great lion being served first, then the time that the banquet lasted; as much lioness, (for royalty supersedes polite- as to indicate, to whomsoever it ness among beasts as well as men); might concern, that she knew better and then the inferior guests,—from what became her birth and station the younger branches of the blood than to eat in the presence of observroyal, through the nobility of leopards, ers. I confess there seemed to me a tigers, panthers, &c. down to the mon- little affectation in this—a little overkeys that chatter and make mops and niceness; especially as a royal cousin mows all the while, like the little of hers,-a queen-duchess, who is said dwarfs and fools of the old courts. to partake in some of her propensiThe guests not being troubled with ties, and who at present reigns by didelicate appetites and squeamish sto- vine right, as she used to do in her machs, the cates served up on the oc- native woods by quite as good a title, casion are, as you may suppose, not namely, divine might,--does not “ composed of all the delicacies of deem it beneath her dignity to dine the season.” On the contrary, the in the presence of her admiring subfirst course consists of bare bones,- jects. the thigh, leg, and knuckle bones of an The only other personage whose ox_which are thrown into the dens conduct I shall notice on this occathrough a small opening at the bottom sion, is the elephant ; and it offers a in front. And when they have had singular contrast to that of the rest of time to discuss these sufficiently, and the guests. Amidst all the stir, hubto whet their appetite upon them bub, and turmoil that I have described instead of satisfying it, they receive the above, he remains grave, silent, and meat which had been previously cut off. self-possessed---his lithé proboscis

I shall only notice, in particular, the weaving fantastic wreaths in the air behaviour of the chief guests on this outside the bars of his den, as we occasion, lest my aceount of the feast flourish with our finger when we are should last longer than the feast thoughtlessly thoughtful, and his huge itself. Nero, the great lion, who, un- bulk rising through the half-darkness til the sound of the gong, and the re- behind, like a deeper shadow in the ceipt of his ration, had maintained a midst of shade. And when he of the becoming majesty of deportment, im- iron hand comes to wait upon him in mediately descended from the centre his turn, he still maintains the same of his gravity, and roared, growled, philosophic gravity, and does every and flew about his den, exactly like a thing that he is bid with the air of one wild beast !—urged to this unseemly who is not afraid to disobey, but who behaviour (I confess) by the irritating is willing to serve since circumstances conduct of the man with the iron have made servitude his lot. There is hand—who approached him to a dis- in fact something extremely interesting respectful nearness, and pretended to in the behaviour of this extraordinary be about to take away his plate before animal,- who seems to posess a ten he had done with it. The consort horse power, only that he may exerroyal (who is a beast of extraordinary cise it with the gentleness and docility personal charms, and of the most gen- of a well-conditioned child. He tle manners,) conducted herself in a obeys his keepers in the minutest parvery different, and perhaps a no less ticulars, and without the slightest hesicharacteristic style. When the bare tation or doubt, though his orders are bones were given to her, she took one issued without any change of tone or of them (a long thigh bone of an ox) manner from that in which he is alinto her mouth, without touching it most at the same moment addressing with her fingers as all the rest did- the spectators, or answering their and proceeded to march deliberately question. Indeed, the elephant's natround her den with it; and this she ural sagacity seems to have enabled continued to do after she had been him to reach that happiest consummaserved with the second course, of tion at which even the human mind. meat,-and indeed, during the whole can arrive-namely, the faculty of

adapting itself to the circumstances in and most important circumstance, is which it is placed, and “ doing its their choosing to indignify him with spiriting gently," whatever it may the name of Nero. This latter I hold be.

to be low treason at the least, if not In conclusion, there are two things high. They might as well dub him a to which I decidedly object in this member of the Holy Alliance at feast ; both of them appertaining to once! And to say the truth, I should the treatment of the chief partaker not object to this, if the other memof it—the great lion. The first is the bers of that august body would occaunhandsome manner in which his sionally admit him to their meetings! feelings are tampered with, by pre- -But to call the king of beasts by the tending to take away his food after it name of one who was scarcely worthy is given to him, merely that he may be to be called a king of men, is a maniinduced to “ exaggerate his voice," fest libel: and the Constitutional As. and roar for the recreation of the sociation should look to it. Adien spectators ;-thus depriving him of for the present. that privilege which is allowed even Your loving Cousin, to convicts and felons themselves, of

TERENCE TEMPLETON. eating their meal in peace. The next

THE PHANTOM BRIDE.

