Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/211

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worshipped; and a mighty shout arose and shook the air, for the towers of the Bastile had fallen, and a nation had become, of slaves, freemen; and the three poets, as they heard the sound, leaped and shouted, and made merry, and their voice was choaked with tears of joy, which they shed over the human heart, which they kissed and worshipped. And not long after, we saw the same three poets, the one with a receipt-stamp in his hand, the other with a laurel on his head, and the third with a symbol which we could make nothing of, for it was neither literal nor allegorical, following in the train of the Pope and the Inquisition and the Bourbons, and worshipping the mark of the Beast, with the emblem of the human heart thrown beneath their feet, which they trampled and spit upon!"—This apologue is not worth finishing, nor are the people to whom it relates worth talking of. We have done with them.




Interesting Facts relating to the Fall and Death of Joachim Marat, King of Naples; the Capitulation of Paris in 1815; and the Second Restoration of the Bourbons: Original Letters from King Joachim to the Author, with some Account of the Author, and of his Persecution by the French Government. By Francis Macirone, late Aid-de-camp to King Joachim; Knight of the Order of the Two Sicilies, &c. &c. London: Ridgways, 1817.

"Come, draw the curtain; shew the picture."

February 3, 1817.

We have here a pretty peep behind "the dark blanket" of Legitimacy. We thank Mr. Macirone for having introduced us once more to the old lady of that name in her dressing-room. What a tissue of patches and of paint! What a quantity of wrinkles and of proud flesh! What a collection of sickly per-