WHAT THEY SAY IN PARIS. BY THE CHEVALIER ALCIBIADE DE LA BLAGUE 347 ATALA AND CHACTAS. BY W. BRAILSFORD SOMETHING OF BALTIMORE, WASHINGTON, THE CHESAPEAKE, AND POTOMAC. MY VISIT TO THE "MYSTERIOUS RAPPINGS," AND WHAT THEY BROUGHT ME 486 THE MOTHER'S FAREWELL. BY J. E. CARPENTER LITERARY LEAFLETS. BY SIR NATHANIEL. No. VII.-"CAUSERIES DU UP THE HUDSON, ALBANY, TROY, BUFFALO, ERIE AND ONTARIO, TORONTO -DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE, MONTREAL, QUEBEC-BACK BY LAKE CHAM- PLAIN AND BELLOWS FALLS, TOWARDS BOSTON. BY J. W. HENGISTON, THE FLITCH OF BACON: OR, THE CUSTOM OF DUNMOW. A TALE OF ENGLISH HOME. BY THE EDITOR THE BIRTH OF 1853. BY NICHOLAS MICHELL Our Boarding House in BRUSSELS.TI BY DUDLEY COSTELLOZO ROSE-THE DEATH MARRIAGE. BY CYRUS REDDING. THE LATER DRAMAS OF SHERIDAN KNOWLES I CREOSOTING TIMBER BY FREDERICK MARSHALL Several Articles, intended for insertion in the present Number of the NEW MONTHLY, have been unavoidably omitted. Amongst these are the con- CONTENTS. ULTRAMONTANISM IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. ANNIE LEE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "SEVEN YEARS IN THE WEDDED LIFE OF A MORTEN LANGE. A CHRISTMAS STORY. FROM THE DANISH OF HANS CHRISTIAN DOUBLE VUE. BY FREDERICK MARSHALL. LITERARY LEAFLETS. BY SIR NATHANIEL. No. III.-KINGSLEY'S PHAETHON. WOODTHORPE. A REMINISCENCE OF A PHYSICIAN. BY KELLY KENNYON. THE EVE OF ALL-SOULS. BY MRS. ACTON TINDAL. A YANKEE STEAMER ON THE ATLANTIC. BY J. W. HENGISTON, ESQ. THE EPILOGUE TO EIGHTeen Hundred AND FIFTY-TWO. NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. PROLOGUE TO VOLUME XCVII. WITH a New Year we begin a New Volume. A New Year is always, in expectancy, annus mirabilis ;" and a New Volume belongs pretty much to the same category. Without pretending to the oracular skill of Zadkiel, that most learned of "Genethliacs," we may safely predict the quality of the Ninety-seventh Volume of the New Monthly; for the writers whose contributions have filled the pages of the Magazine for the last few years, have still the same ready pens for its service. A volume of the New Monthly may be likened unto a good dinner with three courses and a dessert, seeing that four removes are necessary to complete the literary as well as the substantial banquet. Like a practised maître d'hôtel, we also present our bill of fare, but with even more consideration for the tastes and appetites of our guests, since we offer them the contents of only one course at a time, with sufficient interval to get hungry again before the dishes are replaced. He who would confidently say what the year 1853 is to do for us, must make some bold guesses. The prophecy of Lear's Fool is no bad precedent. Let us take a few samples from his prediction. When priests are more in word than matter. Shakspeare had some suspicion of this being the case in 1605; what are we to say, two centuries and a half later? Between the "half-and-half" of Puseyism, the "heavy, steady Stingo" of the Establishment, and the "sharp, sour cider" of Dissent, we are more ballottés with "words" than edified by "matter." If "His Eminence" (as the Times' advertisement says) puts in his oar, we may be rowed over to an opposite shore, but the boatman's song will be very nearly to the same tune. When brewers mar their malt with water. They did this, if not in the reign of King Lear (though most likely it was a practice in his day) certainly in that of the Virgin Queen; but it is only charitable to suppose that the brewers of Elizabeth's day, knowing that the ladies then drank beer for breakfast, diluted it as much as possible in order to save their reputations. Our quarrel with the brewers of Queen Victoria's domination is, not so much that they "mar their malt with water," though they are adepts at any cunning infusion-(we will say nothing about Strychnine and Baron Justus Liebig, or Humuline, the newest name for Extract of Hops),—as that they don't enough know how to cut down a legitimate allowance of beer. Quart bottles were quart bottles, we will "when every rood of ground maintained its man,"-or, at all events, "black jacks" held no stinted measure; but, at the present time, "Bottledom"-has reached such a pitch of refinement, that if you get anything in a bottle of Jan.-VOL. XCVII. NO. CCCLXXXV. suppose, B Guinness but froth and disappointment, you are more of a philosopher and less of a victim than most British beer-drinkers. When nobles are their tailors' tutors. This is not the vice of the present generation, nor is it likely to be soon revived. Schneiderism went out with the Prince Regent and Brummell. A nobleman of the present day, who is oftener heard of in the Mechanics' lecture-room than at Almack's, has something better to do with his time than to waste it in the excision of coat wrinkles, and the curative process of fine-drawing. When every case in law is right. If 1853 produce this result, we shall have less occasion than we suppose for regretting the political change which has brought about the retirement of Lord St. Leonards, of whom we may say, as Dryden did of his great predecessor: Swift of despatch and easy of access, * -without the faults that marred the statesmanship of the first Earl of Shaftesbury. No squire in debt; and no poor knight. Alas for the applicants in the Irish court of "Encumbered Estates !" The "squires in debt" this year will be as plentiful, we fear, as ever ;"poor knights" are perhaps a rarer article than they were in the days of bonny King Jamie," who made them, as fishermen salt herrings, by the thousand. When usurers tell their gold i' the field. This is more likely to happen in 1853 than in any other year since gold came into fashion-a long period to reckon. It is not the bullionmerchants of Cheapside, nor the bulls of the Stock Exchange who will count their gains on Primrose Hill or Blackheath; but the lucky ones of Australia, numbering a few usurers-("Some bastards, too," as Falconbridge says) who, having no roof under which to house them, will weigh their nuggets at the Victoria diggings. But, for all this, the usurers will have no greater faith than heretofore in the honesty of their fellow-creatures, and-in Australia-no one can say that they are not right; lucky for society if Europe be equally free from suspicion. When such unbelievable occurrences, says Lear's Fool, come to pass, Then shall the realms of Albion Come to great-confusion. We have shown how many of these events may happen in 1853, and yet we do not despair of winning through it—and finding ourselves and our readers none the worse-if not a good deal the better-in 1854. For this result, we do not, however, exactly look to the great Political "Concert" which has just struck up. The new "Liberal-Conservative" Ministry is, doubtless, a very harmonious combination, but we cannot help comparing it to Sylvester Daggerwood's benefit, on which occasion, -"at the particular desire of several persons of distinction,”—the most eminent performers have "kindly consented" to waive all personal and professional jealousy, and appear in the several parts allotted them "for one night only." |