formly taken as conveying an insult: I mean the addressing a person by the appellation of "good man," or "good woman." What these words strictly convey, it would be, perhaps, difficult to say; but it must be presumed that the innuendo is very base, since it excites so great a degree of indignation where it is applied. In France, Bonhommie conveys an insinuation of folly or dupery not very creditable to the morality of the country; since it implies that simplicity of character has no chance in society-that chi non sa fingere non sa vivere-and that not to deceive others is, like playing a fair game with sharpers, to strip yourself and ruin your children. A fripon fripon et demi is, therefore, the standard of morality of all who are not born idiots, and bon homme is equivalent to cuckold or gull.

In England, however, this is not the case: good man and good woman signify rather (as far as the phrase is intelligible) vagabond, rascal, one of the dregs of the people. By which we plainly see, that if" the quality" have not abandoned all notion that goodness is a part of greatness, at least their inferiors think so. Yet if any one doubts that the china ware of God's creation do really calumniate themselves by agreeing with the crockery in this notion, he has only to ask himself what would be the consequence of calling a gentleman good man:"Odds pistols and triggers!" there would be no avoiding a duel. Indeed, I would not advise a peaceable man to call even a fish-wife "good woman;" he had better call her a at once. The Athenians, who were a very sensitive if not always a very sensible people, were much alive to verbal distinctions; they would not endure even that a prison should be called by its proper name; although, if Aristophanes be taken as a witness against them, they had no objection to calling a spade a spade. The English, who (in virtue, I suppose, of their free government) imitate the Greeks in so many particulars, are daily approaching them in this delicacy. What a quarrel would a man get into who talked of Ducks on the Stock Exchange; or if, in the other Exchange he happened to call Accommodation (which is a good word and comes of accommodo) flying kites! Revolution is sixty-four per cent., a worse word than it was thirty years ago; Reform has wholly fallen into disrepute; and, as things are going, even Religion itself is in danger of losing its character. The French have a dictionary of revolutionary neologisms, and we are daily more and more in want of a book of the same sort. In a short time I hope to be enabled to lay a specimen of such a work before the public, by which we may have our tongues, like our hair, "cut in the newest fashion," and speak in words as well starched as our cravats. I therefore beseech the reader not to judge of the author of this paper, by the paper itself; but to take him, on the faith of his own word, till further notice-for "a very proper spoken gentleman," with which prayer, for the present, I heartily bid him farewell.

M.

Into the trap,

Adage.

Ere you can say Jack Robinson, 'tis past,
And when it catches them, it holds them fast.
At first, the happy rogues are quite transported,—
Such billing, cooing, kissing, night and morning,
No thoughts of contradiction or of horning;
But there's a time for all things-the ill-sorted
Chaotic elements soon breed strife;

And then, 'midst angry words, with much vexation,
They find that wedlock is not transportation,

But close imprisonment for life.

When from the dream of bliss they first awaken,
With vast surprise

They ope their eyes,

And wonder how they could be so mistaken? "You're not at all the woman that I thought you.""Nor you the man so tender and obedient; Would I'd been hang'd before I caught you; Not an ingredient

Remains of all the thousand charms

Which made me take you to my arms."

"Zounds, what a bore!

I wonder what could make me think you pretty.
And that d―d tongue of your's, that seem'd so witty,
Goes like the clapper of a bell.

Is there no stopping it,
Except by cropping it?"

"Well, if the truth I needs must tell,

I never thought the sole delight

Of wedlock was to lie awake all night

And hear you snore.”

From such strange dialogues, 'tis clear

That folks, when they 're "in love up to the eyes,"
Think they have drawn a prize;

But soon they find, "my love," "my dear,"
Something far short of a divinity :-

Wedded at Whitsuntide,

"Tis a fair chance that long ere Trinity

Both man and bride,

As if of Lethe's stream they drank,

All graces, charms, and virtues clean forgot,
And grown quite discontented with their lot,
Are sure they've drawn a blank.

But to my tale:-It happen'd, years ago,
In Brussels, where the people are all papists,
Where, when 'tis Lent,

All sorts of flesh they 're order'd to forego,
Living for forty days like Trappists;
And, though a couple may have dad's consent,
Their own, and so forth, yet, till Easter's past,
They cannot get a priest to tie them fast-
It happen'd just at Shrove-tide, there were plenty
Of lovers-in round numbers, say some twenty-
Who, knowing by delay things oft miscarried,
Were in a mighty hurry to be married.

One couple, much advanced in years,
With mutual bonds and land,

Which Cupid very rarely can withstand,
Had fallen in love, alas! o'er head and ears.
With jewels, mortgages, and ready cash,
Each in the other's heart had made a gash;
And, ere the light,

Left their warm beds, and braved the biting air,
To find a parson, who should ease their care,
Marry their money-bags, and set all right.
Beside them stood another pair;

They, too, were rich, but in a different sort :
The youth with vigour bless'd, the maid was fair,
And to the common stock they brought
Rich blood, rich hopes, rich promises of joys,
Of endless bliss, of lots of girls and boys;
But nothing else to keep their soup-pot boiling,
Save what they hoped to gain by daily toiling.
Your true-blue Protestants are apt to say
That Catholics have left the narrow way,
That all their doings are completely dark :
And, sure, these very early masses
Prove that our preachers are not asses;
For when folks go to church before the lark,
'Tis not surprising

Such early rising

(What between want of sleep and want of light)
Should make them take the left road for the right.
Thus in the present case the thing fell out,
For, 'midst the darkness and the gen'ral rout,
His purblind reverence (who, profane ones think,
Had not slept off his drink)

Coupled the parties-tight as fate;

'But join'd together

The rich old man and maid,

And in another braid

The youth and the rich old bell-wether:

"The course of true love never did run straight!" Now, 'twas a custom in these "good old times," Soon as love's locksmith had made fast the rivet Which tortures men and wives for all past crimes,(Readers, 'tis necessary you believe it)

The kinsfolk seized the bride,

And, from her parents' side,

Bore her in triumph to her husband's house.
There, for the first time after "have and hold,"
The bridegroom with her lips made bold;
Then each relation follow'd after,

And with much shouting and much laughter,
They all sat down and made a grand carouse.

