on Twelfth Night. There is little or nothing belonging to the occasion in it, except a set of merry-makers who carouse all night, and sing songs enough to "draw three souls out of one weaver." It is evident that Shakspeare was at a loss for a title to his play, for he has called it, "Twelfth Night, or What You Will;" but the nocturnal revels reminded him of the anniversary which, being the player and humourist that he was, and accustomed, doubtless, to many a good sitting-up, appears to have stood forth prominently among his recollections of the year. So that it is probable he kept up his Twelfth Night to the last :-assuredly he kept up his merry and romantic characters, his Sir Tobies and his Violas. And, keeping up his stage faith so well, he must needs have kept up his home faith. He could not have done it otherwise. He would invite his Stratford friends to "king and queen,” and, however he might have looked in face, would still have felt young in heart towards the budding daughters of his visitors, the possible Violas perhaps of some love-story of their own, and not more innocent in "the last recesses of the mind" than himself.

We spent a Twelfth Night once, which, by common consent of the parties concerned, was afterwards known by the name of the Twelfth Night. It was doubted among us, not merely whether ourselves, but whether anybody else, ever had such a Twelfth Night ;

"For never since created cake,

Met such untiring force, as named with these
Could merit more than that small infantry,
Which goes to bed betimes."

The evening began with such tea as is worth mention, for we never knew anybody make it like the maker. Dr. Johnson would have

given it his placidest growl of approbation. Then, with piano-forte, violin, and violoncello, came Handel, Corelli, and Mozart. Then followed the drawing for king and queen, in order that the "small infantry" might have their due share of the night, without sitting up too too-late (for a reasonable "too-late" is to be allowed once and away). Then games, of all the received kinds, forgetting no branch of Christmas customs. And very good extempore blank verse was spoken by some of the court (for our characters imitated a court), not unworthy of the wit and dignity of Tom Thumb. Then came supper, and all characters were soon forgotten but the feasters' own; good and lively souls, and festive all, both male and female,-with a constellation of the brightest eyes that we had ever seen met together. This fact was so striking, that a burst of delighted assent broke forth, when Moore's charming verses were struck up,

"To ladies' eyes a round, boys,

We can't refuse, we can't refuse;
For bright eyes so abound, boys,

'Tis hard to choose, 'tis hard to choose."

The bright eyes, the beauty, the good humour, the wine, the wit, the poetry (for we had celebrated wits and poets among us, as well as charming women), fused all hearts together in one unceasing round of fancy and laughter, till breakfast, to which we adjourned in a room full of books, the authors of which might almost have been waked up and embodied, to come among us. Here, with the bright eyes literally as bright as ever at six o'clock in the morning (we all remarked it), we merged one glorious day into another, as a good omen (for it was also fine weather, though in January); and as luck and our good faith would have it, the door was no sooner opened to let forth the ever-joyous visitors, than the trumpets of a regiment quartered in the neighbourhood struck up into the morning air, seeming to blow forth triumphant approbation, and as if they sounded purely to do us honour, and to say, "You are as early and untired as we."

We do not recommend such nights to be resolved on," much less to be made a system of regular occurrence. They should flow out of the impulse, as this did; for there was no intention of sitting up so late. But so genuine was that night, and so true a recollection of pleasure did it leave upon the minds of all who shared it, that it has helped to stamp a seal of selectness upon the house in which it was passed, and which, for the encouragement of good-fellowship and of humble aspirations towards tree-planting, we are here incited to point out; for by the same token the writer of these papers planted some plane-trees within the rails by the garden-gate (selecting the plane in honour of the Genius of Domesticity, to which it was sacred among the Greeks); and anybody who does not disdain to look at hours that have been spent in it, may know it a modest tenement for the sake of the happy by those trees, as he passes along the row of houses called York Buildings, in the New Road, Marylebone. A man may pique himself and, humble as our performance has been without vanity upon having planted a tree; that way, we confess we are glad of it, and have often looked at the result with pleasure. The reader would smile, perhaps sigh (but a pleasure would or should be at the bottom of his sigh), if he knew what consolation we had experienced in some very trying seasons, merely from seeing those trees growing up, and affording shade and shelter to passengers, as well as a bit of leafiness to the possessor of the house. Every one should plant a tree who can*. It is one of the cheapest, as well as easiest, of all tasks and if a man cannot reckon upon enjoying the shade much himself (which is the reason why trees are not planted everywhere), it is surely worth while to bequeath so pleasant and useful a memorial of himself * Young trees from nursery-grounds are very cheap, and cost less than flowers.

