CHAPTER I.

THE PANTOMIME OF LIFE.

Before we plunge headlong into this paper, let us at once confess to a fondness for pantomimes--to a gentle sympathy with clowns and pantaloons--to an unqualified admiration of harlequins and columbines--to a chaste delight in every action of their brief existence, varied and many-coloured as those actions are, and inconsistent though they occasionally be with those rigid and formal rules of propriety which regulate the proceedings of meaner and less comprehensive minds. We revel in pantomimes--not because they dazzle one's eyes with tinsel and gold leaf; not because they present to us, once again, the well-beloved chalked faces, and goggle eyes of our childhood; not even because, like Christmas-day, and Twelfth-night, and Shrove Tuesday, and one's own birth-day, they come to us but once a-year;--our attachment is founded on a graver and a very different reason. A pantomime is to us, a mirror of life; nay more, we maintain that it is so to audiences generally, although they are not aware of it; and that this very circumstance is the secret cause of their amusement and delight.

Let us take a slight example. The scene is a street: an elderly gentleman, with a large face, and strongly marked features, appears. His countenance beams with a sunny smile, and a perpetual dimple is on his broad red cheek. He is evidently an opulent elderly gentlemen, comfortable in circumstances, and well to do in the world. He is not unmindful of the adornment of his person, for he is richly, not to say gaudily dressed; and that he indulges to a reasonable extent in the pleasures of the table, may be inferred from the joyous and oily manner in which he rubs his stomach, by way of informing the audience that he is going home to dinner. In the fullness of his heart, in the fancied security of wealth, in the possession and enjoyment of all the good things of life, the elderly gentleman suddenly loses his footing, and stumbles. How the audience roar! He is set upon by a noisy and officious crowd, who buffet and cuff him unmercifully. They scream with delight! Every time the elderly gentleman struggles to get up, his relentless persecutors knock him down again. The spectators are convulsed with merriment! And when at last the elderly gentleman ds get up, and staggers away, despoiled of hat, wig, and clothing, battered to pieces, and his watch and money gone, they are exhausted with laughter, and express their merriment and admiration in rounds of applause.

Is this like life? Change the scene to any real street;--to the Stock Exchange, or the City banker's; the merchant's counting-house, or even the tradesman's shop. See any one of these men fall,--the more suddenly, and the nearer the zenith of his pride and riches, the better. What a wild hallo is raised over his prostrate carcase by the shouting mob; how they whoop and yell as he lies humbled beneath them! Mark how eagerly they set upon him when he is down; and how they mock and deride him as he slinks away. Why, it is the pantomime to the very letter.

Of all the pantomimic _dramatis personæ_, we consider the pantaloon the most worthless and debauched. Independent of the dislike, one naturally feels at seeing a gentleman of his years engaged in pursuits highly unbecoming his gravity and time of life, we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that he is a treacherous worldly-minded old villain, constantly enticing his younger companion, the clown, into acts of fraud or petty larceny, and generally standing aside to watch the result of the enterprise: if it be successful, he never forgets to return for his share of the spoil; but if it turn out a failure, he generally retires with remarkable caution and expedition, and keeps carefully aloof until the affair has blown over. His amorous propensities, too, are eminently disagreeable; and his mode of addressing ladies in the open street at noon-day is downright improper, being usually neither more nor less than a perceptible tickling of the aforesaid ladies in the waist, after committing which, he starts back, manifestly ashamed (as well he may be) of his own indecorum and temerity; continuing, nevertheless, to ogle and beckon to them from a distance in a very unpleasant and immoral manner.

Is there any man who cannot count a dozen pantaloons in his own social circle? Is there any man who has not seen them swarming at the west end of the town on a sun-shiny day or a summer's evening, going through the last-named pantomimic feats with as much liquorish energy, and as total an absence of reserve, as if they were on the very stage itself? We can tell upon our fingers a dozen pantaloons of our acquaintance at this moment--capital pantaloons, who have been performing all kinds of strange freaks, to the great amusement of their friends and acquaintance, for years past; and who to this day are making such comical and ineffectual attempts to be young and dissolute, that all beholders are like to die with laughter.

Take that old gentleman who has just emerged from the _Café de l'Europe_ in the Haymarket, where he has been dining at the expense of the young man upon town with whom he shakes hands as they part at the door of the tavern. The affected warmth of that shake of the hand, the courteous nod, the obvious recollection of the dinner, the savoury flavour of which still hangs upon his lips, are all characteristics of his great prototype. He hobbles away humming an opera tune, and twirling his cane to and fro, with affected carelessness. Suddenly he stops--'tis at the milliner's window. He peeps through one of the large panes of glass; and, his view of the ladies within being obstructed by the India shawls, directs his attentions to the young girl with the bandbox in her hand, who is gazing in at the window also. See! he draws beside her. He coughs; she turns away from him. He draws near her again; she disregards him. He gleefully chucks her under the chin, and, retreating a few steps, nods and beckons with fantastic grimaces, while the girl bestows a contemptuous and supercilious look upon his wrinkled visage. She turns away with a flounce, and the old gentleman trots after her with a toothless chuckle. The pantaloon to the life!

But the close resemblance which the clowns of the stage bear to those of every-day life, is perfectly extraordinary. Some people talk with a sigh of the decline of pantomime, and murmur in low and dismal tones the name of Grimaldi. We mean no disparagement to the worthy and excellent old man when we say, that this is downright nonsense. Clowns that beat Grimaldi all to nothing turn up every day, and nobody patronises them--more's the pity!

"I know who you mean," says some dirty-faced patron of Mr. Osbaldistone's, laying down the Miscellany when he has got thus far; and bestowing upon vacancy a most knowing glance: "you mean C. J. Smith as did Guy Fawkes, and George Barnwell, at the Garden." The dirty-faced gentleman has hardly uttered the words when he is interrupted by a young gentleman in no shirt-collar and a Petersham coat. "No, no," says the young gentleman; "he means Brown, King, and Gibson, at the 'Delphi." Now, with great deference both to the first-named gentleman with the dirty face, and the last-named gentleman in the non-existing shirt-collar, we do not mean, either the performer who so grotesquely burlesqued the Popish conspirator, or the three unchangeables who have been dancing the same dance under different imposing titles, and doing the same thing under various high-sounding names, for some five or six years last past. We have no sooner made this avowal than the public, who have hitherto been silent witnesses of the dispute, inquire what on earth it is we _do_ mean; and, with becoming respect, we proceed to tell them.

It is very well known to all play-grs and pantomime-seers, that the scenes in which a theatrical clown is at the very height of his glory are those which are described in the play-bills as "Cheesemonger's shop, and Crockery warehouse," or "Tailor's shop, and Mrs. Queertable's boarding-house," or places bearing some such title, where the great fun of the thing consists in the hero's taking lodgings which he has not the slightest intention of paying for, or obtaining goods under false pretences, or abstracting the stock-in-trade of the respectable shopkeeper next door, or robbing warehouse-porters as they pass under his window, or, to shorten the catalogue, in his swindling everybody he possibly can; it only remaining to be observed, that the more extensive the swindling is, and the more barefaced the impudence of the swindler, the greater the rapture and ecstasy of the audience. Now it is a most remarkable fact that precisely this sort of thing occurs in real life day after day, and nobody sees the humour of it. Let us illustrate our position by detailing the plot of this portion of the pantomime--not of the theatre, but of life.

The Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, attended by his livery-servant Do'em,--a most respectable servant to look at, who has grown grey in the service of the captain's family,--views, treats for, and ultimately obtains possession of, the unfurnished house, such a number, such a street. All the tradesmen in the neighbourhood are in agonies of competition for the captain's custom; the captain is a good-natured, kind-hearted, easy man, and, to avoid being the cause of disappointment to any, he most handsomely gives orders to all. Hampers of wine, baskets of provisions, cart-loads of furniture, boxes of jewellery, supplies of luxuries of the costliest description, flock to the house of the Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, where they are received with the utmost readiness by the highly respectable Do'em; while the captain himself struts and swaggers about with that compound air of conscious superiority, and general blood-thirstiness, which a military captain should always, and ds most times wear, to the admiration and terror of plebeian men. But the tradesmen's backs are no sooner turned, than the captain, with all the eccentricity of a mighty mind, and assisted by the faithful Do'em, whose devoted fidelity is not the least touching part of his character, disposes of everything to great advantage; for, although the articles fetch small sums, still they are sold considerably above cost price, the cost to the captain having been nothing at all. After various manoeuvres, the imposture is discovered, Fitz-Fiercy and Do'em are recognised as confederates, and the police-office to which they are both taken is thronged with their dupes.

Who can fail to recognise in this, the exact counterpart of the best portion of a theatrical pantomime--Fitz-Whisker Fiercy by the clown; Do'em by the pantaloon; and supernumeraries by the tradesmen? The best of the joke, too, is that the very coal-merchant who is loudest in his complaints against the person who defrauded him, is the identical man who sat in the centre of the very front row of the pit last night and laughed the most boisterously at this very same thing,--and not so well done either. Talk of Grimaldi, we say again! Did Grimaldi, in his best days, ever do anything in this way equal to Da Costa?

The mention of this latter justly-celebrated clown reminds us of his last piece of humour, the fraudulently obtaining certain stamped acceptances from a young gentleman in the army. We had scarcely laid down our pen to contemplate for a few moments this admirable actor's performance of that exquisite practical joke, than a new branch of our subject flashed suddenly upon us. So we take it up again at once.

All people who have been behind the scenes, and most people who have been before them, know, that in the representation of a pantomime, a good many men are sent upon the stage for the express purpose of being cheated, or knocked down, or both. Now, down to a moment ago, we had never been able to understand for what possible purpose a great number of odd, lazy, large-headed men, whom one is in the habit of meeting here, and there, and everywhere, could ever have been created. We see it all, now. They are the supernumeraries in the pantomime of life; the men who have been thrust into it, with no other view than to be constantly tumbling over each other, and running their heads against all sorts of strange things. We sat opposite to one of these men at a supper-table, only last week. Now we think of it, he was exactly like the gentlemen with the pasteboard heads and faces, who do the corresponding business in the theatrical pantomimes; there was the same broad stolid simper--the same dull leaden eye--the same unmeaning, vacant stare; and whatever was said, or whatever was done, he always came in at precisely the wrong place, or jostled against something that he had not the slightest business with. We looked at the man across the table, again and again; and could not satisfy ourselves what race of beings to class him with. How very odd that this never occurred to us before!

We will frankly own that we have been much troubled with the harlequin. We see harlequins of so many kinds in the real living pantomime, that we hardly know which to select as the proper fellow of him of the theatres. At one time we were disposed to think that the harlequin was neither more nor less than a young man of family and independent property, who had run away with an opera-dancer, and was fooling his life and his means away in light and trivial amusements. On reflection, however, we remembered that harlequins are occasionally guilty of witty, and even clever acts, and we are rather disposed to acquit our young men of family and independent property, generally speaking, of any such misdemeanours. On a more mature consideration of the subject, we have arrived at the conclusion, that the harlequins of life are just ordinary men, to be found in no particular walk or degree, on whom a certain station, or particular conjunction of circumstances, confers the magic wand; and this brings us to a few words on the pantomime of public and political life, which we shall say at once, and then conclude; merely premising in this place, that we decline any reference whatever to the columbine: being in no wise satisfied of the nature of her connexion with her parti-coloured lover, and not feeling by any means clear that we should be justified in introducing her to the virtuous and respectable ladies who peruse our lucubrations.

We take it that the commencement of a session of parliament is neither more nor less than the drawing up of the curtain for a grand comic pantomime; and that his Majesty's most gracious speech, on the opening thereof, may be not inaptly compared to the clown's opening speech of "Here we are!" "My lords and gentlemen, here we are!" appears, to our mind at least, to be a very good abstract of the point and meaning of the propitiatory address of the ministry. When we remember how frequently this speech is made, immediately after the _change_ too, the parallel is quite perfect, and still more singular.

Perhaps the cast of our political pantomime never was richer than at this day. We are particularly strong in clowns. At no former time, we should say, have we had such astonishing tumblers, or performers so ready to go through the whole of their feats for the amusement of an admiring throng. Their extreme readiness to exhibit, indeed, has given rise to some ill-natured reflections; it having been objected that by exhibiting gratuitously through the country when the theatre is closed, they reduce themselves to the level of mountebanks, and thereby tend to degrade the respectability of the profession. Certainly Grimaldi never did this sort of thing; and though Brown, King, and Gibson have gone to the Surrey in vacation time, and Mr. C. J. Smith has ruralised at Sadler's Wells, we find no theatrical precedent for a general tumbling through the country, except in the gentleman, name unknown, who threw summersets on behalf of the late Mr. Richardson, and who is no authority either, because he had never been on the regular boards.

But, laying aside this question, which after all is a mere matter of taste, we may reflect with pride and gratification of heart on the proficiency of our clowns as exhibited in the season. Night after night will they twist and tumble about, till two, three, and four o'clock in the morning; playing the strangest antics, and giving each other the funniest slaps on the face that can possibly be imagined, without evincing the smallest tokens of fatigue. The strange noises, the confusion, the shouting and roaring, amid which all this is done, too, would put to shame the most turbulent sixpenny gallery that ever yelled through a boxing-night.

It is especially curious to behold one of these clowns compelled to go through the most surprising contortions by the irresistible influence of the wand of office, which his leader or harlequin holds above his head. Acted upon by this wonderful charm he will become perfectly motionless, moving neither hand, foot, nor finger, and will even lose the faculty of speech at an instant's notice; or, on the other hand, he will become all life and animation if required, pouring forth a torrent of words without sense or meaning, throwing himself into the wildest and most fantastic contortions, and even grovelling on the earth and licking up the dust. These exhibitions are more curious than pleasing; indeed they are rather disgusting than otherwise, except to the admirers of such things, with whom we confess we have no fellow-feeling.

Strange tricks--very strange tricks--are also performed by the harlequin who holds for the time being, the magic wand which we have just mentioned. The mere waving it before a man's eyes will dispossess his brain of all the notions previously stored there, and fill it with an entirely new set of ideas; one gentle tap on the back will alter the colour of a man's coat completely; and there are some expert performers, who, having this wand held first on one side, and then on the other, will change from side to side, turning their coats at every evolution, with so much rapidity and dexterity, that the quickest eye can scarcely detect their motions. Occasionally, the genius who confers the wand, wrests it from the hand of the temporary possessor, and consigns it to some new performer; on which occasions all the characters change sides, and then the race and the hard knocks begin anew.

We might have extended this chapter to a much greater length--we might have carried the comparison into the liberal professions--we might have shown, as was in fact our original purpose, that each is in itself a little pantomime with scenes and characters of its own, complete; but, as we fear we have been quite lengthy enough already, we shall leave this chapter just where it is. A gentleman, not altogether unknown as a dramatic poet, wrote thus a year or two ago--

"All the World's a stage, And all the men and women merely players;"

and we, tracking out his footsteps at the scarcely-worth-mentioning little distance of a few millions of leagues behind, venture to add, by way of new reading, that he meant a Pantomime, and that we are all actors in The Pantomime of Life.

IMPROMPTU.

Who the _dickens_ "Boz" could be Puzzled many a learned elf; Till time unveil'd the mystery, And _Boz_ appear'd as DICKENS' self! C. J. DAVIDS.

MEMOIRS OF SAMUEL FOOTE.

Few writers obtained a larger share of notoriety during their lifetime than Samuel Foote. If the interest which he excited was not very profound, it was at any rate very generally diffused throughout the community. His witty sayings were in every one's mouth; his plays were the rage of the day; he was the constant guest of royalty, the Dukes of York and Cumberland being among his staunchest friends and patrons; and the "Sir Oracle" of all the _bons vivants_ and would-be wits of the metropolis. Take up any light memoir of those days, and you shall scarcely find one that does not bear testimony to the powers of this incomparable humourist. Yet, what is he now? A name,--perhaps a great one,--but little more. His plays are seldom acted, though the best Major Sturgeon and Jerry Sneak that the stage ever had are still among us; and as seldom perused in the closet, or assuredly they would have been republished oftener than has been the case of late years.

We are induced, therefore, to give a brief memoir of our English Aristophanes, accompanied by as brief a criticism on his genius, such a task falling naturally, indeed almost necessarily, within the scope of our Miscellany. But enough of preface: "now to business," as Foote's own Vamp would say.

Samuel Foote was born at Truro in the year 1720. His family was of credible extraction, his father being a gentleman of some repute in Cornwall as receiver of fines for the duchy; and his mother, the daughter of Sir Edward Goodere, Bart. M.P. for Herefordshire. From this lady, whom he closely resembled in appearance and manner, he is supposed to have inherited that turn for "merry malice" for which he was famous above all his contemporaries. Mr. Cooke, in his notices of Foote, describes his mother as having been "the very model of her son Samuel,--short, fat, and flabby," and nearly equally remarkable for the broad humour of her conversation.

At an early age, young Foote was despatched to a school at Worcester, where he soon became notorious for his practical jokes and inveterate propensity to caricature. He was the leader in all the rebellions of the boys, and perpetrated much small mischief on his own private account. Among other of his freaks, it is stated that he was in the habit of anointing his master's lips with ink while he slept in the chair of authority, and then bewildering and overwhelming the good man with a host of grave apologies. Yet, with all this, he was attentive to his studies, reading hard by fits and starts; and left Worcester with the reputation of being that very ambiguous character--a "lad of parts."

At the usual period of life, Foote was entered of Worcester College, Oxford, where, as at school, his favourite amusement consisted in quizzing the authorities,--more especially the provost, who was a grave, pedantic scholar, of a vinegar turn of temperament. The following hoax is recorded as having been played off by him in his Freshman's year. In one of the villages near Oxford there was a church that stood close by a shady lane, through which cattle were in the habit of being driven to and fro from grass. From the steeple or belfry of this church dangled a rope, probably for the convenience of the ringers, which overhung the porch, and descended to within a few feet of the ground. Foote, who chanced to see it in the course of one of his rambles, resolved to make it the subject of a practical joke; and accordingly, one night, just as the cattle were passing down the lane, tied a wisp of fresh hay tightly about the rope by way of bait. The scheme succeeded to a miracle. One of the cows, as she passed the church-porch, attracted by the fragrant smell of the fodder, stopped to nibble at, and tear it away from the rope; and by so doing set the bell tolling, infinitely to the astonishment and perplexity of the village authorities, who did not detect the hoax, which was repeated more than once, till the circumstance had become the talk of the neighbourhood for miles round. We do not vouch for the authenticity of this anecdote, though more than one biographer has alluded to it; but, as it is highly characteristic of Foote, we think it not unlikely to be true.

On quitting the university, Foote returned for a few months to his father's house at Truro, at which period it was that a frightful tragedy occurred in his family, which he seldom spoke of afterwards, and never without the deepest emotion. We allude to the murder of his uncle Sir John Goodere, by the baronet's brother Captain Goodere, which took place about the year 1740. The parties had been dining together at a friend's house near Bristol; apparently a reconciliation--for they had been for some time on bad terms with each other, owing to certain money transactions--had been agreed to between them; but, on his return home, Sir John was waylaid, by his brother's orders, by the crew of his vessel, which lay at anchor in the roads; carried on board, and there strangled; the assassin looking on the while, and actually furnishing the rope by which the murder was perpetrated. For this atrocious deed, the Captain and his confederates, who, it appears, made no attempt at concealment, were tried at the Bristol assizes, found guilty, and hanged.

But the strangest part of this strange story remains to be told. On the night the murder was committed, Foote arrived at his father's house at Truro, and describes himself as having been kept awake for some time by the softest and sweetest strains of music he had ever heard. At first he imagined that it was a serenade got up by some of the family, by way of a welcome home; but, on looking out of his windows, could see no trace of the musicians, so was compelled to come to the conclusion that the sounds were the mere offspring of his imagination. When, however, he learned shortly afterwards that the catastrophe to which we have alluded, had occurred on the same night, and at the same hour when he had been greeted by the mysterious melody, he became, says one of his biographers, persuaded that it was a supernatural warning, and retained this impression to the last moment of his existence. Yet the man who was thus strongly susceptible of superstitious influences, and who could mistake a singing in the head, occasioned possibly by convivial indulgence, for a hint direct from heaven, was the same who overwhelmed Johnson with ridicule for believing in the Cock-lane ghost!

At the age of twenty-two, shortly after he had quitted Oxford, Foote entered the Temple; rented an expensive set of chambers; sported a dashing equipage; gave constant convivial parties; gambled--betted--aped the man of fashion and of title--in a word, distinguished himself as one of the most exquisite fops about town. In those days the fop was quite a different sort of person from what he is now. He was a wit, and very frequently a scholar; whereas he is now, in the majority of instances,--to quote Swift's pungent sarcasm,--"a mere peg whereon to hang a trim suit of clothes." The last legitimate fop, or dandy, vanished from the scene of gay life with Brummell. He was the _Ultimus Romanorum_.

One of Foote's most frequent places of resort was the Bedford Coffee-house, then the favourite lounge of all the aspiring wits of the day. Here Fielding, Beauclerk, Bonnell Thornton, and a host of kindred spirits, used to lay down the law to their consenting audience; and here too many of those verdicts issued which stamped the character of the "last new piece." Such desultory habits of life--to say nothing of his inveterate propensity to gambling--soon dissipated the handsome fortune which Foote had acquired by his father's death; and, at the end of three years, he was compelled to quit the law, and resort to some other means of gaining a livelihood.

From a young and enthusiastic amateur of the stage to a performer on its boards, is no unnatural transition; and we find Foote, somewhere about the year 1743, associated with his friend Macklin in the management of a wooden theatre in the Haymarket. Having a lofty notion of his tragic capabilities, he made his _debut_ in the character of Othello; and, like Mathews, Liston, and Keeley, who began their theatrical career in the same mistaken spirit, convulsed the audience with the grotesque extravagance of his passion, and the irresistible drollery of his pathos. Finding therefore that his forte did not lie in tragedy, he next had recourse to comedy, and made a tolerable hit at Drury-lane in the parts of Sir Paul Pliant, Bayes, and Fondlewife. We have seen a portrait of him in this last character,--one of Congreve's earliest and raciest,--and, if it be at all like him, we do not wonder at his success, for his countenance is replete with the true sly, oily, hypocritical expression.