Judge, if you can, the wonderment and staring
Which seized the old man, when he found
Himself fast bound

To such a dainty, lovely, luscious fairing!-
Let anchorets say what they please,
Nought damps the passions with such ease,
As, when to one we can oppose another:
Each passion, like the Theban Polynices,
Who cut his Eteocles into slices,

Is a most deadly rival to its brother.
So when our miser saw the prize he'd won,
His av'rice he subdued without much trouble,
For love struck up a fire among the stubble:
(The harvest of his heart had long been over)
And, thinking he should live in clover,
He voted, the exchange was right good fun.
The maiden, for her part, not less astonish'd,
Was for a time a little shy;

But by some after-thoughts admonish'd

Assumed by slow degrees a look more sly.
The house was large, the furniture was rich,
And the corbeille, a splendid glitt❜ring basket
Loaded with lace, with gems in many a casket,
With fine chemises,

Upon her pleased imagination seizes.
What female heart to avaricious itch
Remains insensible and cold?

For woman, whether young or old,
Is dev'lish fond of houses and of pages,
Of handsome clothes and splendid equipages.
I would not swear, too, but there lurk'd within
Some expectation that she might combine
The husband, who so well could lodge and dine,
With him, whom if 'twere wrong to love
The fault was with the powers above,
Since 'twas the Church's error, made it sin.
But be this as it may, the maid, contented,

At last relented.

How with the other pair it fared, I've no intention
(My muse being somewhat wearied) now to mention.
'Tis said-I scarce believe it-that the lady,
Wanting the same excuse,

Chose to refuse,

Although the youth profess'd himself quite ready.
And so she went to law-instead

Of going, as she should have done to bed.
And thus, a circumstance by no means new,
She lost her husband and her money too,

Now for the moral-morals are the rage
In this our age;

When kings "great moral lessons" love to read
To conquer'd nations;

Who doubtless such divine instructions need
To make them bear their tribulations.
When you take a wife,

O'er the transaction mind you do not sleep,
And, since the voyage lasts for life,

Look ere you leap.

M.

ON THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF MACHIAVELLI.

THE political writings of Machiavelli, distinguished for their condensed and spirited style, and for the intimate knowledge of mankind they display, have acquired a still more extended reputation through the contests to which they have given birth, and the vehemence with which the disputants have maintained their respective opinions. In the anatomy of society which Machiavelli has presented to his reader, he has with an undisturbed sang-froid displayed sentiments and principles, which, though familiar perhaps in insulation, had never before been collected into one group. The elevated and the virtuous were shocked at the depravity he developed (a depravity which proceeded from the bad institutions of the age, but which in the then existing state of philosophy passed for innate), and the hypocrites took a prompt and a sensitive alarm at the exposure; since by betraying their means, it threatened an eternal divorce from ends that for a long series of ages had been pursued in unsuspected security. The hostility thus excited was deep, clamorous, and persevering: and this author has been censured, preached and written against by Catholics and Protestants, priests and philosophers, statesmen and moralists, till his name has become a by-word in literature, and is applied to whatever is tortuous in policy and abandoned in principle.*

To this torrent of reprobation and invective were opposed the literary merits of the author, the truth of his details, the caustic severity of his remarks, the justification which practical statesmen have endeavoured to find for their own abuses in his maxims, and, above all, the patriotism of the Florentines, and the honest pride they indulge in the memory of the sagacious historian and zealous servant of the expiring republic. Thus defences and apologies have multiplied with a fecundity proportioned to the virulence of the attack; and public opinion has as yet to decide upon the real character and tendency of the author and his writings. Of the several productions of Machiavelli, his "Prince" has attracted the most sweeping and indiscriminate censure, as a systematized code of irreligion, of impiety, and of tyranny; while on the other hand it has been defended and applauded as an able exposure of the arts of despotism, and as an useful lesson to the defenders of liberty, enabling them to oppose to their oppressors a more regulated and scientific resistance. This last opinion is almost as ancient as the work itself, having been adopted to silence the outcry of Cardinal Pole; and it has even been asserted, though upon inadequate grounds, that "the Prince" was originally presented to Clement the Seventh under the title of "the Tyrant.' The same likewise was

Cardinal Reginald Pole began the attack in his "Apologia ad Carolum V. Cæsarem." Catarino Polito gives Machiavelli a chapter in his treatise "De libris à Cristiano detestandis." Antonio Possevino published several treatises against him from materiais supposed to be furnished by Innocent IX. The most remarkable trait in nese productions is the ignorance of their author in citing the 2d and 3d books of the Prince" which consists but of one. Notwithstanding the multiplicity of such attacks, it was not till the year 1559 that Paul the Fourth placed the writings of Machiavelli on the Index; where they now figure, by a curious caprice of ortune, together with the Antimachiavelli of Voltaire and the King of Prussia, the last, I believe, of his opponents.

VOL. VII. NO. XXVII.