in the present instance his reward; for, verily, there he is (as the Irishman says)," alive and kicking;" to all lawful intents and purposes of immortality as fresh and as well-preserved as the last forthcomer from Paternoster-row, or Albemarle-street, the most blooming young lion of the season: but on this point there are two opinions: Again, with respect to those other members of the world before the flood, Mr. Moore's "Loves of the Angels," we shall merely observe (we mean, nothing personal in the suggestion) that poets are only bound to veracity in their prose writings; and that such evidence (as the mathematician said of Milton's "Paradise Lost"), "proves nothing." Lastly, though to be ingenuous we must allow, that the negative testimony against our friends the Preadamites is strong, and though the geological society has not a single worthy of that family in a glass case, to tender on their behalf,-there are yet rumours afloat in the Silurian circles, that a certain Professor von Leichtglaübigkeit possesses a beautiful coprolite, of considerable promise for the future turning up of the desiderated curiosity. Still, until that promise is realized, and some preadamite Doctor Johnson is taken from his stony bed (a modern instance of an ancient saw-rian) to figure amongst the megatheria, and to oust us of our argument, we are at liberty to maintain, that, from the professor to his presumed inference, non valet consequentia.

We might then (we say) deny the facts, and apply to these early specimens of human greatness the universally admitted maxim de non apparentibus; but we do not think that ground quite safe, because, within our own immediate memories we have had proof that the dogma does not hold good. How many immortal authors, actors, painters, preachers, and what not, did we know in "the merry days when we were young," who all have disappeared from before the public, many of them not living to see the end of their sublunary tenure, and ceasing to be immortal before they ceased to exist. Where is Tiddidol? Where Buckhorse? Where are the children of the Leadenhall Minerva? There is not an echo to answer "where." Is not the memory, too, extinct of the immortal authors whose Dutch-leaf and red-leaded covers were put forth by the Newberry of the middle ages from the corner of St. Paul's-churchyard? It is not long, indeed, since we ourselves heard a young gentleman in a side-box maintain, that the story of so recent an immortal as Jonathan Wilde was mythological. We must therefore admit, that as far as this age of transition goes, immortality is not always a freehold ; and that since churches have been built by Act of Parliament, even that claim to the memory of posterity is not worth a six months' purchase.

We shall therefore take up another position, and assert that there are immortals and immortals, just as there are Miltons and Blackmoresas there are guinea-a-liners and penny-a-liners—as there are John Kembles and (please to put in your own name to fill up the sentence). Every one, we hold, gets in the long-run his proper share of renown; and the man whose immortality does not extend to a second edition, has no right to complain, if he disappears from the bookseller's catalogue, before the first is exhausted. We caterers for the periodical press hold our immortality from number to number; and are obliged to pay a fine for renewing our lease, in the shape of a monthly article. some of us have contrived to keep our immortality afloat, where men of

Yet

greater pretensions sleep in the tomb of all the Capulets; and if this does not content us, we have nothing to do but to write a " Paradise Lost," or a "Hamlet," and take our places accordingly.

But if immortality derives its value from the length of its tenure, what becomes of the other objection which circumscribes its utility to the owner's life? If après moi le deluge be a sound philosophical maxim, and if even the finest estate in the country is of no use to him "who died on Wednesday," the most ephemeral immortality is as good as the most vivacious: Empedocles is but on a par with the last fool who flung himself off the monument; and the most forgotten of the children of Swing, is as well off for renown as Eratostratus himself, who played so foully for it." We may then set these objections against each other as mutually exclusive; and, admitting neither, maintain our original proposition, that immortality is worth having, and the digito monstrari (in bust as in person), a most blissful condition.

There is, however, one particular instance to be excepted in making this estimate; we allude to that species of post obit immortality, of which not even the first instalment is paid till after the undertaker has had his wicked will of you. It is but a cold comfort for the wretch who is neglected, or (worse still) pelted by shallow and prejudiced contemporaries, to sun himself in the possible smiles of a more enlightened posterity. Such posthumous amendes honorables come as much too late, as a reprieve after hanging. They say, indeed, that it is a great comfort in patibulary matters to "suffer innocently," and die with a conviction that truth will out, though it be not till the day of judg ment. Having never tried the experiment, we cannot say how this may be; but we fancy most people would prefer her majesty's free pardon at once, and taking their chance for the world's opinion.

Still, if we are not to argue from particulars to generals, and are summoned peremptorily to admit that immortality in posse is a valuable chattel, and that a pretty-spoken epitaph is as pleasant in expectation as in enjoyment-if we are pinned down to allow that the hope of living renowned in story, is a sufficient motive for all sorts of despised labours, and unacknowledged privations, we must earnestly beg permission to say that we have no such kiss-cow tastes, and desire to leave to others all the benefits of an indulgence in them.

