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DICTIONARY OF TERMS.

ABRIDGMENT.-Anything contracted into a small compass; such, for instance, as the Abridgment of the Statutes, in fifty volumes folio. ABSURDITY. Anything advanced by our opponents, contrary to our own practice, or above our comprehension. ACHIEVEMENT OR HATCHMENT Is generally stuck up to commemorate the decease of some of the illustrious obnever achieved anything worth notice until they died, and would be instantly forgotten if their memory did not secure an immortality of a twelvemonth by being nailed to the front of their houses.

scure, who

ADVICE. Almost the only commodity which the world refuses to receive, although it may be had gratis, with an allowance to those who take a quantity.

AIR. In the country, an emanation from the pure sky, perfumed by the flowery earth; in London, a noxious compound of fog, smoke, putridity, and villanous exhalations.

AMBIGUITY. A quality deemed essentially necessary in diplomatic writings, acts of parliament, and law proceedings. ANCESTRY. The boast of those who have nothing else to boast of.

ANTIQUITY. The youth, nonage, and inexperience of the world, invested, by a strange blunder, with the reverence due to the present times, which are its true old age. Antiquity is the young miscreant who massacred prisoners taken in war, sacrificed human beings to idols, burnt them in Smithfield, as heretics or witches, believed in astrology, demonology, witchcraft, and every exploded folly and enormity, although his example be still gravely urged as a rule of conduct, and a standing argument against any improvement upon the "wisdom of our

ancestors!

יי!

APPETITE-A relish bestowed upon the poorer classes that they may like what they eat, while it is seldom enjoyed by the rich, although they may eat what they like.

ARGUMENT. With fools, passion, vociferation, or violence; with ministers, a majority; with kings, the sword; with men of sense, a sound reason.

ARMY.-A collection of human măchines, often working as the blind instruments of blind power.

ASTROLOGY is to ASTRONOMY what

alchemy is to chemistry-the ignorant parent of a learned offspring.

AVARICE.-The mistake of the old, who begin multiplying their attachments to the earth just as they are going to run away from it, and who are thereby increasing the bitterness without protracting the date of their separation.

AY.-A monosyllable occasionally productive of great benefit to those who utterit.

BABIES.-Noisy lactivorous animalcula, much desid ted by those who never had

any.

BAG.-A convenient receptacle for anything wished to be secreted, and usually carried by people of doubtful character, such as pettifoggers, oldclothes-men, &c.

BAIT.-One animal impaled upon a hook in order to torture a second for the

amusement of a third.

BAKER.-One who gets his own bread by adulterating that of others.

BALL. An assembly for the ostensible purpose of dancing, where the old ladies shuffle and cut against one another for money, and the young ones do the same for husbands.

BARRISTER.-One who sometimes makes his gown a cloak for browbeating and putting down a witness, who but for this protection might occasionally knock down the barrister.

BEAUTY. An ephemeral flower, the charm of which is destroyed as soon as it is gathered: a common ingredient in matrimonial unhappiness.

BED. An article in which we are born, and pass the happiest portion of our lives, and yet one which we never wish to keep.

BLUSHING. A practice least used by those who have most occasion for it.

BONNET.-An article of dress much used by fashionable females for carrying a head in.

Book. A thing formerly put aside to be read, and now read to be put aside.

Box, OPERA.-A small inclosure wherein the upper classes assemble twice a week for the pleasure of hearing one another, and seeing the music.

(To be continued.)

APPENDIX.

THE POETIC COMPANION.

We are happy to inform our readers that the first Number of the Poetic Companion is now ready. Its nature and appearance is altogether different from the Supplementary Number of Poetry which we issued in June last; and as it is quite likely that a large number of our readers are interested in the little new monthly, perhaps we cannot do better than give in this place the following extract from its Introduction:

"Every man should exhibit in his character, and the daily action of his life, an apology for his existence. Every word he utters should proclaim his right to walk upon the world, and suggest happy relation to his fellows. In like manner, every book should bear upon its front, not merely the assertion, but the proof of its right to be printed, circulated, and read. We base our right to be printed and read upon the fact, that no Journal exists at the present time for the ostensible purpose of illustrating, diffusing, cherishing, and cultivating poetry. There is poetry everywhere-in the green fields, where the flowers watch the rising and setting of the sun, and where the blush of beauty and the breath of song are married in a communion of the spiritual in the blue sky, with its benedictions of sunlight, starlight, and moonlight, gilding us as it were, in its soft, dewy arms, and whispering the serenity of heaven; in the streets of the crowded city, where wealth and poverty, luxury and rags, vice and virtue, hold uninterrupted carnival, where the toiler's heart is shrunk and withered aimost to dust, and the sorrowed sufferer seeks only for a grave:-there is poetry there, and no day ever passes than an "Iliad " is not written on its trampled stones. No less true it is, that the love of poetry is as universal as poetry itself. It is the talismanic chain which unlocks the door of every heart, aud lights up with beauty, and solace, and the radiance of a holy joy, the pathway on which its seraphsympathies troop forth into the world. It is the heart's repose-the soul's vision of delight-the bud and flewer of its primal bloom-and the hierarch of its blessed destiny.