D

to others. They are green footsteps of our existence, which show that we have not lived in vain.

"Dig a well, plant a tree, write a book, and go to heaven," says the Arabian proverb. We cannot exactly dig a well. The parish authorities would not employ us. Besides, wells are not so much wanted in England as in Arabia, nor books either; otherwise we should be two-thirds on our road to heaven already. But trees are wanted, and ought to be wished for, almost everywhere; especially amidst the hard brick and mortar of towns; so that we may claim at least one-third of the way, having planted more than one tree in our time; and if our books cannot wing our flight much higher (for they never pretended to be anything greater than birds singing among the trees), we have other merits, thank Heaven, than our own to go upon; and shall endeavour to piece out our frail and most imperfect ladder, with all the good things we can love and admire in God's creation.

XLIX. RULES IN MAKING PRESENTS.

Ir the present is to be very exquisite indeed, and no mortification will be mixed up with the receipt of it, out of pure inability to make an equal one, or from any other cause, the rule has often been laid down. It should be something useful, beautiful, costly, and rare. It is generally an elegance, however, to omit the costliness. The rarity is the great point, because riches themselves cannot always command it, and the peculiarity of the compliment is the greater. Rare present to rare person.

If you are rich, it is a good rule in general to make a rich present; that is to say, one equal, or at least not dishonourable, to your means otherwise you set your riches above your friendship and generosity; which is a mean mistake.

Among equals, it is a good rule not to exceed the equality of resources; otherwise there is a chance of giving greater mortification than pleasure, unless to a mean mind; and it does not become a generous one to care for having advantages over a mind like that.

But a rich man may make a present far richer than can be made him in return, provided the receiver be as generous and understanding as he, and knows that there will be no mistake on either side. In this case, an opportunity of giving himself great delight is afforded to the rich man; and he can only have, or bestow it, under those circumstances.

On the other hand, a poor man, if he is generous, and understood to be so, may make the very poorest of presents, and give it an

exquisite value; for his heart and his understanding will accompany it; and the very daring to send his straw, will show that he has a spirit above his means, and such as could bestow and enrich the costliest present. But the certainty of his being thus generous, and having this spirit, must be very great. It would be the miserablest and most despicable of all mistakes, and in all probability the most self-betraying too, to send a poor present under a shabby pretence.

With no sort of presents must there be pretence. People must not say (and say falsely) that they could get no other, or that they could afford no better; nor must they affect to think better of the present than it is worth; nor, above all, keep asking about it after it is given,—how you like it, whether you find it useful, &c.

It is often better to give no present at all than one beneath your means; always, should there be a misgiving on the side of the bestower.

One present in the course of a life is generosity from some: from others it is but a sacrifice made to avoid giving more.

To receive a present handsomely and in a right spirit, even when you have none to give in return, is to give one in return.

We must not send presents to strangers (except of a very common and trifling nature, and not without some sort of warrant even then) unless we are sure of our own right and good motives in sending it, and of the right and inclination, too, which they would have to permit themselves to receive it; otherwise we pay both parties a very ill compliment, and such as no modest and honourable spirit on either side would venture upon. There might, it is true, be a state of society in which such ventures would not be quite so hardy; and it is possible, meanwhile, that a very young and enthusiastic nature, in its ignorance of the perplexities that at present beset the world, might here and there hazard it; but probably a good deal of self-love would be mixed up with the proceeding. The only possible exception would be in the case of a great and rare genius, which had a right to make laws to itself, and to suppose that its notice was acquaintanceship sufficient.

who would way-lay you for half-an-hour with a history of his having cut his finger, or mislaid a pair of shoes. This gentleman did not draw infinite somethings out of nothing, like the wits of the Lutrin or the Rape of the Lock, or the Italian expatiators upon a Cough or a Christian-name. He got hold of nothing, and out of it, with a congeniality of emptiness, drew nothing whatever. But it was he that drew the nothing, and you that listened to him; and thus he got a sense of himself somehow. If you ran against him in the street, it was an event in his life, and enabled him to stand breathing, and smiling, and saying how much it did not signify, for the next intense five minutes. He once met a lady, an acquaintance of his, who was going to have a tooth drawn.

