young ones, if a younger lord has not come to his time. To sit seriously and at ease with battered beauties and decayed dowagers, in winter-evenings, and look as if he had never been happier; and, if possible, remember the best days of the dowagers, and forget when the Honourable Miss Tittermouth combed her own hair, and giggled among her own teeth. To wait on lovely countesses at Almack's, between the dances; and serve lemonades, ices, and jellies with a page's precision, and a prince's politeness of back and body. To say handsome things to the ordinary Miss Honourables, and look unutterably handsome things to the beautiful ones. To shop with them at the jeweller's, once in a way; and admire their taste when they prefer French filigree to English reality and sterlingness. At the opera, to cry bravo for weak-voiced elderly lords, when Camporese sings; and clap no louder than the same, when fairy-footed Fanny Bias dances. These are his principal amusements, and, all together, they make up a very harmless sort of nice being, which one can no more object to than one can to honey and bread for breakfast, honey and biscuit for luncheon, honey and French-roll for dinner, honey and ladies'-fingers for tea, and honey and gingerbread for supper. C. S. W. B.

UGOLINO.*

THEN paused the sinner from his foul repast,
And from his mouth the gory remnants cast;
Till, cleansed his lips from clotted blood and hair,

The gloomy tale his accents thus declare:

"Thou ask'st a thing, whose thought to desperate pain
The past recalling, harrows up my brain;

And, ere my tongue the direful scene unroll,
Remember'd anguish loads my wretched soul.

But should these words, these tears, with guilt and shame
Blast in the realms of day the traitor's name,

Whose hateful scull with ravening tooth I bare

Nor words this mouth, nor tears these eyes shall spare.
"Who thou may'st be, and through the realms of pain
How thou hast wander'd here, to guess were vain;

But the sweet accent of my native land

Bespeaks thee born on Arno's flowery strand.
Count Ugolino was my name;-my prey
This felon's scull once did a mitre sway;
Ruggiero was he call'd;-now learn the cause
Of this our doom by Hell's unerring laws.
My faith by him abused-my hapless fate
Consign'd to chains, 'twere needless to relate;
But the dark secrets of that prison drear

Thou hast not heard-and now thou art to hear.

Count Ugolino de' Gherardeschi sought to obtain the sovereignty of Pisa in 1288, and joined Ruggieri degli Ubaldini against Nino di Gallura. The former obtained their object, but afterwards quarrelling, Ruggieri betrayed Ugolino by false representations, and heading the enraged people, they imprisoned him and two of his sons in a tower on the Piazza degli Anzioni, where they were starved to death. The tower has since been called "La torre della fame," The tower of famine. See Dante, Inferno, Canto 33.

"Full many a moon had shot a silvery dew
Through the small chink that air'd our narrow mew-
The Tower of Famine, named from me (nor I
The only wretch there doomed immure to die),
When, as I slept, a dream of awful power
Rent the dark veil that shrouds the future hour.
Methought to those fair hills with olives green
Which Pisa's haughty walls from Lucca screen,
Ruggiero, proud in hot and arduous chase,
Held a dark wolf and all his brindled race;
Gualandi, Sismond, Lanfranc led the way,
And fierce and meagre hounds pursued the prey.
Short space the weary brutes have strength to fly;
They faint-they sink-the hunters yell-they die.
Breathless I wake, and hear a feeble scream,—
Oh God! it is my little ones that dream;

་

I hear them moan, as wrapt in sleep they lie,
And, Father, give us bread,' they faintly cry.
Think, mortal, then what flash'd upon my brain;
And in that thought if thou from tears refrain,
Stern, stern indeed art thou, and pitiless of pain,
And now, our slumbers past, the hour draws nigh
That brings of daily food the scant supply.
Silent we sit, and lost in thoughtful gloom,
In the dark dream each scans the coming doom;
When the drear tower shook with a horrid jar-
It was the clang of bolts and creaking of the bar.
Then all was silent;-for I did not moan-
Despair and horror froze my soul to stone.
I gazed upon the innocents-and they
Wept sorely-and I heard one falt'ring say
(My little Anselm) Father, look not so
What ails thee, father?-in that day of wo
I spake not, wept not;-nor in the long night
That follow'd-nor till broke the morning light;
When, as my image in the wretched four,
Paternity's sweet pledge, I saw once more,
In bitterness of grief my very hands I tore;
And they, believing that for want of bread
I gnaw'd my flesh, quick started up and said,
Feed on us, father! less will be the pain,-

Thou gav'st these wretched limbs, and take them back again.'
I then was silent, that I might not wring

Their tender souls with added suffering.