The love of poetry has no modern channel of expression; the object, mission, and career of the Poet no visible vindicator-no impartial record. The poetic thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of our daily life have no locus-no established home; and can only find shelter in the last pages of popular Journals, or in the crevices between the columns of newspapers.

We believe that the land of Chaucer, Shakspere, and Milton should not tolerate this: and, in order to supply so great a deficiency in our literature, we have ventured on the publication of the present work. We wish to make poetry universal; to scatter its precious pearls and jewels on the household hearth, and on the pillow of the weary dreamer: we wish to surround life with sweet visions, and, while robbing it of no realities, infusing into it a nobler love for ideas, and an appreciation of the beautiful. Poetical Criticisms, Biographies, Essays, Fictions, Fancies, and Facts will be strung together with the thread of song, beautifled with the dews of Castaly, made lovely by fresh daisies from Donnington. We shall traverse all the realms of the Heroic, the Ideal, and the Beautiful, to gather golden gleams of Hyperion lustre, leaving the gloomy, the cloudy, and the sorrowful, and keeping for ourselves and our readers only the sunshine.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

The Book of One Hundred Beverages. WIL-
LIAM BERNHARD. London: Houlston and
Stoneman; and Ramsay, Brompton.

Clara Eversham: or, the Memoirs of a School Girl. HARRIET DOYLE HOWE. London: Darling & Company, Gracechurch Street. IF any one wishes to know what a variety of THE perusal of this interesting narrative has uncivilized compounds a civilized people can brought back the memory of our school-days manufacture as a substitute for water, we fresh as our childhood. Miss Howe's lines would advise him to look at this book. It flow so naturally, that the reader feels early is really curious to know what a variety of fears and sympathies recalled to life. The artificial drinks can be made out of a variety book is intended as a present for little girls, of ingredients, and it is humiliating to think and we feel sure it can never be given or ac- what some people will sip and swallow in precepted with regret. While the incidents of ference to man's natural beverage-water. the story are highly interesting, it is told in Water can never be improved. It is not only that refined simplicity which cannot fail to the best, but the only drink nature has deelevate the little reader. A sweet religious signed for man, and he does best who conspirit pervades the whole, unmixed with sec- sumes least of the spurious beverages which tarianisms or mystery. The characters of the are manufactured by man. school girls are well drawn, and the identites of Clara Eversham and Miss Clavering well sustained. The illustrations by Ashley are in his usual happy style. We think the Authoress has been before the public before in the pages of the Youth's and Blackwood's Magazines. A small volume entitled "A Present for Servants," published by the Religious Tract Society, we know was from her, and we only hope her new book will have as wide a circulaton as this well-known volume.

The Literary and Scientific Lecturer, Vol. I,
London Strange, Paternoster Row.

A USEFUL and a cheap volume of interesting
and instructive reading. "The Lecturer" is
a periodical issued monthly, and each number
contains the reports of several lectures deli-
vered by able and well-known lecturers, in
different parts of the country. The members
of Mechanics' Institutes and Literary Societies
cannot but be pleased with the work.

man, in these days of Papal assumption and Protestant agitation, should remain in igno

rance.

Anti-State Church Tracts. No. 4, Crescent, I control. And this is a subject on which no Bridge Street, Blackfriars. ADMIRABLE small shot for the enemies camp are these Tracts. Where the newspaper or the speech from the platform does not reach, these little fact-bound, truth-telling, fearless messengers may be sent, and they cannot be read without doing much to remove prejudice, and produce conviction. All members of the Anti-State Church Association should purchase them, read them, and circulate them. And all who are not members should get them, and ascertain for themselves what can be said in favour of emancipating religion from Statetion of this beautiful art.

Woodley's Progressive Drawing Book. Lon-
don: J. H. Woodley, 31, Fore Street.
THIS is not only a cheap, but a useful book
for all who wish to become proficient in draw-
ing. It is in reality a progressive drawing
book, as it leads the learner from step to step
through the elementary stages in the acquisi-

THE AWAKENING.

