POPULAR HOBBIES. BY W. B. BATEMAN. A Hobby being a man's peculiar pleasure may be generally designated his weak point: as he looks with leniency on his besetting sin, so he gazes fondly, and therefore weakly, on his favourite hobby. In the blindness of the mote which dims his own eye, he can make no allowance for the beam that obscures fraternal vision. He stigmatizes men and things, forgetting that there is a "damnéd spot" in his own mind, which will not "out." If he love the turf, he thinks foul scorn of classic lore, fancying no doubt, with Dogberry, that "reading and writing come by nature." If he be a philosopher who observes life from some metropolitan attic, he straightway dreameth that the country is a region of pumps and dunghills, formed by Providence for capons to be crammed in and farmers to grumble in; he opines, moreover, that country gentlemen divide their time impartially between swinging on gates, eating fat bacon, and riding from morn till eve, like the Erl King, "through bush, through briar." The duellest pities a man who cannot split his bullet over the edge of a penknife. The pickpocket pities a fellow who is unable to abstract "unconsidered trifles" with scientific exactitude. The active politician and the contemplative writer mutually pity each other. And why? Each judges his neighbour's hobby through the medium of his own, and all are mistaken. This will not, we trust, be our fault in the present page. Our individual hobby is indifference, so that we flatter ourself we are admirably adapted to probe the hobbies of mankind. 66 To commence with the generalities of the subject: there is no doubt that the grand hobby of our time is the rage for novelty. | Everything that seeks approval must present itself in the glitter of virgin freshness; nothing but a fair (and monied) widow will pass, with the recommendation of being as good as new." The Jews alone patronize second-hand merchandise; and they only buy as comic writers are driven to rehash old jokes-with the intention of varnishing into an outside newness. The painted courts of St. James, and the tainted courts of St. Giles, are equally bitten with the mania. A foreign prince visits us, and the first week we are in ecstacies; French cooks rack their souls to invent new entre-mets, pregnant cellars shed their blood in the shape of Silleri and Lafitte, and Gunter's sleep is murdered by the balls that are given and the suppers that are spread for the entertainment of the new comer. Sancta Maria! there are fifty female hearts entangled in his whiskers; each bristle of his imperial catches woman as horsehair hooks the gudgeon; aye, every curl of his sugar crispen moustache kills a victim a week, like Bob Acres. But, lo! the hours die, and the excitement dies with them. The lion has lionised, and is now deposed from fashion's throne with an universal yawn. Turned over by sated aristocracy to the lower heaven of the haut ton, he languishes a brief space longer, and only departs just in time to avoid being kicked by the very donkies who raised him to power. He is banished by the furor for novelty. And who has supplanted this monarch of the moustache? A hero? a statesman? a celebrated writer? No: probably Tom Thumb, or the Ethiopian Serenaders! Wherever we turn, the "good" is forsaken for the "new." Fine old plays are shelved for bad translations of French bad taste. The poet Bunn rules for six months at a time-the poet Shakespere speaks to "a beggarly account of empty boxes" if the "limited number of nights" is exceeded. Even the singer and dancer warble and pirouette to empty space, if the public is for a moment overdosed. From east to west our shops teem with what linendrapers call " novelties entirely new." Yes: a desire for novelty is the essential spirit of our time. Halt away on thy staff, Old Age; we admit thee not, save in pictures and port! Another hobby, generally characteristic of the present day, is that of the bon vivant. There was never, since the time of Apicius, a more profound appreciation of good dinners, except perhaps in the reign of Louis Quatorze, when, as Madame de Sévigné relates, the royal cook Vatel fell on his sword, because there was no salt-water fish for the table of Louis. But this is merely a solitary example. How many instances of enthusiastic devotion could be told of Monsieur Soyer! Is not all that he thought, and all that he did, written in the chronicles of the Reform Club? And has he not, moreover, written a book wherein dining and dancing are woven into a yarn destined for immortality? We have many monarchs in England. There is the monarchy of literature-a royalty of intellect; the railroads have their king; but Monsieur Soyer was the despot of the kitchen. We once