CHAPTER IV.

I reached Constantinople, and immediately inquired for the house of a Franc whom I had known in former days: an Englishman, who might enlighten my understanding concerning the objects of my mission, and might inform me what might be the state of his country. He was a sensible man,--a man done to a turn, who knew the difference between justice and injustice, and whose words were not thrown into the air without use. He frankly confirmed to me the truth of everything we had heard reported at the gate of the asylum of the universe. I found him seated on bales of merchandise in his warehouse, looking as if the world had placed his heels where his head ought to be, and desponding over his future prospects. Whatever I said to him upon the unreasonableness of attempting to strive against the decrees of Providence was of no avail. Instead of sitting down satisfied with his _takdeer_, or fate, as I should have done, I found him poring over a large sheet of Franc paper, printed, and therefore true, which he had just received from his own land, and cursing in his teeth one of his household demons, as I thought, which he called "_Dowlet_." He said that he verily believed the father of madness had taken possession of his once flourishing country; for what was always looked upon as right, was now called wrong, and what used to be execrated as wrong was now adopted as right. And, moreover, he asserted that the infatuation had gone so far, that nobody seemed inclined to eat his figs, no one would buy his cotton: there was an universal cry upon the miseries entailed by silk, and more gloves now existed in the world than there were hands to wear them. If such were the miseries of silk, thought I,--a produce which comes from abroad,--what must be those of penknives which grow in the country? I kept my thoughts to myself, and determined to set off without delay to put my orders into execution. There was one thing I was glad to ascertain in the interview with my friend, which was, that I had not so entirely forgotten his language as I had feared, and that I understood much of what he said. When I saw that large printed sheet of paper, numerous were the recollections it gave rise to, and I was struck with apprehension lest my thoughts, words, actions, even to the dye of my beard, would be carefully registered therein day by day, the moment I set my foot on English ground, if I did not take great precautions against such an evil. I therefore determined to keep myself as much unknown as possible; and, to that effect, resolved to leave Constantinople without seeing the ambassador of the King of England, who was residing there; and to make my way to the foot of his king's throne with all the best haste I could.

In consequence of what I had heard from the Franc merchant, and from all I had seen with my own eyes, I collected all my certainty into a heap, and became quite satisfied that the madness for which all Francs are celebrated, and particularly the English, was now beginning to be fully developed, and, strange to say, that the Turks, a nation so unchanged since the days of Seljuk, so fixed in _destour_, or custom, tied down by ancient habit,--the Turks themselves were no longer the same; the English disorder, Reform, had crept in amongst them, and had committed woful ravages. The Sultan himself took the lead; and it was now a question solemnly discussed among the elders and ulemah, whether heaven had come down to earth amongst them, or whether earth had descended into hell. Some asserted one thing, some another. Those who were for heaven said, "Thank Allah, our souls are now becoming as free as our chins. Where are now those odious beards that used to wave about the ends of our faces like long grass on the mountain top; that took toll of every mouthful of food that went into our mouths; that required more washing and dyeing than a Franc's shirt; and that gave a handle to our enemies without being of use to ourselves--where are they? Swept for ever from the faces of the sons of Islam, and swimming through the currents of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. And where are now those great, those awful, those capacious breeches, that could include within their folds as many legs as would serve a whole company of soldiers, instead of one pair of legs, which were eternally playing at hide-and-seek among their immense involutions? They are gone for ever. The saving to the Bab Homaioon--the gate of splendour--and to the treasury of the great blood-drinker, in broad-cloth alone, will be worth ten thousand fighting men per annum, let alone the inconvenience to the individuals. And because we change the fashion of our clothes, does it follow that we change that of our faith, as our enemies would have us to do? No. We can kneel down on our praying-carpets as often and as easily in our tights, as we before did in our slacks. And although smooth chins may be common to unbelievers, yet it is certain that the paradise of Mahomet is as open to the shaved as it is to the hairy."

On the other hand, those who were of the Jehanum faction insisted that the whole dignity and consequence of the Turkish empire had been sacrificed with the beards of its subjects; that, from looking a nation of sages, they had been turned into a nation of monkeys; and that although the rage of innovation had hitherto only seized the capital, yet, so it was once argued, when once it was known in the provinces that its emperor, the vicegerent of Allah upon earth, had cut off his beard, it was likely that the whole of the population would do so likewise, and thus universal degradation would ensue.

Then, as for the tight trousers which had been introduced, what lover of decency would now venture to show his person in the nakedness of unprotected legs, like the unblushing Francs? People might revile the janissaries; but, at all events, they were decently clad men, wearing as much cloth and muslin about their dress as would clothe a whole orta of the poor starving-looking individuals of the new nizam. It might be very well to say, that the faith of the heart did not change with the cut of one's clothes; but it was plain that when once reform began, it was impossible to say where it might stop; and true Mussulmans might perhaps soon have to deplore its terrible effects, by seeing their wives walk about without veils, with their faces exposed to the gaze of man. The unclean beast would ere long be eaten with impunity from one end of the celestial empire to the other; whilst all the holy Prophet's injunctions against wine would be entirely set at nought;--all to follow the example of unclean, faithless, and corrupt Francs, upon whom be all curses poured!

Such were the subjects which I daily heard discussed among the Turks, and every word which entered into my ears, only confirmed the reports which had reached my own country. I therefore consulted with my friend the Franc merchant upon the easiest mode of getting to England, quickest in point of conveyance, and the most eligible in point of secrecy. He recommended me to go by land, and first to proceed to the capital of the Nemseh, or Germans, ascending the Balkan, descending into the plains of Wallachia, by first crossing the Danube, and then making my way to another chain of mountains culled Karpathos; which having crossed, I should soon find myself among the Majar, and then all in good time, meeting the Danube again, I should reach Vienna. This seemed mighty easy to the Franc merchant, but to me it appeared very much like scaling the six heavens to get at the seventh. However, I was on the Shah's business; and therefore, putting my firm faith in Allah, I allied myself with a party of Greek merchants, who were proceeding into Germany upon matters of business. We resolved to set off as soon as we should hear that no recent robberies had taken place on the road.

SONNET TO A FOG. (WITH A CRITICAL NOTE.)

BY EGERTON WEBBE.

Hail to thee, Fog! most reverend, worthy Fog! Come in thy full-wigg'd gravity; I much Admire thee:--thy old dulness hath a touch Of true respectability. The rogue That calls thee names (a fellow I could flog) Would beard his grandfather, and trip his crutch. But I am dutiful, and hold with such As deem thy solemn company no clog. Not that I love to travel best incog.-- To pounce on latent lamp-posts, or to clutch The butcher in my arms or in a bog Pass afternoons; but while through thee, I jog, I feel I am true English, and no Dutch, Nor French, nor any other foreign dog That never mixed his grog Over a sea-coal fire a day like this, And bid thee scowl thy worst, and found it bliss, And to himself said, "Yes, Italia's skies are fair, her fields are sunny; But, d--n their eyes! Old England for my money."

"And do you call this a sonnet, sir?" I hear some reader say, with his fingers resting on the twentieth line: "I hope I know what a sonnet is; why, sir, sonnet is the Greek for _fourteen_, to be sure; and your lines must always count just two over the dozen, or you make no sonnet of it; everybody knows this same."

Have patience, good reader, while I proceed to convict thee of impertinence. No man is so happy of an occasion of correcting others as he who has recently learnt something. Now, behold! I have recently learnt this,--that the Italian poets, when they want to be funny, and at the same time to sonnetteer, (new verb,) outrage the gentle proportions of Poetry's fairest daughter--her whose delicate form took captive the soul of Petrarch--by ignominiously affixing to her hinder parts that always unseemly appendage--_a tail_, which is no less a tail, and therefore no less disgraceful to her who wears it, for being called, in the more courtly language of those original conspirators, _coda_ (from Latin _cauda_, observe;--see your dictionary.) This have I learnt, astonished reader, by poking into the _Parnasso Italiano_, as you may do, and there, beholding these prodigious baboon sonnets in full tail,--for verily they resemble not the true birth more than monkeys resemble men, and that is as much as to say they do resemble them--in such a manner as to make you laugh at the difference. But herein those Italian conspirators, who hatched the infernal plot, gained their end; they diverted their readers at the expense of poetical decency. Now, however, seeing that this second ("_caudatus_") species of the sonnet has a real and lively existence in the land that gave it birth; and seeing that we have freely imported from that land the other, the _non-caudatus_, species, (for I suppose all young ladies and gentlemen know to what country they are indebted for the fourteen-lined happiness,) it seems but fair that we should improve our national stock by bringing over the later breed, and applying it to the same uses as our neighbours.

The above is the first avowed specimen of the _tailed sonnet_, I believe, that has ever appeared in English; and I hope it may operate as a useful example to better poets, and induce them to clap tails continually to their sonnets, whenever they intend fun.[87] I say it is the first _avowed_ specimen, because there exists one (unsuspected) among the poems of no less a man than John Milton, who found nothing admirable in any language but he quickly transplanted it. That most accomplished of modern poetical critics, Leigh Hunt, was the first who discovered the fact, and gave the alarm to Milton's editors; he showed very clearly that that short poem, "On the New Forcers of conscience under the Long Parliament," which is always published, ignorantly, among the _miscellaneous_ pieces, is neither more nor less than a comic _sonnet_ with the Italian tail to it. If the reader will take the trouble to look into his Milton, he will find that this poem down to the line,

"Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent,"

forms a regular fourteen-liner; then comes the little adjunct,--"That so the parliament,"--which, rhyming with the foregoing, gains the right of introducing a new couplet; then another, rhyming with that, and lending to a second supernumerary. In this manner the Italian poets link on couplet after couplet without end, and you may see some of their sonnets with tails stretching through several pages; nay, for aught I know, you might have a sonnet in two volumes octavo, without exceeding your licence. But it must always be constructed on the above plan, with links of a like thickness. By the bye, it is surprising that the late editors of Milton's poems--men professedly conversant with Italian literature--should still persist in placing this comic sonnet among the "miscellaneous pieces," after the error has been pointed out to them!

