How wits. THE GOVERNMENT FAST RE KE.PT?---it requires no spirit
of prophecy to foretel how the fast-dey, which has been appinted ter the 721st of this month, will be observed. We can, without presump- tion, become its historians by anticipation. We see not, in our visions, a puissant and devout nation kneeling in singleness of heart before its ov a undivided altar, its plumed head bowing to the dust, and the trust of its heart ascending, like the unbroken and aspiring flame of' a sacri-
lice, to heaven. There can he nothing like this in the harsh, vulgar, and discordant reality which is soon to he presented to our senses. The fast-day will come, and people will leave off working, but nobody will abstain from eating, save those whom poverty (compels to keep pe- rennial fast. Even from them, it may be presumed, charity will not withhold the soup which is distributed the more vigorously in the hope that it may help to keep the cholera from the neighbourhood. The theatres will be closed, the churches will be open, and the shops will manage their shutters so as to hit the happy medium. Amongst the higher classes, a handsome dish of salt fish, at the head of the well- . spread table, by way of addition, not of substitution, will suffice to mark the day decorously. Our statesmen and senators mill be in conclave, using their brief breathing-time to arrange the tactics of the next week's debate, and plan how the next party-blow is to be struck or parried. At the other extreme, some of the ragged Radicals of the . Rotunda may be heartily eating their subscription-dinner, with ominous consistency still showing their opposition to • things as they are, by pro- . ceedings not unattended with danger about the throat. The steam- boats will feed, as usual, the huge mouths of their engines ; and digest the collation by rapid motion up the river and down the river, with their cargoes of liberated clerks who thus keep holyday. There will be walking, and riding, and tea-drinking, and ruralizing, in spite of March winds ; and London will look as gay as on the evening of the day when it mourned at the funeral of George the Fourth, the father of his people, or at that of George the Third, the father of his people • before him. And many there will be who will think that a fast-day, appointed by Government, is a serious and sedate thing, and to be en- tertained with a sedate and serious countenance, especially on account of the children, and the servants, and the poor people in the neighbour- hood ; and they will go once to church to set them all a good example. And the orthodox Dissenters, having had their fast beforehand, and being just now zealous for dissent, will keep the day with a proviso, flg some marry with a protest, seizing it merely as a preaching oppor- tunity. And some Churchmen will keep the day in the spirit of su- perstition, thinking to placate an angry Deity by prayer and ceremony; and others will observe it in the spirit of a fierce fanaticism, vitupe- rating whatever there is in the country of liberality, benevolence, and enjoyment. Such, practically, will the fast-day be, with the great ma- jority of the nation ; and the Government, by which the day has been appointed, cannot, if it would, make it otherwise.—Monddy Repository.
Exeter Hall, in the Strand, is about to be converted to the purposes of an exhibition-room, for a series of fine pictures by the Old Masters, illustrative of sacred history. It will open this month.
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