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On that day there is a grand making of kings, (but "no coronation.") They are as common as kittens, and playful. Men live for a day under a royal democracy; but they are free, though ephemeral-contented, though happy. They are slaves to the monarch of fortune, yet they beard and laugh him to scorn. And what, though he bid them kiss the cold bars, or their pretty neighbour, they repine not, but straightway obey him.

Then how fine is the dialogue, how free from restraint, how gay! I can almost imagine a Contributor's circle, potent as a magician's. "WE ARE THE KING."

"We speak no treason, man

"We are the king; so give us our bells." [Ah! cursed quill: we consign thee to perdition for this. No more state papers nor stately shalt thou indite; no more royal ryhme for thee: henceforward thou shalt scrawl out bills for some village Crispin, nothing higher.]

"Give us our crown, (of wood or tinsel:) we will shine like Mr. Elliston's pillars, though it be not Bartholomew fair. Now

Yet, shall I go on?

Shall I try to show our Elia's glancing wit? Shall I trace the deep and fine vein of Mr. Table Talk? Shall I paint the cheerful gravity, (almost a paradox,) of D---? the restless pleasantry of Janus, ever-veering, catching the sun and the shade? Shall I strive to outdo Mr. Herbert, in his humour, in his portraits so piquant and so true? Or shall I sharpen my pen's point, and hit

off our friend Lycus's waggery, his puns, (and what is much better than either,) his poetry? Or paint our good A-, always gay; like a huge forest transplanted, a rus in urbe,-musical as Polypheme, and as great?

Shall I go on?-Ah! no. For who can tell of our doings? Who can paint a laugh? Who can carry away a rich thought with all its bloom? Where is the freshness of the jest that hung upon accident or circumstance?-It may not be done.

Yet talking of laughing-as Mr. Aircastle would say, I own I like a laugh. It is worth a hundred groans in any state of the market.

I never saw a Frenchman laugh. They smile, they grin, they shrug up their shoulders, they dance, they cry "Ha!" and "Ciel!" but they never give themselves up to boisterous unlimited laughter. They have always a rein upon their lungs, and their muscles are drilled to order. Their mirth does not savour of flesh and blood. I do not mean to contend for that pampered laugh which grows less and less, in proportion as it is high-fed-(so gin given to children stops their growth,) but for a good broad humourous English laugh, such as belongs to a farce or a fair. The Germans laugh sometimes, the Flemings often, the Irish always: the Spaniard's face is fused, and the Scotchman's thawed into a laugh; but a Frenchman never laughs. They smile indeed, but what then? Their smile is like their soup-maigre, thin; their merriment squeezed and strained. There is in it something of the acid of their salads, something of the pungency of their sauces, but nothing

substantial. It is neither solid nor ethereal,but a thing between wind and water,-not of earth nor heaven,-good nor bad; but villainously indifferent, and not to be admitted as mirth.

And yet "Twelfth night" was celebrated in former France. One of the courtiers used to be chosen king, and the king himself and the nobles obeyed him. In Germany too, it is, (or was,) kept up with joke and banqueting; and in England we have stil! our Saturnalian revels. These are censured by good master Bourne, "our ancient," I believe; but for mine own part I love to see them. I love to see an acre of cake spread out, (the sweet frost covering the rich earth below,) studded all over with glittering flowers, like iceplants, and red and green knots of sweetmeat, and hollow yellow-crusted crowns, and kings and queens, and their paraphernalia. I delight to see a score of happy children, sitting huddled all round the dainty fare, eying the cake and each other, with faces sunny enough to thaw the white snow. I like to see the gazing silence which is kept so religiously while the large knife goes its round; and the glistening eyes which feed beforehand upon the huge slices, dark with citron and plums, and heavy as gold. And then, when the "characters" are drawn, is it nothing to watch the peeping delight which escapes from their little eyes? One is proud, as king; another stately, as queen; then there are two whispering grotesque secrets which they cannot contain, (these are Sir Gregory Goose and Sir Tunbelly Clumsy.) The boys laugh out at their own misfortunes, but

the little girls, (almost ashamed of their prizes,) sit blushing and silent. It is not until the lady of the house goes round, that some of the more extravagant fictions are revealed. And then, what a roar of mirth! Ha, ha! The ceiling shakes, and the air is torn. They bound from their seats, like kids, and insist on seeing Miss Thompson's card. Ah! what merry spite is proclaimed, what ostentatious pity! The little girl is almost in tears; but the large lump of allotted cake is placed seasonably in her hands, and the glass of sweet wine, "all round," drowns the shrill urchin laughter, and a gentler delight prevails.

--I am not one of those who love to breed up children seriously, or to make them moral rather than happy. Let them be happy, (innocently,) and the other will follow of course. A good example is a good thing. Give them that, and spare your precept.-Oh! I like to see the pleasures of children. They enjoy to-day, and care not for to-morrow. Their path is strewed with roses; the heaven is blue above them, and life is a gay race which all feel sure to win. Some indeed there are, outcasts of fortune, who have to make their way over the rough stones and barren places,-beggars from their birth. It pains me to see those many little faces, frost-nipped, which are pressed, (with flattened noses,) against pastrycooks' windows,-Lazarites at the rich men's tables. I do not enjoy their famished looks and roving eyes, and watering mouths half opened. Oh! no: 1 pity those poor denizens of the streets, inheritors of the cold air. They have no privi

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lege, but to ask--and be refused: no enjoyment, save hungry idleness: no property. Or rather they are "tenants in common" with the bird of passage, and the houseless dog; they have the fierce sun or the inclement sky; nothing further. –Their “liberty" is without even its "crust.".

Once-(let me have leave to tell this: it is my only tolerable action,) I made a happy heart on a day of feasting. This was on a Christmas Day, many years ago. I was walking briskly to my coffee-house dinner. Every body looked full of gaiety; and I myself trod like Diomed. There was scarcely a beggar in the streets. Yet was there one, a pale slight little woman who lingered about the opening doors in Greek-street. She might have been the widow of a country clergyman. Her face was thin and hunger-pinched. Her eyes were dull; and there was the shining mark of a tear, (like a cicatrice,) which traversed one of her cheeks from top to bottom. crept slowly along the pavement, and now and then she sighed; but she did not beg. She must have been very cold; for her tattered black weeds were not enough with all her care, and shifting them from shoulder to shoulder, to fence off the nipping wind. I turned my head aside as I passed, (a week's begging would have done me good then,) lest I should be beguiled into giving. She did not even look at me; but kept her eyes on the ground as though she were searching for the raw vegetables which servants cast into the street. I walked on twenty-fifty-a hundred yards. I was uncomfortable-I looked back, and there was

She

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