yet, literally, they are a comely crew, and if formed into battalions in marching order, would make the National Guard in Paris look like

"That small infantry Warr'd on by cranes."

Our females have figures that can thaw any frost; and 'tis universally allowed that they walk well, though their style of pedestrianism does not so readily recall to the imagination Virgil's picture of Camilla flying along the heads of corn without touching their ears, as the images of paviers with post-looking mallets driving down dislodged stones into the streets. Intermingling with the lighter and more elastic footsteps of your Southron dames, the ongoings of our native virgins produce a pleasant variety of motion in the forenoon melee that along the Street of Princes now goes nodding in the sun-glint.

"Amid the general dance and minstrelsy"

who would wear a long face, unless it were in sympathy with his length of ears? A din of multitudinous joy hums in the air; you cannot see the city for the houses, its inhabitants for the people; and as for finding one particular acquaintance in the crowd, why, to use an elegant simile, you might as well go search for a needle in a bottle of hay.

But hark! a hollow sound, distant, and as yet referred to no distinct place--then a faint mixture of a clear chime that is almost music--now a tune--and at last, rousing the massy multitude to enthusiasm, a military march, swelling various, profound, and high, with drum, trombone, serpent, trump, clarionet, fife, flute, and cymbal, bringing slowly on (is it the measured tramp of the feet of men, or the confused trampling of horses?) banners floating over the procession, above the glitter of steel, and the golden glow of helmets. 'Tis a regiment of cavalry--hurra! the Carbineers! What an Advanced Guard!

"There England sends her men, of men the chief,"

still, staid, bold, bronzed faces, with keen eyes, looking straight forward from between sabres; while beneath the equable but haughty motion of their steeds, almost disciplined as their riders, with long black horse-hair flowing in martial majesty, nod their high Roman casques. The sweet storm of music has been passing by while we were gazing, and is now somewhat deadened by the retiring distance and by that mass of buildings (how the windows are alive, and agaze with faces!) while troop after troop comes on, still moving, it is felt by all, to the motion of the warlike tune, though now across the Waterloo Bridge sounding like an echo, till the glorious war-pageant is all gone by, and the dull day is deadened down again into the stillness and silence of an ignoble peace.

"Now all the youth of Scotland are on fire!"

All her cities and towns are rejoicing in the welcome Winter; and mind, invigorated by holidays, is now at work, like a giant refreshed, in all professions. The busy bar growls, grumphs, squeaks, like an old sow with a litter of pigs pretending to be quarrelling about straws. Enter the Outer or the Inner House, and you hear eloquence that would have put Cicero to the blush, and reduced Demosthenes to his original stutter.

The wigs of the Judges seem to have been growing during the long vacation, and to have expanded into an ampler wisdom. Seldom have we seen a more solemn set of men. Every one looks more _gash_ than another, and those three in the centre seem to us the embodied spirits of Law, Equity, and Justice. What can be the meaning of all this endless litigation? On what immutable principles in human nature depends the prosperity of the Fee-fund? Life is strife. Inestimable the blessing of the great institution of Property! For without it, how could people go together by the ears, as if they would tear one another to pieces? All the strong, we must not call them bad passions, denied their natural element, would find out some channels to run in, far more destructive to the commonweal than lawsuits, and the people would be reduced to the lowest ebb of misery, and raised to the highest flow of crime. Our Parliament House here is a vast safety-valve for the escape of the foul steam that would otherwise explode and shatter the engine of the State, blowing the body and members of society to smash. As it is, how the engine works! There it goes! like Erickson's Novelty or Stephenson's Rocket along a railroad; and though an accident may occur now and then, such as an occasional passenger chucked by some uncalculated collision into the distant horizon, to be picked up whole, or in fragments, by the hoers in some turnip-field in the adjacent county, yet few or none are likely to be fatal on a great scale; and on goes the Novelty or Rocket, like a thought, with many weighty considerations after it, in the shape of waggons of Christians or cottons, while Manufactures and Commerce exult in the cause of Liberty and Locomotion all over the world.

