to experience. Fashion has been pleased to decree that our drawingrooms shall be overlaid, and littered, and lumbered with every species of trumpery rubbish known by the name of nick-nacks and curiosities; and my wife has been pleased to decree that her own apartments shall in this respect stand perfectly unrivalled. For the good of my fellowcreatures I sincerely hope that they are so, for I would not wantonly inflict upon others the daily martyrdom which I myself experience. I fear, however, that there are too many victims to this mania, for the great increase of "curiosity shops," as they are technically called, of which I believe there are a dozen in Regent-street and the Quadrant alone, affords a fearful evidence that our superfluous wealth is taking this childish and fantastic direction. From the wild beasts with which they were studded, I used to compare my rooms to Noah's Ark; but methinks they now rather wear the semblance of a broker's in Moorfields, or a Brobodignaggian baby-house, or a cosmopolitan lumber-room, where all the uncouth, grotesque and barbarous crinkum-crankums, gew-gaws and toys, that have been cast away as worse than worthless, have been diligently collected to form a miserable museum. Of such wretched varieties, scarce because but few people have been fools enough to manufacture them, my wife is an eager and everlasting purchaser. Ebony stands and Japan tables of all calibres are loaded with sonorous gongs, shells, Chinese shoes, glass cases of humming birds and butterflies, huge China jars and bowls, and Lilliputian tea-cups (all equally invaluable because all equally useless), Manderins nodding their heads at me as if in mockery, tun-bellied idols, bits of lapis lazuli and malachite, jasper and soap-stone, and geological specimens arranged in frames by Mr. Mawe, and figures of bisquit and alabaster, and little boxes of French bonbons, and every thing, in short, that can be either named or imagined, provided always that it be neither useful nor ornamental. Conceive the horror of a stout gentleman like myself, being obliged to move edgeways through my own rooms, in momentary apprehension of occasioning a smash of porcelain, and knowing by sad experience that my wife is by no means "Mistress of herself though China fall." O how have I been taunted and twitted with my gaucherie, as I attempted to squeeze my unwieldy figure through the straits and defiles of this bazaar; and with what sorry jokes have I attempted to retaliate the attacks to which I was exposed! "Do take care, Mr. Higginbotham, you are rubbing against that beautiful bowl." "Those who play at bowls, my dear, must expect rubbers." "If you knock down that China Joss, I shall never be able to buy another so cheap." "There you are mistaken, my dear, for after a fall you always buy things cheaper"-(By the by, I admire at her calling such a bauble cheap, for I remember the auctioneer of Pall Mall, exclaiming as his hammer fell-"unly twainty-four guineas and a haif.") "Good gracious! Mr. Higginbotham, one would really think you were tipsy; you will certainly knock down that Mazarine cup." "And how can I do better, if I have had a cup too much?" Miserable jokes, but how could they be otherwise when the utterer was kept in a state of perpetual misery?

Nor have my guests and visitors less reason to complain than the unfortunate wight who is thus baited and beleaguered in his own house. My friend, Admiral Binnacle, whose wooden leg describes a VOL. X. No. 56.-1825.

18

horizontal parabola of some extent, lately tipped down a japan table, covered with a whole wilderness of china monkeys, and though my wife really bore the calamity with firmness, the worthy Admiral, who naturally concluded they were invaluable, because they were both frightful and useless, was proportionably affected by the catastrophe, asking me, however, in a parting whisper, whether I felt authorised to set steel-traps and spring-guns in such a public thoroughfare. Old Lady Dotterel's poodle, on the very following day, jumping upon a cabinet to snap at a plumpudding-stone, made frightful havoc, shivering to atoms a china shepherd in pink tiffany ineffables, blue silk stockings, a gilt-edged cocked hat, a yellow satin waistcoat, and a flowered jacket, who from an arbour of green and silver foil, looked tenderly out upon a couple of tinsel sheep with golden hoofs, forming altogether, as my wife had often maintained, the sweetest and most natural scene of the pastoral she had ever witnessed. And what was more provoking than all, the four-footed author of the mischief, having ensconced himself behind a nest of glass-cases, and threatening to run a muck if he were maltreated, was obliged to be coaxed out of his sanctuary with a large piece of pound cake, which the unfeeling brute seemed to consider a very satisfactory set off against the plumpudding stone. Scarcely a day elapses but I hear a smash, a slap, and a squall, when the angry exclamation of "mischievous little monkey!" or "careless little hussey!" convinces me that either Alfred or Matilda have thrown down some worthless invaluable in threading this Cretan labyrinth. From squabbles with visitors and children, I am only relieved by perpetual altercations with the servants, who are so frequently accused of purloining, breaking, or misplacing some of our troublesome trumpery, that I am constantly presented with sulky looks and new faces. Forlorn as is the hope, I actually look forward with pleasure to the time when, my means becoming exhausted sooner than my wife's rage for collection, my museum must come to the hammer, like those of Fonthill, Wanstead, and so many others; and in the mean time, I live under the conviction, that one of the most pitiable objects in creation is the husband of a curiosity-collecting wife, and the keeper of an amateur bazaar.

