both. The most miserable of creatures are those who do not avail themselves of their means for attaining the end, for which Nature has destined them. Now what other destination can a woman have, than that of becoming a wife and mother? When talents and accomplishments are well employed, they procure husbands for young ladies, and furnish them with all that is requisite for bringing up a family. In fact, young ladies, by studying the modern languages, qualify themselves for instructing their children, and especially their daughters, which will afford them the pleasure of performing the noblest and tenderest of duties, and likewise that of saving the money, which is too frequently thrown away on worthless masters. They will, moreover, be relieved from the necessity of sending to the Continent for governesses, who cannot leave behind them the habits of their respective countries, or conceal them, without assuming in England a thicker veil of prudery and hypocrisy. Previously to marriage, during marriage, and even in old age, the accomplishments of females ought to tend to one single object that of love: and the same instinct of loving, which makes young girls coquettes, warms even the selfish souls of grandmothers, with tender, domestic affections. But now-a-days, Vien la fanciulla fra la dotta schiera, BERNI, Orlando Innamorato. There was a girl, among the learned squad, Her looks had frighted Cupid from the field. With a view to gratify young ladies of this class, we shall conclude with a string of learned quotations.--In the select, exalted, and solemn assemblies of fashionable life, there is an attraction to learned women, which surrounds every distinguished individual of the stronger sex; and he comes to participate the divine power of women, by being an object of their mutual admiration. Ille Deum vitam accipiet, divisque videbit Permixtos heroas, et ipse videbitur illis,---VIRGIL. and at the balls at Almack's, and the Argyll Rooms, Ubi suevit illa Divæ volitare vaga cohors,---CATULLUS. and where almost always Pubertate ferox juvenis, viridique juventa, festam primus celebrare choream, primus captare susurrum Virgineum, lepidique argutum murmur amoris, Museum Crit. IV. 1814. which, in plain English, means that young gentlemen leave the universities in order to flirt with young ladies. But young ladies— Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet,---HORACE. venture to launch out chiefly into literary discussions, and many a Grace, and many a Nymph is transformed into a Sibyl: Bacchatur demens aliena per antrum Colla ferens, vittasque Dei, Phoebeaque serta, Erectis discussa comis. LUCAN. We are, nevertheless, assured that one of the ancient Sibyls exclaimed: Αἱ αἱ ἐγὼ δουλὴ τι γενήσομαι ηματι τῳδε ; Oracula Sibyllina. Ah, wretched virgin! what shall be my fate? When the cold wings of Time, in his silent and invisible passage, begin to weave wrinkles at the external angles of the eyes of young ladies, and to freeze the freshness of their lips, then it is that they are desirous of shewing that they have profited, by the lapse of years, to adorn their minds. Then it is that they obstinately dispute, like Amazons, the literary victory with some old pedant, who at length loses all patience, and, renouncing a gallantry, which is of no service to him, grapples with his enemy, or attacks her at a distance with a volley of epigrams, and never forgives her, till she lies prostrate at his feet. And then? Thy graceful form instilling soft desire, Thy curling tresses and thy silver lyre, Beauty and youth---in vain to these you trust, When youth and beauty shall be laid in dust. Iliad. After these lines of the first poet that ever lived, by the most elegant of his interpreters, we dare not prolong our quotations, or say, what we should have done, concerning a poem, "On Blue Stocking Ladies," which has just reached us in manuscript. The writer may be a man of merit, but his work and its object are very mean. What end does it answer to satirize without flattering at the same time, and to retail bon-mots in bitter verses? or to point, almost with the finger, at the person, whom one's shafts are aimed at? Such a proceeding serves only to furnish food for the malignity and gossip of the beautiful and the young, without correcting the pedantry of the plain and the old. A single passage appears tolerable, and had not the author spun it out into thirty-four couplets, it would have been tolerably amusing. We will, therefore, translate it concisely into plain prose : "Some ladies at * took it into their heads to mount the horse Pegasus; but he is a wild animal, which absolutely requires to be reined in by a masculine hand. When, therefore, the impatient steed perceived the weakness and inexperience of his female riders, away he scampered, the devil knows whither, but apparently into the thickest clouds, and such as were most impregnated with smoke. At last he shook them from his back, and down the poor creatures dropped in the middle of a ball or assembly-room, with their dresses in the utmost disorder, and of a dirty blue colour, very different from that lovely tint, which the French denominate bleu du ciel." ЕРІТАРН. GEORGE CHARLES CANNING, The Right Honourable George Canning, Died March 31st, 1820. Though short thy span, God's unimpeach'd decrees, And, since this world was not the world for thee, Oh! mark'd from birth, and nurtur'd for the skies! Simple, as unwean'd infancy, and pure! Pure from all stain (save that of human clay, Ir was a lovely sight to witness, when, At times would fill the eyes, and ease the heart.--- Have cast on Juno, when that skiey queen First shew'd her unto Jove smiling, was born : A gentle link of love, yet firmer far Than bonds, (tho' useful these,) or forced vows (More beautiful than words) and murmur'd sounds, Gentle and wedded Love, how fair art thou,--- Without a sigh or backward look of sorrow: By doubt, or vain remorse, or desperate fear. Pass hand in hand, and young-eyed Hope, whose glance C. THE PROOF-SHEET. "In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men."-SHAKSPEARE. I WAS awakened the other morning, at ten o'clock, from the charms of a soothing morning dream, succeeding a feverish night, by my servant at my door, "Sir, if you please, Mr. has sent, for the third time, for the proof-sheet of that Essay on the Influence of Kant's Philosophy; for the New Monthly.". The printer's devil, and Kant's Philosophy, at such a moment! The shade of Dido was not more unwelcome to Eneas, or the apparition of Banquo to Macbeth. "Tell him, it shall be ready in two hours."-"But, Sir, he says, the press is waiting; and the compositors and overseer swore they would horsewhip him if he came back without it."-" He must be horsewhipped then, and I'll remunerate him, when the next number is out." A respite of a few hours was thus obtained. I laid myself down, re-adjusted my pillow, drew over me the comfortable duvet, which, notwithstanding Coleridge's abuse, I always sleep under since I passed the winter at Weimar, and again "addressed myself to sleep," or dreaming. But the charm was dissolved, the fairy tissue was destroyed, and could not be re-woven. Nothing remained but to slip on my dressing-gown, and arm myself for the encounter with the dreadful sheet, by a strong cup of Mocha coffee, and a French roll. The morning-paper, fresh with the dews of the printing-press, was on my table; a blooming Edinburgh, in blue and yellow costume, wooed me with irresistible virgin charms. The very idea, at this moment, of the proof-sheet, of the horrible corrections, the revisions, the expungings, the interlineations, which it would entail on me, gave me an indescribable frissonnement, a cold ague fit. Even the known accuracy of Messrs. Bentley's compositors could not re-assure me. In the mean time, while I poured out my coffee, my sage of a servant, with that sort of Mentor-like prudence and consideration, which an old servant, who knows a young master's ways, acquires, of his own accord, looked out for the dreaded object, on which he deemed it fitting that his master should be employed. "You need not poke your nose into all the table-drawers. Pshaw! there it is, tied up with red tape."-" No, Sir, if you please, that's the print of that there poetry book, that Lady B- asked you to write a review on, before it was published."-" Blockhead! what is that bundle in the window?"-"Oh, that 's the article prophesying that Bonypart would reign half as long as Louis XIV., which was to be printed in the Review, when you know, Sir, the Duke drubbed him at Waterloo." After a bouleversement of sundry bundles of embryo MS. and half-finished sketches, and various |