Dear me, madam, and so you are going to have your tooth drawn?

Yes, sir.

hope the process will be easy-h'm! ha-a-ah ! (Takes farewell between a sort of breath and a groan. Lady goes into the dentist's, has her tooth drawn, and on returning down the court is astonished to find the gentleman waiting at the corner, to congratulate her!)*

Well, madam (bowing and smiling), the tooth is drawn, I presume?

(Lady acquiesces.)

Dear me ! ah !—I'm !—very painful, I fear --a long while drawing?

Lady. 'Tis out, at last. (Aside. I wonder when the man will have done with his absurdity.)

A skilful dentist, Mr. Parkinson, madam? (Lady acquiesces.)

I have not been to a dentist myself theselet me see ah, yes, it must be-now-these twenty years. I had one bad tooth, and caught a cold sitting in the draught of a coach—very dangerous thing-and chaises are worse-very dangerous things, chaises-h'm—very. are suffering still, I see, madam? from the

You

Not a little, indeed.

God bless me ! I am very sorry to hear it, -cery sorry. How long, pray, may you have suffered this toothach ?

I should think a week.

God bless me ! A week! That is a long time! And by night as well as by day, I presume?

I have hardly had any sleep these two nights.

Dear me! That is very sad. God bless me ! No sleep for these two nights! Want of sleep is a very sad thing,-highly distressing. I could not do without my regular sleep. No, no; none of us can. It is highly undermining to the constitution. Produces such fatiguesuch lassitude-such weariness. I'm! h'm! (Humming with a sort of sympathy and gentlemanly groan, as if his own face were bound up.) I see you are suffering now, madam?

It will be soon over now.

H'm! You are very bold, madam,-very resolute; but that is extremely sensible. H'm! Dear me! And you have tried clove, I presume, and all that?

Why, I am not young, and do not like to part with my teeth.

Ah-oh-h'm just so-very natural-ahyes-dear me! h'm! A double tooth, I suppose?

(The lady nods.)

Al-afraid of the cold air-you are right not to open your mouth, madam. Cold gets in. Ah-h❜m-yes-just so. (Nodding, bowing, and groaning.)

(Lady turns to go up a court, and makes a gesture of bidding him good morning.)

Oh-ah-dear me! ay, this is the place-so it is I wish you a happy release, madam-I

dear me! I am keeping you in the draught of this court, and you go the other way. Good morning, madam-Good morning-I wish you a very GOOD morning-Don't speak, I beg— GOOD morning.

And so, thus heaping emphasis upon emphasis upon this very new valediction, and retaining a double smile amidst his good wishes, from his very new joke about the ghost of a tooth, our Hero of Common-place takes his leave.

LI. AMIABLENESS SUPERIOR TO

INTELLECT.

IN our article upon the gossiping old gentleman who appeared to sympathise so excessively with the lady's toothach, we omitted to caution some of our readers against supposing that we were contradicting our usual sympathetic theories, and laughing at any innocent exemplification of them, however trivial. But though the gentleman was harmless, except in his tediousness, and not an ill-natured man, and did far better than if he had set himself to waste an equal portion of time in the manifestation of antipathy, yet sympathy was not the ground of his proceeding it was pure want of ideas, and a sensation,-the necessity of killing time. We should not object even to any innocent mode of doing that, where a human being lives under a necessity so unfortunate, and has not the luck to be a hedger or ditcher: but it is desirable not to let sympathy be mistaken for something different from what it is, especially where it takes a shape that is ridiculous.

On the other hand, with regard to the common-place of the matter, apart from an abso

* A fact.

lute extravagance of insipidity, far are we from wishing to treat common-places with derision, purely as such. They are the common clay of which human intercourse is made, and therefore as respectable in our eyes as any other of the ordinary materials of our planet, however desirous we may be of warming them into flowers. Nay, flowers they have, provided the clay be pure and kindly. The air of health and cheerfulness is over them. They are like the common grass, and the daisies and buttercups. Children have them; and what children have, the most uncommon grown people may envy, unless they have health and cheerfulness too.