knew a peer, who sent for him, receive a reply that Monsieur Soyer was busy," and we confess that our democratic heart rejoiced at the regal coolness of the cuisinier. Why should the invention of an immortal entre-met be sacrificed to ducal requirements? The answer was worthy of Abernethy. Civic gourmandism was always proverbial, nor does it now begin to wane. The eastern clubs have cooks of name and note, aye right cunning artificers of dinner; the mayoral paunche accord not with narrow doors; the aldermanic noses are still lights to lighten the Gentile speaks the wealth of Jacob Mint, Esquire; yet citizens. Such is the spread of this hobby that Jacob Mint saith" dreadful times," "sad times," even the al-fresco diners will no longer live like "nothing to do." Is there any truth in his flies by grub-bing anyhow. Potato-cans are now | complaint? Not a whit. He knows that his things to marvel at; like man, they are “ fear - counting-house is like the garden in the Arabian fully and wonderfully made;" like their pro- tale, where the earth consisted of gold-dust, and prietors, they are plentifully endowed with brass. the trees bore precious stones. A comic mockery The oi polloi are as fastidious as the bon vivant in his eye belies his lip. The noble Lord of a higher sphere, who, when asked why he Gameall smiles too as he gazes through the married a woman of such cold manners, replied, bees-wingéd nectar of his uplifted glass. And "Sir, a look from Lady Anne keeps the claret albeit the aristocratic porcelain of his haughty cool in July, when the ice is melting under the race has never been tainted by contact with table!" Among the bubbles of the day dining ordinary clay, he forgets his lofty ancestry, and swells triumphantly, but never bursts; for prince remembering only Jacob Mint's exhaustless and peasant make their way, like barristers, by revenue, he condescends to marry the merchant eating. prince's daughter, on receiving a hundred thousand pounds for the alarming sacrifice of pride. The cry of "nothing to do" is only a mercantile joke-a commercial hobby. Another universal hobby of our time is the cry of ruin. Whig, Tory, and Radical, who agree in nothing else, agree in this. Yet our treasuries enjoy plethoric health; war has yielded to a glorious peace, and commerce flourishes without let or hindrance. This cry echoes also from the church. A few insignificant members of the body clerical strive to wriggle themselves into notoriety by reviving discarded formularies, and lo! there is a cry that the entire fabric totters. A clergyman commits a faux pas-one black sheep is detected among the spotless priestly lambs and Mother Church is supposed to be approaching her fall. Yet her decrepitude proves strangely vigorous. Religious seed is scattered over every soil, and abundant harvests follow. Nothing can be more thriving than the church-nothing less just than the cry of ruin; still it rings on. A great utterer of this cry is the farmer. One would as soon expect sorrow in a comic song-book or a tavern-sign as in the frontispiece of a farmer; yet he is "pitifulwondrous pitiful." If it rain, he fears his beans will be "have beens." Should fine weather send mutton up, he confidently predicts that it will be all up with the turnips at the same time. When he drinks-(which is pretty often, for farmers resemble their own spades; they cannot work without perpetual wetting)-he finishes his draught not with a smack of the lips, but a sigh from his heart of hearts. The safety-valve of protection is about to be closed, how fiercely his anathemas roll forth! Peel becomes the scapegoat for all calamities. Whether fowls are attacked with pip, horses with staggers, or rabbits with rot, the farmer contrives, with supernatural imgenuity, to lay it at the door of Sir Robert. Discontent and the landed interest are like the Siamese Twins: they cannot separate with- | out mutual inconvenience. At all times and seasons it is the farmer's hobby to prognosticate ruin. The mercantile cry of "nothing to do" is a shade of this hobby. Jacob Mint, Esq., sits at the head of a loaded table; the guests are wealthy, or peradventure noble, the mutton is veritable Southdown, the claret is of choicest vintage, the orange chips are from Gunter's, the venison cometh from his broad domain in Northamptonshire, the champagne and hock flow at the rate of half a guinea a bottle; everything be Thus far we have dealt in generalities; but particular places and particular people have their peculiar hobbies. At Knightsbridge and Shoreditch there is a penchant for sprats; at Greenwich the local weakness is in favour of shrimps; Gravesend has a more "genteel" predilection for prawns; while Whitechapel and Seven Dials descend to