ordinary degree of the light of nature as would
enable me to make discoveries without it.'
'Yes, so say all gentlemen who really under-
stand us. They are aware, from the search that
they have made, how very much there is to learn.
The coxcombs treat us differently. One class of
them consider our minds perfectly transparent
-fancy they can look through us at a first glance.
The other regard us as mirrors which are to re-
flect their own absurdities. Mr. M'Kinnon has
evidently studied in a different, and, I must add,
a far better school than either.'

One discovery I certainly have made,' said M'Kinnon, beginning to suspect himself of penetration, and feeling a great veneration for Miss Corrie growing up side by side with his selfrespect; one discovery I have made, and that is, that the characters of women are much more various than is generally supposed. Does your experience bear me out in this remark?'

It is a bold assertion,' said Miss Corrie, appearing to meditate upon the strikingly original proposition which M'Kinnon had just enunciated. A very bold opinion to maintain in the teeth of our great moral poet's common-place remark, that we have no characters at all. But I am convinced that you are right; indeed, I have always felt the truth of your sentiment, though I should never have dared to express it upon my own responsibility. Henceforth, I shall be more courageous.'

'I think, perhaps,' said M'Kinnon, much emboldened by this encouragement, that the difference of character is more observable in women when they are young than in men.'

'Delightful!' exclaimed Miss Corrie; that is the very idea I have been so long in search of, but I have never found it any where. Yes, it must be as you say; the diversities among men arise from the difference of their occupations; the diversities among women from the difference of their natures. You have made a most important addition to our stock of first principles, Sir.' It was not in flesh and blood to resist such an attack as this, to see a sentiment, which, when he first broached it, M'Kinnon, with all his ignorance, had almost suspected was none of the newest, treated as original, patronised, and actually turned into an apothegm, by a person of whose acquaintance with the subject to which his opinion referred he had heard so much.

The compliment was overpowering. Miss Corrie saw the impression she was making; and, if still more ambitious hopes did not for a moment float through her imagination, she at least felt that proper dexterity and caution alone were wanting to establish a supremacy over both father and child.

A girl, on the other hand-in fact, I find I am only repeating your own remarks, you have so anticipated any thing I can say-in a girl, we must carefully watch the qualities which are already developed, to encourage or control them. In short, we must regulate ourselves, in the first case, for the object we have in view for the child; in the other, by the child itself.'

As, at tennis, we keep our eye upon the point to which the ball is to be sent; in billiards, upon the ball itself,' said M'Kinnon.

An admirable illustration!' exclaimed Miss Corrie; it makes me see my own meaning so much more clearly;' though she was perfectly aware that the Rector had merely put tennis-ball for boy, and billiard-ball for girl, in her own sentence, and consequently that it could not, in the least, have illustrated her meaning.

L

thought her reasoning powers were likely to get
the upper hand, and, of course, to make her dis-
putatious, I would oblige her to read poetry. This
plan I have adopted, and found it answer; ut I was
merely acting by guess. You have taught me the
reason why I was so successful; and now, too, I
see more clearly than I ever did why it is so im-
portant to educate women for society; they have
no other profession except that of making them-
selves agreeable.'

You have done much, Miss Corrie, in the few
minutes we have conversed, to clear up the diffi-
culties which I had felt on the subject of female
education; but, instead of making me regret my
resolution to give up the management of my
daughter, you have only made me more deter-
mined to resign her entirely into your hands.'
The result of this conversation was singularly
satisfactory to Miss Corrie. In addition to the
actual advantage she had gained, she had, in the
course of it, sounded M'Kinnon's mind, and made
herself thoroughly acquainted with all its shallow
places. In her first experiment, she had followed
the general principle, which probably will prove
true in four cases out of five, that no amount of
flattery is really felt excessive by the object of it,
and that men are most pleased when the salve is
applied to the rawest spots in their minds; still,
as she had been so unfortunate as to meet with
one or two exceptions to this rule, who had ex-
hibited much indignation at the outrageousness
of her compliments, she naturally felt apprehen-
sive lest she might be venturing too far.

impart, by affecting to derive it from them. A long time, however, before she became an inmate of the Melcove parsonage, a change, which always takes place sooner or later, had taken place in her. She was still able to avail herself of her old deceptions for the old purpose; but in the deceptions themselves she had become a sincere believer. She really fancied that she had evolved an important principle of education, when she had merely uttered a happy and a pointed phrase; that she had obtained a principle when she had only manufactured a sentence.