TO THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST.

SPIRIT of these wild groves and dells!
The Muse thy power invokes-

Spirit of loneliness that dwells

Where green moss creeps, and heather swells
Around these ancient oaks.

Hamadryad, Sylph, or Fairy,
Or whate'er thy name may be,
Gloomy, gay, or grave, or airy,
I approach with footsteps wary,
Anxious to commune with thee.

Old thou art-thou wert presiding,
If tradition's lore be true,
O'er this forest when was riding
Bold Robin Hood-his archers gliding
Among these oaks, now seen, now hiding,

Ere they twang'd their bows of yew.

Then the stag in crested pride
Widly roam'd these woodlands o'er,
And show'd his antlers branching wide,
His glossy eye, his spotted side,

Where Rayneth's still smooth waters glide
Within their peaceful shore.

Then were these oaks in all their glory,
Which are sear'd and blighted now,
And tell a sad, a mournful story,
And show the hand of time so hoary,
In many a scathed and blighted bough.

Merry Sherwood wert thou then,
Wide thy range, and wild thy rangers,
When a palace deck'd thy glen,

And holy towers appear'd in ken,

And kings were there to welcome strangers.*

Merry Sherwood art thou still,

Though times are changed, and oaks are blighted;

Yet there's music in the rill,

And mirth upon the sunny hill,

Where wild birds love to warble still,

Delighting and delighted.

Spirit of these woodlands wild!

Though long thy reign, it is not ended;
For oft will Fancy's wayward child
Wander in summer evening mild,
In thine own groves, by thee attended :

And often in the fitful breeze
That rustles when the leaves are falling,
Believe thy sylvan form he sees,
And hears thy voice amidst the trees,
As thou wert summer days recalling.

And what though summer days are past,
And thou art changed in voice and form,
And thou hast clothed thee in the blast
That whirls the leaves in eddies past,
And ranges o'er the forest vast,
The genius of the storm,

Yet, Spirit! I invoke thee still,

Whether in winter's sullen reign,

When icy fetters bind the rill,

And Sherwood's choristers are still;

And the sunbeams which crown the hill,

Scarce reach the distant plain :

Or in those bright and sunny days,

When heather blooms, and bracken's green,

And the sun his beams displays,

And numerous warblers tune their lays,

And plume their wings beneath his rays,

And harmonize the scene.

* Clipstone Palace, said to have been built in the reign of King John; some part of the old walls still remains standing, and is yet called in that neighbourhood by the peasantry King John's Palace.

Let none thy charms presume to tell,
Save those who in thy groves have stray'd,
And found that powerful wizard spell,
Which Fancy's votaries know full well,
And all who in thy regions dwell,
And love thy groves of shade.

CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY.-NO. II.

EYES. The finest eyes are those that unite sense and sweetness. They should be able to say much, and all charmingly. The look of sense is proportioned to the depth from which the thought seems to issue; the look of sweetness to an habitual readiness of sympathy, an unaffected willingness to please and be pleased. We need not be jealous of

Eyes affectionate and glad,

That seem to love whate'er they look upon.

