bling for them, the only learning to be had for your subscription will be a “mouthful," whilst a "bellyful” of disaffection to Church and King will be crammed into you gratuitously. If, however, the Scotch Lecturers should presume to teach Latin and Greek, what with their own brogue, their ignorance of the "longs and shorts" above alluded to, and the cockney dialect of their pupils, we may anticipate as rare a compound of Attic refinement, as uncome-atable a jargon of incomprehensibleness, as ever mankind listened to.

. If an institution be established for the education of the cocknies, in the name of good sense let it begin with the beginning, and first engage Thelwall to teach them their letters the difference between v and w, and w and v. After this important acquisition is indisputably ascertained, call in a few writing-masters, accountants, and teachers of navigation and the use of the globes, and these, with a little reading of the Bible, under the surveillance of parents, on Sundays, and a few nocturnal lucubrations over the luminous pages of the Mechanics' Magazine, will prove amply sufficient for the successful prosecution of the occupations of those who cannot meet the expenses of the "finish" at Oxford or Cambridge.

We have now nearly exhausted the favourable parts of the volumes, and shall certainly not consume our space, nor abuse the time of our readers, by proving by examples the justice of our sentence upon the more disgraceful portion of the work. Vulgarity, impudence, scandalous aspersions, and impertinent familiarity, will meet the eye of every intelligent reader on his opening the book.

Our extracts are entirely taken from the first volume; the second consists almost wholly of extracts from the Cambridge Calendar, and of the stores of examination papers which every reading man collects during his under-graduateship. This is the readiest mode of bookmaking.

We believe Mr. Wright to be possessed of some talents; they are not, however, of a description calculated to procure success at Cambridge. He himself gives the most ridiculous reasons for his failure; some extraordinary accident is always interfering between him and good fortune; at one time it is a bull by which he is tossed in the market-place; at another, a spunging-house stops the way; at another, the neglect of an examiner. It may serve as a specimen of the candour with which Mr. Wright has written his experience, that he studiously conceals the fact of his having degraded-that is to say, of his having descended from a struggle with his equals, to contend with the men of the year below.

NATIONAL TALES.*

TWICE before have we had occasion to speak of Mr. Hood; first as one of the authors of Odes and Addresses to Great People; and next, by name, as the writer of the very agreeable collection of humorous ideas, entitled "Whims and Oddities." In both instances our task has been the light and agreeable one of praise the only labour was that of discriminating between one term of eulogy and another. In relation to the book before us, although we cannot condemn with justice, it is nearly as impossible to approve. If ever talent were thrown away, and utterly lost, in consequence of the subject on which it was employed, the National Tales are a striking instance of such a shipwreck. The Italian Tales of Boccaccio, of Sacchetti, of Grassini, and of Bandello, are the well-known models of which Mr. Whims and Oddities." 2 vols.

* National Tales. By Thomas Hood, author of 8vo. London, Ainsworth, 1827.

Hood has availed himself. We allow to these productions much of the merit which has been claimed for them; we allow that Mr. Hood's imitation is very close; and yet we shall have no difficulty in maintaining, that he has lost his time and his labour. The Italian Novello were very early, if not the earliest, European attempts at tales of fiction, the mere object of which is to please by a narrative of events. There had been invented previously, some fictitious stories and continuous narratives of imaginary events; but their object was either satire, or the illustration and exemplification of particular tenets. The Novello were partly imitated and adopted from the East, and partly developed from the anecdotes and facetia which were very early collected after the revival of letters, or rather during their dark state, in imitation of certain classical models-as the Bon-mots of Cicero. The Novello is, in fact, little more than the anecdote lightly expanded. Characters we find none-the incident is generally single, and the dialogue usually amounting to little more than a few questions and answers. Inasmuch as a Novello was itself a novelty, it was not necessary that its subject should be of any very remarkable kind; sufficient that there was a story. When stories became abundant, in order to attract attention, storytellers were obliged to select more striking incidents, to heighten the interest in the characters, and to excite the feelings of suspense and surprise, by intricacy and complication of plot. It may hence be concluded, that that which was a great prize in its day, were it to appear in all its perfection now, would be received with a mighty difference. The palate of a matured public requires more highly seasoned stuff than the plain food which nourished its infancy. Had Mr. Hood's Tales possessed the truth and natural pathos, the unadorned simplicity, and, at the same time, the quiet force and power of the early Italian novelists, his productions would still have been thought tame and pointless. It may readily be supposed, that with all Mr. Hood's talents for imitation, and they are extraordinary, that he has fallen somewhat short of his originals-that somewhat includes the only qualities which by possibility could have excited the interest of the present race of readers; it is the nature which speaks in every particle and participle of the Novello-the truth of feeling and expression which comes from the heart and goes to it-which indicates that the writer is possessed with his story-that it is before his eyes, and that he is alternately animated with the passions he describes. The beauties of these Novello are commonly called the beauties of style; but they are of that kind which no art can ever reach-the language is that which naturally clothes the sentiments as they are uttered. It is only necessary to polish the style when it is the head which writes. What man under the influence of real passion ever thought of style? Who under such circumstances picks his words? And yet the aptness of the phrase, the force of its construction, and the very order of the words, are beyond the most laborious efforts of a cool moment. A patient observer, and a competent judge of the language, feels these unobtrusive excellencies; he dwells on the propriety of expression, on little turns of phrase, which to him are full of meaning; by a calm contemplation, and the exertion of a simple taste, he brings out all the hidden traits of the design, and the little picture at length stands out, a

