hat a new era of human felicity
had arrived; that "all the world was a stage," in the most dancing and
delightful sense of the words; and that feasting and fetes were to form
the staple of life for every future age. We were to live in a rosebud
world. I heard around me in a thousand whispers, from some of the
softest politicians that ever wore a smile, the assurance, that France
was to become a political Arcadia, or rather an original paradise, in
which toil and sorrow had no permission to be seen. In short, the world,
from that time forth, was to be changed; despotism was extinguished; man
was regenerated; balls and suppers were to be the only rivalry of
nations; Paris was, of course, to lead France; France, of course, to
lead the globe;--all was to be beauty, _bonhommie_, and _bonbons_! And,
under the shade of the triumphant tricolor, all nations were to waltz,
make epigrams, and embrace for ever!

FOOTNOTES:

[14] MADRIGAL.

"Silence is the true love-token;
Passion only speaks in sighs;
Would you keep its charm unbroken,
Trust the eloquence of eyes.
Ah no!
Not so.

From my soul all doubts remove;
_Tell_ me, _tell_ me--that you love.

"Looks the heart alone discover,
If the tongue its thoughts can tell,
'Tis in vain you play the lover,
You have never _felt_ the spell.
Ah no!
Not so.
Speak the word, all words above;
_Tell_ me, _tell_ me--that you love."

INDIAN AFFAIRS--GWALIOR.

The painful interest with which the arrival of every Indian mail was
looked for in England during the continuance of the Affghan war with its
alternations of delusive triumphs and bloody reverses, has now almost
wholly died away: the public mind, long accustomed to sup full of the
horrors of the Khoord-Cabul pass, and the atrocities of the "arch-fiend"
Akhbar Khan, has subsided into apathy, and hears with indifference of
the occasional defeat and dethronement of rajahs and nawabs with
unpronounceable names--an employment which seem to be popularly
considered in this country the ordinary duty of the servants of the
Company. Yet the intelligence received during the last year from our
eastern empire, whether viewed in connexion with past events, or with
reference to those which are now "casting their shadows before," might
furnish abundant matter for speculation, both from the "moving incidents
by field" which have marked its course, and the