In the ear 1747, Foote produced his first piece at the Haymarket, in which he mimicked the peculiarities of several well-known actors, and, among others, Macklin. The play was successful; but its performance having been interdicted by the Westminster magistrates, Foote brought it out in a new form, under the title of "Diversions of the Morning," and issued cards of invitation to the public, requesting the honour of their company to a tea-party (at playhouse prices) at the Haymarket. The experiment was a decided hit, and was followed up next season by an "Auction of Pictures," in which the author lashed with pitiless ridicule the Virtuoso follies of the day.

Foote was now once again in possession of a handsome competency, for, in addition to the money made by his labours as an author and an actor, an unexpected legacy was left him by some branch of his mother's family. Intoxicated by his good fortune, and unwarned by experience, he resumed his old habits of extravagance; but, finding that his funds did not disappear fast enough, he accelerated their diminution by a trip to Paris, where he remained two or three years, and did not return home until he found himself, as before, reduced to his last shilling.

Immediately on his arrival in London, Foote renewed his engagement at Drury-lane, and performed the principal character in his own play of "The Knights;" but this proving less attractive than the two former ones, he abruptly quitted town, and crossed the channel to Dublin, where, in the year 1760, he brought out at the Crowstreet theatre his celebrated comedy, "The Minor." This, which was then a mere crude sketch in two acts, was unequivocally damned; but the circumstance, so far from depressing the author's spirits, only stimulated him to fresh exertions, and after mercifully revising the play, and adding a third act, he produced it at the Haymarket. His industry did not go unrewarded. The success of the comedy equalled his most sanguine expectations, being played without intermission throughout the season, to houses crammed to the very ceiling.

It is a singular fact connected with this piquant play, that its author, doubtful of its reception, sent it in MS. to the Archbishop of Canterbury, with a request that, if he found any objectionable passages, he would do him the favour to expunge them. Of course, his Grace declined all interference with such a heterodox production, observing to a friend, that if he had made the slightest alteration, the wag might possibly have published it, as "corrected and prepared for the press by the Archbishop of Canterbury!" This is as good a story as that told of Shelley, who is said to have sent a copy of his "Queen Mab" to each of the twenty-four bishops. The part which Foote played in the "Minor" was that of the notorious Mother Cole; and the Parson Squintem, to whom this exemplary specimen of womankind--as Jonathan Oldbuck would say--makes such repeated allusions, is supposed to have been the celebrated Whitfield.

"The Minor" was followed in 1762 by "The Liar," which was brought out at Covent Garden. This drama, the idea of which is borrowed from the "Menteur" of Corneille, brought full houses for the season; and was succeeded in the same year by the "Orators,"--an amusing play, but by no means one of its author's best,--in which he ridiculed Falkner, the printer of the Dublin Journal, and for which he got entangled in a tedious law-suit that was not compromised without difficulty. About this time, too, Foote, according to Boswell, announced his intention of bringing Dr. Johnson on the stage; but the threat of a public chastisement, with which "Surly Sam" threatened him, induced him to abandon his intention. "What is the price of a good thick stick?" said the Doctor on this remarkable occasion. "A shilling," replied the individual to whom he put the question. "Then go, and buy me a half-crown one; for if that rascal, Foote, persists in his attempt to mimic me, I will step from the boxes, thrash him publicly before the audience, and then make them a speech in justification of my conduct." It is almost to be regretted that the satirist gave up his design, for a capital Philippic has been thereby lost to the world.

From this period Foote chiefly confined himself to the Haymarket, where appeared in succession his "Mayor of Garratt," "Patron," and "Commissary." The first, which was founded on the whimsical custom, now discontinued, of choosing a mock M.P. for the village of Garratt in Surrey, is a laughable hit at the warlike propensities of cockney volunteers. After some years' neglect, it was revived with success during the height of the anti-Jacobin phrensy, when Major Sturgeons again sprung up as plentiful as mushrooms,--when every tailor strutted a hero, and every Alderman felt himself a William Tell.

Foote was now afloat on the full tide of prosperity, drawing crowded houses whenever he performed; patronised by the nobility, at whose tables he was a sort of privileged guest; and everywhere acknowledged as the great lion of the day. In the year 1766, when on a visit with the Duke of York at Lord Mexborough's, he had the misfortune to break his leg by a fall from his horse in hunting. A silly peer condoling with him shortly afterwards on this accident, the wag replied, "Pray, my lord, do not allude to my weak point, I have not alluded to yours," at the same time pointing significantly to the nobleman's head.

By this misfortune Foote was withdrawn some months from his profession, but on his recovery he purchased the Haymarket, and opened it with an extravaganza entitled "The Tailors, or a Tragedy for Warm Weather." The next year appeared his "Devil on Two Sticks," the machinery of which is derived from the "Diable Boiteux" of Le Sage. This play, which was a severe satire on those medical quacks who then, as now, infested the metropolis, was so popular, that its author cleared upwards of three thousand pounds by it, but, a few weeks after, lost it all by gambling at Bath.

Foote's next production was the "Maid of Bath", which was performed in the year 1771. The principal characters in this comedy--Flint, the avaricious old bachelor, and Miss Linnet, the vocalist to whom he is represented as paying his addresses,--were portraits from life; the former having been intended for Walter Long, a rich Somersetshire squire, who died in 1807 at the age of ninety-five, leaving property to the amount of a quarter of a million sterling to Miss Tilney Long, who married the present Mr. Wellesley; and the latter for the beautiful Miss Linley, afterwards Mrs. Sheridan. The "Maid of Bath" is a lively play, containing one or two terse, brilliant witticisms worthy of Congreve; such, for instance as the definition of marriage,--that it is like "bobbing for a single eel in a barrel of snakes." Its best-sustained character is that of Flint; in sketching which, Foote had evidently in view the Athenian miser alluded to by Horace, for he makes him say, "Ay, you may rail, and the people may hiss; but what care I? I have that at home which will keep up my spirits,"--which is a manifest paraphrase from

----"Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arcâ."

This comedy is further deserving of notice, as showing the exquisite tact and readiness with which Foote availed himself of the floating topics of the day. At the time it appeared, the town was greatly diverted by a squabble between Wilkes and the notorious political parson John Horne, afterwards Horne Tooke, the latter of whom accused the former of having sold some rich court-dresses which he had entrusted to his care at Paris. In allusion to this amusing quarrel, Flint says, speaking of the clergyman whom he has engaged to marry him to Miss Linnet, "You have seen friend Button, the Minister that has come down to tack us together; he don't care much to meddle with the pulpit, but he is a prodigious patriot, and a great politician to boot; and, moreover, he has left behind him at Paris a choice collection of curious rich clothes, which he has promised to sell me cheap."

The "Maid of Bath" was followed by the "Nabob" and the "Bankrupt," the first of which was an effective attack on the habits of many of those old curmudgeons who, about the middle of the last century--the period of Anglo-Indian prosperity--returned with dried livers from the East, rich as Chartres, and equally profligate; and the last, on the crazy commercial speculations of the day. The sketch of Sir Robert Riscounter in the "Bankrupt" is supposed to have been meant for the well-known Sir George Fordyce, who failed, in the year 1772, for an almost unparalleled amount. Of these two plays, the "Nabob" is the most carefully finished; but its breadth and grossness must ever prevent its revival.

In 1774 came out the "Cozeners," a pungent satire on the venal politicians of the day. The corruption which had been sanctioned and made systematic by Walpole and the Pelhams, was then in the full vigour of its rank luxuriance; every man had his price; never therefore was satire better applied than this of Foote's. The "Mrs. Fleec'em" of the "Cozeners," a lady of accommodating virtue, and somewhat relaxed in her notions of _meum_ and _tuum_, was intended for the notorious Mrs. Catherine Rudd, who, after inducing the two brothers (Perreau) to commit forgery, gave evidence against them, on the strength of which they were hanged. Yet this creature, tainted as she was with the foulest moral leprosy, was admitted into the best society, and died at a good old age with the character of a discreet, respectable matron!

We come now to Foote's last production. In the year 1775, the famous Duchess of Kingston was tried before the House of Lords for bigamy, and found guilty. Her case excited extraordinary interest throughout the country; availing himself of which, Foote introduced her in the "Trip to Calais" under the character of Lady Kitty Crocodile, which coming to her Grace's ears, she procured its prohibition by the Lord Chamberlain, and, not content with this measure of retaliation, got up through her minions of the press, of whom she had numbers in her pay, a charge against Foote of a most odious complexion,--so odious, indeed, that he had no alternative but to demand an instant public trial, which ended, as might have been anticipated, in his triumphant acquittal. But this result, satisfactory as it was, had no power to restore him to his wonted peace of mind. The dagger had struck home to the heart. His friends, too, for the first time, began to look coolly on him; the anonymous agents of the Duchess still pursued him with unrelenting acrimony; many of those whose follies and crimes he had lashed, but who had feared to retort in his hour of pride, swelled the clamour against him; and he found himself, in the decline of health and manhood, becoming just as unpopular as he once was the reverse. In vain he endeavoured to rally and make head against this combination; his moral fortitude wholly deserted him; and after performing a few times, after his trial, at the Haymarket, but with none of his former vivacity, he was seized with a sudden paralytic affection, and bade adieu to the stage for ever.

About six months subsequent to his retirement, he was attacked by a complaint which ultimately terminated his life; and, by his physician's order, quitted London for the Continent, with a view to pass the winter at Paris. But his constitution was too much shattered to admit of the fatigue of such a journey, and he was compelled to halt at Dover, where, on the morning after his arrival, a violent shivering fit came over him while seated at the breakfast table, which in a few hours put an end to his existence. No sooner was his death known in the metropolis, than a re-action commenced in his favour. It was then discovered that, with all his errors, he had been "more sinned against than sinning;" and some of his friends even went the length of proposing the erection of a monument to his memory! Just in the same way, a few years later, was Burns treated by the world. He, too, was alternately caressed and vilified; and finally hurried to a premature grave, the victim of a broken heart. But this is the penalty that superior genius must ever be prepared to pay. It walks alone along a dizzy, dangerous height, the observed of all eyes; while gregarious common-place treads, secure and unnoticed, along the tame, flat "Bedford level" of ordinary life!

Having closed our brief memoir of Foote, it remains to say a few words of his literary peculiarities. His humour was decidedly Aristophanic; that is to say, broad, easy, reckless, satirical, without the slightest alloy of _bonhommie_, and full of the directest personalities. There is no playfulness or good-nature in his comedies. You laugh, it is true, at his portraits, but at the same time you hold them in contempt; for there is nothing redeeming in their eccentricities; nothing for your esteem and admiration to lay hold of. We cannot gather from his writings, as we can from every page of Goldsmith, that Foote possessed the slightest sympathies with humanity. He seems everywhere to hold it at arm's length, as worthy of nought but the must supercilious treatment; which accounts for, and to a certain extent justifies, the treatment he received from the world in his latter days. Foote could never have drawn a "Good-natured Man," or even a "Dennis Brulgruddery;" for, though he may have possessed the head to do so, yet he lacked the requisite sensibility. So greatly deficient is he in this respect, that, whenever he attempts to put forth a refined or generous sentiment, he almost always overdoes it, and degenerates into cant. Yet his characters--with the exception of his virtuous and moral ones, which are the most insipid in the world--are admirably drawn, are sustained with unflagging spirit, and evince a wide range of observation which, however, rarely pierces beyond the surface.

As works of art, Foote's dramas are by no means of first-rate excellence. They show no fancy, no invention, no ingenuity in constructing, or tact in developing plot; but are merely a collection of scenes and incidents huddled confusedly together for the purpose of drawing out the peculiarities of some two or three pet characters. The best thing we can say of them is, that they exhibit everywhere the keenness, the readiness, the self-possession, of the disciplined man of the world, combined with a pungent malicious humour that reminds us of a Mephistopheles in his merriest mood. It must also be urged in their favour, that they are, in every sense of the word, original. Foote copied no model, but painted direct from the life. He took no hints from others, but gave his own fresh impressions of character. He did not draw on his fancy, like Congreve, or study to make points like Sheridan, but availed himself hastily of such materials as came readiest to hand. The very extravagances of his early life were in his favour, by bringing him in contact with those marked, out-of-the-way characters, who, like Arabs, hang loose on the skirts of society, and constitute the quintessence of comedy. Thus his inveterate love of gambling furnished him with his masterly sketch of Dick Loader; and his long-continued residence at Paris--into whose various dissipations he entered with all the zeal of a devotee--with his successful hits at the absurdities of our travelled fops.

Foote's three best plays are his "Minor," his "Liar," and his "Mayor of Garratt." Perhaps the last is his masterpiece; for it is alive and bustling throughout, is finished with more than the author's ordinary care, and contains two characters penned in his truest _con amore_ spirit. Jerry Sneak and Major Sturgeon are, in their line, the two most perfect delineations of which the minor British drama can boast. There is no mistaking their identity. They speak the genuine, unadulterated vulgar tongue of the City. Their sentiments are cockney; their meanness and their bluster, their pompous self-conceit and abject humility, are cockney; they are cockney all over from the crown of the head to the sole of the shoe. What a rich set-off to the "marchings and counter-marchings" of the one, is the other's recital of his domestic grievances! Jerry's complaint that his wife only allows him "two shillings for pocket-money," and helps him to "all the cold vittles at table," is absolutely pathetic, if--as Hazlitt observes--"the last stage of human imbecility can be called so." While Bow bells ring, and St. Paul's church overlooks Cheapside, Foote's cockneys shall endure. Nevertheless, while we acknowledge their excellence, we entertain the most intense contempt for them, and feel the strongest possible inclination to fling the Major into a horse-pond, and smother Jerry Sneak in a basin of water-gruel.

Foote's conversational abilities were, if possible, superior to his literary ones. For men of the world, in particular, they must have had an inexpressible charm. There is no wit on record who has said so many good things, or with such perfect ease and readiness. Foote never laid a pun-trap to catch the unwary. He had humour at will, and had no need to resort to artifice. His mind was well, but not abundantly stored; and he had the tact to make his knowledge appear greater than it really was. The most sterling testimony that has been borne to his colloquial powers, is that furnished by Dr. Johnson, who says, "The first time I was in company with Foote, was at Fitzherbert's. Having no good opinion of the fellow, I was resolved not to be pleased; and it is very difficult to please a man against his will. I went on eating my dinner pretty sullenly, affecting not to mind him; but the dog was so very comical, that I was obliged to lay down my knife and fork, and fairly laugh it out. Sir, he was irresistible." Foote's favourite butt was Garrick, whose thrifty habits he was constantly turning into ridicule. Being one day in company with him, when after satirizing some individual, David had wound up his attack by saying, "Well, well, perhaps before I condemn another, I should pull the _beam_ out of my own eye," Foote replied. "And so you would, if you could _sell the timber_." On another occasion, when they were dining together, Garrick happened to let a guinea drop on the floor. "Where has it gone to?" asked Foote, looking about for it. "Oh, to the devil, I suppose," was the reply. "Ah, David," rejoined his tormentor, "you can always contrive to make a guinea go farther than any one else."

Such was Samuel Foote,--the wit, the satirist, the humourist--whose life inculcates this wholesome truth, that those who set themselves up, with no superior moral qualifications to recommend them, to ridicule the follies and lash the vices of the age, but "sow the wind, to reap the whirlwind!"

THE TWO BUTLERS.

In all countries and all languages we have the story of _Il Bondocani_. May I tell one from Ireland?

It is now almost a hundred years ago--certainly eighty--since Tom--I declare to Mnemosyne I forget what his surname was, if I ever knew it, which I doubt,--It is at least eighty years since Tom emerged from his master's kitchen in Clonmell, to make his way on a visit to foreign countries.

If I can well recollect dates, this event must have occurred at the end of the days of George the Second, or very close after the accession of George the Third, because in the course of the narrative it will be disclosed that the tale runs of a Jacobite lord living quietly in Ireland, and that I think must have been some time between 1740 and 1760,--or say 65. Just before the year of the young Pretender's burst, a sharp eye used to be kept upon the "honest men" in all the three kingdoms; and in Ireland, from the peculiar power which the surveillance attendant on the penal laws gave the government, this sharp eye could not be surpassed in sharpness,--that is to say, if it did not choose to wink. Truth, nevertheless, makes us acknowledge that the authorities of Ireland were ever inclined at the bottom of their hearts to countenance lawlessness, if at all recommended by anything like a noble or a romantic name. And no name could be more renowned or more romantic than that of Ormond.

It is to be found in all our histories well recorded. What are the lines of Dryden?--and Dryden was a man who knew how to make verses worth reading.

And the rebel rose stuck to the house of Ormond for many a day;--but it is useless to say more. Even I who would sing "Lilla bullalero bullen a la,"--if I could, only I can't sing,--and who give "The glorious, pious, and immortal memory," because I can toast,--even I do not think wrong of the house of Ormond for sticking as it did to the house of Stuart. Of that too I have a long story to tell some time or another.

Never mind. I was mentioning all this, because I have not a 'Peerage' by me; and I really do not know who was the Lord Ormond of the day which I take to be the epoch of my tale. If I had a 'Peerage,' I am sure I could settle it in a minute; but I have none. Those, therefore, who are most interested in the affair ought to examine a 'Peerage,' to find who was the man of the time;--I can only help them by a hint. My own particular and personal reason for recollecting the matter is this: I am forty, or more--never mind the quantity more; and I was told the story by my uncle at least five-and-twenty years ago. That brings us to the year 1812,--say 1811. My uncle--his name was Jack--told me that he had heard the story from Tom himself fifty years before that. If my uncle Jack, who was a very good fellow, considerably given to potation, was precise in his computation of time, the date of his story must have fallen in 1762--or 1763--no matter which. This brings me near the date I have already assigned; but the reader of my essay has before him the grounds of my chronological conjectures, and he can form his opinions on _data_ as sufficiently as myself.

I recur fearlessly to the fact that Tom--whatever his surname may have been--emerged from the kitchen of his master in Clonmell, to make his way to foreign countries.

His master was a very honest fellow--a schoolmaster of the name of Chaytor, a Quaker, round of paunch and red of nose. I believe that some of his progeny are now men of office in Tipperary--and why should they not? Summer school-vacations in Ireland occur in July; and Chaytor--by the bye, I think he was _Tom_ Chaytor, but if Quakers have Christian names I am not sure,--gave leave to his man Tom to go wandering about the country. He had four, or perhaps five, days to himself.

Tom, as he was described to me by my uncle over a jug of punch about a quarter of a century ago, was what in his memory must have been a smart-built fellow. Clean of limb, active of hand, light of leg, clear of eye, bright of hair, white of tooth, and two-and-twenty; in short, he was as handsome a lad as you would wish to look upon in a summer's day. I mention a summer's day merely for its length; for even on a winter's day there were few girls that could cast an eye upon him without forgetting the frost.

So he started for the land of Kilkenny, which is what we used to call in Ireland twenty-four miles from Clonmell. They have stretched it now to thirty; but I do not find it the longer or shorter in walking or chalking. However, why should we gamble at an act of "justice to Ireland?" Tom at all events cared little for the distance; and, going it at a slapping pace, he made Kilkenny in six hours. I pass the itinerary. He started at six in the morning, and arrived somewhat foot-worn, but full not only of bread, but of wine, (for wine was to be found on country road-sides in Ireland in those days,) in the ancient city of Saint Canice about noon.

Tom refreshed himself at the Feathers, kept in those days by a man named Jerry Mulvany, who was supposed to be more nearly connected with the family of Ormond than the rites of the church could allow; and having swallowed as much of the substantial food and the pestiferous fluid that mine host of the Feathers tendered him, the spirit of inquisitiveness, which, according to the phrenologists, is developed in all mankind, seized paramount hold of Tom. Tom--? ay, Tom it must be, for I really cannot recollect his other name.

If there be a guide-book to the curiosities of Kilkenny, the work has escaped my researches. Of the city it is recorded, however, that it can boast of fire without smoke, air without fog, and streets paved with marble. And there's the college, and the bridge, and the ruins of St. John's abbey, and St. Canice, and the Nore itself, and last, not least, the castle of the Ormonds, with its woods and its walks, and its stables and its gallery, and all the rest of it, predominating over the river. It is a very fine-looking thing indeed; and, if I mistake not, John Wilson Croker, in his youth, wrote a poem to its honour, beginning with

"High on the sounding banks of Nore,"

every verse of which ended with "The castle," in the manner of Cowper's "My Mary," or Ben Jonson's "Tom Tosspot." If I had the poem, I should publish it here with the greatest pleasure; but I have it not. I forget where I saw it, but I think it was in a Dublin magazine of a good many years ago, when I was a junior sophister of T. C. D.

Let the reader, then, in the absence of this document, imagine that the poem was infinitely fine, and that the subject was worthy of the muse. As the castle is the most particular lion of the city, it of course speedily attracted the attention of Tom, who, swaggering in all the independence of an emancipated footman up the street, soon found himself at the gate. "Rearing himself thereat," as the old ballad has it, stood a man basking in the sun. He was somewhat declining towards what they call the vale of years in the language of poetry; but by the twinkle of his eye, and the purple rotundity of his cheek, it was evident that the years of the valley, like the lads of the valley, had gone cheerily-o! The sun shone brightly upon his silver locks, escaping from under a somewhat tarnished cocked-hat guarded with gold lace, the gilding of which had much deteriorated since it departed from the shop of the artificer; and upon a scarlet waistcoat, velvet certainly, but of reduced condition, and in the same situation as to gilding as the hat. His plum-coloured breeches were unbuckled at the knee, and his ungartered stockings were on a downward progress towards his unbuckled shoes. He had his hands--their wrists were garnished with unwashed ruffles--in his breeches pockets; and he diverted himself with whistling "Charley over the water," in a state of _quasi_-ruminant quiescence. Nothing could be plainer than that he was a hanger-on of the castle off duty, waiting his time until called for, when of course he was to appear before his master in a more carefully arranged costume.

Ormond Castle was then, as I believe it is now, a show-house, and the visitors of Kilkenny found little difficulty in the admission; but, as in those days purposes of political intrusion might be suspected, some shadow at least of introduction was considered necessary. Tom, reared in the household of a schoolmaster, where the despotic authority of the chief extends a flavour of its quality to all his ministers, exhilarated by the walk, and cheered by the eatables and drinkables which he had swallowed, felt that there was no necessity for consulting any of the usual points of etiquette, if indeed he knew that any such things were in existence.