BY MARIE J. EWEN.

I slept no soul-reviving beam
Flashed on my sight with golden gleam
To light the desert of my dream;

But shadows fleeted through my brain,
And echoes of a once-heard strain
That struggled into life again.

Night's deepest shades around me lay,
Dark doubts and fears gloomed o'er the way,
But in my sleep I prayed for day.

With tears His aid 1 did invoke,
He heard my voice-behold I woke,
And then the bright-eyed morning broke!

O'er all hath swept a conquering change,
My vision claimed a wider range,
And all seemed beautiful and strange.

In glorious liberty I stand,

For heavenly Truth with magic hand
Hath snapt in twain my prison band.

The mist rolls from the mountain's brow,
In lowly reverence I bow,

To hail the day-dawn breaking now.

For, bursting on my raptured sight,
Sublime, all renovating light
Reveals a scene divinely bright.
Wond'rous! I live-I breathe-I see-
All things shine clearly forth-for me
Have fled the clouds of mystery.

Now first to life-to life I rise,
Serenely now, my wond'ring eyes
May glance athwart the azure skies.

For proudly and erect I stand,
And gaze o'er all this beauteous land,
The offspring of my Father's hand.

Oh, brilliant sun, this world so wide,
Clothed in thy robes of regal pride,
Beams forth more bright and glorified.

Oh, queen-like moon, so cold and pale,
Glancing serene through Night's dark veil
With sister stars that round thee sail.

Ye trees, that flourish fair and high,
Oh shake your boughs with melody
To the evening breeze that glideth by.

Oh murm'ring brooks with rip'ling flow,
And waters ever chanting low
A mournful music as ye go.

Fair hills, whose summits seek the sky,
Where, bathed in hues of tyrian dye,
The sunset clouds voluptuous hie.

Oh star-crowned night with azure brow
'Tis grand to gaze upon thee now,
And think that I am more than thou.

This world so fair must fade and die,
And others rise and fall-while I
Shall flourish through Eternity!

A weight hath past from off my brow,
Oh, Truth, how beautiful art thou!
I love, believe, and worship now.

In days of yore, thou moaning sea,
Oft hath thy music seemed to me
A language strange-a mystery.

Now tread I new discovered ground,
Each glorious sight, each heavenly sound
An echo in my heart hath found.

Nature hymns forth high harmony,
Her glorious anthems singing free
Shall vibrate through Immensity!

Oh, Truth sublime! still brightër shine,
This gorgeous Universe is mine,
For, Holy Father, I am thine !

MEMOIR OF MACREADY.

MEMOIR OF MACREADY.
By T. H. REES.

As the greatest living actor is about to
take his farewell of the stage, we think
this a proper time to give a short sketch
of his remarkable history.

Whatever may be the opinions our readers entertain of the stage as a means of national amusement and instruction, be they favourable or unfavourable, they cannot but admit that some of England's greatest geniuses have displayed their powers for the stage and on the stage. And as Macready is on all hands admitted to be a great man and the greatest living actor, we think we may with propriety, and especially at the present time, give a memoir of him in our pages.

On the 3d of March, 1793, in Charles-street, Fitzroy-square, William Charles Macready was born. Boisterous March with its howling hurricanes and storm-tost elements is well suited to herald a tragedian into life.

Tracing the stock from which he sprung, we find the Macready family had for two generations maintained a respectable commercial position as up holsterers in Dublin, supplying a large connection of the Irish nobility and gentry with silks and damasks.

Charles Macready, the father of the great actor, served a portion of his appenticeship in the paternal business, but being occasionally permitted to spend his hours of relaxation in the arenas of Smock-alley and Crow-street, he became smitten with the tinsel and tawdry of the stage, and soon exchanged the ledger for the prompter's book, and the pen of business for the sock and buskin. Joining a strolling company as an amateur star, he visited most of the Hibernian theatres, learning much, and no doubt enduring much. On his return to Dublin he had the good fortune to meet the veteran Charles Macklin, who was so much pleased with his talents, that he used his interest to procure Macready an appointment at Covent Garden, where he had the honour to make his debut in the character of Flutter, before their Majesties.

After a successful career in Irish characters, he speculated as a manager,

39

taking alternately the Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle, Carlisle, Berwick, and Bristol theatres; the last is still in the possession of his second wife.

Mr. Charles Macready ranked also as a respectable author, and produced several clever plays, partly original and partly translated and re-adapted from the French.