But if this personal objection may not stand in the place of an argument, and we are called upon to surrender at discretion, we have yet another stone in our sleeve. Though the hope of immortality, when we lie in cold obstruction, be a real sentiment, and a sentiment be something, and something be better than nothing, it is not the less true that this is not one of those cases, in which a good bill is as good as ready money. Posthumous fame will not be discounted by Mr. Colburn; nor is "six months after decease, I promise to be a Marlborough," negotiable with Cox and Greenwood. In this respect, hope is notoriously" a curtail dog," and un “je tiens," vaut mieux que deux "tu l'aura."

We will, however, admit that in certain constitutions, this hope, all illusory as it is, affords an agreeable excitement; but still objectively speaking, a post mortem illustration of which the bearer, during life, was totally unconscious,

The living hope in posterity, too, has this other advantage, that it is at every man's own disposition; being wholly independent of antecedent causation, and not incompatible with a total absence of meritorious qualifications.

If immortality has found favour in our sight, and if we do keenly relish the wide-spread celebrity, attached to the mysterious, that represents our identity, it is wholly and solely on account of the divers immunities, privileges, prerogatives, emoluments, advantages, easements. and commodities, real and imaginary, which attach to the notoriety, of, belonging, and appertaining to the aforesaid Greek letter, during this our present state of sublunary self-sufficiency, and which may be touched with the finger.

Men may profess what they please, but there is no going beyond. instinctive action; and for one man that really writes, acts, or thinks for posterity, there are millions who give their nights and days to tangible renown. The great, the immortal Claremont, whilom the self-estimated superior of the above-mentioned John Kemble,' was content when the manager smiled approvingly on his efforts, and raised his salary by ten shillings per week. Nor would the author of Jim Crow, if he is wise, exchange the immortality of the two-shilling gallery, when discounted into pounds, shillings, and pence, against the future of the mighty Milton, with a bookseller's five pounds for his immortal poem. Let us not, however, be considered sordid. It is not alone by pecucuniary considerations that we are guided.

So far indeed from any such consideration being derived from such supererogatory celebrities, we question if they are not maintained like Richard's "score of tailors" at some charge. Every man upon town can count up a tolerably long list of immortals, who have purchased immortality at the expense of their entire fortunes, and not unfrequently of their health and reputation into the bargain. We need do no more than allude to the succession crops of print-shop immortalities, who, in courting the distinction of the hour, had not the slightest thought of a quiddam honorarium, attached to its attainment. Neither can the gentlemen who break their necks in steeple-chases, who walk their thousand miles in a thousand hours, drive mail-coaches, or wear astounding mustaches for the sake of a little notoriety, be said to be sordid, unless, indeed, in the cases where a bubble bet is concerned. The immortals who have won their way to heaven (cœlum ipsum petimus stultitiâ) over the broken heads of policemen, or the bodies of gin-poisoned hackney-coachmen, are equally guiltless of seeking the lucre of gain: we must do them that justice. Yet after all, among a shopkeeping nation like ours, it is not very consistent to cast so much blame upon an honest desire to turn a penny, or an attempt to speculate on immortality, by making the most of a temporary vogue: while millionaires get fame by the mere act of getting money, we do not see why a man may not lawfully get money by becoming famous. Very laudable, more particularly, is the forethought of the autobiographical immortals, who, having turned their illustrious lives to every other lawful purpose, wind up by reducing them into two octavo volumes of the most vendible character, and thus kill two birds with one stone :-rescuing for themselves

the profits from some future doer of such matters, and saving their reputations from malignant libellers, or what is still worse, from injudicious friends.

In no period of recorded history was tangible immortality of all sorts more immediately profitable than at present, which is a wise and comfortable dispensation. As the tenure of this blessing grows shorter and more uncertain, it is but right and fitting that its immediate returns should be large and sure. It is on this principle that opera-singers, whose voices are so frail a commodity, are justly paid much higher than other artists whose faculties are more durable. It is, therefore, well imagined of the present generation, to throw into the scale of immortality the daily invitation to dine out in the best company, and on the best fare. Otway did not find his reputation as good as board-wages (as certain of the Dii Minores of the peerage do their titles); and if Dryden dined at a tavern with the wealthy wits of his time, he paid his shot like the rest; but nowadays, it is sufficient that you have produced a volume of pretty poems, to have your chimneypiece covered with dinner-cards; when you not only get an excellent feed and lots of liphonour, but the most piquantes paragraphs for your next book of tabletalk or of travels. A very small immortality may, in this department, be made to go a great way, if it can only manage to leave home. voyaging on the continent, it is as available as a parish pass. Like all other sorts of equivocal fame, vires acquirit eundo. Letters of recommendation accumulate as a snowball: one illustrissimus gives them to get rid of a bore; another clarissimus in order to go snacks in the notoriety of the meteor; another eruditissimus for fear of being "put on his book;" till at last, by dint of such epistolæ virorum obscurorum, he, who left his native land, at best, but a village immortal, returns an European celebrity, and may make his own terms with his bookseller.

