alia aliis, quædam fortasse omnibus placeant." This would appear to constitute the whole theory of miscellaneous writing: nor ought it to be forgotten by the admirers of more strictly methodical disquisition, that— "L'ennui naguit un jour de l'uniformité." Caterers for public taste, we apprehend, should act on gastronomic principles; according to which "toujours Prout" would be far less acceptable than "toujours perdrix:" hence the necessity for a few hors d'œuvres. We have hitherto had considerable difficulty in establishing, to the satisfaction of refractory critics, the authenticity of one simple fact; viz., that of our author's death, and the consequently posthumous nature of these publications. People absurdly persist in holding him in the light of a living writer: hence a sad waste of wholesome advice, which, if judiciously expended on some reclaimable sinner, would, no doubt, fructify in due season. In his case 'tis a dead loss-Prout is a literary mummy! Folks should look to this: Lazarus will not come forth to listen to their strictures; neither, should they happen to be in a complimentary mood, will Samuel arise at the witchery of commendation. Objects of art and virtù lose considerably by not being viewed in their proper light; and the common noonday effulgence is not the fittest for the right contemplation of certain capi d'opera. Canova, we know, preferred the midnight taper. Let therefore, "ut fruaris reliquiis" (Phæd. lib. i. fab. 22), the dim penumbra of a sepulchral lamp shed its solemn influence over the page of Prout, and alone preside at its perusal. Posthumous authorship, we must say, possesses infinite advantages; and nothing so truly serves a book as the writer's removal by death or transportation from the sphere or hemisphere of his readers. The "Memoirs of Captain Rock" were rendered doubly interesting by being dated from Sidney Cove. Byron wrote from Venice with increased effect. Nor can we at all sympathize with the exiled Ovid's plaintive utterance, “Sine me, liber, ibis in urbem." His absence from town, he must have known, was a right good thing for his "publisher under the pillars." But though distance be useful, death is unquestionably better. Far off, an author is respected; dead, he is beloved. Extinctus, amabitur. [This theory is incidentally dwelt on by Prout himself in one of his many papers published by us, though not comprised within the present limited collection. In recounting the Roman adventures of his fellowtownsman Barry, he takes the occasion to contrast the neglect which his friend experienced during life with the rank now assigned him in pictorial celebrity. He knows his doom-he dies. Then comes RENOWN, then FAME appears, GLORY proclaims the Coffin hers! Aye greenest over sepulchres Palm-tree and laurel rise. PROUT, Notti Romane nel Palazzo Vaticano.] We recollect to have been forcibly struck with a practical application of this doctrine to commercial enterprise when we last visited Paris. The 2nd of November, being "All Souls'-day,' "* had drawn a concourse of melancholy people to Père la Chaise, ourselves with the rest; on which occasion our eye was arrested, in one of the most sequestered walks of that romantic necropolis, by the faint glimmering of a delicious little lamp-a glow-worm of bronze-keeping silent and sentimental vigil under a modest urn of black marble, inscribed thus : CI-GIT FOURNIER (Pierre Victor), SA VEUVE INCONSOLABLE Continue son commerce, Rue aux Ours, No. 19. R. I. P. We had been thinking of purchasing an article of the kind; so, on our return, we made it a point to pass the Rue aux Ours, and give our custom to the mournful Artemisia. On entering the shop, a rubicund tradesman accosted us; but we intimated our wish to transact business with "the widow," "La veuve inconsolable?" "Eh, pardieu! c'est moi! je suis, moi, Pierre Fournier, inventeur, &c.: la veuve n'est qu'un symbole, un mythe." We admired his ingenuity, and bought his lamp; by the mild ray of which patent contrivance we have profitably pursued our editorial labours. REGENT STREET, Feb. 29, 1836. OLIVER YORKE. * In the first edition of the "Reliques" the date of All Souls' was given very literally indeed by a "clerical error as the 1st of November, "At Covent Garden a sacred drama, on the story of Jephtha, conveying solemn impressions, is PROHIBITED as a PROFANATION of the period of fasting and mortification! There is no doubt where the odium should fix-on the Lord Chamberlain or on the BISHOP OF LONDON. Let some intelligent Member of Parliament bring the question before the HOUSE OF COMMONS." Times, Feb. 20 and 21, 1834. THE WORKS OF FATHER PROUT. THE RELIQUES. I. Father Prout's Apology for Lent. HIS DEATH, OBSEQUIES, AND AN ELEGY. (Fraser's Magazine, April, 1834.) [Mahony's first contribution to Fraser appeared in the same number in which Carlyle completed the second of the three books of his "Sartor Resartus." The now well-known Magazine, which had already won to itself a high degree of popularity, had but just then rounded the fourth year of its existence. Its salient feature from its commencement had been, as it long continued to be, the publication in each monthly instalment of one in a singularly varied Gallery of Literary Characters. These were doubly sketched, and with about an equally startling vividness, by the pseudonymous pencil of Alfred Croquis, a young artist afterwards world-famous in his own name as Daniel Maclise, R.A., and, upon a confronting leaf, by the pen of an anonymous writer, who was in reality no less caustic and scholarly a wit than Dr. William Maginn, then the responsible editor of Regina. No. 47 in that Gallery portrayed thus, in walking costume, for the amusement of the readers of Fraser, the well-buttoned-up form and vinous countenance of Theodore Hook, author of "Sayings and Doings." A couple of years afterwards, when "The Reliques" were collected together for independent publication, Maclise's facile pencil adorned this opening chapter with two embellishments, one of them forming the frontispiece to the first volume, being his wicked limning, under embowering nets, of Mahony seated vis-à-vis with his alter ego or eidolon Father Prout, each busily engaged, fork in hand, discussing his-ahem !—" Apology for Lent!" relays of dishes being brought in processionally to the already well-laden board; while the other, the companion vignette, appended to this opening instalment of the " Reliques," delineated, under the two significant words "Pace Implora," the reverend Father's solemn interment.] "Cependant, suivant la chronique, Sur tout l'univers Catholique Etendait ses sévères lois."-GRESSET. THERE has been this season in town a sad outcry against Lent. For the first week the metropolis was in a complete uproar at the suppression of the oratorio; and no act of authority since the fatal ordonnances of Charles X. bid fairer to revolutionize a capital than the message sent from Bishop Blomfield to Manager Bunn. That storm has happily blown over. The Cockneys, having fretted their idle hour, and vented their impotent ire through their B |