carriage amongst natives, he thought he had never remarked it in a greater degree than in this man. He stood with his arms folded over his bosom, and his head a little drawn back, looking intently upon the combat before him; his black eye from time to time flashed fire as he observed the successful blows, but no muscle of his finely-formed countenance moved; and while it was evident that the spirit within felt strongly, the outward man remained as immoveable as if he had been carved in marble. His features, high and regular, were well calculated to express all strong passions; his coal-black hair, mustachios, and short beard, had a slight turn in the points, which might be natural or the effect of careful keeping, as there was not a single hair out of place in either, while the ruddy glow which mantled through his dark cheek, showed he was accustomed to air and exercise. When the defeated elephant turned, he cast a glance upon Melville, but without moving his head, and when he fled, his nostrils dilated with scorn. Flushed with conquest, the triumphant victor followed, and his trunk repeated the blows, until the vanquished, sorely pressed and perfectly furious, effected a breach in the barrier, and rushed through the assembled multitude, crushing under foot and trampling to death every one in his way. Melville's horse became perfectly unmanageable, reared, and, spinning round on his hind legs, tried all in his power to dislodge his rider; but Melville kept his seat, and the native who had watched his movements, seized the bridle with a practised hand, and with a jerk brought the horse to the ground, advising Melville, in Hindostanee, to lose not a moment in effecting his escape from danger, an advice with which he was well disposed to comply, but his refractory animal, in his efforts to turn him, frantic with fear, bolted forward and fell, throwing his rider just in the path which the infuriated elephant was taking. The native who had before assisted him, made a spring in the same direction, and drawing a pistol from his cummerbund, which had been concealed by his chuddar, took a steady aim at the eye of the exasperated elephant, and lodged the contents in his brain. He fell with a groan, and expired, while his destroyer replaced his pistol in his belt, and disappeared.

"The crowd was so immense, and the elephant's bursting out so sudden, that though a simultaneous movement had been made to give him way, it was impossible to escape him. Smarting under the shame of his defeat and his wounds, he seemed resolved to inflict something of what he suffered on every creature which stood in his way, and ran in and trampled under foot wherever the crowd was thickest; he had marked his path with destruction, until the moment his resolute adversary had brought him to the ground, and he had barely fallen when a hundred voices exclaimed together, Seize the man who dared to kill the king's favourite elephant! What are the lives of low caste men to the king's pleasure? Slaves who would be much honoured by dying under the feet of an animal who had borne the ruler of the destinies of men! Even those whom his presence of mind had rescued from instant death, with true native servility shouted, Seize him! seize him! cut off his ears and his nose! off with his head for his presumption !' But this man, who seemed as active as he was resolute, ran through the opening the elephant had caused in the crowd, and crossed the road which bounded the plain, where a black horse stood picketed under a tree. A native, who watched the approach of his master, undid the heel ropes, while he leaped into his saddle. His foremost pursuer just got up with him as he mounted his well-trained steed. Seize O Meer Sing! shouted the muscular chokeydar, as he ran with his target on his left arm, and brandished his tulwar with the other. Seize him whose name makes men's hearts to tremble, and get the price which is set upon his head, and a great name to fill the world! But the redoubtable O Meer Sing, for it was indeed he, lost no time in useless parley; he turned round, raised himself in his stirrups, discharged his second pistol with as sure aim as he had done the first, and laid

his adversary flat on the grass. The horse seemed to share the spirit and feeling of the rider; he snorted at the well-known sound of the pistol, and, skimming the earth like a swallow, was out of sight in an instant, even before his unmounted pursuers could make a second effort. Thus baulked of their prey, the agitated multitude heaved upon the plain like the sea after a gale, swelling in broken waves and confused murmurs."

"The BEAUTIES of the BRITISH POETS, with a few Introductory Observations by the Rev. George Croly," is a very judicious, and, of course, unexceptionable selection. A third of the extracts are from living authors. We have only one regret to express. The book being edited by Mr. Croly contains none of his own productions; and where Montgomery and Millman are found, surely the author of " Paris" ought to have a place. The preface is very elegantly written-a little antithetical, but fresh and vigorous. We will give the passage on Byron :

"Lord Byron's merits and defects, as a poet, have been largely attributed to the personal temperament that accounts for, and palliates, his personal career. The constitutional iritability which embittered his days, probably gave birth to the pride, sternness, and misanthropy of his style, its love of the darker passions, and its sullen and angry views of human life. But the error was often nobly redeemed by the outbreak of a noble mind, by touches of the finest feeling; flashes of sunshine through the gloom; vistas of the rosiest beauty, through a mental wilderness that seemed to have been bared and blackened in the very wrath of Nature.

