ion all the things
that ever happened to us, and all the persons that we ever loved, hated,
or despised, embraced, beat, or insulted, since we were a little boy.
They too have all an image-like appearance, and 'tis wondrous strange
how silent they all are, actors and actresses on the stage of that
revived drama, which sometimes seems to be a genteel comedy, and
sometimes a broad farce, and then to undergo dreadful transfiguration
into a tragedy deep as death.

We presume that the Public read in her own papers--we cannot be but hurt
that no account of it has appeared in the "Court Journal"--that on
Thursday the 12th current, No. 99 Moray Place was illuminated by our
annual Soiree, Conversazione, Rout, Ball, and Supper. A Ball! yes--for
Christopher North, acting in the spirit of his favourite James
Thomson,--

"No purpose gay,
Amusement, dance, or song he sternly scorns;
For happiness and true philosophy
Are of the social, still, and smiling kind."

All the rooms in the house were thrown open, except the cellars and the
Sanctum. To the people congregated outside, the building, we have been
assured, had all the brilliancy of the Bude Light. It was like a palace
of light, of which the framework or skeleton was of white unveined
marble. So strong was the reflection on the nocturnal heavens, that a
rumour ran through the City that there was a great fire in Moray Place,
nor did it subside till after the arrival and departure of several
engines. The alarm of some huge conflagration prevailed during most part
of the night all over the kingdom of Fife; while, in the Lothians, our
illumination was much admired as an uncommonly fine specimen of the
Aurora Borealis.

"From the arch'd roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. The hasty multitude
Admiring enter'd."

We need not say who received the company, and with what grace SHE did
so, standing at the first landing-place of the great staircase in sable
stole; for the widow's weeds have not _yet_ been doffed for the robes of
saffron--with a Queen-Mary cap pointed in the front of her serene and
ample forehead, and, to please us, a few pearls sprinkled among her
hair, still an unfaded auburn, and on her bosom one star-bright diamond.
Had the old General himself come to life again, and beheld her then and
there, he