"I say," said he, "old chap! is this castle to be seen? I'm told it's a show; and if it is, let's have a look at it."

"It is to be seen," replied the person addressed, "if you are properly introduced."

"That's all hum!" said Tom. "I know enough of the world, though I've lived all my life in Clonmell, to know that a proper introduction signifies a tester. Come, my old snouty, I'll stand all that's right if you show me over it. Can you do it?"

"Why," said his new friend, "I think I can; because, in fact, I am----"

"Something about the house, I suppose. Well, though you've on a laced jacket, and I only a plain frieze coat, we are both brothers of the shoulder-knot. I tell you who I am. Did you ever hear of Chaytor the Quaker, the schoolmaster of Clonmell?"

"Never."

"Well, he's a decent sort of fellow in the _propria quæ maribus_ line, and gives as good a buttock of beef to anybody that gets over the threshold of his door as you'd wish to meet; and I am his man,--his valley de sham, head gentleman----"

"Gentleman usher?"

"No, not usher," responded Tom indignantly: "I have nothing to do with ushers; they are scabby dogs of poor scholards, sizards, half-pays, and the like; and all the young gentlemen much prefer me:--but I am his _fiddleus Achates_, as master Jack Toler calls me,--that's a purty pup who will make some fun some of these days,--his whacktotum, head-cook, and dairy-maid, slush, and butler. What are you here?"

"Why," replied the man at the gate, "I am a butler as well as you."

"Oh! then we're both butlers; and you could as well pass us in. By coarse, the butler must be a great fellow here; and I see you are rigged out in the cast clothes of my lord. Isn't that true?"

"True enough: he never gets a suit of clothes that it does not fall to my lot to wear it; but if you wish to see the castle, I think I can venture to show you all that it contains, even for the sake of our being two butlers."

It was not much sooner said than done. Tom accompanied his companion over the house and grounds, making sundry critical observations on all he saw therein,--on painting, architecture, gardening, the sublime and beautiful, the scientific and picturesque,--in a manner which I doubt not much resembled the average style of reviewing those matters in what we now call the best public instructors.

"Rum-looking old ruffians!" observed Tom, on casting his eyes along the gallery containing the portraitures of the Ormondes. "Look at that fellow there all battered up in iron; I wish to God I had as good a church as he would rob!"

"He was one of the old earls," replied his guide, "in the days of Henry the Eighth; and I believe he did help in robbing churches."

"I knew it by his look," said Tom; "and there's a chap there in a wilderness of a wig. Gad! he looks as if he was like to be hanged."

"He was so," said the cicerone; "for a gentleman of the name of Blood was about to pay him that compliment at Tyburn."

"Serve him right," observed Tom; "and this fellow with the short stick in his hand;--what the deuce is the meaning of that?--was he a constable?"

"No," said his friend, "he was a marshal; but he had much to do with keeping out of the way of constables for some years. Did you ever hear of Dean Swift?"

"Did I ever hear of the Dane? Why, my master has twenty books of his that he's always reading, and he calls him Old Copper-farthing; and the young gentlemen are quite wild to read them. I read some of them wance (once); but they were all lies, about fairies and giants. Howsoever, they say the Dane was a larned man."

"Well, he was a great friend of that man with the short stick in his hand."

"By dad!" said Tom, "few of the Dane's friends was friends to the Hanover succession; and I'd bet anything that that flourishing-looking lad there was a friend to the Pretender."

"It is likely that if you laid such a bet you would win it. He was a great friend also of Queen Anne. Have you ever heard of her?"

"Heard of Brandy Nan! To be sure I did--merry be the first of August! But what's the use of looking at those queer old fools?--I wonder who bothered themselves painting them?"

"I do not think you knew the people;--they were Vandyke, Lely, Kneller."

"I never heard of them in Clonmell," remarked Tom. "Have you anything to drink?"

"Plenty."

"But you won't get into a scrape? Honour above all; I'd not like to have you do it unless you were sure, for the glory of the cloth."

The pledge of security being solemnly offered, Tom followed his companion through the intricate passages of the castle until he came into a small apartment, where he found a most plentiful repast before him. He had not failed to observe, that, as he was guided through the house, their path had been wholly uncrossed, for, if anybody accidentally appeared, he hastily withdrew. One person only was detained for a moment, and to him the butler spoke a few words in some unknown tongue, which Tom of course set down as part of the Jacobite treason pervading every part of the castle.

"Gad!" said he, while beginning to lay into the round of beef, "I am half inclined to think that the jabber you talked just now to the powder-monkey we met in that corridor was not treason, but beef and mustard: an't I right?"

"Quite so."

"Fall to, then, yourself. By Gad! you appear to have those lads under your thumb--for this is great eating. I suppose you often rob my lord?--speak plain, for I myself rob ould Chaytor the schoolmaster; but there's a long difference between robbing a schoolmaster and robbing a lord. I venture to say many a pound of his you have made away with."

"A great many indeed. I am ashamed to say it, that for one pound he has lost by anybody else, he has lost a hundred by me."

"Ashamed, indeed! This is beautiful beef. But let us wash it down. By the powers! is it champagne you are giving me? Well, I never drank but one glass of it in my life, and that was from a bottle that I stole out of a dozen which the master had when he was giving a great dinner to the fathers of the boys just before the Christmas holidays the year before last. My service to you. By Gor! if you do not break the Ormonds, I can't tell who should."

"Nor I. Finish your champagne. What else will you have to drink?"

"Have you the run of the cellar?"

"Certainly."

"Why, then, claret is genteel; but the little I drank of it was mortal cold. Could you find us a glass of brandy?"

"Of course:" and on the sounding of a bell there appeared the same valet who had been addressed in the corridor; and in the same language some intimation was communicated, which in a few moments produced a bottle of Nantz, rare and particular, placed before Tom with all the emollient appliances necessary for turning it into punch.

"By all that's bad," said the Clonmellian butler, "but ye keep these fellows to their knitting. This is indeed capital stuff. Make for yourself. When you come to Clonmell, ask for me--Tom--at old Chaytor's, the Quaker schoolmaster, a few doors from the Globe. This lord of yours, I am told, is a bloody Jacobite: here's the Hanover succession! but we must not drink that here, for perhaps the old fellow himself might hear us."

"Nothing is more probable."

"Well, then, mum's the word. I'm told he puts white roses in his dog's ears, and drinks a certain person over the water on the tenth of June; but, no matter, this is his house, and you and I are drinking his drink,--so, why should we wish him bad luck? If he was hanged, of course I'd go to see him, to be sure; would not you?"

"I should certainly be there."

By this time Tom was subdued by the champagne and the brandy, to say nothing of the hot weather; and the spirit of hospitality rose strong upon the spirit of cognac. His new friend gently hinted that a retreat to his _gîte_ at the Feathers would be prudent; but to such a step Tom would by no means consent unless the butler of the castle accompanied him to take a parting bowl. With some reluctance the wish was complied with, and both the butlers sallied forth on their way through the principal streets of Kilkenny, just as the evening was beginning to assume somewhat of a dusky hue. Tom had, in the course of the three or four hours passed with his new friend, informed him of all the private history of the house of Ormond, with that same regard to veracity which in general characterises the accounts of the births, lives, and educations of persons of the higher classes, to be found in fashionable novels and other works drawn from the communications of such authorities as our friend Tom; and his companion offered as much commentary as is usually done on similar occasions. Proceeding in a twirling motion along, he could not but observe that the principal persons whom they met bowed most respectfully to the gentleman from the castle; and, on being assured that this token of deference was paid because they were tradesmen of the castle, who were indebted to the butler for his good word in their business, Tom's appreciation of his friend's abilities in the art of "improving" his situation was considerably enhanced. He calculated that if they made money by the butler, the butler made money by them; and he determined that on his return to Clonmell he too would find tradesfolks ready to take hats off to him in the ratio of pedagogue to peer.

The Kilkenny man steadied the Clonmell man to the Feathers, where the latter most potentially ordered a bowl of the best punch. The slipshod waiter stared; but a look from Tom's friend was enough. They were ushered into the best apartment of the house,--Tom remarking that it was a different room from that which he occupied on his arrival; and in a few minutes the master of the house, Mr. Mulvany, in his best array, made his appearance with a pair of wax candles in his hands. He bowed to the earth as he said,

"If I had expected you, my----"

"Leave the room," was the answer.

"Not before I order my bowl of punch," said Tom.

"Shall I, my----"

"Yes," said the person addressed; "whatever he likes."

"Well," said Tom, as Mulvany left the room, "if I ever saw anything to match that. Is he one of the tradespeople of the castle? This does bate everything. And, by dad, he's not unlike you in the face, neither! Och! then, what a story I'll have when I get back to Clonmell."

"Well, Tom," said his friend, "I may perhaps see you there; but good-b'ye for a moment. I assure you I have had much pleasure in your company."

"He's a queer fellow that," thought Tom, "and I hope he'll be soon back. It's a pleasant acquaintance I've made the first day I was in Kilkenny. Sit down, Mr. Mulvany," said he, as that functionary entered, bearing a bowl of punch, "and taste your brewing." To which invitation Mr. Mulvany acceded, nothing loth, but still casting an anxious eye towards the door.

"That's a mighty honest man," said Tom.

"I do not know what you mean," replied the cautious Mulvany; (for, "honest man" was in those days another word for Jacobite.)

"I mane what I say," said Tom; "he's just showed me over the castle, and gave me full and plenty of the best of eating and drinking. He tells me he's the butler."

"And so he is, you idiot of a man!" cried Mulvany. "He's the chief Butler of Ireland."

"What?" said Tom.

"Why, him that was with you just now is the Earl of Ormond."

My story is over--

"And James Fitzjames was Scotland's king."

All the potations pottle-deep, the road-side drinking, the champagne, the cognac, the punch of the Feathers, vanished at once from Tom's brain, to make room for the recollection of what he had been saying for the last three hours. Waiting for no further explanation, he threw up the window, (they were sitting on a ground-floor,) and, leaving Mr. Mulvany to finish the bowl as he pleased, proceeded at a hand-canter to Clonmell, not freed from the apparition of Lord Ormond before he had left Kilcash to his north; and nothing could ever again induce him to wander in the direction of Kilkenny, there to run the risk of meeting with his fellow-butler, until his lordship was so safely bestowed in the family vault as to render the chance of collision highly improbable. Such is my _Il Bondocani_. T. C. D.

THE LITTLE BIT OF TAPE. BY RICHARD JOHNS, ESQ.

"Slow and sure" has been the motto of my family from generation to generation, and wonderfully has it prospered by acting on this maxim; the misfortunes of the house of Slowby having apparently been reserved for the only active and enterprising individual ever born unto that name. Reader, I am that unhappy man! Waiters upon Fortune, plentifully have all my progenitors fared from the dainties of the good lady's table; while I, in my anxiety to share in the feast, have generally upset the board, and lost every thing in the scramble.

Sir James Slowby, my worthy father, was a younger son, and his portion had been little more than the blessing of a parent, conveyed in the form of words always used in our family--"Bless thee, my son; be slow and sure, and you will be sure to get on." He did get on; for, was he not one of the feelers of that huge polypus in society, the Slowbys? Ways of making money, which other men had diligently sought in vain, discovered themselves to him; places were conferred on him, and legacies left him, for no one reason that could be discovered, except that he seemed indifferent to such matters, and latterly became so wealthy, that he did not require them. He was slow in marrying; not entering the "holy state" till he was forty. He did not wed a fortune: no! he rather preferred a woman of good expectations; and these were, of course, realised,--the money came "slow and sure." He lived to a good old age; but death, though slow, was sure also; and he at length died, leaving two sons: on one he bestowed all his wealth; the other, my luckless self, he left a beggarly dependent on an elder brother's bounty. The fact of the matter was, I had too much vivacity to please so true a Slowby as my father; while James was a man after his own heart: and, perhaps I had circulated a little too much of the old gentleman's money in what he strangely called my "loose kind of life;" but which I only denominated "living fast." He might have confessed that I was not altogether selfish in my pleasures. I often made my father most magnificent presents; and though, perhaps, he ultimately had to pay the bills, the generosity of the intention was the same.

The following letters were written just before our worthy parent's death, by his two sons. James was at the paternal mansion in ---- Square, I at a little road-side public-house about four and twenty miles from Newmarket. I must premise that I was thus far on my way to London, in answer to my brother's summons; but, at "Ugley" over the post-chaise went--a wheel was broken, and so was my left arm. The post-boys swore it was my fault, because I had not patience to have the wheels properly greased; and I, because it was my misfortune to be obliged to delay my journey till the mischief was repaired--I mean as regards the WEAL of my arm, not the wheel of the chaise,--for, had I been able, I would rather have ridden one of the post-horses to the next stage, than not have pursued my route.

"_---- Square._ MY DEAR BROTHER,--Your father requests that you will take an early opportunity of coming to town, as he is supposed to be on his death-bed. His will only awaits your arrival to receive signature. Should you solemnly promise not to dissipate money as you have heretofore done, he will leave you a gentlemanly competence. Dr. Druget is of opinion that our father may live till Sunday next; so, if you are here at any period before that date, you will be in sufficient time for the above-mentioned purpose. "Your affectionate brother, JAMES SLOWBY."

"DEAR JIM,--_You_ might think it wise to delay my seeing our dear father, but _I_ did not;--so started at once,--double-fee'd the post-boys,--double feed for the horses,--away I bowled, till off came the wheel at Ugley. Here I am, with a broken arm. Tell my father I am cut to the quick that we may never meet again. I'll promise any thing he likes. I now really see the folly of being always in such a devil of a hurry; particularly in spending money, paying bills, and that kind of thing: say that I will now for ever stick by the family motto, 'slow and sure.' "Yours in haste, RICHARD SLOWBY."

"P.S. I send my own servant to ride whip and spur till he puts this in your hands; he will beat the post by an hour and a half, which is of consequence."

This latter epistle never reached its destination,--my poor fellow broke his neck at Epping; and, as the letter was despatched in too great haste to be fully directed, it was opened and returned to me by the coroner in due course of post.

I did not get to town till long after the death of my father. The will signed at last, my absence being unaccounted for, gave my brother the whole property; nor did he seem inclined to part with a shilling. A place in the T----, which the head of our ancient house, Lord Snaile, had bestowed on my father, and still promised to keep in the family, might yet be mine,--I was his lordship's godson, and had a fair chance for it; but the now Sir James Slowby, second of the title, and worthy of the name, would not withdraw his claim as eldest born.

"I won't move in the matter, Richard," said my slow and sure brother; "but if my lord gives me the offer, I will accept it. I am not greedy after riches, Heaven knows; but it would be tempting Providence not to hold what is put into my possession, nor freely take what is freely given. His lordship has requested, by letter, that we both wait upon him in Curzon Street, no doubt about the appointment; he makes mention of wishing to introduce us to the ladies, after 'the despatch of business.' Our cousin Maria used to be lovely as a child, and, though not a fortune, may come in for something considerable, ultimately."

Such was my brother's harangue. Sick of his prosing I left his house, comforting myself that I had, at least, as much chance of the appointment as he had; nor was I altogether without my hopes of supplanting him with Maria, though _he_ might be worthy of wedding her at Marylebone; and I, even with her own special licence, would have to journey on the same errand as far as Gretna.

I dined that day at Norwood with an old schoolfellow. At his house I was to pass the night, and on the morrow, at two o'clock, my fate was to be decided. On this eventful morning I was set down in Camberwell by my friend's phaeton. I had seen the Norwood four-horse coach start for town long before we left home, and had given myself great credit for not allowing it to convey me that I might have from thence been enabled to intrude on Lord Snaile's privacy an hour or two before I was expected. But I recollected I had annoyed his lordship on more than one occasion in a similar manner, and I seriously resolved that I would no longer mar my fortunes by my precipitation. It was now, however, within two hours of the time of appointment; my friend's vehicle was not going any farther, and I might, at least, indulge myself by reaching Oxford Street by the quickest public conveyance. Omnibuses had just been introduced on that road; and the Red Rover, looking like a huge trap for catching passengers, was drawn up at the end of Camberwell Green. "Charing Cross, sir!"--"Oxford Street, sir!"--"Going directly, sir!" was music to my ears, even from the cracked voice of a cad, and in I unfortunately got; and there did I sit for ten minutes, while coaches innumerable, passed me for London. Still I preserved my patience, firm in my good resolves. At length another Westminster omnibus drove up.

"Are you going now; or are you not?" said I, very properly restraining an oath just on the tip of my tongue.

"Going directly, sir--be in town long before him, sir," said the cad, pointing to the other 'bus, for he saw my eye was turned towards it.

At that moment a simple-looking servant-girl with a bandbox came across the Green, and a fight commenced between the _conducteurs_ of the rival vehicles for the unfortunate woman, in which she got not a little pulled about. The Red Rover, however, won the day; and glad enough was I when we started, at a rattling pace. But my pleasure was of short duration.

"Where are you going?" asked an old women opposite me, who knew the road, which I did not.

"Going to take up, ma'am," said the cad. "We shall be back to the Green Man in ten minutes if you've left any thing behind."

"Where is my bandbox?" said the girl.

"I knows nothing about it, not I; I suppose it went by the other 'bus if you arn't a got it. Why did you let it out of your own hands, young 'oman? That 'ere cad is the greatest thief on the road."

The girl began to cry, and declared she should lose her place; and I to swear, for I thought it very likely I should lose mine. But we at length once more passed the Green, and tore along at the rate of ten miles an hour, till we set down passengers at the Elephant and Castle. Reader, do you happen to know a biscuit-shop occupying the corner of the road to Westminster, opposite the aforesaid Elephant and Castle? There it was, the Red Rover drew up, and the cad descended to run after a man and woman, who seemed undetermined whether they would take six-pennyworth or not. My patience was now quite exhausted. A four-horse Westminster coach was just starting across the way, and, determined to get a place in a more expeditious conveyance, I dashed open the door of the omnibus just as the _conducteur's_ "all right" again set the carriage in motion; he, having failed in his canvassing, at the same instant jumped on the step behind the 'bus. The consequences were direful. The cad was transferred to the pavement by a swingeing blow on the temple from the opening panel, while I lost my equilibrium, and made a full-length prostration into mud four inches thick, which formed the bed of the road. I had fallen face downward, and the infuriated official of the 'bus quickly bestrode me, grasping me by the nape of the neck. I gasped for breath. Never shall I forget what I then inhaled. To bite the dust is always disagreeable; but, I can assure you, it is nothing to a mouthful of mud. Rescued at last by the intervention of the police, I was permitted to rise. I had no time to dispute the question of right and wrong; glad enough was I to be allowed to medicate the cad's promissory black eye with a sovereign; for which I was declared by all present, and particularly by the man what rides behind the 'homnibus' "to be a perfect gemman, only a little hasty." Never was a gentleman in a worse pickle. The road had been creamed by the _reign_ of wet weather that marks an English summer. Had I been diving in a mud-cart, or "far into the bowels of the land," through the medium of a ditch in the neighbouring St. George's Fields, I could not have presented a more extraordinary appearance. I might have been rated as a forty-shilling landholder, and rich soil into the bargain. As soon as I could clear my eyes sufficiently to permit of the exercise of vision, I espied an old clothes' shop in the distance; and in this welcome retreat I speedily bestowed myself amid cries of "How are you off for soap?"--"There you go, stick-in-the-mud!"--"Where did you lie last?" and other specimens of suburban wit. Having left the admiring gaze of about two hundred spectators, I obtained a washing-tub and a private room from my newly-formed acquaintance, Isaacs; and, my ablutions being complete, I equipped myself in a full suit of black, which, though the habiliments were rather the worse for wear, fitted me pretty well, and had been, withal, decently made. I was also supplied with shirt and drawers, "goot ash new," and a hat which Isaacs swore was only made the week before, and "cheap ash dirt." I appreciated the simile, but the hat I could scarcely get on my head; time was however wearing away, and I was obliged to have it, as well as a pair of Blucher boots, not a Wellington fitting me in the Jew's whole stock of such articles. I again started. There happened to be a hackney-coach passing just as I emerged from the shop. This was fortunate; for, to hide my low boots, Isaacs had strapped my trousers down so tightly, that, not trusting much to the material, I thought it might be advisable to avoid walking.

I had yet sufficient time before me to keep my appointment, and I was now fairly on my way to Curzon Street; nothing interrupting my meditation for the next half hour but the paying of a turnpike. I had certainly met with many vexatious annoyances during the morning; but I felt pleased with myself for so far conquering my impetuous spirit as to have exhibited, on the whole, but little irritation under my suffering. For this, I thought I deserved to succeed in my present visit to that high-priest of Fortune, a patron. Then I bethought me of Maria, and took a glance at my suit of black. I fancied that I must look very like an undertaker,--I knew not why: I had imagined myself perfectly gentlemanly in appearance when I left my toilet at Norwood, and I had only changed one suit of black for another,--but then these were not made for me. Perhaps some poor fellow had been hanged in them. I got nervous and miserable.

My hat galled my head; I removed it, and held it in my hand. It certainly did not look like a new one. I was ingeniously tormenting myself with calling to memory every disease of the scalp I had ever heard of, when I reached the corner of Curzon Street; and, not wishing to desecrate the portals of the fastidious peer by driving up in a "Jarvey," I got out, and made my approach on foot. I had knocked--there was a delay in opening the door. The porter is out of the way, thought I; and I took an opportunity of looking at my heels, to see if I had walked off with any straws from the coach. I heard the door opening;--I say heard, for I did not look up, my eyes just then resting on a small _piece of tape_ that I had been dragging in the dirt--Oh! luckless appurtenance of the drawers of the Jew!--Yes! the door was opening to admit me to the presence of my noble relation--my patron--who I trusted was waiting with an appointment of 1500_l._ a-year, anxious to bestow it on his godson--the morning that was to witness my introduction to her whom I had already wedded in my imagination--I saw a little piece of tape dangling at my heels! Before the portals of the mansion had quite gaped to receive me, my finger was twisted round this cruel instrument of destiny, in the hope of breaking it. I pulled. Acting like a knife on the trousers, fast strapped to my boots, and too powerful a strain on the drawers, though "goot ash new," both were rent to the waistband;--my coat ripped at the shoulder by the action of my arm;--my hat fell off, and was taken by the wind down the street;--and the servant, to whom, having finished this ingenious operation, I stood fully disclosed, unfortunately saw but the effects, without knowing the cause of my disaster.

