MEN

LITERARY PUFFING.

EN of letters have ceased to court individuals, and have begun to court the public. They formerly used flattery. They now use puffing. Whether the old or the new vice be the worse, whether those who formerly lavished insincere praise on others, or those who now contrive by every art of beggary and bribery to stun the public with praises of themselves, disgrace their vocation the more deeply, we shall not attempt to decide. But of this we are sure, that it is high time to make a stand against the new trickery. The puffing of books is now so shamefully and so successfully carried on, that it is the duty of all who are anxious for the purity of the national taste, or for the honour of the literary character, to join in discountenancing the practice. All the pens that ever were employed in magnifying Bish's lucky office, Romanis's fleecy hosiery, Packwood's razor strops, and Rowland's Kalydor, all the placard-bearers of Dr Eady, all the wall-chalkers of Day and Martin, seem to have taken service with the poets and novelists of this generation. Devices which in the lowest trades are considered as disreputable are adopted without

scruple, and improved upon with a despicable ingenuity, by people engaged in a pursuit which never was and never will be considered as a mere trade by any man of honour and virtue. A butcher of the higher class disdains to ticket his meat. A mercer of the higher class would be ashamed to hang up papers in his window inviting the passers-by to look at the stock of a bankrupt, all of the first quality, and going for half the value. We expect some reserve, some decent pride, in our hatter and our bootmaker. But no artifice by which notoriety can be obtained is thought too abject for a man of letters.

It is amusing to think over the history of most of the publications which have had a run during the last few years. The publisher is often the publisher of some periodical work. In this periodical work the first flourish of trumpets is sounded. The peal is then echoed and re-echoed by all the other periodical works over which the publisher, or the author, or the author's coterie, may have any influence. The newspapers are for a fortnight filled with puffs of all the various kinds which Sheridan enumerated, direct, oblique, and collusive.

Macaulay.

ZARA'S EAR-RINGS.

'MY ear-rings! my ear-rings! they've dropt into the well,

And what to say to Muça, I cannot, cannot tell.”

'Twas thus Granada's fountain by, spoke Albuharez' daughter,— "The well is deep, far down they lie, beneath the cold blue waterTo me did Muça give them, when he spake his sad farewell,

And what to say when he comes back, alas! I cannot tell.

My ear-rings! my ear-rings! they were pearls in silver set,
That when my Moor was far away, I ne'er should him forget,
That I ne'er to other tongue should list, nor smile on other's tale,
But remember he my lips had kiss'd, pure as those ear-rings pale-
When he comes back and hears that I have dropp'd them in the well,

Oh, what will Muça think of me, I cannot, cannot tell.

My ear-rings! my ear-rings! he'll say they should have been,
Not of pearl and silver, but of gold and glittering sheen,
Of jasper and of onyx, and of diamond shining clear,
Changing to the changing light, with radiance insincere-
That changeful mind unchanging gems are not befitting well-
Thus will he think,--and what to say, aias! I cannot tell.

"He'll think when I to market went, I loiter'd by the way;
He'll think a willing ear I lent to all the lads might say;
He'll think some other lover's hand among my tresses noosed,

From the ears where he had placed them, my rings of pearl unloosed;
He'll think when I was sporting so beside this marble well,

My pearls fell in,-and what to say, alas! I cannot tell.

"He'll say I am a woman, and we are all the same;
He'll say I loved when he was here to whisper of his flame-
But when he went to Tunis my virgin troth had broken,
And thought no more of Muça, and cared not for his token.
My ear-rings! my ear-rings! O luckless, luckless well!
For what to say to Muça, alas! I cannot tell.

"I'll tell the truth to Muça, and I hope he will believe

That I have thought of him at morning, and thought of him at eve:
That musing on my lover, when down the sun was gone,

His ear-rings in my hand I held, by the fountain all alone :
And that my mind was o'er the sea, when from my hand they fell,
And that deep his love lies in my heart, as they lie in the well."

Lockhart.

MAR

ECCENTRIC ROYAL PROMOTIONS.

ARC ANTONY gave the house of a Roman citizen to a cook who had prepared for him a good supper! Louis XI. promoted a poor priest whom he found sleeping in the porch of a church, that the proverb might be verified, that to lucky men good fortune will come even when they are asleep. Our Henry VII. made a viceroy of Ireland, if not for the sake of, at least with a clench. When the king was told that all Ireland could not rule the Earl of Kildare, he said, then shall this earl rule all Ireland. When Cardinal de Monte was elected pope, before he left the conclave, he bestowed a cardinal's hat upon a servant, whose chief merit consisted in the daily attentions he paid to his holiness's monkey! George Villiers was suddenly raised from a private station, and loaded with wealth and honours by James the First, merely for his personal beauty. Almost all the favourites of James became so from their handsomeness. M. de Chamillart, Minister of France, owed his promotion merely to his being the only man who could beat Louis XIV. at billiards. The Duke of Luynes was originally a country lad, who insinuated himself into the favour of Louis XIII., then young, by making bird-traps (piesgrieches) to catch sparrows. It was little expected, says Voltaire, that these puerile amusements were to be terminated by a most sanguinary revolution. De Luynes, after causing his patron, the Marshal D'Ancre, to be assassinated, and the queen-mother to be imprisoned, raised himself to a title and the most tyrannical power. Sir Walter Raleigh owed his promotion to an act of gallantry to Queen Elizabeth, and Sir Christopher Hatton owed his preferment to his dancing.

Isaac Disraeli.

WINTER.

THE wintry west extends his blast,

And hail and rain does blaw;

Or the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw :

While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;

And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.

"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"

The joyless winter day,

Let others fear, to me more dear

Than all the pride of May:

The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,

My griefs it seems to join ;

The leafless trees my fancy please,

Their fate resembles mine!