piece instinct with truth and life. The very same picture, another observer, accustomed to the striking and brilliant execution of modern times, would pass over as a rude and unmeaning production of semibarbarous times.

Mr. Hood has succeeded in giving a most exact resemblance of this species of composition; the style is highly wrought, and may be generally called elegant; the incidents are simple, and arise naturally out of the manners, or the supposed manners, of the times-the manners of the Italian Novello, though it would be difficult to say of what age such manners are characteristic; and there is much simplicity and unity in the development of the story. But a vital fault besets the National Tales; they do not arise out of reality; are not conceived of the spirit of the age; they are a cold imitation of a beautiful model, it is true; but, like all imitations, are destitute of the freedom of originality and the grace of truth.

We shall exemplify and verify our observations, by quoting two of the stories; they are favourable specimens. The first is called Michel Argenti, and describes the unhappy hallucinations of a man whose imagination the terrors of the plague have disordered.

THE STORY OF MICHEL ARGENTI.

Michel Argenti was a learned physician of Padua, but lately settled at Florence, a few years only before its memorable visitation, when the destroying angel brooded over that unhappy city, shaking out deadly vapours from its wings.

It must have been a savage heart indeed, that could not be moved by the shocking scenes that ensued from that horrible calamity, and which were fearful enough to overcome even the dearest pieties and prejudices of humanity; causing the holy ashes of the dead to be no longer venerated, and the living to be disregarded by their nearest ties: the tenderest mothers forsaking their infants; wives flying from the sick couches of their husbands; and children neglecting their dying parents; when love closed the door against love, and particular selfishness took place of all mutual sympathies. There were some brave, humane spirits, nevertheless, that with a divine courage ventured into the very chambers of the sick, and contended over their prostrate bodies with the common enemy; and amongst these was Argenti, who led the way in such works of mercy, till at last the pestilence stepped over his own threshold, and he was beckoned home by the ghastly finger of death, to struggle with him for the wife of his own bosom.

Imagine him then, worn out in spirit and body, ministering hopelessly to her that had been dearer to him than health or life; but now, instead of an object of loveliness, a livid and ghastly spectacle, almost too loathsome to look upon; her pure flesh being covered with blue and mortiferous blotches, her sweet breath changed into a fetid vapour, and her accents expressive only of anguish and despair. These doleful sounds were aggravated by the songs and festivities of the giddy populace, which, now the pestilence had abated, ascended into the desolate chamber of its last martyr, and mingled with her dying groans.

These ending on the third day with her life, Argenti was left to his solitary grief, the only living person in his desolate house; his servants having fled during the pestilence, and left him to perform every office with his own hands. Hitherto the dead had gone without their rites; but he had the melancholy satisfaction of those sacred and decent services for his wife's remains, which during the height of the plague had been direfully suspended; the dead bodies being so awfully numerous, that they defied a careful sepulture, but were thrown, by random and slovenly heaps, into great holes and ditches.

