Notwithstanding the great merit of M. de Potter's work, it might be much improved by remodelling. If any competent translator, feeling convinced, as I do, of M. de Potter's entire veracity, as well as of the unbounded pains he has taken to come at the truth, shall be willing to take for granted the contents of the three volumes entitled "The Life of Scipio Ricci ;" and if he then, after closing the book, shall undertake to re-write the whole of it, literature will become enriched by a work of which the translation will be translated into every language of Europe. In its present state it is fatiguing to read: but, as I have before observed, it has made the deepest impression at Rome. In general, historical works, written in French, are despised here; because they are, for the most part, not written conscientiously. The authors of them also commonly learn on one day what they intend imparting to the public on the next. Books written at Paris against religion are highly amusing to the court of Rome; because the thoughtlessness and the blunderings of their authors furnish the means of a ready refutation. But the Life of Scipio Ricci has given rise to serious alarm. One of the first theologians of Rome has publicly said of it, that it is a book which admits of but one mode of refutation-that of burning the author.

I have nothing to offer in the way of news relative to the government. It proceeds in this country exactly in the same manner as in France. Day after day the sovereign, who is a converted libertine, is endeavouring to atone for the little sins of his youth, by reversing some useful or reforming regulation established within the last twenty years. Each successive month is signalized by some measure hostile to industry, which operates with mischievous effect upon the estimable portion of the Roman population; I mean those who, engaged in the pursuit of riches, whether by farming the taxes, or lending money to the government, or otherwise, are employed in the production of something useful to all. Leo XII. is execrated, especially by the friars. The Dominicans, the Prémontrés, &c. entertain a mortal jealousy of the favour shown by him to the Jesuits. His extreme avarice afflicts every one interested in the progress of the arts. The Academy of Archæology, which, of all those established in the Roman states, is the only one of any utility, is in a declining state, and on the eve of annihilation. Among its members were numbered some worthy pupils of the famous Ennio Visconti, whom Napoleon sent før to Paris. As it may naturally be supposed, there is no place where an inscription can be decyphered, or where Latin is known, so well as at Rome. How often have I heard the learned in this country laugh immoderately at inscriptions in the Latin language fabricated at Paris or at London! V. R.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

An Anecdote from Plutarch.

GLORIOUS was the marble hall

With the sight and sound of festival,
For autumn had sent its golden hoard,
And summer its flowers, to grace the board.
Inside and out the goblets shine,

Outside with gems, inside with wine;

And silver lamps shed round their light
Like the moonrise on an eastern night.

Gay laughs were heard; when these were mute
Came a voluptuous song and lute;

And fair nymphs floated round, whose feet
Were light as the air on which they beat;
Their steps had no sound, they moved along
Like spirits that lived in the breath of song.

Beneath the canopy's purple sweep,
Like a sunset cloud on the twilight deep,
Sate the king of the feast, stately and tall,
Who look'd what he was, the lord of all.
A glorious scar was upon his brow,
And furrows that time and care will plough.
His battle-suns had left their soil,

And traces of tempest and traces of toil;
Yet was he one for whom woman's sigh
Breathes its deepest idolatry.

His that soft and worshipping air
She loves so well her lover should wear;
His that low and pleading tone
That makes the yielding heart its own;
And, more than all, his was the fame
That victory flings on the soldier's name.

Yet those meanings high that speak,
Scorn on the lip, fire on the cheek,
Tell of somewhat above such scenes as these,
With their wasting and midnight revelries.
Albeit he drain'd the purple bowl,

And heard the song till they madden'd his soul;
Yet his forehead grew pale, and then it burn'd,
As if in disdain from the feast he turn'd;
And his inward thoughts sought out a home
And dwelt on thy stately memory, Rome.
But his glance met hers beside, and again
His spirit clung to its precious chain.