AND over hill and over plain
He urged his steed with spur and rein,
Till the heat drops hung on his courser's hide,
And the foam of his speed with blood was dyed.
He saw a bird cut through the sky,
He longed for its wings as it fleeted by ;
He looked on the mountain-river gushing,
He heard the wind of the forest rushing,
He saw a star from the heavens fall,
He thought on their swiftness and envied them all.

Well the young warrior may fiercely ride,
For to-night he must woo, and must win his bride-
The maiden, whose colours bis helmet bas borne,
Whose picture has still next his heart been worn.
And then be thought on the myrtle grove,
Where the villa stood he bad built for his Love :
With its pillars and marble colonnade,
Its bright fountain beneath the palm-tree's shade;
Fair statues and pictured porticos,
Where the air came sweet from the gardens of rose ;
Silver lamps ; and vases filled
With perfumed waters, from odours distilled ;
And the tapestry hung round each gorgeous room
Was the richest of Tyre's purple loom;
And all that his love, and all that his care,
Had had such pride in making fair :
And then he thought how life would glide,
In such a home, and with such a bride,
Like a glad tale told to the lute's soft tone,-
Never hath happiness dwelt alone.
And swifter he urged his courser's flight,
When he thought on who was waiting that nigbt.
But once beneath a spreading sbade,

He stopped his penting steed for breatlı;
And as a flickering moon-beam played,

He saw it was a place of death. The lonely cypress-tree was keeping The watch of its eternal weeping;

And almost midnight's bour was come,
Ere be had reached his maiden's home.
All, saving one old slave, were sleeping-
Who, like some stealthy phantom creeping.
Silently and slowly led
The wondering stranger to his bed:
Just pointed to his supper fare,
And the piled wood, and left him there.
It was a large and darksome room,
With all the loneliness and gloom
That bang round the neglected walls
O'er which the spider's net-work falls;
And the murk air felt chill and damp,
And dimly burnt the one pale lampi
And faint gleams from the embers broke
Thro' their dun covering of smoke,
And all felt desolate and drear-
Aod is this, he sighed, my welcome bere?
“No-mine be the welcome, from my love bome
To greet thee, and claim thee mine ovn, am I

come."
He heard po step, but still by his side
He saw her stand-bis betrothed bride!
Her face was fair, but from it was ded
Every trace of its beautiful red ;
And stains upon her bright bair lay
Like the dampness and earth-sell of clay :

1

r sunken eyes gleamed with that pale blue light,
n when meteors are fitting at night;

the flow of her shadowy garments' fall,
as like the black sweep of a funeral pall.

She sat her down by his side at the board,
And many a cup of the red wine poured ;
And as the wine were inward light,
Her cheek grew red and ber ege grew bright :
“In my father's house no more I dwell,
But bid me not, with them, to thee farewell.
They forced me to waste youth's hour of bloom
In a grated cell and a convent's gloom,
But there came a Spirit and set me free,
And had given me rest but for love of thee-
There was fire in my beart, and fire in my brain,
And mine eyes could not sleep till they saw thee

again.
My home is dark, my home is low,
And cold the love I can offer now;

But give me one curl of thy raven hair,
And, by all the hopes in heaven, swear
That, chance what may, thou wilt claim thy bride,
And thou to-morrow shalt lie by my side."

He gave the curl, and wildly pressid
Her cold brow to his throbbing breast;
And kiss'd the lips, as his would share
With hers their warmth and vital air,-
As kiss and passionate caress
Could warm her wan chill loveliness.

And calm upon his bosom she lay,
Till the lark sang his morning hymn to the day;
And a sun-beam thro' the curtain shone,
As passes a shadow--the maiden was gone ;
That day the youth was told the tale,
How sbe had pined beneath the veil
And died, and then they show'd ber grave-
He knew that cypress's green wave.-
That night, alone, he watched his bride-
The next they laid him by her side.

HYPOCRISY.

