Then, then my country bursts her funeral glooms, The Crescent falls-the Christian realm is saved! And hurrying Europe crowd to the crusade; Fame, Faith, and Freedom, join her rallying cry— While far through Tartary's depths the turbaned host shall fly. Beautiful lingerer in yon fields of light, Soon o'er the islands of the Western Sea Thy luminous smile will reach the brave and free ;— So shall my spirit fire their bounding souls. Thus warming soil and heart each circling year, The broken word Fitting the corpse its black folds seem to cover; While moonless falls the night-and draws her mantle over. G. ANTE AND POST-NUPTIAL JOURNAL. "When I said I would die a Bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. "A miracle !-here's our own hands against our hearts." Much Ado about Nothing. SOME people have not the talent, some have not the leisure, and others do not possess the requisite industry for keeping a private diary or journal; and yet there is probably no book which a man could consult with half so much advantage as a record of this sort, if it presented a faithful transcript of the writer's fluctuating feelings and opinions. If, instead of comparing our own mind with others, which is the process of common reading, we were to measure it with itself at different periods, as exhibited in our memorandum-book, we should learn a more instructive humility, a more touching lesson of distrust in ourselves and indulgence towards our neighbours, than could be acquired by poring over all the ethics and didactics that ever were penned. As a mere psychological curiosity, it must be interesting to observe the advancement of our own mind; still more so to trace its caprices and contrasts. Changes of taste and opinion are generally graduated by such slow and imperceptible progressions, that we are unconscious of the process, and should hardly believe that our former opinions were diametrically opposed to our present, did not our faithful journal present them to our eyes on the incontestable evidence of our own handwriting. Personal identity has been disputed on account of the constant renewal of our component atoms: few people, I think, will be disposed to maintain the doctrine of mental identity, when I submit to them the following alter et idem, being a series of extracts from the same journal, registered in perfect sincerity of heart at the time of each inscription, and the whole not spread over a wider space of time than a few consecutive months. Into the cause of my perpetual and glaring discrepancies, it is not my purpose to enter; this is a puzzle that may serve to exercise the ingenuity of your readers. Ante-Nuptial. I hate Blondes; white-faced horses and women are equally ugly; the "blue-eyed daughters of the North," like the other bleached animals of the same latitude, are apt to be very torpid, sleepy, and insipid, rarely exhibiting much intellect or piquancy. They remind one of boiled mutton without caper-sauce, or water-gruel without wine or brandy. Every one thought the Albinos frightful, and yet people pretend to admire fair women. Brunettes are decidedly handsomerwhat is a snow-scene compared to the rich and various colouring of an autumnal landscape! They have a moral beauty about them; their eyes sparkle with intelligence,-they possess fire-vivacity-genius. A Brunette Sawney is as rare as a tortoiseshell tom-cat. There is, however, a species of complexion which nature accomplishes in her happier moods, infinitely transcending all others. I mean a clear transparent olive, through whose soft and lucid surface the blood may be almost seen coursing beneath, while the mind seems constantly shining through and irradiating the countenance. It is generally found accompanied with dark silky hair, small regular features, and a sylph-like form approximating somewhat to the--Lascar ?-No. To the Spanish?-No: but to the description which Ovid gives us of Sappho, and to the species of beauty that imagination assigns to the fascinating Cleopatra. My dear Julia exactly represents this kind of loveliness. I am certainly a lucky fellow in having secured the promise of her hand. She possesses animation and briskness without any of that unamiable tendency to domineer, which so many lively females exhibit, and has a good portion of reading and talent without affecting the blue-stocking. It is a bad thing to be over-wifed, like poor Frank Newenham, who has nothing to do with the laws of his own house but to obey them. Better to have no appointment than get a place under petticoat govern ment. Determined on sending in my resignation to Brookes's and Arthur's, as well as to the Alfred and Union. Hercules gave up his club when he married Dejanira, and all good husbands should follow his example. The increase of these establishments a bad sign: our wives and hotelkeepers must associate together, for they seem to be deserted by the rest of the world. Astonishing that men should prefer politics and port-wine in a club-room, to the converse of a beautiful woman at home. Substituting Julia for Lesbia, I am ready to exclaim with Catullus in his imitation of Sappho, Saw Lady Madeleine at the Opera, looking fat, florid, and Sphynxlike. It is the fashion to call her a fine creature; so is the prize ox: for the modesty which others assign to her, read mauvaise honte. If people admire by the square foot, they can hardly over-rate her merits; but for my own part I would rather marry a Patagonian milk-maid. Went to Richmond-sate upon the grass in front of the house formerly belonging to Whitshed Keene, and gazed upon the moon, thinking all the while of Julia, until I became so melancholy, romantic, and poetical, as actually to perpetrate the following Stanzas. Sweet is the sadness of the night, To yon pale moon that o'er me soars, The breeze whose plaints from yonder glade Perchance around her lips has played, And breathes my Julia's sighs. By day her fancied presence seems To chase each tear away, Then stay to soothe my troubled dreams, Why I should describe myself as loving in vain, and looking through tears, making Julia, who was that night engaged to a ball at Almack's, sympathize in my distress, may seem odd; but I recollected that all great poets are melancholy, and that "the course of true love never does run smooth," when you are soliloquizing the moon. I protest I think the lines very mellifluous and heart-rending, and altogether Lady's-Magazinish.