As for the question--why a tail should be ridiculous?--it seems to me one of considerable intricacy, and of the highest interest. Yes, Mr. Editor, why _should_ tails be ridiculous? Coat-tails, pig-tails, all tails whatsoever, are found to touch us with a sense of the jocose; nay, your comet's tail itself is only a kind of _terrific absurdity_. I say, therefore, without fear of contradiction, that there subsists in this question a deep psychological truth, which demands the exploring hand of philosophy; and if no better man will take the hint,--why, Mr. Editor, I think I must myself present you, another time, with my ideas on this subject, handling the matter in the Aristotelian mode, and dividing my _tails_ into _heads_.

With respect to the tail of a comic sonnet, it may be briefly remarked, that its comicality (of course I speak with reference to the Italian models) arises in a great measure from the stumbling of the little line, which always comes limping after the long one, as if something were forgotten to be said in it, which the little one thus breathlessly comes to adjoin; and then a succession of these _quasi_ oversights makes us laugh, alternately at the seeming blunder and at the funny haste with which it is redressed. Or it is like an orator in his cups, speaking fairly enough his _prepared_ speech; but then--encouraged by applause--spoiling all with drunken additions _ex tempore_.

[87] I understand that the distinguished writer mentioned below as having first pointed attention to Milton's comic sonnet, had also in MS. some specimen of his own composing.

HANDY ANDY.--No. III.

Squire Egan was as good as his word. He picked out the most suitable horsewhip for chastising the fancied impertinence of Murtough Murphy; and as he switched it up and down with a powerful arm, to try its weight and pliancy, the whistling of the instrument through the air was music to his ears, and whispered of promised joy in the flagellation of the jocular attorney.

"We'll see who can make the sorest blister," said the squire. "I'll back whalebone against Spanish flies any day. Will you bet, Dick?" said he to his brother-in-law, who was a wild helter-skelter sort of fellow, better known over the country as Dick the Devil than Dick Dawson.

"I'll back your bet, Ned."

"There's no fun in that, Dick, as there is nobody to take it up."

"Maybe Murtough will. Ask him before you thrash him; you'd better."

"As for _him_," said the squire, "I'll be bound he'll back my bet after he gets a taste o' this;" and the horsewhip whistled as he spoke.

"I think he had better take care of his back than his bet," said Dick, as he followed the squire to the hall-door, where his horse was in waiting for him, under the care of the renowned Andy, who little dreamed the extensive harvest of mischief which was ripening in futurity, all from his sowing.

"Don't kill him quite, Ned," said Dick, as the squire mounted to his saddle.

"Why, if I went to horsewhip a gentleman, of course I should only shake my whip at him; but an attorney is another affair. And, as I'm sure he'll have an action against me for assault, I think I may as well get the worth o' my money out of him, to say nothing of teaching him better manners for the future than to play off his jokes on his employers." With these words, off he rode in search of the devoted Murtough, who was not at home when the squire reached his house; but, as he was returning through the village, he espied him coming down the street in company with Tom Durfy and the widow, who were laughing heartily at some joke Murtough was telling them, which seemed to amuse him as much as his hearers.

"I'll make him laugh at the wrong side of his mouth," thought the squire, alighting and giving his horse to the care of one of the little ragged boys who were idling in the street. He approached Murphy with a very threatening aspect, and, confronting him and his party so as to produce a halt, he said, as distinctly as his rage would permit him to speak, "You little insignificant blackguard, I'll teach you how you'll cut your jokes on _me_ again; _I'll_ blister you, my buck!" and, laying hands on the astonished Murtough with the last word, he began a very smart horsewhipping of the attorney. The widow screamed, Tom Durfy swore, and Murtough roared, with some interjectional curses. At last he escaped from the squire's grip, leaving the lappel of his coat in his possession; and Tom Durfy interposed his person between them when he saw an intention on the part of the flagellator to repeat his dose of horsewhip.

"Let me at him, sir; or by----"

"Fie, fie, squire--to horsewhip a gentleman like a cart-horse."

"A gentleman!--an attorney you mean."

"I say a gentleman, Squire Egan," cried Murtough fiercely, roused to gallantry by the presence of a lady, and smarting under a sense of injury and whalebone. "I'm a gentleman, sir, and demand the satisfaction of a gentleman. I put my honour in your hands, Mr. Durfy."

"Between his finger and thumb you mean, for there's not a handful of it," said the squire.

"Well, sir," replied Tom Durfy, "little or much, I'll take charge of it.--That's right, my cock," said he to Murtough, who, notwithstanding his desire to assume a warlike air, could not resist the natural impulse of rubbing his back and shoulders, which tingled with pain, while he exclaimed "Satisfaction! satisfaction!"

"Very well," said the squire: "you name yourself as Mr. Murphy's friend?" added he to Durfy.

"The same, sir," said Tom. "Who do you name as yours?"

"I suppose you know one Dick the Divil."

"A very proper person, sir;--no better: I'll go to him directly."

The widow clung to Tom's arm, and, looking tenderly at him, cried "Oh, Tom, Tom, take care of your precious life!"

"Bother!" said Tom.

"Ah, Squire Egan, don't be so bloodthirsty!"

"Fudge, woman!" said the squire.

"Ah, Mr. Murphy, I'm sure the squire's very sorry for beating you."

"Divil a bit," said the squire.

"There, ma'am," said Murphy; "you see he'll make no apology."

"Apology!" said Durfy;--"apology for a horsewhipping, indeed!--Nothing but handing a horsewhip (which I wouldn't ask any gentleman to do), or a shot can settle the matter."

"Oh, Tom! Tom! Tom!" said the widow.

"Ba! ba! ba!" shouted Tom, making a crying face at her. "Arrah, woman, don't be makin' a fool o' yourself. Go in there to the 'pothecary's, and get something under your nose to revive you; and let _us_ mind _our_ business."

The widow, with her eyes turned up, and an exclamation to Heaven, was retiring to M'Garry's shop wringing her hands, when she was nearly knocked down by M'Garry himself, who rushed from his own door, at the same moment that an awful smash of his shop-window, and the demolition of his blue and red bottles, alarmed the ears of the bystanders, while their eyes were drawn from the late belligerent parties to a chase which took place down the street, of the apothecary roaring "Murder!" followed by Squire O'Grady with an enormous cudgel.

O'Grady, believing that M'Garry and the nurse-tender had combined to serve him with a writ, determined to wreak double vengeance on the apothecary, as the nurse had escaped him; and, notwithstanding all the appeals of his poor frightened wife, he left his bed, and rode to the village to "break every bone in M'Garry's skin." When he entered the shop, the pharmacopolist was much surprised, and said, with a congratulatory grin at the great man, "Dear me, Squire O'Grady, I'm delighted to see you."

"Are you, you scoundrel!" said the squire, making a blow of his cudgel at him, which was fended by an iron pestle the apothecary fortunately had in his hand. The enraged O'Grady made a rush behind the counter, which the apothecary nimbly jumped over, crying "Murder!" as he made for the door, followed by his pursuer, who gave a back-handed slap at the window-bottles _en passant_, and produced the crash which astonished the widow, who now joined her screams to the general hue-and-cry; for an indiscriminate chase of all the ragamuffins in the town, with barking curs and screeching children, followed the flight of M'Garry and the pursuing squire.

"What the divil is all this about?" said Tom Durfy, laughing. "By the powers! I suppose there's something in the weather to produce all this fun,--though it's early in the year yet to begin thrashing, for the harvest isn't in yet. But, however, let us manage our little affair, now that we're left in peace and quietness, for the blackguards are all over the bridge afther the hunt. I'll go to Dick the Divil immediately, squire, and arrange time and place."

"There's nothing like saving time and trouble on these occasions," said the squire. "Dick is at my house, I can arrange time and place with you this minute, and he will be on the ground with me."

"Very well," said Tom; "where is it to be?"

"Suppose we say the cross-roads halfway between this and Merryvale. There's very pretty ground there, and we shall be able to get our pistols, and all that, ready in the mean time between this and four o'clock,--and it will be pleasanter to have it all over before dinner."

"Certainly, squire," said Tom Durfy; "we'll be there at four.--Till then, good morning, squire;" and he and his man walked off; Tom having left the widow under the care of the apothecary's boy, who was applying asafoetida and other sweet-smelling things to the alleviation of the faintings which the widow thought it proper and delicate to enact on the occasion.

The squire rode immediately homewards, and told Dick Dawson the piece of work that was before them.

"And so he'll have a shot at you, instead of an action," said Dick. "Well, there's pluck in that: I wish he was more of a gentleman for your sake. It's dirty work shooting attorneys."

"He's enough of a gentleman, Dick, to make it impossible for me to refuse him."

"Certainly, Ned," said Dick.

"Do you know is he anything of a shot?"

"Faith, he makes very pretty snipe-shooting; but I don't know if he has experience of the grass before breakfast."

"You must try and find out from any one on the ground; because, if the poor divil isn't a good shot, I wouldn't like to kill him, and I'll let him off easy--I'll give it to him in the pistol-arm, or so."

"Very well, Ned. Where are the flutes? I must look over them."

"Here," said the squire, producing a very handsome mahogany case of Rigby's best. Dick opened the case with the utmost care, and took up one of the pistols tenderly, handling it as delicately as if it were a young child or a lady's hand. He clicked the lock back and forwards a few times; and, his ear not being satisfied at the music it produced, he said he should like to examine them: "At all events, they want a touch of oil."