The worst of this in Miss Corrie's case was, that she did not allow her maxims to retain their innocent silliness, or merely employ them to buy golden opinions of fools. She founded on them conclusions, not, of course, legitimately follow

ing from them-because from mere phrases no-
thing follows: they are essentially and natively
barren-but suggested by her own fancy and
attached to them, that she might delude herself
into the belief that they were of some use.
upon these deductions she built her system of
education. The effects of that system will be de-
veloped in our subsequent chapters.

HENRI III. ET SA COUR.

And

'HENRY the Third and his Court.' Such is the national theatre in France; since every body title of a successful play now acted at the first has been in Paris, or chooses to be thought to have been there, we may as well say at once, the In addition to the more direct benefits of so Theatre Français. Let not our readers imagine, speedily establishing her supremacy, she felt all the that, as in the old style and manner of the French human weakness, at finding that she had not been satisfaction of an amateur experimentalist upon Drama, the audience is, when the curtain draws up, presented with a pair of ladies, the one with rash or hasty in her calculation. We should more jewels and a much longer train than the supposed that she was utterly hypocritical in her and who begins forthwith to relate, in measured be doing Miss Corrie injustice, however, if we other, who is thereby known to be the Queen, conversation with M'Kinnon. In affecting to verse and unvarying cadence, the whole story of think that he was versed in the system of female her life and adventures, feelings and opinions, to education, in pretending to borrow maxims from the other, who, with a patience and address of him which she had had in constant service for which perhaps no English actress would be camany years, she was merely practising upon the pable, exhibits by her countenance and gestures Rector's weakness. But she was not simply an all the varieties of surprise and sympathy, and fills impostor: she began life as one; but ere up each pause in the narrative by questions reshe had reached her present age of thirty-spectfully couched in very lofty verse, concerning four years, her deceptions had become regu- matters which have passed and do pass every day larly domesticated in her mind. Practising all before her own eyes. Let not our untravelled her early years for effect, and possessing, even in readers, if any such remain, with all the nerve childhood, a skilful perception of the weaknesses and freshness of insular ignorance, imagine that and follies of those with whom she associated, she the part for the audience to perform when 'Henry very soon discovered how cheap a reputation may the Third' is played, is merely to sit and be told be acquired among silly men and women by con- by lengthy eloquence, (as our friends of the New stantly talking in paradoxes. Her quick obser- World have it,) how things have happened, how vation convinced her how many opinions pass cur- heroines sorrow, and how heroes rage. No; for rent in the world, simply because they were just once, at a French play, the audience becomes part the reverse of the true opinions, how many remarks and parcel of the dramatis persona: the symattracted notice because they were tricked out in pathy excited is simultaneous and direct. The the gay form of antithesis, which, stripped of that language is, as in real life, ordinary prose about disguise, would appear dull, vapid, and worthless. ordinary matters, and rising with the subject, It was no very difficult thing, she thought, for borne upwards by the impulse of mind, to the people to make their nonsense peculiar, and to elevation of lofty imaginings in impassioned dicturn what ideas they had into epigrams. Her tion. success corresponded with her expectations. In the day of her prosperity, she passed as a very clever woman; her sayings were recorded; her points laughed at; her paradoxes believed. When her fortunes fell, her acquirements would have become useless, if she had not been able to make another, and I do not know, except on the world's principles of morality, a more unworthy, use of her talents As she had before employed her trickeries to gain her reputation, she now employed them to gain her a support. She made gentlemen, like Mr. M'Kinnon, believe that she had a profound knowledge of character, because she described character in aphorisms; that she could educate their daughters because she laid down the principles of education in maxims. And at the same time, as we have seen, she obtained an additional security from those gentlemen's belief in the value of the knowledge she could