the vulgarity of periwinkles. Then for individual hobbies: there is the actress, whose passion is for jewellery, light merry suppers after the theatre, and a neat little villa at Brompton. There is the shopman who saves his money for the innocent ostentation of taking some pretty girl out in a gig on Sunday morning, There is the cook, whose hobbies are buttered toast and brandy; the nurse, who hath a romantic attachment to mixed pickles, double stout, and all strong waters. But these, with a myriad other hobbies, must be treated of hereafter; at present our goose-quill is worn away, and we pause, lest the want of point in our pen should render our dissertation pointless. A FRAGMENT. Nature reminds me, gentlest Love, of thee, Morning's first glance upon a willowy lake, If A. E. SCOTT. THE TWO ROSES. (A FABLE.) Dedicated to Miss Rose Davids, Westbrooke Cottage. It was a lovely morning in soft, sunny June, "when the clouds congregate." The sweet west wind lisped with pleasing wail through wood and grove, o'er stream and field, through deep shady dells and lanes, where blushing violets lurked in soft grassy banks, and pale primroses studded the gnarled roots of aged trees; and anon, it wandered like a bee, through lovely gardens, rich in all the young summer store of buds and bells. In such a garden, where the young wind was revelling in sweets, there suddenly bounded, free and wild as a young fawn, a lovely girl. She was tall, young, and graceful, for girlhood was just expanding into lovely womanhood-like a young bud opening its spring leaves to the glow of the summer sun. its head, brought it suddenly down on the sharp point of a tiny thorn. Another and another entered its body; white froth spouted from the wounds, and curling its body up, it fell suddenly all of a lump to the ground, where it writhed about a moment in agony, and then stretching out its vile length, crawled away under some dark leaves, and was lost to sight. "Ha! ha!" shouted the young girl, " you have caught it, have you!-the next time you long for a rose, you will remember the thorns!" and again she bent her laughing face over the rose, and pressing her soft lips on its tender leaves, was about to bound on, when suddenly a low sweet voice, like the tinkle of a silver bell, fell on her ears. She started, and gazed breathlessly around. Heavens! it proceeded from the 66 'Young, lovely girl!" said a voice, soft as distant music, receive, in return for your gentle kiss, this wholesome moral: Such as I am now, art thou-young, innocent, lovely; unruffled by the rude gale; expanding thy young fresh beauties to that world, whose mysteries, passions, pleasures, and sins, are to thee as yet but as the sunbeams glittering on the placid face of some crystal lake, or which pass unconsciously, in airy dreams, down the untainted current of thy pure young imagination. Fresh, pure, art thou from the hands of the same all-wise God who fashioned us both, and gifted each with beauty, to gladden and delight the heart of man. A moment-the young girl stood in breath-rose. less delight, gazing over the sunny landscape; and then, as she turned her eyes, bright and wild as a gazelle's, to the cloudless blue expanse of heaven, and inhaled the pure elastic breath of the soft breeze, she threw off the light straw bonnet that hung half on, half off her head, shook her brown tresses to the wind, and clapping her hands in almost childish delight, bounded on again, down one of the grassy avenues of the old garden. Suddenly she stayed her steps, exclaiming-" O, a rose! a lovely, half-opening rose! The very first of the summer, I declare! How beautiful! you dear rose! I must be the first to inhale your sweet fragrance;" and the young girl bent her sweet head over the young expanding rose; while the rose, in blushing beauty, looked up meekly in her face, as if to say, Yes, here we are, sister, just opening our young beauties to the summer, with a whole life of joy and happiness before us.' 66 "To me that good God has given perfume. To thee a higher, nobler gift yet-soul. He has robed my purity in refreshing, never-failing dew. He has robed thy beauty in innocencethat inestimable dew! without which woman is but as a scentless wild-flower, that attracts the eye a moment, is picked, and then cast away as a thing of little worth. To guard my beauty and purity from the spoiler, he has armed my stem with thorns. To guard thy purity, he has implanted modesty in thy breast. O, cherish, guard well, the precious gift, my sister—that pearl, above all price! There are human slugs, full many, I trow, as dangerous to thy virtue as the slimy reptile was to mine; and even as my bristling and guardian thorns pierced the poisonous and presumptuous intruder, and