ginated not in love of liberty, but love of money—not a religious repeal of an union of Catholic and Protestant-but a mere breeches-pocket change, from a desire to get rid of Dutch debt, and a Dutch-copartnership in commercial profits. A people, in short, who in spite of their getting rid of the Spaniards have retained their affection for "the Spanish "—and instead of combining opulence with a liberal expenditure, store up their wealth in miserly hiding places-just as a jackdaw deposits silver spoons, &c., in his rubbish saving banks, from a mere objectless propensity to hoarding.

Now, as regards literary piracy, the Americans may plead in mitigation, their common origin with the English, and their use-saving some uncommon odd phrases—of a common language. Jonathan can read and relish Hamlet or Paradise Lost, as well as John; and at any rate a large proportion of his reprints are for his own consumption. But there is no such excuse for the Belgians. Shakspeare and Milton! why, if they were translated expressly into Flemish, I should be sorry to guarantee the sale of fifty copies. There would be as much demand for them by the Flanders horses and mares that trot upon four legs, as by those that walk upon two. If they ever transplant from our Literature into their own Belles Lettres, it will be "Tate's Universal Cambist," or Somebody on Assurance. For, sharpwitted as the Flemish may be at a bargain, in intellectual matters they are as Baotian as if they had taken mud baths in their own bogs, and, as the old Bubble Man recommends, had given their heads the full benefit of the immersion.

It follows that the Brussels Printers cannot set up the pretence of the Boston ones-that they patriotically rob our great literary lamps, for the enlightenment of their own citizens. In Belgium there is a smoking, beer-drinking, estaminet-haunting, but no Reading Public. The books they consult are filled with “Flemish accounts ❞—the leaves they love are rolled up into cigars. In short, in the great March of Mind, the Flemish are as far behind as the baggage, or along with the suttlers, selling sausages and schnapps. It is a fair conclusion, then, that a great part of the English reprints must be intended for the London market, into which they can only be surreptitiously introduced,

and, consequently, the Brussels publisher is not only a Pirate, but a smuggler-a Dick Hatteraick engrafted on Paul Jones. But I do injustice to the brave Buccaneer and the bold Freetrader by the comparison; there may be the same greed for gain, but there is no risk of life or limb to ennoble a traffic as paltry and fraudulent as the "sweating" of our Sovereigns.

Against these new "Brussels Sprouts," the vigilance of our customs ought to be particularly directed; and their confiscation should be strictly enforced. Of an International Copyright, there is no hope-looking at the sordid and unlettered character of the Belgians, the speech of the King, a commercial jealousy of England, and a general ill-will towards us. France and America may accede to our claims, and agree to protect our literary rights; but Belgium will be the last, the very last, to do justice even to the English.*

*

In the meantime let us hope that our own Legislature will extend all the protection it can afford to our Literature; as much security as it can give to the Publisher; and as much encouragement as it can bestow on the Author: Heaven knows he is in need of it! Hitherto he has only been robbed by the Statute of Anne, nor has the legal unkindness been atoned for by proportionate favor in other quarters. Where are his Honorary Distinctions? The highest honor ever conferred on an authora peerage—was granted to Bubb Doddington—and then not for writing his life. Where are the lucrative Tellerships, Wardenships, Comptrollerships, Secretaryships, and Governorships dedicated as rewards to this species of Civil Merit?

"And Echo answers, where ?"

Even the very few appointments heretofore allotted for its portion are going or gone. The examinership of Plays has passed from an Author to an Actor; and a prophetic soul augurs that the Laureateship, at the next vacancy, may go to a Painter.

So much for the distinctions bestowed on a Literary man during his life. Now for the honors paid to him at his death. We

"We must be just even towards the English"-from the Messager de Gand, June 9, 1842.

all know how he lives. He writes for bread, and gets it short weight; for money, and gets the wrong change;-for the Present, and he is pirated;—for the Future, and his children are disinherited for his pains. At last, he sickens, as he well may, and can write no more. He makes his will, but, for any literary property, might as well die intestate. His eldest son is his heir, but the Row administers. And so he dies, a beggar, with the world in his debt. Being poor, he is buried with less ceremony than Cock Robin. Had he been rich enough, he might have bought a "snug lying in the Abbey" of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who even then, true to the same style of treatment, would put him, were he the greatest and best of our Poets-as the mother puts the least and worst of her brats-into a Corner!

PROSPECTUS OF HOOD'S MAGAZINE.

WHATEVER may be thought of Dr. Dickson's theory, that the type of disease in general is periodical, there can be no doubt of its applicability to modern literature, which is essentially periodical, whether the type be long primer, brevier, or bourgeois. It appears, moreover, by the rapid consumption of monthlies, compared with the decline of the annuals, that frequent fits of publication are more prevalent and popular than yearly paroxysms.

Under these circumstances, no apology is necessary for the present undertaking; but custom, which exacts an overture to a new opera, and a prologue to a new play, requires a few words of introduction to a new monthly magazine.

One prominent object, then, of the projected publication, as implied by the sub-title of "Comic Miscellany," will be the supply of harmless "Mirth for the Million," and light thoughts, to a public sorely oppressed-if its word be worth a rush, or its complaints of an ounce weight-by hard times, heavy taxes, and those "eating cares " which attend on the securing of food for the day, as well as a provision for the future. For the relief of such afflicted classes, the editor, assisted by able humorists, will dispense a series of papers and woodcuts, which, it is hoped, will cheer the gloom of Willow Walk, and the loneliness of Wilderness Row-sweeten the bitterness of Camomile street and Wormwood street-smoothe the ruffled temper of Cross street, and enable even Crooked Lane to unbend itself! It is hardly necessary to promise that this end will be pursued without raising a maiden blush, much less a damask, in the nursery grounds of

modesty or trespassing, by wanton personalities, on the parks and lawns of private life. In a word, it will aim at being merry and wise, instead of merry and otherwise.

For the sedate, there will be papers of a becoming gravity; and the lover of poetry will be supplied with numbers in each number.

As to politics, the reader of HOOD'S MAGAZINE will vainly search in its pages for a panacea for agricultural distress, or a grand Catholicon for Irish agitation; he will uselessly seek to know whether we ought to depend for our bread on foreign farmers, or merely on foreign sea-fowl; or, if the repeal of the Union would produce low rents and only three quarter days. Neither must he hope to learn the proper terminus of reform, nor even whether a finality man means Campbell's last man, or an undertaker.

A total abstinence from such stimulating topics and fermented questions is, indeed, ensured by the established character of the editor, and his notorious aversion to party spirit. To borrow his own words, from a letter to the proprietors,—" I am no politician, and far from instructed on those topics which, to parody a common phrase, no gentleman's newspaper should be without. Thus, for any knowledge of mine, the Irish prosecutions may be for pirating the Irish melodies; the Pennsylvanians may have repudiated their wives; Duff Green may be a place, like Goose Green; Prince Polignac a dahlia or a carnation, and the Duc de Bordeaux a tulip. The Spanish affairs I could never master, even with a Pronouncing Dictionary at my elbow; it would puzzle me to see whether Queen Isabella's majority is or is not equal to Sir Robert Peel's; or, if the shelling the Barcelonese was done with bombs and mortars, or the nutcrackers. Prim may be a quaker, and the whole civil war about the Seville Oranges. Nay, even on domestic matters, nearer home, my profound political ignorance leaves me in doubt on questions concerning which the newsmen's boys and printers' devils have formed very decided opinions; for example, whether the corn law league ought to extend beyond three miles from Mark Lane --or the sliding scale should regulate the charges at the glaciarium-what share the Welsh whigs have had in the Welsh