пе

The Devil knew not what he did when he made man politick; he crossed himself by it."-Timon of Athens. NATURALISTS have been much the forms of devotion in such perfec

puzzled to find a definition of tion (the only part of religion which that versatile and inconstant being, “ leads to fortune,” and therefore the man, which will satisfactorily distin- only part about which most of us are guish him from all other living spe- in earnest) that this definition cies, and at the same time hit him in vaut pas le diable." all his moods. There is in human

For my own part, if I was obliged nature, notwithsanding all its vaunts to commit my reputation by hazarding and pretensions, so much of the mere

an opinion upon so ticklish a point, I animal in every shape and feature,” should prefer seizing upon that most that not all the Linnés and Cuviers in prominent feature in the human chathe world have been able to draw a racter, deceit, and would define the steady line of separation. The ani- species as being, par excellence, the mal “bipes implumis” has long been « hypocritical animal.” For, whatgiven up as untenable, and the habits

ever may be advanced to the conof the butcher-bird have completely trary, in the way of certain odious knocked on the head the definition of comparisons, to the disadvantage of

cooking animal.” As for the hyenas and crocodiles, it should never “ religious animal”-exclusively that be forgotten that in these cases “ the some men are born without the “ or- lion is not the painter.” If the pargan of veneration, and have “no ties concerned could speak for themmore grace than will serve for pro- selves, it is pretty certain that no hylogue to an egg and butter,—there is ena would have had the face to vie the praying mantis,* which possesses with Louis XVIII. when making his

famous speech upon peace, which * Called in France "Le prie dicu," from the circumstance of its perpetually resting on its hind

opened the Spanish war; and the arlegs, and erecting the fore-paws close together, as rantest crocodile that ever (to use the if in the act of praying : the country-people, in language of Sir Boyle Roach)“ put his various parts of the Continent, consider it almost hands in his breeches-pocket and shed as sacred, and would not, on any account, injure it. “It is so divine a creature (says the transla

feigned tears,” would decline weeptor of Mouffet), that if a child has lost its way, and

ing with a genuine widow of Ephesus. inquires of the mantis, it will point out the right

While all other forms and modes are path with its paw."-Bingley's Animal Biography. put on and off as whim, fashion, or in38

ATHENEUM VOL. 2. 2d series. terest dictate, man is at all times and

the bi

in all particulars, a perfect hypocrite: sical common-places, and superficial
-a hypocrite towards God, a hypo- plausibilities, that not to be a hypo-
crite towards man, nay, a very hypo- crite is to lack common decency; and
crite towards himself; not trusting his to call things by their right names"
conscience with a naked view of his is to unsettle the foundation of the
secret wishes, nor painting even his world's repose. The imagined neces-
pleasures to his own imagination in sity for the gravity of the learned pro-
their proper colours. Of this no fessions, has gone a great way to-
safer testimony can be desired, than wards generalizing the practice of hs-
the eternal contrast which he has es- pocrisy. As soon as it becomes ne-
tablished between his words and his cessary to appear wiser or better than
deeds, and the pains he has taken in the mass of mankind (it being impos-
all ages to provide a double set of sible for humanity to raise itself above
terms and phrases to express the same the condition of humanity, or for man
things as they refer to himself or to to put off his nature, merely because he
his neighbours,—to abstract principle, puts on a robe or a cassock), the reign
or to practical application : insomuch of humbug commences; and from
that his language no less than his mind the moment that society requires a
resembles those paintings done upon given exterior; from that moment the
slips of pasteboard placed in relief, individual has not only a right, but
which exhibit a different picture ac- labours under a necessity for wearing
cording to every different point of view a mask.
from which they are beheld. Every pe The increase of human happiness
culiar condition of society has its fa- which is thus created is beyond cal-
vourite sin, which it clothes in the culation : not only in its indirect intiu
likeness of its conterminate virtue. ence upon social order, by imposing
The merchant's avarice is parsimony, upon that many-headed monster the
the parson’s gluttony is hospitality, people, pinning down the lower class-
the great man's corruption is loyalty, es to their duties, and thus confirming
and his hatred to the people, is his systems which the bayonet alone could
zeal for the king's prerogative. All not uphold ; but also in the great en-
this is nothing ; but your genuine hy- joyment it directly occasions to the
pocrite, the more he is inclined to a dupes themselves.
sin, and the more he indulges his in There is no man, I am sure, on this
clination, the louder and more confi- side fifty, but will allow that love is at
dently he declaims against it,-just as

once the great business and pleasure of
a desperate adventurer rushes into life, the one drop of honey mixed with
deeper expenses, and makes a greater its cup of gall, the “
show of opulence, at the very mo- the soul;" and is not this love the
ment when he has arrived at the verge more delightful

, the more perfect and of bankruptcy.

