nothing, in the way of comforting Mr. Franklin
Blake.

In the mean time, Sergeant Cuff and I
proceeded to my lady's room.

At the last conference we had held with her,
we had found her not over willing to lift her eyes
from the book which she had on the table. On
this occasion there was a change for the better.
She met the Sergeant's eye with an eye that was
as steady as his own. The family spirit showed
itself in every line of her face; and I knew that
Sergeant Cuff would meet his match, when a
woman like my mistress was strung up to hear
the worst he could say to her.

SOME VERY LIGHT LITERATURE.

It is a curious experience to glance through
the pages of some magazine or other periodical
of comparatively recent date, and to
observe the enormous difference which the
lapse of even a few years makes, not only
in our manners and habits, our costumes, the
hours which we keep, our mode of travelling,
and the like, but also in the style of
literature of the lighter kind, which the taste
of the age demands, and which those who
live by catering to that taste, as a matter of
course, employ. Accident has lately thrown
in the way of the writer an old volume of that
once-popular and well-known magazine, La
Belle Assemblée; and the reflection with which
this article opens was inspired by a careful
and wondering examination of its contents.

It is astonishing how soon a newspaper or
periodical of any sort gets to be old and obsolete,
and how queerly some of the facts and
opinions contained in such works show when
looked at with the knowledge of the subsequent
issue of events present to our mind. It
was but the other day, after an interview with
Constance Kent at the Penitentiary, Milbank
—where I found her engaged in the harmless
occupation of ironing linen—that, on referring
back to a number of the Annual Register for
the year in which the Road murder was
committed, I found it stated as an instance of
what absurd theories people will sometimes
put forward, that certain persons had even
gone so far as to suggest that the murdered
child had been the victim of Miss Constance
Kent, a daughter of the house! Knowing
what we do now, this paragraph reads oddly
enough.

And so with this other periodical, La Belle
Assemblée. In its pages also we light upon
many things which, remembering subsequent
events, read oddly enough. Knowing, for
example, what we do now of the author of
the Waverley Novels, does it not seem strange
to find him alluded to in these pages as "Mr.
Scott, the northern poet"? Or, again,
acquainted as we are now with the properties
and capabilities of iron, is it not marvellous
to read an article on the construction of fire-
proof theatres, without one mention of this
now much-prized metal from beginning to end
of the treatise? The use of stone everywhere
is the panacea against danger by fire set
up by the writer of this article, who actually
advocates the adoption of a vaulted stone roof for
every theatre that is built, even though it
should necessitate the introduction of flying-
buttresses in the external construction of the
building. It furnishes, by-the-by, a curious
subject for reflection to find that people were
yearning for fireproof theatres when they knew
of no more suitable material of which to construct
them than blocks of granite; and that
even now, in 1868, when we know of a material
which is more convenient to use, and which would
render the attainment of this most desirable
object comparatively certain, we are still no
better off as to security from fire in our theatres
than we were in 1809.

For this specimen of periodical literature—
this volume of La Belle Assemblée—every
word and every illustration in which suggests
a state of things utterly obsolete and done
away with—was, after all, published no longer
ago than in the year of grace just mentioned,
and must be regarded, in truth, as part of the
light literature of the great nineteenth century.
Its contents consist of long extracts from
books of tales, of letters from fancifully named
correspondents, of occasional theatrical criticisms,
of biographical sketches, and of selections
from the works of the British poets—
Dryden, Pope, Gray, Thomson, and the rest,
with occasionally some original verses, by
unknown hands, and of inscrutable badness.
Lastly, there is—and this perhaps is the most
marked feature of the elegant and feeble work
before us —an elaborate article on ladies'
costumes, which, with two coloured illustrations, is
appended to each monthly number.

Upon the whole I am afraid that it must be
admitted that the literature of the Belle
Assemblée is not of an exalted tone, and would
certainly not suit the captious tastes of this
cavilling and fastidious age. The stories which
are contained in it are hardly inviting. The
scene of them is commonly laid in the East, or
in other foreign parts, and the tales are of the
most high-flown description. The vocative case
is largely employed, and the notes of admiration
have not an easy time of it. The reflections are
not always of startling originality. "Ah," says
the heroine of one of these tales, "the heart
of mankind is insatiable: it always requires
novelty, new ideas, and impressions, which
renovate and strengthen its feelings," or again,
after congratulating herself on her own high
regard for virtue: "Alas! this alone comforts
me, this alone supports me! Nor ever, holy
virtue, will I become unfaithful to you; ever
shall you remain my friend. Oh! I shall see
you, and embrace your counterpart, in the
likeness of my never-to-be-forgotten Boris!"
Boris being the remarkable name of this lady's
husband.

There never were such powerful morals as
those conveyed by the stories in the B. A.