national portraiture, suffer me to pre Mayor at their head !—the wise caterers for public order and decorum ! sent you with another feature which the men of counsel and council!-the may interest. I have met with more "Daniels-I say the Daniels!" Muse than one profound Munchausen in of Hogarth or of Rabelais! coquet Ireland; that is, a regular story-teller, with me only for one felicitous instant, who glories in his talent, who has while I try to paint the vacuity of hor- built up to himself much fame and adror, yet redolence of the ridiculous, miration from its repeated exercise, which bespoke the first full suspicion and whose effort is to preserve his of a hoax, that was-no doubt-vil- character by a succession of ridiculous lainously good, but also of a blunder fictions. The king of this race of that was execrably palpable! But I queer mortals is now dead; he abode dare only to leave this scene to the in the very metropolis; was the idol imagination. Let it suffice that the of merry meetings in taverns, and at Mayor appealed to his despatch from respectable private houses too: and, the Secretary-produced it-and, to by all I can learn, never had com mend the matter, "lo, 'twas red!" peer. His name was SweetmanWhat could be done? The town it- "Jack Sweetman."-Oh! how the self might be managed after a manner bare mention of his name will set poor -the crier might make another sortie Scotch's eyes twinkling, and slightly to cause the shops to be shut, and the curve the right line of even Mr. O'Recustomers turned out-the bells might gan's mouth!—As master Slender easily be set again in motion; but the would observe, however, "He is dead country districts, the villages six, eight, ten, fifteen miles off! At seven o'clock in the morning the two troops of horse in garrison had been despatched to these several places with orders to suspend the homilies till Friday there was not a trooper left to pursue them with countermanding or ders!—and again I inquire, what could be done? Nothing but what was done. The day, while all the rest of the British Empire mourned, the city of and her dependencies waxed merry and busy; and when the cloud had passed from the world beside, they had at last their time of exclusive sorrow. Any comment upon the moral propriety of this hoax might be out of season, certainly would be superfluous. If contemplated to the excess it ran, there can be no second opinion as to the delinquency; and in any view it was most indecorous, and no doubt you and your readers will call it shocking. But I am strongly led to question the first case; and with the second can have little to do. I only state, as in duty bound, facts, that even in their excesses present to you, I think, a trait of national character, whose demerits at least contain some, and a peculiar mental activity-in idleness. And since we have stumbled on Jack Sweetman is dead ;" and those of his unconscious emulators whom I have seen were not your city wags: Pure rustic geniuses they; teeming with their own original conceptions, and flinging them out and about in their own quaint idiom and slippery tongue. The picture of the cleverest of them I have encountered, is before me: A comfortable country gentleman, about fifty years of age, tall, a little fat, a round red shining face, not at all strongly marked, and no index to his talent, if you should except the sparkle of two small blue eyes, rebelling against the affectation of gravity imposed on his well closed lips. At his own table, or at any other table, he was and is the father of tempestuous laughter. He knows what is expected from him-and that is every thingand without apparent effort he yields full and eternal satisfaction. I have heard him always with amazement, and, I must own, often with real excitation of spirits. We have no idea of such a man in England. He has told in my presence, upon four or five occasions that I have sat with him, half a hundred stories at least, no one resembling the other, and, I have been informed by those who knew hun long, unlike any that he had ever told before. In fact, during some thirty years of professional practice, it would appear he scarcely ever finds it necessary to repeat himself. This you will say is imaginative fecundity with a vengeance. If you proceed to interrogate me on the merit or style of these extemporaneous effusions, I fear I can answer nothing satisfactory. As to matter, they are the most monstrous and matchless combinations of narrative, out- Munchausening Munchausen -always new, always jangling against each other; and, all I can add is, fit to be laughed at for their very unfitness to any thing else. But you should hear this man tell them. There is the whole charm. You should listen to him as he sits at his ease with his whisky-punch before him, and his friends around him, and his face in its unclouded