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Svekt one' las now been to Paris , and is of course familiar with the jisde Boulogne in its new splendours j but probahly that which most rests the attention is the richness of the equipages , and the costumes of the quettes ; surely the-wealth here represented must be enormous ? On this bject let us hear a writer in Jilackwood .. ——Though it was the end of February , the sun was shining evidently in total forgetful-53 that it was not June . Shining , warming , lighting , extracting such variety of exisite colour from the thousand splendidly-drest ladies who walked and strolled and
inged about the open alleys in the wood , that it is quite possible he fancied he was 3 towing his favours on a prodigious bed of flowers . On the beautiful lake floated y boats with many-coloured sails , carrying cargoes of bright-hued parasols and iiant bonnets and richest glistening silk . In the road rested or slowly moved forird barouches and britzkas , and chariots and phaetons , all with brig ht panels and ttering wheels and gorgeous linings , with , horses trapt with , gold and silver , and ns of spotless white ; while behind hung suspended a bunch of peony or tulip six st high , with immense calves to its legs , and a cocked hat on its head , and someaes even a velvet-sheatlied sword at its side . Then the horsemen—gaiety of parel is not left entirely to the ladies in France . There were green coats , and blue its , and olive coats so shiny that they looked like pink , and grey coats so brilliant it they looked like white : and still the cavalcade passed on ; and beauties caraed on long-tailed steeds ; and bewbiskered men galoped past on strong-legged
argers , and , countless as the combinations in a kaleidoscope , they formed in lines , squares , in circles ; and ever over all shone that cloudless sun , and beside them irkled that waveless water . And on seeing all that brilliancy , all that show , and that wealth , I said to old Busby , " Who are all these?—where does all the money nefrom ? There ' s more appearance of riches here ' than in Hyde Park ia the ight of the season . " Old Busby will certainly have a concussion of the brain if shakes his foolish old head with such disdainful jerks much longer * He shook his id as if he had been a mandarin for many years in a grocer ' s window , and said , Hy dear , how you are Wind ! These are nothing but a set of humbug foreigners ; indlers every man ; all adventurers on the Bourse or founders of the Cre'dit
Mobir 5 lords to-day , beggars to-morrow , and galley-slaves the day after . But what ai ? the spectacle is the same to us . These same carriages will be here this day ek—so will these horses—so will these ladies ; but the proprietors , mark you , will different . That fellow ' s clerk will succeed to his fraudulent compagnie and his tzka , and lie himself will be marker at a billiard-table . That other fellow will be ) tin a duel by a co-forger of Government bills , and his Andalusian mare will be den Here by some gambler whose loaded dice are not yet discovered . But the Bois 11 be as gay , the lake as charming , and the sun as bright . I have been intimate , " d Busby , in a very foreign accent , " with some English squires on their short-; ged Suffolk cobs , whose rent-roll would buy the fee simple of all the vagabonds : e . ¦ ¦ ¦ .: ' . ¦ ¦ '¦ . " . . ¦ " .. ¦ . ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ : - ' - . ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ . - •¦ ' ; : . ' : •¦ ¦ : '• . -
A . true picture , and forming' the appropriate introduction to an interestj story , called "A Cause worth Trying , " ia which the writer contrives to cite curiosity , though he has not taken the pains to work out-the dfnouent in a satisfactory manner . How rare it is to meet with a good story e do not allude to the want of invention displayed in creating newsituans—these will always remain rare—but in the want of that invention lich supplies all the details , which fills up the outline of an old anecdote , i makes it a new drama . Except poems , nothing is so abundant as ries , nothing so rare as stories that are really good .
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In the Revue de Paris there is a striking paper by Henri Martin , the torian , on Calvin , Loyola , and Rabelais , in which is quoted the frank t startling avowal of Calvkn ' s disciple , Theodore » e Beza , that " the erty of conscience is a diabolical dogma—Hberfas co ? iscientiis diabolicnm ma . " Frank the avowal is , because , as all history shows , whatever the tto of Protestantism may have been , its practice has considered this liberty conscience the prompting of Satan whenever liberty happened to issue the adoption of opinions not held by the denouncing sect ; startling the Dwal is , because if Protestantism does not protect and encourage perfect erty of conscience , what is its own raison d'etre ? M . Henri Martin 11 characterizes the Reformation as enfranchisement of national churches m the yoke of Rome , enfranchisement of particular churches , Christian urn-unities -within ill- defined limits , but no enfranchisement of the conence .
