Aula imitated ludicrously and fantastically by the camp. The day, long certain, though long delayed, at last arrived, and the short, pregnant telegraphic dispatch, "The Imperial troops are in possession of the city," told all. With them entered Jellachlich-not into a conquered, as many hold, but into a liberated town. It looked as if the capital had drawn in by some singular convulsion the blood from the extremities to the heart. All its far-off and heterogeneous elements were that day pressed together, visibly represented, written down in broad and flaring line and color, in its streets; strange sights, uncouth sounds; the many-handed and party-colored power, there for the first time self-conscious, actual and acting in one narrow sphere. Jellachlich entered, but not before he had driven back the Hungarians from the frontier, which he had passed in defiance of the people as he had sat at the "Bantafel" at Agram in defiance of the sovereign, in obedience as he held it to a higher order and wiser policy than that of either. At three o'clock on 2d of November, he entered at the head of a regiment, of cuirassiers, preceded by a division of the Sereschener corps-a wild and fierce mass, the famous "Red Mantles." Red caps, red cloaks, with dagger, and pistol, eastern-wise in belt, carbine, or rifle, or sabre in hand; "never saw I," says an eye-witness, a set of more thorough-looking bandits, in the whole course of my life." And in the midst of these, amongst them but not of them, rode the Ban, in his gray hussar cloak -a noble-looking personage of right gallant and knightly bearing. No sooner had he passed the Burgthor than salutations and vivats greeted him on every side; handkerchiefs waved from fair hands, men joined their shouts; while with that courtly and joyous grace which has always distinguished him, he returned the compliments with bows to the windows above, and with responding cheers to the crowds below. "Blushes of burning shame," says one who stood near him, "flushed up my cheek at the sight, familiar as I was with the versatility of the people, and taught not then for the first time to despise them." Yet there was some excuse for all this, both in those who knew the man, and in those who for the first time beheld him irrespective of all cause and purpose for which he No harsh deeds of blood, no reckless squandering of human life, no brutal trampling on the rights and fruits of civilization have been laid to his charge. He seems came. taken from the bosom of its most favored recesses, not to rouse or urge on barbarous hordes to the destruction of its glories, but to guide and control them as far as he can. He bears even in his externals the indications of this refinement. Jellachlich is scarcely of the middle size, not coarsely, but muscularly built, a man more of moral than physical power. His high and clear forehead, bald nearly of hair; his black, keen, and easily kindled eye, a grave yet friendly expression of countenance, but above all a singularly gentle melancholy about the mouth, mark a man in whom very opposite elements are favorably blended. Those best acquainted with his habitual existence, bear testimony to the accuracy with which these physical characteristics express the moral man. Kindliness and sociability are interwoven in his whole nature, always ready with word and deed, always equal, always accessible, he throws unreservedly his heart and door open to every sorrow, every wrong. Eager for all action, intellectual as well as bodily, distinguished as a statesman, not unknown as a writer, he is a stranger to no department, but his paramount, his true vocation is war. In character and conduct noble, of the most chivalrous valor and honor, generous, liberal, a true son, an ardent lover of his country, a soldier, poet, patriot combined, master not of the arms only but of the inmost hearts of his countrymen, he seems to stand out from the general mass of historic personages of our day, as destined to perform not merely a romantic, but a great part, in the history of a mighty futurity. And to this, not his own will alone may lead him, but the very necessities by which, as by Greek fate, or Mahommedan fatalism, he seems to be borne on. "Vienna is in the hands of the Imperial troops," is not the whole of this history; the epoch closes not here. Who will say that the rude expression of the Frankfort orator The Austrian empire is a black-yellow lie" (eine schwarzgelbe lüge)-be false or true? Who will say, that it is a heap of fragments, or an incorporation of states? Who will say that the object which kept together the assailants during the moment of attack being now gained, it will no longer prevent them from breaking out into discord again? The Vienna, and the Diet, and the Aula questions, may be settled, but is it not only to make way for the Magyar, the Sclavonian, the Servian, the Tzechian, and the Italian, lowering gloomily behind? Should Hungary succeed, straight snaps asunder the last link which binds her to the empire. Should the empire succeed, should Jellachlich at last be enabled to humble or restrain her, who can answer even in his despite, for the justice or the wisdom of the Imperial Camarilla, after such proofs of the puny intrigue and Stuart-like faithlessness with which it played with events and nations, even against him? Is Austria prepared to listen to the call of Prague, and to set herself up as the Sclavonic empire of Europe, expurging herself