THIS Volume professes to be "A Familiar Analysis of the Calendar of the Church of England," by explaining and illustrating its Fasts and Festivals, &c., in the form of Question and Answer, The reader will not look for novelty in such a work. The editors of Time's Telescope, Clavis Calendaria, the Everyday Book, &c., have been too long and too laboriously employed in illustrating every point of the year's history, to lead us to expect any new attraction. Indeed, the preface of the present work does not profess to furnish any such inducement, the editor resting his claim on the cheap ness of his book in comparison with the Every dayBook. This is rather an ungracious recommendation: the "Analysis" consists of less than three hundred pages, and is sold for five or six shillings; but these three hundred pages only equal seventy-five pages of the Every-day Book, or less than five sheets, which the public know may be purchased for fifteen-pence. One of the pretensions of the "Analysis" is its condensed form, but we suspect Mr. Valpy's Epitomizing would reduce the editor's three press hundred pages to seventy-five. It is a thankless office to be obliged to speak thus of a book on which some pains have been bestowed. Now, had it been print, ed within the compass of an eighteenpenny or two shilling catechism, the desired object would have been obtained; but, as it appears, in the type of a large church prayer-book, what may have been gained in arrangement, must be paid for in paper and print, so that no good purpose is ultimately effected.

FAMILIAR LAW.

PARTS 3 and 4 of the Familiar Law Adviser relate to Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes-and Benefit Societies and Savings' Banks-and will be found extremely useful to very different classes. They have in them all the reforming spirit of the times, and must be of essential service everywhere, since

cheap law is as desirable as any other species of economy. Brevity, too, as recommended in these little books, should be the soul of law as it is of wit, for we all know that as the law lengthens so the cost strengthens. Another advan tage will be, that the sooner a man is set right, the more time will he have for increasing his good actions in this life.

DEATH.

OH God! what a difference throughout the whole of this various and teeming earth a single DEATH can effect! Sky, sun, air, the eloquent waters, the inspiring mountain-tops, the murmuring and glossy wood, the very

Glory in the grass, and splendour in the flower, do these hold over us an eternal spell? Are they as a part and property of an unvarying course of nature? Have they aught which is unfailing, steady-same in its effect? Alas! their attraction is the creature of an accident. One gap invisible to all but ourself in the crowd and turmoil of the world, and every thing is changed. In a single hour, the whole process of thought, the whole ebb and flow of emotion, may be revulsed for the rest of an existence. Nothing can ever seem to us as it did: it is a blow upon the fine mechanism by which we think, and move, and have our being-the pendulum vibrates aright no more—the dial hath no account with time-the process goes on, but it knows no symmetry or order; - it was a single stroke that marred it, but the harmony is gone for ever!

And yet I often think that that shock which jarred on the mental, renders yet softer the moral nature. A death that is connected with love unites us by a thousand remembrances to all who have mourned: it builds a bridge between the young and the old; it gives them in common the most touching of human sympathies; it steals from nature its glory and its exhilaration-not its tenderness. And what, perhaps, is better than all, to mourn deeply for the death of another, loosens from ourself the petty desire for, and the animal adherence to, life. We have gained the end of the philosoper, and view, without shrinking, the coffin and the pall. -New Monthly Magazine,

SCOTT AND COOPER.

Ax example of Mr. Cooper's appreciation of his illustrious rival, Sir Walter Scott, occurred while he was sitting for the portrait that accompanied the New

Monthly Magazine for last month. The artist, Madame Mirbel, requested him, as is usual in such cases, to fix his eye upon a particular point. "Look at that picture," said she, pointing to one of a distinguished statesman.-"No," said Cooper, "if I must look at any, it shall be at my master," directing his glance a little higher, to a portrait of Sir Walter Scott.

FRANCE.

FRANCE, "with all thy faults I love thee still!" No man should travel from his cradle to his grave without paying thee a visit by the way with a disposition prone to enjoyment, it lightens the journey amazingly. The French are a kind people, and it must be his fault who cannot live happily with them. Pity it is, possessing, as they do, whatever can contribute to the felicity of a people in a state of peace, that war should be indispensable in order to render their idea of happiness complete. La gloire and la guerre form the eternal burden of their song-as if the chief business of life were to destroy life. They would fight to-morrow with any nation on earth, for no better an object than the chance of achieving a victory. Laugh at me, if you please, for uttering what you may consider a foolish opinion, but I look upon it as a serious misfortune to them that the two words Gloire and Victoire rhyme together: they so constantly occur in that portion of their poetry which is the most popular, and the best calculated to excite them in a high de gree their vaudeville songs-that the two ideas they express have become identical in their minds; and he will deserve well of his country who shall discover the means of making glory rhyme to peace.—Ibid.