unbroken its deceit? The whole If the object and end of society be process of courtship is indeed, from to increase the powers of the individu- beignning to end, one great scene of al, to multiply his means of gratifying mutual hypocrisy. If it be true that his propensities and inclinations, the the “ tongues of men are full of desocial system is admirably constituted, ceits,” it is not less so that every as far as hypocrisy is concerned ; inch of woman in the world, ay every since all its institutions seem calculated dram of woman's flesh, is false :" and to develop the deceptive tendencies so much does the pleasure of the purof the species, and to give the greatest suit depend upon the dupery

, that the scope to the individual nisus. *Hypo- credulous fair who believes her lover's crisy is established by act of parlia- protestations, is happier than the swain ment too, and, like better things, it has who makes them; and the patient become part and parcel of the com- wittol, whose eyes are shut to what is mon law of the land. So curiously, going forward, and is the dupe of indeed, are the most sacred and so both parties, is out and out the happiemn objects mixed up with lackadai- est of the whole three.

green velvet of

But if lovers are thus mutually de- vere," says the Italian proverb, a text pendent on each other for administer- upon which Nic Macchiavel has writing to their respective gullibilities, and ten an elaborate commentary; but for raising those illusions which shut by far a better one is to be found in out the “ weary, stale, and flat” un- the grave faces of political wights, profitability of life; the whole class of who, while they are exerting all their litigators are not less obliged to their energies to propagate despotism and advocates for the pleasures they derive raise their own fortunes, turn up their from that well-acted comedy called a eyes at the bare mention of this same “ law suit.” What intense delight do Macchiavelli's name; and with a phanot these good souls receive from cer- risaical demureness of the whole outtain grave eulogies upon that system ward man, denounce him and his of laws by which the Chancery Court writings anti-christian and anti-social, lawyers swallow up the whole proper- merely for saying, what they themty in dispute between the parties ! selves are doing every day and hour What “easement” do they not ob- of their lives. The triumph of opintain from that simulated zeal and well- ion over the sword, has made political affected sympathy with which their hypocrisy more than ever necessary counsel “protest to God” that their in the safe conduct of a state. It is client's case is justice itself! How the great arcanum of modern policy, edified, likewise, are even the by- and it possesses every quality which standers, at the grave and moral dis- can be required in a remedy, operatcourses, 6 de omnibus rebus," &c. ing in all cases citò, tutò, et jucundè. with which a judge charges a jury, in He then, who is no hypocrite, a case of libel, for example, and thus knows nothing of life, nothing of its discharges his share of the farce. For enjoyments, nothing of its amenities, this reason I cannot sufficiently ap- and above all, nothing of the moyen plaud the inventors of that excellent de parvenir. That there can be any piece of dupery, the monstrous fic- vice in a practice so universal, so retions of law, which undo deeds, spected, and so serviceable to man" making things to have been per- kind, seems eminently impossible. If formed which never were attempted, there were really any harm in it, can we bringing unborn children into exist- believe that so many great princes and ence, and considering the living as divines should in speeches, proclamadead.” Whatever other grounds of tions, and sermons, so frequently use complaint there may lie against this the name of Heaven to cover their system, it cannot be disputed, that it own private interests, and talk of the tends powerfully to increase the good of the people, at the very mopleasures which the litigator derives ment when they are adding to their from the law's deceptions, and while miseries? If hypocrisy were a sin, it promotes the profits of the practi- should we find « Right honourable tioner, gives the client a great deal gentlemen,” and “my learned friend," more for his money than he could so often substituted, for 6 corrupt rasotherwise obtain.

cal,” and “jobbing knave;" which, I speak not of the comfort and ad- if we may judge by the context, is vantage society derives from that or- evidently in the speaker's mind ?ganized system of hypocrisy, more or would high-minded men condedespotic than the laws of the Medes scend to pass over “ the highest quarand Persians, which passes current in ter," and " in another place,” withthe world under the name of polite- out seeming to perceive that those ness; because every one knows and words teemed with the most forbidden feels its value, and is but too well allusions ?--No, no, esse quam vipleased to possess a good excuse for deri,” may do very well for a motto, hiding unpleasant truths, the avowal of but it has nothing to do with real life; which might involve the relater in a except, indeed, it be used as a blind duel or a law suit.

to cover a meditated fraud ; and then “ Chi non sa fingere, non sa vi- it enters into the system, and will