It is Sir Walter Scott, we believe, who has observed somewhere, that men of superior endowments, or other advantages, are accustomed to pay too little regard to the intercourse of their less gifted fellow-creatures, and to regret all the time that is passed in their company. He says they accustom themselves so much to the living upon sweets and spices, that they lose a proper relish for ordinary food, and grow contemptuous of those who subsist upon it, to the injury of their own enjoyment. They keep their palate in a constant state of thirst and irritation, rather than of healthy satisfaction. And we recollect Mr. Hazlitt making a remark to a similar effect, namely, that the being accustomed to the society of men of genius renders the conversation of others tiresome, as consisting of a parcel of things that have been heard a thousand times, and from which no stimulus is to be obtained. He lamented this, as an effect unbecoming a reflecting man and a fellow-creature (for though irritable, and sometimes resentful, his heart was large and full of humanity); and the consequence was, that nobody paid greater attention than he to common conversation, or showed greater respect towards any endeavours to interest him, however trite. Youths of his acquaintance are fond of calling to mind the footing of equality on which he treated them, even when children, gravely interchanging remarks with them, as he sat side by side, like one grown person with another, and giving them now and then (though with out the pomp) a Johnsonian "Sir." The serious earnestness of his "Indeed, m'um !" with lifted eyebrows, and protruded lips, while listening to the surprising things told him by good housewives about their shopping or their preserves, is now sounding in our ears; and makes us long to see again the splenetic but kindly philosopher, who worried himself to death about the good of the nations.

There is but one thing necessary to put any reflecting person at his ease with common-place people; and that is, their own cheerfulness and good-humour. To be able to be displeased, in spite of this, is to be insensible to the best results of wisdom itself. When all the Miss

Smiths meet all the Miss Joneses, and there is nothing but a world of smiles, and recognitions, and gay breath, and loud askings after this person and that, and comparisons of bonnets and cloaks, and "So glads!" and "So sorrys!" and rosy cheeks, or more lovely goodnatured lips, who that has any good humour of his own, or power to extract a pleasant thought from pleasant things, desires wit or genius in this full-blown exhibition of comfortable humanity? He might as well be sullen at not finding wit or genius in a cart full of flowers, going along the street, or in the spring cry of "Primroses."

A total want of ideas in a companion, or of the power to receive them, is indeed to be avoided by men who require intellectual excitement; but it is a great mistake to suppose that the most discerning men demand intellect above everything else in their most habitual associates, much less in general intercourse. Happy would they be to see intellect more universally extended, but as a means, not as an end, as a help to the knowledge of what is amiable, and not what is merely knowing. Clever men are sometimes said even to be jealous of clever companions, especially female ones. Men of genius, it is notorious, for a very different reason, and out of their own imagination of what is excellent, and their power to adorn what they love, will be enamoured, in their youth, of women neither intelligent nor amiable, nor handsome. They make them all three with their fancy; and are sometimes too apt, in after-life, to resent what is nobody's fault but their own. However, their faults have their excuses, as well as those of other men; only they who know most, should excuse most. But the reader may take our word for it, from the experience of long intercourse with such men, that what they value above every other consideration, in a companion, female or male, is amiableness; that is to say, evenness of temper, and the willingness (general as well as particular) to please and be pleased, without egotism and without exaction. This is what we have ever felt to be the highest thing in themselves, and gave us a preference for them, infinite, above others of their own class of power. We know of nothing capable of standing by the side of it, or of supplying its place, but one; and that is a deep interest in the welfare of mankind. The possession of this may sometimes render the very want of amiableness touching, because it seems to arise from the reverse of what is unamiable and selfish, and to be exasperated, not because itself is unhappy, but because others are so. It was this, far more than his intellectual endowments (great as they were), which made us like Mr. Hazlitt. Many a contest has it saved us with him, many a sharp answer, and interval of alienation; and often, perhaps,

