The greater portion of novel readers, liking not to be detained from the interest of the story by any extraneous matter, however admirable it may be, skip over the passages that most delight those who read to reflect, and not for mere amusement.

I find myself continually pausing over the admirable and profound reflections of Mr. Bulwer, and almost regret that his writings do not meet the public as the papers of the Spectator did, when a single one of them was deemed as essential to the breakfast-table of all lovers of literature as a morning journal is now to the lovers of news.  The merit of the thoughts would be then duly appreciated, instead of being hastily passed over in the excitement of the story which they intersect.

A long visit from ——­, and, as usual, politics furnished the topic.  How I wish people would never talk politics to me!  I have no vocation for that abstruse science,—­a science in which even those who devote all their time and talents to it, but rarely arrive at a proficiency.  In vain do I profess my ignorance and inability; people will not believe me, and think it necessary to enter into political discussions that ennuient me beyond expression.

If ——­ is to be credited, Charles the Tenth and his government are so unpopular that his reign will not pass without some violent commotion.  A fatality appears to attend this family, which, like the house of Stuart, seems doomed never to conciliate the affections of the people.  And yet, Charles the Tenth is said not to be disposed to tyrannical measures, neither is he without many good qualities.  But the last of the Stuart sovereigns also was naturally a humane and good man, yet he was driven from his kingdom and his throne,—­a proof that weakness of mind is, perhaps, of all faults in a monarch, the one most likely to compromise the security of his dynasty.

The restoration of the Stuarts after Cromwell, was hailed with much more enthusiasm in England than that of Louis the Eighteenth, after the abdication of the Emperor Napoleon.  Yet that enthusiasm was no pledge that the people would bear from the descendants of the ill-fated Charles the First—­that most perfect of all gentlemen and meekest of Christians—­what they deprived him of not only his kingdom but his life for attempting.

The house of Bourbon, like that of Stuart, has had its tragedy, offering a fearful lesson to sovereigns and a terrific example to subjects.  It has had, also, its restoration; and, if report may be credited, the parallel will not rest here:  for there are those who assert that as James was supplanted on the throne of England by a relative while yet the legitimate and unoffending heir lived, so will also the place of Charles the Tenth be filled by one between whom and the crown stand two legitimate barriers.  Time will tell how far the predictions of ——­ are just; but, en attendant, I never can believe that ambition can so blind one who possesses all that can render life a scene of happiness to himself and of usefulness to others, to throw away a positive good for the uncertain and unquiet possession of a crown, bestowed by hands that to confer the dangerous gift must have subverted a monarchy.