meridian, without a muscle wincing, as the fluent words quietly pour out for ever, and choke every one else with convulsions of mirth. Let your fancy so far assist me as to get him thus present, and I proceed, as the best mode of illustration, to relate one-though by no means one of the best of his stories. I select it for its brevity. It would begin thus: "Arrah, come now-(turning to a grave guest)—this will never do, father Cokoran-maister, sir, maister-or maybe you'd be for an oyster? We'll get them there; an' I pray God there may'nt be such a story to tell o' them as the night last week that the gauger was here. I was in town that day, an' bought just as fine a hundred as ever was seen; Dick put them down on the dairy floor to keep them cool; and here we sat as we are now, God bless us all, after dinner, when we heard such a screeching an' hubbub as rang through the house, an' brought us out to see what was the matter. Into the dairy we went-an' I'll tell you how it happened. The rats came in, you see, in the dark, an' were for being curious about the oysters; an' one of the oysters that was as curious an' just as cute as any of the rats, opened himself a little to take a peep about the dairy; an' when a rat put in his fore foot to have a crook at the oyster, faith it held him as fast as it could; which not being to the rat's mind, nathing could make up to the passion he gat into, an' the noise he made. We staid some time looking on, an' then went out for a dog to worry the rat; an' as we had to go thro' the yard to the dog, we were for stepping down stairs quietly, when-what you think?-By the life of O'Pharaoh, Sir, we were forced to stand aside, an' give way to a hundred rats at least, that were come from borrowing a crow-bar from the forge, an' they had it between them, walking up stairs in a body to break open the oyster an' deliver their namesake from his hands." I shall add no comment upon this fanciful narrative, further than to say, that it strikes me to be quite as good as the three hundred rats of which Mr. Hogg has made memorable use in his last Novel. SONG. IT is not for your eagle eye, That, Ulric, I love thee. It is not for your marble brow, It is not for your lordly birth, Not for your honied words :-- 36 ATHENEUM VOL. 2. 2d series. THE LOUIS XVIII. AND CHARLES X. HE French physicians predicted as far back as May last, that if the weather was hot, the King could not get over the summer. His legs had been a mass of corruption; but in June, instead of acute, the pains became chronic, and he was in a state of continual lethargy. To give the appearance of his being much better in health than he was, he was prevailed on to take his drives as usual; but though he travelled over the pavement at the rate of twelve or fourteen miles an hour, the shaking had no effect on his lethargy, and it was very rarely that he uttered a syllable from leaving the chateau to returning to it. At intervals the sense of pain roused his dormant faculties, and he was capable of transacting business for a few minutes; but so impatient of contradiction was he, that he dismissed, without ceremony, even those to whom he had been longest attached, the companions of his exile and his friends in adversity. Of this number were the Dukes de Blacas and La Chatre,-the former, for having presumed to offer an opinion differing from that of his Majesty on a very trifling point, was dismissed from service, and, to gild the pill of disgrace, appointed Ambassador to Naples; the latter, presuming on the very long intimacy, the affectionate attachment that had always subsisted between them, and the long and valuable services he had rendered his Majesty, conjured the King to abandon the project of the lowering the rate of interest of the public funds, as contrary to public opinion. The King made no answer; but on the Duke going the next morning to attend as First Gentleman of the Chamber, the Usher in waiting would not let him pass, and told him that his Majesty had no farther occasion for his services. The poor old Duke was thunderstruck; he retired to Meudon to pour out his sorrows in the bosom of his old friend the Duke de Castries; but the shock was too great for the consolation of friendship to heal the wound: as he was eating an egg at breakfast he fell down in an apoplectic fit, lingered a few days, and expired. On the King being told of it, he merely said, "He was a good man and a faithful servant." The King treated M. de Chateaubriand in the same manner, and on the same account. At nine o'clock on Sunday morning, the minister was totally unacquainted with his fate; at eleven, on going to the Chateau, he was stopped, and told he would, on returning home, find the reason why he was not admitted. These acts, so totally at variance with all our ideas of the forms of polished life, and especially of a Court