few persons whom you may challenge to a convivial evening with a mathematical certainty of enjoying it; which is the rarest quality of friendship. Many who are equal to great exigencies, and would go through fire and water to serve you, want the delicate art to allay the petty irritations, and heighten the ordinary enjoyments of life, and are quite unable to make themselves agreeable at a tête-à-tête dinner. Not so my companion; who, zealous, prompt, and consoling in all seasons of trial, had good sense for every little difficulty, and a happy humour for every social moment; at all times We arrived at the - Coffee House about six on a bright afternoon in the middle of September, and found every thing ready and excellent; and the turtle magnificent and finely relieved by lime punch effectually iced; grilled salmon crisply prepared for its appropriate lemon and mustard; a leg of Welch mutton just tasted as a "sweet remembrancer" of its heathy and hungry hills; woodcocks with thighs of exquisite delicacy and essence "deeply interfused" in thick soft toast; and mushrooms, which Nero justly called "the flesh of the gods," simply broiled and faintly sprinkled with Cayenne.* Our conversation was, of course, confined to mutual invitations and expressive criticisms on the dishes; the only table-talk which men of sense can tolerate. But the most substantial gratifications, in this world at least, must have an end; and the last mushroom was at length eaten. Un *This trait sufficiently accounts for the flowers which were seen scattered on the sepulchre of Nero, when the popular indignation raged highest against his memory— the grateful Roman had eaten his mushroom under imperial auspices. Had Lord Byron been acquainted with the flavour of choice mushrooms, he would have turned to give it honour due after the following stanza, one of the noblest in that work, which, with all its faults of waywardness and haste, is a miracle of language, pa thos, playfulness, sublimity, and sense. When Nero perish'd by the justest doom fortunately for the repose of the evening, we | That Hermitage, stealing gently into the chamwere haunted by the recollection of some bers of the brain, shall make us "babble of green highly flavoured port, and, in spite of strong fields;" and that delicate Claret, innocently evidence of identity from conspiring waiters, bubbling and dancing in the slender glass, shall sought for the like in vain. Bottle after bottle bring its own vine-coloured hills more vividly was produced and dismissed as "not the thing," before us even than Mr. Stanfield's pencil! till our generous host, somewhat between libe- There from a time-changed bottle, tenderly ral hospitality and just impatience, smilingly drawn from a crypt, protected by huge primebegged us to accompany him into the cellar, val cobwebs, you may taste antiquity, and inspect the whole of "his little stock," and feel the olden time on your palate! As we choose for ourselves! We took him at his sip this marvellous Port,* to the very colour word; another friend of riper years and graver of which age has been gentle, methinks we authority joined us; and we prepared to fol- have broken into one of those rich vaults in low our guide, who stood ready to conduct us which Sir Thomas Browne, the chief butler to the banks of Lethe. All the preparations, of the tomb, finds treasures rarer than jewels. like those which preceded similar descents "Some," saith he, "discover sepulchral vessels of the heroes of old, bespoke the awfulness containing liquors which time hath incrassated and peril of the journey. Our host preceded into jellies. For besides lacrymatories, notable us with his massive keys to perform an office lamps, with oils and aromatic liquors, attended collateral to that of St. Peter; behind, a dingy noble ossuaries; and some yet retaining a imp of the nether regions stood with glasses vinosity and spirit in them, which, if any have in his hands and a prophetic grin on his face; tasted, they have far exceeded the palates of and each of us was armed with a flaming torch antiquity;-liquors, not to be computed by to penetrate the gloom which now stretched years of annual magistrates, but by great conthrough the narrow entrance before us. junctions and the fatal periods of kingdoms. The draughts of consulary date were but crude unto these, and opimian wine but in the must unto them." We passed on from flavour to flavour with our proud and liberal guide, whose comments added zest even to the text which he had to dilate on. A scent, a note of music, a voice long unheard, the stirring of the summer breeze, may startle us with the sudden revival of long-forgotten feelings and thoughts, but none of these little whisperers to the heart is so potently endowed with this simple spell as the various flavours of Port to one who has tried, and, in various moods of his own mind, relished them all. This full, rough, yet fruity wine, brings back that first season of London life, when topics seemed exhaustless as words and coloured with rainbow hues; when Irish students, fresh from Trinity College, Dublin, were not too loud or familiar to be borne; when the florid fluency of others was only tiresome as it interrupted one's own; when the vast Temple Hall was not too large or too cold for sociality; and ambition, dilating in the venerable space, shaped dreams of enterprise, labour, and glory, till it required more wine to assuage its fervours. This taste of a liquor, firm yet in body, though tawny with years, bears with it to the heart that hour when, having returned to my birth-place, after a long and eventful absence, and having been cordially welcomed by my hearty friends, I slipped away from the table, and hurried, in the light of a brilliant sunset, to the gently declining fields and richly wooded hedgerows which were the favourite haunt of my serious boyhood. The swelling hills seemed touched with ethereal softness; the level plain was invested "with purpureal gleams;" every wild rose and stirring branch was eloquent with vivid recol We descended the broken and winding staircase with cautious steps, and, to confess the truth, not without