state of wild freedom to do mischief in which they lived before Ibrahim Pasha stopped their intestine broils. To the furdi or wurghi-the capi tation-tax of Ibrahim Pasha-has been added the hudmi, or an additional impost of seventy-five per cent.; the governors have not power to collect this, and outbreaks ensue which the pashas themselves have not sufficient troops at their disposal to quell. The system of Avanias and Jurums, forced loans and extortions, have been brought into full play again, and bribery and corruption restored in full plenitude, the rich Turks purchasing of the pashas the government of their own districts. The tariff has been doubled, and commerce in consequence brought to the lowest ebb; the monopoly system has been re-established and coin depreciated in value. Fanaticism and bigotry again reign triumphant, and the Christians are once more a degraded and proscribed race; the blood feud between the Maronites and Druses has been fostered for the most ignoble purposes, and insecurity is general. Unless European powers interfere once more, especially in giving protection to the Christians, it is the opinion of those who are most conversant with the country, that the reinstatement by the Sublime Porte of Ibrahim Pasha to his old government will be the denouement of the campaign of 1840.

POSTSCRIPT.

Since the above was written, Sir Charles Napier has publicly acknowledged at the anniversary meeting of the Marylebone Literary and Scientific Institution, that with respect to his recent services in Syria, he would say nothing of the justice of the war in which we were engaged. "His duty upon that occasion lay one way, and his feelings the other; but his feelings of course had to give place to his duty. But if there was one act of his life he regretted, it was that, having freed the inhabitants of the Lebanon from the tyranny of Mehemet Ali, he had subjected them to a tyranny ten times worse than that."-Times, June 18th, 1846.

THE OPERA.

LALLAH ROOKH.

LET Cerito have one of those steps that suggest the notion of a teetotum made of feathers, or let some happy swain have his arm round her waist, and both together come down with a force that would sweep a row of figurantes into nonentity, and you have secured a furore.

Well do we remember the beginning of the Cerito-mania, when critics put their sober senses into their pockets, and began to sing in a sort of lyrical prose-half rhapsody, half metaphysics. Some of the older school looked doubtingly at the enthusiasts, thought they went too far (and very far, to be sure, they did go), and declared they missed a certain grace in Cerito, which they considered requisite to a perfect danseuse. Taglioni's graceful floatings, and the intellectual piquancy of Elssler were in their minds, and they would not join in the acclamation. But Cerito went on a-head-the applauders gained new strength of lung, and bought addi

tional bouquets. Cerito was a sensation; and who can discuss about sensations. You might as well have asked folks why they liked champagne as why they liked Cerito.

The Pas de neuf, with which the new ballet terminates, much reminds us of the old days of Alma, when in that gorgeous scene, which put out the eyes of wondering spectators with its gas, Cerito used to soften all hearts by the voluptuous poses in the pas de trois, and then shake them out of their proper locality by her astounding "variation." There is much pretty dropping into attitudes, and vigorous bounding, and quietly, ardent glancing, with which Cerito is able to recall the image of the glories of 1842 (are we right?) Then we have a pleasing pas symbolique, in which the principle of the Viennen dancers is adopted, and applied in a new fashion, and all sorts of groups are formed with the aid of pink scarfs, representing

No, reader, our conscience checks us-we confess we were going to impose upon you hideously. We were going to pretend that we knew the meaning and significance of those mystic groups, formed by Cerito and the corps de ballet. We will be honest, and declare that if we know why the first symbolic tableau is called "Hermes," we are willing to be twisted into a "caduceus," and that if we can detect why another is called the "Pine-apple," we are willing to be cut into as many slices, as ever the luxury of that name, when brought cheap from the West Indies, was carved into by the knife of the small-salaried clerk.

An ancient writer, more talked about than seen, named Joseph Miller, narrated the legend of a showman, who used to exhibit various crowned heads, and when asked which was the Emperor of Germany, which the chief of the Hong Kong, and which the Czar of Muscovy, used to reply, "Which you please." We fear some of our readers have heard the tale before. No matter, they will see the moral we point at.