As soon as was prudent after this catastrophe, his friends repaired to him with his two little children, who had fortunately been absent in the country, and now returned with brave ruddy cheeks and vigorous spirits to his arms; but, alas! not to cheer their miserable parent, who thenceforward was never known to smile, nor scarcely to speak, excepting of the pestilence. As a person that goes forth from a dark sick chamber is still haunted by its glooms, in spite of the sunshine; so, though the plague had ceased, its horrors still clung about the mind of Argenti, and with such a

deadly influence in his thoughts, as it bequeaths to the infected garments of the dead. The dreadful objects he had witnessed still walked with their ghostly images in his brain-his mind, in short, being but a doleful lazaretto devoted to pestilence and death. The same horrible spectres possessed his dreams; which he sometimes described as filled up from the same black source, and thronging with the living sick he had visited, or the multitudinous dead corses, with the unmentionable and unsightly rites of their inhumation.

These dreary visions entering into all his thoughts, it happened often, that when he was summoned to the sick, he pronounced that their malady was the plague, discovering its awful symptoms in bodies where it had no existence; but above all, his terrors were busy with his children, whom he watched with a vigilant and despairing eye; discerning constantly some deadly taint in their wholesome breath, or declaring that he saw the plague-spot in their tender faces. Thus, watching them sometimes upon their pillows, he would burst into tears and exclaim that they were smitten with death; in short, he regarded their blue eyes and ruddy cheeks but as the frail roses and violets that are to perish in a day, and their silken hair like the most brittle gossamers. Thus their existence, which should have been a blessing to his hopes, became a very curse to him through his despair.

His friends, judging rightly from these tokens that his mind was impaired, persuaded him to remove from a place which had been the theatre of his calamities, and served but too frequently to remind him of his fears. He repaired, therefore, with his children, to the house of a kinswoman at Genoa; but his melancholy was not at all relieved by the change, his mind being now like a black Stygian pool that reflects not, except one dismal hue, whatever shifting colours are presented by the skies. In this mood he continued there five or six weeks, when the superb city was thrown into the greatest alarm and confusion. The popular rumour reported that the plague had been brought into the port by a Moorish felucca, whereupon the magistrates ordered that the usual precautions should be observed; so that although there was no real pestilence, the city presented the usual appearances of such a visitation.

These tokens were sufficient to aggravate the malady of Argenti, whose illusions became instantly more frequent and desperate, and his affliction almost a frenzy; so that going at night to his children, he looked upon them in an agony of despair, as though they were already in their shrouds. And when he gazed on their delicate round cheeks, like ripening fruits, and their fair arms, like sculptured marbles, entwining each other, 'tis no marvel that he begrudged to pestilence the horrible and loathsome disfigurements and changes which it would bring upon their beautiful bodies; neither that he contemplated with horror the painful stages by which they must travel to their premature graves. Some meditations as dismal I doubt not occupied his incoherent thoughts, and whilst they lay before him so lovely and calmlooking, made him wish that instead of a temporal sleep, they were laid in eternal rest. Their odorous breath, as he kissed them, was as sweet as flowers; and their pure skin without spot or blemish: nevertheless, to his gloomy fancy the corrupted touches of death were on them both, and devoted their short-lived frames to his most hateful inflictions.

Imagine him gazing, full of these dismal thoughts, on their faces, sometimes smiting himself upon his forehead, that entertained such horrible fancies, and sometimes pacing to and fro in the chamber with an emphatic step, which must needs have wakened his little ones if they had not been lapped in the profound slumber of innocence and childhood. In the meantime the mild light of love in his looks, changes into a fierce and dreary fire; his sparkling eyes, and his lips as pallid as ashes, betraying the desperate access of frenzy, which like a howling demon passes into his feverish soul, and provokes him to unnatural action: and first of all he plucks away the pillows, those downy ministers to harmless sleep, but now unto death, with which, crushing the tender faces of his little ones, he thus dams up their gentle respirations before they can utter a cry; then casting himself with horrid fervour upon their bodies, with this unfatherlike embrace he enfolds them till they are quite breathless. After which he lifts up the pillows, and, lo! there lie the two murdered babes, utterly quiet and still,-and with the ghastly seal of death imprinted on their

waxen cheeks.