There is no attempt at fine writing. The author disappears behind the creation of his fancy, hid by a veil of brightness. We never say, in a pause of attention, That incident is cleverly contrived,' or That character is well drawn.' But, when all is over, when the curtain closes on the victims of treachery and love, and when we wake from the illusion of the scene and find ourselves (thanks to our happy fate and the lapse of three centuries) living under the mild government of Charles X., instead of the dark tyranny of a Catherine of Medicis, by the title of Henry III., we say to each other, Well; but, though this be very real life, it is but a play,-that play must be written by somebody of great power to have wielded our minds in this manner.' 'He is a very young man.' So much the better; he will have time to write us a great many more.' It is a good thing to have popular writers to show us

like

wife, who lies in a swoon at his feet, and then
ends the piece by a line which announces his
sinister views against the King, and may be thus
done into English:

what the good old times were:-not half so good
as the times we live in. Many persons have
gathered all their knowledge of English history
from Shakspeare's plays; and, though we do not
apprehend that Monsieur Alexandre Dumas has
'The servant is despatched, now for the master.'
kept quite so close to historic truth as the author
To what we have said of the author, we must add
of Richard II.' or King John,' yet in giving us
a few words concerning the actors. A new play is
an historic drama,-the subject taken from the
annals of his own country, he has the merit of almost always well cast in Paris. The minor parts
are never gone through with that air of pouting
striking out a new path, and of leading the way
firmly and securely. His pictures are like Van- displeasure at implied inferiority, which is too
common at the London theatres. The part allotted
dyke's portraits: the persons looking themselves,
without affectation or pretence, or any indication is perfectly well played by the first comic actress
to Mademoiselle Mars is decidedly tragic, and it
of looks or gestures called up for the occasion. in Europe. A capital of real talent is like a capital
In drawing the character of the unhappy prince of real specie; it may be turned in any direction,
who fell by the knife of Jacques Clement, those
vices and follies at which humanity blushes are
and applied to any purpose, and will always have
its weight and its power. Firmin is the most pa-
discretely thrown into shade. We see not the
thetic lover on the boards. The English spectators
Gallic Sardanapalus adorned in female gear, en-
may fancy they see in him the spirit of the grace-
gaged in the shameless orgies of a wanton court;
but his weakness, his irresolution, his fatal re-
ful and tender Barry once more embodied, but
in a smaller frame. All the costumes are correct,
liance on his cold-hearted, deep-thinking mother, being taken from portraits of the period, and every
are depicted with exact truth, and relieved by tradition that could be worked into the web of the
some bright touches of that chivalrous spirit piece has been carefully interwoven. The author
which has seldom been found wanting to princes is attached to the household of the Duke of Or-
of the blood royal of France. Feeble of purpose,
biggoted and ignorant, Henry III. is still emi-leans, who has shown himself zealous to promote
nently the gentleman, and shows himself willing be sure to please all good connoisseurs, was by
the success of the play, which, though it might
favour of his Royal Highness, which is of itself
no means so certain to satisfy all princes. The
fame, has of course excited as much envy as the
applause of the pit, and has been made a matter
of reproach; whereas, from his known good taste,
discernment, and thorough acquaintance with the
subject, it is in reality a sure sign of the merit of
the performance.

to be the soldier.