But to us utter idlesse is perfect bliss. And why? Because, like a lull at sea, or _lown_ on land, it is felt to descend from Heaven on man's toilsome lot. The lull and the lown, what are they when most profound, but the transient cessation of the restlessness of winds and waters--a change wrought for an hour of peace in the heart of the hurricane!

Therefore the sailor enjoys it on the green wave--the shepherd on the greensward; while the memory of mists and storms deepens the enchantment. Even so, Idlesse can be enjoyed but by those who are permitted to indulge it, while enduring the labours of an active or a contemplative life. To use another, and a still livelier image--see the pedlar toiling along the dusty road, with an enormous pack, on his excursion; and when off his aching shoulders slowly falls back on the bank the loosened load, in blessed relief think ye not that he enjoys, like a very poet, the beauty of the butterflies that, wavering through the air, settle down on the wildflowers around him that embroider the wayside! Yet our pedlar is not so much either of an entomologist or a botanist as not to take out his scrip, and eat his bread and cheese with a mute prayer and a munching appetite--not idle, it must be confessed, in that sense--but in every other idle even as the shadow of the sycamore, beneath which, with his eyes half-open--for by hypothesis he is a Scotsman--he finally sinks into a wakeful, but quiet half-sleep.

"Hallo! why are you sleeping there, you _idle_ fellow?" bawls some beadle, or some overseer, or some magistrate, or perhaps merely one of those private persons who, out of season and in season, are constantly sending the sluggard to the ant to learn wisdom--though the ant, Heaven bless her! at proper times sleeps as sound as a sick-nurse.

We are now the idlest, because once were we the most industrious of men.

Up to the time that we engaged to take an occasional glance over the self-growing sheets of The Periodical, we were tied to one of the oars that move along the great vessel of life; and we believe that it was allowed by all the best watermen, that

"We feather'd our oars with skill and dexterity."

But ever since we became an Editor, our repose, bodily and mental, has been like that of a Hindoo god. Often do we sit whole winter nights, leaning back on our chair, more like the image of a man than a man himself, with shut eyes, that keep seeing in succession all the things that ever happened to us, and all the persons that we ever loved, hated, or despised, embraced, beat, or insulted, since we were a little boy.

They too have all an image-like appearance, and 'tis wondrous strange how silent they all are, actors and actresses on the stage of that revived drama, which sometimes seems to be a genteel comedy, and sometimes a broad farce, and then to undergo dreadful transfiguration into a tragedy deep as death.

We presume that the Public read in her own papers--we cannot be but hurt that no account of it has appeared in the "Court Journal"--that on Thursday the 12th current, No. 99 Moray Place was illuminated by our annual Soiree, Conversazione, Rout, Ball, and Supper. A Ball! yes--for Christopher North, acting in the spirit of his favourite James Thomson,--

"No purpose gay, Amusement, dance, or song he sternly scorns; For happiness and true philosophy Are of the social, still, and smiling kind."

All the rooms in the house were thrown open, except the cellars and the Sanctum. To the people congregated outside, the building, we have been assured, had all the brilliancy of the Bude Light. It was like a palace of light, of which the framework or skeleton was of white unveined marble. So strong was the reflection on the nocturnal heavens, that a rumour ran through the City that there was a great fire in Moray Place, nor did it subside till after the arrival and departure of several engines. The alarm of some huge conflagration prevailed during most part of the night all over the kingdom of Fife; while, in the Lothians, our illumination was much admired as an uncommonly fine specimen of the Aurora Borealis.

"From the arch'd roof, Pendent by subtle magic, many a row Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light As from a sky. The hasty multitude Admiring enter'd."

We need not say who received the company, and with what grace SHE did so, standing at the first landing-place of the great staircase in sable stole; for the widow's weeds have not _yet_ been doffed for the robes of saffron--with a Queen-Mary cap pointed in the front of her serene and ample forehead, and, to please us, a few pearls sprinkled among her hair, still an unfaded auburn, and on her bosom one star-bright diamond.