The man was too well-bred to remark my appearance, but he had every reason for thinking me either mad or drunk; as, to crown all, my face must have been flushed and distorted from rage and mortification.

"My lord expects you in the library, sir," said the astounded servant.

An abrupt "Tell my lord I'll call again" was my only reply, delivered over my shoulder as I dashed from the door, perfectly unconscious of what I was about, till I found myself in a tavern, the first friendly door that was open to receive me. I here composed my bewildered senses, despatched a messenger for a tailor, and set myself down to concoct a note to Lord Snaile. But how narrate to the most particular, matter-of-fact, and yet fastidious, man in the world the events of that morning? I threw the pen and paper from me in despair. Nothing now remained but to wait patiently, if possible, till I could make my excuses in person.

The tailor came, and in about an hour and a half I was again on my way to his lordship's residence; but alas! ere I reached it, I met my steady young brother, who with much formality thus addressed me.

"Richard Slowby, your conduct this morning is the climax of your excesses. His lordship requests that he may not in future be favoured with your visits in Curzon Street; and I consider it my duty to inform you, that these will be equally disagreeable in ---- Square."

I felt at that moment too proud to ask for, or offer, explanations. I saw by the twinkle of his cold grey eye that _he_ had received the appointment, and of course it would have been against his principles to resign it in my favour; so I merely told him that I should have great pleasure in attending to the wishes of two men I so _equally_ respected as Lord Snaile and Sir James Slowby: and, bidding him a very good morning, I left him to his self-gratulations.

About a twelvemonth afterwards, I elicited from the servant who had opened the door to me, and delivered my unfortunate message to his lordly master, the following particulars.

It appears that on the man entering the library he found the peer and the baronet seated together, the eyes of the former fixed on a time-piece, which told the startling fact that the hour of appointment was past, by five minutes. "Is Mr. Slowby come?" said my lord, turning suddenly towards the servant.

"Yes, my lord; but----"

"Show him in directly, sir. Did I not tell you I expected Mr. Slowby, and ordered him to be admitted?"

"I told the gentleman so, my lord, and that you were waiting for him, and he said he would call again. I am afraid the gentleman is unwell, my lord."

"Unwell!" cried his lordship, "and you allowed him to quit the house?"

"He ran away, my lord;" and here, not knowing how far it would be safe to give the conclusion he had drawn from my extraordinary manner and appearance, the man hesitated.

"Tell me why, this instant, sir," exclaimed his master; "there is some mystery, and I will know it."

"I beg pardon, my lord, but Mr. Slowby seemed much excited--was without his hat, had torn clothes--scarcely decent, my lord. I hope your lordship will excuse me, but the gentleman seemed flushed with after-dinner indulgence in the morning, my lord."

On this well-bred announcement of my being drunk, the peer and his companion exchanged significant looks.

"You may go," said my lord, bowing his head to the servant: but ere my informant got further than the neutral ground between the double doors, he heard my kind brother say, "Just like him;--dined yesterday at Norwood."

"A disgrace to the family!" sorrowfully remarked his lordship. "I had hoped to benefit him, but"--a pause--"the appointment is yours, Sir John. I could not trust it with a man of his character."

It is satisfactory to know the particulars of one's misfortunes, and these were given me at the "Bear" in Piccadilly. After being cut by all, as a graceless vagabond, when it was discovered that I had few meals to say grace over, I am now considered dead to society; but I am, in fact, "living for revenge." To spite the omnibuses, and abuse the cads at my leisure, I drive a short stage out of town; and if any gentleman knows one Dick Hastings, and will "please to remember the coachman," he who will drink to his honour's good health will be the luckless Richard Slowby.

HIPPOTHANASIA; OR, THE LAST OF TAILS. A LAMENTABLE TALE; BY WILLIAM JERDAN.

"London and Brighton _Railway_ (quatuor); Brighton and London _Railway_, without a tunnel; Gateshead, South-Shields, and Monk-Wearmouth _Railway_; London Grand-junction _Railway_; Northern and Eastern _Railway_; Southeastern _Railway_; Great Northern _Railway_; Great Western _Railway_; London and Birmingham _Railway_; London and Greenwich _Railway_; Croydon _Railway_; North-Midland _Railway_; London and Blackwall _Railway_; Commercial-road _Railway_; Wolverhampton and Dudley _Railway_; Liverpool and Manchester _Railway_; Hull and Selby _Railway_; Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Carlisle _Railway_; Kingston-upon-Hull _Railway_; Durham Junction _Railway_; Edinburgh and Glasgow _Railway_; Dublin and Kingstown _Railway_; Dublin and Bantry Bay _Railway_; London and Gravesend _Railway_; Commercial _Railway_; Eastern Counties _Railway_; Llanelly _Railway_; London, Salisbury and Exeter _Railway_; Preston and Wye _Railway_; Bristol and Exeter _Railway_; Gravesend and Dover _Railway_; Gravesend, Rochester, Chatham, and Stroud _Railway_; London and Southampton _Railway_; Gateshead and South Shields _Railway_; Cheltenham and Great Western _Railway_; Lincoln _Railway_; Leicester and Swannington _Railway_; Newcastle and York _Railway_; Birmingham and Derby _Railway_; Bolton and Leigh _Railway_; Canterbury and Whitstable _Railway_; Clarence _Railway_; Cromford and Peak Forest _Railway_; Edinburgh and Dalkeith _Railway_; Dean Forest _Railway_; Hartlepool _Railway_; St. Helens and Runc. Gap _Railway_; Manchester and Oldham _Railway_; Preston and Wigan _Railway_; Stanhope and Tyne _Railway_; Stockton and Darlington _Railway_; Warrington and Newton _Railway_; the Grand Incomparable North-southern, East-western _Railway_, with parallel and radiating Branches," &c. &c. &c.

"It may be observed," (says a newspaper in our hand, quite as correctly informed as newspapers usually are,) "that the railway companies now forming, of which we have a list before us, require a capital of upwards of thirty millions of pounds, divided into nearly five hundred thousand shares."

This was in the year 1836; and the horror it excited in the race of horses, native and foreign, inhabitants of the British empire, is not to be described. A knowledge of the habits and intelligence of this species is only to be obtained from the writings of our matter-of-fact and lamented predecessor, Captain Lemuel Gulliver, whose travels among the Houyhnhnms, rather more than a century ago, may have been heard of by a few of our antiquarian and classical readers. To that work we would refer, to show that Houyhnhnm is "the perfection of nature;" which truth will partly account for the following melancholy narrative. "I admired" (the author writes) "the strength, comeliness, and speed of the inhabitants; and such a constellation of virtues in such amiable persons, produced in me the highest veneration."

Having the view of horse-flesh which this preface opens, though we have not had an opportunity of studying it so purely under our mixed government, breeds, and circumstances, it is unnecessary to explain the panic which arose on the announcement of so universal a system of railways to supersede the noble animal in every beneficial and elegant office, and reduce it to the condition of a useless sinecurist, even if permitted to live on human bounty. The result was that, when the severities of winter fell thick and fast, a convocation was held by moonlight in Smithfield, and adjourned, owing to the multitude, to Horselydown, (so called from King John being tumbled off his nag by that process in that locality,) and, after a most interesting discussion, it was unanimously resolved that every horse in Great Britain should die. Wherefore should they live? Steam-boats had thrown the wayfaring trackers out of hay; steam-ploughs, the agricultural labourers out of oats; steam-carriages, the best of posters out of employment; steam guns, the military out of service; steam-engines, the mechanics out of mills and factories;--in short, their occupations were gone, and they knew not where they could get a bit to their mouths. Wherefore should they live!

The resolution having been communicated throughout the country, and an hour appointed for the catastrophe, though it had nigh broken the hearts of some petted ponies and favourites, it was obeyed with all the stubborn _sted_-fastness of this illustrious creature. Racers and hunters, coach and cart, high-bred and low, drays and galloways, saddle and side ditto, Suffolk punches and dogsmeat, cobs and cabs, hacks and shelties, respectables and rips, old and young, stallions, mares, geldings, colts, foals, and fillies,--all perished at the same time. O'Connell's tail was the only one that remained extant in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; but this our tale hath no reference to that. It may be inquired by the physiologist what were the means of death to which the abhorrence of steam induced the horses to resort; and it is gratifying to be able to satisfy their thirst for knowledge by stating that they died of the _Vapours_.

But we now come to the extraordinary results which must spring from the fatal fact we have just recorded. "_What next?_" as the political pamphleteer sayeth:--ay, _what next_? How will the country go on? _What will the Lords do_--without horses?

The revolution produced by the event was immediately felt in every part of the empire, in every pursuit, in every trade, in every amusement. Within four-and-twenty hours, the isle was frighted from her propriety, and England could no longer be recognised for herself. It is true that the crown remained; but how shorn of its beams! And then the whole _Equestrian_ order had been destroyed at a blow. Talk of swamping the Peers! it was done, and they could dragoon the representatives of the people no more. And in proportion to their fall was the rise of the _Commoners_. Not a donkey-man whose ass fed on these wastes, but found himself in a higher and more powerful position. When horses are out of the field, great is the increase of the value of asses. The brutes, it is true, are still long-eared, obstinate, devoid of speed, rat-tailed, and stupid; but, in the absence of nobler beasts, whatever is, must be first. And so it now happened. The huckster, the gipsy, the higgler, the donkey-driver of Margate, the costermonger, the sandman, every asinine possessor mounted in the scale, as it fell out, with a one or more ass power, and the scum became the top of the boiling-pot of society, who all at once found themselves gentlemen of property and influence. Little had the superior classes dreamed how entirely their dignity and consequence depended on their "cattle;" but now, when a Wellington, a Grey, a Melbourne, an Anglesey, a Jersey, a Cavendish, a Fane, a Somerset, had to trudge on foot through the muddy streets, whilst the Scrogginses, the Smiths, the Gileses, the Toms, Bills, and Charleys honoured them with a nod and a splash as they scampered by, shouting "Go it, Neddy!" it was sadly demonstrated to them, and to the world, that their former personal vanity, pride, and presumption had been built on a false foundation; for it was not themselves, but their fine and noble horses, that had won the observance and submissiveness of their fellow men unmounted.

The instant effects of the hippo-hecatomb in every circle and business of life were as remarkable as they were important. No previous imagination could have suggested a homoeopathic part of the vast change. His Majesty had decided to open parliament, not by proxy, but in person,--that is to say, he was to proceed to the House in royal state, and read his speech as if it were his own, instead of leaving it to five gentlemen in large cloaks, as if it were theirs, and he ashamed to march through Coventry with them; but, alas the day! the cream-coloured steeds were all dead, and the blacks were as pale as the cream. Windsor awoke in affright and dismay. There were the royal carriages, and there the coachmen, and there the grooms, and there the hussars; but where were the horses? Gone! It was a moment for an ebullition of loyalty, and we record it as an everlasting honour to their young patriotic feelings, that the boys at Eton, in this mighty emergency, respectfully offered their services to drag the King to London, providing the head-master sat upon the box as driver, and the ushers clustered behind, in the character of the footmen. A council held on the proposition decided that the task would be too much for the tender years of the Etonians, and especially as drawing had hardly been taught in that classic establishment; so that, instead of being competent to draw a monarch, there was not a boy in the school who could draw anything. At Woolwich it was quite the reverse. In the increasing dilemma,--for his Majesty declined the walk, and the route by the river could not be performed in time,--it was resolved to despatch one of the royal messengers on the swiftest ass which the town could produce, and order a short prorogation till measures could be adopted to meet the awful exigences of the crisis.

In London, meanwhile, the consternation was equally overwhelming, if not more so. Ministers met in cabinet, but, as usual, knew not what to do; and so agreed to lie by, a bit, and see how matters might shape their own course. The First Lord of the Treasury and three secretaries sat down to a rubber of long whist, half-crown points; the Lord President of the Council, First Lord of the Admiralty, President of the Board of Control, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Lord Privy Seal, preferred three-card loo; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Board of Trade had a capital _tête-à-tête_ bout at brag. The other officers of state employed themselves as they could, from the Lord High Chancellor to the store-keepers and under-secretaries. And meanwhile the public mind, that is to say, all the mind inside the hats of the mob about Whitehall and Westminster, was in a tumult of excitement. Two o'clock struck, and no guns were heard: three, and the patereros were dumb. The clock of the Horse Guards--the Horse Guards! a name of departed glory and present woe!--told the hour in vain; till, just as it gave warning for four, a breathless and panting ass was seen galloping into Downing street. It bore the express from Windsor, who by prodigious exertions had accomplished the journey in less than seven hours. The unfinished rubber was broken up, to the heavy mortification of the First Lord, who scored eight, and was looking forward to a call of the honours; the loo-scores were balanced and settled, the First Lord of the Admiralty pocketing the profits, in consequence of taking one for his heels as the donkey turned up; and "I brag" fell no more from Exchequer or Trade. But it was already too late to restore order; and confusion in the midst of deliberation only became worse confounded. Extraneous calamities every instant interfered. No mails had arrived, and very few peeresses. The letters containing friendly assurances from foreign governments were in post-offices, Heaven knew at what distances. Such of the ministers, bachelor as well as married, as were directed by their grey mares, had no opportunity for consulting and receiving their commands, though it must have been in some degree a consolation to feel that they remained amid the wreck of horse-flesh. In short, in politics, as at cards, the game was up. The English constitution was not the constitution of a horse, and it gave way before the frightful revolution; and, to add to the individual horrors of the scene, the Master of the Buckhounds, the Master of the Horse, the Postmaster-General, and the Master of the Rolls (why _he_, could never be conjectured) committed suicide in the course of the ensuing night; and the Lord Chancellor became a confirmed lunatic, under his own care.

It were tedious to trace all the varieties of aspects into which this awful event plunged the nation: a few, briefly described, may suffice to indicate its universal extent and terrible alterations. Routs, ball, at homes, operas, and every fashionable amusement and resort were abrogated. The ladies of the land were bowed to the ground. Visits could not be paid: to dress was unnecessary. There was no crush-room; and milliners, mantua-makers, perfumers, and jewellers were crushed. Seventeen old sedan-chairs were the total that could be discovered in London; and these, with the succedaneum suggested by the witty Countess of ----, viz. mounting such of the porters' hall-chairs as were susceptible of the improvement upon poles, in a similar manner, constituted the whole migrations of the fashionable world. We will not allude to the meetings baulked, and the assignations broken, through this unfortunate state of things; and are only sorry to say it did not add to the sum of domestic felicity.

The Park--dismal was the Park! Exquisites, more helpless than ever, tottered along its almost deserted walks. There was not one who,

----With left heel insidiously aside, Provoked the caper he would seem to chide;

nor was there a pretty woman to smile at him if he had. Could the race have obtained asses, it would have been most unnatural to ride them; and thus they vanished from the vision of society.

Ascot was not particularly unhappy, though the King's cup was a cup of dregs. But Bentinck and Crocky, Richmond and Gully, Exeter and Lamb, Rutland and ----, Jersey and ----, Chesterfield and the rest of the legs, got up an excellent two days' sport. Running in sacks afforded ample opportunities for betting heavily; and wheelbarrow races, with the barrow-drivers blindfolded or partially enlightened, were found quite as good as anything which had been done before, and allowing quite as much scope for the honourable strategies of the turf. An immense number of useless horsecollars were brought to be grinned through; and the books of literature and intelligence surpassed, if anything, those of other times.

At Epsom, the old and general patrons of that course having now the ascendency, indulged in donkey races, at which the poor nobility gazed with speechless regret. The last were truly the first, here.

Among the instances of individual ruin, none was more unentertaining than that of Mr. Ducrow. Reduced to a single zebra, he was obliged to turn wanderer and mendicant; the stripes of Misfortune were vividly impressed upon him. Circuses and amphitheatres ceased; and the dragon was more than a match for the poor horseless St. George. What a symbol of the decline of England, when even her patron saint must yield to a Saurian reptile!

Of all human beings affected by the calamity, deep as were the afflictions of others, perhaps those who evinced the most sensitive and overpowering feelings on the occasion, were the butchers' boys. As a class, they evidently suffered beyond the rest. Betrayed, unsupported, and wretched, they trudged under the heavy burthens of fate, as if the world--as indeed in one sense it was--were out of joint for them. The centaurs of antiquity were destroyed by a demigod; but the modern centaurs had nothing to soothe their pride. They were hurled down, but living and without a hope. Poor lads! every heart bled for them.

There were another set of men, almost equally unfortunate, though they endured it with greater equanimity,--the late royal horseguards, with all their splendid caparisons, their tags and tassels, their sashes and sabres, their spurs and epaulettes, their helms and feathers; the officers, people of the first families in the country, the men, the picked and chosen of the plebeian many. The high _élite_ and the low, reduced alike by unsparing destiny to foot it with the humblest,--it was a grievous blow; and, considering their Uniform conduct, most undeserved. And it was accordingly felt that among the earliest evils for which a remedy should be sought, was the remounting of those so essential to the dignity of the throne and the safety of the realm. True it was, that of the animals they once bestrode not a skin was left; but donkeys were to be procured at excessive prices; and they were obtained for this especial purpose. As yet, the manoeuvres of the Royal Ass Guards are more amusing than seemly; but there is no doubt that with time and discipline they will be, as before, the foremost corps in the service.

It were easy to enlarge upon similar topics to the end of this tome, but they would only serve to illustrate that which, we trust, we have illustrated enough. At Melton it was melancholy to see the gay hunter, unable to risk his limbs and neck, reduced to stalking,--and stalking, too, without a horse. Carts being _hors de combat_, the truck system began to prevail in all quarters, and, bad as it was, what could not be cured must be endured. Londonderry went into mourning on account of having exported seventy asses to Canada by a vessel which sailed about a month before, about the same period that the old bear at the Tower was sent to America, together with the monkey which bit Ensign Seymour's leg. Scotland suffered in the extreme, in spite of its excellent banking business and assets, for there was scarcely an ass in the country, except among some gipsies at Yetholm (vide Guy Mannering); and if, as we are certain it is not, one in a thousand of our readers ever saw a dead jackass anywhere, it will be agreed that not one in a million could ever enjoy that spectacle on the north side of Tweed. But enough: the kingdom was turned upside down,--old gentlemen without their hobbies, young gentlemen without their exhibitions, sportsmen without their sports, schoolboys in the holidays without their ponies, ladies without their rides and knights,[70] coachmen without their hacks, waggoners without their teams, barges without their draughts, the army without cavalry, and a king and aristocracy without equipages,--the revolution is complete.

In picturing this appalling change, it is but proper to notice that the agricultural interests have not been so severely dealt with. The substitution of bullocks was effected without much difficulty in most farms; and in others hand labour was happily introduced, which employed the poor, and, upon the whole, rather ameliorated the condition of the people.

At first, and for a while, it appeared as if dogs, as well as asses, would rise in value; but it was soon discovered that every dog would have only a short day. Like honest creatures as they are, they pulled and tugged at the cruel loads imposed upon them, till gradually their strength departed from them, and they died away. Their supply of food had failed, and the last of the knackers had followed the last of the tails. Pigs were tried, but positively refused to train. They smelt the wind, or what was in it; and, when out of breath, had no idea of getting a new one. A few goats in babies' shays were honoured as well-bearded and respectable-looking substitutes for the departed; and the Principality published several triads on the auspicious circumstance.

But there was a curious coincidence in London, which puzzled the British Association, the Royal Society, and other learned bodies, and which it is probable never can be satisfactorily accounted for. We refer to the sudden and enormous rise in the price of German, Strasburg, and Bologna sausages. Epping, like Epsom, might be involved in the national difficulty; but how distant countries, Germany and Italy, could by possibility be affected, was a mystery which the Geographical, and even the Statistical Society, professed themselves incompetent to determine.

From bad to worse has been the rapid declension of the empire since the fatal day of the fatal catastrophe which is the subject of this pitiable historical record. Competition, too faint for success, having ceased, steam and smoke have everywhere usurped the once blooming soil. From them, we are now a land of clouds,--murky clouds, to which those of Aristophanes are but fanciful and brilliant exhalations. Intersected by railroads, the iron age is restored, and the golden has vanished for ever. The commonweal revolves on the axes of tramwheels and trains; the reins of government are utterly relaxed; and the country, saddled with taxes and burthens, can no longer afford its inhabitants a single morsel. Engineers and speculators are bringing us to a dead level everywhere; and a republic is the inevitable consequence. For our parts, with the stomach of a horse, and loving beyond measure a sound horse-laugh, emigration is our immediate purpose. By Strasburg and Bologna will we wend our way, and endeavour to fathom the sausage-wonder; and thence, if no better may be, we shall sail for the Houyhnhnms' Land, (to the south of Lewin's and Nuyt's Land, and the west of Maelsuyker's Isle), and, at all events, make our finale like Trojans, by trusting to the horse!

[70] _Quære_, rides and ties.

OUR SONG OF THE MONTH. No. IV. April, 1837. APRIL FOOLS.

_Giojosamente! e con espressione burlesca._

[Music: April Fools]

Now mer-ry Mo-mus rules _A-pril fools! A-pril fools!_ And with quirp and quil-let schools _A-pril fools!_ 'Tis the sea-son of the year, When we hold it to be clear That all, more or less, ap-pear _A-pril fools! A-pril fools!_

Now, at every turn, we meet _April fools! April fools!_ In park, in square, and street, _April fools!_ Now "_pigeon's milk_" is sought, "Useful knowledge" cheaply bought, Pleasant lessons, too, are taught _April fools! April fools!_

Now little boys are made _April fools! April fools!_ (By bigger boys betrayed,) _April fools!_ Now boys, the world calls "old," Deceived by damsels bold, Find out they are cajoled _April fools! April fools!_

Now sportive nymphs beguile, _April fools! April fools!_ With gamesome trick and wile, _April fools!_ In vain the charming sex Would their lovers' heart perplex, They may cheat, but cannot vex _April fools! April fools!_

Now Evans and his crew, _April fools! April fools!_ Find fighting will not do, _April fools!_ Now Sarsfield, Espartero, And many a battered hero, Place Spanish funds at zero, _April fools! April fools!_

Now ministers are termed _April fools! April fools!_ And their titles are confirmed, _April fools!_ Now Whigs astute, kicked out, Hear the deep derisive shout Echo wide the land throughout, _April fools! April fools!_

Now costermonger scribes-- _April fools! April fools!_-- Pen their dullest diatribes, _April fools!_ In Bentley's Magazine, Alone, are to be seen Wits, who scourge with satire keen _April fools! April fools!_

Now readers, grave or gay, _April fools! April fools!_ We shall terminate our lay, _April fools!_ And we trust that you perceive, We are laughing in our sleeve, As these idle rhymes we weave, _April fools! April fools!_

OLIVER TWIST; OR, THE PARISH BOY'S PROGRESS. BY BOZ.

ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

OLIVER MINGLES WITH NEW ASSOCIATES, AND, GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR THE FIRST TIME, FORMS AN UNFAVOURABLE NOTION OF HIS MASTER'S BUSINESS.

Oliver, being left to himself in the undertaker's shop, set the lamp down on a workman's bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than Oliver will be at no loss to understand. An unfinished coffin on black tressels, which stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and death-like, that a cold tremble came over him every time his eyes wandered in the direction of the dismal object, from which he almost expected to see some frightful form slowly rear its head to drive him mad with terror. Against the wall were ranged in regular array a long row of elm boards cut into the same shape, and looking in the dim light like high-shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches pockets. Coffin-plates, elm-chips, bright-headed nails, and shreds of black cloth, lay scattered on the floor; and the wall above the counter was ornamented with a lively representation of two mutes in very stiff neckcloths, on duty at a large private door, with a hearse drawn by four black steeds approaching in the distance. The shop was close and hot, and the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. The recess beneath the counter in which his flock-mattress was thrust, looked like a grave.

Nor were these the only dismal feelings which depressed Oliver. He was alone in a strange place; and we all know how chilled and desolate the best of us will sometimes feel in such a situation. The boy had no friends to care for, or to care for him. The regret of no recent separation was fresh in his mind; the absence of no loved and well-remembered face sunk heavily into his heart. But his heart _was_ heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be laid in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep bell to soothe him in his sleep.

Oliver was awakened in the morning by a loud kicking at the outside of the shop-door, which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was repeated in an angry and impetuous manner about twenty-five times; and, when he began to undo the chain, the legs left off their volleys, and a voice began.

"Open the door, will yer?" cried the voice which belonged to the legs which had kicked at the door.

"I will directly, sir," replied Oliver, undoing the chain, and turning the key.

"I suppose yer the new boy, a'nt yer?" said the voice, through the key-hole.

"Yes, sir," replied Oliver.

"How old are yer?" inquired the voice.

"Eleven, sir," replied Oliver.

"Then I'll whop yer when I get in," said the voice; "you just see if I don't, that's all, my work'us brat!" and, having made this obliging promise, the voice began to whistle.

Oliver had been too often subjected to the process to which the very expressive monosyllable just recorded bears reference, to entertain the smallest doubt that the owner of the voice, whoever he might be, would redeem his pledge most honourably. He drew back the bolts with a trembling hand, and opened the door.

For a second or two, Oliver glanced up the street, and down the street, and over the way, impressed with the belief that the unknown, who had addressed him through the key-hole, had walked a few paces off to warm himself, for nobody did Oliver see but a big charity-boy sitting on the post in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter, which he cut into wedges the size of his mouth with a clasp-knife, and then consumed with great dexterity.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Oliver, at length, seeing that no other visitor made his appearance; "did you knock?"

"I kicked," replied the charity-boy.

"Did you want a coffin, sir?" inquired Oliver, innocently.

At this the charity-boy looked monstrous fierce, and said that Oliver would stand in need of one before long, if he cut jokes with his superiors in that way.

"Yer don't know who I am, I suppose, work'us?" said the charity-boy, in continuation; descending from the top of the post, meanwhile, with edifying gravity.

"No, sir," rejoined Oliver.

"I'm Mister Noah Claypole," said the charity-boy, "and you're under me. Take down the shutters, yer idle young ruffian!" With this Mr. Claypole administered a kick to Oliver, and entered the shop with a dignified air, which did him great credit: it is difficult for a large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more especially so, when, superadded to these personal attractions, are a red nose and yellow smalls.

Oliver having taken down the shutters, and broken a pane of glass in his efforts to stagger away beneath the weight of the first one to a small court at the side of the house in which they were kept during the day, was graciously assisted by Noah, who, having consoled him with the assurance that "he'd catch it," condescended to help him. Mr. Sowerberry came down soon after, and, shortly afterwards, Mrs. Sowerberry appeared; and Oliver having "caught it," in fulfilment of Noah's prediction, followed that young gentleman down stairs to breakfast.

"Come near the fire, Noah," said Charlotte. "I saved a nice little piece of bacon for you from master's breakfast. Oliver, shut that door at Mister Noah's back, and take them bits that I've put out on the cover of the bread-pan. There's your tea; take it away to that box, and drink it there, and make haste, for they'll want you to mind the shop. D'ye hear?"

"D'ye hear, work'us?" said Noah Claypole.

"Lor, Noah!" said Charlotte, "what a rum creature you are! Why don't you let the boy alone?"

"Let him alone!" said Noah. "Why everybody lets him alone enough, for the matter of that. Neither his father nor mother will ever interfere with him: all his relations let him have his own way pretty well. Eh, Charlotte? He! he! he!"

"Oh, you queer soul!" said Charlotte, bursting into a hearty laugh, in which she was joined by Noah; after which they both looked scornfully at poor Oliver Twist, as he sat shivering upon the box in the coldest corner of the room, and ate the stale pieces which had been specially reserved for him.

Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No chance-child was he, for he could trace his genealogy back all the way to his parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg and a diurnal pension of twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction. The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public streets with ignominious epithets of "leathers," "charity," and the like; and Noah had borne them without reply. But now that fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. This affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful thing human nature is, and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.

Oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker's some three weeks or a month, and Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry, the shop being shut up, were taking their supper in the little back-parlour, when Mr. Sowerberry, after several deferential glances at his wife, said,

"My dear--" He was going to say more; but, Mrs. Sowerberry looking up with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped short.

"Well!" said Mrs. Sowerberry, sharply.

"Nothing, my dear, nothing," said Mr. Sowerberry.

"Ugh, you brute!" said Mrs. Sowerberry.

"Not at all, my dear," said Mr. Sowerberry, humbly. "I thought you didn't want to hear, my dear. I was only going to say----"

"Oh, don't tell me what you were going to say," interposed Mrs. Sowerberry. "I am nobody; don't consult me, pray. _I_ don't want to intrude upon your secrets." And, as Mrs. Sowerberry said this, she gave an hysterical laugh, which threatened violent consequences.

"But, my dear," said Sowerberry, "I want to ask your advice."

"No, no, don't ask mine," replied Mrs. Sowerberry, in an affecting manner; "ask somebody else's." Here there was another hysterical laugh, which frightened Mr. Sowerberry very much. This is a very common and much-approved matrimonial course of treatment, which is often very effective. It at once reduced Mr. Sowerberry to begging as a special favour to be allowed to say what Mrs. Sowerberry was most curious to hear, and, after a short altercation of less than three quarters of an hour's duration, the permission was most graciously conceded.

"It's only about young Twist, my dear," said Mr. Sowerberry. "A very good-looking boy that, my dear."

"He need be, for he eats enough," observed the lady.

"There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear," resumed Mr. Sowerberry, "which is very interesting. He would make a delightful mute, my dear."

Mrs. Sowerberry looked up with an expression of considerable wonderment. Mr. Sowerberry remarked it, and, without allowing time for any observation on the good lady's part, proceeded,

"I don't mean a regular mute to attend grown-up people, my dear, but only for children's practice. It would be very new to have a mute in proportion, my dear. You may depend upon it that it would have a superb effect."

Mrs. Sowerberry, who had a good deal of taste in the undertaking way, was much struck by the novelty of the idea; but, as it would have been compromising her dignity to have said so under existing circumstances, she merely inquired with much sharpness why such an obvious suggestion had not presented itself to her husband's mind before. Mr. Sowerberry rightly construed this as an acquiescence in his proposition: it was speedily determined that Oliver should be at once initiated into the mysteries of the profession, and, with this view, that he should accompany his master on the very next occasion of his services being required.

The occasion was not long in coming; for, half an hour after breakfast next morning, Mr. Bumble entered the shop, and supporting his cane against the counter, drew forth his large leathern pocket-book, from which he selected a small scrap of paper which he handed over to Sowerberry.

"Aha!" said the undertaker, glancing over it with a lively countenance; "an order for a coffin, eh?"

"For a coffin first, and a porochial funeral afterwards," replied Mr. Bumble, fastening the strap of the leathern pocket-book, which, like himself, was very corpulent.

"Bayton," said the undertaker, looking from the scrap of paper to Mr. Bumble; "I never heard the name before."

Bumble shook his head as he replied, "Obstinate people, Mr. Sowerberry, very obstinate; proud, too, I'm afraid, sir."

"Proud, eh?" exclaimed Mr. Sowerberry with a sneer.--"Come, that's too much."

"Oh, it's sickening," replied the beadle; "perfectly antimonial, Mr. Sowerberry."

"So it is," acquiesced the undertaker.

"We only heard of them the night before last," said the beadle; "and we shouldn't have known anything about them then, only a woman who lodges in the same house made an application to the porochial committee for them to send the porochial surgeon to see a woman as was very bad. He had gone out to dinner; but his 'prentice, which is a very clever lad, sent 'em some medicine in a blacking-bottle, off-hand."

"Ah, there's promptness," said the undertaker.

"Promptness, indeed!" replied the beadle. "But what's the consequence; what's the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir? Why, the husband sends back word that the medicine won't suit his wife's complaint, and so she shan't take it--says she shan't take it, sir. Good, strong, wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish labourers and a coalheaver only a week before--sent 'em for nothing, with a blacking-bottle in,--and he sends back word that she shan't take it, sir."

As the flagrant atrocity presented itself to Mr. Bumble's mind in full force, he struck the counter sharply with his cane, and became flushed with indignation.

"Well," said the undertaker, "I ne--ver--did----"

"Never did, sir!" ejaculated the beadle,--"no, nor nobody never did; but, now she's dead, we've got to bury her, and that's the direction, and the sooner it's done, the better."

Thus saying, Mr. Bumble put on his cocked-hat wrong side first, in a fever of parochial excitement, and flounced out of the shop.

"Why, he was so angry, Oliver, that he forgot even to ask after you," said Mr. Sowerberry, looking after the beadle as he strode down the street.

"Yes, sir," replied Oliver, who had carefully kept himself out of sight during the interview, and who was shaking from head to foot at the mere recollection of the sound of Mr. Bumble's voice. He needn't have taken the trouble to shrink from Mr. Bumble's glance, however; for that functionary on whom the prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat had made a very strong impression, thought that now the undertaker had got Oliver upon trial, the subject was better avoided, until such time as he should be firmly bound for seven years, and all danger of his being returned upon the hands of the parish should be thus effectually and legally overcome.

"Well," said Mr. Sowerberry, taking up his hat, "the sooner this job is done, the better. Noah, look after the shop. Oliver, put on your cap, and come with me." Oliver obeyed; and followed his master on his professional mission.

They walked on for some time through the most crowded and densely inhabited part of the town, and then striking down a narrow street more dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused to look for the house which was the object of their search. The houses on either side were high and large, but very old; and tenanted by people of the poorest class, as their neglected appearance would have sufficiently denoted without the concurrent testimony afforded by the squalid looks of the few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies half doubled, occasionally skulked like shadows along. A great many of the tenements had shop-fronts; but they were fast closed, and mouldering away: only the upper rooms being inhabited. Others, which had become insecure from age and decay, were prevented from falling into the street by huge beams of wood which were reared against the tottering walls, and firmly planted in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have been selected as the nightly haunts of some houseless wretches, for many of the rough boards which supplied the place of door and window, were wrenched from their positions to afford an aperture wide enough for the passage of a human body. The kennel was stagnant and filthy; the very rats that here and there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous with famine.

There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where Oliver and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the dark passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him and not be afraid, the undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs, and, stumbling against a door on the landing, rapped at it with his knuckles.

It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourteen. The undertaker at once saw enough of what the room contained, to know it was the apartment to which he had been directed. He stepped in, and Oliver followed him.

There was no fire in the room; but a man was crouching mechanically over the empty stove. An old woman, too, had drawn a low stool to the cold hearth, and was sitting beside him. There were some ragged children in another corner; and in a small recess opposite the door there lay upon the ground something covered with an old blanket. Oliver shuddered as he cast his eyes towards the place, and crept involuntarily closer to his master; for, though it was covered up, the boy _felt_ that it was a corpse.

The man's face was thin and very pale; his hair and beard were grizzly, and his eyes were blood-shot. The old woman's face was wrinkled, her two remaining teeth protruded over her under lip, and her eyes were bright and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man,--they seemed so like the rats he had seen outside.

"Nobody shall go near her," said the man, starting fiercely up, as the undertaker approached the recess. "Keep back! d--n you, keep back, if you've a life to lose."

"Nonsense! my good man," said the undertaker, who was pretty well used to misery in all its shapes,--"nonsense!"

"I tell you," said the man, clenching his hands, and stamping furiously on the floor,--"I tell you I won't have her put into the ground. She couldn't rest there. The worms would worry--not eat her,--she is so worn away."

The undertaker offered no reply to this raving, but producing a tape from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body.

"Ah!" said the man, bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at the feet of the dead woman; "kneel down, kneel down--kneel round her every one of you, and mark my words. I say she starved to death. I never knew how bad she was, till the fever came upon her, and then her bones were starting through the skin. There was neither fire nor candle; she died in the dark--in the dark. She couldn't even see her children's faces, though we heard her gasping out their names. I begged for her in the streets, and they sent me to prison. When I came back, she was dying; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they starved her to death. I swear it before the God that saw it,--they starved her!"--He twined his hands in his hair, and with a loud scream rolled grovelling upon the floor, his eyes fixed, and the foam gushing from his lips.

The terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that passed, menaced them into silence; and having unloosened the man's cravat, who still remained extended on the ground, tottered towards the undertaker.

"She was my daughter," said the old woman, nodding her head in the direction of the corpse, and speaking with an idiotic leer, more ghastly than even the presence of death itself.--"Lord, Lord!--well, it is strange that I who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should be alive and merry now, and she lying there, so cold and stiff! Lord, Lord!--to think of it;--it's as good as a play--as good as a play!"

As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment, the undertaker turned to go away.

"Stop, stop!" said the old woman in a loud whisper. "Will she be buried to-morrow--or next day--or to-night? I laid her out, and I must walk, you know. Send me a large cloak--a good warm one, for it is bitter cold. We should have cake and wine, too, before we go! Never mind: send some bread--only a loaf of bread and a cup of water. Shall we have some bread, dear?" she said eagerly, catching at the undertaker's coat, as he once more moved towards the door.

"Yes, yes," said the undertaker, "of course; anything, everything." He disengaged himself from the old woman's grasp, and, dragging Oliver after him, hurried away.

The next day, (the family having been meanwhile relieved with a half-quartern loaf and a piece of cheese, left with them by Mr. Bumble himself,) Oliver and his master returned to the miserable abode, where Mr. Bumble had already arrived, accompanied by four men from the workhouse, who were to act as bearers. An old black cloak had been thrown over the rags of the old woman and the man; the bare coffin having been screwed down, was then hoisted on the shoulders of the bearers, and carried down stairs into the street.

"Now, you must put your best leg foremost, old lady," whispered Sowerberry in the old woman's ear; "we are rather late, and it won't do to keep the clergyman waiting. Move on, my men,--as quick as you like."

Thus directed, the bearers trotted on, under their light burden, and the two mourners kept as near them as they could. Mr. Bumble and Sowerberry walked at a good smart pace in front; and Oliver, whose legs were not as long as his master's, ran by the side.

There was not so great a necessity for hurrying as Mr. Sowerberry had anticipated, however; for when they reached the obscure corner of the churchyard in which the nettles grew, and the parish graves were made, the clergyman had not arrived, and the clerk, who was sitting by the vestry-room fire, seemed to think it by no means improbable that it might be an hour or so before he came. So they set the bier down on the brink of the grave; and the two mourners waited patiently in the damp clay with a cold rain drizzling down, while the ragged boys, whom the spectacle had attracted into the churchyard, played a noisy game at hide-and-seek among the tombstones, or varied their amusements jumping backwards and forwards over the coffin. Mr. Sowerberry and Bumble, being personal friends of the clerk, sat by the fire with him, and read the paper.

At length, after the lapse of something more than an hour, Mr. Bumble, and Sowerberry, and the clerk, were seen running towards the grave; and immediately afterwards the clergyman appeared, putting on his surplice as he came along. Mr Bumble then threshed a boy or two, to keep up appearances; and the reverend gentleman, having read as much of the burial service as could be compressed into four minutes, gave his surplice to the clerk, and ran away again.

"Now, Bill," said Sowerberry to the grave-digger, "fill up."

It was no very difficult task, for the grave was so full that the uppermost coffin was within a few feet of the surface. The grave-digger shovelled in the earth, stamped it loosely down with his feet, shouldered his spade, and walked off, followed by the boys, who murmured very loud complaints at the fun being over so soon.

"Come, my good fellow," said Bumble, tapping the man on the back, "they want to shut up the yard."

The man, who had never once moved since he had taken his station by the grave side, started, raised his head, stared at the person who had addressed him, walked forward for a few paces, and then fell down in a fit. The crazy old woman was too much occupied in bewailing the loss of her cloak (which the undertaker had taken off) to pay him any attention; so they threw a can of cold water over him, and when he came to, saw him safely out of the churchyard, locked the gate, and departed on their different ways.

"Well, Oliver," said Sowerberry, as they walked home, "how do you like it?"

"Pretty well, thank you, sir," replied Oliver, with considerable hesitation. "Not very much, sir."

"Ah, you'll get used to it in time, Oliver," said Sowerberry. "Nothing when you _are_ used to it, my boy."

Oliver wondered in his own mind whether it had taken a very long time to get Mr. Sowerberry used to it; but he thought it better not to ask the question, and walked back to the shop, thinking over all he had seen and heard.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

OLIVER, BEING GOADED BY THE TAUNTS OF NOAH, ROUSES INTO ACTION, AND RATHER ASTONISHES HIM.

It was a nice sickly season just at this time. In commercial phrase, coffins were looking up; and, in the course of a few weeks, Oliver had acquired a great deal of experience. The success of Mr. Sowerberry's ingenious speculation exceeded even his most sanguine hopes. The oldest inhabitants recollected no period at which measles had been so prevalent, or so fatal to infant existence; and many were the mournful processions which little Oliver headed in a hat-band reaching down to his knees, to the indescribable admiration and emotion of all the mothers in the town. As Oliver accompanied his master in most of his adult expeditions too, in order that he might acquire that equanimity of demeanour and full command of nerve which are so essential to a finished undertaker, he had many opportunities of observing the beautiful resignation and fortitude with which some strong-minded people bear their trial and losses.

For instance, when Sowerberry had an order for the burial of some rich old lady or gentleman, who was surrounded by a great number of nephews and nieces, who had been perfectly inconsolable during the previous illness, and whose grief had been wholly irrepressible even on the most public occasions, they would be as happy among themselves as need be--quite cheerful and contented, conversing together with as much freedom and gaiety as if nothing whatever had happened to disturb them. Husbands, too, bore the loss of their wives with the most heroic calmness; and wives, again, put on weeds for their husbands, as if, so far from grieving in the garb of sorrow, they had made up their minds to render it as becoming and attractive as possible. It was observable, too, that ladies and gentlemen who were in passions of anguish during the ceremony of interment, recovered almost as soon as they reached home, and became quite composed before the tea-drinking was over. All this was very pleasant and improving to see; and Oliver beheld it with great admiration.

That Oliver Twist was moved to resignation by the example of these good people, I cannot, although I am his biographer, undertake to affirm with any degree of confidence; but I can most distinctly say, that for some weeks he continued meekly to submit to the domination and ill-treatment of Noah Claypole, who used him far worse than ever, now that his jealousy was roused by seeing the new boy promoted to the black stick and hat-band, while he, the old one, remained stationary in the muffin-cap and leathers. Charlotte treated him badly because Noah did; and Mrs. Sowerberry was his decided enemy because Mr. Sowerberry was disposed to be his friend: so, between these three on one side, and a glut of funerals on the other, Oliver was not altogether as comfortable as the hungry pig was, when he was shut up by mistake in the grain department of a brewery.

And now I come to a very important passage in Oliver's history, for I have to record an act, slight and unimportant perhaps in appearance, but which indirectly produced a most material change in all his future prospects and proceedings.

One day Oliver and Noah had descended into the kitchen, at the usual dinner-hour, to banquet upon a small joint of mutton--a pound and a half of the worst end of the neck; when, Charlotte being called out of the way, there ensued a brief interval of time, which Noah Claypole, being hungry and vicious, considered he could not possibly devote to a worthier purpose than aggravating and tantalising young Oliver Twist.

Intent upon this innocent amusement, Noah put his feet on the table-cloth, and pulled Oliver's hair, and twitched his ears, and expressed his opinion that he was a "sneak," and furthermore announced his intention of coming to see him hung whenever that desirable event should take place, and entered upon various other topics of petty annoyance, like a malicious and ill-conditioned charity-boy as he was. But, none of these taunts producing the desired effect of making Oliver cry, Noah attempted to be more facetious still, and in this attempt did what many small wits, with far greater reputations than Noah notwithstanding, do to this day when they want to be funny;--he got rather personal.

"Work'us," said Noah, "how's your mother?"

"She's dead," replied Oliver; "don't you say anything about her to me!"

Oliver's colour rose as he said this; he breathed quickly, and there was a curious working of the mouth and nostrils, which Mr. Claypole thought must be the immediate precursor of a violent fit of crying. Under this impression he returned to the charge.

"What did she die of, work'us?" said Noah.

"Of a broken heart, some of our old nurses told me," replied Oliver, more as if he were talking to himself than answering Noah. "I think I know what it must be to die of that!"

"Tol de rol lol lol, right fol lairy, work'us," said Noah, as a tear rolled down Oliver's cheek. "What's set you a snivelling now?"

"Not _you_," replied Oliver, hastily brushing the tear away. "Don't think it."

"Oh, not me, eh?" sneered Noah.