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After a period of dulness almost unparalleled , Literature seems , in Engid at least , to be entering once more into a season of activity , although v books of much promise are announced . In France there is an absolute 3 sation of literary life , which is almost certain , to continue as long as the eBent ignoble despotism continues . Much as we may deplore the blindas of fear—fear at the bugbear of Socialism so dexterously raised by one rty and so foolishly and treacherously stimulated by another—which ) ne has made France servile , it is a sources of great consolation to know at the intelligence of France had apt accepted the present regime , fcyonets may rule for a time ; but only over an ignorant people . Ideas © more powerful tlian bayonets , and Louis Napoleon is at war with cas .
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POETRY AND POLITICS ON THE DANUBE . Jiouman Anthology ; or , Selections of Roman Poetry , Ancient and Modern . Being a Collection of the National Ballads of Moldavia and Wallachia , &c . By the Hon . Henry Stanley . Hertford : Stephen Austin . Les Prmcipautfs de Moldavie et de Valachie . Par Paul Bataillard . Paris : Ainyot . Stephen Austin , is an artist . Sadi of Shiraz , that poet of rich fancies , would scarcely recognize his own " Rose Garden" in its illumination of gold and colours , from the press of the Hertford printer . Nor could the Rouman songsters ever have hoped to appear in the West so gorgeously costumed in Turkish and Byzantine decoration as in this volume by Mr . Stanley , kvery page is a picture . Between delicate-green covers , on ivory paper , with gilded edges , their verses lie , each in a frame of arabesque beauty , red , blue , green , and gold , -with superb initial letters , vignettes , and tailpieces , and faultless typo . Mr . Stanley ' s publication is thus recommended to noti it
ce by a external characteristics . Upon opening its earlier pa ^ es the reader may be disconcerted b y finding a number of poems in a language probably strange to him ; he may take it for barbaric Italian , for some curious dialect of Sicily or Corsica , but there are translations for those who are not ltoumau scholars , and for those who are , as well as for those > vho are not , there is a well-written and informing preface , by Mr . Stanley .
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perhaps , the masculine hand throughout this autobiography , but no eyes will detect anything but free , healthy animal spirits . Kate is a dashing girl , fonder of horses than worsted work , but sound in heart and limb ; ana if she is enthusiastic about riding and hunting , -where is the woman who , having once surmounted the timidity of her sex , and made direct acquaintance with pigskin , can speak of these things without enthusiasm ? That Elate sometimes outrages the proprieties is very true ; mammas will think her . ' bold , ' and dyspeptic clergymen unfamiliar with pigskin will shake dolorous heads over her levity ; but the majority of Englishmen will admire her ¦ ' pluck , ' and rejoice in her final happiness . While the spirited pages of this novel carry us gaily to the end , -we are not much troubled by misgivings as to the commonplaceness of most of the incidents and a general defiance of minute probabilities ; there is a great deal of true observation in the book , amid much that evidently belongs to the invention of the circulating library . Here is a good hit :-
—People may talk about country pleasures and country duties , and all the charms of country life ; but it appears to me that a good many things are done under the titles of pleasure and duty , which belong in reality to neither ; and that those who live entirely in the country , inflict on themselves a great variety" of unnecessary disagreeables , as they lose a great many of its chief delights . Of all receipts fox weariness , commend me to a dinner-party of country neighbours by daylight—people who know each other just well enough to have opposite interests and . secret jealousies ¦ who arri-ve ill at ease in their smart dresses , to sit through a protracted meal with hot servants and forced conversation , till one young lady on her promotion being victimized at the pianoforte , enables them to yawn unobserved , and-welcome ten o ' clock brings round the carriage and tipsy coachman , in order that they may enter on their long , dark , dreary drive home through lanes and by-ways , which is only endurable from the consideration that the annual ordeal has been accomplished , and that they need not do it again till this time next year .