But we understand the "pedestal"-yes, we understand the "pedestal." When Cerito stands some eight feet from the ground, and scarfs are placed like steps about her, that is the "pedestal." We fancy we can detect the "morning breeze" (or "evening breeze," we forget which), yet will not commit ourselves, but with respect to the pedestal we are positive. What a splendid court was that of Aurungzebe at Lahore! He sat under the very best canopy that ever was seen, and his throne fashioned after the likeness of a peacock, broke with envy the hearts of half-a-dozen oriental potentates-at heart it ought to have broken them, if the representation of it in the first scene of the ballet is correct. But there was one fault in the internal policy of Aurungzebe-he did not patronise railroads in his empire. If he could but have accelerated the passage of Lallah Rookh from Lahore to Cashmere, he would have conferred the greatest benefit, both on those luckless Mussulmans, who ingeniously creep under a mass of sand-like carpet, and also on those spectators, who delight to see Cerito dance, and value her tours de forces and her poses far more than the banners which are carried through the desert to the sound of David's music.

Give us the court of Aurungzebe-give us the feast of roses-give us light-give us danseuses-give us pas-but oh spare us the darker side of oriental life, let not the simoon enliven us during this very hot weather!

MEMOIRS OF A FEMME DE CHAMBRE.*

"WHO will deny," says the witty Lady Blessington, "that the memoirs of Madame de Motteville furnish some entertaining and instructive anecdotes and information relative to her royal mistress, Anne of Austria, the suspected wife of Louis XIII? And without the memoirs of Madame de Staël, formerly Mademoiselle de Launy, of how many amusing facts connected with her haughty mistress, the Duchess of Maine, should we have remained ignorant?"

Why not, then, avail oneself of the privileges of an imaginary femme de chambre to unfold the secret life of aristocracy, is the natural corollary to the above premises; and the sprightly authoress has wrought out the idea to perfection, multiplying the supposed confidences with the variety and brilliancy of a kaleidoscope, and displaying in the treatment of each that unrivalled intimacy with her subject, and especially that skill in dissecting the follies and the foibles of high life which has ever distinguished her popular and piquant pen.

The post of private secretary to a spendthrift bachelor lord appears to be no sinecure. His labour is incessant, his pay irregular and inadequate, and his repasts frugal almost to insufficiency. The noble lord, who almost habitually spends a guinea upon a bouquet, is frequently without a shilling for household expenses, creditors become clamorous, bills are renewed only when the secretary adds his endorsement, and failing payment when due, the peer being secured by hereditary privileges, the secretary takes his place in the debtor's cell, and worse than all, if he chance to have a beautiful wife, she is left by that very incarceration exposed to the most grave and serious inconveniences. Enough to break the heart of the strongest; but more than enough for two suffering delicate persons, who, by a premature death, leave Selina Stratford, the future femme de chambre, an orphan at a tender age, protected only by a humane and generous old grocer.

"The first lessons in the school of adversity," remarks the countess, are ever acquired with pain, and this pain is always in proportion to the native goodness of the scholar." Tolerably intense then must have been Selina's wondering grief at finding herself, as a first experience, tumbled to the earth by the redoubtable heads of an establishment for young ladies, and actually rifled of every trinket and valuable in her possession! Such a first and painful experience of the world is followed by a moment of repose, a few days of halcyon happiness too bright to last, at the good and gentle Lady Almondbury's; but here, again, the rudeness and neglect of the lord and master snap the frail cords of existence asunder, and once more cast upon the world the unlucky Selina, whose beauty and goodness are her greatest crimes.

The translation from Grosvenor Square to Allsop Terrace, New Road, is a removal from one scene to another of a perfectly opposite kind. Admitted by that appendage of a moderate establishment denominated a page, clothed in a faded suit of green cloth made in the form of a close

The Memoirs of a Femme de Chambre. A Novel. By the Countess of Blessington. In 3 vols. Richard Bentley.

vest, and trousers, the jacket ornamented with three rows of brass sugarloaf buttons, which had long lost their lustre, Selina is introduced to a middle-aged lady, with whom "a red circle occupied the place of eyebrows, while the scanty eye-lashes, few and far between, were nearly white, and lent a very disagreeable expression to the light gray eyes beneath them, which peered with almost feline slyness on the face of Selina."

The lady with the red circle above her eyes, after deducting twenty pounds from Selina's salary because she cannot paint in oil-colours, and because she herself wanted some pictures for her apartments, then further intimates her kind consideration for governesses.

"You will dine with me when I have no company," said Mrs. Jefferson, assuming a dignified air, " and when I have, you will be expected to play and sing to amuse the party."

While the mother was speaking, both the little girls were closely examining the countenance of their new governess; the elder one, with a stupid stare of wonder, and the younger with a cool effrontery, with which no inconsiderable portion of slyness and cunning were mingled.

“Look, mamma," exclaimed she, "what a pretty gown Miss Stratford has, and what a nice collar and cuffs; why she is much smarter than you are,

mamma.'