"Well, keep them out of the misthriss's sight, Dick, for she might be alarmed."

"Divil a taste," says Dick; "she's a Dawson, and there never was a Dawson yet that did not know men must be men."

"That's true, Dick. I wouldn't mind so much if she wasn't in a delicate situation just now, when it couldn't be expected of the woman to be so stout: so go, like a good fellow, into your own room, and Andy will bring you anything you want."

Five minutes after, Dick was engaged in cleaning the duelling-pistols, and Andy at his elbow, with his mouth wide open, wondering at the interior of the locks which Dick had just taken off.

"Oh, my heavens! but that's a quare thing, Misther Dick, sir," said Andy, going to take it up.

"Keep your fingers off it, you thief, do!" roared Dick, making a rap of the turnscrew at Andy's knuckles.

"Sure I'll save you the throuble o' rubbin' that, Misther Dick, if you let me; here's the shabby leather."

"I wouldn't let your clumsy fist near it, Andy, nor your _shabby_ leather, you villain, for the world. Go get me some oil."

Andy went on his errand, and returned with a can of lamp-oil to Dick, who swore at him for his stupidity: "The divil fly away with you; you never do anything right; you bring me lamp-oil for a pistol."

"Well, sure I thought lamp-oil was the right thing for burnin'."

"And who wants to burn it, you savage?"

"Aren't you goin' to fire it, sir?"

"Choke you, you vagabond!" said Dick, who could not resist laughing, nevertheless; "be off, and get me some sweet oil, but don't tell any one what it's for."

Andy retired, and Dick pursued his polishing of the locks. Why he used such a blundering fellow as Andy for a messenger might be wondered at, only that Dick was fond of fun, and Andy's mistakes were a particular source of amusement to him, and on all occasions when he could have Andy in his company he made him his attendant. When the sweet oil was produced, Dick looked about for a feather; but, not finding one, desired Andy to fetch him a pen. Andy went on his errand, and returned, after some delay, with an ink-bottle.

"I brought you the ink, sir, but I can't find a pin."

"Confound your numskull! I didn't say a word about ink; I asked for a pen."

"And what use would a pin be without ink, now I ax yourself, Misther Dick?"

"I'd knock your brains out if you had any, you _omadhaun_! Go along and get me a feather, and make haste."

Andy went off, and, having obtained a feather, returned to Dick, who began to tip certain portions of the lock very delicately with oil.

"What's that for, Misther Dick, sir, if you plaze?"

"To make it work smooth."

"And what's that thing you're grazin' now, sir?"

"That's the tumbler."

"O Lord! a tumbler--what a quare name for it. I thought there was no tumbler but a tumbler for punch."

"That's the tumbler you would like to be cleaning the inside of, Andy."

"Thrue for you, sir.--And what's that little thing you have your hand on now, sir?"

"That's the cock."

"Oh dear, a cock!--Is there e'er a hin in it, sir?"

"No, nor a chicken either, though there _is_ a feather."

"The one in your hand, sir, that you're grazin' it with."

"No: but this little thing--this is called the feather-spring."

"It's the feather, I suppose, makes it let fly."

"No doubt of it, Andy."

"Well, there's some sinse in that name, then; but who'd think of sitch a thing as a tumbler and a cock in a pistle? And what's that place that opens and shuts, sir?"

"The pan."

"Well, there's sinse in that name too, bekaze there's fire in the thing; and it's as nath'ral to say pan to that as to a fryin'-pan--isn't it, Misther Dick?"

"Oh! there was a great gunmaker lost in you, Andy," said Dick, as he screwed on the locks, which he had regulated to his mind, and began to examine the various departments of the pistol-case, to see that it was properly provided. He took the instrument to cut some circles of thin leather, and Andy again asked him for the name "o' _that_ thing."

"This is called the punch, Andy."

"So, there _is_ the punch as well as the tumbler, sir?"

"Ay, and very strong punch it is, you see, Andy;" and Dick struck it with his little mahogany mallet, and cut his patches of leather.

"And what's that for, sir?--the leather, I mane."

"That's for putting round the ball."

"Is it for fear 'twould hurt him too much when you hot him?"

"You're a queer customer, Andy," said Dick, smiling.

"And what weeshee little balls thim is, sir."

"They are always small for duelling-pistols."

"Oh, then _thim_ is jewellin' pistles. Why, musha, Misther Dick, is it goin' to fight a jule you are?" said Andy, looking at him with earnestness.

"No, Andy,--but the master is; but don't say a word about it."

"Not a word for the world. The masther goin' to fight!--God send him safe out iv it!--Amin. And who is he going to fight, Misther Dick?"

"Murphy the attorney, Andy."

"Oh, won't the masther disgrace himself by fightin' the 'torney?"

"How dare you say such a thing of your master?"

"I ax your pard'n, Misther Dick; but sure you know what I mane.--I hope he'll shoot him."

"Why, Andy, Murtough was always very good to you, and now you wish him to be shot."

"Sure, why wouldn't I rather have him kilt more than the masther?"

"But neither may be killed."

"Misther Dick," said Andy, lowering his voice, "wouldn't it be an iligant thing to put two balls into the pistle instid o' one, and give the masther a chance over the 'torney?"

"Oh, you murdherous villain!"

"Arrah, why shouldn't the masther have a chance over him? sure he has childre, and 'Torney Murphy has none."

"At that rate, Andy, I suppose you'd give the master a ball additional for every child he has, and that would make eight. So, you might as well give him a blunderbuss and slugs at once."

Dick locked the pistol-case, having made all right; and desired Andy to mount a horse, carry it by a back road out of the domain, and wait at a certain gate he named until he should be joined there by himself and the squire, who proceeded at the appointed time to the ground.

Andy was all ready, and followed his master and Dick with great pride, bearing the pistol-case after them to the ground, where Murphy and Tom Durfy were ready to receive them, and a great number of spectators were assembled; for the noise of the business had gone abroad, and the ground was in consequence crowded.

Tom Durfy had warned Murtough Murphy, who had no experience as a pistol-man, that the squire was a capital shot, and that his only chance was to fire as quickly as he could.--"Slap at him, Morty, my boy, the minute you get the word; and, if you don't hit him itself, it will prevent his dwelling on his aim."

Tom Durfy and Dick the Devil soon settled the preliminaries of the ground and mode of firing; and twelve paces having been marked, both the seconds opened their pistol-cases, and prepared to load. Andy was close to Dick all the time, kneeling beside the pistol-case, which lay on the sod; and, as Dick turned round to settle some other point on which Tom Durfy questioned him, Andy thought he might snatch the opportunity of giving his master "the chance" he suggested to his second.--"Sure, if Misther Dick wouldn't like to do it, that's no raison I wouldn't," said Andy to himself; "and, by the powers! I'll pop in a ball _onknownst_ to him." And, sure enough, Andy contrived, while the seconds were engaged with each other, to put a ball into each pistol before the barrel was loaded with powder, so that, when Dick took up his pistols to load, a bullet lay between the powder and the touch-hole. Now this must have been discovered by Dick, had he been cool; but he and Tom Durfy had wrangled very much about the point they had been discussing, and Dick, at no time the quietest person in the world, was in such a rage, that the pistols were loaded by him without noticing Andy's ingenious interference, and he handed a harmless weapon to his brother-in-law when he placed him on his ground.

The word was given. Murtough, following his friend's advice, fired instantly: bang he went, while the squire returned but a flash in the pan. He turned a look of reproach upon Dick, who took the pistol silently from him, and handed him the other, having carefully looked to the priming, after the accident which happened to the first.

Durfy handed his man another pistol also; and, before he left his side, said in a whisper, "Don't forget; have the first fire."

Again the word was given: Murphy blazed away a rapid and harmless shot; for his hurry was the squire's safety, while Andy's murderous intentions were his salvation.

"D--n the pistol!" said the squire, throwing it down in a rage. Dick took it up with manifest indignation, and d--d the powder.

"Your powder's damp, Ned."

"No, it's not," said the squire; "it's you who have bungled the loading."

"Me!" said Dick, with a look of mingled rage and astonishment: "_I_ bungle the loading of pistols!--_I_ that have stepped more ground and arranged more affairs than any man in the county!--Arrah, be aisy, Ned!"

Tom Durfy now interfered, and said, for the present it was no matter, as, on the part of his friend, he begged to express himself satisfied.

"But it's very hard we're not to have a shot," said Dick, poking the touch-hole of the pistol with a pricker which he had just taken from the case which Andy was holding before him.

"Why, my dear Dick," said Durfy, "as Murphy has had two shots, and the squire has not had the return of either, he declares he will not fire at him again; and, under these circumstances, I must take my man off the ground."

"Very well," said Dick, still poking the touch-hole, and examining the point of the pricker as he withdrew it.

"And now Murphy wants to know, since the affair is all over and his honour satisfied, what was your brother-in-law's motive in assaulting him this morning, for he himself cannot conceive a cause for it."

"Oh, be _aisy_, Tom."

"'Pon my soul, it's true."

"Why, he sent him a blister,--a regular apothecary's blister,--instead of some law-process, by way of a joke, and Ned wouldn't stand it."

Durfy held a moment's conversation with Murphy, who now advanced to the squire, and begged to assure him there must be some mistake in the business, for that he had never committed the impertinence of which he was accused.

"All I know is," said the squire, "that I got a blister, which my messenger said you gave him."

"By virtue of my oath, squire, I never did it! I gave Andy an enclosure of the law-process."

"Then it's some mistake that vagabond has made," said the squire. "Come here, you sir!" he shouted to Andy, who was trembling under the angry eye of Dick the Devil, who, having detected a bit of lead on the point of the pricker, guessed in a moment Andy had been at work; and the unfortunate rascal had a misgiving that he had made some blunder, from the furious look of Dick.