Had the old General himself come to life again, and beheld her then and there, he could not have been offended with such simple ornaments. The weeds he would have felt due to him, and all that his memory was fairly entitled to; but the flowers--to speak figuratively--he would have cheerfully acknowledged were due to us, and that they well became both face and figure of his lovely relict. As she moved from one room to another, showering around her serene smiles, we felt the dignity of those Virgilian words,

"Incedit Regina."

Surely there is something very poetical in the gradual flowing in of the tide of grace, elegance, and beauty, over the floors of a suite of regal-looking rooms, splendidly illuminated. Each party as it comes on has its own peculiar picturesqueness, and affects the heart or imagination by some novel charm, gently gliding onward a little while by itself, as if not unconscious of its own attractions, nor unproud of the gaze of perhaps critical admiration that attends its progressive movement. We confess ourselves partial to plumes of feathers above the radiant braidings of the silken tresses on the heads of virgins and matrons--provided they be not "dumpy women"--tall, white, blue, and pink plumes, silent in their wavings as gossamer, and as finely delicate, stirred up by your very breath as you bend down to salute their cheeks--not with kisses--for they would be out of order both of time and place--but with words almost as tender as kisses, and awakening almost as tender a return--a few sweet syllables breathed in a silver voice, with blushing cheeks, and downcast eyes that, when again uplifted, are seen to be from heaven.

A long hour ago, and all the mansion was empty and motionless--with us two alone sitting by each other's side affectionately and respectfully on a sofa. Now it is filled with life, and heard you ever such a happy murmur? Yet no one in particular looks as if he or she were speaking much above breath, so gentle is true refinement, like a delightful fragrance

"From the calm manners quietly exhaled."

Oh! the atrocious wickedness of a great, big, hearty, huge, hulking, horse-laugh, in an assemblage of ladies and gentlemen, gathered gracefully together to enjoy the courtesies, the amenities, the urbanities, and the humanities of cultivated Christian life! The pagan who perpetrates it should be burnt alive--not at a slow fire--though that would be but justice--but at a quick one--that all remnants of him and his enormity may be instantly extinguished. Lord Chesterfield has been loudly laughed at with leathern lungs for his anathema against laughter. But though often wrong, there his lordship was right, and for that one single rule of manners he deserves a monument, as having been one of the benefactors of his species. Let smiles mantle--and that sweet, soft, low sound be heard, the _susurrus_. Let there be a many-voiced quiet music, like that of the summer moonlight sea when the stars are in its breast. But laughter--loud peals of laughter--are like breakers--blind breakers on a blind coast, where no verdure grows except that of tangle, and whatever is made into that vulgarist of all commodities, kelp.

'Tis not a literary conversazione, mind ye, gentle reader; for we leave that to S. T. Coleridge, the Monarch of the Monologue. But all speak--talk--whisper--or smile, of all the speakable, talkable, whisperable, and smileable little interesting affairs, incidents, and occurrences, real or fabulous, of public, private, demi-public, or demi-semi-private life. Topics are as plentiful as snow-flakes, and melt away as fast in the stream of social pleasure,

"A moment white, then gone for ever!"

Not a little scandal--much gossip, we daresay; but as for scandal, it is the vulgarest error in the world to think that it either means, or does any harm to any mortal. It does infinite good. It ventilates the atmosphere, and prevents the "golden-fretted vault" from becoming "a foul congregation of vapours." As for gossip, what other vindication does it need, than an order for you to look at a soiree of swallows in September on a slate-roof, the most innocent and white-breasted creatures that pay

"Their annual visits round the globe, Companions of the sun,"

but such gossipers that the whole air is a-twitter with their talk about their neighbours' nest--when--whew! off and away they go, winnowing their way westwards, through the setting sunlight, and all in perfect amity with themselves and their kind, while

"The world is all before them, where to choose, And Providence their guide."