"Like all men of rank, he had temptations to contend with, that severely try man. Fortune, flattering companionship, and foreign life, were his natural perils; and we can only lament that, when a few years more might have given him back to his country, with his fine faculties devoted to her service, and cheered by true views of human life, his career was closed. His moral system as a poet is founded on the double error, that great crimes imply great qualities; and that virtue is a slavery. Both maxims palpably untrue; for crime is so much within human means, that the most stupendous crime may be committed by the most abject of human beings. And common experience shows, that to be superior to our habits and passions is the only true freedom; while the man of the wildest licence is only so much the more fettered and bowed down. But on the grave of Byron there can be but one inscription-that living long enough for fame, he died too soon for his country. All hostility should be sacrificed on the spot where the remains of the great poet sleep; and no man worthy to tread the ground will approach it but with homage for his genius, and sorrow that such genius should have been sent to darkness, in the hour when it might have begun to fulfil its course, and, freed from the mists and obliquities of its rising, run its high career among the enlighteners of mankind.

The ANNUALS?The Forget me Not!-The Friendship's Offering!! -The Anniversary!!!-The Amulet!!!!-The Winter's Wreath!!!!! -The Literary Souvenir!!!!!!-Is it possible!-Complete! 'fresh as a bridegroom'-glittering in green and gold, and purple, and puce leather, and pea-green cases. - Heavens! is Christmas come already, with her gifts and her greetings. "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," if these are symptoms that we have lost two months of our lives. But Christmas is not come, and the Christmas-boxes are; and as the Frenchman said of us " on dine si tard qu'on finira par dîner la lendemain," the Annuals will be published so soon, that they will come in season at last, by going backward.

66

And now what is to be done with these delicate flowerets, which make all other books look vulgar and uninviting; which, if we read them, will keep us in a dream of song and sentiment for a month, and quite unfit us for our sterner duties. Then, if they lie about our "Room" our lives will be worn out by petitions for a sight of the early copies. Mary will steal in, as we are taking our evening nap, and carry them off as lawful prize to the nursery;-while Augusta will borrow four at least of the precious volumes, to complete her Album with the delicious extracts. They shall go to India-to Scotland-to Germanyto Ireland ;—we will "put a girdle round the earth" with them ;-and that we may please our friends and waste no ink, the public shall have the benefit of our " Private Correspondence" on these matters, before the individuals to whom our missives are addressed call upon the Chancellor for an injunction.

To begin.

To M

FORGET ME NOT,
L-

Calcutta.

THIS is the sixth year that I have had the happiness of writing your name in this very pretty work. I shall not easily forget your expressions of pleasure upon receiving it for the first time; and how convinced you felt that no competition could attempt the slighest approach to its manifold excellences. We have now seven or eight other publications of a similar nature, of which it would be difficult to say which is the more beautiful. But take down from their resting-place in your boudoir the five volumes of the "Forget me Not," which are still fresh in their unspotted livery of pea-green; and you will see how amazingly each succeeding volume has been an improvement upon its predecessor. Ackermann deserves the thanks of his country for the introduction of what we now familiarly call the Annuals; and it is only a marvel that the German and French almanacs had not earlier set us upon their imitation. We are a slow people in adopting any unfamiliar principle in art, or literature, or science; but, when we do begin, we leave the rest of the world a long way behind. But why do I talk about Ackermann having the thanks of his country? He sells ten thousand of his book, and in that circumstance he will find abundant reward for his enterprising perseverance.

These works have done more for the arts than for letters. To say the truth, I have some doubts whether our literature be not injured by them. They have set a vast many people scribbling, who would never have dreamt of committing the sin of rhyme, without such excitements; and, what is more, they have compelled those who can write well, to adopt a style of composition which appears to me any thing but vigorous and original. With a few exceptions, the Editors of these works seem to think that very high literary excellence would be out of place, and not likely to be relished by the great body of young ladies and gentlemen, who, being in their chrysalis state, between the governess and the ball-room, the public school and the university, have an abundant relish for sentimental tales of Greece, and Spain, and Père-la-Chaise, and a most accurate perception of the beauty

of those verses which are made up of the usual assortment of bowers and flowers. You have often heard me say, that, except in a few rare instances, mediocrity is essentially necessary to great literary success in this country. You have by this time read a poem, upon which the people have been mad, entitled "The Omnipresence of the Deity." That has run through five or six editions; "The Excursion" has seen a second in ten years. There are, indeed, some rare exceptions, such as Scott's Novels and Blackwood's Magazine; but the reasons for their popularity must be sought for in other principles than their undoubted talents.

But these works have done a great deal for the arts; and for that we are, perhaps, mainly indebted to one of Mr. Ackermann's rivals. Alaric Watts took advantage of the growing knowledge of the people in these matters; and thus, instead of giving them the same sprawling cherubim, which ladies had been gumming for twenty years upon their fire-screens, he boldly engraved some of the finest pictures of the modern school,-not in a slight, sketchy style, but with a truth and beauty, quite surprising upon so small a scale. Others have, perhaps, gone beyond him now in this excellence; for we are a luxurious public, and do not mind price in the purchase of the best thing in its line. Competition in these matters is certainly at its height; and, I fear prodigious risks must be run by some of those who are engaged in this new course of literary speculation.

