mous power of the Medici, against the foreign invaders of Italy, is almost proved by the last chapter of "the Prince." His idea of thus turning to a patriotic account a calamity he had in vain struggled to avert, is pregnant with political wisdom; and it derives an additional interest from its coincidence with the opinion of many enlightened Italians of the present day, who have been tempted to look even abroad for a major force to consolidate Italy into one nation, and thus to prepare the seeds of a future independence. Such an idea as this must have powerfully tended to reconcile Machiavelli to the loss of a municipal and republican freedom, which external force and internal corruption had alike rendered precarious, bloody, and turbulent; and at the same time it affords the best apology for that political tergiversation, which casts so deep a shadow on the close of a long life, intrepid patriotism, and active service. Be this, however, as it may, the spectacle which Machiavelli offers in his old age, worn out with fatigue and disappointment, surviving the liberty he adored, and the firmness of soul which ranked him amongst the most splendid patriots of a splendid age, affords a memorable lesson of the instability of human affairs, the vanity of human hopes, and the necessity of judging conduct, under all circumstances, with charity and moderation. M.

CONSTANTINOPLE.

In ancient days, when on for Salem's wall
The avenger came at Heaven's mysterious call,
Portents and signs arose to every eye,

Marks were on earth and meteors in the sky;
Dreams scared the old, and visions struck the young,
And every tomb or temple found a tongue;

The dead walk'd forth-the living heard their call,
And if they fell, they fell forewarn'd of all.
-Not such the signs that in her hour of gloom
Came to foretell Byzantium of her doom;

Not such the marks, that warn'd her of her fate,
When the besieger thunder'd at her gate,
When every dreary morn's returning light
Gave but the Crescent glittering in her sight,

When from her towers in grief she mark'd below
Myriads of warriors, and in each a foe;
Hordes from all realms in wild barbaric pride,
Loading the land and swarming on the tide.
-Still though no deep mysterious sign was given,
To speak the anger or the aid of Heaven;
Though no dread warning stood exposed in air,
To lend the lost the firmness of despair,
Even though no spectre rose upon the eye,
To tell the recreant 'twas not hard to die-
Yet was there one, who in that day of grief
Gazed round all hopeless, reckless of relief.
Ere the first weak one at the breach gave way,
Untold he traced the hurrying of decay,
Unwarn'd he felt that ruin mark'd the wall,
That strife was vain-and he had but to fall-
That the long glories of his race were past—
But his it was to guard them to the last.

This thought-this task-this wretchedness was thine,
Injured, unaided, martyr'd Constantine !

F.

GRIMM'S GHOST.

LETTER XI.

THE Clubs of London, in their variety and hostility, resemble the Clans of Scotland. The Highland lass ridicules the Lowland lads. So the spurred and booted member of Brookes's, casting an eye of scorn up the vista of Albemarle-street, dubs the Alfred a congress of bluestocking old women. The Union sets at nought the Verulam, while the brethren of the latter think that, with the title of Lord Bacon, they have exclusively inherited no small portion of his learning and sagacity. The Beef steak club meets under the roof of the Lyceum; Rich, its founder, was proprietor of Covent-garden theatre: e-go, its members must eat and drink within Thespian walls. Partridge would have dubbed this a non sequitur; but logic in his day was only in its infancy. The Thespian club assembles at Molard's tavern in Great Russell-street. Every syllable there uttered must smack of the sidescene. If you drink with your neighbour, it is "Measure for Measure.” In raising the glass you exclaim, "So the King drinks to Hamlet:" and if you differ in opinion with the gentleman who sits next to you, you ejaculate with Marc Antony, "O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth." The two coteries last-mentioned pique themselves upon their intellects, and speak with utter scorn of the Eccentrics in Maidenlane, who black their faces with burned cork: while the latter shrug their shoulders at the bare mention of the Catamarans, where merit consists in mere noise; and from whose symposium in Martlet-court are heard the heart-quailing sounds of brass pans, mail-horns, shrieks, yells, and gunpowder explosions.

Not the least singular establishment of this kind is the "Unsuccessful" club at the Bedford, so called from its members having failed in dramatic writing. One damned farce entitles a man to be a member, instanter. If his comedy be withdrawn after the second night, he must be ballotted for. But if his tragedy be hissed off during the first act, he comes in by acclamation, and may order what dinner he pleases. The perpetual president, with a silver catcall at his button-hole, attained that eminence by a long career of damnation. He proudly boasts that, during a seven years' probation, his most endurable dramatic bantling was a melodrame that set every body asleep. He counts his hisses as a warrior does his wounds, and hopes in time, by dint of bad acting, to make the people in the pit tear up the benches.