Catherine would have been a very difficult part to write and to play, if the audience had not been let into the secret of her perfidy. She is exposed to us as a great bad woman; firm to her purpose, and careless of her means; very fit to govern while the bulk of society had not yet learned to feel its strength and to assert its rights; in short, to be loyal subjects, obeying according

to the law, and not abject slaves to despotic will. Guise the balafré, (that word is untranslatable,) ferocious, unrelenting, and of manners insolent and overbearing, is just such a leader as must draw to destruction those misguided men who cannot or will not learn from the history of ages how much the king's name is a tower of strength,' and how fatal is the error of deserting the throne of a legitimate ruler to follow the banner of a usurper, however brilliant his talents and seducing his promises.

The business of the piece is the check given to the power of Guise by the King, who suddenly declares his determination to take upon himself the command of the army of the league. The plot or intrigue turns upon the passion of the Count de St. Mégrin for the wife of Guise. This guilty love, which shows fair as maiden modesty at such a court, is fostered and promoted by the artifices of the Queen-mother, who contrives to betray the unhappy and faultless lady to the temptation of a private interview with the object of her tender, and hitherto unowned affection.

:

We say nothing of the several meetings of the lovers those who have loved will find them to be just like nature, and those who have not, may learn without the risk of their own experience, what nature is like. As Catherine intended, the mutual tenderness is discovered by the offended husband, who cannot know how much temptation has been resisted; nor how pure has been the life, though the imagination is so warm. His jealousy rests on much slighter foundations than that of Othello; and his vengeance is, according to his character, much more brutal. By dint of personal violence, and the terror of his actions as well as words, he forces the unhappy lady to write an invitation to St. Mégrin. He falls into the snare, (when was love cautious or bravery suspicious?) and, waylaid by assassins placed by the Duke de Guise, dies, not in the sight, but in the hearing, of the audience. Never had life been so dear to him as the moment before he loses it; for, certain never to see him again, the lady had confessed to him her long-concealed affection. The Duke de Guise remains on the stage to direct from the window the murder of his victim, and feasts his ears with the sound of his last struggles, regardless of his

bably appear in London, and will doubtless excite
intense curiosity and interest; but it never can be
seen with so much zest in a foreign capital as by
us who dwell among the very streets and houses
rendered aweful by tradition. We, the world,
have had a turbulent youth: we are now arrived at
the mature age of unfettered judgment and dear-
taught experience. May he exert the one to
diffuse the blessings of civilization, and guide our
lives wisely by the other!

A translation or imitation of the play may pro

POETRY.

DISCONTENT AND CORRECTION.

SUMMER hours soon pass away,
Darkness tracks the brightest day,
Wasting hail and storms and rain
Sweep across the waving plain,
With one undistinguished ruin
Man's and nature's work pursuing!
Thus will all things that we love
To the dark grave onward move,
Sound of music, sight of flowers,
Memory of childhood's hours,
Hope, and joy, and gentle tears,
Odours which the west-wind bears,
Murmurs of the forest brook,
Eddying leaves in some still nook,-
All must fade and all must wane,
Visions of a dreamer's brain;
Hurrying, crowding, jostling on,
Till every form of beauty 's gone,
And the world is empty left
Of hope, and love, and joy bereft !
Thus I mourned as I to day
O'er the mountains took my way:
Shaping, so my fancy wrought
On the web of troubled thought,
Nought but grief and pain and gloom
In our passage to the tomb;
Deeming we were striving still
Hopelessly through good and ill,
For an end which ne'er could bless
Man in this world-Happiness.
Yet I knew that some there were,
Even in this vale of care,
Who for love might never know
All things lovely perish so;

Hearts that burn with their own light,
Eyes with inbred beauty bright,

Which can robe with their own glory
Shore and cape and promontory,
Lofty tower and lowly cell,
Mountain, rock, or mossy dell,
Making common things to seem
Brighter than a fairy dream!
These will drink from their own treasure
Of sweet thoughts, abundant pleasure,
Which they've heaped this many a day
From the dull crowd far away:
Unobserved men, to whom

