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samé," which would introduce us to untold stores of treasure. But, alas! the idea is quite as much a vision of imagination as "Open, Sesamé" itself: the clever man, if he marry at all, makes a point of choosing a remarkably silly woman, a pretty wax doll, whom he idolises through the honeymoon, and is ashamed of all his life afterwards. Why this should be I cannot profess to say. I am aware that a hundred voices will immediately reply to me, that the clever man is jealous of the idea of being rivalled and outshone by his wife. This feeling may probably exist among the lower order of literati.

"Fellows

In foolscap uniforms turned up with ink ;"

concerning whom we may continue the quotation, and say,

"Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs e'en the pink,
Are preferable to these shreds of paper,

These unquench'd snuffings of the midnight taper!"

But such a clever man as I have been attempting to describe, would never fear the rivalship of a woman, because he would feel the thing to be utterly out of the question. It cannot be that the clever man is indifferent to the conversation of a woman who can understand him ; for, in general society, he always selects such an one as his companion. Sometimes, in old fairy tales, when the benevolent fairies are loading a young prince with gifts, one more judicious than the rest bestows on him some drawback, that his head may not be quite turned with the multiplicity of his advantages; perhaps, in the same way, the clever man is destined to act foolishly in one of the most important of worldly transactions, that in the contemplation of such folly, and subsequent repentance of it, he may imbibe a salutary lesson of humiliation. This may be very well for himself, but it is very bad for the world. Let me, however, do this piece of justice to the choice of the clever man: if he will not marry a remarkably intelligent woman, I think the next best thing he can do is to marry a remarkably silly one; because, in such a case, he only makes himself unhappy, and does not make his wife unhappy also. I can imagine few situations more pitiable than that of a woman of slender talents and confined reading, married to a man of exalted abilities. I will suppose her to possess sufficient mind partly to appreciate him, and deeply to feel her own inferiority, and sufficient activity of spirit to attempt to repair her deficiencies, but with a measure of intellect so limited, that all such endeavours are ineffectual. I can imagine her striving to conquer all early distaste of books, sitting down to study, not as a delight, but as a wearisome task; seeking the conversation of the talented without deriving the least pleasure from it; but still hoping that by some mysterious process of affinity, the electric spark of genius may communicate itself to her; and finding, after all, that like the poor unfledged bird prematurely trying its wings, she must submit to fall to the ground, and behold others around her soaring

into the bright and beautiful sky. How I should pity such a woman if I knew her, but I never did know her; the clever man benevolently spares his wife all these feverish aspirations, vain longings, and exciting heart-burnings, by choosing one so silly as not only to be unconscious of her own deficiencies, but actually proud of them, and disposed to shun and dislike the society of all those who are wiser than herself, however they may wish to please and conciliate her. A lady of this description once said to me, complaining of a friend of her husband's, "He is so terribly bookish and pedantic; he called on me yesterday morning, and talked of nothing but magazines and annuals all the time." This observation was very entertaining to me; for I happened to know that the gentleman in question had been most laboriously and politely "talking down" to her, and that if he had been conversing with a person of intellect, although he might have touched on the subject of magazines and annuals, he would soon have left them behind, and soared into the region of philosophy and metaphysics. If, however, it be difficult for the friend of a clever man to converse with his wife in a tête-à-tête, the case is much worse if the husband be present. After a few desultory remarks, the gentlemen, from old habit, will engage together in intellectual conversation; and the unfortunate wife, who can bear no part in it, immediately becomes animated with the spirit of the lady in the comic duet, who indignantly says to her husband,

"With that odious Captain Trench,

You are always talking French,

And do I understand it, Mr. John Prevost?"

The language of mind is indeed a foreign tongue to her, and instead of being ashamed of her ignorance, she makes it a matter of reproach to those who unintentionally expose it. The clever man must now take his choice of three measures. Either he must confine himself exclusively to the society of his fair automaton, with the revealings of his mind unanswered, his beautiful sentiments unmarked, his extensive knowledge unvalued; or he must leave her at home, and seek more congenial society; (and it is a sad and bitter thing for any Englishman, whether clever or not, to be obliged to look for comfort away from his own hearth;) or he must take his wife with him into company, and steel his nerves to all the comments that will infallibly be made upon her. Let him not flatter himself that she will not expose her silliness; in the same way that intellect, like lightning, developes itself by a single flash, folly, like water, will burst forth at an almost imperceptible opening, and the sayings and doings of the wife of a clever man will be criticised far more severely than those of the wife of anybody else. All who have envied him, and have been wounded by his superiority, will now exult in his mortification; whenever his admirers quote one of his clever remarks, they will be immediately answered by the recital of some absurdity or weakness on the part of his wife; and, perhaps, to crown his trials, one of the most common-place men of his acquaintance, whom he had always rather shunned as a bore, will have the good fortune to procure an

intelligent, well-educated wife, and will draw a comparison (which will be kindly repeated to him by a mutual friend) between their respective partners; and conclude, by triumphantly observing, "that all poor Mr.'s great cleverness don't seem to have been of much use to him in his choice of a wife !"