But I am forgetting "Forget me Not,"-which is very ungrateful of me. You will first look at the embellishments; and I shall not call you a child for this very natural and proper desire. The frontispiece of Curtius leaping into the gulf, after Martin, is an extraordinary effort of minute power; but its general effect is that of exaggeration. That distant light is much too violent. It shows, however, how much can be done in a small space; and displays a great deal more than the ingenuity of the artist who puts a hundred pair of scissors into a nut-shell. I think Corbould is not a favourite of yours, and certainly, in “Fathime and Euphrosyne," he is most interestingly commonplace. Not so "Constancy," after Stephanoff. The "Frolic in a Palace" is a fine specimen of Chalon, who has studied the point-lace and brocade of the old régime with wonderful accuracy. But my delights are, "The Idle Schoolboy," charmingly engraved by W. Finden, after Thomson; and "Alice," from the simple pencil of Leslie, most sweetly copied by Goodyear.

And now, to talk a little with you about the prose and verse of this volume. The ladies certainly have laboured hard in the cultivation of Mr. Ackermann's flower-garden. Mrs. Hemans, sweet as her verses are, is a little de trop in the Annuals of this year :

"The chariest maid is prodigal enough,

If she unveil her beauties to the moon"—

and Mrs. Hemans unveils everywhere. No one can rejoice more than myself to find such a writer popular; but the public is a capricious personage. "L. E. L." has done wisely to write little or nothing this year. She will be the more valued for it. Then, we have Miss Mitford, always natural and pleasing; and Mrs. Hofland, always sensible and improving; and Mrs. Bowdich, who is not only a clever writer herself, but has great claims upon our sympathy, as the relict

of one of the most enterprising travellers and diligent naturalists of our day. Delta, and Hogg, and Barry Cornwall, and James Montgomery, and Clare, are amongst the illustrious of Mr. Ackermann's masculine band. Of the aspirants, there is rather more than a fair sprinkling.

We must steal a line or two for the public,-first, from an account of a remarkable funeral in Père la Chaise ;-and, secondly, a piece of verse from the quaker-poet, Barton:

"The sound of martial music struck upon my ear, and recalled me to the purpose of my visit. I obeyed the summons, and walked hastily to the brow of the hill, from which I might observe the advance of the procession. Such an effect I cannot hope to witness often again. Ever and anon were heard the solemn notes of the trumpet; now bursting in, full and strong, on the ear, and now dying away with the other music on the breeze, whilst the soldiers, in number about two thousand, were deploying through the valley and gradually ascending the acclivity by its winding paths. The men were at one time partly hidden by the trees, and then again their arms were displayed glittering in the sun-beams; and all were marching with a slow and measured step, which was not ill fitted to express the concern of veteran troops for the loss of their comrade and general. I followed the motions of the crowd which was watching their progress, and presently found myself by the railing which encloses the grave where lie the remains of the brave and ill-fated Ney.

"Next to the grave of Ney was the newly raised tomb of Davoust, and beyond it an obelisk to the memory of Massena, "the spoiled child of fortune;" and still further on, in the same line, a small tower erected on the burial-place of Mortier. On the tomb of Davoust, Marshal Jourdan now stood to read his éloge. Jourdan is, I believe, the oldest surviving general of the Revolution. He is long past the middle of life, and the hardships of many a campaign, together with years, have changed his hair to a snowy whiteness: his appearance is venerable, and his countenance extremely benevolent. His character has always possessed the generosity so generally attributed to the army; and notwithstanding his frequent ill success in the field, he has at every period commanded the respect and esteem of his fellow-soldiers. He read the éloge with tempered sorrow which will be felt by one brave man mourning over another, and lamenting that he should have died from the slow progress of a lingering disease, and not in the full vigour of life fallen, where a soldier hopes to fall, in the tumult and hurry of the fight.

But, it will be asked, what eulogium could be pronounced, by one of Jourdan's mild character, on the man whose atrocious conduct at Hamburgh will cause his name to be recorded with infamy in the annals of mankind. Jourdan told of his rise to eminence, his courage in the field, his success as a general, and his steady adherence to the interests of the army. A murmur of approbation went through the ranks: such a eulogium was sufficient to engage the feelings of the French soldiers, every man of whom knew and felt that his merits in his profession might one day raise him to the same high command. This knowledge, of course, wonderfully increases the interest which they take in all that concerns their general, and sublimes among them that invaluable esprit de corps, which is the most striking and favourable characteristic of military men. If they were reminded of his savage violence at Hamburgh, they rebutted the charge of cruelty by an assurance of its