did he attribute to an apprehension of his formidable powers (for which, in our animal spirits, we did not care twopence) what was owing entirely to our love of the sweet drop at the bottom of his heart. But only imagine a man, who should feel this interest too, and be

deeply amiable, and have great sufferings, bodily and mental, and know his own errors, and waive the claims of his own virtues, and manifest an unceasing considerateness for the comfort of those about him, in the very least as well as greatest things, surviving, in the pure life of his heart, all mistake, all misconception, all exasperation, and ever having a soft word in his extremity, not only for those who consoled, but for those who distressed him; and imagine how we must have loved him! It was Mr. Shelley. His genius, transcendant as it was, would not have bound us to him: his poetry, his tragedy, his philosophy, would not have bound us; no, not even his generosity, had it been less amiable. It was his unbounded heart, and his ever kind speech. Now observe, pray, dear reader, that what was most delightful in such a man as this, is most delightful, in its degree, in all others; and that people are loved, not in proportion to their intellect, but in proportion to their loveability. Intellectual powers are the leaders

of the world, but only for the purpose of guiding them into the promised land of peace and amiableness, or of showing them encouraging pictures of it by the way. They are no more the things to live with, or repose with, apart from qualities of the heart and temper, than the means are, without the end; or than a guide to a pleasant spot is the spot itself, with its trees, health, and quiet.

It has been truly said, that knowledge is of the head, but wisdom is of the heart; that is, you may know a great many things, but turn them to no good account of life and intercourse, without a certain harmony of nature often possessed by those whose knowledge is little or nothing. Many a man is to be found, who knows what amiableness is, without being amiable; and many an amiable man, who would be put to the blush if you expected of him a knowing definition of amiableness. But there are a great many people held to be very knowing, and entertaining the opinion themselves, who, in fact, are only led by that opinion to think they may dispense with being amiable, and who in so thinking confute their pretension to knowingness. The truth is, that knowledge is by no means so common a thing as people suppose it; while luckily, on the other hand, wisdom is much less uncommon; for it has been held a proof of one of the greatest instances of knowledge that ever existed, that it knew how little it did know! whereas everybody is wise in proportion as he is happy or patient; that is to say, in proportion as he makes the best of good or bad fortune.

LII.-LIFE AFTER DEATH.-BELIEF IN

SPIRITS.

WE made use of an inaccurate expression in a communication to a correspondent the publicly correcting. We spoke of man as a other day, which we take the liberty of thus finite" creature. The term, strictly speaking, does not convey the meaning we intended. Finis is an end, and finite might imply a being whose end, or utter termination, was known and certain. Assuredly we wrote the word in no such spirit of presumption. All our writings will testify, that we are of a religion which enjoys the most unbounded hopes of man, both here and hereafter. By finite, we meant to imply a creature of limited powers and circumscribed present existence. Far were immortal futurity. Religion itself must first we from daring to lift up mortal finger against be put out of man's heart, and the very be remembered as sentiment and imagination stars out of the sky, and no such words and memory, and hope too, ay, and reason, before we should presume to say what end ought to be put to these endless aspirations of

the soul.

We are for making the most of the present World, as if there were no hereafter; and the

most of hereafter, as if there were no present world. We think that God, and Christianity, and utility, and imagination, and right reason, and whatsoever is complete and harmonious in the constitution of the human faculties, however opposed it may seem, enjoin us to do BOTH. We are surprised, notwithstanding the allowance to be made for the great diversity of Christian sects, how any Christian, calling himself such by the least right of discipline, can undervalue the utmost human endeavours in behalf of this world, the utmost cultivation of this one (among others) of the manifest and starry gardens of God; but we are most of all surprised at it in those that adhere the most literally to injunction and prophecy, while they know how to confine terms "this world," &c., &c., to their proper the fugitive and conventional uses of the meanings.

In the feasibility of this consummation the most infidel Utilitarian is of the same faith with the most believing Christian, and so far is

-the best good Christian, he, Although he knows it not.

Now he is only to carry his beloved reason a little farther, and he will find himself on the confines of the most unbounded hopes of another world as well as of the present; for reason itself, in its ordinary sense, will tell him that it is reasonable to make the utmost of all his faculties, imagination included. Mr. Bentham, the very incarnation of his reason,