They have always a good stock in reserve for their favourites; especially if like those mentioned by the poet, they are conversant with books and nature. Voluptuaries know not what they talk about, when they profess not to care for sense in a woman. Pedantry is one thing: sense, taste, and apprehensiveness are another. Give me an eye that draws equally from head above and heart beneath; that is equally full of ideas and feelings, of intuition and sensation. If either must predominate, let it be the heart. Mere beauty is nothing at any time but a doll, and should be packed up and sent to Brobdignag. The colour of the eye is a very secondary matter. Black eyes are thought the brightest, blue the most feminine, grey the keenest. It depends entirely on the spirit within. I have seen all these colours change characters; though I must own, that when a blue eye looks ungentle, it seems more out of character than the extremest diversity expressed by others. The ancients appear to have associated the idea of gladness with blue eyes; which is the colour given to his heroine's by the author just alluded to. Anacreon attributes a blue or a grey eye to his mistress, it is difficult to say which: but he adds, that it is tempered with the moist delicacy of the eye of Venus. The other look was Minerva's, and required softening. It is not easy to distinguish the shades of the various colours anciently given to eyes; the blues and greys, sky-blues, sea-blues, sea-greys, and even cat-greys. But it is clear that the expression is every thing. The poet demanded this or that colour, according as he thought it favourable to the expression of acuteness, majesty, tenderness, or a mixture of all. Black eyes were most lauded; doubtless because in a southern country the greatest number of beloved eyes must be of that colour. But on the same account of the predominance of black, the abstract taste was in favour of lighter eyes and fair complexions. Hair being of a great variety of tint, the

*Casio veniam obrius leoni.

Catullus. See glaucus, cræuleus, &c. and their Greek correspondents. Xaporos, glad-looking, is also rendered in the Latin, blueeyed and yet it is often translated by ravus, a word which at one time is made to signify blue, and at another something approximating to hazel. Cesius, in like manner, appears to signify both grey and blue, and a tinge of green.

poet had great licence in wishing or feigning on that point. Many a head of hair was exalted into gold, that gave slight colour for the pretension; nor is it to be doubted, that auburn, and red, and yellow, and sand-coloured, and brown with the least surface of gold, all took the same illustrious epithet on occasion. With regard to eyes, the ancients insisted much on one point, which gave rise to many happy expressions. This was a certain mixture of pungency with the look of sweetness. Sometimes they call it severity, sometimes sternness, and even acridity, and terror. The usual word was Gorgon-looking. Something of a frown was implied, mixed with a radiant earnestness. This was commonly spoken of men's eyes. Anacreon, giving directions for the portrait of a youth, says

Dark and gorgon be his eye,
Tempered with hilarity.*

A taste of it, however, was sometimes desired in the eyes of the ladies. Theagenes, in Heliodorus's Ethiopics, describing his mistress Chariclea, tells us, that even when a child, something great, and with a divinity in it, shone out of her eyes; and encountered his, as he examined them, with a mixture of the gorgon and the alluring. Perhaps the best word in general for translating gorgon would be fervent; something earnest, fiery, and pressing onward. Anacreon, with his usual exquisite taste, allays the fierceness of the term with the word kekerasmenon, tempered. The nice point is, to see that the terror itself be not terrible, but only a poignancy brought in to assist the sweetness. It is the salt in the tart; the subtle sting of the essence. It is to the eye intellectual, what the apple of the eye is to the eye itself,-the dark part of it, the core, the innermost look; the concentration and burning-glass of the rays of love. I think, however, that Anacreon did better than Heliodorus, when he avoided attributing this look to his mistress, and confined it to the other sex. He tells us, that she had a look of Minerva as well as Venus; but it is Minerva without the gorgon. There is sense and apprehensiveness, but nothing to alarm. No drawback upon beauty ought to be more guarded against, than a character of violence about the eyes. I have seen it become very touching, when the violence had been conquered by suffering and reflection, and a generous turn of mind; nor perhaps does a richer soil for the production of all good things take place any where than over these spent volcanoes. But the experiment is dangerous, and the event rare.

Large eyes were admired in Greece, were they still prevail. They are the finest of all, when they have the internal look; which is not common. The stag or antelope eye of the orientals is beautiful and lamping, but is accused of looking skittish and indifferent. "The epithet of stag-eyed," says Lady Wortley Montague, speaking of a Turkish love-song, "pleases me extremely; and I think it a very lively image of the fire and indifference in his mistress's eyes." We lose in depth of expression, when we go to inferior animals for comparisons with buman beauty. Homer calls Juno ox-eyed; and the epithet suits well with the eyes of that goddess, because she may be supposed, with

* 6 Μελαν ομμα γοργον εστω,
Κεκερασμενον γαληνη.”

Ehiop. Lib. 11. apud Junium.