"HELP YOURSELF."

self. With the addition of Eve, human society commenced; and the fault of our first mother furnishes a grand and terrible example of the mischief of thinking of the benefit of another. Satan suggested to her that Adam should partake of the fruit-an idea, having in it the taint of benevolence, so generally mistaken-whence sin and death came into the world. Had Eve been strictly selfish, she would wisely have kept the apples to herself, and the evil would have been avoided. Had Adam helped himself, he would have had no stomach for the helping of another-and so, on his part, the evil temptation had been obviated.

The HELP YOURSELF principle has at no time been extinct in society, while it is seen to be a universal law of Nature. The wolf helps himself to the lamb, and the lamb to the grass. No animal assists another, excepting when in the relation of parent to young, when Nature could not dispense with the caprice of benevolence, which in this instance, be it observed, distresses the parties susceptible of the sentiment; for suckling creatures are always in poor condition. Appropriation is the great business of the universe. The institution of property is, on the other hand, artificial.— Ibid.

THERE is a very curious and ingenious, though not original, exhibition in this ballet. Among the festivities at Kenil worth Castle, in honour of the royal guests, a pantomimic "masque of the gods and goddesses of Olympus is introduced. The divinities, instead of ap pearing in genuine Grecian attire, present themselves in the mongrel costume usual on such occasions in the time of Queen Elizabeth. This is droll enough, but more whimsical still is the style of their dancing. This, too, is meant as an imitation of the limited choregraphic savoir faire of the age. It is as if Mons. Deshayes had triumphantly intended to portray the first dawn of an art which he considers to have now reached the summit of perfection. But who knows but the Monsieur Un tel of 1931 may, with equal boldness, parody the pirouettes of Monsieur Deshayes? the music to this mythological interlude is borrowed from ancient scores; a happy thought, which deserves commendation.-Ibid

Even

SPIRIT OF THE

Public Journals.

THE NEW MAGAZINE.

MR. CAMPBELL, the Poet, has seceded from the New Monthly Magazine, and commenced a magazine of his own-The Metropolitan. Without prejudice to the first-mentioned work, he has our best wishes for his new undertaking. The New Monthly Magazine has, however, supplied the Mirror with brighter columns than any of its contemporaries, and we are mindful of the obligation, especially for that gay and lively descrip tion of writing which is really the patter

of literature. It will soon be seen whether Mr. Campbell and his forces succeed. The Number before us is, for a first, excellent. The Editor's Paper on Ancient Geography, with which it opens, is worth the price of the whole maga zine: nay, it is worth more than many a modern quarto. Other papers are attractive; and there is much of the spirit of the times throughout the Number.Poland, the Political Times, and the Lord Chancellor's Levee-are vividly written. The last is a good specimen of the "keep moving" style of a Magazine. We intend to quote largely from

the

I AM a native of one of the most splendid regions of the earth, where nature dispenses all her bounties with a liberal hand; and where man and bird are released from half the penalties to which, in other climes, their flesh is heir. Í was born in one of those superb forests of fruit and flowers so peculiar to the Brazils, which stood at no great distance from an Indian village, and was not far removed from an European settlement. This forest was impervious to human footsteps. A nation of apes occupied the interior; and the dynasty of the Psittacus Severus, or Brazilian queen macaw, inhabited the upper regions. Several subject-states of green and yellow parrots constituted our colonial neighbours. My family held the highest rank in the privileged classes of our oligarchy; for our pride would not admit of a king, and our selfishness (so I must call it) would allow of no rights. We talked nevertheless in our legislative assemblies of our happy constitution, which by tacit agreement we understood to mean "happy for ourselves;" but the green and yellow parrots too plainly

showed a strong disposition to put another interpretation on the phraseology. My paternal nest was situated in the hollow of one of the most ancient and lofty trees in the forest. It had once been rich in fruit and flowers, gums and odours, and all in the same season; and though it was now scathed at the top, hollow in the trunk, and was threatened with total ruin from the first hurricane, oldest. I owed all my early impressions, we still preferred it, because it was the and much of my acquired superiority, to my great grandfather, who lived to an brity, of which we were ourselves at extreme old age, and attained a celethat time unaware.