sent him writhing in agony to the dark shade of concealment, so let the sharp thorns of thy modest indignation be ever pointed to pierce him who would poison thy pure young mind with the voice of flattery, or approach thy young ear with the contaminating breath of deceitful pas Then, as the young girl's eye ran over the rose-bush, she perceived a large black slug slowly and slyly working its way up the bottom of the stem. "O! you horrid slug!" she exclaimed, recoiling; "you want to feast on my rose, do you? but you will find yourself mistaken, mister slug!" And she cast her eyes round in search of a stick, to put her threats into execution, when again she paused, and stood watching the progress of the slimy insect, in breathless attention. It had advanced easily enough up the smooth part of the stem; but now there presented themselves innumerable small, sharp thorns, bristling up in every direction, to oppose its farther progress. "Ha, ha!" she exclaimed, “what will you do now, sir? you forgot the thorns!" and she gazed on intently. The slug pushed boldly on, and raising|sion. "My poor life, it is true, is short; but even in death, my faded leaves will retain their sweet perfume, which is my soul; but thou, my sister! how glorious-after a virtuous, well-spent life-will thy lot be! When thy young beauty is faded, and death shall descend like a deep sleep on thine eyelids, thou shalt awake again, to bloom in unfading beauty in that everlasting garden of heaven, where thorns will no more be needed to guard thy virtue and loveliness." Entranced, the young girl drank in each word; and when the silver voice ceased, she again bent her young head over the rose, pressing her sweet, grateful lips on the leaves, while glittering tears fell from her eyes, and mingled with the pearly dew on the rose; and then she wandered on, deeply pondering on the mysterious lesson she had received from the rose. And ever after, when any gay worldling approached her ear with the voice of flattery or passion, she would assume a cold, modest air, and say, "My name is Rose-beware my thorns.' ALBERT TAYLOR. Woodlands. LITERATURE. VOICES FROM THE CROWD; AND VOICES FROM THE MOUNTAINS. By Charles Mackay, LL.D.-(Orr.)—With titles so different, these earnest volumes are twin in spirit and in purpose; the "Voices from the Mountains" only make a supplement to the "Voices from the Crowd." Those who are acquainted with Dr. Mackay's poems at all, need not to be told how strong are all his sympathies in the cause of Human Progress; and, like every true Poet of our Day, his heart throbs at those changes and events, which following each other in rapid succession, make more and more apparent the blessed and bloodless Revolution through which we are passing. Strung to the key-note of these inspiring themes, and touched by a master's practised hand, his Lyre is perhaps the boldest that has yet been heard. He follows no beaten track, but cries as with a trumpet-call for the yielding barriers which hedge round the promised land to now at last give way! What childish chatter is often heard about this being an unpoetical age! Give the public the good true thing, and see if they do not recognise the prophet's voice--often immediately, always when he has had fair time to make his meaning understood. It is when rhymed books are printed that have no meaning at all, that the public are deaf adders to their contents; and a thousand blessings, say we, on the same public for their discrimination. We abhor classical allusions, unless they are very much to the point under discussion; but Parnassus is a good trope for the dwelling-place of the Poets-we cannot think of these our teachers without feeling that they are on a high place set apart, from which according to their height does their vision reach the dim horizon of futurity. High up indeed on the mount are Elizabeth Barrett Browning, her no less poet husband, and Tennyson; and these may be called essentially the poets of poets; but nearer to earth is a glorious living band, who speak a simpler language, and are heard more distinctly by the masses. spicuous among them is Charles Mackay-but why proceed? Surely the thrilling lyrics we shall transcribe will speak more eloquently for his powers than all our praises. Con | backs, Never dared to complain of the weight of a tax? And for aught but his 'order' he cared not a straw? When each had his dungeon and racks for the poor, And a gibbet to hang a refractory boor? When his word was a statute, his nod was a law, They were days when a man with a thought in his pate, from heaven. They were days when the sword settled questions of slain, Was considered by far the most worthy to reign; They were days when the headsman was always |