The world is nothing but a tomb
For hopes and fears, while all alone
They live unhonoured and unknown.
They from morn till eve will lie
In the light of summer sky,
Building up the dome of thought,
Fairer far than palace wrought
By a cunning master's hand
For a glory to the land.
Sights and sounds of birds and streams
Dimly mixed like shapes in dreams,
Sighs of breezes in the wood,
Shoutings of the mountain flood,
As it springs from steep to steep,
And the murmurs of the deep,
Build for them the fabric bright,
Wealthier than chrysolite ;

Where they love to stray along,
Sheltered from the unquiet throng,
Who still toiling onward press
Through life's devious wilderness,
Haunted by those anarchs old,
Power and custom, pride and gold,
Like a giant-peopled shore
In a poet's tale of yore.
Such a man at eve I met,
Ere the golden sun was set,
Robing tower, and rock, and hall,
Dark-brown wood and waterfall,
With the soft and purple light
Which he scattered in his flight;
On a smooth and verdant beach,
Which the ripples scarcely reach
When the waves and winds at play
Toss aloft the golden spray
Toward the sun on summer's day,
We were standing side by side,
Gazing on the panting tide
As it gently rose and fell

With a soft and murmuring swell,
Making answer tenderly

To the shrill sea-swallow's cry.

'Why,' I said, 'should aught have power To make sad so sweet an hour?

Why must pain and sorrow dull

All of bright and beautiful ?

Is there aught in land or sea

Which may good and stable be?
While we speak the sun is sinking,
Larger draughts the flowers are drinking,
Night the sky's last blush is hiding,
Heedless of the poet's chiding.'
'Peace!' the old man gently said,
Turning up his frosted head,
Where the steps of seventy springs
Left tokens of their visitings,-
'Peace!' and pointed where on high,
Looking through the eastern sky,
On her car of silver sheen

Rode in joy the evening queen,
Round whose state the eternal train
Of shining sister nymphs remain,
Weaving still their web of light
On the deep black floor of night.
While he gazed, a gladsome ray
O'er his features seemed to play,
Soothing every line which care,
Pain, or grief, had graven there,
Like the moonbeams soft and bright
On a lake some summer night,
Which with beauty chaste and tender
And their own exceeding splendour
Every ripple smooth away
Which upon its surface lay.
'Look aloft,' at length he said,

"There thy doubts are answered,

Shades may veil the bright and fair,

Pain, and grief, and canker care,

Flowers may fade and moons may wane-
'Tis but to be bright again!

Nought can die in heaven or earth
But must be a glorious birth,

To some other gorgeous thing
Fair as poet's imaging.

If the sunbeams pass away,
If dark evening tracks the day,
"Tis that lines of living light
May the Ocean forehead dight,
When the sun sinks down to sleep
In the bosom of the deep.

Look when Spring lifts up the veil,
Which Earth wore through winter pale,
Snow-drops pure, through vale and hill,
Crocus, violet, daffodill,

Flourish for a little space;
Then these fade, that in their place,
Flowers of prouder scent and hue
May the living garb renew,

Which the modest Earth puts on
At the wooing of the Sun.

Fruits could not the traveller bless

In the thirsty wilderness,

Had not first the blossoms died;
Nor throughout the meadows wide,
Could there life and beauty be
But for past mortality.

Thus through summer, autumn, spring,
With a constant visiting,

Death and beauty, hand-in-hand,
Walk through heaven, and sea, and land,
Raising up to sweep away,
And renew from day to day.
So it is with essences,
Nobler than the flowers and trees,
Man himself must subject be
To like mutability:
First our gracious childhood dies,
Then youth follows fast and flies;
Manhood then; then slow old age
Crowns and closes up the page.
Joy hath smiled on every time,—
Youth is beautiful, the prime
Of man hath beauty for its dower,
So age and childhood in their hour:
Thus in turn we fade and bloom,
Till beyond the mouldering tomb
Death the bonds of earth hath riven
And unbarred the gates of heaven!'
Thus he mildly spoke, reproving
My faint hope; then slowly moving
From the shore, he bade me speed
In the faith that all had need
Of some seasons less serene
Than other hours might be, had been :
And when we parted, home I went
With higher hope, and more content
Than when first at break of day

I wandered o'er the mountains gray.

