66 to England, our author begins by stating, that "clandestine marriages are no where so prevalent, inasmuch as any two lovers have only to send for a Protestant priest, who, for a trifle, will give the sanction of the law to the caprices or desires of a momentary passion. It is not uncommon for the clergy," he adds, write upon their windows, 'Marriages performed here upon cheap terms;' and we are informed that women have this great advantage, that, if they cannot succeed by other means, they may intoxicate their lover, who, on recovering his senses, may find himself the husband of the woman whom he most despises." With an unusual scrupulosity, he admits that these fraudulent marriages have lately been prohibited by an Act of Parliament. Guernsey is the new Cythera of conjugalism for which all those embark whose nuptials encounter any legal obstacle, and the throwing of the garter and other exploded ceremonies are described as indispensable accompaniments to every union. Among the anecdotes, we are told of an Englishman who suddenly resolved to be married before he had finished smoking his pipe, which he accomplished with some little difficulty; and of another, whose wife confessing upon her death-bed that she had been guilty of several infidelities-" Alas!" exclaimed her husband, you have no more reason to be satisfied with me; I promise, therefore, not to preserve any remembrance of your misconduct, if you in return will forgive me whatever wrongs I may have committed towards you." Not less surprised than overcome by this excessive goodness, she gladly consented, when 66 he informed her, that having discovered her gallantries, he had taken the liberty of poisoning her, and that she was then dying by his hand!-A Milord Anglais, of great wealth, lately arrived at Paris, was so much smitten with the beauty of the poor woman's daughter in whose house he lodged, that he cried with a sheepish air" Moi épouser vous toute de suite." The damsel blushed. "Volez-vo, voi o non ?" (oui ou non.) The young woman being advised to decide instantly, as this marrier à la minute might change his mind, very seriously cried out-" Oui ;" to which Milord replied, "Une Gentelman ne pas avoir qu'une parole," and the wedding was shortly solemnized with great magnificence. Eight days after, a friend returning from Italy gave him such an attractive account of Naples, that he exclaimed afresh" Toute de suite, toute de suite, dais chival de la poste, et à Naples!" and in a few days his new wife finds herself under the burning skies of Lombardy.-These most authentic anecdotes are wound up by the marriage of a Parisian exquisite. "Saint-Elme was charming, brilliant, witty, fait à peindre; he fenced, and wrote a billet-doux en vrai Lovelace: the Coryphæus of the side scenes, the actresses contended for his favours, and liveried lacqueys brought him letters perfumed à la Vanille, with appointments from ladies of distinction. Descending from his unpaid tilbury in the Bois de Boulogne, and ogling through a diamond eye-glass, for which he was still in the jeweller's books, he was the darling of those fashionable dames who parade their landaus in fine weather, scattering from their horses feet clouds of ostentatious dust. Nothing in appearance was wanting to the happiness of our ambered hero, since he took his tea at Hardy's, on the Italian Boule vard, dined at Beauvilliers', employed an English habit-maker, wore a waistcoat of Eau du Nil, had his pockets filled with orange-comfits, candied cherries, pastilles au punch, and Nougat de Marseilles; and was, moreover, often seen in the private boxes of the theatres; but alas! his prosperity was soon to end." Besieged one morning by bailiffs and creditors, who offered him his choice- payment or a prison-he decided as firmly as Cæsar when he crossed the Rubicon, and, accompanied by his father, betook himself to the horrible Lady Formes, a Londoner, of a hundred thousand sterling a-year, whose hideous portrait is exhibited in the frontispiece to the volume, and sacrifices himself to this ancient fright for the purpose of paying his creditors. Our author, it will be observed, is about as happy in the names of our nobility as Rousseau in his "Nouvelle Heloise," and Madame de Staël in her "Corinne ;" and as to the clumsy ridicule of his story and his caricature, we apprehend that it is much less disreputable to possess the forbidding features of a Lady Formes, than the sordid and profligate soul of a Saint-Elme. After recommending the revival of a custom among the Babylonians, who used to assemble all their marriageable young women in a public place, and bestow the money which was bidden for the beauties in marriage portions for those who were ugly, our author quotes from Legouve Quand l'homme de la vie entreprend le voyage, La femme avec douceur guide ses premiers pas ; a sentiment which ought to have inspired him with a 'little more respect for the sex: and, when he ventures in another place to exclaim "Mais pour moi dont le front trop aisement rougit, Ma bouche a déjà peur de t'en avoir trop dit," The may rest assured that no decent reader, even in -France, will accuse him upon the first line, or acquit him upon the second. FIRST LETTER TO THE ROYAL LITERARY SOCIETY. "Our court shall be a little academy."-SHAKSPEARE. "Doctor, I want you to mend my cacology."-Heir at Law. CANDOUR requires, Mr. Secretary, that I should commence my letter by confessing the doubts I once entertained as to the necessity of any such establishment as that which I have now the honour to address ; for, at a time when our booksellers evince such unprecedented munificence, that no author of the least merit is left unrewarded, while all those of superior talent acquire wealth as well as fame, it did appear to me that our writers needed no chartered patrons or royal remunerators. At the first public meeting, however, of the Society, the President having most logically urged the propriety of such an institution, because this country had become "pre-eminently distinguished by its works of history, poetry, and phi lology," without the assistance of any corporate academy; while they had long possessed one in France, (where literature had been notoriously stationary or retrograde from the period of its establishment), I could not resist the force of this double argument, and am now not only convinced that it is necessary to give to our literature "a corporate character and representation," but prepared, as far as my humble abilities extend, to forward the objects of the Society, by hastening to accept its invitation for public contributions. Aware that the model of the French Academy should always be kept in view, and remembering the anecdote recorded by M. Grimm, one of its members, who died in the greatest grammatical dilemma as to whether he should say "Je m'en vais," or, "je m'en va, dans l'autre monde," I shall limit my attention to considerations of real importance, particularly to such as may conduce "to the improvement of our language, and the correction of capricious deviations from its native purity," such being one of the main objects proposed in the President's address. Not having time, in this my first letter, to methodize all my suggestions, I shall loosely throw upon paper such observations as have occurred to me in a hasty and superficial view of the subject. Nothing forms so violent a deviation from philological purity as a catachresis. We sneer at the slipslop of uneducated life, and laugh at Mrs. Malaprop upon the stage; yet what so common in colloquial language as to hear people talk of wooden tombstones, iron milestones, glass ink-horns, brass shoeing-horns. |