1832.] A fairs in General. 109 



home some night from Westminster, with an ugly cut and a handsome 

 compensation a-piece. Our allusion to this affair will, we are sure, be 

 forgiven, when it is thus seen to arise from anxiety for our legislators ; 

 for those who may come within the class of persons privileged to be 

 assaulted upon reasonable terms and for those also, whom Providence 

 and Mr. Pitt has blessed with affluence, to a degree that places all purr 

 chaseable pleasures within their reach. 



WAVERLEY AND WERTEB UNITED.- It was our intention to have 

 said six words upon the characteristic and affecting note which Sir 

 Walter Scott has appended to his new, and as he informs us, his " last" 

 tales ; but the subject has already been treated of in a style of pathos so 

 far above the reach of ordinary eloquence, that, though it exceeds our 

 own comment in length as well as in depth, we cannot resist the inclina T 

 tion to extract it entire. 



The Last of the Waverlcys.Tmi "list" Tales of "the Author of Waverley !" 

 " Can such things be?" and not " overcome us like a summer cloud?" for it is 

 only " like a summer cloud" that any thing is capable of overcoming us now, iri 

 these days of fearful excitement, and feverish and incessant longing and looking 

 forth for that which, like the school-boy's " to-morrow," will never come. Can 

 it be that we have lived to witness the " Rise and Fall" (for there has been no 

 " Decline") of the greatest, the brightest, and the most beneficent genius that 

 has blessed and beautified the intellectual world since Shakspeare ? Can it be 

 that He of the Hundred Volumes! whose pages enshrine more of wisdom, and 

 virtue, and moral truth, and intellectual beauty more of deep philosophy and 

 divine charity more of that perfect knowledge of human life which grows alone 

 out of perfect love more of all these, and of a thousand other beneficent things, 

 than are to be found in the writings of any other mortal Shakspeare alone ex- 

 cepted ; can it be that He the glory of our literature the star of our country 

 the genius of our age the admiration of the civilized world ; can it be that He 

 is passing from among us, into the category of things that were, and that, i 

 another week, or month, or year,fttit! is all that we shall have to say or feel 

 concerning him ? Even now, as we write, ''his place knoweth him not." The 

 concluding note of his new work (they who can read it without tears of mingled 

 sorrow and affection, know not what it is to joy or to sorrow 'to hope or to 

 fear or to feel any intellectual emotion, whether of pain or of pleasure, that does 

 not spring from the blank circle of self) the concluding note of his new work is 

 dated " Abbotsford!!!" But the hand which penned it is divided from that spot 

 (one of the most romantic, and to him, doubtless, the most beloved, of its 

 creations) by seas and foreign lands, and strangers and hirelings are tending the 

 wants, and it may be, smoothing the sick-bed pillow, or holding the suffering 

 head, of him over whose pages the whole English community will be hanginy for 

 the next month, in pleased and grateful admiration. 



The thought recals us from our sombre reverie we open the living pages of 

 .the work, the first sight of which has called forth these melancholy reflections 

 the " summer cloud" that overcame us has passed away and all is sunshine and 

 hope once more. He will recover he will come back to us, renovated in heart 

 and hope, if it be only to receive the homage of our admiration for this new 

 token of his mighty claims upon our gratitude and affection. Nay,.he cannot, he 

 must not die ! Why have we not my uncle Toby at our elbow, to exclaim for us, 

 " by G d, he shall not die !" 



This is the perfection of the Pocket Handkerchief School. No words 

 can do justice to it, and we are obliged therefore to resort to a simpler 

 mode of expressing our admiration as follows: 



I!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-!!!!! ! ! ! 

 Or, as Mr. Irving justly observes, " Cjziw krfdembhpxoi tkavqklmsk !'.' 



