T SPEECHES BY AN OLD SMOKER.-No, Madam, I don't call that young lady plain. Í never use middle terms to express extremes. Would you term a bull-dog plain, for example? The Gorilla is not plain, but very far from plain. So, on the other hand, is your daughter. On the other hand, I say, Ma'am. No compliment; only an illustration. Indeed, the fact is that a plain girl is generally more eligible than a pretty one. Beauty is nothing when you're used to it; which is very soon. It is gone in a year or two, and leaves behind it -what? Generally what men go to Clubs to escape from, Ma'am. A plain wife has no beauty to lose and with it all her husband's liking. Plainness washes and wears and doesn't paint, Ma'am. Plain good looks, resulting from mental quali ties, will last a lifetime. A middle-aged lady, once a plain girl, is commonly no less handsome than most other middle-aged ladies, and often handsomer. She may still look as well as ever she did, when the belle of former ballrooms may have shrunk into a Sycorax, or swollen into a grampus. A plain woman and a plain joint; both well dressed in their way. None of your French kickshaws and toys. That is what I say to my nephew, Ma'am. I also say that when a man marries a plain woman with his eyes open, he cannot be deluded by appearances into marrying a fool.— Punch. me the following story: He was once request- TWO HUNDRED POUNDS.-The following, from the life of Johnson, is striking. Sir John Hawkins, who, though he may not compete with Boswell as a biographer, was chosen by Johnson as his executor in preference to Boswell, was first a successful solicitor, next an active and experienced magistrate, and knew the world much and widely. Had ho come down to us only as the active and useful Chairman of Quarter Sessions, the following extract would have been often quoted and well known. But therefore hope it is in your power to get me off.' as coming from an author who could not write a biography so well as Boswell, nor a history of music so well as Burney, which is all we know of Sir John Hawkins, "The chances [of eluding conviction] are these: 1. That the offender is not discovered, or, if discovered, not apprehended. 2. That the person injured is not both willing and able to prosecute him. 3. That the evidence is not sufficient for the finding of the bill, or if it be, 4. That the indictment is so framed as that the of-ment." fender cannot be convicted on it; or, 5. That class of 'Jonathan Wild,''The Beggars' Opethe witnesses to support it may die, or be pre- ra,' &c. throw out more than hints of such a vailed upon to abscond, or to soften their testi-state of things as above described. These hints mony; or, 6. They may be entangled or made are neglected: but we may begin to pay more to contradict themselves, or each other, in a respect to them when we find them backed by cross-examination by the prisoner's counsel; or, such stories from a Quarter-Sessions Judge. 7. A mild judge; or, 8. An ignorant or per--Athenæum. verse jury; 9. A recommendation to mercy; Mr. Selwin was struck with so strange an application, and to account for it asked if there were any alleviating circumstances in his case; the it is quite forgotten:-man peevishly answered, No-but that he had inquired into the history of the place where he was, and could not find that any one who had two hundred pounds was ever hanged. Mr. Selwin told him it was out of his power to help him, and bade him farewell- • which,' added he, he did; for he found means to escape punishWe all know that publications of the or, 10. Appeals to the public by states of his case in pamphlets, or newspaper paragraphs, which the Newgate solicitors know very well how to get drawn. 11. Practices with a jury to obtain a declaration that some of them were dissatisfied with the verdict. 12. A motion in arrest of judgment. 13. A writ of error grounded on some defect or mistake on the face A correspondent informs the Times that in of the record. 14. An escape; and lastly, in- Switzerland the telegraph is the property of terest to procure a pardon. [What follows is the State, an office is established in almost every a note on the last word.] To this purpose, and village, and the charge is uniform, one franc as a caveat against seeking redress for injuries for twenty-five words, irrespective of distance. by going to law, I recollect a saying of a very The despatches are printed, and the establishsagacious and experienced citizen, Mr. Selwin, ment yields a large revenue to Government. who was formerly a candidate for the office of The writer advocates a similar system in Eng chamberlain, and missed it only by seven votes land, where the need for it is much greater than out of near seven thousand: -' A man,' says in Switzerland, and where the profit would be he, who deliberates about going to law, should enormous. We have repeatedly pressed this have, first, a good cause; secondly, a good idea upon the public as one which would equalpurse; thirdly, an honest and skilful attorney; ize facilities of communication, greatly increase fourthly, good evidence: fifthly, able counsel; trade, and yield a revenue which Mr. Gladstone sixthly, an upright judge; seventhly, an intel- may apply if he pleases to reduce the national ligent jury; and with all these on his side, if he debt. At present our messages are badly sent has not, eighthly, good luck, it is odds but he at dear rates, whole districts are without telemiscarries in his suit.' The same person told graphs, and the State gains nothing.