"Hold your tongue, child! Have I not told you that you are not to make personal remarks ?"

But you said at lunch that she was much too smartly dressed, and that her gown was better than yours."

At dinner Selina gets a large lump of mutton-fat as her share of the repast, and a post-prandial exhibition of the boisterous consort of a vulgar city dame, on his knees before the beautiful governess, puts a hasty finish to a lively and effective sketch of the manner of a peculiar, but by no means limited class of society.

Ridiculous as is this picture of vulgar life, it is surpassed even in that particular by the sketch of an uneducated but worthy and unpretending couple, who are transferred by the chances of fortune to the proprietorship of a country park and mansion. The position is one naturally provocative of fun, but few except the accomplished authoress could have worked out in so graceful and harmless a way the account of all the mistakes and errors that can be supposed to arise to persons suddenly thrown into the midst of a most aristocratic and exacting society.

The jealousy of a corrupt nurse drives Selina from her new home. A false charge is brought against her of having received an annuity from Lord Almondbury, the good people-the Buxtons of Heathfield Park-are at first disinclined to listen to the slander, but too truly does Lady Blessington remark in her worldly wisdom, "How often does the qu'en dira-t-on, that dread of common minds, take the place of judgment in influencing their decisions, and urge them to adopt a conduct very different to that which their own better feelings would dictate!"

The trials and discomforts which had everywhere awaited Selina as a governess, had by this time so firmly convinced her that no situation could offer less chance of peace, that she determined to offer herself as femme de chambre, and accordingly she enters in that quality into the service of a Mrs. Fraser, a good-tempered, gentle person, who has married a rich but old, sickly, and morose Anglo-Indian. Among the bilious nabob's other fancies, is one of entirely detaching his wife from the society of

a beloved mother and sister, which his jaundiced fastidiousness could not tolerate. In the hour of sickness Selina unfortunately connives at the mother's soothing her daughter's bed of suffering, disguised as a nurse, for which act of humanity she is rewarded by an instantaneous dismissal.

The barometer rises after the storm is over, and we are suddenly transferred to the glittering saloons of the Duke and Duchess of Glenallen-the former "the leader of the ton," "the glass of fashion"-the latter the still young and beautiful heiress of Oakhampton. The glitter and the parade of princely establishments appear, however, according to Lady Blessington's experiences, to be but too frequently the glare that dazzles from the gloom and sorrow pervading the interiors. The beautiful young heiress had been entrapped by the paid-for persecutions of a lady companion, into an unequal marriage with a titled senior. She had, therefore, unfortunately, a heart to give away, and she disposes of it apparently with the same want of discrimination as she did her person to the selfish and unfeeling Glastonbury, whose guinea bouquets are no longer forthcoming in the hour of trouble and remorse.

But enough of these interiors of fashionable life. Let us hasten with Selina to join company with Lady Caldersfoot, a character slightly caricatured, but evidently drawn from the life. Selina waits upon her ladyship in consequence of an advertisement.

"Of course," remarked her ladyship, after a few preliminary observations, "you know my writings?"

"I have not that pleasure, madam," replied Selina. "Hitherto, my reading has not included works of fiction."

66

How very strange'! I had thought that a person could not have been found in this country, or indeed Europe, unacquainted with my writings. Of course you have heard of my literary reputation ?"

Poor Selina bowed an assent for which her conscience reproached her, but prudence dictated the course, and fifteen pounds a year having been deducted from her salary, for the honour of serving so distinguished a literary person, and for the lustre that would thereby be reflected upon her, her ladyship and "suite," as she loved to term her two attendants, start for the continent. "The old story," said Lady Caldersfoot, "the sword has worn out the scabbard, hard studies passing through the alembic of my mind have impaired my health, and I must seek a more genial clime to renovate my frame."

Arrived at Dover, Lady Caldersfoot proceeded to the Ship, where she instantly summoned the landlord to her presence.

"It may be as well, sir," said she, "that you inform the civil and military authorities here of my arrival. They probably may wish to mark their respect by some of those attentions usually paid to persons of distinction, and might feel hurt if left in ignorance of my being here."

"Who shall I say, madam ?" inquired her host.

The Lady Caldersfoot. Of course you know my name."

"I can't say I do, your ladyship; but so many lords and ladies pass through here, that I can't remember names.

"Do you never read, sir?"

66

39

Oh, yes, your ladyship, the newspapers. I havn't time for any thing more." But, surely, in the newspapers you must have seen reviews of my works, or extracts taken from the evening papers."

The answers being still unsatisfactory, her disappointed ladyship, after