MR. HAYDON'S PICTURE OF EUCLES.

THE Chairing of the Members' has been removed from the Exhibition-room at the Western Exchange, and has given place to the unfinished painting of Eucles. This picture represents a Greek soldier, who ran from Marathon to Athens, as soon as the victory over the Persians was decided, and died from fatigue and wounds, as he entered the city. In order that the interest of this subject may be heightened, Eucles is represented, after having publicly announced the victory, arriving exhausted at his own house, and dropping as he reaches the threshold. His wife and children, rushing out to meet him, have their joy converted into terror and grief, on beholding the condition to which he is reduced; and these, together with a figure stepping forward to support the sinking warrior, form the principal group of the picture. It would be presumptuous in any but one who is himself a professor of the art to pretend even to guess the ultimate effect of a painting, from viewing it in an unfinished state, or to counsel the author as to its future treatment. To his brother artists, therefore, Mr. Haydon must chiefly look for the benefit derivable from the animadversions which this exhibition of the Eucles may provoke. To see a work by an artist so eminent as Mr. Haydon in a state of progress, may be curious and satisfactory to a great portion of the public, to whom such an opportunity is not often afforded; and, as the former productions of Mr. Haydon's pencil, including The Judgment of Solomon,' are to be seen at the same time, the exhibition is well worthy of a visit.

As to the Eucles, we expect to be pleased with it when finished; although we fear even the com. position, which is now complete, will not be free from objection. The immense stride of the man advancing to prevent the falling of Eucles, seems extravagant and forced. The figure of the child, rushing forward with extended arms, does not appear devoid of affectation and in appropriate character.

PANDEMONIUM.

BURFORD'S PANORAMA, LEICESTER-SQUARE.

above the rest, and moved the mighty cherubim to brandish their flaming swords, illumining all hell around, and to hurl defiance towards the vault of heaven.

The attempt, in fact, has not been made, and Mr. Burford, although he has opened a panoramic view of Pandemonium after the design of Mr. Slous, has not essayed to represent the Pandemonium of Milton. Between the two there is this difference Milton's painting is historical, the panorama is landscape; in the former, the animate objects are principal; the scenery and architecture are accessory; in the latter, the view of the infernal abyss forms the picture, its inmates act a subordinate part. The panorama, in fact, as those more penetrating divined that it would be, is a picture of the capital of Satan, somewhat in the style of Martin. It abounds in massive architecture and lofty and rugged mountains, floods and rocks of every hue, and of every temperature, from the fiery Phlegethon to the cold and oblivious Lethe. The outline is grand, and the colouring, where it is not intended to be mysterious, is powerful.

The figures, Mr. Burford tells us, are on a reing, and it is left to the imagination to supply duced scale, in order to give effect to the painttheir colossal dimensions. It is to be remarked, however, that the object of this arrangement has been in some measure defeated by the enormous size, and conspicuous prominence, and powerful colouring of the great dragon. The masses of architecture on the left hand of the dragon, and the vale through which Lethe winds its slow and silent stream,' seemed to us the best parts of the picture. The exhibition, we conclude, will be highly popular for a season; but, loving panoramas, riment may not be repeated. we cannot help indulging a hope that the expe

THE DRAMA.