That day in silence, and the next were pass'd

Oh God! Oh God! why were they not the last!
The fourth morn, at my feet, in agony

·

My Gaddo fell! and Help me, father, why
Dost thou not help me!' was the dying cry
Of that dear child; and thus the other three,
Ere the sixth morn arrived, had ceased to be.
Famine and tears then quench'd the visual light,
And, staggering sightless in the grave of night,
I sought my children-and these fingers stray'd.
O'er their cold limbs, and with their features play'd.
Three days I call'd their names-but they were dead;
The fourth in ling'ring pangs the father's spirit fled."
Thus spake the Fiend; and as he spake, his eyes
Shot forth askaunt the wrath that never dies."
With grin malign he clench'd the traitor's head,
And to their vengeful task his teeth indurate sped,
* "Muda."-Dante.

LETTER TO THE REVIEWERS OF "ITALY;

INCLUDING

An Answer to a Pamphlet, entitled "Observations upon the Calumnies and Misrepresentations in Lady Morgan's ITALY.”

BY LADY MORGAN.

"Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task."-Pope.

"Mere rogues

.... but they are friends.

One is his printer in disguise, and keeps

His press in an hollow tree, where, to conceal him,
He works by glow-worm light; the moon's too open→→
The other zealous rag is the compositor,

Who in an angle, where the ants inhabit,"

(The emblems of his labour) will sit curl'd

Whole days and nights, and work his eyes out."

Time Vindicated, B. Jonson.

Ir has been started as an objection to my work on Italy, that it had no Preface. Many reasons might be assigned for the omission:-one may suffice-I had nothing to say.

"Talking of the Alps and Apennines,
The Pyrenean and the river Po,"

I had exhausted even my woman's garrulity; and was as weary of my pen, at the end of my two quarto volumes, as I had been of my carriage, at the conclusion of my two years' journey. Even still I should be unable to "furnish forth" a preface, had not the inditers of daily criticism supplied me with the necessary de quoi, by the blundering manner in which they have performed their task of filling up the interval, which has accidentally occurred, between the publication of my work, and the quarterly and monthly apparition of the "All hails hereafter."

It is now, I believe, twelve or fourteen years since the supposed literary organ of Government gave the word to all subaltern scribes to bear down upon and attack whatever I should print: and the public will allow that the "ragamuffins" of this "ancient Pistol" (who, by the bye, like Sir John Falstaff, has

"have done their spiriting" faithfully, if not "gently." They have attacked me in every point where the woman was most susceptible, the author most sensitive. They have attacked my public profession, and private character, my person, my prin

ciples, my country, my friends, my kindred, even my dress. They have done every thing to injure, but-praise me; for, after all,

"It is their slaver kills, and not their bite."

Hitherto, I have been, for the interests perhaps of truth and of literature, something too loth "to stir at these indignities." Even now, if I come forth among my nameless assailants, "I swear by yea and nay," or any other pretty oath, 'tis more in fun than fear-less in spite than sport. The shafts they have long let fly at me, and all that is dearest to me, have been shot from masked batteries, and "dipped in double venom." The arrow with which I return their assault, will fall poisonless, though not perhaps pointless. Mine, I trust, will be true lady's archery, fair, though irregular; my aim taken in the garish eye of daymy name announced-my cognizance blazoned-my device known-and my heart worn, as it always has been,

"On my sleeve, for (even) daws to peck at."

Thus simply armed and frankly avowed, unmasked, unshielded but by truth, alone in the midst of my ambushed foes, I take my ground;

"And as I truly fight, so help me Heaven."