-Spectator. No. 1152. Fourth Series, No. 13. 30 June, 1866. FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA. A Series of Historical Narratives. By Francis Parkman, Author of "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac," "Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life" &c., Part First. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL, SON, & CO. BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay a commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second " " The Complete work 20 "" 50 Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. CORRESPONDENCE. BEFORE reaching the age of three score and ten, we should be glad to appoint our successors in the management of the Living Age. To this we have looked forward with some anxiety during the war. Having passed through that severe trial, more than making up in one way what we lost in another, and having inaugurated a Fourth Series which has already largely gained upon its predecessor; we feel that this is a favorable time to turn over to other hands, all business matters. Our editorial work we shall be glad to continue till "the night cometh." To any persons competent to act as publishers, and to succeed us as editors, and able to invest the necessary capital, a finer business with less risk cannot be found. EDWARD ATKINSON, Esq., has delivered before the American Geographical and Statistical Society a Lecture upon Cotton, which the Society is about to issue in the Record of Civilization. Meantime a few copies have been printed, and we have read it with much interest. It furnishes large material for thought, and opens a prospect of unlimited prosperity to the South as soon as the politicians there shall be so far subdued by the working people and the owners of land as to cease obstructing the entrance into that country of Northern and European capital and labour. When men can work unmolested, and the fruits of their labour become secure, Mr. Atkinson thinks that all the coarser cotton fabrics will be made in the cotton country; leaving to the North a competition with England in the fine goods. and we had supposed that the name was made for the rhyme. ed on is illus an ample octavo page, and on the finest paper. We say published, if that word can be properly applied to an edition of only seventy copies, a limit which implies that the edition is not for the public, but only for a lucky few who happen to be able to obtain a copy. The trated by notes which bear the date of 1866. The local allusions, and the passages referring to personages who have passed from the stage, sometimes require explanation, though no lapse of time can make us insensible to the grace of the versification, the vein of Horatian pleasantry which pervades the poem, and the pungency of the satire, which has almost as direct an application to our own time as to that in which the poem was written, nearly half a century ago. The allusions of which we speak author himself, in which he drops the charare therefore explained in notes by the acter of the satirist and contents himself with that of the historical annotator. written some years after, and in a strain The poem entitled "The Recorder," of equally playful satire, is printed in the same manner, and in like manner illustrated by the author's notes. It began originally with the lines, 'My dear Dick Riker, you and I Have floated down life's stream together." In the present edition for Dick Riker is substituted the word Recorder, Mr. Riker having filled the place of Recorder and principal criminal judge of the city for a long course of years. These two poems without being in the long run the most certain respects the most characteristic — popular of Halleck's productions, are in in their combination of beautiful poetic imagery with delicate satire. To the poem of Fanny is prefixed an engraved portrait of the author, representing him as he was in youth, about the time, we suppose, when the poem was written. Professor Silliman was another old acquaintance, in a different line. We did all that we, as a young bookseller, could, to extend the sale of his Scientific Journal, in which we felt a patriotic interest, as we did in working for the North-American Review. If people could learn from the experience of other people, we should hope that the article We had the pleasure of becoming ac- entitled History Anticipated would open the quainted with the poet, and enjoying con- eyes of Members of Congress to the great versation as clear and sparkling as his waste of public property, which the national poetry. Mr. Halleck still lives, but scarcely a similar folly of the English people on the same bank-notes occasion to the United States. The single one of the society in which we met him. subject is considered to be beyond the credulity Would that we were one of "The Seventy!" of future ages. What will be thought of us, Halleck's