-My darling Julia tells me she doats upon poetry; so do I, especially the elegiac, when hit off by a master's hand. Mem.: show her my verses to-morrow. My dear Julia, I am happy to find, is equally fond of the country, and devoted to music and domestic pleasures. In fact, her tastes and opinions seem generally to agree with mine. She is certainly a woman of superior good sense. Delighted to observe that she is so much pleased with my rattling friend Compton, and thinks Harvey a gentlemanly good-looking man. It is always pleasant when one's bachelor companions prove acceptable to one's wife. Introduced to my beloved Julia's uncle, Mr. Jackson, a nabob, who gave me a receipt for bile, and told me a famous story of a tiger-hunt at Calcutta ;-a pleasant chatty man. His wife rather in the style of the Hottentot than the Medici Venus, but genteel in her manners; the three daughters pleasing interesting girls, and one of them good-looking. Sent Nimrod to Tattersal's, as I mean to give up hunting. Bad enough for bachelors to risk their necks by galloping after a poor inoffensive hare; preposterous in married men. Sold my Joe Manton and patent percussion gun to Compton, as I flatter myself I shall be better employed in the society of my amiable Julia, than in wading through mud and snow to destroy partridges and pheasants. Besides, going out with a friend upon these occasions by no means implies your returning with him, as he is very apt to miss the birds and shoot you. If you go alone, two alternatives await you: in getting over a stile a twig unfortunately catches the lock of your piece, and lodges its contents in your kidnies; or your favourite spaniel makes a point-of putting his paw upon your trigger, and in the ardour of his fondling blows out your brains. Sportsmen should really devise some new mode of death; these are quite hackneyed. Julia much pleased when I told her my intentions: she particularly objected to hunting, on account of its expense. She is decidedly economical, which is a great comfort. Julia being engaged with her uncle Jackson, I spent the evening alone by my own fire-side;-very bilious and hippish. Dr. Johnson is quite right;-a married man has many cares, but a single one has no pleasures. What a solitary forlorn wretch is the latter in misery and sickness! Some years ago there was an account in the papers of a respectable old bachelor, in Gray's Inn, who after several months' disappearance was found dead in his chambers, half eaten up by bluebottle flies. Conceive the idea of a man's being forgotten by his friends and remembered by the blue-bottles. I never see one of these flying Benedict-eaters without wishing myself fairly married; their buzzing in my ear seems to echo the Epithalamium of Manlius to my Julia's namesake Io, Hymen Hymenæe, io! lo, Hymen Hymenæe! Next week my adorable Julia is to become mine for ever, and if I know any thing of myself, Jack Egerton will be the happiest man in the world. Can't say I like the ceremonial-rather lugubrious and solemn-Parents looking dolorous-sisters and cousins crying-bride ready to faint-nobody comfortable but the clergyman and clerk. Compton says, it is very like going to be hanged, and observes, that there is only the difference of an aspirate between altar and halter. A bad joke, like all the other sorry witticisms launched against women and marriage. Satirists of the sex either disappointed men, or fools, or mere inventors of calumny. Pope confesses, in the advertisement to his Satires, that none of the characters are drawn from real life. He that lives single, says St. Paul, does well, but he that marries does better. St. Paul was a wise man. Post-Nuptial. Heigho-three mouths elapsed without a single entry in my What an idle fellow I have become, or rather what a busy journal. one, for I have been in a perpetual bustle ever since the expiration of the honey-moon. By the by, nothing can be more ill-judged than our custom of dedicating that period to rural sequestration, that we may do nothing but amuse one another, while it generally ends in our tiring one another to death. Remember reading of a pastrycook, who always gave his apprentices a surfeit of tarts when first they came, to insure their subsequent indifference. Very well for him, but a dangerous conjugal experiment. Godwin mentions in his Memoirs of Mary, that they alienated themselves from one another every morning, that, instead of mutually exhausting their minds, they might have almost always something new to impart, by which means they met with pleasure and parted with regret. Most people reverse the process. In England, if a man is seen with his wife perpetually dangling on his arm, it is a dispensation from all other observances; let him do what he will, he has a reputation for all the cardinal virtues. In France it is the extreme of mauvais ton. Many hints might be advantageously borrowed from our Gallic neighbours. Tired to death of people wishing one joy--there is an impertinence about this salutation; it conveys a doubt at best, and, as some people express themselves, looks very like a sneer. Received seven epistolary congratulations, which, from their great similarity of phrase and sentiment, I suspect to be all plagiarisms from the Polite Letter-Writer. Paid them in their own coin by writing a circular reply. Sat next to Lady Madeleine at a dinner-party. What a remarkably fine woman she is!-quite majestic after one has been accustomed to dwarfs and puppets. After all, there is nothing so feminine and lovely as a fair complexion, especially when accompanied with that Corinthian air-that natural nobility, (if I may so express myself,) which at once stamps the high-born and high-bred woman of quality. If her hand alone were shewn to me, I should swear that it belonged to a person of rank. A complexion of this sort testifies the station of its possessor. One sees Olives and Brunettes trundling mops and crying mackerel; but no menial ever possessed Lady Madeleine's soft and delicate tints. What a charm, too, in that gentle and modest demeanour, forming so happy a medium between rustic reserve and London flippancy! Finding ourselves alone and the time hanging rather heavy, I began reading aloud Milton's Lycidas; but, before I had accomplished three pages, observed Julia fast asleep! Waked her, to remind her of her former declaration that she doted upon poetry. "So I do," was the reply, "but then I like something funny; have you got Peter Pindar, or Dr. Syntax's Tour ?"-Heavens! what a taste!--Requested her to play me one of Haydn's canzonets; found her harp was thrown aside with seven broken strings, and the piano so much out of tune that she had not touched it for weeks. Am assured, however, that she is passionately fond of music-when it is played by any one else; on the faith of which I subscribed to six concerts, and my wife actually went to one. By love of the country I learn that she means Bath, Brighton, and Cheltenham, in the respective seasons; but as to the rural, the romantic, and the picturesque, she protests that she has no particular penchant for "a cow on a common, or goose on a green," and is even uninfluenced by the combined attractions of " doves, dung, |