which sacrifices more to exterior forms than any other, are only to be attributed to the extreme irritation occasioned by a state of continual bodily suffering. About this time caries of the spine spread itself. The King was now obliged to be strapped in his chair; and it was evident that he could not suffer much longer. As the malcontents had long calculated on the royal demise for an insurrection, it was thought advisable to take every means of concealing the state of his Majesty's health; and for this purpose the censorship of the journals was revived, so that no intelligence of the kind could reach the Provinces. And as his decease was shortly anticipated, the genius of M. de Villele suggested the idea of making the principal changes necessarily consequent on a new reign, during the old one; so that when Charles X. came to the throne, there could be no discontents from dismissing one set of men to make place for others, and those in office would be grateful at keeping their places; while all the odium, if any, of the changes would rest with the old King, who had made them: hence the very numerous changes in the Council of State, the Prefects, &c. &c. &c. This was a deep stroke of policy in M. de Villele, which, it is believed, has secured him the entire confidence of Charles X. The King's health gradually declined, yet it was thought good policy to produce him as usual on State occasions, so that neither the regular receptions of his own Court nor of the foreign ministers were ever suspended. He even held his regular leveé on the 7th instant for the reception of the diplomatic corps. Although he was then in a dying state, he was strapped in his wheel chair to prevent his falling forward, his head sunk entirely on his breast, and his chin concealed in the blue riband of the Order of the Holy Ghost; his hat, fringed with white feathers, lying on his lap, and his hand upon it. For a few minutes he appeared to be asleep; at length he gave tokens of existence, and the Baron Lalive, conductor of the Ambassadors, named them according to the order in which they stood in the circle, and each advanced to salute his Majesty. At two or three of the first names the King muttered something, but unintelligibly; he then relapsed into the lethargic state, and the Ambassadors withdrew. At this leveé the Count d'Artois appeared in perfect health, vigorous and active, as if he were not above forty or fifty years of age. It was now evident that the King could not survive many days; his florid complexion appeared to be owing to art, and the decay of nature seemed approaching the last crisis; the suppuration of the wounds became suspended; the animation of the lower extremities was gone; and the spark of life was only prolonged by a surgical operation to which he was very unwilling to submit. His Majesty's attachments were few; and out of sight out of mind was rather a part of his character. M. de Cazes was a long time his favourite; he used to call him his Son; he could not pass a day without seeing him but when the Duke de Berry was murdered, and De Cazes's enemies attributed it to his favouring the Liberaux too much, preposterous as the charge was, the King, on finding a loud outcry against his favourite, abandoned him. M. de Villele seemed latterly to possess his unbounded confidence; and on the marriage of the Minister's daughter, the King presented the bride with one hundred thousand francs. It is stated that, on his deathbed, he refused to see the children of the Duchess de Berry: it is known that the King was not fond of them, and this is attributed to circumstances almost too ridiculous to be related. On St. Louis's Day, in 1822, when the children were brought to him, he asked the little Princess to sit on his lap; she refused: on being asked by the Duchess (her mother) why she would not sit on the King's lap, she said she did not like it, because the King smelled. The other anecdote is equally frivolous as a motive of dislike: the King asked the little Duke of Bourdeaux, a few months since, if he would like to be a king? "No, Sir," was the reply.-"Why, my child, would you not like to be a king?". "Because I like to run about." The boy fancying, from the only specimen he saw, that the inability to walk was one of the attributes of royalty. The character of his Majesty, will, of course, be variously drawn-it may be summed up in a few words: He was neither cruel nor ambitious; all he wanted was peace and tranquillity; his long and painful state of suffering prevented his paying the attention to business that was requisite: equally inconstant in his likes and dislikes, he evidently possessed few or none of those higher affections which identify souls with each other; and it might be said of him as Goldsmith said of Garrick He threw off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them