"Why don't you come here when I call you?" said the squire.--Andy laid down the pistol-case, and sneaked up to the squire.--"What did you do with the letter Mr. Murphy gave you for me yesterday?"

"I brought it to your honour."

"No, you didn't," said Murphy. "You've made some mistake."

"Divil a mistake I made," answered Andy very stoutly; "I wint home the minit you give it to me."

"Did you go home direct from my house to the squire's?"

"Yis, sir, I did: I wint direct home, and called at Mr. M'Garry's by the way for some physic for the childre."

"That's it!" said Murtough; "he changed my enclosure for a blister there; and if M'Garry has only had the luck to send the bit o' parchment to O'Grady, it will be the best joke I've heard this month of Sundays."

"He did! he did!" shouted Tom Durfy; "for don't you remember how O'Grady was after M'Garry this morning."

"Sure enough," said Murtough, enjoying the double mistake. "By dad! Andy, you've made a mistake this time that I'll forgive you."

"By the powers o' war!" roared Dick the Devil, "I won't forgive him what he did now, though! What do you think?" said he, holding out the pistols, and growing crimson with rage: "may I never fire another shot if he hasn't crammed a brace of bullets down the pistols before I loaded them: so, no wonder you burned prime, Ned."

There was a universal laugh at Dick's expense, whose pride in being considered the most accomplished regulator of the duello was well known.

"Oh, Dick, Dick! you're a pretty second!" was shouted by all.

Dick, stung by the laughter, and feeling keenly the ridiculous position in which he was placed, made a rush at Andy, who, seeing the storm brewing, gradually sneaked away from the group, and, when he perceived the sudden movement of Dick the Devil, took to his heels, with Dick after him.

"Hurra!" cried Murphy; "a race--a race! I'll bet on Andy--five pounds on Andy."

"Done!" said the squire; "I'll back Dick the Divil."

"Tare an' ouns!" roared Murphy; "how Andy runs! Fear's a fine spur."

"So is rage," said the squire. "Dick's hot-foot after him. Will you double the bet?"

"Done!" said Murphy.

The infection of betting caught the bystanders, and various gages were thrown down and taken up upon the speed of the runners, who were getting rapidly into the distance, flying over hedge and ditch with surprising velocity, and, from the level nature of the ground, an extensive view could not be obtained; therefore Tom Durfy, the steeple-chaser, cried "Mount, mount! or we'll lose the fun: into our saddles, and after them!"

Those who had steeds took the hint, and a numerous field of horsemen joined in the chase of Handy Andy and Dick the Devil, who still maintained great speed. The horsemen made for a neighbouring hill, whence they could command a wider view; and the betting went on briskly, varying according to the vicissitudes of the race.

"Two to one on Dick--he's closing."

"Done!--Andy will wind him yet."

"Well done!--there's a leap! Hurra!--Dick's down! Well done, Dick!--up again, and going."

"Mind the next quickset hedge--that's a rasper; it's a wide gripe, and the hedge is as thick as a wall--Andy'll stick in it.--Mind him!--Well leap'd, by the powers!--Ha! he's sticking in the hedge--Dick'll catch him now.--No, by jingo! he has pushed his way through--there he's going again at the other side.--Ha! ha! ha! ha! look at him--he's in tatthers!--he has left half of his breeches in the hedge."

"Dick is over now.--Hurra!--he has lost the skirt of his coat--Andy is gaining on him.--Two to one on Andy!"

"Down he goes!" was shouted, as Andy's foot slipped in making a dash at another ditch, into which he went head over heels, and Dick followed fast, and disappeared after him.

"Ride! ride!" shouted Tom Durfy, and the horsemen put their spurs in the flanks of their steeds, and were soon up to the scene of action. There was Andy roaring murder, rolling over and over in the muddy bottom of a deep ditch, with Dick fastened on him, pummelling away most unmercifully, but not able to kill him altogether for want of breath.

The horsemen, in a universal _screech_ of laughter, dismounted, and disengaged the unfortunate Andy from the fangs of Dick the Devil, who was dragged from out of the ditch much more like a scavenger than a gentleman.

The moment Andy got loose, away he ran again, and never cried stop till he earthed himself under his mother's bed in the parent cabin.

The squire and Murtough Murphy shook hands, and parted friends in half an hour after they had met as foes; end even Dick contrived to forget his annoyance in an extra stoup of claret that day after dinner,--filling more than one bumper in drinking _confusion_ to Handy Andy, which seemed a rather unnecessary malediction.

EPIGRAM.

On Easter Sunday, Lucy spoke, And said, "A saint you might provoke, Dear Sam, each day, since Monday last; But now I see your rage is past." Said Sam, "What Christian could be meek! You know, my love, 'twas _Passion Week_; And so, you see, the rage I've spent Was not my own--'twas only _Lent_." S. LOVER.

INTRODUCTION TO THE BIOGRAPHY OF MY AUNT JEMIMA, THE POLITICAL ECONOMIST.

BY FRIDOLIN.

PRELIMINARY DISQUISITION ON HUMAN GREATNESS, TOUCHING UPON THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MATTER.

"Some men are born great, some acquire greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

Thus read my aunt Jemima, and thus subsequently read I, in the days of our respective and respectable minorities; but with this difference--uncertain whether GREATNESS had not already clandestinely made its _avatar_ into me at my birth, or whether it was destined hereafter to yield coyly to my wooing, or would force me in future years to cry in vain humility, "_Nolo magnificari_." I always felt confident of eminence; whereas my aunt Jemima often feelingly reverted to the misery of her young maidenly thoughts, when brooding over the certainty that she could never, under any circumstances, become a "great man."

"Great women" were unknown in her early days. There were no such things; save and except such as might be seen at St. Bartholomew's fair at inexpensive cost,--giantesses, who lowered themselves to gain a living by their height. But my aunt Jemima valued not such feminine _greatness_ as theirs. Her aspiring spirit looked not "to _measures_, but to men." Our notions change!

It is very melancholy, and rather inconvenient, to drag through the last and heaviest stage of life a martyr to a marvel.

Horace, who forbids all wise men to wonder, himself exhibited a thriftless want of economy in the expenditure of his own wonder when he marvelled, in excellent metre, that any man should eat garlic who had not murdered his father; and also, that any mortal should have dared to venture on the sea before the discovery of Kyan's anti-dry-rot patent.

Nor can I much sympathise in the great marvel of that renowned French statesman, of esculent memory, who professed himself unable to discover any principle in nature, or in philosophy, that could explain how a certain Duke of Thuringia, passing through Strasburg on a diplomatic mission, should not have stopped to dine, _en hâte, de foie gras_. As for the "three, yea four," curious problems of olden time, which consumed the wise king with their inexplicability, they are as clear to modern apprehensions as plate-glass: nay, as my aunt Jemima used to observe, in the days when glory and greatness had come upon her,--"Thanks be praised!" (My aunt was a religious woman, and guarded herself from profane expressions.)--"Thanks be praised! owing to the enlightenment of the age in which we live, even in those seven wonders of the world there is nothing so very wonderful now." There can be no objection on my part to allow that eclipses were pretty marvellous transactions as long as they occurred in consequence of a bilious dragon needing a pill, and bolting the sun to correct digestion; but ever since dragons have adopted a different treatment, and abandoned the solar bolus, this phenomenon has subsided into one of common-place pretension. The age of wonders, like the New Marriage-act, has passed.

But one wonder--single, solitary, omnipotent--oppresses me. It is, that mankind, from ignorance of the meaning of true greatness, lay themselves open to perpetual insult,--nay, court it. Do we not lie down patiently as lambs, and bear impertinent biographies to be thrust before our eyes of persons who are facetiously termed _great_? Great! implying, in a paltry and indifferently disguised innuendo, that you, the reader, are of course small,--stunted, as it were, in intellectual growth,--an under-shrub,--a dwarf specimen. Without being in any way consulted in a matter, or examined, or probed, to see what stuff may be in you, it is taken for granted that the world has already made its odious comparisons between your unobtrusive self and its GREAT MAN; and that, with the promptness of a police magistrate, it has summarily decided against you; that you, without knowing it, have been weighed in the scales and found wanting; have flown upwards as a feather, have kicked the beam, have moved lighter than a balloon textured of gossamer and inflated with rarefied essence of hydrogen: a very pretty and gratifying assumption!

Our primitive lessons in emulation generally consist, in great part, in a series of these insults.

The chubby little fellow, bribed to undergo the advantages of scholarship by tardy permission to harass his young nether limbs with trousers, usually of nankeen, finds himself immediately exhorted to strive, in order that in time he may become a GREAT man. He images the vague outline of a human mammoth, and sits down with scanty hope of modelling himself accordingly. In the pride and pomp of baby ambition he yearns to rival in stature and girth the sons of Amalek. He is small, and perfectly conscious that he is so; but frets to exchange his little pulpy fingers for a sinewy fist that can shake a weaver's beam: he meditates upon great men as pumpkins, compared with which he is but a gooseberry. He is not taught, by way of softening the injury done him by an unnecessary contrast, that the one may be full of sweetness as the other of insipidity.

He waxes in years and amplitude: still hears he of that obtrusive department in natural history, the GREAT men. He thinks not of them as before; he no longer deems their greatness to consist in the mere admeasurement of their cubic contents, as in the days of his young innocence, when an extensive pudding would, in his ceremonial, have taken precedence of name and fame. He now understands, and, by understanding, suffers the more acutely under the impertinence. If acts of valour and command, or of senatorial display,--if a tyranny over empires, or mighty influence over the minds and feelings of successive generations,--if literary renown or public benefaction constitute greatness, he is himself of most diminutive dimensions. He knows it. He never for a moment dreamed of denying it. He has enjoyed no scope for being otherwise. He is perfectly aware of the fact, and would at once have admitted it. He needs not to have it perpetually pushed into his face, and thrust before his eyes to glare at him. The pauper feels that he is not one of the wealthy ones of the earth, without being reminded at every instant of the incurious circumstance by some rich bullionist shaking his pockets that the wretch may hear the voice of the gold jingling. His memory requires not to be so jogged on the subject. He recognises the truth of his meagre estate, and derives not a whit of pleasure from such external corroboration. It is an insult; and any raciness or merit of originality in it is altogether lost upon him. The wit is purely thrown away.

