Editorial

The communications from Positive House are as usual numerous and excellent. Electromagus gives us an amusing account of a projector who seems to have adhered to him very pertinaciously. We think his project for warming the streets of London is the best, and we should not be surprised to find it patronized by Lord Aircastle.

Sir Pertinax Townly is in his glory. He fancies himself assailed at once by two enamoured fair ones, and seems in a delightful state of oscillation between them. Whether however their attractions, or the centrifugal force of Miss Vansittarts, the Bachelor Tax will be sufficient to overcome his vis inertia and draw him from his equilibrio we know not. At present he appears in perfect safety, for according to a well-known law, when a body is impell’d at the same instant by two opposite and equal forces, it will obey neither, but remain stationary.

Of the Hebrew Valentine sent to this Adonis we have received many translations, as different as they are numerous. We shall leave it to our more learned friends to decide which is the true coin and which the counterfeit.

If Sir Pertinax Townly would always write as well as he has done in the Lesson for Lovers we should be inclined to condemn Mr Beauclerc’s observation on the lightness of his head, but perhaps this worth Baronet, like the ladies who decorate their London balconies, is contented with purchasing, instead of growing his laurels.

Lady Olivia’s Prize Essay is exceedingly beautiful and we think she has shown great skill by the care with which she falls into the style and story of another. The two first books of Mr Coleridge’s manuscript Poem of Christabelle are known to many of our hearers, who have regretted that he “left the tale half-told.”

The Lady Christabelle’s Evening Walk to the old oak tree to muse on her absent lover and her meeting with the Lady Geraldine are very well described. Christabelle brings the stranger to her father Sir Leolyne at Langdale Castle and on his welcoming the stranger she describes herself as having been carried by ruffians from the abode of her father, Sir Roland de Vaux of Triermain (subsequently made the hero of another poem). Sir Roland de Vaux had early been the friend of Sir Leolyne, but a youthful quarrel had been left unreconciled, and Sir Leolyne glady embraces this opportunity of asking an interchange of forgiveness from his friend. Bracy the Bard is dispatched to Triermain with intelligence of the safety of Geraldine and the friendly greetings of Sir Leolyne, while the fair stranger remains at Langdale with Christabelle. She soon however betrays herself; she is a witch and the foe of Christabelle, but the latter tho’ rendered miserable, and incurring thro’ her arts the displeasure of her father, is still guarded by a counter spell. Such is a very brief and imperfect outline of the commencement of this wild but beautiful poem, with its conclusion our auditory will soon be better acquainted.

The fifth Brother’s Tale is deserving of high commendation but we are obliged to pass it briefly over. In the course of the evening the 6th Lecture on Comparative Physiology will be introduced.

One of our correspondents is in great want of a substitute for nonsense. Query can he not find it in his own head? Perhaps Deputy Sense, or Sense’s Deputy will serve his purpose.