"Lurid smoke and frank suspicion,
Hand in hand reluctant dance;
While the god fulfils his mission,
Chivalry resigns his lance.
"Hark! the engines blandly thunder,
Fleecy clouds dishevell'd lie;
And the firemen, mute with wonder,
On the son of Saturn cry.

"See the bird of Ammon sailing,

Perches on the engine's peak,
And the Eagle fireman hailing,

Soothes them with its bickering beak."

"A Tale of Drury," by Walter Scott, is, upon the whole, admirably executed; though the introduction is rather tame. The burning is described with the mighty Minstrel's characteristic love of localities:

Then London's sons in nightcap woke!
In bedgown woke her dames;

For shouts were heard 'mid fire and smoke,
And twice ten hundred voices spoke,

The Playhouse is in flames!'

And lo! where Catherine Street extends,

A fiery tail its lustre lends

To every window pane:

Blushes each spout in Martlet Court,
And Barbican, moth-eaten fort,
And Covent Garden kennels sport,

A bright ensanguin'd drain;
Meux's new brewhouse shows the light,
Rowland Hill's chapel, and the height
Where patent shot they sell:
The Tennis Court, so fair and tall,
Partakes the ray with Surgeons' Hall,
The ticket porters' house of call,
Old Bedlam, close by London wall,
Wright's shrimp and oyster shop withal,

And Richardson's Hotel."-pp. 46, 47. The mustering of the firemen is not less meritorious:

"The summon'd firemen woke at call

And hied them to their stations all.
Starting from short and broken snoose,
Each sought his pond'rous hobnail'd shoes;
But first his worsted hosen plied,
Plush breeches next in crimson dyed,

His nether bulk embrac'd;
Then jacket thick, of red or blue,
Whose massy shoulder gave to view
The badge of each respective crew,

In tin or copper traced.
The engines thunder'd thro' the street,
Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete,
And torches glared, and clattering feet

Along the pavement paced."-p. 48. The procession of the engines, with the badges of their different companies, and the horrible names of their leaders, is also admirable-but we cannot make room for it. The account of the death of Muggins and Higginbottom, however, must find a place. These are the two principal firemen who suffered on this occasion; and the catastrophe is described with a spirit, not unworthy of the name so

"When lo! amid the wreck uprear'd
Gradual a moving head appear'd,

And Eagle firemen knew
'Twas Joseph Muggins, name rerer'd,
The foreman of their crew.
Loud shouted all in sign of woe,
'A Muggins to the rescue, ho!'

And pour'd the hissing tide:
Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain,
And strove and struggl'd all in vain,
For rallying but to fall again,

He tottor'd, sunk, and died!
Did none attempt, before he fell,
To succour one they lov'd so well?
Yes, Higginbottom did aspire,
(His fireman's soul was all on fire)
His brother chief to save;
But ah! his reckless generous ire

Serv'd but to share his grave!
Mid blazing beams and scalding streams,
Thro' fire and smoke he dauntless broke,
Where Muggins broke before.

But sulphury stench and boiling drench, Destroying sight, o'erwhelm'd him quite; He sunk to rise no more!

Still o'er his head, while Fate he brav'd, His whizzing water-pipe he wav'd;

'Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps!

You, Clutterbuck,.come stir your stumps,

Why are you in such doleful dumps ?

A fireman, and afraid of bumps!

What are they fear'd on, fools? 'od rot 'em! Were the last words of Higginbottom."

pp. 50-52.

The rebuilding is recorded in strains as characteristic, and as aptly applied :

Didst mark, how toil'd the busy train
From morn to eve, till Drury Lane
Leap'd like a roebuck from the plain?
Ropes rose and sunk, and rose again,

And nimble workmen trod.
To realize hold Wyatt's plan
Rush'd many a howling Irishman,
Loud clatter'd many a porter can,
And many a ragamuffin clan,

With trowel and with hod."-pp. 52, 53. "The Beautiful Incendiary," by the Honourable W. Spencer, is also an imitation of great merit. The flashy, fashionable, artificial style of this writer, with his confident and extravagant compliments, can scarcely be said to be parodied in such lines as the following:

"Sobriety cease to be sober,

Cease labour to dig and to delve!

All hail to this tenth of October,

One thousand eight hundred and twelve!
Hah! whom do my peepers remark?
'Tis Hebe with Jupiter's jug!

Oh, no! 'tis the pride of the Park,
Fair Lady Elizabeth Mugg!
But ah! why awaken the blaze

Those bright burning-glasses contain,
Whose lens, with concentrated rays,
Proved fatal to old Drury Lane!
'Twas all accidental, they cry:

Away with the flimsy humbug!
'Twas fir'd by a flash from the eye

Of Lady Elizabeth Mugg!