And, madam, you do not matronise--and, sir, you do not patronise--_waltzing_? 'Tis very O fie-fieish, you think--and in danger of becoming very, very faux-papa-ish!

"Oh! the great goodness of the knights of old,"

whose mind-motto was still--

"_Honi soit qui mal y pense!_"

Judging by ourselves, 'tis a wicked world we unwillingly confess; but be not terrified at trifles, we beseech you, and be not gross in your censure of innocent and delicate delights. Byron's exquisitely sensitive modesty was shocked by the sight of waltzing, which he would not have suffered the Guiccioli, while she was in his keeping, to have indulged in even with her own husband. Thus it is that sinners see sin only where it is not--and shut their eyes to it when it comes upon them open-armed, bare-bosomed, and brazen-faced, and clutches them in a grasp more like the hug of a bear than the embrace of a woman. Away with such mawkish modesty and mouthing morality--for 'tis the slang of the hypocrite.

Waltzing does our old eyes good to look on it, when the whole Circling Flight goes gracefully and airily on its orbit, and we think we see the realisation of that picture (we are sad misquoters) when the Hours--

"Knit by the Graces and the Loves in dance, Lead on the eternal spring!"

But the Circling Flight breaks into airy fragments, the Instrumental Band is hushed, and so is the whole central Drawing-room; for, blushingly obedient to the old man's beck, THE STAR OF EVE--so call we her who is our heart's-ease and heart's-delight--the granddaughter of one whom hopelessly we loved in youth, yet with no unreturned passion--but

"The course of true love never yet ran smooth"--

comes glidingly to our side, and having heard our wish breathed whisperingly into her ear--a rare feature when small, thin, and delicate as a leaf--just as glidingly she goes, in stature that is almost stateliness, towards her Harp, and assuming at once a posture that would have charmed Canova, after a few prelusive touches that betray the hand of a mistress in the divine art, to the enchantment of the white motions of those graceful arms and fingers fine, awakes a spirit in the strings accordant to the spirit in that voice worthy to have blended with St Cecilia's in her hymning orisons. A Hebrew melody! And now your heart feels the utter mournfulness of these words,

"By Babel's streams we sat and wept!"

How sudden, yet how unviolent, the transitions among all our feelings!

Under no other power so swift and so soft as that of Music. The soul that sincerely loves Music, offers at no time the slightest resistance to her sway, but yields itself up entirely to all its moods and measures, led captive by each successive strain through the whole mysterious world of modulated air. Not a smile over all that hush.

Entranced in listening, they are all still as images. A sigh--almost a sob--is heard, and there is shedding of tears. The sweet singer's self seems as if she felt all alone at some solitary shrine--

"Her face, oh! call it fair, not pale!"

Yet pale now it is, as if her heart almost died within her at the pathos of her own beautiful lament in a foreign land, and lovelier in her captivity never was the fairest of the daughters of Zion!

How it howls! That was a very avalanche. The snow-winds preach charity to all who have roofs overhead--towards the houseless and them who huddle round hearths where the fire is dying or dead. Those blankets must have been a God-send indeed to not a few families, and your plan is preferable to a Fancy-Fair. Yet that is good too--nor do we find fault with them who dance for the Destitute. We sanction amusements that give relief to misery--and the wealthy may waltz unblamed for behoof of the poor.

Again, what a howling in the chimney! What a blattering on the windows, and what a cannonading on the battlements! What can the night be about?

and what has put old Nox into such a most outrageous passion? He has driven our Winter Rhapsody clean out of our noddle--and to-morrow we must be sending for the slater, the plumber, and the glazier. To go to bed in such a hurly-burly, would be to make an Ultra-Toryish acknowledgment, not only of the divine right, but of the divine power of King Morpheus. But an Ultra-Tory we are not--though Ultra-Trimmers try to impose upon themselves that fiction among a thousand others; so we shall smoke a cigar, and let sleep go to the dogs, the deuce, the devil, and the Chartists.