poem of "Fanny" has been who are now paying these banks for nothing published in a beautiful edition by W. L. more than the whole expense of government under Andrews of this city. It is superbly print- 1 John Quincy Adams. From The Quarterly Review. and illustrations. London: 1865. · again, abounds in weighty antithesis, and his copyist emulates him in such sentences as this: He who has been praised by Burke, and who was loved by Johnson, has little chance of being forgotten. Nobody nolds, or Burke in his love for him, and to could outdo Johnson in his praise of Reyallot praise to Burke, and love to Johnson, THE first authentic life of Reynolds was when both characteristics were united in published in a quarto pamphlet in 1797, and each, was to sacrifice accuracy to a false was prefixed the next year to an octavo edi- sparkle of words. Nor could there be a tion of his literary works. The brief narra- more inane and misplaced reflection, than to tive was by his friend and executor, Ma- say that Reynolds had little chance of being lone; who, notwithstanding his intimate forgotten because he had been praised by knowledge of the man has only produced a Burke and loved by Johnson, when he had dull and feeble sketch. Northcote next won a far loftier immortality by his own extook the subject in hand. His life of Rey-quisite works, works which have hardly nolds appeared in 1813, and a second and an inferior rank in painting to the producenlarged edition in 1819. I like it,' said tions of Burke and Johnson in literature. Rogers the poet, it may be depended upon The frequent faults of style, however, were for facts; and of course Northcote was a the least.defect in Allan Cunningham's narvery competent critic in painting.' He had rative. He had a bitter antipathy to the lived in the house with Reynolds for five refined, amiable, and upright Reynolds, years as pupil or assistant, and continued and, under the influence of this feeling, the to associate with him for sixteen years more. biographer has told the story of his life He had a minute acquaintance with the very unfairly, and has converted one whose pictures of his master in every stage, and reputation is almost spotless, into a mean, a thorough comprehension of their subtlest envious, designing character. Leslie requalities. His lot was cast in the world of solved to redress the wrong. He had been artists, and he knew the relation in which the friend of many persons who were acthey stood to their President, and the opin- quainted with Reynolds, he was familiar with ions they entertained of him. Northcote's the traditions which prevailed among artists, book is not unworthy of his opportunities. and everything he had heard or read' conThough there is an occasional want of ar- tradicted the degrading charges of Allan rangement, and though the composition has Cunningham. For several years Mr. Leslie none of the force and piquancy which dis- wanted leisure to execute his project, and tinguished his conversation, the particulars when, at last, he entered upon it in earnest, he relates are abundantly interesting, and he was overtaken by death. The biography fulfil the great end of all biography, that of was left unfinished, and the manuscript was conveying a complete idea of the hero of put into the hands of Mr. Taylor, that he the tale. might revise and complete it. The volumes of Northcote were followed in 1829 by the account which Allan Cunningham inserted in his 'Lives of the Painters.' This work is written in close imitation of the 'Lives of the Poets.' What Reynolds said of slavish mimicry in painting is equally true in literature, the model may be excellent, but the copy will be ridiculous. The dogmatic and sententious style of Johnson was the natural product of a robust mind, throwing out comments books and men in the same vigorous form in which they were conceived. Allan Cunningham exaggerated the magisterial tone of his original, and employed it to give an imposing air to common-places and sophisms. The consequence is that there is frequently a ludicrous contrast between the insignificance of his ideas, and the oracular mode in which they are delivered. Johnson, upon 6 Mr. Leslie and his editor had very different schemes. The first projected a life of Reynolds; the second conceived that the account of the individual ought to be accompanied by a general history of the times. This appears to us to be a fundamental mistake. Sir Joshua Reynolds lived for his art, and a select circle of friends. It would be difficult to name an eminent man who was less mixed up with the multifarious pursuits of the big and busy world around him.* The plan does injustice to Reynolds The very qualities,' wrote Burke to Malone, May 22, 1795, which made the society of our friend things that make it difficult to write his life, or to so pleasant to all who knew him, are the very draw his character. The former part is peculiarpublic events, nor was it diversified with much ly difficult, as it had little connection with great change of fortune, or much private adventurehardly, indeed, any adventure at all. All that I sketch which I printed after his death.' could say of him I have said already in that short |