How fares the boy when, like his primal sire, "he stands erect a man?" and in what spirit does he study the philosophy of "greatness?" He may bethink him of the false fruiterer's melon, how it lay on the stall, its sunny side laughing and coquetting with the eye of the wayfarer,--its rottenness and unsavoury portion in retirement and unseen below. He discovers that the "great" are gigantic in one line, but that "the line upon line" is not their predicate; in some matters they may perchance be far smaller than their neighbours. He is no longer the boy without experience of others, or the child who interprets literally; he measures not the monsters by his own standard; he endeavours not to poise them by his own weight,--with his own girth to buckle their circumference: his acquaintance serve his turn; society establishes and confirms his experience, that an average sprinkling of inherent "greatness" may be detected in all, though the world hath not cared to trumpet it.

It becomes of difficult endurance to see our intimates thrust, as it were, on one side,--morally cast into the mire,--their qualities trampled as by heels. It mars our equability to find our friends in intellectual, philosophical, or worldly utility insinuated as no better than they should be,--to hear them classed as of the herd, essentially and merely gregarious,--vague portions of an unmeritorious whole,--negative existences, positive only in combination,--cyphers without value, that multiply but by relative position. Whereas in our young days we felt personally insulted by contrast with your "great men," in maturity we resent the impertinence as offered to our friends; for in our friends we can trace a "greatness," although the thing may not have been blazoned. Even in a man's household shall he see greatness, though it be obscure; and he shall discover that, whilst it is true that no man is "great to his valet," the comfortable conundrum is equally demonstrable, that ALL are GREAT. Your groom shall indite you verses that shall stir the hearts and haunt the dreams of your village maidens--will they compare Homer to him?--and your cook-maid shall be no small domestic oracle on the unfathomable mysteries of phrenology--what cares she for Combe and Spurzheim? Who lives, while yet his father lives, that does not hear the old man "great" in prophecy on the coming "crisis," and rich and ponderous upon the currency question? Who, in the book of the generations of his family, might not inscribe the name of some brother, a mighty man of valour, great amongst his playmates; or a sister, whose attire has given tone for a season to an emulous neighbourhood? And then, in the nineteenth century, who possesses not "great" uncles, who during the war have swayed, although unknown, victories by their strategy or disciplined obedience; or, in more peaceful triumph, have mightily influenced the election of a candidate by the despotism of their oratory? Of aunts--maiden ones--it needs not to speak. They are of the fortunate who require not greatness to be "thrust upon them." Of them it is safely assumed, that they are "born great" prospectively. This privilege however, is guaranteed to the "maiden" only; for marriage absorbs the bride into unity with her combined-separate--and "the crown of a good wife is her husband."

Your village oracle, seated on his throne--the old oaken bench under the village elm-tree, after his weekly labours, on the Saturday night embalming his tongue in the aroma of the fragrant weed, and bribing his lips into complacent humour by sips from the chirping old October, is truly _great_. He is surrounded by listeners who love to pay homage to his power. Whilst he whiffs, they consult him on great interests,--it may be respecting the destiny of nations, or the desolating march of hostile armies,--it may be on the devastations of the turnip-fly. He lays his pipe aside; his words issue, like the syllables of the Pythoness, in the midst of fragrant fumes. They fix at once the unsettled,--they establish the doubtful,--they convict the speculative.

On points of international law, Puffendorf and Grotius would shrink into nut-shells before him; they would discover their littleness: yet some deem _them_ great!

Bilious disputants may deny that any can be great whom the world has not thought fit to canonise. "Indeed!" do I reply with the sarcastic smile of superiority with which it is customary to spill the arguments of men of straw whom controversialists set up for the sake of knocking down again--"Indeed! Were the Andes a whit smaller before their exact height was proclaimed to the same arrogant world? Was not the moon as great a ball in the days when the world esteemed it a green cheese, as it is now, when men are acquainted with its diameter?"

"Ay," may reply my subtle disputant; "but these are physical facts, independent of opinion: mental, moral, social greatness, are widely different. They have no altitudes subject to trigonometrical survey by an ordnance-board like the Andes; they admit not of parallax, like the planets. Master Fridolin, your illustrations are no more worth than the kernel of a vicious nut."

"What!" I answer, "you want a metaphysical instance, do you? Physics are too coarse. Well, sir, '_Magna est veritas_--Truth is great,'--that is to say, your canoniser, the _world_ say so. Now, pray, what does the world, much more a man of straw, know about truth? Confessedly less than it knows about my groom, who is _great_ in poetry,--my cook-maid, who is _great_ in phrenology,--my father, who is _great_ on those hobgoblins the coming crises; and, let me say, amazingly less than it knows, or will know, of my aunt Jemima, who was _great_ in political economy; let alone our village oracle, who is regarded, pipe and all, as _great_ by a larger portion of the inhabitants of the _world_ than can boast any intimate acquaintance with abstract verity.

"And now, man of straw! a word in your ear:--unless you are dull in grain, methinks you will admit yourself answered."

No fallacy is more palpable when examined, and, consequently, none is more preposterous, than that of connecting GREATNESS with the _world's_ applause; yet for this, men fume and fret, struggle and strive, elbow their neighbours, and tread on their own bunnions, forgetting that they might be quite as _great_ if they would only be quiet; nay, that their chance of being so, without exertion, lies, according to Shakspeare's nice and accurate calculation, in the very comfortable proportion of two to one in their favour. Two GREAT men out of every three, find themselves so, without the least trouble on their own parts. They are born so, or their greatness "is thrust upon them." They have nothing to do in life but to button in the morning, unbutton at night, sip, masticate, and sleep, if their conscience and digestion will permit: they find themselves not a whit less great. The third alone--the "odd one"--acquires GREATNESS; and "odd" enough it is, to discover a sample of this meagre class.

But the case may be settled to mathematical certainty. Statistical inquirers--men, the breath of whose nostrils are the bills of mortality--have discovered that a tenth part of all men born into the world die and are buried before one brief year has passed. It follows, therefore, as a corollary, that of those "born great" a great proportion die _great_ when extremely little. Their nurses see one tenth of all "the great men" born, fade and expire, hydrocephalic or rickety, ere their tendencies and tastes have toddled beyond the pap-boat. What does the world know about this evanescent tenth? What does mankind trouble about the grave offence of the sepulchre in seizing and gobbling up annually these great and small tithes? What say they against its appropriating clause? Why, the world is clearly ignorant of the departed great ones,--the buried little ones; yet their greatness is indisputable.

The true philosophy of the matter, is the philosophy of the matters herein set forth; and, in her latter days, my aunt Jemima acknowledged it, for she felt it. There were no great women when she was youthful; but she lived to perceive greatness come upon her. It was not thrust--it was inherent: but it took time and acted leisurely in developing itself. It was not a creation or an acquisition, but a developement, an exudation of that which would _out_,--_nolens volens_.

The real truth is this,--_All_ under circumstances are great, although few are aware that they are so. Celebrity has nothing to do with the affair; it may proclaim the fact, but does not constitute it;--as will hereafter be shown in the instance of my aunt Jemima. F. HARRISON RANKIN.

SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A GAMBLER.

"Lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrate."

Paris!--there was once a magic in the name--a music in the sound. "Paris!" how often said I to myself when in another quarter of the globe, "Yes, I will one day visit thee--will revive the memory of the great events of which thou hast been the arena--thy Fronde--the League--the Revolution--the Cent Jours--the history of thy chivalrous François--thy noble-minded Henri--the Grand Monarque--the witty and profligate Regent--thy unfortunate Louis, and still more pitiable Empereur;--and then, the Gallery of the Louvre--the Museum of the Luxembourg--Versailles--St. Cloud--the Tuileries!" My dream was about to be realised.

I was then in my twenty-fifth year. I had health--a sufficiency of the goods of fortune to purchase the enjoyment of the moderate pleasures of life. My person and manners were agreeable; my acquirements greater then those of most of my college contemporaries; and the fine arts were "my passion and my enjoyment." All these advantages, with a pardonable egotism, I had been canvassing during my solitary journey (solitary? no, my mind was occupied with the most enchanting reveries--the most intoxicating visions) from which I was only awakened at the barrier of Montmartre. How my heart beat with delight as, from the eminence that overlooks the city, I beheld its spires, and domes, and houses, huddled in the vaporous gloom of an evening in May! The day had been a glorious one; the air breathed balm. My caleche was open; and four posters whirled me rapidly through the Boulevards, and entered the gateway of the Hotel des Princes in the Rue Richelieu. This street was, as all who are acquainted with it, know, the centre and focus of the fashion,--the life and motion of Paris, and of the foreigners who then flocked to it from all parts of Europe, (for it was the third year of the Restoration,) and had caught some of the volatile spirit of its mercurial people.

Times and dynasties change. Politics, that many-headed monster, now reigns supreme. Instead of the goddess Pleasure,--at whose shrine all sacrificed,--they have set up the Gorgon of parties. The army is no "état"--the church is no "état." It is become a city of national guards--reviewed by a king, with his three sons,--a family marked for assassination. There is no court--no _ancienne noblesse_. Everywhere distress and misery, hate and calumny, persecution and imprisonment, ruin, the grippe, and bankruptcy. Such is a picture of the Paris of 1837.

