In the deep discovery of the subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some inquirers, who, if two of three yards were opened beneath the surface would not care to rake the bowels of Potosi and regions towards SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

fortunately for the repose of the evening, we | That Hermitage, stealing gently into the cham were haunted by the recollection of some bers of the brain, shall make us "babble of green highly flavoured port, and, in spite of strong fields;" and that delicate Claret, innocently evidence of identity from conspiring waiters, bubbling and dancing in the slender glass, shall sought for the like in vain. Bottle after bottle bring its own vine-coloured hills more vividly was produced and dismissed as "not the thing," before us even than Mr. Stanfield's pencil! till our generous host, somewhat between libe- There from a time-changed bottle, tenderly ral hospitality and just impatience, smilingly drawn from a crypt, protected by huge primebegged us to accompany him into the cellar, vai cobwebs, you may taste antiquity, and inspect the whole of "his little stock," and feel the olden time on your pala.e! As we choose for ourselves! We took him at his sip this marvellous Port, to the very colour word; another friend of riper years and graver of which age has been gentle, methinks we authority joined us; and we prepared to fol- have broken into one of those rich vaults in low our guide, who stood ready to conduct us which Sir Thomas Browne, the chief butler to the banks of Lethe. All the preparations, of the tomb, finds treasures rarer than jewels. like those which preceded similar descents "Some," saith he, "discover sepulchral vessels of the heroes of old, bespoke the awfulness containing liquors which time hath incrassated and peril of the journey. Our host preceded into jellies. For besides lacrymatories, notable us with his massive keys to perform an office lamps, with oils and aromatic liquors, attended collateral to that of St. Peter; behind, a dingy noble ossuaries; and some yet retaining a imp of the nether regions stood with glasses vinosity and spirit in them, which, if any have in his hands and a prophetic grin on his face; tasted, they have far exceeded the palates of and each of us was armed with a flaming torch antiquity;-liquors, not to be computed by to penetrate the gloom which now stretched years of annual magistrates, but by great conthrough the narrow entrance before us. junctions and the fatal periods of kingdoms. The draughts of consulary date were but crude unto these, and opimian wine but in the must unto them."

We descended the broken and winding staircase with cautious steps, and, to confess the truth, not without some apprehension for our upward journey, yet hoping to be numbered We passed on from flavour to flavour with among that select class of Pluto's visiters, our proud and liberal guide, whose comments "quos ardens evexit ad æthera virtus." On a added zest even to the text which he had to sudden, turning a segment of a mighty cask, dilate on. A scent, a note of music, a voice we stood in the centre of the vast receptacle long unheard, the stirring of the summer of spirituous riches. The roof of solid and breeze, may startle us with the sudden revival stoutly compacted brickwork, low, but boldly of long-forgotten feelings and thoughts, but arched, looked substantial enough to defy all none of these little whisperers to the heart is attacks of the natural enemy, water, and resist so potently endowed with this simple spell as a second deluge. From each side ran long the various flavours of Port to one who has galleries, partially shown by the red glare of tried, and, in various moods of his own mind, the torches, extending one way far beneath the relished them all. This full, rough, yet fruity busy trampling of the greatest shopkeepers wine, brings back that first season of London and stock-jobbers in the world; and, on the life, when topics seemed exhaustless as words other, below the clamour of the Old Bailey and coloured with rainbow hues; when Irish Court and the cells of its victims. What a students, fresh from Trinity College, Dublin, range! Here rest, cooling in the deep-delved were not too loud or familiar to be borne; cells, the concentrated essences of sunny when the florid fluency of others was only tireyears! In this archway huge casks of mighty some as it interrupted one's own; when the wine are scattered in bounteous confusion, vast Temple Hall was not too large or too cold like the heaped jewels and gold on the "rich for sociality; and ambition, dilating in the strond" of Spenser, the least of which would venerable space, shaped dreams of enterprise, lay Sir Walter's Fleming low! Throughout labour, and glory, till it required more wine to that long succession of vaults, thousands of assuage its fervours. This taste of a liquor, bottles, "in avenues disposed," lie silently firm yet in body, though tawny with years, waiting their time to kindle the imagination, bears with it to the heart that hour when, hav to sharpen the wit, to open the soul, and to ing returned to my birth-place, after a long and anchain the trembling tongue. There may eventful absence, and having been cordially you feel the true grandeur of quiescent power, welcomed by my hearty friends, I slipped and walk amidst the palpable elements of mad- away from the table, and hurried, in the light ness or of wisdom. What stores of sentiment of a brilliant sunset, to the gently declining in that butt of raciest Sherry! What a fund fields and richly wooded hedgerows which were of pensive thought! What suggestions for the favourite haunt of my serious boyhood. delicious remembrance! What "aids to re- The swelling hills seemed touched with etheflection!" (genuine as those of Coleridge) in real softness; the level plain was invested that Hock of a century old. What sparkling "with purpureal gleams;" every wild rose and fancies, whirling and foaming, from a stout stirring branch was eloquent with vivid recolbody of thought in that full and ripe Cham-lections: a thousand hours of happy thoughtpagne! What mild and serene philosophy in that Burgundy, ready to shed "its sunset glow" on society and nature! This pale Brandy, softened by age, is the true "spirit" which "disturbs us with the joy of elevated thoughts."