With haughty brow, and regal hand,
As born but for worship and command,
Yet with smiles that told she knew full well
The power of woman's softest spell,
Leant that Egyptian queen: a braid
Of jewels shone 'mid her dark hair's shade;
One pearl on her forehead hung, whose gem
Was worth a monarch's diadem,

And an emerald cestus bound the fold

Of her robe that shone with purple and gold.
All spoke of pomp, all spoke of pride,
And yet they were as nothing beside
Her radiant cheek, her flashing eye,
For their's was beauty's regality.

It was not that every feature apart,
Seem'd as if carved by the sculptor's art.

It was not the marble brow, nor the hair

That lay in its jewel-starr'd midnight there;

Nor her neck, like the swan's, for grace and whiteness,
Nor her step, like the wind of the south for lightness;
But it was a nameless spell, like the one
That makes the Opal so fair a stone,
The spell of change:-for a little while
Her red lip shone with its summer smile-
You look'd again, and that smile was fled,
Sadness and softness were there instead.
This moment all bounding gaiety,

With a laugh that seem'd the heart's echo to be;
Now it was grace and mirth, and now
It was princely step and lofty brow;
By turns the woman and the queen,
And each as the other had never been.

But on her lip, and cheek, and brow, Were traces that wildest passions avow, All that a southern sun and sky

Could light in the heart, and flash from the eye;

A spirit that might by turns be led
To all we love, and all we dread.
And in that eye darkness and light
Mingled, like her own climate's night,
Till even he on her bosom leaning,
Shrank at times from its fiery meaning.

There was a cloud on that warrior's face,
That wine, music, smiles, could not quite erase :
He sat on a rich and royal throne,

But a fear would pass that he sat there alone.
He stood not now on his native land,

With kinsman and friends at his red right hand;

And the goblet pass'd unkiss'd, till the brim
Had been touch'd by another as surety for him.

She, his enchantress, mark'd his fear,
But she let not her secret thought appear.
Wreath'd with her hair were crimson flowers,
The brightest that form the lotus bowers ;-
She pluck'd two buds, and fill'd them with wine,
And, laughing said, "this pledge be mine!"

Her smile shone over their bloom like a charm,
He raised them up, but she caught his arm,
And bade them bring to the festive hall
One doom'd to death, a criminal.

He drank of the wine, he gasped for breath,
For those bright, but poison'd flowers, held death;
And turn'd she to Antony with the wreath,
While her haughty smile hid the sigh beneath,
"Where had thy life been at this hour,
Had not my Love been more than my Power?
-Away, if thou, fearest,-love never must,
Never can live with one shade of distrust."

L. E. L.

THE UNIVERSAL CULPRIT.

"Assist me, knight, I am undone ;-fly, run, hue and cry!"

SHAKSPEARE.

"Then first the Culprit answer'd to his name."-DRYDEN.

THE manifold intricacies and subtleties of the law have too long occasioned it to be compared to a cobweb, which catches the small flies, and allows the great ones to break through; or to a bramblebush, through which the most innocent lamb cannot force a passage without leaving a considerable portion of his wool behind; or to a gridiron, which greases the bar by roasting and extracting all the fat out of the clients; or to the well-known arbitrator, who swallowed the oyster, and left the shells for the plaintiff and defendant; or to the honest fellow in a mob, who eases you of your purse and watch while assisting you to secure the rogue that ran away with your handkerchief; or, finally, to fifty disparaging similitudes which we hold it not seemly to enumerate. It is high time to remove this stigma from a profession the members of which have invariably been upright when it was better policy not to stoop, who have been loudly and even indignantly virtuous, when it was their interest to be just, and have nobly preferred truth, even to Plato himself, whenever she stood arrayed on the winning side. This expurgation, so devoutly to be desiderated, could not be more satisfactorily accomplished than by their immediately and gratuitously bringing to condign punishment a high and hardened criminal, whose mysterious character, Protean devices, and subtlety in eluding all proofs of his identity, have hitherto enabled him to perpetrate enormities of every description with an absolute impunity as to any legal penalty; though his scandalous misdemeanours have fixed an indelible brand of infamy upon his moral character. To enable our readers to escape his machinations, as well as to assist the public in general in the great purpose of his apprehension, we think it right to apprise them that this notorious delinquent was not only the real author of the disastrous expedition to Walcheren, and of every other great government failure, but that he is responsible for all the gross robberies and abuses of the Ecclesiastical and Chancery Courts, and has been the original projector of the bubbles, chimæras, and joint-stock companies, by which the most thinking people of England have been lately gulled, cajoled, and bamboozled.

