is in, and the respect that is due to all those fair and magnificent names; and then follows the novella, or new tale, perhaps not at all new, and no longer than the one we are about to relate.

We should like to call to ourselves an aid of this sort, and be able at the head of every one of our stories to state how it was told us by this person or that; how that, sitting one day in the gardens of Kensington, at a time when the dust of the streets rendered an escape into those green and quiet places agreeable, we had the pleasure of hearing it from the lips of that very adorned and witty Mister, the Reverend Mister Samuel Smith, or the extremely magnificent and choice in his neckcloths, the admired Mr. Tomlinson; or how, dining with the very magnificent and grave Esquire, the Squire Jinks, of Jinks Hall, it was related to us by the facetious and extremely skilled in languages, the bachelor of arts, the hopeful Dick Watts, cousin of the high born and most beautiful lady, the Lady Barbara Jinks, consort of the said esquire, who, being at that moment in the act of swallowing a cherry, was nigh to have thrown all the lovers of wit and elegance in those parts into mourning, in consequence of the extreme difficulty she found in swallowing the fruit and the facetiosity at once.

The story is this: that in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, the celebrated fencing-master, Monsieur de la Rue, being at that time fencing-master to the gentlemen of the University of Cambridge, and grievously tormented in his vocation by the said gentlemen, who made no end of mimicking his grimaces, groaning out of measure at his

thrusts, not repenting at his remonstrances, and showing themselves otherwise insensible of the dignity and painstaking of his profession, did one day, towards the end of the month of June, the weather being hot, the said Monsieur de la Rue in his jacket and nightcap, and divers of the said gentlemen standing idly about, laughing and making a vain sport, instead of pinking him, as they ought to have done, he, the said Monsieur de la Rue, did, I say, then and there sit down on the floor in the room in which he was fencing, and placing, one on each side of him, the two foils which he then happened to be holding in his hands, and being provoked out of the ordinary measure of his patience by the eternal gibes and ungrateful levities of those his tormentors, the said gentlemen, was moved to utter the following speech, or representation expostulatory; which he did with great passion and vehemence, his eyes wide open, his hands and face trembling, and emphasis rising at every sen

tence:

"Jentlemens,

"If Got Almaighty — vere to come down from hevven, and vere to say to me, Monsieur de la Rue, -vill you be fencing-master at Osford or Cambreege, be ETAIRNALLY dam?'

or vill

you

"I should answer and say,

“SARE, — if it is all the same to you, I vill be ETAIRNALLY dam.'"

1828.

TWILIGHT ACCUSED AND DEFENDED.

A MONSTROUS thing has happened. Here is

a correspondent of ours, and a pleasant one too, and witty withal, aiming a blow at our gentle friend, Twilight! What possible mood could he have been in? Did he expect a friend who had disappointed him? or a new book? or a letter? Was his last bottle of wine out? Or did he want his tea? Or was he reading and could not go on, the servant not being in the way to bring candles? Or was the evening rainy? Or had he said anything wrong to any one else, and so was out of temper? Or had he been reading something about twilight, badly written, a "twaddle," and so was disposed to go to an extreme the other way, and be perverse in his wit? His first verse looks like it. Or had he a toothache? or a headache? or nothing to do? Or had his fire gone out?

We should almost as soon have expected a blow from him at gentleness itself, as at our gentle dusk friend, the mildest and most unpresuming of the Hours, meek, yet genial withal, like some loving Mestiza, or Quadroon, something between fair and dark, or dusk and dusker, who, by her sweet middle tone between merit and the want of pretension, and by having nothing to arrogate, and much to be prized, charms the amorous heart of some contemplative West Indian, who is tired out between the flare of

his whiter favorites, and the undiscerning presumption of his black. Certain it is, that, vehemently howsoever he speaketh, we hold him not to be in earnest (the less so by reason of that enormity); but, in order to prevent the peril of any false conclusions, in minds accustomed not to such facetious perversity, and still more to take the opportunity of vindicating the character of our gentle friend, and make our correspondent remorseful the next time he sees her (for having even appeared to treat her ill), we have thought it incumbent upon us to follow up his hard words with others more fitly soft and overwhelmingly balmy. O, there is nothing like defending a good easy cause, and a tender-hearted client! It makes one, somehow, so sure of triumph, so able to trample on one's enemy with the softest foot and the most generous reputation so gifted (dare we say it?) with the pleasure of malignity by the very exercise of benevolence. Mark you, dear reader, with what a tender savageness we will set him down. Yet he rails in good set terms. There is no denying that. Far be it from us to deny it, who shall only gain the greater praise from our refutation. Hear him how he sets out with the ingenious impudence of his pun and his alliteration:

A TRIMMING FOR TWILIGHT.

How I despise the twaddle about twilight,
That most unserviceable sort of sky-light;
Weak, wavering gleam, that, wending on its way
Towards the night, still lingers with the day.

Twilight's a half-and-half affair, that would
With all its heart be moonlight if it could;
Dim, but not dark; you pause at the bell handles;
'Tis scarce worth while to conquer it with candles.

Twilight is eve grown gray before its time,
Mystified mummer, aping the sublime

Day with its eye half closed, and half a-peep;
The afternoon, making believe to sleep.

'Tis like that forming frown yet undefined
That yon half-smiling female face has got,
As though it hadn't quite made up its mind
Whether it should look angrily or not.

Twilight's an interloper in the sky;

The face of nature painted with one eye:

Something between blank darkness and broad light, Like dotard day coquetting with young night.

A dame passé, who, growing old and wan,
Affects to veil the charms she feels are gone;
Knowing her day is o'er, the wily jade
Inwraps the ruin where the sunshine play'd.

Lovers love twilight, but I'm not a lover;
And why they love it I could ne'er discover;
For light is passion's parent: do ye deem
Beauty no debtor to the radiant beam

That lamps its loveliness; say, can we know
That beauty lives, and one bright glance forego?
Or, is't a fancy of love's selfish art,

To close the eyes, and see but with the heart?

Haply 'tis so; in love's delirious trance,

The raptured soul, grown jealous of the glance
That has a joy beyond it, dims the light
To lend to young imagination sight.

Fancy, that peoples darkness with bright rays,
And makes a darkness that it thus may gaze:
How is't that every feeling, fond, intense,
Tempts us to lose a while our visual sense?

Is it superfluous? We drink love through it;
'Tis then in us; we can no longer view it
By gazing outwards; now, a glance to win,
Our eyelids close, and turn their sense within.