back. Charles X. on succeeding to the Throne, has promised to observe the charter and the institutions of the State, as his brother had done. This, certainly, is not promising much, for many and frequent were the infractions of the charter by Louis XVIII. Indeed, the charter, got up in a hurry, betrays all the haste and incompleteness of its origin: as an organic constitution, it is extremely imperfect; the lacunæ are numerous, and those attempted to be filled up have not been filled up in the most desirable manner. This is not to be attributed entirely to the want of liberality in Louis XVIII. but to the ceaseless efforts of the Buonapartists and Republicans to sow dissensions, inspire distrust, create disturbances, and foment conspiracies. These were at length carried to such a height, that a general conspiracy to overturn the Government was organized throughout the kingdom; almost every regiment was corrupted: the conspiracies were detected on several points, but, not withstanding they failed at Paris, at Befort, at Colmar, at Poictiers, and Rochfort, the spirit of the conspirators was unbroken when the insurrection in Spain broke out. As it had been found impossible to collect a considerable body of rebels on any single point in France, it was resolved to effect it in Spain, and thither all the discontented and revolutionary flocked from France, Belgium, England, and America : General Lefevre Desnouettes and General Lallemand came from America with this object; the former was drowned off the coast of Ireland, but Lallemand sailed from England to Spain, where Colonel Fabrier had or ganized a body of French refugees; Sir Robert Wilson and his Aide-deCamp went to Spain to join them, and proclaimed himself the precursor of ten thousand English, who would soon join them, to put down all tyranny and tyrants." The total failure of all attempts of the refugees to make a landing in France, or corrupt the invading French army, gave the deathblow to the hopes of the conspirators; and the result of the Spanish war destroyed entirely their sanguine expectations of effecting a revolution in France at the moment, or organizing it at the death of the King. But it was this well known threat and intention which induced M. de Villele and M. de Corbiere to take every precaution, when they found the King hastening to his final dissolution; hence the censorship, and the numerous changes of Prefects, Sub-prefects, Mayors, &c. through all the departments. We, who know France, firmly believe the precaution unnecessary: yet it was probably as well to convince the disaffected that every thing was foreseen. From the conduct of the Count d'Artois, it was supposed he was strongly inclined to ultra-royalist prin ciples and absolute power. This arose from the necessity which heirs apparent generally feel of forming a party, which must necessarily differ in political principle from that of the Court, or it would cease to be one. Now there were only two extremes to choose from, the liberals, or what is called the pure royalists. That the Count d'Artois should not prefer the party of the revolution, can be easily imagined; therefore he had no alternative but taking the other course, which was more consonant with his principles, his habits, and the position in which he was placed. But this may be said for the Count d'Artois, that he always disapproved of the excesses of his own party, and if he pardoned them, it was from a noble feeling-that of never forgetting the services of an old friend, and which induced him to forgive slight or temporary errors. In this point Charles X. differs widely from Louis XVIII.: his affections are strong, and constant as they are strong; he will make few political changes, save to recompense the zeal, fidelity, and constant friendship of the com panions of his exile; and that he is no friend to absolute power, will be evident from the suppression of the cen sorship, which will be taken off almost immediately. His mind is not so culti vated by study as that of the late King; but whatever superiority Louis XVIII. had over him in that respect, it was more than counterbalanced by that ha bitual suffering, which paralysed the understanding and affected the judgment. The King is healthy; he is in the full possession of all his faculties; he can see with his own eyes and judge for himself; and there is little doubt of France being happy and prosperous during his reign, for the rising spirit of rebellion is put down, and its elements dispersed.* * We give this interesting account as we have received it, knowing the ample means our Correspondent possesses of obtaining the best informa» tion, where he is not a personal observer. Where we might differ from him in opinion, we have refrained from urging our views, because we do nat feel that we enjoy such good grounds whereon to form a judgment. |