In this dreadful manner Argenti destroyed his innocent children,-not in hatred, but ignorantly, and wrought upon by the constant apprehension of their death; even as a terrified wretch upon a precipice, who swerves towards the very side that presents the danger. Let his deed, therefore, be viewed with compassion, as the fault of his unhappy fate, which forced upon him such a cruel crisis, and finally ended his APRIL, 1827.

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sorrows by as tragical a death. On the morrow his dead body was found at sea, by some fishermen, and being recognized as Argenti's, it was interred in one grave with those of his two children.

The next tale is that of the Fall of the Leaf.

THE FALL OF THE LEAF.

There is no vice that causes more calamities in human life, than the intemperate passion for gaming. How many noble and ingenuous persons it hath reduced from wealth unto poverty; nay, from honesty to dishonour, and by still descending steps into the gulph of perdition. And yet how prevalent it is in all capital cities, where many of the chiefest merchants, and courtiers especially, are mere pitiful slaves of fortune, toiling like so many abject turnspits in her ignoble wheel. Such a man is worse off than a poor borrower, for all he has is at the momentary call of imperative chance; or rather he is more wretched than a very beggar, being mocked with an appearance of wealth, but as deceitful as if it turned, like the monies in the old Arabian story, into decaying leaves.

In our parent city of Rome, to aggravate her modern disgraces, this pestilent vice has lately fixed her abode, and has inflicted many deep wounds on the fame and fortunes of her proudest families. A number of noble youths have been sucked into the ruinous vortex, some of them being degraded at last into humble retainers upon rich men, but the most part perishing by an unnatural catastrophe; and if the same fate did not befal the young Marquis de Malaspini, it was only by favour of a circumstance which is not likely to happen a second time for any gamester.

This gentleman came into a handsome revenue at the death of his parents, whereupon, to dissipate his regrets, he travelled abroad, and his graceful manners procured him a distinguished reception at several courts. After two years spent in this manner, he returned to Rome, where he had a magnificent palace on the banks of the Tiber, and which he further enriched with some valuable paintings and sculptures from abroad. His taste in these works was much admired; and his friends remarked with still greater satisfaction, that he was untainted by the courtly vices which he must have witnessed in his travels. It only remained to complete their wishes, that he should form a matrimonial alliance that should be worthy of himself, and he seemed likely to fulfil this hope in attaching himself to the beautiful Countess of Maraviglia. She was herself the heiress of an ancient and honourable house; so that the match was regarded with satisfaction by the relations on both sides, and especially as the young pair were most tenderly in love with each other.

For certain reasons, however, the nuptials were deferred for a time, thus affording leisure for the crafty machinations of the devil, who delights, above all things, to cross a virtuous and happy marriage. Accordingly, he did not fail to make use of this judicious opportunity, but chose for his instrument the lady's own brother, a very profligate and a gamester, who soon fastened, like an evil genius, on the unlucky Malaspini.

It was a dismal shock to the lady, when she learned the nature of this connexion, which Malaspini himself discovered to her, by incautiously dropping a die from his pocket in her presence. She immediately endeavoured, with all her influence, to reclaim him from the dreadful passion for play, which had now crept over him like a moral cancer, and already disputed the sovereignty of love; neither was it without some dreadful struggles of remorse on his own part, and some useless victories, that be at last gave himself up to such desperate habits, but the power of his Mephistophiles prevailed, and the visits of Malaspini to the lady of his affections became still less frequent; he repairing instead to those nightly resorts where the greater portion of his estates was already forfeited.

At length, when the lady had not seen him for some days, and in the very last week before that which had been appointed for her marriage, she received a desperate letter from Malaspini, declaring that he was a ruined man, in fortune and hope; and that at the cost of his life even, he must renounce her hand for ever. He added, that if his pride would let him even propose himself, a beggar as he was, for her acceptance, he should yet despair too much of her pardon to make such an offer; whereas, if he could have read in the heart of the unhappy lady, he would have seen that she still preferred the beggar Malaspini, to the richest nobleman in the popedom. With abundance of tears and sighs perusing his letter, her first impulse was to assure him of that loving truth; and to offer herself with her estates to him, in compensation of the spites of fortune: but the wretched Malaspini had withdrawn himself no one knew whither, and she was constrained to content herself with grieving