I was very considerably surprised to learn, by your letter of this morning, the reported demise of the Album. The documents which you enclose to me thereanent are truly distressing. Our discontinuance appears to have reduced the taste for the Belles Lettres to absolute starvation; London is at a stand still; Edinburgh in a panic; Dublin out of its wits; and the reading-rooms of Kamschatka, Otaheite, and Seringapatam, have lost all their subscribers. My dear Sir, this will never do! Shall we, because we have realized a genteel independence by our first six numbers, ungratefully deny the world the blessing of our future labours? A thing not to be thought of!—and I beg you will give out, forthwith, that we have merely been lying by to recover the fatigue of the first heat, and are prepared to effect greater wonders than ever.— Advertize it in all the papers; chalk it on all the walls; and placard it on the backs of all the idle Irishmen you meet. Such events do not occur every day, and cannot be too extensively known.

When I say that we intend doing greater wonders than ever, I mean to abide by the letter. Our corps was

scanty, and our exposure to the literary atmosphere premature. We were particularly good-looking and gentlemanly, but we were not seasoned, and required continual recreation in other climates: that is to say, we found writing love-letters much more conducive to our mental health than writing essays, and pretty soon left our commander-in-chief and star-dominant to achieve our fame with his own right-hand. In sooth and in truth, a better general never existed, but what was he to do without any soldiers? The days of Hercules and Horatius Cocles, he knew, were long gone by, and having built himself a

monument

"Quod nec Jovis ira nec ignis," &c. &c.

he renounced us, and turned his back upon us, as a set of graceless vagabonds. The case is now different. Our hearts have been sore stricken by the lamentations of the public, and we return to our duty with a full determination of making amends. London shall dry its eyes; Kamschatka shall rejoice; for not only do we bring back our own labours, but are even now dancing round a pile of extra contributions, as high as the Peak of Teneriffe. Here is cut and come again everlastingly at the tip-top talents of the age,

"Souls made of fire, and children of the sun”. Their names-But no. We know what we know, and we can tell what we can tell; but if the author of Waverly thinks it proper to conceal his name, far be it from me to divulge it. The secrets of the rest shall be equally sacred.

It appears, therefore, that nothing remains for you to consider, but where you will choose your country-seat, to expend the revenue which is to arise from this mine of

wealth-where you will establish your fox-hounds; and what place you will represent in Parliament. I do assure you, that it is my intention to lay out the profits of this article on a freehold, on purpose to vote for you; and that I am learning to eat turtle, that I may duly enjoy the ca rousals in your great banqueting room*. Methinks I see the jovial crew! Methinks I see you up to your chin in the punch-bowl, like Neptune in the Atlantic! Methinks I behold the fox's brush waving aloft in your dexter hand, and am deafened with the view-hallo which is making the foundation shake from Yorkshire to New Bond-street! Delightful anticipations! I calculate that they are all to be fulfilled immediately after the publication of the next number, which will, if possible, be better than the present one; for all the other magazines will, of course, see the folly of endeavouring to stand against us, and their partizans must array themselves under our banners: let them come, the dear destitutes! We will fill them with corn, wine, and oil, and teach them to sing Jubilate! Only we must make three stipulations with them-1st, we will have no reviews (excepting when we please), thinking, as we do, that it is a mere robbery of the public, to fill our pages from other people's works, and resolving, as we have done, to fill them with better stuff.-2d, we will have no more scraps nor bon mots, this portion of the Album having always been particularly detestable; all good jokes being particularly old, and all old stories being particularly out of the question -3d, we will have nothing but the very best matter in the world: our principal features are to be wit, feeling, and character, and our principal intention is, that those who cannot laugh shall cry, and that those who cannot cry shall laugh: those who can do neither shall be refreshed with a

* Permit me to request that there may be less champagne at your next Album dinner. I am quite sick of Mary-le-bone watch-house.

little learning, which they will be pleased to accept instead of riddles; and thus, I trust that all parties will be suited according to their taste.

vere.

In conclusion, I must be allowed to observe that humility is the best accompaniment of merit. In this it is our fortune to be peculiarly gifted, and in this let us perseYour purpose of printing thirty thousand copies will indubitably be considered, by those who are not aware and I of the extent of our sale, an act of ostentation; nestly suggest to you the propriety of limiting the first edition to half that number. Turn this seriously in your mind, and, with hearty congratulations on your wonderful prospects, believe me, dear Sir,

Yours, with perfect esteem,

ear

THE APPROACHING GOLDEN AGE.

Cœlum ipsum petimus.

LORD BYRON is reported by Captain Medwin to have said, "Where shall we set bounds to the power of steam? Who shall say, thus far shalt thou go and no farther ?” with him, “We are at preAgain, he says, and we agree with him, sent in the infancy of science. Who knows whether, when a comet shall approach this globe to destroy it, as it has often been and will be destroyed, men will not tear rocks from their foundations by means of steam, and hurl mountains, as the giants are said to have done, against the flaming mass? and then we shall see traditions of Titans again, and of wars against heaven." Captain Medwin reports himself to have laughed at this; but why so? Let the candid reader judge, after what has already been accom

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plished, what may be accomplished in the next quarter of a century. Society, in this great metropolis, is evidently approaching a millenium. But it is not to be supposed that we can reach perfection by a single effort. People should not be too impatient. We must advance lentis passibus. Thus many sceptics on the subject of perfectibility, object to the slow progress of aërostation: But surely we may ask if it be nothing to ride upon the clouds; to become fathers of the children of the sky; and to obtain the faculty of seeing an immense oak reduced to a gooseberry bush;" distinguishing, at the same time, the "ruts of the road," just as Sancho Panza saw the earth from the back of the enchanted horse, Clavilino, no bigger than a mustard-seed, and the men upon it as small as a hazel-nut. The same reasoning applies to the diving-bells (we mean the machines); and although we have not been able to bring up mermaids from the "vasty deep," yet, as the French say tout cela viendra avec le temps; the delay is the less to be regretted since mermaids can be produced on any given notice, just as a Bond-street dandy is made by the simple contrivance of needle and thread. Moreover, if we cannot rob fish of their coral bowers, and " seafan gardens," is it nothing for half-a-dozen ladies (as was the case not long since at Falmouth), to be able to take their dish of tea and scandal twenty fathoms deep under the water? We cannot, indeed, go quite so far as those who imagine the time to be close at hand which was predicted by Bishop Wilkins, when a man shall call for his wings with the same careless tone as he now calls for his beasts, and pay a visit to the moon, and the stone fortress discovered therein by the German philosopher, with as much ease as he now travels to France by steam. Yes, steam is the great pledge of what we are, and what we shall be, and the earnest of all our brightest dreams