But I was in the Rue Richelieu--the great artery of the life's blood of Paris. From it, as from a floodgate, rushed along in conflicting eddies, sweeping like a torrent, a crowd in quest of pleasure. Some were hurrying to the gaming-houses; some _aux Italiens_, to the Ambigu, of the Varietés, and the different theatres; others to the Palais Royal, which in its magic circle comprehends all that vice or luxury can invent to seduce the imagination or gratify the sense; then to Tortoni's, or the innumerable cafés, there to enjoy the _al fresco_ of the Boulevards Italiens seated under the trees, or to mingle with the multitude, chatting, laughing, or whispering in delighted ears under the well-lighted avenue of elms that had just put forth their young leaves. I made one of the throng, and would that _Armida_ Paris had had no worse enchantments--no more seductive pleasures. Alas! what have I now to do with them?--they have lost their charm. My hair is grey,--my heart is withered!

But I anticipate.

What do the phrenologists mean, by not having assigned to their chart of the skull a place for play? Gall, during his long practice in Paris, might surely have discovered it; for, of all people, the Parisians have this passion the most strongly developed. It is common, indeed, to the most savage, as well as the most civilised nations; for I have seen the Hindu strip himself naked, and bet at chukra the last rag in his possession; the African stakes his wife and children; but our neighbours may plunge their families, to the third and fourth generation, in misery and destitution. The pauper sells his only bed: the cradle of his child. The manufacturer takes to the Mont de Pieté his tools; steals those of his employers. The diplomatist and the figurante, the financier and the mendicant, all fall down before one idol--a Moloch worse than that of the Valley of Gehenna--a monster without pity or remorse, who delights in the tears, and groans, and gnashings of teeth of his votaries, nor quits his prey till he tracks them to the Morgue--name of horrid sound! and yet, the last refuge and sole resting-place of his infatuated victims.

How easy it is to moralise! I should like to know if I always had this infernal bias, or if it was engrafted in me, or whether I was seized at that time with the general epidemy, taking the infection, like the cholera, from those about me, or from the air which I was respiring. Oh, worse than wind-walking pestilence is play! It has a subtle poison, and more kinds of death; no, not death! for, _I_ live,--if dying from day to day can be called life.

The first weeks of my _séjour_ passed like days, nay hours; but I did not confine myself to Paris itself. Few foreigners, or even natives, know the beauty of the environs. These were the scenes of my rides by day. In the evening I assisted at some French _réunion_, or mixed in the _soirées_ of our own country; frequented the Opera Italienne, where not a note is lost: and such notes!--for Pasta was the prima donna. Being "_un peu friand_," I frequently dined at the Rocher de Concal. I mention that restaurant because I have reason to remember it. The Rocher de Concal boasts none of the magnificence of Very's, or Beauvilliers. The entrance is encumbered with the shells of the _huitres d'Ostende_, the most delicious of oysters. The rooms are not much larger than boxes at the opera; but they enclose a world of fun. The rustling of silk is often heard there, and one meets in the narrow passages veiled forms hastening to some mysterious rendezvous.

It was here that I became acquainted with the Prince M----. His was a fatal initial; and might have reminded me of what he proved to be,--my Mephistophiles! M---- was one of those princes that "_fourmillent_" in all the capitals of Europe. He was about thirty years of age. His figure was tall, slight, and emaciated, and corresponded with his countenance, that was of a paleness approaching to marble, and might be said to have no expression, so complete a mastery had he obtained over his feelings. His equipage had nothing at first sight remarkable. The cabriolet was of a sombre colour, and the harness without ornaments; but the horse was not to be matched for beauty and power. His dress seemed equally plain; but, on closer inspection, you discovered it was of a studied elegance, the colours being so well matched that the eye had nothing particular on which to rest. He never was known to laugh, and seldom smiled; he was rather cold, though not forbidding in his manners, and perfectly indifferent whether he amused or not. He never spoke of the politics of the day, of his domains, of his stud or family,--much less of himself, his exploits, or his adventures. He never made an observation that was worthy of being repeated, yet never said a foolish thing. With the sex he was a great favourite, for he perfectly understood the science of flattery; but it was with the utmost tact that he put it in requisition. His address was perfect: he spoke French, and indeed several languages, with that admirable choice of phrase for which the Russians are remarkable. The sole occupation of his life was play; and to win or lose seemed a matter of perfect indifference to him, whatever the stake.

There was also of the party that day another foreigner, Baron A----, who had been a Jew. He was his _compagnon de voyage_. Castor and Pollux were not more inseparable. This _alter ego_ was a little man, with a grey eye of singular archness, and a light moustache, as most Germans have. His whole fortune consisted of five hundred louis, which he carried about with him;--an excellent nest-egg; for he contrived to double annually this poor capital. One year he was at Rome, another at Florence, a third at Vienna--no; there he was too well known. A gambler, like a prophet, has no honour in his own country. The last spring he had passed in London, where, of course, be had the _entrée_ at Almack's, and now opened the campaign under the most promising auspices at Paris. The baron was a sort of lion's-provider--the pilot-fish of the shark.

We separated at an early hour, and I afterwards met my new _friends_ at an hotel in the Fauxbourg St. Honoré, where there was, as usual, an écarté-table. Ecarté was then all the rage; though, like our all-fours, it had originally been the game of the _peuple_, or rather in Paris of the _laquais_. It is a game uniting skill and chance; but it is a game of countenance; a game, also, in which the cards played with, being fewer in number than at whist, it is no difficult matter to scratch an important one, so as to know in time of need where to find it, or to _sauter le coup_. That evening, for the first time, I was induced to take a hand, and, in my innocence of such manoeuvres, wondered that my opponent turned up the king so much oftener than myself. In time my eyes were opened, and I discovered that other _tricheries_ were practicable. For instance, one morning, after a ball given by an English lady, there were found rolled up in one corner of the room two queens and a knave; and, on examining the écarté packs, these were missing,--had literally been discarded,--a circumstance which rendered the success of two officers of the _garde de corps_, who cleaned out the party, by no means problematical. But I was now initiated; and a witty writer says,

"That where that pestilence, play, once leaves a taint, It saps the bone, and pierces to the marrow, And then 'tis easier to extract an arrow."

How willing we all are to put off the evil moment: to string anecdote on anecdote, and weave parenthesis in parenthesis, rather than come to the point! Does it not remind us of the tricks of the wrestler to avoid the grasp of his more powerful antagonist? But it must come: so let me proceed with my confession.

As I was leaving the room, the prince came up to me and said, "Demain voulez-vous, Monsieur, être des notres?--There is a dinner at the _salon_, and I will take you with me as my 'umbra,' and present you to the Marquis--." In an evil hour I consented.

The _maisons de jeu_ at Paris are farmed by a society, who purchase of the government the privilege of opening a certain limited number--if I remember right, five. In order to prevent unfair play, a _commis_ of the police is in daily attendance at the opening of the packs of cards, and they are lodged in the office every night. So far so good. But the advantages in favour of the bank are so great, that after the payment of several hundred thousand pounds sterling to the revenue, after defraying the expenses of hotels, cashiers, croupiers, lackeys, &c. &c. the _associés_ divide twenty or thirty per cent. At the head of these establishments is the _salon des étrangers_. The prime minister, or master of the ceremonies, was then the Marquis de L----. He was the last of the _aisles de pigeon_, which he wore _bien poudrées_. He had been an _emigré_, and, like many of them, had passed twenty years in England without knowing a word of the language. He was distinguished by an ease of manner and a politeness, though rather exaggerated, of the _vieille cour_. Soon after my introduction to him he lost his appointment, it having been discovered that the cashier, _by some mistake_, nightly gave him fifty napoleons in exchange for a billet of five hundred francs. By-the-by, the office of president of the _salon_ was in considerable request, and was afterwards filled by a general officer who had once been in the English service.

It was one of the dinners that were given three times a-week. We passed through a range of servants in splendid liveries, to the _salon à manger_, where I found sixty guests, consisting, not only of the foreigners most distinguished for rank, fortune, and consideration, but _pairs de France, deputés_ of all parties,--in fact, the _élite_ of Paris. Before each, was placed a _carte_. It was not one of your English bills of fare, with its _plats de resistance_; but earth, air, and ocean had been ransacked, and all the skill of the most consummate _artistes_ employed to furnish out the table. Every sort of wine circulated in quick succession; but, when I looked around me, I saw no hilarity in this assembly. The viands seemed to pall upon the taste, the goblet passed unquaffed. Gambling is the most selfish of vices; it admits of no society; every one seemed too much occupied with his own thoughts even to address his neighbour. Was I happy myself? No. The soul instinctively seems to foresee all the miseries that originate from a single false step, inspiring us with certain vague apprehensions that with a vain casuistry we endeavour to dissipate. In fact, I never enjoyed a dinner less; and was as pleased at its termination as most of the party were anxious for the real object of the meeting--_le commencement de la fin, ou la fin du commencement--le jeu_.