Nor are his mischiefs and misdeeds in private families a whit less flagrant and notorious than his public guilt. Neither Puck himself, nor all the evil gnomes and fairies of the household, ever equalled him in domestic atrocity. He is universally admitted to be the real party to blame in all matrimonial squabbles; and as to the demolition of household furniture, and more particularly of crockery and glass, from common pots and pans up to French mirrors, cut chandeliers, real china bowls, and porcelain vases, every housekeeper who wants to discover the author of the mischief may say to this ubiquitous and Briarean-handed felon, as David said unto Nathan, "thou art the man." Not contented with these malignant pranks, he is perpetually spiiling oil upon costly carpets, leaving finger-marks upon silk curtains and white doors, or scratching varnished tables in a most frightful and disfiguring manner; while it is notorious, that whenever a win

dow has been left unfastened so that the thieves have entered and made away with the plate, it was his business to have shut it, and that he is to blame for the robbery.

With all these misdeeds upon his head, and in defiance of the old adage, that honesty is the best policy, this unprincipled rogue is singularly fortunate in his operations of every description. He gets all the great prizes in the lottery, is a constant winner at the gamingtable, even including Fishmongers' Hall, and holds Foreign Stocks without quaking for the payment of the dividends, beyond those that have been retained in this country. Moreover, he is the general finder of all lost and missing articles, except the wits of the crazy, which the man in the moon preserves in jugs, under a patent granted to him by Ariosto. All waifs and strays find their way to this universal receiver, though the real owners seek his address in vain; and he comes in for the whole of the unclaimed dividends upon bankrupt estates, together with the secret fees and official pickings of all sorts which are extorted without due authority.

Knave as the fellow is, he is by no means a fool. Nay, his knowledge upon many subjects is almost peculiar to himself. He knows a person who was really cured by one of Prince Hohenlohe's miracles. Perhaps, however, his own character has a small tendency to credulity, for he conscientiously believes there would be political danger in Catholic emancipation; and maintains the efficacy of the Sinking fund, which creates Stock at fifty or sixty to buy it back at ninety or a hundred. He has great faith in the visions of the night, although, among other vageries, he actually dreams of going to afternoon church, a benefit play, the exhibition of the British Artists in Suffolk-street, and the Gresham Lectures at the Royal Exchange; of success in converting the Hindoos; of Harriette Wilson's veracity; of wearing topped boots and buckskin breeches, or long cloth gaiters and hair powder; of the Parliament reforming itself, and of the Chancery commission inculpating its own chairman; of a certain pea-green personage being worth ten pounds next year; of reading Richardson's novels, and Southey's History of Brazil; of eating roasted pig, water Sootje, toasted cheese, and sour krout; or of drinking Cape wine and cyder; of knowing the way to Bloomsbury and Russel squares; of being in London in September, and other similar extravagances.

Some of his waking opinions are not less liable to the charge of singularity, for he thinks the latter novels of the Great Unknown (of whose real name he is ignorant) as good as his earlier productions; while he maintains that there are no abuses in the church of Ireland, and that it is by no means overpaid. As a proof that he knows himself, a species of wisdom which is perhaps peculiar to the individual, he confesses that he is rather wrinkled, and not quite so good-looking as he was; while he candidly admits that his faculties begin to fail him, and frankly discloses his real age whenever the question is asked. As to his genealogical claims and honours, few persons can compete with him, for there is reason to believe that he was born before the beginning of the world, and it was unquestionably one of his descendants that put out the eye of Polyphemus, if we may take the word of the Cyclops himself, who expressly accused him by name, when denouncing him to his companions, as the author of his total blindness. There is also an