of Germanism and Magyarism at the same time? Who in the midst of such repellants working inwardly, can look with hope abroad for the iron hand of some Otho or Frederick to compress and consolidate her anew? Cohesion wanting, what other energy can supply its place? Where the centripetal is not, and the centrifugal is in such furious action, who can doubt, sooner or later, of the inevitable result? And in the breaking loose of this planet from its orbit, in the breaking up of this Austrian world into fragments and smaller worlds of its own, in the resolving into kingdoms what now is empire, who may say how much, or what may fall to the lot of any nation or of any men? Here, as elsewhere, mind will command matter, and people, for their own sakes, re-arrange themselves under some | symbol, some guaranty of order, of permanence, of certainty-under chiefs or kings. Half of those who have become such in the history of mankind, have been long masters in the hearts of the people before they were written down in document or title-sovereigns. As Hapsburg began, so may Jellachlich begin. The Ban-viceroy of Croatia is not stranger in sound or fact, than the Pashaviceroy of Egypt, in a decaying monarchy, first its officer, then its rival, then one of its monarchs himself. In such a parcelling or promotion, an Illyrian, a Croatian, a South Sclavonian crown is quite as natural as a Prussian, a Westphalian, or a Hanoverian. Margraves and Electors are not better stuff for such dignities than Bans. And, above all, it should be remembered, the cause has been, and is, Sclavonic and the head of Pansclavism; the Czar will take care that a member of the race, and virtually, if not nominally, his feudatory-" aura toujours droit." "Le premier qui fut roi, fut un soldat heureux!" says the poet. Few periods are more likely to give a new illustration of the aphorism than the present, few soldiers more fitted to justify it, than the Ban Jellachlich. From Tait's Magazine. OLD MUSIC AND PICTURES. THIS old-world music sounds to-night, within the dear familiar room, Of mirthful hours and careless hearts, of fair young faces they would tell, And they would breathe of death and woe-within the self-same chamber sped Old pictures! ye have seen far more than mortal ken may ever know, Beloved ones were listening then, cheered by the well-known homely strain- From the English Review. HUMORISTS-DICKENS AND THACKERAY. 1. Dombey and Son. By CHARLES DICKENS. Bradbury & Evans. 1848. 2. Vanity Fair. By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. Bradbury & Evans. 1848. AVOID "foolish talking and jesting," says the Apostle, which are not convenient;" and the inspired preacher hath taught us, "sorrow is better than laughter." Nevertheless, there is "a time to weep, and a time to laugh." "To the pure all things are pure." The jesting of the heathen world was profane and unclean; to Christian ears "it was altogether abominable." Even like sinful were its " banquetings" and "revellings," though our blessed Lord scrupled not to prefigure the rejoicings in heaven over "one sinner that repenteth" by earthly feasting, dancing, and merriment, and has thus indirectly sanctioned all of these. For, though the world be nothing out of Him, yet in Him it may be much to us, and the Christian rule is to cultivate, innocently and freely, "whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure and lovely." Now, laughter, in itself, is innocent; in childhood, it is often "lovely." Inconsistency and imperfection, the consequences of sin, are undoubtedly the sources of the ludicrous. In heaven there can be nothing incongruous, nothing out of place, nothing, therefore, it should seem, provocative of laughter; for it is the imperfect realization of the mind's ideal which alone appears absurd; as where great pretensions are combined with small performances, or good intentions with silly and inadequate deeds. The laughter of childhood might be supposed derivable from another source: it seems to well forth from an inexhaustible fountain of enjoyment; the pure overflowings of delight, which take this channel of expression: and yet childhood, even, is liable to those perceptions of the ludicrous which arise from manifest incongruities. But if an habitually grave, or indeed any elder person, contort the features and make wry "faces," in playing with a child, that child will almost invariably fall into ecstacies of laughter: or, if the nurse, or "papa" or "mamma" pretend to be afraid and runs away from a little one, bursts of glad merriment will surely be elicited. Nay, it is oddity and incongruity with the quietude of other things, which makes the very infant clap its hands and crow when the silver bells are made to sound before it. Many other equally familiar instances of the influence exercised by incongruity over childhood might be enumerated, but we think we have said enough to prove our point. Certain it is, however, that if the mirth of very early years is sometimes the mere ebullition of animal spirits unconnected with any perception of the ludicrous, the laughter of maturity is almost invariably, if not invariably, prompted by imperfection of some kind, which is the concomitant of evil, and might therefore seem, in one sense, more worthy of tears than merriment. Puns, jeux de mot," and that entire class of sayings which pertain to the category of wit, are rarely provocative of hearty laughter. It is humor which stirs the inner man