The hotel where we assembled was of the time of Louis the Fifteenth, and had belonged to one of his numerous mistresses; the taste, however, of his predecessor reigned there. In front was a _cour d'honneur_, large enough to drawn the rattle of carriages and noise from without; and behind, was a garden laid out in the English style, and full of odoriferous shrubs, then in full bloom, particularly the lilac, the laburnum, and the red-thorn, that wafted their perfume through the unfolded doors, whilst at intervals was heard the plashing of a fountain. The three principal rooms, two of which were dedicated to _rouge et noir_ and French hazard, were in shape octagonal; the compartments, which were fantastically chased, and rich in gilding, served as a frame-work to pictures in the manner of Watteau, and probably by the hand of one of his pupils. The ceilings were similar in taste, and described some exploits of Jupiter, whose representative was the monarch himself according to the fashion of the day. The only light in each of these apartments, proceeded from a lamp shaded by green silk, that diffused its mellow and softened rays around, and threw a brilliant and dazzling effulgence on the table. Along the centre were ranged the dealers and bankers; and before them heaps of gold and silver, and _billets de banc_, and red and white counters, their representatives. On both sides were the players; and the broad glare, shadowless and impending, displayed their features. Many of them were known to me by name. There was, with his noble and portly figure and countenance, much resembling the busts of Charles Fox, the late Earl of T----, who with perfect _sangfroid_ lost his twenty-five thousand pounds a-year, and thought the only use of money was to buy pieces of ivory marked with numbers on them, and that the next pleasure in life to winning, was to lose. To his right was B---- H----, with his handsome profile, Hyperion locks, and unmeaning red-and-white face, incapable of an expression either of joy or chagrin: Lord M----, who went by the sobriquet of Père la Chaise; S----, bent double with care, and wrinkled with premature old age; the young and emaciated Lord Y----, the only one of his family who resembles his father, and inheriting from him the same propensity: and by his side Benjamin Constant, whose ardent spirit, like the volcano under Vesuvius, was for ever breaking out in the excitement of love, or politics, or play; his hair was grey, as if scorched by the working of his brain; his frame consumed as by an inward fire; his cheek bloodless as that of a corpse, for which, but for his eye, he might have been taken;--there was a desolateness in every trait of his countenance, and nervous sensibility accompanied every cast of the die that it was painful to witness. These were some of the _crêpes_ party. The Prince M---- was not among them: he had found more attractive metal--was closeted in a cabinet at écarté.

For some hours I looked on, as an indifferent spectator. I had come fortified by a long colloquy held with myself, the result of which was a determination not to be duped. I had had too much experience of the world to fall into the snare--I had resisted many worse temptations--I knew too well the chances to risk even the few napoleons cautiously put into my purse. "Facilis descensus Averni," says the poet. Insensibly I took an interest in the game. I flattered my self-vanity by thinking that, when such a one threw in, I should not have been on the _contre_, or should have withdrawn my money before he _sauted_,--that I should have taken the odds, or betted them differently from Lord This or Monsieur _Tel_. In short, for me the veil of Isis was lifted, the mysteries of play revealed. I alone was inspired; and so for once it was to prove. One of the circle left his seat, and I filled up the vacancy. I sat writhing till my turn came. All had thrown out, and all had backed the casters. I now took the box: by my clumsy way of handling it, and shaking the dice, it was perceived that I was a tyro. And now the _contre_ was covered with gold and notes: "Seven!" I cried; "eleven's the nick!" I changed the main: still my luck continued. In short, I threw in nine times, leaving all my winnings to accumulate, and found myself in possession of twenty-four thousand francs. It was now suggested to me that the bank was only responsible for twelve thousand. Twice more did I tempt Fortune, and with equal success; and then handed over the box, and gave up my place to a new comer; and, without any one seeming to notice my departure, betook myself to my apartment--but not to sleep. I was in a fever of delight; visions more enchanting than those of Eldorado visited my couch. I had found the magic wand,--had gained the golden branch in the Æneid,--opened to myself a mine of wealth,--an inexhaustible treasure. At daybreak I raised myself in the bed, and counted it,--arranged in heaps the glittering treasure. I had all Paris in my hand! I would have an hotel, I would have horses, carriages, all that wealth could purchase should be mine. That gold which others sighed for, toiled for, sinned for, was mine, easily obtained, and won expressly to be spent. Horace, when in his poetic dream of immortality he cried "Album mutor in alitem," and soared above the heads of the admiring world, felt no raptures compared with mine.

My success was soon blazoned abroad, and my gains exaggerated. In the course of the day I had a visit of congratulation from the prince. "There is a fête and ball at Frascati," said he, on taking leave; "you will be there?" There was a devilish smile on his face. It was the first time I had ever seen him smile.

It was ten o'clock, and that temple of Circe was flooded with light, and filled with women and men of all ages;--no, not of all, for one of the conditions of admission is, besides being well dressed, that a person must be _of age_. _Le Jeu_ has no objection to the gold of a father, a lover, or a husband; but he disdains the pocket-money of a minor. He has great respect for all the decencies of life: he requires a well-filled purse and an elegant toilette. Enter, ye rich and lively!--come, and welcome! There is sure to be gold where there are women, and woman where there is gold.

At the entrance of this hell, the _laquais_, after a scrutiny of my person, took my hat, and, by means of an iron instrument attached to a long pole, with a practised dexterity lifted it to peg 200, where it assumed its place in the well-marshalled ranks of its comrades. I afterwards observed that it was the only thing most of the owners carried away with them.

The first room was occupied by a roulette table. The grand saloon,--of which there is, or was, an admirable picture in the Oxford Street Bazaar, containing the well-known portraits of very many who frequented it,--is dedicated to _rouge et noir_, or _trente et quarante_, and was encircled two or three deep by a crowd of both sexes, all preserving a profound silence, only interrupted by the _Messieurs, faites votre jeu!--Le jeu est fait!--Rien plus!_ of the dealer; for the noise of the _ratliers_ that had shovelled the gold and five-franc pieces into a heap had ceased, and all were breathlessly awaiting the _coup_. The _coup_ was made: _quarante: Rouge gagne_. It was then a horrid sight to mark the expression of the different feelings that agitated this assembly--this Pandæmonium! Some tore their hair from their heads in handsful,--some gnashed their teeth like the damned in the Sistine chapel,--others, their eyes almost starting out of their sockets, uttered horrid oaths, and blasphemous exclamations,--and one, who had his hand in his breast, withdrew it, dyed in blood, without being sensible of the wounds his nails had inflicted! But, as if this spectacle of tortured and degraded humanity were not enough, it was still more appalling to observe the countenances of the women, who had staked their last louis on the turn of the card! Their splendid dresses, their silks and gauze, their _cachemires de l'Inde_, that glitter of gold and gems, their necklaces of pearl, and ear-rings of diamond,--all that serves to heighten and embellish beauty, by a horrid contrast only gave them a greater deformity, reminding us of Pauline Borghese on her death-bed daubing her cadaverous cheeks with rouge, and tricking herself out in the same magnificent costume she had worn in the Tuileries when she shone the wonder and admiration of Paris; assuming in the last agonies of dissolution the voluptuous attitude she had chosen for that masterpiece of art, that wonderful creation of the greatest of modern sculptors, Canova.

Oh! that these Phrynes could at that moment have seen in the mirrors that on all sides reflected them, their hollow eyes--their violet lips--their livid cheeks! The snakes of Leonardo's Medusa would have made them perfect. No; they had no eyes or ears but for that hideous old Sultan whose seraglio they had formed,--_le Jeu_.

The _rouge et noir_ table being thus _agreeably_ filled, I sat down to roulette, and placed before me my packet of notes; being determined this time to break the bank. I turned some of my _billets_ into gold, and began, during the revolutions of the wheel of Fortune, to cover the cyphers. Sixty-two times the original stake would be good interest for less than as many seconds! Now for my inspiration--but this time my spirit of prophecy had fled. There was no prize for me. The ball still made its accustomed rounds, and lost itself in some number where I had no stake: now it bounded along, and hung suspended like a bird hovering over its nest; and then, just as it was about to crown my wishes, took a new spring, and, with a provoking coquetry, lavished its favours on one who had not courted them with half, perhaps only the twentieth part, of the fervour I had done. Sometimes, as if to lead me on in the pursuit, she tantalised me by hiding herself in the next number to that I had chosen; and then, the succeeding minute crushed all my hopes, and reduced them to nothing, with some zero rouge or zero blanc, or the double misery of two zeros.

I now gave up the lottery of numbers, and betook myself to that of colours. Still I was no diviner. If I made black my favourite, there was sure to be a run on red; and _vice versâ_. I lost my coolness--my temper. I doubled my stakes,--trebled them. Still the _ratliers_ did their merciless office; the _croupiers_ still with imperturbable nonchalance swept into a gulph, from which was no return, my notes and gold. In short, in a few hours, I was not only stript of all my winnings, but had borrowed of one of the lackeys three thousand francs, which I was to return the next morning, with a premium of two per cent. He was one of the myrmidons of the _salon des étrangers_, and knew I had the _entrée_, and that the loan was a safe one; nay, he pressed me to borrow more: but--_ohe, jam satis!_--I hurried to my porter's lodge, and thence to my apartment, but in a widely different mood to that in which I had entered it the night before. All the scenes of wealth and riches that my imagination had conjured up, had vanished. I had horrid dreams. The curtain was withdrawn; it showed me the sad reality of all that had happened, and all that was to happen.

The next day I locked my room-door, and held a long dialogue with my conscience. I felt two powers at work within me--two inclinations striving for mastery--two persons, as it were, one acting against and in spite of the other. I endeavoured to arm myself against myself. It was a violent struggle between the principles of good and evil. Whether, like Hercules, I should have made the same choice, I know not; but vice never wants for arguments or supporters, and in the afternoon came an invitation, by one of his emissaries, from the prince, to dine with him. My foible--the rock on which I have made shipwreck--has been, that I never could say, no. I accepted it.

Besides the inseparables, were present, on this occasion, a Prussian colonel and a Polish count. The dinner was _recherché_; the dishes having been sent from different _restaurants_ famous for their _cuisine_: the _ravioli_, for instance, from an Italian house, and the _omelette Russe_ from the _café de Paris_. The mock and real champagne were well iced, and the Chambertín a bouquet of violets. I endeavoured to find a Lethe in the glass, which circulated freely, though it only circulated; for the prince, on the plea of health, drank lemonade, and his guests, as the Italians say, baptised their Lafitte with water. Two nights such as I had passed did not diminish the effect of the wine; and when it was proposed to play at faro, though I knew nothing of the game, I made no objection. It was suggested that the baron should be banker. He had come ready prepared; opened his strong box, and produced his five hundred louis. The practised neatness with which he turned up the cards, the accuracy of his calculations, and correctness of his accounts, might have excited the admiration of any _croupier_ at the _salon_; certainly none of them understood his _métier_ better. I began with very small stakes, which were unlimited. I soon, however, followed the example of the circle, and played higher. I lost. The two strangers appeared to lose also, and retired at an early hour.