The accidental circumstance of being born and educated in a land stamped with the impress of six centuries of degradationthe natural tendency of a female temperament to a prompt, uncalculating sympathy-and the influence of that stirring quality called indignation (as often a constitutional as a moral affection) -gave a direction to my feelings, and a colour to my mind and writings, which from my "youth upwards" have remained unchanged and indelible.

Ireland, the country of my birth and my commiseration, became, almost in childhood, my inspiration and my theme; and with little reading, less judgment, but not one interested view, (for when was youth sordid?) I embraced the cause of the Irish Catholics, of whom, personally, I knew not one. Beginning with the adaptation of some old Irish melodies to old Irish tales, badly translated, I pursued my vocation, in riper years, through a series of national novels, which, had they been written with as much talent as zeal, might have been powerfully efficacious in the cause they advocated. They had, however, a rapid circulation both abroad and at home; and they excited some interest for those to whose service they were devoted.

Hitherto, as an Irish novelist, all my politics lay in my heart: but my subsequent visits to the Continent, by extending the sphere of observation, induced the necessity for research. I saw much, read much, heard much and was aided by one whose sound judgment, philosophical mind, and firm principles, were

well calculated to correct a woman's rapid inferences, and keep down the tone of a novelist's high-colouring fancy:-I had, besides, the benefit of the most liberal and literary society in Europe.

Under circumstances thus favourable, I was tempted to abandon for a time, the track of inventive composition; and produced successively my "France" and " Italy." In these works I attempted to expose the evils of despotic governments, in opposition to the blessings and benefits of a representative government:-to display the fatal effects of a powerful and intolerant superstition, as opposed to the enlightened doctrines of rational and revealed religion. I did this (at a moment when the dogmas of Toryism ran highest) at all risks and at all sacrifices. Profit, pleasure, and distinction, for myself, and for those for whose sake they would have been most valuable, might have been the recompense of a more prudent direction of my trifling talents:* persecution, privation, and calumny, were the inevitable result of that line which, with more honesty than discretion, I voluittarily adopted.†

This will not appear a vain boast, when the miserable stuff is considered, which fills the periodical sheets of the ministerial press; and which is purchas ed by pensions, places, and honours, more proportionate to the sacrifice of principle and of respectability required for its production, than to the literary talent evinced in its composition. Whoever writes for the interests of the public, must seek his recompense in the approbation of his own conscience. "Honours and emoluments," (says Lord Orford) "are in the gift of the Crown. The Nation has no separate treasury to reward its friends.""

As Reviews, political and literary, in France and England, were not found sufficiently influential in suppressing my writings, whole volumes were got up by the Ultras of both countries. One, for instance, was published by Colonel Du P, now a member of the Institute of France. This gentleman introduced himself at my house in Dublin, (having no other mode of making my acquaintance,) where he was hospitably entertained, and presented to many per sons of rank and fashion. A few weeks after his departure, appeared his book written against my "France." When Mr. Du Pread to me the complimentary passages in the opening of his MS. I little guessed the virulence which was to be displayed, upon a purely literary topic, in its subsequent pages.

Much about the same time appeared another work, which was said to be the production of the same person who translated my "France" so falsely, that I was compelled to protest against it in the French journals; and who brought out. a garbled translation of Florence Macarthy, in opposition to one done under my own eye, to which he prefixed a life, less faithful and veracious than the translation itself.-At the expiration of three years, appeared Mr. Playfair's "France, not the France of Lady Morgan," of which I know nothing but from the extracts given of it in the papers (being abroad at the time of its publication). In these extracts, however, there were the foulest falsifications of my text: one in particular, in an anecdote respecting my friend Madame Jerome Bonaparte (Mrs. Patterson).

Criticisms and a biography of me, in a French publication, were also written, as I have reason to know, by two ladies (British) of notorious character, whom I refused to visit.-Against " Italy" a heavy pamphlet has appeared, accusing me of "calumnies" against Lord Bentinck. This is said to be the production of a military officer, holding distinguished appointments under the British Govern

ment.