*Old Port wine is more ancient to the imagination than any other, though in fact it may have been known fewer years; as a broken Gothic arch has more of the spirit of antiquity about it than a Grecian temple. Port reminds us of the obscure middle ages; but Hock, like the classical mythology, is always young.

How the soul expands from this narrow cel and bids defiance to the massive walls! What Elysian scenes begin to dawn amidst the dark

fulness came back upon the heart; and the | of ham, sandwiches, and broiled mushrooms, glorious clouds which fringed the western ho- to enable us to do justice to the liquid delica rizon looked prophetic of golden years "pre-cies before us. The usual order of wines is destined to descend and bless mankind." This disregarded; no affected climax, no squeamish soft, highly-flavoured Port, in every drop of assortments of tastes for us here; we despise which you seem to taste an aromatic flower, all rules, and yield a sentimental indulgence to revives that delicious evening, when, after the aberrations of the bottle. "Riches finedays of search for the tale of Rosamond Grey, less" are piled around us; we are below the of which I had indistinctly heard, I returned laws and their ministers; and just, lo! in the from an obscure circulating library with my farthest glimmer of the torches lies outstretched prize, and brought out a long-cherished bottle, our black Mercury, made happy by our leav given me two years before as a curiosity, by ings, and seeming to rejoice that in the cellar, way of accompaniment to that quintessence of as in the grave, all men are equal. imaginative romance. How did I enjoy, with a strange delight, its scriptural pathos, like a newly discovered chapter of the Book of Ruth; hang enamoured over its young beauty, love-ness! Now do I understand the glorious tale lier for the antique frame of language in which it was set; and long to be acquainted with the author, though I scarcely dared aspire so high, and little anticipated those hundreds of happy evenings since passed in his society, which now crowd on me in rich confusion!-Thus is it that these subtlest of remembrancers not only revive some joyful season, but this also ❝contains a glass which shows us many more," unlocking the choicest stores of memory, that cellar of the brain, in which lie the treasures which make life precious.

of Aladdin and the subterranean gardens. It is plain that the visionary boy had discovered just such a cellar as this, and there eagerly learned to gather amaranthine fruits, and range in celestial groves till the Genius of the Ring, who has sobered many a youth, took him in charge, and restored him to common air. Here is the true temple, the inner shrine of Bacchus. Feebly have they understood the attributes of the benignant god, who have represented him as delighting in a garish bower with clustering grapes; here he rejoices to sit, in his true citadel, amidst his mightier treasures. Methinks we could now, in prophetic mood, trace the gay histories of these imbodied

hereafter; live at once along a thousand lines of sympathy and thought which they shall kindle; reverse the melancholy musing of Hamlet, and trace that which the bungholestopper confines to "the noble dust of an Alexander," which it shall quicken; and peeping

But see! our party have seated themselves beneath that central arch to enjoy a calmer pleasure after the fatigues of their travel. They look romantic as banditti in a cave, and good-inspirations among those who shall feel them humoured as a committee of aldermen. A cask which has done good service in its day the shell of the evaporated spirit-serves for a table, round which they sit on rude but ample benches. The torches planted in the ground cast a broad light over the scene, making the ruddy wine glisten, and seeming, by their irre-into the studies of our brother contributors, gular flickering, as if they too felt the influence of the spot. My friend, usually so gentle in his convivialities, has actually broken forth into a song, such as these vaults never heard; our respected senior sits trying to preserve his solemn look, but unconsciously smiling; and Mr. B-1, the founder of the banquet, is sedulously doing the honours with only intenser civility. and calling out for fresh store

see how that vintage which flushed the hills of France with purple, shall mantle afresh in the choice articles of this Magazine.

But it is time to stop, or my readers will suspect me of a more recent visit to the cellar. They will be mistaken. One such descent is enough for a life; and I stand too much in awe of the Powers of the Grave to venture again so near to their precincts.

ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BRUNSWICK

THEATRE BY FIRE.

[NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.]

We notice this lamentable accident in our | as transgressions, and to estimate not only dramatic record, not for the sake of inquiry what is done but what is resisted. We can, into its causes, or of multiplying the dismal indeed, do this but partially, yet we should, as associations which it awakens, but for the far as possible, dispose ourselves to be just in striking manner in which it has brought out our moral censures; and we shall find in those the proper virtues of players. Actors of all whom we call "good for nothing people," more ranks; managers of all interests; the retired good than we think for. Actors are, no doubt, and the active; the successful and the obscure; more liable to deviate from the ordinary prothe refined and the vulgar; from Mrs. Siddons prieties of conduct, than merchants or agriculdown to the scene-shifters of Sadler's Wells, turists; it is their business to give pleasure to have pressed forward to afford their sympathy others, and, therefore, they must incline to the and relief to the living sufferers. The pro- pleasurable; they live in the present, and it is prietors of the patent theatres, who were just no wonder that, as their tenure is more precacomplaining of the infringements on their pur-rious than that of others, they take less thought chased rights, which have rendered them for the future. But if they have less of almost valueless, at once forgot the meditated the virtue of discretion, they have also less of injury to themselves, and saw nothing but the that alloy of gross selfishness to which it is misery of their comrades. It is only on occa- allied; they have much of the compassion sions such as these that the charities which which they help to diffuse; and ludicrous as are nurtured amidst the excitements and vi- their vanities sometimes are, they give way at cissitudes of a theatrical life are exhibited, so once on the touch of sympathy for unmerited as to put the indiscriminate condemnations of or merited sorrow. Mr. Kean is an extreme the crabbed moralist and the fanatic to shame. instance, perhaps, both of imprudence and geThere is more equality in the distribution of nerosity; and accordingly no man living has goodness and evil than either of these classes been treated with greater injustice by a mora! imagine; for the "respectable" part of the and discerning public. Raised in a moment community are powerful and permanent; and from obscurity and want to be the idol of the obtain, perhaps, something more than justice town; courted, caressed, and applauded by the for the negative virtues. Far be it from us to multitude, praised by men of genius, with rank, undervalue these, or to sympathize with any beauty, and wit, proud to be enlisted in his who would represent the ordinary guards and train, he grew giddy and fell, and was hooted fences of morality as things of little value; from the stage with brutal indignities. but justice is due to all; and justice, we cannot knew his faults; but how few were capable of help thinking, is scarcely done to those whose understanding his virtues-his princely spirit, irregularities and whose virtues grow together his warm and cordial friendship, his proneness on that verge of ruin and despair on which to forget his own interests in those of others, they stand in the times of their giddiest eleva- his magnanimity and his kindness! The tion. A cold observance of the decencies of "respectable" part of the community do not life excites no man's envy and wounds no engross all its goodness, although they turn it man's self-love; and, therefore, it is allowed to the best account for their own benefit. Unwithout grudging; while the dazzling errors der the shield of this character, they sometimes and redeeming nobleness of the light-hearted do things which the vagabonds they sneer at and the generous are more easily abused than would not, and could not achieve; and such is copied. To detect "the soul of goodness in the submission of mankind to custom, that they things evil," is not to confound evil with good, retain their name even when they are detected. or to weaken the laws of honour and con- An attorney, in large practice, convicted of a science, but to give to them a finer precision fraud, retains the addition "respectable" till he and a more penetrating vigour. It is not by receives judgment; the announcement of the distinguishing, but by confounding, that perni- failure of a country bank, by which hundreds cious sentimentalists pervert the understanding are ruined, styles the swindlers "the respectaand corrupt the affections. They lend to vice ble firm ;" and a most respectable member of the names and attributes of virtue; tack toge- the religious world speculates in hops, or in ther qualities which could never be united in stock, without reproach, and, when he has failed nature; and thus, in order to produce a new for thousands, fraudulently gambled away, and startling effect, deprave the moral sensibi- continues to hold shilling whist in pious abolity, and relax the tone of manly feeling. But mination. We have been led to this train of it is another thing to hold the balance fairly reflection by seeing in a newspaper the speech between the excellencies and the frailties of of a most respectable Home Missionary, named imperfect men; to trace the hints and indica- Smith, at the Mansion-house, in which he tions of high emotion amidst the weaknesses exults in the horrible catastrophe as "the of our nature, to consider temptations as well triumph of piety in London !" and this person,

All

FIRST APPEARANCE OF MISS FANNY KEMBLE.

[NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.]