some apprehension for our upward journey, yet hoping to be numbered among that select class of Pluto's visiters, "quos ardens evexit ad æthera virtus." On a sudden, turning a segment of a mighty cask, we stood in the centre of the vast receptacle of spirituous riches. The roof of solid and stoutly compacted brickwork, low, but boldly arched, looked substantial enough to defy all attacks of the natural enemy, water, and resist a second deluge. From each side ran long galleries, partially shown by the red glare of the torches, extending one way far beneath the busy trampling of the greatest shopkeepers and stock-jobbers in the world; and, on the other, below the clamour of the Old Bailey Court and the cells of its victims. What a range! Here rest, cooling in the deep-delved cells, the concentrated essences of sunny years! In this archway huge casks of mighty wine are scattered in bounteous confusion, like the heaped jewels and gold on the "rich strond" of Spenser, the least of which would lay Sir Walter's Fleming low! Throughout that long succession of vaults, thousands of bottles, "in avenues disposed," lie silently waiting their time to kindle the imagination, to sharpen the wit, to open the soul, and to anchain the trembling tongue. There may you feel the true grandeur of quiescent power, and walk amidst the palpable elements of madness or of wisdom. What stores of sentiment in that butt of raciest Sherry! What a fund of pensive thought! What suggestions for delicious remembrance! What "aids to reflection!" (genuine as those of Coleridge) in that Hock of a century old. What sparkling fancies, whirling and foaming, from a stout body of thought in that full and ripe Cham-lections: a thousand hours of happy thoughtpagne! What mild and serene philosophy in that Burgundy, ready to shed "its sunset glow" on society and nature! This pale Brandy, softened by age, is the true "spirit" which "disturbs us with the joy of elevated thoughts." * Old Port wine is more ancient to the imagination than any other, though in fact it may have been known fewer years; as a broken Gothic arch has more of the spirit of antiquity about it than a Grecian temple. Port reminds us of the obscure middle ages; but Hock, like the classical mythology, is always young. How the soul expands from this narrow cell and bids defiance to the massive walls! What Elysian scenes begin to dawn amidst the dark fulness came back upon the heart; and the of ham, sandwiches, and broiled mushrooms, glorious clouds which fringed the western ho- to enable us to do justice to the liquid delicarizon looked prophetic of golden years "pre-cies before us. The usual order of wines is destined to descend and bless mankind." This disregarded; no affected climax, no squeamish soft, highly-flavoured Port, in every drop of assortments of tastes for us here; we despise which you seem to taste an aromatic flower, all rules, and yield a sentimental indulgence to revives that delicious evening, when, after the aberrations of the bottle. "Riches finedays of search for the tale of Rosamond Grey, less" are piled around us; we are below the of which I had indistinctly heard, I returned laws and their ministers; and just, lo! in the from an obscure circulating library with my farthest glimmer of the torches lies outstretched prize, and brought out a long-cherished bottle, our black Mercury, made happy by our leav given me two years before as a curiosity, by ings, and seeming to rejoice that in the cellar, way of accompaniment to that quintessence of as in the grave, all men are equal. imaginative romance. How did I enjoy, with a strange delight, its scriptural pathos, like a newly discovered chapter of the Book of Ruth; hang enamoured over its young beauty, love-ness! Now do I understand the glorious tale lier for the antique frame of language in which it was set; and long to be acquainted with the author, though I scarcely dared aspire so high, and little anticipated those hundreds of happy evenings since passed in his society, which now crowd on me in rich confusion!-Thus is it that these subtlest of remembrancers not only revive some joyful season, but this also "contains a glass which shows us many more," unlocking the choicest stores of memory, that cellar of the brain, in which lie the treasures which make life precious. of Aladdin and the subterranean gardens. It is plain that the visionary boy had discovered just such a cellar as this, and there eagerly learned to gather amaranthine fruits, and range in celestial groves till the Genius of the Ring, who has sobered many a youth, took him in charge, and restored him to common air. Here is the true temple, the inner shrine of Bacchus. Feebly have they understood the attributes of the benignant god, who have represented him as delighting in a garish bower with clustering grapes; here he rejoices to sit, But see! our party have seated themselves in his true citadel, amidst his mightier treabeneath that central arch to enjoy a calmer sures. Methinks we could now, in prophetic pleasure after the fatigues of their travel. They mood, trace the gay histories of these imbodied look romantic as banditti in a cave, and good-inspirations among those who shall feel them humoured as a committee of aldermen. A hereafter; live at once along a thousand lines cask which has done good service in its day-of sympathy and thought which they shall the shell of the evaporated spirit-serves for a table, round which they sit on rude but ample benches. The torches planted in the ground cast a broad light over the scene, making the ruddy wine glisten, and seeming, by their irregular flickering, as if they too felt the influence of the spot. My friend, usually so gentle in his convivialities, has actually broken forth into a song, such as these vaults never heard; our respected senior sits trying to preserve his solemn look, but unconsciously smiling; and Mr. B- -1, the founder of the banquet, is sedulously doing the honours with only intenser civility, and calling out for fresh store kindle; reverse the melancholy musing of Hamlet, and trace that which the bungholestopper confines to "the noble dust of an Alexander," which it shall quicken; and peeping into the studies of our brother contributors, see how that vintage which flushed the hills of France with purple, shall mantle afresh in the choice articles of this Magazine. But it is time to stop, or my readers will suspect me of a more recent visit to the cellar. They will be mistaken. One such descent is enough for a life; and I stand too much in awe of the Powers of the Grave to venture again so near to their precincts. ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BRUNSWICK THEATRE BY FIRE. [NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.] We notice this lamentable accident in our' as transgressions, and to estimate not only dramatic record, not for the sake of inquiry what is done but what is resisted. We can, into its causes, or of multiplying the dismal indeed, do this but partially, yet we should, as associations which it awakens, but for the far as possible, dispose ourselves to be just in striking manner in which it has brought out our moral censures; and we shall find in those the proper virtues of players. Actors of all whom we call "good for nothing people," more ranks; managers of all interests; the retired good than we think for. Actors are, no doubt, and the active; the successful and the obscure; more liable to deviate from the ordinary prothe refined and the vulgar; from Mrs. Siddons prieties of conduct, than merchants or agriculdown to the scene-shifters of Sadler's Welis, turists; it is their business to give pleasure to have pressed forward to afford their sympathy others, and, therefore, they must incline to the and relief to the living sufferers. The pro- pleasurable; they live in the present, and it is prietors of the patent theatres, who were just no wonder that, as their tenure is more precacomplaining of the infringements on their pur- rious than that of others, they take less thought chased rights, which have rendered them for the future. But if they have less of almost valueless, at once forgot the meditated the virtue of discretion, they have also less of injury to themselves, and saw nothing but the that alloy of gross selfishness to which it is misery of their comrades. It is only on occa- allied; they have much of the compassion sions such as these that the charities which which they help to diffuse; and ludicrous as are nurtured amidst the excitements and vi- their vanities sometimes are, they give way at cissitudes of a theatrical life are exhibited, so once on the touch of sympathy for unmerited as to put the indiscriminate condemnations of or merited sorrow. Mr. Kean is an extreme the crabbed moralist and the fanatic to shame. instance, perhaps, both of imprudence and ge There is more equality in the distribution of nerosity; and accordingly no man living has goodness and evil than either of these classes been treated with greater injustice by a moral imagine; for the "respectable" part of the and discerning public. Raised in a moment community are powerful and permanent; and from obscurity and want to be the idol of the obtain, perhaps, something more than justice town; courted, caressed, and applauded by the for the negative virtues. Far be it from us to multitude, praised by men of genius, with rank, undervalue these, or to sympathize with any beauty, and wit, proud to be enlisted in his who would represent the ordinary guards and train, he grew giddy and fell, and was hooted fences of morality as things of little value; from the stage with brutal indignities. but justice is due to all; and justice, we cannot knew his faults; but how few were capable of help thinking, is scarcely done to those whose understanding his virtues-his princely spirit, irregularities and whose virtues grow together his warm and cordial friendship, his proneness on that verge of ruin and despair on which to forget his own interests in those of others, they stand in the times of their giddiest eleva- his magnanimity and his kindness! The tion. A cold observance of the decencies of "respectable" part of the community do not life excites no man's envy and wounds no engross all its goodness, although they turn it man's self-love; and, therefore, it is allowed to the best account for their own benefit. Unwithout grudging; while the dazzling errors der the shield of this character, they sometimes and redeeming nobleness of the light-hearted do things which the vagabonds they sneer at and the generous are more easily abused than would not, and could not achieve; and such is copied. To detect "the soul of goodness in the submission of mankind to custom, that they things evil," is not to confound evil with good, retain their name even when they are detected. or to weaken the laws of honour and con- An attorney, in large practice, convicted of a science, but to give to them a finer precision fraud, retains the addition "respectable" till he and a more penetrating vigour. It is not by receives judgment; the announcement of the distinguishing, but by confounding, that perni- failure of a country bank, by which hundreds cious sentimentalists pervert the understanding are ruined, styles the swindlers "the respectaand corrupt the affections. They lend to vice ble firm ;" and a most respectable member of the names and attributes of virtue; tack toge- the religious world speculates in hops, or in ther qualities which could never be united in stock, without reproach, and, when he has failed nature; and thus, in order to produce a new for thousands, fraudulently gambled away, and startling effect, deprave the moral sensibi- continues to hold shilling whist in pious abolity, and relax the tone of manly feeling. But mination. We have been led to this train of it is another thing to hold the balance fairly reflection by seeing in a newspaper the speech between the excellencies and the frailties of of a most respectable Home Missionary, named imperfect men; to trace the hints and indica- Smith, at the Mansion-house, in which he tions of high emotion amidst the weaknesses exults in the horrible catastrophe as "the of our nature; to consider temptations as well triumph of piety in London !" and this person, All |