The last association, upon which I shall rather dilate, is called the Epigram Club. Young Culpepper, whom I immortalized in my letter previous to the last, is a member. At the close of that epistle I left him with his family, and the elegant Captain Augustus Thackeray, prepared to adjourn on the following evening to the Adelphi theatre to witness the performance of Tom and Jerry. Five in number, they mounted a hackney coach. The captain, ashamed of his coadjutors, shrank back, and dreaded recognition all the way from Ludgate-hill to the corner of Cecil-street. It was a vain apprehension: every man calling himself a Christian at half after six is dressing for dinner. The coach drew up opposite Adam-street. Surprised at the quietness. of the rabble, the party dismounted, and on going up to the door of the

theatre found it closed. It was the first Wednesday in Lent! I will not mention, "to ears polite," the place to which the elder Culpepper consigned the Lord Chamberlain. Still, the execration was not "Sesamy;" so the portals continued closed. "We have nothing left for it," said the father, as he bundled the two ladies back into the coach, "but to return as wise as we came." 66 Suppose you and I go to the Epigram Club," said the son to the captain. The latter thought any port better than the storm of the slopseller, and gladly acceded to the proposal. "Where do you meet?" said the dragoon, as he and his companion hastily turned up Southampton-street. "At the Wrekin,” answered the other; "you will find it a very agreeable lounge: I hope you have got an epigram ready." "Geud Gad! not I," ejaculated the son of Mars. "I know a great many songs. I know 'Drink to me only,' and 'Fly not yet,' and 'Believe me of all these endearing young charms,' and the first verse of 'Had I a heart.' But as to epigrams I only know one which begins-" Here the hero was cut short in his narrative by an encounter with two waiters, who, with a brace of napkins and five brace of bows, ushered the two gentlemen upstairs. The company had assembled, and the dinner was upon the table. Captain Thackeray and young Culpepper had already dined upon cold beef and cucumbers in Savage-gardens. This, however, made no difference. Like James Boswell the elder, who regularly dined at the Sheriff of London's table twice in each day during the Old Bailey sessions, the two friends felt a returning appetite, and played as good a knife and fork as if nothing had happened.

On the removal of the cloth, the president gave three knocks with his hammer upon a table, whose dinted surface bore evident tokens of many former attacks of the same sort. Silence being procured, he commenced his harangue by reminding the society, that, there, nobody was required to sing: that it was gothic barbarity to call upon a gentleman to struggle with a cold and hoarseness: that the organs of singing were frequently deranged, those of speaking very seldom : and, therefore, that the usages of this institution were highly rational, inasmuch as no man was there called upon for a song, but every man for an epigram. Then, addressing himself to the member on his right, with the most amusing gravity, he exclaimed, "Mr. Merryweather, may I trouble you for an epigram?" Mr. Merryweather, thus accosted, begged to remind the company that on the Bow-street side of Covent-garden Theatre, stood a statue of Comedy and another of Tragedy. "You are right, sir," said Culpepper, "and they both look so sober that it would puzzle Garrick himself to say which was which." "You have hit it, sir," answered Merryweather; "upon that circumstance hinges my epigram. It is as follows:

With steady mien, unalter'd eye,
The Muses mount the pile.

Melpomene disdains to cry,
Thalia scorns to smile.

Pierian springs when moderns quaff,

'Tis plainly meant to shew,

Their Comedy excites no laugh,

Their Tragedy no woe."

A pretty general knocking of glasses upon the table denoted that this sally told well; and the society, as in duty bound, drank Mr. Merryweather's health. "Mr. Morris," said the deputy chairman to a member on his right hand, "were you at the late masquerade at the Opera House?" "I was," answered Morris, with all the elation which is felt by a man who thinks he sees an opening for throwing in a good thing. "I went with Lump the leatherseller. He wore a Domino, but he wanted to go in character."-"What character?"-" Charles the Second."-" Indeed! and what made him alter his determination ?""My epigram."-"Oh pray let us have it."-"Certainly.