Let, then, the clever man remain single: he is the property of society; his brilliancy ought not to be dimmed, his spirit depressed, and his feelings wounded by an uncongenial associate. If the clever man be philanthropic and benevolent, how many sources of happiness are in his power; he can raise the tone of conversation, encourage the timid, instruct the young, and give additional knowledge to the intellectual. Among the latter class, his observations will not merely conduce to the pleasure of the moment; but they will be cherished, preserved, and perhaps turned to advantageous account. This is peculiarly the case when any literary talent exists among his associates; and I am persuaded that many a brilliant essay, and many a touching poem, which travel into far distant countries, delight the social circle, and cheer and soothe the chamber of sickness, derive their origin from some idea casually caught up by the writer in conversation with "a clever man."

I have reserved, however, the most important of my remarks to the last. The clever man is raised by his talents immeasurably above his fellow creatures, but this elevation involves an awful responsibility. He must remember that he is sent into the world, not only to adorn and gratify, but to correct and amend it; and it must be his constant aim to advance, by his example and conversation, the cause of morality and religion. If he neglect to do this, still more, if he countenance any violation of the former, or join in any slight to the latter, I can only regard him as a brilliant peril, whom I would earnestly counsel my friends to avoid rather than to seek. After all, when we consider the sum and substance of human acquirement, how poor and trifling must it appear in the sight of Omnipotence; and should its possession be abused, how easily may its owner be deprived of it in a moment at the fiat of the Divine Giver. Let not, then, "the wise man glory in his wisdom;" but let that wisdom be the means of impressing his heart with a deeper feeling of gratitude towards the God who has bestowed it upon him. While enjoying and enabling others to enjoy the treasure of intellect, let him strive to provide for them and for himself "a treasure in the heavens that faileth not ;" and, while gladly seizing every opportunity to increase and improve his already abundant knowledge, let him reflect that, in its utmost superiority, it can be but poor and frail compared with that knowledge which maketh "wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

The Gipsy King. BY RICHARD HOWITT.

THINKING very highly of this poetical sketch, in which opinion we feel assured that our readers will join, we give it publicity in our Magazine; or, at least, that part of it to which the title strictly refers. The poem, as written by the talented author, is altogether too long for insertion in a periodical. We shall, therefore, give a short abstract of the parts that we have omitted, and which immediately follow this proem.

All hail! ye British Buccaneers!

Ye English Ishmaelites, all hail!
A jovial and marauding band,
Against the goodliest of the land
Ye go-and ye prevail.

Man's cultured Eden casts ye forth,
Where'er ye list to wander wide,
Wild heaths, and wilder glens to tread,
The spacious earth before you spread,
Your hearts your only guide.

Like clouds that move about the heavens,
Still varying to the winds their forms,
Erratic through the earth ye go,
Companions of the sleet and snow,

And mists and mountain storms.

Companions of all lovely weather,

Ye are no less: Spring's earliest traces
Insensibly into you melt;

And Summer's charms by you are felt
In earth's most desert places.

The Indian in old forests far,

By Mississippi's wandering floods,
With his small hut or cane of reeds,
A life of similar pleasure leads
In his ancestral woods.

And there, e'en there, ye roving tribe,
Ye meet the red man in the wild,
Ye camp beside those giant floods,
And share the fortunes of the woods
With nature's tameless child.

Hence-hence it is, ye look with scorn

On the poor peasant's endless toil;
Pressed down with rents and taxes: rents
Nor taxes pay you for your tents,

Nor till for lords the soil.

The wind that blows where'er it lists-
A wave that dances on the sea-

A reinless steed-a gushing spring—
A falcon soaring on free wing-

Are not more free than ye.

Boswell Kemp, the father of the gipsy king, is a very sad dog indeed, even for a gipsy. Being lordly among his tribe, he puts away his wife, and takes unto himself Amy Lee, the favoured lady's maid of a vicar's wife. Though Boswell Kemp has increased his responsibilities, he does not increase his happiness, whilst the deluded Amy finds nothing but heart-rending misery in the rash step that she has taken. At length, the manifold crimes of Boswell Kemp overturn his reason, and he dies, confessing to much sin, and the murder of his wife among the rest. The distracted Amy, now a mother, and not a wife, remembers her mistress's former kindness, returns to her, and repenting, dies. The child, the future Gipsy King, is adopted by the family, and then commences Part III.

The harvest moon is in the sky,

The fullest moon of all the year:
And where it yet unreap'd doth stand,
In golden patches on the land,
The corn is rustling sere.

Now groan and rock the loaded wains,
And tinkle gears on hill and dale:
Stout labour triumphs on the earth,
But with his labour mingles mirth,
Inspired by nut-brown ale.

It is a time of large delight,

And plenty fills her ample horn;
How jovially the time doth pass;
The reaper eyes the reaping lass,
The farmer eyes his corn.

"The stars are out," cried Ellen Brooke,
"The moon is up and fair to see;

And I will pace our shrubbery walk,
And with my buried mother talk
In pensive reverie.

"How pleasantly, and with what calm
Fills all the earth this silver flood:

'Tis day, but with a softer shade,
A time for love, and memory made,
To charm the fair and good.

"How do I love these moonlight nights,
How love the mingled light and gloom;

When on me, in the dusk alone,

By sighing winds is softly blown,
The breath of fading bloom."

And ever thus alone she walked,
As fair as in her Eden, Eve;

With lightsome step, and pensive brow,
Beneath the beach, or linden bough,

Her lonely thoughts to weave.

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