cal bird which was brought from MaHe was the identirignan to Prince Maurice, governor of the Brazils, and whose pertinent answers to many silly questions are reEnglish philosophers. My great grandcorded in the pages of the greatest of father was soon disgusted with the folly and cruelty of what is called civilized alive for a false religion's sake, he life; and having seen an Indian roasted thought that some day they might take it into their heads to do as much by a So he macaw, for the same reason. of retiring without leave from the seravailed himself of an early opportunity vice, and returned to his native forest, where his genius and learning at once raised him to the highest honours of the Psittacan aristocracy. Influenced by his example, I early felt the desire of visiting foreign countries. My mother too (who, though fond and indulgent, like all the mothers of our race, was as vain and foolish as any that I have since met with in human society) worked powerfully on my ambition, by her constant endeavours to "push me up the tree," as she called it, in her way. I was already a first-rate orator, and a member of the great congress of macaws; while in our social re-unions I left all the young birds of fashion far behind me; and as I not only articulated some human sounds picked up from the Indians, but could speak a few words of Portuguese and Dutch, learned by rote from my great grandfather, I was considered a genius of high order. With the conceit, therefore, of all my noble family, I was prompted to go forth and visit other and better worlds, and to seek a sphere better adapted to the display of my presumed abilities, than that afforded by our domestic senate and home-spun society. On one of those celestial nights, known only in the tropical regions, I set forth on my travels, directing my course to the Portuguese settlement, which the

youthful vigour of my wing enabled me to reach by the break of morning. Haying refreshed myself with a breakfast of fruit, after the exhaustion of my nocturnal flight, I ascended a spacious palm tree, which afforded an admirable view of the adjacent country, and a desirable shelter from the ardours of the rising sun. My first impulse was to take a bird's-eye view of the novel scene which lay before me, and I gazed around for some minutes with intense delight; but fatigue gradually obtained the mastery over curiosity, and, putting my head unconsciously beneath my wing, I fell into a profound sleep. How long this continued, I know not; but I was suddenly awakened by a strange muttering of unknown voices. I looked, and beheld two creatures whose appearance greatly surprised me. They had nothing of the noble form and aspect of our Indian neighbours. One of them considerably resembled the preacher-monkey in countenance and deportment; his head was denuded of hair, and his person was covered by a black substance, which left no limb visible except his ancles and feet, which were very much like those of an ape. The other had all the air of a gigantic parrot: he had a hooked bill, a sharp look, a yellow head; and all the rest of his strange figure was partycoloured, blue, green, red, and black. I classed him at once as a specimen of the Psittacus Ochropterus. The ape and the parrot seemed to have taken shelter beneath the palm tree, like myself, for the purposes of shade and repose. They had beside them a basket filled with dead game, fruit, and honey; and the parrot had a long instrument near him on the ground, which I afterwards learned was a fowling-piece. They talked a strange jargon of different intonation, like that of the respective chatter of the grey and the green parrots. Both seemed to complain, and, by the expression of their ugly and roguish faces, to interrogate each other. As soon as they went away, I endeavoured to mutter to myself the sounds they had uttered, but could retain only two phrases. The one had been spoken by the ape, and ran thus-"Shure it was for my sweet sowl's sake, jewel;" the other was-"Eh, sirs, it was aw' for the love of the siller." I was extremely amused by my acquisition; and, being convinced that I was now qualified to present myself at the settlement, was about to descend from my altitude, when the two strangers returned they had come back for the gun, which they had left behind them. As they picked it up, it went off, and I

was startled into one of my loudest screams. The strangers looked at me with great delight, he whom I likened to the parrot exclaiming "Weel, mon, what brought you here?" I answered in his own words, for want of better"Eh, sirs, it was aw' for the love of the siller." He dropped his piece, and fled in consternation, calling lustily-" Its auld clooty himsen, mon, its auld Horny, I tell ye; come awa, come awa." His friend, who seemed more acquainted with our species, encouraged him to return; and offering me some fruit from his basket, said- Why, Poll, you cratur, what brought you so far from home ?" I endeavoured to imitate his peculiar tone, and replied-" Why thin it was for my sweet sowl's sake, jewel.""Why then," said my interlocutor, coolly (for I never forgot his words) "that bird bates cockfighting." They now both endeavoured to catch me. It was all I wanted, and I perched on the preaching-monkey's wrist, while he took up the basket in his left hand, and in this easy and commodious style of travelling, we proceeded. On approaching the settlement, a fierce dispute arose between the friends; of which, by each tearing me from the other, I was evidently the object; and I am quite sure that I should have been torn to pieces between them, but for the timely approach of a person who issued from a fofty and handsome edifice on the road side, attended by a train of preachermonkeys, of which he was the chief. He was quite a superior looking being to either of my first acquaintance, who cowered and shrunk beneath his eagle look. They seemed humbly to lay their cases before him; when, after looking contemptuously on both, he took me to himself, caressed me, and giving me to an attendant, said-" This bird belongs to neither, it is the property of mother church:" and the property of mother church I remained for some years. Of my two friends of the palmtree, one, the preacher-monkey, turned out to be a poor Irish lay brother, of the convent of which my new master (an Irishman too) was the superior. yellow parrot was a Scotch adventurer, who came out to give lectures on poleetical economy to the Brazilians and who, finding that they had no taste for moral science, had become a servant of all-work to the brotherhood. My dwelling was a missionary house of the Propaganda, established for the purpose of converting (i. e. burning) the poor Indians. The Superior, Father Flynn, had recently arrived from Lisbon with