"Fire and Ale," by M. G. Lewis, is not less fortunate; and exhibits not only a faithful copy of the spirited, loose, and flowing versification of that singular author, but a very

The lottery cormorant, the auction shark,
The full-price master, and the half-price clerk;
Boys who long linger at the gallery door,
With pence twice five,-they want but twopence
Till some Samaritan the twopence spares, [more,
And sends them jumping up the gallery stairs.
Critics we boast who ne'er their malice baulk,
But talk their minds,-we wish they'd mind their
Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live, [talk!
Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give;
And bucks with pockets empty as their pate,
Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait."

pp. 118, 119.

We shall conclude with the episode on the loss and recovery of Pat Jennings' hat-which, if Mr. Crabbe had thought at all of describing, we are persuaded he would have described precisely as follows:

"Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat, But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat; Down from the gallery the beaver flew, And spurn'd the one to settle in the two. How shall he act? Pay at the gallery door Two shillings for what cost when new but four? Now, while his fears anticipate a thief, John Mullins whispers, take my handkerchief. Thank you, cries Pat, but one won't make a line; Take mine, cried Wilson, and cried Stokes take A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties, [mine. Where Spitalfields with real India vies; Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted hue Starr'd, strip'd, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue. Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new. George Greene below, with palpitating hand, Loops the last kerchief to the beaver's band: Upsoars the prize; the youth with joy unfeign'd, Regain'd the felt, and felt what he regain'd; While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat Made a low bow, and touch'd the ransom'd hat." The Ghost of Samuel Johnson is not very good as a whole: though some passages are singularly happy. The measure and solemnity of his sentences, in all the limited variety of their structure, is imitated with skill;-but the diction is caricatured in a vulgar and unpleasing degree. To make Johnson call a door "a ligneous barricado," and its knocker and bell its "frappant and tintinabulant appendages," is neither just nor humorous; and we are surprised that a writer who has given such extraordinary proofs of his talent for finer ridicule and fairer imitation, should have stooped to a vein of pleasantry so low, and so long ago exhausted; especially as, in other passages of the same piece, he has shown how well qualified he was both to catch and to render the true characteristics of his original. The beginning, for example, we think excel

.ent:

"That which was organised by the moral ability of one, has heen executed by the physical effort of many; and DRURY LANE THEATRE is now com plete. Of that part behind the curtain, which has not yet been destined to glow beneath the brush of the varnisher, or vibrate to the hammer of the carpenter, little is thought by the public, and little need be said by the committee. Truth, however, is not to be sacrificed for the accommodation of either; and he who should pronounce that our edifice has received its final embellishment, would be disseminating falsehood without incurring favour, and risking the disgrace of detection without participating the advantage of success.

"Let it not, however, be conjectured, that because we are unassuming, we are imbecile; that forbearance is any indication of despondency, or humility of demerit. He that is the most assured of success will make the fewest appeals to favour; aud where nothing is claimed that is undue, nothing that is due will be withheld. A swelling opening is too often succeeded by an insignificant conclusion. Parturient mountains have ere now produced muscipular abortions; and the auditor who compares incipient grandeur with final vulgarity, is reminded of the pious hawkers of Constantinople, who solemnly perambulate her streets, exclaiming, In the name of the prophet-figs!"-pp. 54, 55. It ends with a solemn eulogium on Mr. Whitbread, which is thus wound up :

"To his never-slumbering talents you are indebted for whatever pleasure this haunt of the Muses is calculated to afford. If, in defiance of chaotic malevolence, the destroyer of the temple of Diana yet survives in the name of Herostratus, surely we may confidently predict, that the rebuilder of the temple of Apollo will stand recorded to distant posterity, in that of-SAMUEL WHITBREAD." pp. 59, 60.

Our readers will now have a pretty good idea of the contents of this amusing_little volume. We have no conjectures to offer as to its anonymous author. He who is such a master of disguises, may easily be supposed to have been successful in concealing himself; and with the power of assuming so many styles, is not likely to be detected by his own. We should guess, however, that he had not written a great deal in his own character-that his natural style was neither very lofty nor very grave-and that he rather indulges a partiality for puns and verbal pleasantries. We marvel why he has shut out Campbell and Rogers from his theatre of liv ing poets;-and confidently expect to have our curiosity in this and in all other particu lars very speedily gratified, when the applause of the country shall induce him to take off his mask.

We are very much indebted to Madame Necker Saussure for this copious, elegant, and affectionate account of her friend and cousin.

