With the intention doubtless, of atoning for the late barrenness of their fancy, our friends have poured down upon us this morning, such a deluge that we felt in danger of being quite overwhelmed by it, and despair of being able to collect the various torrents into our single reservoir this evening.
Colonel Le Loup, the unhappy Blondel, and the Ballet Master M. Leon, have met and performed a fencing reel in the Gardens of the Tuileries, but we do not even hear that a sprained ankle was incurred.
The Eastern Tale is elegantly written, and contains so much sound morality that we will not point out what we consider two or three slight violations of Costume. The circumstance of devoting the labour of years to the illustration of a moral maxim, or of leaving the apophthegm to be collected from a long narrative like the small globules of attar which are carefully brushed from the rosewater on which they float, is perfectly Eastern. We are sorry to find that the royal children of Abyssinia, though freed by modern indulgence from their prison of Wechné, are not more contented, and that the lovely Omara is pursued by the same malady which tormented Masselas in the happy valley. But she has found a cure, and Masselas did not. We have not time at present to follow a train of reflection this tale has suggested, and so much matter is before us that our friends will probably not regret this loss.
We received yesterday two poems, one signed T. will be read this evening, the other which accompanied it, an Address to Hope, was read from the Attic Chest last season, and therefore cannot appear in it again. This poem with another bearing the same signature, were the only contributions that remained unacknowledged, and we shall be much obliged if the Communicator will this evening enable us to add to them the name of the Author.
Adieu Charmantes Bergeres would lead us to suspect that some of our circle are again on the wing for the Continent — tant mieux — but let them lose no more muses on the journey, for one silent nightingale is enough to sadden a grove, and we cannot afford to find all our bards disciples of Harpocrates.
Well, the lost Muse is at last found — and found by two persons in two places. The forsaken bard has been turned into a polypus on his journey — has split himself in two, like an Hindu divinity — and while one half rejoices at having found nine ladies instead of one, the other half dances quadrilles with the tenth which his twin brother had rejected. In short, the two heads of this hydra, or the two tails of this Bashaw, are in complete opposition, as the two poles of a magnet, or the two ends of an electrical cylinder, and the bard thus double crowned with success may yet be torn in two by civil discord. One half comes from Dover in the Mail, the other rides on the top of the coach. One goes to the British Museum, the other goes home. One goes to the Waterloo Bridge, the other to the Park. One goes to the Royal Academy, the other to a ball. One rejects Terpsichore and says she is not his muse, the other meets Terpsichore, acknowledges her his mistress and dances a quadrille with her. One concludes by challenging all the Attic Nymphs to vie with him in song in a future season, the other says that this lay is his last. Lord Byron has shown how little truth there is in such threats or we might weep over this, but we hope next year to see the two semi-poets rolled again into one like globules of mercury, brilliant and perfect as at first.
We are amused with Mr. Cram’s letter and think that two poets
diddle doets
in one man
diddle dan
must be even worse than
two poets
diddle doets
In one house
Diddle douse
The elegant epistle of the erudite, elaborate and egotistical letter e has enabled us to enjoy an enlivening laugh at its expense.
Atticus Scriblerus has made the amende honorable to Rodelinda’s jealousy of Olivia, but what will she say when she hears he is divided between ten ladies — like the ten stamina of the papilionaceous plants, nine in one bundle, and one in the other.
We are sorry that the fair Lavinia has been obliged to deprive us of her account of Antwerp, especially as every one has spoken of it as an highly interesting city, but we cannot regret that she has lingered as long on the field of Waterloo.
The two numbers of the Family Circle arrived so late that we have not even been able to read them over. If we can possibly make time they shall be read, but our evening of acknowledgement, which ought to be contented with a short number, has one which already threatens to make encroachments on the hour of supper.