His reputation once or twice sustained slight injury by his name appearing as author to borrowed materials. At the period when Mr. Macready had attained the summit of his fame, William Charles Macready, the subject of our memoir, entered the world, under prosperous skies, finding favour and fortune nurse to his infancy.

His initiatory education was received under the classical Dr. Arnold, at Rugby School, with the view of preparing him for the English bar, for successful as his father had been in his dramatic enterprises, he yet wished his son to pursue a different profession. Young Macready pursued his studies with such ability and perseverance that he became an accomplished scholar, but when at length in his seventeenth year it was expected that all his acquirements would be brought to adorn the legal profession, he suddenly evinced a dramatic bias so strong that it seemed striving against fate to oppose the natural course of his genius.

In 1810 he made his debut at the Birmingham theatre, in the character of the love-sick Romeo, and the curtain fell at the close of the tragedy before a crowded house, amid a torrent of applause, that while it flushed the cheek and hopes of the histrionic aspirant, also convinced his friends that the course he had taken was not likely to prove injurious to his fortune or reputation.

The extensive managerial control possessed by the elder Macready in the provinces enabled the young Macready to take a position at once in first class characters, without climbing through those subordinate gradations which too often, although it may extend the student's artistic knowledge, destroys with mortification and evil association the originality and soul of the actor.

After creating a large circle of admirers in Birn ingham, he started upon a country tour, and appeared as a star upon the several stages then under his father's direction, and everywhere the treasurer's fund and the provincial reviews gave a good account of his performances.

During the years 1813 and 1814 he visited Liverpool, Dublin, Newcastle, and Bath with similar success. Although during all this time he must have studied closely to have maintained his theatrical position, yet he had found leisure to employ his pen in the manufacture of a drama, founded upon Scott's "Rokeby," and it was just about this period that he gave the last stroke to the last act. May 20, 1814; this, his first literary work, was brought out in respectable style at Newcastle, the author performing the chief character himself. At the close of the piece the actor and writer were loudly called for.

the power to perform them; and splendid as the array of talent then at the head of the drama was, Macready boldly aspired to the highest position, and entered London with the full intention of reaching and maintaining it.

On the night of the 16th of September, 1816, the curtain of Covent Garden theatre rose, to reveal to a crowded house the first scene in the " Distressed Mother." The cast was strong, containing Charles Kemble, Abbott, Mrs. Egerton, and the late Mrs. Glover, but the chief attention of the piece was Orestes impersonated by the new tragedian Mr. Macready. In the dress circle were many of the wits and critics of the day, eagerly preparing to anatomize every action and conception of the debutant. There sat the earnest and spirit stirring Hazlitt in quiet contemplation, and partially concealed in a private box was Edmund Kean, the hero of the stage, his head rested on his hand, and, as the play proceeded, the faults and merits of the young tragedian passed over his countenance like clouds and sun-rays reflected on a mirror. Now the lip curled in contempt at some slight mistake, then the eye grew bright, and the cheek flushed as a difficult tactic was performed with masterly power, and a close watcher might more than once have seen that blank gaze of despair which individual genius gives when she sees her dominion outcircled.

For several years the fame of the tragedian had been confined to the provinces, but as it reverberated from town to town, each time increasing in volume, its echo at length attracted the ears of London managers. The Drury Lane committee made him an offer, but the proposals were never acted upon, and the following summer Macready was engaged upon very liberal terms at Covent Garden, to appear the next winter season. How he passed the few months' interval we do not know, but we are sure tha this naturally studious mind did not neglect preparation for the approaching trial. Since the bright days of Mrs. Siddons and her majestic brother, the high walks of the metropolitan stage had been in the undisputed possession of Charles Kemble, Edmund Kean, and Young, and to attempt any innovation on this illus- The reviews of the next day comtrious trio was to stem the tide of popu-plained of the tragedian's voice being larity that with contempt and ridicule bore down all but established favourites. Indeed, at this time the only apparent chance for a young actor to obtain a footing was to degrade his own genius by becoming an imitator of one of these monopolizing idols.

1t required, therefore, more than common courage to enter the lists against such great odds, but wherever genius is it attempts great things, because it feels

Although this piece has always been considered dull, and the part of Orestes puny and difficult, yet Mr. Macready was decidedly successful, and when at the fall of the curtain his appearence was announced for the following night, it was received with three unanimous cheers,

too weak for the size of the house, but passed the highest encomiums on his delineation of the passions and feelings.

Macready had now made a public position, and friends and enemies began to multiply. Edmund Kean, notoriously tenacious of public applause, soon had reason to fear Macready's increasing popularity, and often remarked he considered him his only dangerous rival.

After the representation of one or two

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