to mirth. We may smile at Ben Jonson, but Shakspeare makes us "roar." Sometimes, however, humor may blend with wit, even in a pun, through the incongruous collocation of things, really most dissimilar and inimical to one another therein conveyed; such as the coupling of quakerlike gravity with, say, a lady's hat and feathers. But the truth is, that, in such cases, we generally find the humor ourselves which is provocative of laughter; we fancy, for instance, almost unconsciously, what a grave quaker's feelings might be at finding himself subjected to such a comparison, and the thought of his sadness makes us laugh. However, incongruity will be found in all such cases to lie at the root of the matter, if we do laugh; and incongruity is but a form and expression of imperfection. But is it right to laugh? Should we not rather cry? We reply-not as we are constituted for existence in this world. If the sight and presence of the imperfect could only move us to tears, or at least to grief, we should be so possessed with an unfathomable and boundless sorrow, that it would be practically impossible for us "to rejoice in the Lord alway." Were we enabled to realize, and that continually, the amount of sin and suffering which exists upon this earth, nay, were we compelled so to do by the organization of our being, we could never know a moment's peace; we must be always plunged in the abyss of woe. Under such circumstances the business of life would come utterly to an end, arts and sciences would be annihilated, and the human race itself would soon vanish from the face of this habitable globe. And this fact, implying the indispensable need of relaxation and happiness, in some degree, for the bare duration of humanity, supplies a sufficient answer to cavillers like poor Leigh Hunt, who tells us that all Christians, professing to believe in future torments, are either hypocrites or brutes; as their hearts and minds should be exclusively possessed with pity for their fellow-creatures, and their whole lives devoted to intercessory prayers for the doomed. It is true, that the loving and faithful Christian needs not to urge the insufficiency of human nature as his plea for pursuing rational happiness; for he knows that his God is just and merciful as he is great, and feels that whatever he has willed must, in some sense, be for the best, and that doubt or distrust on his part would be impious and practically atheistic; but it is no less true, that from the requirements of his nature, even under the direct influence of Heaven, all his feelings and perceptions are finite and liable to change. Light and shade are requisite for a world like this: even Heaven knows gradations of glory; and the All-Infinite alone, promoting and realizing all, enjoys absolute and boundless perfection. humor, and additions to the treasury of human literature. Their purpose is in the main honest, (that of the greater of the twain eminently so,) and the execution is generally in keeping with the purpose. And therefore do we rejoice, as Christians and as Englishmen, in these creations of our living humorists, and conceive it our special duty, as Churchmen, to proclaim, that true humor may be hallowed by the love of God. It may seem the stranger to question the compatibility of Christianity with humor, when we reflect that we have comparatively few records of its existence under the domination of Paganism. Though it has long been the fashion to talk loosely of Aristoplanic humor, we think that Aristophanic wit and fun would be the more fitting meed for praise. Without entering on another series of definitions, just at present, lest we should tire our readers out, or possess them with the idea that we only allowed ourselves to laugh by rule, and limited all perceptions of the ludicrous by arithmetical or geometrical proportions, let us content ourselves with the suggestion, that the highest humor in our eyes must not be far remote from pathos; must at least be drawn from an intimate sympathy with the nobler cravings as well as the failings of humanity. Now basely negative humor, critical and corrosive -a species of vinegar distilled from wine on the lees, or the produce of sound sense, narrowed, distorted, and more or less falsified by ill-nature-cannot challenge much of our admiration, and certainly never commands our laughter; though it may not be without a use of its own, if nothing better can be obtained; and such, mainly, is the Aristophanic produce. Direct satire, and more especially political satire, deals much with wit, and may deal with fun also, but makes little use of humor. It very rarely bids us laugh. He who loves God and man, supposing him to be possessed of equally But we may be waxing too grave "for the sound sense and fertile imagination with the nonce." Let us be suffered to assume, then, misanthropic thinker, must needs be a far that "there is a time to laugh," even for higher humorist. Man must sympathize with the righteous man; that the incongruous and man, to be able to expose his weaknesses imperfect may excite his mirth; that even with success. Hate and scorn are repellants: that higher order of ridicule, which is ani- they interpose a barrier; they bring darkmated by a sense of right and a love of good-ness in their train. Love is the great teachness, may be permitted to him, while a tenant of this mortal sphere. And, so much conceded, let us proceed to proclaim, that the two works, of which we have placed the titles at the head of this brief essay, though by no means free from faults of various orders, are, on the whole, trophies of national er, to lay bare the mysteries of humanity; the guide, to traverse its depth and height, and measure its circumference; the plummet, to sound its abyss; and the living sunshine, to explore its every crevice and bring its darkness into day. Of this love, Aristophanes had not much, and Terence and Plautus had little more. Nor was this strange. There was comparatively little to endear the human race to the Pagan moralist: he saw its vices and its follies; but he knew not that for the last and lowest of its laves a Divine Saviour should expire. 