"No, not you," replied Oliver, sharply. "There; that's enough. Don't say anything more to me about her; you'd better not!"

"Better not!" exclaimed Noah. "Well! better not! work'us; don't be impudent. _Your_ mother, too! She was a nice 'un, she was. Oh, Lor!" And here Noah nodded his head expressively, and curled up as much of his small red nose as muscular action could collect together for the occasion.

"Yer know, work'us," continued Noah, emboldened by Oliver's silence, and speaking in a jeering tone of affected pity--of all tones the most annoying--"Yer know, work'us, it carn't be helped now, and of course yer couldn't help it then, and I'm very sorry for it, and I'm sure we all are, and pity yer very much. But yer must know, work'us, your mother was a regular right-down bad 'un."

"What did you say?" inquired Oliver, looking up very quickly.

"A regular right-down bad 'un, work'us," replied Noah, coolly; "and it's a great deal better, work'us, that she died when she did, or else she'd have been hard labouring in Bridewell, or transported, or hung, which is more likely than either, isn't it?"

Crimson with fury, Oliver started up, overthrew chair and table, seized Noah by the throat, shook him in the violence of his rage till his teeth chattered in his head, and, collecting his whole force into one heavy blow, felled him to the ground.

A minute ago the boy had looked the quiet, mild, dejected creature that harsh treatment had made him. But his spirit was roused at last; the cruel insult to his dead mother had set his blood on fire. His breast heaved, his attitude was erect, his eye bright and vivid, and his whole person changed, as he stood glaring over the cowardly tormentor that lay crouching at his feet, and defied him with an energy he had never known before.

"He'll murder me!" blubbered Noah. "Charlotte! missis! here's the new boy a-murdering me! Help! help! Oliver's gone mad! Char--lotte!"

Noah's shouts were responded to, by a loud scream from Charlotte, and a louder from Mrs. Sowerberry; the former of whom rushed into the kitchen by a side-door, while the latter paused on the staircase till she was quite certain that it was consistent with the preservation of human life to come further down.

"Oh, you little wretch!" screamed Charlotte, seizing Oliver with her utmost force, which was about equal to that of a moderately strong man in particularly good training,--"Oh, you little un-grate-ful, mur-de-rous, hor-rid villain!" and between every syllable Charlotte gave Oliver a blow with all her might, and accompanied it with a scream for the benefit of society.

Charlotte's fist was by no means a light one; but, lest it should not be effectual in calming Oliver's wrath, Mrs. Sowerberry plunged into the kitchen, and assisted to hold him with one hand, while she scratched his face with the other; and in this favourable position of affairs Noah rose from the ground, and pummeled him from behind.

This was rather too violent exercise to last long; so, when they were all three wearied out, and could tear and beat no longer, they dragged Oliver, struggling and shouting, but nothing daunted, into the dust-cellar, and there locked him up; and this being done, Mrs. Sowerberry sunk into a chair, and burst into tears.

"Bless her, she's going off!" said Charlotte. "A glass of water, Noah, dear. Make haste."

"Oh, Charlotte," said Mrs. Sowerberry, speaking as well as she could through a deficiency of breath and a sufficiency of cold water, which Noah had poured over her head and shoulders,--"Oh, Charlotte, what a mercy we have not been all murdered in our beds!"

"Ah, mercy, indeed, ma'am," was the reply. "I only hope this'll teach master not to have any more of these dreadful creatures that are born to be murderers and robbers from their very cradle. Poor Noah! he was all but killed, ma'am, when I came in."

"Ah, poor fellow!" said Mrs. Sowerberry, looking piteously on the charity-boy.

Noah, whose top waistcoat-button might have been somewhere on a level with the crown of Oliver's head, rubbed his eyes with the inside of his wrists while this commiseration was bestowed upon him, and performed some very audible tears and sniffs.

"What's to be done!" exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry. "Your master's not at home--there's not a man in the house,--and he'll kick that door down in ten minutes." Oliver's vigorous plunges against the bit of timber in question rendered this occurrence highly probable.

"Dear, dear! I don't know, ma'am," said Charlotte, "unless we send for the police-officers."

"Or the millingtary," suggested Mr. Claypole.

"No, no," said Mrs. Sowerberry, bethinking herself of Oliver's old friend; "run to Mr. Bumble, Noah, and tell him to come here directly, and not to lose a minute; never mind your cap,--make haste. You can hold a knife to that black eye as you run along, and it'll keep the swelling down."

Noah stopped to make no reply, but started off at his fullest speed; and very much it astonished the people who were out walking, to see a charity-boy tearing through the streets pell-mell, with no cap on his head, and a clasp-knife at his eye.

A CONTRADICTION.

Bent upon extra thousands netting, Graspall's the oddest mortal living! His only object seems _for-getting_-- How strange he should not be _for-giving_! H. II.

THE GRAND CHAM OF TARTARY, AND THE HUMBLE-BEE.

_Abridged from the voluminous Epic Poem by Beg-beg (formerly a mendicant ballad-singer, afterwards Principal Lord Rector of the University of Samarcand, and subsequently Historiographer and Poet Laureate to the Court of Balk,) by C. J. Davids, Esq._

I. The great Tartar chief, on a festival day, Gave a spread to his court, and resolv'd to be gay; But, just in the midst of their music and glee, The mirth was upset by a humble-bee-- A humble-bee-- They were bored by a rascally _humble-bee_!

II. This riotous bee was so wanting in sense As to fly at the Cham with malice prepense: Said his highness, "My fate will be _felo-de-se_, If I'm thus to be teas'd by a humble-bee-- A humble-bee-- How _shall_ I get rid of the humble-bee!"

III. The troops in attendance, with sabre and spear, Were order'd to harass the enemy's rear: But the brave body-guards were forced to flee-- They were all so afraid of the humble-bee-- The humble-bee-- The soldiers were scar'd by the humble-bee.

IV. The solicitor-general thought there was reason For indicting the scamp on a charge of high-treason; While the chancellor _doubted_ if any decree From the woolsack would frighten the humble-bee-- The humble-bee-- So the lawyers fought shy of the humble-bee.

V. The Cham from his throne in an agony rose, While the insect was buzzing right under his nose:-- "Was ever a potentate plagued like me, Or worried to death by a humble-bee! A humble-bee-- Don't let me be stung by the humble-bee!"

VI. He said to a page, nearly choking with grief, "Bring hither my valiant commander-in-chief; And say that I'll give him a liberal fee, To cut the throat of this humble-bee-- This humble-bee-- This turbulent, Jacobin, humble-bee!"

VII. His generalissimo came at the summons, And, cursing the courtiers for cowardly _rum-uns_, "My liege," said he, "it's all fiddle-de-dee To make such a fuss for a humble-bee-- A humble-bee-- I don't care a d--n for the humble-bee!"

VIII. The veteran rush'd sword in hand on the foe, And cut him in two with a desperate blow. His master exclaim'd, "I'm delighted to see How neatly you've settled the humble-bee!" The humble-bee-- So there was an end of the humble-bee.

IX. By the doctor's advice (which was prudent and right) His highness retired very early that night: For they got him to bed soon after his tea, And he dream'd all night of the humble-bee-- The humble-bee-- He saw the grim ghost of the humble-bee.

MORAL. Seditious disturbers, mind well what you're _arter_-- Lest, humming a prince, you by chance catch a _Tartar_. Consider, when planning an impudent spree, You may get the same luck as the humble-bee-- The humble-bee-- Remember the doom of the humble-bee!

THE DUMB WAITER.

I can not really understand, (Said Henry to his aunt,) Why a dumb waiter this is called,-- Upon my word, I can't; For I have heard you often say It _answers_ very well. Why, then, the waiter is called _dumb_, I cannot think, or tell.

Between you, boy, this difference know,-- For once attention lending,-- While without _speaking_ this _attends_, You _speak_ without _attending_.

FAMILY STORIES.--No. III.

GREY DOLPHIN. BY THOMAS INGOLDSBY, ESQ.

"He won't--won't he? Then bring me my boots!" said the Baron.

Consternation was at its height in the castle of Shurland--a caitiff had dared to disobey the Baron! and--the Baron had called for his boots!

A thunderbolt in the great hall had been a _bagatelle_ to it.

A few days before, a notable miracle had been wrought in the neighbourhood; and in those times miracles were not so common as they are now:--no Royal Balloons, no steam, no railroads,--while the few Saints who took the trouble to walk with their heads under their arms, or pull the Devil by the nose, scarcely appeared above once in a century:--so it made the greater sensation.

The clock had done striking twelve, and the Clerk of Chatham was untrussing his points preparatory to seeking his truckle-bed: a half-emptied tankard of mild ale stood at his elbow, the roasted crab yet floating on its surface. Midnight had surprised the worthy functionary while occupied in discussing it, and with the task yet unaccomplished. He meditated a mighty draught: one hand was fumbling with his tags, while the other was extended in the act of grasping the jorum, when a knock on the portal, solemn and sonorous, arrested his fingers. It was repeated thrice ere Emanuel Saddleton had presence of mind sufficient to inquire who sought admittance at that untimeous hour.

"Open! open! good Clerk of St. Bridget's," said a female voice, small, yet distinct and sweet,--"an excellent thing in woman."

The clerk arose, crossed to the doorway, and undid the latchet.

On the threshold stood a lady of surpassing beauty: her robes were rich, and large, and full; and a diadem, sparkling with gems that shed a halo around, crowned her brow: she beckoned the clerk as he stood in astonishment before her.

"Emanuel!" said the lady; and her tones sounded like those of a silver flute. "Emanuel Saddleton, truss up your points, and follow me!"

The worthy clerk stared aghast at the vision; the purple robe, the cymar, the coronet,--above all, the smile;--no, there was no mistaking her; it was the blessed St. Bridget herself!

And what could have brought the sainted lady out of her warm shrine at such a time of night? and on such a night? for it was as dark as pitch, and, metaphorically speaking, "rained cats and dogs."

Emanuel could not speak, so he looked the question.

"No matter for that," said the Saint, answering to his thought. "No matter for that, Emanuel Saddleton; only follow me, and you'll see."

The clerk turned a wistful eye at the corner-cupboard.

"Oh, never mind the lantern, Emanuel; you'll not want it: but you may bring a mattock and shovel." As she spoke, the beautiful apparition held up her delicate hand. From the tip of each of her long taper fingers issued a lambent flame of such surpassing brilliancy as would have plunged a whole gas company into despair--it was a "Hand of Glory," such a one as tradition tells us yet burns in Rochester Castle every St. Mark's Eve. Many are the daring individuals who have watched in Gundulph's Tower, hoping to find it, and the treasure it guards;--but none of them ever did.

"This way, Emanuel!" and a flame of peculiar radiance streamed from her little finger as it pointed to the pathway leading to the churchyard.

Saddleton shouldered his tools, and followed in silence.

The cemetery of St. Bridget's was some half-mile distant from the clerk's domicile, and adjoined a chapel dedicated to that illustrious lady, who, after leading but a so-so life, had died in the odour of sanctity. Emanuel Saddleton was fat and scant of breath, the mattock was heavy, and the saint walked too fast for him: he paused to take second wind at the end of the first furlong.

"Emanuel," said the holy lady good-humouredly, for she heard him puffing; "rest a while, Emanuel, and I'll tell you what I want with you."

Her auditor wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and looked all attention and obedience.

"Emanuel," continued she, "what did you and Father Fothergill, and the rest of you, mean yesterday by burying that drowned man so close to me? He died in mortal sin, Emanuel; no shrift, no unction, no absolution: why, he might as well have been excommunicated. He plagues me with his grinning, and I can't have any peace in my shrine. You must howk him up again, Emanuel!"

"To be sure, madam,--my lady,--that is, your holiness," stammered Saddleton, trembling at the thought of the task assigned him. "To he sure, your ladyship; only--that is--"

"Emanuel," said the Saint, "you'll do my bidding; or it would be better you had!" and her eye changed from a dove's eye to that of a hawk, and a flash came from it as bright as the one from her little finger. The Clerk shook in his shoes, and, again dashing the cold perspiration from his brow, followed the footsteps of his mysterious guide.

* * * * *

The next morning all Chatham was in an uproar. The Clerk of St. Bridget's had found himself at home at daybreak, seated in his own arm-chair, the fire out, and--the tankard of ale quite exhausted. Who had drunk it? Where had he been? How had he got home?--all was a mystery: he remembered "a mass of things, but nothing distinctly;" all was fog and fantasy. What he could clearly recollect was, that he had dug up the grinning sailor, and that the Saint had helped to throw him into the river again. All was thenceforth wonderment and devotion. Masses were sung, tapers were kindled, bells were tolled; the monks of St. Romuald had a solemn procession, the abbot at their head, the sacristan at their tail, and the holy breeches of St. Thomas-à-Becket in the centre; Father Fothergill brewed a XXX puncheon of holy-water. The Rood of Gillingham was deserted; the chapel of Rainham forsaken; every one who had a soul to be saved flocked with his offering to St. Bridget's shrine, and Emanuel Saddleton gathered more fees from the promiscuous piety of that one week than he had pocketed during the twelve preceding months.

Meanwhile the corpse of the ejected reprobate oscillated like a pendulum between Sheerness and Gillingham Reach. Now borne by the Medway into the Western Swale, now carried by the refluent tide back to the vicinity of its old quarters, it seemed as though the River god and Neptune were amusing themselves with a game of subaqueous battledore, and had chosen this unfortunate carcass as a marine shuttlecock. For some time the alternation was kept up with great spirit, till Boreas, interfering in the shape of a stiffish "Nor'-wester," drifted the bone (and flesh) of contention ashore on the Shurland domain, where it lay in all the majesty of mud. It was soon discovered by the retainers, and dragged from its oozy bed, grinning worse than ever. Tidings of the god-send were of course carried instantly to the castle, for the Baron was a very great man; and if a dun crow had flown across his property unannounced by the warder, the Baron would have kicked him, the said warder, from the topmost battlement into the bottommost ditch,--a descent of peril, and one which "Ludwig the leaper," or the illustrious Trenk himself, might well have shrunk from encountering.

"An't please your lordship--" said Peter Periwinkle.

"No, villain! it does not please me!" roared the Baron.

His lordship was deeply engaged with a peck of Feversham oysters,--he doted on shellfish, hated interruption at meals, and had not yet despatched more than twenty dozen of the "natives."

"There's a body, my lord, washed ashore in the lower creek," said the seneschal.

The Baron was going to throw the shells at his head; but paused in the act, and said with much dignity,

"Turn out the fellow's pockets!"

But the defunct had before been subjected to the double scrutiny of Father Fothergill and the Clerk of St. Bridget's. It was ill gleaning after such hands; there was not a single marvedi.

We have already said that Sir Ralph de Shurland, Lord of the Isle of Sheppey, and of many a fair manor on the main-land, was a man of worship. He had rights of freewarren, saccage and sockage, cuisage and jambage, fosse and fork, infang theofe and outfang theofe; and all waifs and strays belonged to him in fee simple.

"Turn out his pockets!" said the Knight.

"Please you, my lord, I must say as how they was turned out afore, and the devil a rap's left."

"Then bury the blackguard!"

"Please your lordship, he has been buried once."

"Then bury him again, and be----!" The Baron bestowed a benediction.

The seneschal bowed low as he left the room, and the Baron went on with his oysters.

Scarce ten dozen more had vanished when Periwinkle reappeared.

"An't please you, my lord, Father Fothergill says as how that it's the Grinning Sailor, and he won't bury him anyhow."

"Oh! he won't--won't he?" said the Baron. Can it be wondered at that he called for his boots?

Sir Ralph de Shurland, Lord of Shurland and Minster, Baron of Sheppey _in comitatu_ Kent, was, as has been before hinted, a very great man. He was also a very little man; that is, he was relatively great and relatively little,--or physically little and metaphorically great,--like Sir Sidney Smith and the late Mr. Bonaparte. To the frame of a dwarf he united the soul of a giant and the valour of a gamecock. Then, for so small a man, his strength was prodigious; his fist would fell an ox, and his kick--oh! his kick was tremendous, and, when he had his boots on, would,--to use an expression of his own, which he had picked up in the holy wars,--would send a man from Jericho to June. He was bull-necked and bandy-legged; his chest was broad and deep, his head large, and uncommonly thick, his eyes a little blood-shot, and his nose _retrousé_ with a remarkably red tip. Strictly speaking, the Baron could not be called handsome; but his _tout ensemble_ was singularly impressive: and when he called for his boots, everybody trembled, and dreaded the worst.

"Periwinkle," said the Baron, as he encased his better leg, "let the grave be twenty feet deep!"

"Your lordship's command is law."

"And, Periwinkle,"--Sir Ralph stamped his left heel into its receptacle,--"and, Periwinkle, see that it be wide enough to hold not exceeding two!"

"Ye--ye--yes, my lord."

"And, Periwinkle,--tell Father Fothergill I would fain speak with his reverence."

"Ye--ye--yes, my lord."

The Baron's beard was picked, and his moustaches, stiff and stumpy, projected horizontally like those of a Tom-cat; he twirled the one, stroked the other, drew the buckle of his surcingle a thought tighter, and strode down the great staircase three steps at a stride.

The vassals were assembled in the great hall of Shurland Castle; every cheek was pale, every tongue was mute, expectation and perplexity were visible on every brow. What would his lordship do? Were the recusant anybody else, gyves to the heels and hemp to the throat were but too good for him: but it was Father Fothergill who had said "I won't;" and, though the Baron was a very great man, the Pope was a greater, and the Pope was Father Fothergill's great friend--some people said he was his uncle.

Father Fothergill was busy in the refectory trying conclusions with a venison pasty, when he received the summons of his patron to attend him in the chapel cemetery. Of course he lost no time in obeying it, for obedience was the general rule in Shurland Castle. If anybody ever said "I won't," it was the exception; and, like all other exceptions, only proved the rule the stronger. The Father was a friar of the Augustine persuasion; a brotherhood which, having been planted in Kent some few centuries earlier, had taken very kindly to the soil, and overspread the county much as hops did some few centuries later. He was plump and portly, a little thick-winded, especially after dinner, stood five feet four in his sandals, and weighed hard upon eighteen stone. He was moreover a personage of singular piety; and the iron girdle, which, he said, he wore under his cassock to mortify withal, might have been well mistaken for the tire of a cart-wheel. When he arrived, Sir Ralph was pacing up and down by the side of a newly-opened grave.

"_Benedicite!_ fair son,"--(the Baron was as brown as a cigar,) --"_Benedicite!_" said the chaplain.

The Baron was too angry to stand upon compliment.--"Bury me that grinning caitiff there!" quoth he, pointing to the defunct.

"It may not be, fair son," said the Friar; "he hath perished without absolution."

"Bury the body!" roared Sir Ralph.

"Water and earth alike reject him," returned the chaplain; "holy St. Bridget herself----"

"Bridget me no Bridgets! do me thine office quickly, Sir Shaveling; or, by the piper that played before Moses!----" The oath was a fearful one; and whenever the Baron swore to do mischief, he was never known to perjure himself. He was playing with the hilt of his sword.--"Do me thine office, I say. Give him his passport to heaven!"

"He is already gone to hell!" stammered the friar.

"Then do you go after him!" thundered the Lord of Shurland.

His sword half leaped from its scabbard. No!--the trenchant blade that had cut Suleiman Ben Malek Ben Buckskin from helmet to chine disdained to daub itself with the cerebellum of a miserable monk: it leaped back again; and as the chaplain, scared at its flash, turned him in terror, the Baron gave him a kick!--one kick!--it was but one!--but such a one! Despite its obesity, up flew his holy body in an angle of forty-five degrees; then, having reached its highest point of elevation, sunk headlong into the open grave that yawned to receive it. If the reverend gentleman had possessed a neck, he had infallibly broken it; as he did not, he only dislocated his vertebræ,--but that did quite as well. He was as dead as ditch-water.

"In with the other rascal!" said the Baron, and he was obeyed; for there he stood in his boots. Mattock and shovel made short work of it; twenty feet of superincumbent mould pressed down alike the saint and the sinner. "Now sing a requiem who list!" said the Baron, and his lordship went back to his oysters.

The vassals at Castle Shurland were astounded, or, as the seneschal Hugh better expressed it, "perfectly conglomerated," by this event. What! murder a monk in the odour of sanctity,--and on consecrated ground too! They trembled for the health of the Baron's soul. To the unsophisticated many it seemed that matters could not have been much worse had he shot a bishop's coach-horse;--all looked for some signal judgment. The melancholy catastrophe of their neighbours at Canterbury was yet rife in their memories: not two centuries had elapsed since those miserable sinners had cut off the tail of St. Thomas's mule. The tail of the mule, it was well known, had been forthwith affixed to that of the mayor; and rumour said it had since been hereditary in the corporation. The least that could be expected was, that Sir Ralph should have a friar tacked on to his for the term of his natural life! Some bolder spirits there were, 'tis true, who viewed the matter in various lights, according to their different temperaments and dispositions; for perfect unanimity existed not even in the good old times. The verderer, roistering Hob Roebuck, swore roundly, "'Twere as good a deed as eat to kick down the chapel as well as the monk."--Hob had stood there in a white sheet for kissing Giles Miller's daughter.--On the other hand, Simpkin Agnew, the bell-ringer, doubted if the devil's cellar, which runs under the bottomless abyss, were quite deep enough for the delinquent, and speculated on the probability of a hole being dug in it for his especial accommodation. The philosophers and economists thought with Saunders M'Bullock, the Baron's bagpiper, that "a feckless monk more or less was nae great subject for a clamjamphry," especially as "the supply considerably exceeded the demand;" while Malthouse, the tapster, was arguing to Dame Martin that a murder now and then was a seasonable check to population, without which the Isle of Sheppey would in time be devoured, like a mouldy cheese, by inhabitants of its own producing. Meanwhile, the Baron ate his oysters, and thought no more of the matter.