It is, to be sure, rather in the nature of a Pane. gyric than of an impartial biography-and, with the sagacity, morality, and skill in com'

position which seem to be endemic in the Society of Geneva, has also perhaps something of the formality, mannerism, and didactic ambition of that very intellectual society. For a personal memoir of one so much distinguished in society, it is not sufficiently individual or familiar and a great deal too little feminine, for a woman's account of a woman, who never forgot her sex, or allowed it to be forgotten. The only things that indicate a female author in the work before us, are the decorous purity of her morality-the feebleness of her political speculations and her never telling the age of her friend.

The world probably knows as much already of M. and Madame Necker as it will care ever to know: Yet we are by no means of opinion that too much is said of them here. They were both very good people-neither of the most perfect bon ton, nor of the very highest rank of understanding,—but far above the vulgar level certainly, in relation to either. The likenesses of them with which we are here presented are undoubtedly very favourable, and even flattering; but still, we have no doubt that they are likenesses, and even very cleverly executed. We hear a great deal about the strong understanding and lofty principles of Madame Necker, and of the air of purity that reigned in her physiognomy: But we are candidly told also, that, with her tall and stiff figure, and formal manners, "il y avoit de la gêne en elle, et auprès d'elle;" and are also permitted to learn, that after having acquired various branches of knowledge by profound study, she unluckily became persuaded that all virtues and accomplishments might be learned in the same manner; and accordingly set herself, with might and main, "to study the arts of conversation and of housekeeping-together with the characters of individuals, and the management of society-to reduce all these things to system, and to deduce from this system precise rules for the regulation of her conduct." Of M. Necker, again, it is recorded, in very emphatic and affectionate terms, that he was extraordinarily eloquent and observing, and equally full of benevolence and practical wisdom: But it is candidly admitted that his eloquence was more sonorous than substantial, and consisted rather of wellrounded periods than impressive thoughts; that he was reserved and silent in general society, took pleasure in thwarting his wife in the education of their daughter, and actually treated the studious propensity of his ingenious consort with so little respect, as to prohibit her from devoting any time to composition, and even from having a table to write at!-for no better reason than that he might not be annoyed with the fear of disturbing her wher. he came into her apartment! He was a great joker, too, in an innocent paternal way, in his own family; but we cannot find that his witticisms ever had much success in other places. The worship of M. Necker, in short, is a part of the established religion, we perceive, at Geneva; but we suspect that the Priest has made the God,

here as in other instances; and rather think the worthy financier must be contented to be known to posterity chiefly as the father of Madame de Staël.

But however that may be, the education of their only child does not seem to have been gone about very prudently, by these sage personages; and if Mad. de Staël had not been a very extraordinary creature, both as to talent and temper, from the very beginning, she could scarcely have escaped being pretty well spoiled between them. Her mother had a notion, that the best thing that could be done for a child was to cram it with all kinds of knowledge, without caring very much whether it understood or digested any part of it;

and so the poor little girl was overtasked and overeducated, in a very pitiless way, for several years; till her health became seriously impaired, and they were obliged to let her run idle in the woods for some years longer-where she composed pastorals and tragedies, and became exceedingly romantic. She was then taken up again; and set to ber studies with greater moderation. All this time, too, her father was counteracting the lessons of patient application inculcated by her mother, by the half-playful disputations in which he loved to engage her, and the display which he could not resist making of her lively talents in society. Fortunately, this last species of training fell most in with her disposition; and she escaped being solemn and pedantic, at some little risk of becoming forward and petulant. Still more fortunately, the strength of her understanding was such as to exempt her almost entirely from this smaller disadvantage.

Nothing, however, could exempt her from the danger and disadvantage of being a youthful Prodigy; and there never perhaps was an instance of one so early celebrated, whose celebrity went on increasing to the last period of her existence. We have a very lively picture of her, at eleven years of age, in the work before us; where she is represented as then a stout brown girl, with fine eyes, and an open and affectionate manner, full of eager curiosity, kindness, and vivacity. In the drawing-room, she took her place on a little stool beside her mother's chair, where she was forced to sit very upright, and to look as demure as possible: But by and by, two or three wise-looking oldish gentlemen, with round wigs, came up to her, and entered into animated and sensible conversation with her, as with a wit of full age; and those were Raynal, Marmontel, Thomas, and Grimm. At table she listened with delighted attention to all that fell from those distinguished guests; and learned incredibly soon to discuss all subjects with them, without embarrassment or affectation. Her biographer says, indeed, that she was "always young, and never a child :” but it does seem to us a trait of mere childishness, though here cited as a proof of her filial devotion, that, in order to insure for her parents the gratification of Mr. Gibbon's society, she proposed, about the same time, that she should marry him! and combated, with