Very well observed also is the wayward recklessness with which Kate teazes her cousin—persisting in the very course she knows is making him grieve , and grieving while she persists . Here is an animated description of ahunt : — ' ' - ¦ ' . ' - ' . ¦ ; . '¦ ... ;¦ ; ., ¦ , ' , . ¦ ¦ ' ¦¦ . ¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ . .- ¦ ¦ ' . ¦ ¦/ : . ¦ . ¦ ' - . ' ' ¦¦ " Gone away ! " exclaims Squire Haycock , lifting his cap high above his red head ; " Yonder he goes ! Don ' t you see him , Miss Coventry , now whisking under the gate ? "' - . - ¦;¦ . ¦;¦ ' ¦ ' ¦ ;•• ;¦ ' \ 7 : . - . : : ' ¦ ¦¦¦ . ¦ : . . : - . - : ¦ ¦ , " Forward , forward . '" holloas Frank , giving vent to his excitement in one of those prolonged screams that proclaim how the astonished sportsman has actually seen the fox with his own eyes . The next instant he is through the hand-gate at the end of the ride , and , rising in his stirrups , with the wicked chesnut held hard by the head , ia speeding away over the adjoining pasture , alongside of the two or three couples of
leading hounds that have just emerged from the ^ covert . Ah ! we . ; are all forgotten now , women , children , everything is lost in * that first delirious five minutes when the hounds are really away . Frank was gazing at me a minute ago as if his very life was at my disposal , and now he is speeding away a field ahead of me , and don't care whether I break my neck following him or not . But this is no time for such thoughts as these , the drunken huntsman is sounding lis horn in our rear . Will , the whip , cap in hand , is . bringing ' up" the body of the pack . Squire Haycock holds the gate open for me to pass , Cousin John goes by me like a flash of lightning j White-Stockings , with a loose rein , submits to be kicked along at any pace I like to ask him ; the fenceat the end of the field is nothing , I shall go exactly where Frank did ; my blood thrills with ecstasy in my veins : moment of moments ! I have got a capital start , and w-e are in for a run .
As I sit here inmy arm-chair and dressing-gown , I see the whole panorama of today passing once more before my eyes . I see that dark , wet , ploughed field , with the ¦ white hounds slipping noiselessly over its furrowed surface . I can almost perceive the fresh wholesome smell of the newly-turned earth . I see the ragged , overgrown , straggling fence at the far end , glistening with morning dew , and green with formidable briars . I see Prank LovelTa chesnut rising at the weakest place , the rider sitting well back , his spurs and stirrup-irons shining in the sun ; I see Squire Haycock ' s square scarlet back , as he diverges to a well-known corner for some friendly egress ; 1 hear Cousin John ' s voice shouting , " Give him his head , Kate ! " As White-Stockings and I rapidly approach the leap , my horse relapses of his own accord into a trot , points his small ears , crashes into the very middle of the fence , and just as I give myself up for lost , makes a second bound that settles me once more in the saddle , and lands gallantly in the adjoining field , Frank looking back over his shoulder in
evident anxiety aud admiration , whilst John ' s cheery voice , with its " Bravo , Kate ! ' * rings in my delighted ears . We three are now nearest the hounds , a long strip of rushy meadow-land before us , the pack streaming along-the aide of a high thick hedge that bounds it on our left ; the south wind fans my face and lifts my hair , as I slacken my horsed rein and urge him to to his speed . I am alongside of Frank . I could ride anywhere now , or do anything . I pas 3 him with a smile and a jest . I am the foremost -with the chase . "What is ten years of common life , one's feet upon the fender , compared to five such golden minutes as these ? Criticism , if inclined to be severe , might pick large holes in the book ; but its pleasant style disarms criticism . On one point only will we suggest to Colonel Melville the necessity of revision , and that is the somewhat too obtrusive odour of cigars which rises from his pages . Every body smokes , and is always smoking , till the word cigar becomes an impertinence .
KATE COVENTRY . tic Coventry : an Autobiography . Edited by a . J . Why to Melville , Author of Digby Grand . " j . *\ y . Parker and Son . lUittBisBomethingfrcshandlicalthyinallthatColoneiVVhytoMelvillewrites , id tins Kate Coventry is very unlike the mawkish stories which delight the oranes , and weary all sensible people . It is the autobiography of a fast ung lady , and yet ia neither vulgar nor insipid . Feminine eyes may detect ,
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? ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ tic 3 are not the legislators , but the judges aad police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce -them .. —Edinburgh Review .
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Kovember 8 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 1073 ——^ ——— ^^ . _____ ^^_ ^ _ ^^^ _ ^ _ ^ _ — ¦¦¦¦ ,
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 8, 1856, page 1073, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2166/page/17/
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