TIMELY announcement had fully prepared the public for some grand and wonderful novelty at the Panorama, in Leicester-fields; yet there are few, we imagine, who take an interest in matters of this nature, who did not exclaim with surprise on learning that the promised exhibition was to be an illustration of Pandemonium. The approvers and admirers of Panoramas in general, held their opinion in suspense as to the probability of success in the bold and heterodox experiment. These pleasing exhibitions they had been accustomed to regard as peculiarly appropriated to the representations of natural scenery: many probably had considered them as adapted for that purpose exclusively, and had looked to them less as a sight, and as source of that sort of gratification which is derived from beholding a well-executed picture, aided by the effects of an ingenious contrivance, than as the means of adding to their stock of knowledge of the actual world, and of forming ideas more defined and accurate than could be received from oral or written description, of the form and aspect of sites and scenes which, while from the circumstance of their possessing transcendant picturesque beauty, or other remarkable local peculiarities, or from their historical or classical associations, they have acquired celebrity, and become the objects of interest and curiosity Drury Lane. of civilized man in general, lie beyond the circumscribed range of the tether by which the loco-boxing day,' it is not calculated that the holiday folk ON Easter Monday, or on what is vulgarly called motive power of most persons in this their mortal will give much tolerance to any thing serious; it is, course is limited. therefore, remarkable that on Monday night the whole of ' Venice Preserved,' which, though a short is a tiresome play, was heard without the least symptom of impatience, although the pantheon of the galleries was completely full, and the promised tours de force' of the Parisian phenomena,' were likely to have raised great and eager expectations in the breasts of as many of their godships as understood or had received an interpretation of the mysterious phrase. The excellent acting of Miss Phillips, who played the part of Belvidera better than even on the former occasion, must have a large share of the praise of having hindered the expression of impatience; for the dramatis persone had evidently received instructions to gallop through their parts, which they were by no means loath to obey. When the play was done, the Alcides' presented themselves. One is rather tall the other short and thickset. They appeared in character, each with his club; but, laying them aside, went through a numerous series of attitudes, equally remarkable for gracefulness of position and muscular development. These pleased universally, but not so the subsequent tours de force.' The strength they displayed was very wonderful, but several of the exhibitions involved, in the minds of many of the spectators, such imminent hazard, that with them admiration yielded to terror, and partial hisses were heard. However, no one fainted. One of the feats performed by the stouter of the two,-whose limbs, in every thing but the colour and the dimensions, are like those of the Hyde Park monster,-deserves mention. Standing on a chair, he bent backwards over the back, and took from the stage a piece of lead, (which appeared a heavy burden to the two attendants who brought it thither,) and, holding it in both arms across his chest, recovered his erect position, and then returned it to the place whence he took

Not that a panoramic painting the most perfect that ever was strained around its ample circumference can do more than approach identity of character with the scene which it pretends to represent. However exact the outline, the breath of life and nature must ever be wanting from the former to leave sufficient difference between the reality and the picture to reserve a full measure of enjoyment for him who at any future period of his career shall visit a spot he has previously contemplated in panoramic exhibition. Yet as such pictures are the best substitute till now devised for actual observation, who would not feel jealous of every innovation, and apprehensive that disrepute might attach to all exhibitions of the kind, from the failure in the new attempt, or from a perversion to purposes less obviously within the scope of the original invention?

Such were the reflections suggested by the advertisement of the picture of Pandemonium. Yet it probably occurred to many persons, as it did to ourselves, even before Mr. Burford's modest preface to his Description' fell into our hands, that the panorama afforded advantages which might be made available for giving effect to efforts in the higher branch of the art,' and which might be employed to embody with boldness and grandeur the most sublime imagery.' But then the difficult question, Who is to design this sublime imagery? Exists there the hardy pencil that dares aspire to pourtray Hell's dread Emperor and his millions of subject-spirits as depicted by Milton? The magic hand that traced the Last Judgment' must have failed in the attempt to embody, to the satisfaction of the readers of the Paradise Lost,' the sublime conceptions of the author, the tower-like form, the face, entrenched by thunder scars, of the apostate angel, as he stood

it

:

6

by the same process, and rose again without any appearance of effort or exhaustion. After these exploits, the melodrama of Thierna-na-Oge' began. it is founded on the Irish legend of O'Donnoghue, Prince of the Lakes,' of whose sub-aqueous domicile and environs the beautiful scenery mainly consisted. We cannot go particularly into the plot,of which the said

.