To this night's masquerade, quoth Dick,

By pleasure I am beckon'd,
And think 'twould be a pleasant trick
To go as Charles the Second.

Tom felt for repartee athirst,
And thus to Richard said:

You'd better go as Charles the First,
For that requires no head."

"Bravo," ejaculated the president, "your health, Mr. Morris: I think you are in a fair way of winning the silver medal. I don't think any of your successors will beat that. But we shall see. Mr. Vice, you will please to call upon Mr. Snaggs. We must take him in time, or the Hampstead stage will be too sharp for us." Snaggs, who for the last five minutes had been fidgetting and looking at his watch, with as much disengaged hilarity as falls to the lot of any married man, who is tied down to stage-coach hours, started from a reverie, and begged to inform the company, that in his village resided a physician and a vicar, who often walked arm in arm together. "Which circumstance," said Snaggs," induced me to squib at them after the following fashion: How D. D. swaggers, M. D. rolls!

1 dub them both a brace of noddies: Old D. D. has the Cure of souls,

And M. D. has the Care of bodies.

Between them both, what treatment rare
Our souls and bodies must endure,
One has the Cure without the Care,

And one the Care without the Cure."

The applause which followed this effusion, was so much louder than that which was excited by Mr. Morris, that the latter began to tremble for his silver medal. His fears, however, were groundless. Snaggs again looked at his watch, snatched up his hat, and, like the landlord in Joseph Andrews, " ran down stairs without any fear of breaking his neck."

The president now looked at his watch also: it pointed to the hour of nine: he exchanged a significant glance with the vice-president, (who also officiated as secretary); and the latter cast his eyes towards a mahogany box in the window-seat, and began to fumble for his keys. "Silence, gentlemen," exclaimed the former, "and listen to a report of our committee, setting forth the objects and prospects of this institution." The secretary then drew forth a red morocco bound book, and proceeded to business.

The report commenced by stating, that the object of the Epigram

Club was to induce writers and speakers in general, by their precept and example, to compress what they might have to utter, into as small a compass as possible. The report dilated upon the alarming increase of forensic and parliamentary eloquence, and then enumerated the number of epigrams which, with a view of stopping the farther increase of the mischief, the committee had caused to be distributed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, a great portion of which had been translated into the Hindostan and Catabaw languages; so that, to adopt their own phraseology, "they had the heartfelt delight of epigrammatizing the naked Gentoo and the tattooed Otaheitean." The report then stated, that, by the exertions of the committee, seventeen epic poems had been strangled in their birth. As a special instance of the efficacy of their labours, the report mentioned that Major Cartwright, at a late meeting at the Mermaid at Hackney, had reduced his oration within the compass of seven hours; and that Mr. Gale Jones had not said the same thing more than seven times. The committee concluded by lamenting that in the midst of their apparently prosperous career, the dæmon of Circumbendibus (so was he denominated in the report) had suddenly reared his hydra head, and, though pelted by a large assortment of cheap epigrams, had maintained a running fight until he had reached his camp in the liberties of Westminster. The report added, that the dæmon had lately" grown fat and kicked," in his two strongest citadels, the Court of King's Bench and Saint Stephen's Chapel. But that, aided by the Speaker in the latter, and the Judges in the former, Members and junior Counsel were henceforth to be limited in their harangues and that, upon the whole, the committee relied with confidence on the hope, that in the process of a century or so, lawyers and senators would be forced either to speak in epigram, or to hold their tongues.

A dry subject, Mr. Secretary," exclaimed the chairman. "Mr. Daffodil, pray favour us with an epigram." This request was addressed to a slender young man, who sat like a lily drooping,' and had all the air of having been recently jilted. Thus called upon, he started from the reverie in which he appeared to be plunged, and in a silver tone spoke as follows:

"To Flavia's shrine two suitors run

And woo the fair at once:

A needy fortune-hunter one,

And one a wealthy dunce.

How, thus twin-courted, she 'll behave
Depends upon this rule-

If she's a fool she'll wed the knave,
And if a knave the fool."

This effort was received with some applause, but it did not quite amount to a hit. The company seemed to opine that knave and fool were not fit names to call a lady. It mattered little what they thought, young Daffodil had relapsed into his reverie. The following was pronounced considerably better:

"My thrifty spouse, her taste to please,
With rival dames at auctions vies;
She doats on every thing she sces,
And every thing she doats on buys.