To yonder empyrean vault—like rocket (sky)—
To mingle with thy cognate essences
Of Love and Immortality, until
Thou burstest with thine own intensity,
And scatterest into millions of bright stars,
Each one a part of that refulgent whole
Which once was ME.”
Thus spoke, or thought—for, in a metaphysical point of view, it does not much matter whether the passage above quoted was uttered, or only conceived—by the sublime philosopher and author of the tragedy of “Martinuzzi,” now being nightly played at the English Opera House, with unbounded success, to overflowing audiences22. Has this paragraph been paid for as an advertisement?—PRINTER’S DEVIL.—Undoubtedly.—ED.. These were the aspirations of his gigantic mind, as he sat, on last Monday morning, like a simple mortal, in a striped-cotton dressing-gown and drab slippers, over a cup of weak coffee. (We love to be minute on great subjects.) The door opened, and a female figure—not the Tragic muse—but Sally, the maid of-all-work, entered, holding in a corner of her dingy apron, between her delicate finger and thumb, a piece of not too snowy paper, folded into an exact parallelogram.
“A letter for you, sir,” said the maid of-all-work, dropping a reverential curtsey.
George Stephens, Esq. took the despatch in his inspired fingers, broke the seal, and read as follows:—