In

Another immediate advantage derivable from immortality, though it last but for a single season, is the privilege it confers to be impertinent. We have heard of statesmen being made of squeezable materials, and there may be something in it, for aught we care to inquire; but of this we are certain, that; Monseigneur the public is made of very kickable materials. It matters little, what offensive airs a real lion gives himself, or how ill he may behave; it's all taken in good part, or overlooked as an attribute of genius, an inevitable, and not unamusing eccentricity. A man who is lucky enough to become "celebrated," though it be but for a lampoon, or a copy of vers de société (which is the lowest way of worming yourself into notice), is but a dupe, if he does not take advantage of the circumstance to browbeat, and to tread upon every body's tender corns; for it is precisely because true merit is so maidenly modest, that it is neglected by the world. Who should know so much of a man's worth, as the man himself? and if he sets himself up in the market at a low ticket, he has no right to complain that he is taken at his own valuation. Sume superbiam, no matter how quæsitam; and you will have ill luck, indeed, if you do not make good a part at least of your pretensions.

We need not formally set down as an advantage of immortality, the influence it holds over the fair sex. That sex will do every thing to obtain it for themselves; and it is therefore most just that they should go a great way to reward it in others. Juvenal was wrong in saying "fer

rum est quod amant," it was not the steel of the gladiator, but his being a public character that made his charm. It is thus that the greatest rakes and coxcombs have always stood the best chance in foro Cupidinis. It is far less the rakishness, or the coxcombry that takes, than the distinction justly attached to those characteristics. It is astonishing what ugly little abortions succeed in carrying off great heiresses, when they have done something that has caught public attention, no matter what.

Horace, however, was not quite correct in speaking so absolutely of the digito monstrari, as the summum bonum of immortality. In time and place, indeed, it is all well enough; but there are circumstances in which a respectable incognito would be purchased at any price, and, of all followers, a bailiff's follower is any thing but desirable. But without insisting on extreme cases, there are occasions when economy becomes necessary, and when it becomes convenient to perpetrate little shabbinesses undetected. This does not meet with a kind consideration from those thoughtless frequenters of our theatres, who inhumanly insist on dragging a successful play-writer upon the stage, and exhibiting his person to all the world, to be recognised for the future, without mercy under every possible contingency.

There is, indeed, no such thing as an unmixed good on this side the grave, and immortality has more grievances and sets off, than the one we have mentioned. It is no joke to be a mark for all sorts of petitioners, a standing dish with the writers of begging-letters, the godfather of all new-born and virgin muses, the sworn appraiser of manuscripts and introducteur des ambassadeurs auprès to the principal publishers. It is no luxury to be called upon by great ladies to mend their verses, and to eke out their embryo productions with a chapter that is to "make the fortune of the book;" to be pestered with threatening letters from little ladies, calling on you to pay five pounds on pain of figuring in a lampoon, or a novel of character" of the least creditable description; or to receive daily introductions from persons you don't know, saddling you with fools of all diameters, who desire to boast that they are intimate with an immortal. A genuine immortal need to have a heart of stone, and a face of iron, to resist the demands of those only who have no claims on him; and to hold his time, purse, and person his own in safety, from the general attack. Then there are those infernal annuals! we don't mean the genuine annual, which pays its contributors-with them it is a matter of discretion: but there are some which make their attacks in formá pauperis, on authority of editorial rank, beauty, or interesting want of money, which are as much a stand-anddeliver business, as a transaction with Turpin or Jack Sheppard. It is, therefore, with a secret satisfaction we beheld this department of literature, slipping through the fingers of professional authors, and falling so exclusively to the share of the peerage. Every Lord John, and Lady Betty, that contributes his or her quota to the "Book of Vanity," "The Book of Pretension," or the "Tom-fool's Annual," we consider as the champions of oppressed celebrity, as derivative streams, carrying off this inundation of unreasonable requests into a less painful channel.

There is another incident of celebrity, which is still more serious, and it is this, that immortals are great favourites with all sorts and