But this tranquillity of his lordship was not to last. A couple of Saints had been seriously offended; and we have all of us read at school that celestial minds are by no means insensible to the provocations of anger. There were those who expected that St. Bridget would come in person, and have the friar up again as she did the sailor; but perhaps her ladyship did not care to trust herself within the walls of Shurland Castle. To say the truth, it was scarcely a decent house for a female Saint to be seen in. The Baron's gallantries, since he became a widower, had been but too notorious; and her own reputation was a little blown upon in the earlier days of her earthly pilgrimage: then things were so apt to be misrepresented: in short, she would leave the whole affair to St. Austin, who, being a gentleman, could interfere with propriety, avenge her affront as well as his own, and leave no loop-hole for scandal. St. Austin himself seems to have had his scruples, though of their precise nature it were difficult to determine, for it were idle to suppose him at all afraid of the Baron's boots. Be this as it may, the mode which he adopted was at once prudent and efficacious. As an ecclesiastic, he could not well call the Baron out, had his boots been out of the question; so he resolved to have recourse to the law. Instead of Shurland Castle, therefore, he repaired forthwith to his own magnificent monastery, situate just without the walls of Canterbury, and presented himself in a vision to its abbot. No one who has ever visited that ancient city can fail to recollect the splendid gateway which terminates the vista of St. Paul's street, and stands there yet in all its pristine beauty. The tiny train of miniature artillery which now adorns its battlements is, it is true, an ornament of a later date; and is said to have been added some centuries after by some learned but jealous proprietor, for the purpose of shooting any wiser man than himself who might chance to come that way. Tradition is silent as to any discharge having taken place, nor can the oldest inhabitant of modern days recollect any such occurrence. Here it was, in a handsome chamber, immediately over the lofty archway, that the superior of the monastery lay buried in a brief slumber snatched from his accustomed vigils. His mitre--for he was a mitred abbot, and had a seat in parliament--rested on a table beside him; near it stood a silver flagon of Gascony wine, ready, no doubt, for the pious uses of the morrow. Fasting and watching had made him more than usually somnolent, than which nothing could have been better for the purpose of the Saint, who now appeared to him radiant in all the colours of the rainbow.

"Anselm!"--said the beatific vision,--"Anselm! are you not a pretty fellow to lie snoring there, when your brethren are being knocked at head, and Mother Church herself is menaced! It is a sin and a shame, Anselm!"

"What's the matter?--Who are you?" cried the Abbot, rubbing his eyes, which the celestial splendour of his visiter had set a-winking. "Ave Maria! St. Austin himself!--Speak, _Beatissime_! what would you with the humblest of your votaries?"

"Anselm!" said the Saint, "a brother of our order, whose soul Heaven assoilzie! hath been foully murdered. He hath been ignominiously kicked to the death, Anselm; and there he lieth cheek-by-jowl with a wretched carcass, which our sister Bridget has turned out of her cemetery for unseemly grinning. Arouse thee, Anselm!"

"Ay, so please you, _Sanctissime_!" said the Abbot: "I will order forthwith that thirty masses be said, thirty _Paters_, and thirty _Aves_."

"Thirty fools' heads!" interrupted his patron, who was a little peppery.

"I will send for bell, book, and candle."

"Send for an inkhorn, Anselm. Write me now a letter to his Holiness the Pope in good round terms, and another to the coroner, and another to the sheriff and seize me the never-enough-to-be-anathematised villain who hath done this deed! Hang him as high as Haman, Anselm!--up with him!--down with his dwelling-place, root and branch, hearth-stone and roof-tree,--down with it all, and sow the site with salt and sawdust!"

St. Austin, it will be perceived, was a radical reformer.

"Marry will I," quoth the Abbot, warming with the Saint's eloquence; "ay, marry will I, and that _instanter_. But there is one thing you have forgotten, most Beatified--the name of the culprit."

"Ralph de Shurland."

"The Lord of Sheppey! Bless me!" said the Abbot, crossing himself, "won't that be rather inconvenient? Sir Ralph is a bold baron and a powerful; blows will come and go, and crowns will be cracked, and----"

"What is that to you, since yours will not be of the number?"

"Very true, _Beatissime_! I will don me with speed, and do your bidding."

"Do so, Anselm!--fail not to hang the baron, burn his castle, confiscate his estate, and buy me two large wax-candles for my own particular shrine out of your share of the property."

With this solemn injunction the vision began to fade.

"One thing more!" cried the Abbot, grasping his rosary.

"What is that?" asked the Saint.

"_O Beate Augustine, ora pro nobis!_"

"Of course I shall," said St. Austin. "_Pax vobiscum!_"--and Abbot Anselm was left alone.

Within an hour all Canterbury was in commotion. A friar had been murdered,--two friars--ten--twenty; a whole convent had been assaulted,--sacked,--burnt,--all the monks had been killed, and all the nuns had been kissed! Murder!--fire!--sacrilege! Never was city in such an uproar. From St. George's gate to St. Dunstan's suburb, from the Donjon to the borough of Staplegate, all was noise and hubbub. "Where was it?"--"When was it?"--"How was it?" The Mayor caught up his chain, the Aldermen donned their furred gowns, the Town-clerk put on his spectacles. "Who was he?"--"What was he?"--"Where was he?"--he should be hanged,--he should be burned,--he should be broiled,--he should be fried,--he should be scraped to death with red-hot oyster-shells! "Who was he?"--"What was his name?"

The abbot's Apparitor drew forth his roll and read aloud: "Sir Ralph de Shurland, Knight banneret, Baron of Shurland and Minster, and Lord of Sheppey."

The Mayor put his chain in his pocket, the Aldermen took off their gowns, the Town-clerk put his pen behind his ear,--It was a county business altogether: the Sheriff had better call out the _posse comitatus_.

While saints and sinners were thus leaguing against him, the Baron de Shurland was quietly eating his breakfast. He had passed a tranquil night, undisturbed by dreams of cowl or capuchin; nor was his appetite more affected than his conscience. On the contrary, he sat rather longer over his meal than usual; luncheon-time came, and he was ready as ever for his oysters; but scarcely had Dame Martin opened his first half-dozen when the warder's horn was heard from the barbican.

"Who the devil's that?" said Sir Ralph. "I'm not at home, Periwinkle. I hate to be disturbed at meals, and I won't be at home to anybody."

"An't please your lordship," answered the seneschal, "Paul Prior hath given notice that there is a body----"

"Another body!" roared the Baron. "Am I to be everlastingly plagued with bodies? No time allowed me to swallow a morsel. Throw it into the moat!"

"So please you, my lord, it is a body of horse,--and--and Paul says there is a still larger body of foot behind it; and he thinks, my lord,--that is, he does not know, but he thinks--and we all think, my lord, that they are coming to--to besiege the castle!"

"Besiege the castle! Who? What? What for?"

"Paul says, my lord, that he can see the banner of St. Austin, and the bleeding heart of Hamo de Crevecoeur, the abbot's chief vassal; and there is John de Northwood, the sheriff, with his red-cross engrailed; and Hever, and Leybourne, and Heaven knows how many more; and they are all coming on as fast as ever they can."

"Periwinkle," said the Baron, "up with the drawbridge; down with the portcullis; bring me a cup of canary, and my night-cap. I won't be bothered with them. I shall go to bed."

"To bed, my lord!" cried Periwinkle, with a look that seemed to say, "He's crazy."

At this moment the shrill tones of a trumpet were heard to sound thrice from the champaign. It was the signal for parley: the Baron changed his mind; instead of going to bed, he went to the ramparts.

"Well, rapscallions! and what now?" said the Baron.

A herald, two pursuivants, and a trumpeter, occupied the foreground of the scene; behind them, some three hundred paces off, upon a rising ground, was drawn up in battle-array the main body of the ecclesiastical forces.

"Hear you, Ralph de Shurland, Knight, Baron of Shurland and Minster, and Lord of Sheppey, and know all men, by these presents, that I do hereby attach you, the said Ralph, of murder and sacrilege, now, or of late, done and committed by you, the said Ralph, contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and dignity: and I do hereby require and charge you, the said Ralph, to forthwith surrender and give up your own proper person, together with the castle of Shurland aforesaid, in order that the same may be duly dealt with according to law. And here standeth John de Northwood, Esquire, good man and true, sheriff of this his majesty's most loyal county of Kent, to enforce the same, if need be, with his _posse comitatus_."

"His what?" said the Baron.

"His _posse comitatus_, and----"

"Go to Bath!" said the Baron.

A defiance so contemptuous roused the ire of the adverse commanders. A volley of missiles rattled about the Baron's ears. Night-caps avail little against contusions. He left the walls, and returned to the great hall.

"Let them pelt away," quoth the Baron; "there are no windows to break, and they can't get in." So he took his afternoon nap, and the siege went on.

Towards evening his lordship awoke, and grew tired of the din. Guy Pearson, too, had got a black eye from a brick-bat, and the assailants were clambering over the outer wall. So the Baron called for his Sunday hauberk of Milan steel, and his great two-handed sword with the terrible name:--it was the fashion in feudal times to give names to swords; King Arthur's was christened Excalibar; the Baron called his Tickletoby, and whenever he took it in hand it was no joke.

"Up with the portcullis! down with the bridge!" said Sir Ralph; and out he sallied, followed by the _élite_ of his retainers. Then there was a pretty to-do. Heads flew one way--arms and legs another; round went Tickletoby, and, wherever it alighted, down came horse and man: the Baron excelled himself that day. All that he had done in Palestine faded in the comparison; he had fought for fun there, but now it was for life and lands. Away went John de Northwood; away went William of Hever, and Roger of Leybourne. Hamo de Crevecoeur, with the church vassals and the banner of St. Austin, had been gone some time. The siege was raised, and the Lord of Sheppey left alone in his glory.

But, brave as the Baron undoubtedly was, and total as had been the defeat of his enemies, it cannot be supposed that _La Stoccata_ would be allowed to carry it away thus. It has before been hinted that Abbot Anselm had written to the Pope, and Boniface the Eighth piqued himself on his punctuality as a correspondent in all matters connected with church discipline. He sent back an answer by return of post; and by it all Christian people were strictly enjoined to aid in exterminating the offender, on pain of the greater excommunication in this world, and a million of years of purgatory in the next. But then, again, Boniface the Eighth was rather at a discount in England just then. He had affronted Longshanks, as the loyal lieges had nicknamed their monarch; and Longshanks had been rather sharp upon the clergy in consequence. If the Baron de Shurland could but get the King's pardon for what in his cooler moments he admitted to be a peccadillo, he might sniff at the Pope, and bid him "do his devilmost."

Fortune, who, as the poet says, delights to favour the bold, stood his friend on this occasion. Edward had been, for some time, collecting a large force on the coast of Kent, to carry on his French wars for the recovery of Guienne; he was expected shortly to review it in person; but, then, the troops lay principally in cantonments about the mouth of the Thames, and his majesty was to come down by water. What was to be done?--the royal barge was in sight, and John de Northwood and Hamo de Crevecoeur had broken up all the boats to boil their camp-kettles. A truly great mind is never without resources.

"Bring me my boots!" said the Baron.

They brought him his boots, and his dapple-grey steed along with them. Such a courser! all blood and bone, short-backed, broad-chested, and, but that he was a little ewe-necked, faultless in form and figure. The Baron sprang upon his back, and dashed at once into the river.

The barge which carried Edward Longshanks and his fortunes had by this time nearly reached the Nore; the stream was broad and the current strong, but Sir Ralph and his steed were almost as broad, and stronger. After breasting the tide gallantly for a couple of miles, the Knight was near enough to hail the steersman.

"What have we got here?" said the king. "It's a mermaid," said one. "It's a grampus," said another. "It's the devil," said a third. But they were all wrong; it was only Ralph de Shurland. "Grammercy," quoth the king, "that fellow was never born to be drowned!"

It has been said before that the Baron had fought in the holy wars; in fact, he had accompanied Longshanks, when only heir-apparent, in his expedition twenty-five years before, although his name is unaccountably omitted by Sir Harris Nicolas in his list of crusaders. He had been present at Acre when Amirand of Joppa stabbed the prince with a poisoned dagger, and had lent Princess Eleanor his own toothbrush after she had sucked out the venom from the wound. He had slain certain Saracens, contented himself with his own plunder, and never dunned the commissariat for arrears of pay. Of course he ranked high in Edward's good graces, and had received the honour of knighthood at his hands on the field of battle.

In one so circumstanced it cannot be supposed that such a trifle as the killing a frowzy friar would be much resented, even had he not taken so bold a measure to obtain his pardon. His petition was granted, of course, as soon as asked; and so it would have been had the indictment drawn up by the Canterbury town-clerk, viz. "That he, the said Ralph de Shurland, &c. had then and there, with several, to wit, one thousand, pair of boots, given sundry, to wit, two thousand, kicks, and therewith and thereby killed divers, to wit, ten thousand, Austin friars," been true to the letter.

Thrice did the gallant Grey circumnavigate the barge, while Robert de Winchelsey, the chancellor, and archbishop to boot, was making out, albeit with great reluctance, the royal pardon. The interval was sufficiently long to enable his majesty, who, gracious as he was, had always an eye to business, just to hint that the gratitude he felt towards the Baron was not unmixed with a lively sense of services to come; and that, if life was now spared him, common decency must oblige him to make himself useful. Before the archbishop, who had scalded his fingers with the wax in affixing the great seal, had time to take them out of his mouth, all was settled, and the Baron de Shurland, _cum suis_, had pledged himself to be forthwith in readiness to accompany his liege lord to Guienne.

With the royal pardon secured in his vest, boldly did his lordship turn again to the shore; and as boldly did his courser oppose his breadth of chest to the stream. It was a work of no common difficulty or danger; a steed of less "mettle and bone" had long since sunk in the effort: as it was, the Baron's boots were full of water, and Grey Dolphin's chamfrain more than once dipped beneath the wave. The convulsive snorts of the noble animal showed his distress; each instant they became more loud and frequent; when his hoof touched the strand, and "the horse and his rider" stood again in safety on the shore.

Rapidly dismounting, the Baron was loosening the girths of his demi-pique, to give the panting animal breath, when he was aware of as ugly an old woman as he ever clapped eyes upon, peeping at him under the horse's belly.

"Make much of your steed, Ralph Shurland! Make much of your steed!" cried the hag, shaking at him her long and bony finger. "Groom to the hide, and corn to the manger. He has saved your life, Ralph Shurland, for the nonce; but he shall yet be the means of your losing it, for all that!"

The Baron started: "What's that you say, you old faggot?" He ran round by his horse's tail; the women was gone!

The Baron paused; his great soul was not to be shaken by trifles; he looked around him, and solemnly ejaculated the word "Humbug!" then, slinging the bridle across his arm, walked slowly on in the direction of the castle.

The appearance, and still more, the disappearance of the crone, had however made an impression; every step he took he became more thoughtful. "'Twould be deuced provoking though, if he _should_ break my neck after all!" He turned, and gazed at Dolphin with the scrutinizing eye of a veterinary surgeon.--"I'll be shot if he is not groggy!" said the Baron.

With his lordship, like another great Commander, "Once to be in doubt, was once to be resolved:" it would never do to go to the wars on a rickety prad. He dropped the rein, drew forth Tickletoby, and, as the enfranchised Dolphin, good easy horse, stretched out his ewe-neck to the herbage, struck off his head at a single blow. "There, you lying old beldame!" said the Baron; "now take him away to the knackers."

* * * * *

Three years were come and gone. King Edward's French wars were over; both parties, having fought till they came to a stand-still, shook hands; and the quarrel, as usual, was patched up by a royal marriage. This happy event gave his majesty leisure to turn his attention to Scotland, where things, through the intervention of William Wallace, were looking rather queerish. As his reconciliation with Philip now allowed of his fighting the Scotch in peace and quietness, the monarch lost no time in marching his long legs across the border, and the short ones of the Baron followed him of course. At Falkirk, Tickletoby was in great request; and, in the year following, we find a contemporary poet hinting at its master's prowess under the walls of Caerlaverock,

Obec eus fu achiminez Li beau Rafe de Shurlande Ki kant seoit sur le cheval Ne sembloit home le someille.

A quatrain which Mr. Simpkinson translates,

"With them was marching The good Ralph de Shurland, Who, when seated on horseback, Does not resemble a man asleep!"

So thoroughly awake, indeed, does he seem to have proved himself, that the bard subsequently exclaims, in an ecstasy of admiration,

Si ie estoie une pucellette Je li donroie ceur et cors Tant est de lu bons lí recors.

"If I were a young maiden, I would give him my heart and person, So great is his fame!"

Fortunately the poet was a tough old monk of Exeter; since such a present to a nobleman, now in his grand climacteric, would hardly have been worth the carriage. With the reduction of this stronghold of the Maxwells seem to have concluded the Baron's military services; as on the very first day of the fourteenth century we find him once more landed on his native shore, and marching, with such of his retainers as the wars had left him, towards the hospitable shelter of Shurland Castle. It was then, upon that very beach, some hundred yards distant from high-water mark, that his eye fell upon something like an ugly old woman in a red cloak. She was seated on what seemed to be a large stone, in an interesting attitude, with her elbows resting upon her knees and her chin upon her thumbs. The Baron started: the remembrance of his interview with a similar personage in the same place, some three years since, flashed upon his recollection. He rushed towards the spot, but the form was gone; nothing remained but the seat it had appeared to occupy. This, on examination, turned out to be no stone, but the whitened skull of a dead horse. A tender remembrance of the deceased Grey Dolphin shot a momentary pang into the Baron's bosom; he drew the back of his hand across his face; the thought of the hag's prediction in an instant rose, and banished all softer emotions. In utter contempt of his own weakness, yet with a tremor that deprived his redoubtable kick of half its wonted force, he spurned the relic with his foot. One word alone issued from his lips elucidatory of what was passing in his mind,--it long remained imprinted on the memory of his faithful followers,--that word was "Gammon!" The skull bounded across the beach till it reached the very margin of the stream;--one instant more, and it would be engulfed for ever. At that moment a loud "Ha! ha! ha!" was distinctly heard by the whole train to issue from its bleached and toothless jaws: it sank beneath the flood in a horse-laugh!

Meanwhile Sir Ralph de Shurland felt an odd sort of sensation in his right foot. His boots had suffered in the wars. Great pains had been taken for their preservation. They had been "soled" and "heeled" more than once;--had they been "galoshed," their owner might have defied Fate! Well has it been said that "there is no such thing as a trifle." A nobleman's life depended upon a question of ninepence.

The Baron marched on; the uneasiness in his foot increased. He plucked off his boot; a horse's tooth was sticking in his great toe!

The result may be anticipated. Lame as he was, his lordship, with characteristic decision would hobble on to Shurland; his walk increased the inflammation; a flagon of _aqua vitæ_ did not mend matters. He was in a high fever; he took to his bed. Next morning the toe presented the appearance of a Bedfordshire carrot; by dinner-time it had deepened to beetroot; and when Bargrave, the leech, at last sliced it off, the gangrene was too confirmed to admit of remedy. Dame Martin thought it high time to send for Miss Margaret, who, ever since her mother's death, had been living with her maternal aunt, the abbess, in the Ursuline convent of Greenwich. The young lady came, and with her came one Master Ingoldsby, her cousin-german by the mother's side; but the Baron was too far gone in the deadthraw to recognise either. He died as he lived, unconquered and unconquerable. His last words were--"Tell the old hag to go to ----." Whither remains a secret. He expired without fully articulating the place of her destination.

But who and what was the crone who prophesied the catastrophe? Ay, "that is the mystery of this wonderful history."--Some said it was Dame Fothergill, the late confessor's mamma; others, St. Bridget herself; others thought it was nobody at all, but only a phantom conjured up by Conscience. As we do not know, we decline giving an opinion.

And what became of the Clerk of Chatham? Mr. Simpkinson avers than he lived to a good old age, and was at last hanged by Jack Cade, with his inkhorn about his neck, for "setting boys copies." In support of this he adduces his name "Emanuel," and refers to the historian Shakspeare. Mr. Peters, on the contrary, considers this to be what he calls one of Mr. Simpkinson's "Anacreonisms," inasmuch as, at the introduction of Mr. Cade's reform measure, the clerk would have been hard upon two hundred years old. The probability is, that the unfortunate alluded to was his great-grandson.

Margaret Shurland in due course became Margaret Ingoldsby, her portrait still hangs in the gallery at Tappington. The features are handsome, but shrewish, betraying, as it were, a touch of the old Baron's temperament; but we never could learn that she actually kicked her husband. She brought him a very pretty fortune in chains, owches, and Saracen ear-rings; the barony, being a male fief, reverted to the crown.

In the abbey-church at Minster may yet be seen the tomb of a recumbent warrior, clad in the chain-mail of the 13th century. His hands are clasped in prayer; his legs, crossed in that position so prized by Templars in ancient, and tailors in modern, days, bespeak him a soldier of the Faith in Palestine. Close to his great-toe, lies sculptured in bold relief a horse's head; and a respectable elderly lady, as she shows the monument, fails not to read her auditors a fine moral lesson on the sin of ingratitude, or to claim a sympathising tear to the memory of poor "Grey Dolphin!"

FRIAR LAURENCE AND JULIET. BY THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY.

_Friar._ Who is calling Friar Laurence? --Madam Juliet! how d'ye do? Dear me--talk of the--beg pardon-- I've been talking about _you_. Mistress Montagu, they tell me You on Thursday mean to wed! It is strange you never told me That poor Mister M. was dead!

_Juliet._ M.'s alive! yet County Paris I'm to marry, people say! (I shall marry the whole county If I go on in this way:) Once you've wedded me already, If I wed again, you see, Though in _you_ a _little_ error, 'Twill be very _big o' me_.

_Friar._ 'Pon my life, it's very awkward! I'll on some expedient hit; If you'll find me ready money, I will find you ready wit: I can't let you wed a second Ere I know the first has died; Think of faggots! for such deeds, ma'am, Holy friars have been fried!

_Juliet._ 'Tan't my wish, sir, nor intention,-- Any scheme of yours I'll hail; To escape from County Paris, Put me in the county jail: Kill me dead! and make me food for Earthworm, viper, toad, or rat; Make a widower of Ro-me- -O,--('twill _hurt_ me to do that!)

_Friar._ If you've really resolution That your life-blood should be spilt, I will save you, for I'll have you Not quite killed, but merely _kilt_: Could you in a vault be buried-- Horizontal--in a niche? And of death so good a copy, None could find out which is which?

_Juliet._ I would vault into a vault, sir, With a dead man in his shroud; I'd do any dirty work, sir, Though my family's so proud! I'll do whatsoe'er you bid me, 'Till you say I've done enough: Nay, sir, much as I dislike it, I'll take 'poticary's stuff!