66 statues upon one spot forever. Monkish humor! What should it be but bitter, harsh, and stern? Or else, where good-natured, small and weak, confined in sympathies, narrow in range, devoid of purpose? A pleasant chuckling over a little pious fraud With the growth of Christianity the prin- for holy ends; a satisfactory conviction of ciple of love extended its benignant influ- the universal depravity of the human race, ence; soon, indeed, corruption manifested justifying an occasional lapse, to be atoned itself, and Gnosticism poisoned some of the for by some subsequent penance; a quiet life-springs of devotion. The great princi- | Latin joke at the expense of a rival commuple that "to the pure all things are pure,' nity; these, and such as these, are ingrequoted at the commencement of these re- dients for the cauldron of humoristic harmmarks, was trampled under foot of man; the lessness in monkery. We will not describe beautiful was condemned as unholy. Men the process of the more venomous decoction. could not forbid the stars to shine, nor the However, the only works of the middle ages flowers to bud in spring, nor the glorious possessing, or professing any humor, did rainbow to span the sky; but they could proceed from monks; and they are few inand did forbid any mental response to all deed. The Jesters were, no doubt, shrewd these glories. A myriad dew-drops might fellows; and happy should we be to make glitter like diamonds every morn in the rays the acquaintance of some of them, in this of the rising sun, but not one pearl of wit or present age and life, especially if dowered humor was allowed to drop from Christian with the moral excellencies which distinguish lips, lest the grace of the baptized man "Shakspeare's" fools, of whom perchance should be desecrated by common earthly anon. But the jesters" dealt not much in joys. How this fearful error waxed and vellum or parchment, and have left us few developed itself into the corruption of so- scraps of their handiwork. With the Reforcial life in Christian lands, and the severance mation, or rather with that outpouring of of a redeemed world from its Redeemer, need intellectual energy which preceded and hasnot be narrated here. But Gnosticism and tened it, humor first assumed its adequate Gnostic asceticism was not the soil for hu- position in literature. Rabelais led the way. mor, save one of a cold, and harsh, and bit- We cannot say that this author is a great ter nature, of which "Jerome" and others favorite of ours; he has geniality, too, and have left us more than sufficient samples. occasional largeness of heart; but exaggeraEven in the middle ages, humor, as far as tion of delivery mars all. That order of wit, it had any existence, was negative and hard- which the Americans have appropriated to hearted. It showed itself, no doubt, here themselves, and which consists in a monand there, in the famous "Reynard," that strous and grotesque amplification of fact, stern protest against hypocrisy and super- is perhaps the easiest attainable, and has stition; but humor in the highest sense was certainly little to recommend it to esteem. almost an incompatibility with the then exist- Still, there is a gigantic "bonhommie" about ing state of society. Freedom is its essen- Gargantua and the other heroes of this tial element; and who possessed this when strange work, which is nearly akin to true brute force reigned supreme, save where the humor, and must always command our triinfluence of a corrupt, but Christian Church bute of esteem. Of course, we can only interposed to shield the helpless from over- think with disgust of the unnecessary ordure weening tyranny? The monks can alone be which Rabelais has heaped around his own said to have enjoyed freedom, literary and pedestal, and in which he has sunk wellsocial, such as might be consistent with the nigh up to the chin. Berni, Pulci, and other creation of humoristic works; and what a Italians, had indicated the possession of high freedom was this! that of a bird in its cage; humoristic qualities in their mock heroics; or, in the case of nobler and higher spirits, and Ariosto himself, though more distinof a falcon in its coop, of a lion taken in the guished for romantic fancy, was not devoid snares! If other men were chained by hour-of a humorous vein. A pleasing "bonhomly need to the struggle for life, for existence; they, the monks, were like men, freed indeed from such fetters, but shrouded 'neath dreary cowls and robes of iron sackcloth, that checked their breath, and bound them to abide as mie" might also be discovered in some of Boccacio's stories. Nevertheless, the first great master-piece of humor destined to electrify the world, was the "Don Quixote" of Spain. It was mainly negative indeed; but |