My

unlimited powers. He was clever, elo quent, witty, and humorous; but panting for a bishopric in his native country, he was principally employed in theological writings, which might bring him into notice and hasten his recall to Europe.

Next to the servant's hall of a great English family, the first place in the world for completing the education of a macaw of genius, is a convent. Its idleness and ennui render a monkey, or a parrot, a valuable resource; and between what I picked up, and what I was taught by the monks of the Propaganda, my aequirements soon became stupendous. Always following my kind master from the refectory to the church, assisting at mess or at mass, being near him in the seclusion of the oratory, and in the festivities, he frequently held with his more confidential friends; I had loaded my astonishing memory with scraps of theology and of fun. I could sing a French drinking song, taught me by the sub-prior Frère Jacques, and intonate a "Gloria in Excelsis" with a true nasal twang. I had actually learned the Creed in English; and could call all the brothers by their name. I had éven learned the Savoyard's dance from my friend Frère Jacques, and sung "Gai Coco" at the same time, like Scaliger's parrot, from whose history Frère Jacques took the idea of teaching me. I did this, it must be acknowledged, with great awkwardness, turning in my toes, and often tumbling backwards in a clumsy and ludicrous way. But this amused my religious friends more than all the rest; for, like the great, they loved a ridicule as well as a talent; and, provided they were amused, were not nice as to the means. My fame soon began to spread on all sides, and the anecdotes told of the macaw of the Propaganda soon reached the circles of the Governor of the Brazils, who wrote to request the pleasure of my company for a few weeks at the palace. This was a compliment which he had never paid to the learned superior of the order, and my master was evidently hurt." He declined therefore the invitation for me, on the plea that he would soon visit Rio Janeiro himself, when I should accompany him into the vice-regal pre

sence.

This visit shortly took place, not for the object supposed by the community, (who parted with me, even for a short time, with great regret,) but for another purpose. The British ambassa

Rhodoginus mentions a parrot which could recite correctly the whole of the Apostle's Creed." Animal Biography, by the Rev. W. Bingley.

dor, Lord, who had recently ar rived at Rio, was a countryman of Father Flynn's. He enjoyed eminent lite rary celebrity, was a delightful poet, and well acquainted with the Portuguese language. The superior had no doubt that his own literary and theological merits were equally known to his excellency, whom he visited with a view to negotiating a passage in the British man of war; for he had been called on a secret mission to Ireland, and wished to depart without notifying his intention to the subaltern of the Propaganda. I was not included in the muster-roll of this expedition; but anxious to lose no op portunity of seeing the world, and desirous of beholding the Governor, who had shown his taste and politeness by inviting me to his court, I contrived to nestle myself in the carriage without the superior's knowledge, and followed his steps to the very ante-room of the embassy. It was too late to send me back; for I was instantly seized by a company of pretty young animals, the very reverse in appearance of the preachermonkeys of the Propaganda; they all seemed to find in me a kindred soul: my master was ushered into the cabinet, and I was left with my new acquaintance, who were called "attachés," but whom I at once classed with the secretary-birds,* while here and there, I thought, was mingled among them a specimen of the booby, or Pelicanus Sula. Two of these mischievous creatures seemed to delight in tormexting me from mere idleness and ennui, which I bore for some time with great patience, as I saw the boobies pay them much respect. One was called Lord Charles, and the other the Hon. Mr. Henry. I learned these names with facility, and contrived to repeat them, as they had been taught me, by the frequent iteration of one of the boobies.

"The Dutch," says Le Vaillant, “ give this

bird the name of Secretary, on account of the

bunch of quills behind its head"-Bingley, Animal Biography. (To be continued.)

The Gatherer.

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles. SHAKSPEARE.

PRISONS.

We had formerly in the Tower of Lon don, a straight room or dungeon, called,' from the misery the unhappy occupiers of this very confined place endured, the Little-Ease. But this will appear a luxurious habitation, when compared with the inventions of Louis XI. of France, with his iron cages, in which