_Friar._ Then go home, ma'am, and be merry; Say that Paris you will wed; Tell your nurse you've got a headache, And go quietly to bed: Ask for something warm,--some negus, Grog, or gruel, or egg-flip, Put in this, and then drink quickly,-- 'Tis so nauseous if you sip.

_Juliet._ Give, oh! give me quick the phial, From the trial I'll not shrink,-- Is it shaken when it's taken? Gracious me! it's black as ink! There's no fear, I trust, of failure?-- No--I doubt not its effect; From your conversation's _tenor_ No base phial I expect.

_Friar._ You will have the bridegroom _follow_, Where he generally _leads_; 'Stead of hymeneal flowers, He will wear sepulchral weeds: _I_ to Romeo will quickly Write a letter by the post; He will wake you, and should Paris Meet you,--say you are your ghost!

_Juliet._ 'Tis an excellent arrangement, As you bid me I will act; But within the tomb, dear friar, Place a basket nicely pack'd;-- Just a loaf, a tongue, a chicken, Port and sherry, and some plums; It will _really_ be a comfort Should I wake e'er Romeo comes!

CHAPTER IN THE LIFE OF A STATESMAN, BEING INEDITED LETTERS OF ADDISON. NOW FIRST PRINTED FROM THE AUTOGRAPH ORIGINALS.

The following letters, which have never before been published, are exceedingly curious, as exhibiting Addison in a new point of view, and as displaying traits in that celebrated man's character, differing very materially from those which his biographers have recorded. They are addressed to Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, and to Monsieur Robethon, secretary to the Elector of Hanover, afterwards George the First of England. They represent Addison as eager for place and pension, yearning after pecuniary reward, dwelling upon services unrequited, urging his utmost interest to procure some new emoluments, and discontentedly comparing his own condition with that of other more fortunate placemen. Leaving the letters to speak for themselves, it is only necessary to add that they are accompanied by a few notes which furnish some new data in the family history of the writer.

TO CHARLES MONTAGUE, EARL OF HALIFAX.

Dublin Castle, May 7, 1709. MY LORD,--I am glad of any occasion of paying my duty to your lordship, and therefore cannot but lay hold of this, in transmitting to your lordship our Lord Lieutenant's[71] speech at the opening of the parliament, with a couple of addresses from the House of Commons upon that occasion. Your lordship will see by them that all parties have set out in good-humour, which is entirely owing to his excellency's conduct, who has addressed himself so all sorts of men since his arrival here, with unspeakable application. They were under great apprehensions, at his first coming, that he would drive directly at repealing the Test, and had formed themselves into a very strong body for its defence; but, as their minds are at present pretty quiet upon that head, they appear willing to enter into all other measures that he would have them. Had he proceeded otherwise, it is easie to see that all things would have been thrown into the utmost confusion, and a stop put to all public business. His excellency, however, gains ground daily; and I question not but in a new parliament, where parties are not settled and confirmed, he will be able to lead them into any thing that will be for their real interests and advantage.

I have the happiness every day to drink your lordship's health in very good wine,[72] and with very honest gentlemen; and am ever, with the greatest respect, my lord, Your lordship's most obedient and most humble servant, J. ADDISON.

[71] Thomas Wharton, Earl of Wharton, appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, April 21, 1709. How Addison became the secretary of this Verres, as delineated by Swift,--or how Wharton, who professed to think virtue to be only a name, and would not have given a guinea as the purchase-price of the best reputation, obtained the appointment of the Queen's vicegerent in Ireland,--would be matters of perfect astoundment, were it not known that Wharton forced himself upon Lord Godolphin, by showing him a treasonable letter of that lord's to the abdicated family, of which he had contrived to become the possessor. Wharton's vice-regal power was but of short duration; he was recalled: Lords Justices were appointed in the September of the same year, and Wharton returned to England to make a bad use of the letter. Godolphin had, however, been too cunning for him, and procured an act of grace in his absence, which enabled him to set the vengeance of the Lord Lieutenant at defiance. As an apology for Addison's serving under such a man, it may be urged, that the acceptance of the office so proffered implied no approbation of his crimes; and that a subordinate officer is under no obligation to examine the opinions or conduct of those under whom he acts, excepting that he may not be made the actual tool of his atrocities or crimes.

[72] Addison's habitual taciturnity and fondness for the bottle are well known. There is a story, not yet forgotten, that the profligate Duke of Wharton, who was, perhaps, only the reputed or imputed son of this earl, afterwards Marquis of Wharton, once at table plied Addison so briskly with wine, in order to make him talk, that he could not retain it in his stomach. His grace is said to have observed, that "he could get wine, but not wit out of him."

TO M. DE ROBETHON, SECRETARY TO THE ELECTOR OF HANOVER.

St. James's, Sept. 4, 1714. SIR,--I have been obliged to so close an attendance on the Lords Justices, and have had so very little time at my own disposal during my absence from their excellencies, that I could not do myself the honour before now, to assure you of my respects, and to beg the continuance of that friendship which you formerly honoured me with, at Hanover.[73] I cannot but extremely rejoice at the occasion, which will give me on opportunity of waiting on you in England, where you will find a whole nation in the highest joy, and thoroughly sensible of the great blessings which they promise themselves from his Majesty's accession to the throne.

I take the liberty to send you, enclosed, a poem written on this occasion by one of our most eminent hands, which is indeed a masterpiece in its kind; and, though very short, has touched upon all the topics which are most popular among us. I have likewise transmitted to you, a copy of the preamble to the Prince of Wales's patent, which was a very grateful task imposed upon me by the Lords Justices. Their excellencies have ordered that the lords and others who meet his Majesty, be out of mourning that day, as also their coaches; but all servants, except those of the City magistrates, to be in mourning. The shortness of the time, which would not be sufficient for the making of new liveries, occasioned this last order.

The removal of the Lord Bolingbroke[74] has put a seasonable check to an interest that was making in many places for members in the next parliament; and was very much relished by the people, who ascribed to him, in a great measure, the decay of trade and public credit.

You will do me a very great honour if you find means submissive enough to make the humble offers of my duty acceptable to his Majesty. May God Almighty preserve his person, and continue him for many years the blessing of these kingdoms! I am, with great esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, J. ADDISON.

[73] Lord Godolphin conferred on Addison, as a reward for his poem entitled _The Campaign_, commemorative of the battle of Blenheim, the place of Commissioner of Appeals, in the room of the celebrated Locke, who had been appointed a Lord of Trade. The year following, he attended Lord Halifax to Hanover; and, in the next, was appointed secretary to Sir Charles Hedges, and was continued in that office by his successor, Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland.

[74] Addison was a sound Whig. Bolingbroke records, that, after the peace which followed the ever memorable battle of Blenheim, he engaged with Addison in a two hours' conversation, and their politics differed _toto cælo_ from each other.

TO THE SAME.

St. James's, Sept 11. SIR,--Though I am not without hopes of seeing you in England before this letter comes to your hands, I cannot defer returning you my thanks for the honour of yours of the 17th N. S. which I received this morning. I beg leave to send you the enclosed ceremonial for the King's entry, published by the Earl of Suffolk, Deputy Earl Marshal, as regulated by the Lords Justices and privy council.[75] The Attorney-general is preparing a proclamation, reciting the rewards set on the Pretender by the late Queen and Parliament, with the security set for the payment, as established by a clause in an act passed since his Majesty's accession to the throne. As such a proclamation is very requisite; so, perhaps, it may come with a good grace from the Regents before his Majesty's arrival. It will, I believe, be fixed up in all the market-towns, especially among the highlands in Scotland, where there has been some meetings, but, by the care of the Regents, of no consequence.

[Subscribed in the same words as the preceding.]

TO THE EARL OF HALIFAX.

Oct. 17, 1714. MY LORD,--I find by your lordship's discourse that you have your reasons for laying aside the thought of bringing me into a part of Lowndes's place;[76] and, as I hope they do not proceed from any change of goodwill towards me, I do entirely acquiesce in them. I know that one in your lordship's high station has several opportunities of showing favour to your dependants, as one of your generous temper does not want to be reminded of it when any such offer. I must therefore beg your lordship to believe that I think no more of what you were pleased to mention in relation to the Treasury, though the kind and condescending manner in which your lordship was pleased to communicate yourself to me on that subject, shall always raise in me the most constant and unfeigned zeal for your honour and service.

I fancy, if I had a friend to represent to his Majesty that I was sent abroad by King William, and taken off from all other pursuits in order to be employed in his service[77]--that I had the honour to wait on your lordship to Hanover,--that the post I am now in, is the gift of a particular lord [Sunderland], in whose service I have been employed formerly,--that it is a great fall, in point of honour, from being secretary to the Regents, and that their request to his Majesty still subsists in my favour,--with other intimations that might perhaps be made to my advantage,--I fancy, I say, that his Majestie, upon such a representation, would be inclined to bestow on me some mark of his favour. I protest to your lordship I never gained to the value of five thousand pounds[78] by all the business I have yet been in; and, out of that, very near a fourth part has been laid out in my elections.[79] I should not insist on this subject so long, were it not taken notice of by some of the Lords Justices themselves, as well as many others, that his Majestie has yet done nothing for me, though it was once expected he would have done something more considerable for me than I can at present have the confidence to mention. As I have the honour to write to your lordship, whose favour I have endeavoured to cultivate, and should be very ambitious of deserving, I will humbly propose it to your lordship's thoughts, whether his Majestie might not be inclined, if I was mentioned to him, to put me in the Commission of Trade, or in some honorary post about the Prince, or by some other method to let the world see that I am not wholly disregarded by him. I am ashamed to talk so long of myself; but, if your lordship will excuse me this time, I will never more erre on this side. I shall only beg leave to add, that I mentioned your lordship's kind intentions towards me only to two persons. One of them was Phillips,[80] whom I could not forbear acquainting, in the fulness of my heart, with the kindness you had designed both him and me, which I take notice of because I hope your lordship will have him in your thoughts.

Though I put by several importunities which are made me to recommend persons and pretensions to your lordship, there are some which I cannot resist, without declaring, what would go very much against me, that I have no credit with your lordship. Of this kind is a request made me yesterday by Lady Irby, that I would mention her to your lordship as one who might be made easy in her fortune if your lordship would be pleased to procure for her the place of a bedchamber-woman to the Princess. I told her that places of that nature were out of your lordship's province; but she tells me, as the proper persons are not yet named to whom she should make her applications, and as my Lord Townsend has gained the same favour for Mrs. Selwyn, she hopes you will excuse her solicitation upon this occasion.

My Lord Dorchester, from whom I lately conveyed a letter to your lordship, has likewise obliged me to speak in favour of Mr. Young, who marryed a sister of Mr. Chetwynd's, and formerly was a clerk under me in Ireland. He is now a man of estate, of honest principles, and has been very serviceable to Lord Dorchester in the elections at Salisbury.

I humbly beg leave to congratulate your lordship upon the honours you have lately received; and whenever your lordship will allow me to wait on you, I shall always value the honour of being admitted to your conversation more than any place that can be given me. I am, with the greatest respect, my lord, Your lordship's most devoted and most obedient servant, J. ADDISON.

[75] Budgell has recorded that he attended Lord Halifax and Addison in a barge to Greenwich to meet George the First from Hanover. Halifax said he expected to have the Treasurer's staff, and to have great influence; that he would endeavour to avoid some of the errors of late reigns, and make his master a great king, and would recommend Addison to be a secretary of state. Addison, as Budgell says, blushed, and thanked him for such honourable friendship, but declared that his merits and ambition did not carry him to so high a place. Halifax was, however, circumvented in all his speculations: Walpole acquired more influence, or succeeded by intrigue; and the effects mortified Lord Halifax so acutely, that a pulmonary fever was the consequence, and death soon put a quietus upon his lordship's unsuccessful struggle for power.

[76] Lowndes was secretary to the Lords of the Treasury.

[77] Congreve first introduced Addison to the notice of lord Halifax while being educated at Oxford for the church, when his lordship is said to have dedicated Addison to the state, and avowed he would never do the church any other harm than in keeping him out of it. The post which Addison here alludes to, was that of secretary to Lord Sunderland, who was then appointed to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, but never went to Dublin to assume the vice-regal dignity. Addison evidently deemed that appointment a degradation, and much inferior to that of being secretary to the Lords Regent of the kingdom till the arrival of the new King. As to his having been in Lord Sunderland's employ formerly, it has reference to his being his lordship's secretary upon the earl's succeeding Sir Charles Hedges, as Secretary of State, in 1706.

[78] This assertion seems strange, when it is known that in 1711, long prior to his marriage with the Countess of Warwick, Addison had expended ten thousand pounds upon the purchase of the Bilton estate, near Rugby, in Warwickshire: and Oldmixon, in his History, says, Addison left by his will, in 1719, to his daughter and to Lady Warwick, his fortune, which was about twelve thousand pounds. His daughter, who resided at Bilton till her death, in 1797, enjoyed an income of more than twelve hundred pounds per annum.

[79] Addison sat in the two last parliaments of Queen Anne. The Commons' Journals record that on a petition against his election for Lestwithiel, in 1708, he was found not duly elected; but by Lord Wharton's interest at the general election, he was chosen member for Malmesbury: indeed, as Swift wrote to Stella, so popular had Addison then become, that "if he had stood for the kingship, he would have been chosen."

[80] Ambrose Phillips, "one of the wits at Button's," and Addison's constant associate at that resort of the literati. In the latter part of Queen Anne's reign, being a Whig, he was secretary to the Hanover Club, and was, soon after the accession of George the First, put into the commission of the peace; and, in 1717, appointed one of the Commissioners of the Lottery. Paul Whitehead relates that when Addison became Secretary of State, Phillips applied to him for some preferment, but was coolly answered, that it was thought he was already provided for, by being made a justice for Westminster. To this observation Phillips with some indignation replied, "Though poetry was a trade he could not live by, yet he scorned to owe subsistence to another which he ought not to live by." Phillips will be long remembered by his translation from Racine of the tragedy of the "Distressed Mother." He died, struck with palsy, in Hanover-street, Hanover-square, June 18, 1749.

Oct. 24, 1714. MY LORD,--Upon my coming home this evening, I found a letter left for me from your lordship which has raised in me a greater satisfaction and sense of gratitude than I am able to express. Nothing can be more acceptable to me than the place which I hope your lordship has procured for me, and particularly because it may put me in a way of improving myself under your lordship's directions. I will not pretend to express my thanks to your lordship upon this occasion, but should be glad to employ my whole life in it. [Subscribed as before.]

Nov. 30, 1714. MY LORD,--Finding that I have miscarried in my pretensions to the Board of Trade, I shall not trouble your lordship with the resentments of the unhandsome treatment I have met with from some of our new great men in every circumstance of that affair; but must beg leave to express my gratitude to your lordship for the great favour you have shown me on this occasion, which I shall never forget. Young Craggs[81] told me, about a week ago, that his Majestie, though he did not think fit to gratifie me in this particular, designed to give me a recompense for my service under the Lords Justices, in which case your lordship will probably be consulted. Since I find I am never to rise above the station in which I first entered upon public business, (for I begin to look upon myself like an old serjeant or corporal,) I would willingly turn my secretaryships, in which I have served five different masters, to the best advantage I can; and as your lordship is the only patron I glory in, and have a dependence on, I hope you will honour me with your countenance in this particular. If I am offered less than a thousand pounds, I shall beg leave not to accept it, since it will look more like a clerk's wages than a mark of his Majesty's favour. I verily believe that his Majesty may think I had fees and perquisites belonging to me under the Lords Justices; but, though I was offered a present by the South Sea Company, I never took that, nor anything else, for what I did, as knowing I had no right to it. Were I of another temper, my present place in Ireland[82] might be as profitable to me as some have represented it. I humbly beg your lordship's pardon for the trouble of such a letter, and do assure your lordship that one of the greatest pleasures I shall receive in whatever I get from the government will be its enabling me to promote your honour and interest more effectually. I am informed, Mr. Yard, besides a place and an annual recompense for serving the Lords Justices [of Ireland] under King William, had considerable fees, and was never at the charge of getting himself elected into the House of Commons.

I beg your lordship will give me leave to add, that I believe I am the first man that ever drew up a Prince of Wales's preamble without so much as a medal for my pains. [Subscribed as before.]

[81] Young Craggs was the son of a _barber_, who, by his merit, became Postmaster-general, and home-agent to the Duke of Marlborough; he was one of the first characters of the age, and had distinguished himself in the House of Commons. The classical names of Damon and Pythias, of Pylades and Orestes, of Nisus and Euryalus, are not oftener found conjoined in ancient story than those of Addison and Craggs in the real life of modern times. Addison, notwithstanding the discomfiture evinced in these letters, succeeded in procuring the appointment of a Lord Commissioner at the Board of Trade, which post he held till he was made Secretary of State, April 16, 1717. But Addison was then fast sinking into a bad habit of body: his great care was how to live, and, as Tacitus Gordon, his great admirer, used to relate, was then killing himself in drinking the widow Trueby's water, spoken of in the "Spectator." Unfit for the drudgery of a political life,--the pack-horse of the state,--he pleaded the being incapable of supporting the fatigues of his office, and resigned the seals in March 1718, upon a pension from the King of seventeen hundred pounds per annum. Craggs, who was his successor, died prematurely and unmarried, in his twenty-eighth year, in 1721.

[82] Queen Anne, to whom Addison had been recommended by the Duchess of Marlborough, on his appointment to be Secretary for Ireland, augmented the salary annexed to the place of Keeper of the Records in Birmingham Tower, to three hundred pounds per annum, and bestowed it on him.

MY LORD,--Your lordship having given me leave to acquaint you with the names and pretensions of persons who are importunate with me to speak to your lordship in their behalf, I shall make use of that liberty when I believe it may be of use to your lordship, or when I cannot possibly resist the solicitation. I presumed to write to your lordship in favour of Mr. Hungerford, who purchased of me in the commission of Appeals. All I aske is, that he may enjoy the fruits of his purchase: as for his recommending one to his place, I only hinted at it, if his coming into the House might be of service to your lordship. I would not have spoken of Mr. Wroth, had not he assured me that he was first recommended to your lordship by my Lord Cooper.[83] He tells me since, he had the honour to be schoolfellow to your lordship, and I know has a most entire respect for you, and I believe is able to do his friends service.

The enclosed petition is of one who is brother to a particular friend of mine at Oxford, and brought me a letter in his behalf from Mr. Boscawen. If your lordship would be pleased to refer it to the Commissioners of Customs, it would give me an opportunity of obliging one who may be of service to me, and perhaps be a piece of justice to one who seems to be a man of merit.

I must beg your lordship's patience for one more, at the request of my Lord and Lady Warwick, especially since I hear your lordship has formerly promised to do something for him. His name is Edward Rich: he is to succeed to the title of the Earl of Warwick should the young lord have no heir of his own.[84] He is in great want, writes an extraordinary good hand, and would be glad of a small place. He mentions in particular a King's tide-waiter. Capt. Addison[85] tells me that he presumed to put your lordship in mind of himself; but, as I hope to provide for him in Ireland, I will not trouble you on his account. I have another namesake, who is well turned for greater business; but if he could have a stamper's place, vacant by the death of one who was formerly my servant, it would be a very great favour. I beg your lordship to pardon this freedom, and I promise to use it very sparingly hereafter.

When your lordship is at leisure, I should be glad of a moment's audience: in the mean time, I cannot conclude my letter without returning your lordship thanks for all your favours, which have obliged me, as long as I live, to be, in the most particular manner, and with the utmost gratitude and respect, my lord, Your lordship's most devoted and Most obedient servant, J. ADDISON.

[83] William, first Earl Cowper, Lord High Chancellor of England; he died Oct. 10, 1723.

[84] Addison, it is said, was first introduced into the Warwick family as tutor of the young lord here mentioned. The earl died soon after the date of this letter; and Addison, at forty-five, took great pains to woo the countess, who is described as being personally fraught with half the pride of the nation. They were married in August 1716, though not happily; for tradition reports they were seldom in each other's company. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in a letter to Pope, written from the East, after this period, says, "I received the news of Addison's being declared Secretary of State with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was almost offered to him before. At that time he declined it; and I really believe he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the countess, do not seem to be in prudence eligible for a man that is asthmatic; and we may see the day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both."

[85] Dean Addison, who died April 20, 1703, left four children: Joseph, the writer of these letters; Gulston, here spoken of as Captain Addison, who died governor of Fort St. George, in the West Indies; Dorothy, of whom Swift, in a letter dated October 25, 1710, says, "I dined to-day with Addison and Steele, and a sister of Addison's, who is married to Mons. Sartre, a Frenchman, prebendary of Westminster. Addison's sister is a sort of wit, very like him: I am not fond of her." She married, secondly, Daniel Combes, Esq. Addison bequeathed her in his will five hundred pounds, which she lived to enjoy till March 2, 1750. The "other namesake" was possibly Addison's other brother, Lancelot, who, Chalmers states, was fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and an able classical scholar.

April 28, 1715. MY LORD,--I can only acknowledge the receipt of your grace's[86] last letters, without being able to return any satisfactory answer to them, my Lord Lieutenant not being yet well enough recovered to give any directions in publick businesse. He has not found the desired effects from the country air and remedies which he has taken; so that he is at length prevailed upon to go to the Bath, which we hope will set him right, if we may believe the assurances given him by his physicians. Your grace has, doubtlesse, heard many idle reports which have been industriously spread abroad with relation to his distemper, which is nothing else but the cholick, occasioned by a too frequent use of vomits, to which the physicians adde the drinking of small beer in too great quantities when he has found himself a little heated. I hope, before his excellency sets out for the Bath, I shall receive his directions upon your grace's letters, which I shall always execute with the greatest pleasure and dispatch, being with all possible respect, my lord, Your grace's most obedient and Most humble servant, J. ADDISON.

[86] The original of this letter having been forwarded in an envelope, and wanting the notation, at foot of the first page, of the name of the person to whom addressed, leaves it a conjecture who his grace was, whether Ormond or Grafton. Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, is the Lord Lieutenant whose illness Addison describes. The earl never went to Ireland to assume the vice-regal dignity; and, though this has never been satisfactorily accounted for, the real causes were, in all probability, his lordship's continued indisposition, and the death of Anne, Countess-dowager of Sunderland, his mother. Charles Duke of Grafton, and Henry Earl of Galway, were appointed Lords Justices of Ireland, Nov. 1, 1715.

REMAINS OF HAJJI BABA.