I had added one hundred louis to the baron's capital. Whilst I was in search of my hat to make my escape, A---- had been employed in preparing an écarté pack, and offered to give me my _revanche_; our host encouraging me to take it by saying he would back me.

I sat down; and, as the prince was interested in the result, I asked his advice, but he told me, he never gave or took it. My adversary had an extraordinary run of luck,--almost always _voled_ me when I did not propose, and scored the king so often that I could not help observing it. The prince in the mean time walked about the room, occasionally looking over my cards; at length he declined participating in my stakes, and betted with me largely on his own account. Ill fortune continued to pursue me; still I played higher and higher, till my score had swelled to a frightful amount. My immense losses sobered me, and I then had my suspicions that all was not right. Opposite to the table was a mirror over the chimney, which extended from the marble-slab to the ceiling. I was fronting it, when I perceived by the reflection, the prince standing over my shoulder: he was taking snuff, and, in the act of so doing, raised up his fingers in a manner that excited my attention. I now determined to watch the pair more closely. I observed that the German always awaited the sign before he decided on proposing or refusing; and once inadvertently did so, without even looking at his own hand. It is true, we were both at four, but I had not an _atout_ or court-card: the consequence was, that I lost the game. It was now clear that I had fallen into the hands of sharpers. I found myself minus thirty thousand francs. Throwing down the pack, I got up, and walked about the room for some time, in order to collect my thoughts and consider how to act. Though confident of having been cheated; almost unknown as I was in Paris, I was aware it would not be easy to convince their numerous and powerful friends of the fact. I therefore determined to pay the money, and insult one or the other so grossly that he must give me my _revanche_ in a different way. Thinking that the scheme, however concocted, had been put in execution at the prince's own house, and that it was rendered still blacker by a breach of hospitality, I made choice of him with perfect self-possession. I asked for pen, ink, and paper; and having written cheques payable on demand at my bankers' in London for the _par nobile fratrum_, I turned to the prince, and said, presenting him with his share of the plunder, "Monsieur, voilà votre argent: vous savez comment il étoit gagné." Running his eye over the amount to ascertain if it were correct, he carefully folded up the paper, and put it in his pocket; and then, with imperturbable coolness, turned to me, and said, "Monsieur, vous m'avez insulté, et vous me ferez l'honneur de m'en rendre raison." "Très, très volontiers," I replied; "c'est ce que je cherchois." "The sooner the better," said the prince; "I will leave my friend the baron to settle the preliminaries." With these words he walked slowly to the door, and left me with his associate. He had not been gone more than a few minutes, when the Polish count, who was lodging in the same hotel, (it was in the Rue de la Paix,) and had just returned from some orgies, made his appearance, probably thinking to find us still engaged in play. The baron, without entering into particulars, immediately explained to him that the prince and myself had had a serious misunderstanding, and that it had ended in his claiming satisfaction. I was not sufficiently intimate with any one in Paris to disturb him at that hour in the morning; and, thinking it a mere formality to have a second, readily asked the count to be my friend. He consented with the best grace imaginable. It was now explained to me, that it is the custom (though I believe such is not the case) for the challenger to choose his own weapons.

"The prince," observed the baron, "has two blades of the finest Spanish steel; they are beautifully watered, and it is a pleasure to look at them. They have never yet been used: Monsieur," added he, addressing the count, "shall have his choice." All this was said with the utmost nonchalance, as though he had been only treating of a trial of skill, and not a duel _à l'outrance_.

I had never taken a fencing-lesson since I was at school, and then only for a few months of old Angelo. The prince I knew to be almost as dexterous in the art as a _maître d'armes_. The first qualification for an accomplished gambler is to be a duellist; foils were at that moment lying in a corner of the room, and he had probably been practising the very day before; indeed it was almost the only exercise he took at any time.

To have made, however, my want of skill a plea for the adoption of pistols, might, I knew, be answered by the baron's professing the prince to be the worst of shots; besides its being a deviation from the established rule in such cases for me to have a voice.

Strange to say, I felt little uneasiness on the subject: I had a quick eye, great activity, and superior physical strength; and I had heard that the most expert fencer is often at a loss to parry the determined assault of an aggressor, even though he should hardly know the use of his weapon. A sense, too, of my wrongs, and a desire of revenge, added to that moral courage in which I was never deficient, rendered me bold and confident.

It was now broad daylight. The _fiacre_ rattled up to the door, and the count and I, got into it; the prince following in his cabriolet, accompanied by A----. We drove through the _Champs Elyseés_, passed the _Port Maillot_, and, without meeting a single carriage, arrived at our destination. If there were ever a spot where a lover of nature might die almost without regret, it is this favourite resort of the _beau monde_ of Paris. Avenues ankle-deep in sand, cut into straight lines; _allées_ without verdure, that lead to nothing; a wood without trees. Such is the _Bois de Boulogne_.

The coachman, who had a perfect knowledge of the localities, and the object of our morning ride, pulled up at a spot where four roads met; and, having alighted, we followed an ill-defined path for a few hundred yards, till we came to an opening in the brushwood that was scarcely above our heads. It had served for a recent encounter, for I perceived the prince step on one side to avoid a stain of blood on one of the tufts of grass that here and there rose rankly among the sand. He appeared not to notice it, and continued to talk on indifferent subjects to his companion.

Having received our swords, all new, and bright, and glittering, as the baron promised they should be, and taken up our ground, without waiting to cross blades, I precipitated myself on my adversary, and endeavoured to beat down his guard: so impetuous was my onset, that he retreated, or, rather, I drove him before me for several yards. Those who have not experienced it, may conceive what a strange grating sensation the meeting of two pieces of steel produces; but they cannot be aware how it quickens the pulse, and that there is in every electric shock, such fierce rage, and hatred, and revenge, as burnt within me then. Still, however, the prince parried my thrusts, and kept me at arm's length. All I now remember is, that I made a last desperate lunge--that I almost lost my balance--that I felt the point of my adversary's sword enter my side, and then a film came over my eyes. When I awoke from this trance, I found myself in a crowded hospital, with a _Soeur de Charité_ leaning over me.

LES POISSONS D'AVRIL. REDDY O'DRYSCULL, SCHOOLMASTER, ETC., TO THE EDITOR.

_Water-grass-hill, 20th March._ SIR,--In answer to your application for further scraps of the late P. P., and in reply to your just reproof of my remissness in forwarding, as agreed upon, the monthly supplies to your Miscellany, I have only to plead as my "apology" the "fast of Lent," which in these parts is kept with such rigour as totally to dry up the genial moisture of the brain, and desiccate the [Greek: kala reethra] of the fancy. In "justice to Ireland" I must add, that, by the combined exertions of patriots and landlords, we are kept at the proper starving-point all the year round; a blissful state not likely to be disturbed by any provisions in the new Irish "poor law." My correspondence must necessarily be _jejune_ like the season. I send you, however, an appropriate song, which our late pastor used to chaunt over his red-herring whenever a friend from Cork would drop in to partake of such lenten entertainment as his frugal kitchen could afford.

THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC. A GASTRONOMICAL CHAUNT.

Sunt Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Leo, Scorpio, Virgo, Libraque et Arcitenens, Gemini, Caper, Amphora, Pisces.

I. Of a tavern the Sun every month takes "the run," And a dozen each year wait his wishes; One month with old Prout he takes share of a trout, And puts up at the sign of THE FISHES. 'Tis an old-fashioned inn, but more quiet within Than THE BULL or THE LION--both boisterous; And few would fain dwell at THE SCORPION-hôtel, Or THE CRAB...But this last is an oyster-house.

II. At the sign of THE SCALES fuller measure prevails; At THE RAM the repast may be richer: Old Goëthe oft wrote at the sign of THE GOAT, Tho' at times he'd drop in at THE PITCHER; And those who have stay'd at the sign of THE MAID, In desirable quarters have tarried; While some for their sins must put up with THE TWINS, Having had the mishap to get married.

III. But THE FISHES combine in one mystical sign A moral right apt for the banquet; And a practical hint, which I ne'er saw in print, Yet a Rochefoucault maxim I rank it:-- If a secret I'd hide, or a project confide, To a comrade's good faith and devotion, Oh! the friend whom I'd wish, though he _drank_ like a _fish_, Should be _mute_ as the tribes of the ocean.

THE ANATOMY OF COURAGE. BY PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU.

IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND.

As for the article of courage and its various manifestations, it is a very peculiar thing: I have thought much about it, and observed a great deal; and I am convinced that, except in romances, there are very few men who at all times show distinguished, and _none at all_ who possess _perfect_ courage. I should esteem any man who maintained the contrary of himself, and who asserted that he did not know what fear was, a mere braggart; but, nevertheless, I should not consider it my duty to tell him so, to his face. There are endless _varieties_ of courage, which may, however, be comprised under three general dispositions of temperament, and six principal rubrics; within this arrangement a thousand modifications still remain, but I cannot here pursue them.

We come, first, to three sorts of that courage which alone can be called natural, and which, like all that nature gives _directly_, is perfect; that is, without any mixture of fear so long as _it lasts_, and which, therefore, has only a temporary influence. These are,

1. Courage from passion, such as love, anger, vengeance, and so forth.

2. From hunger, or the want of any thing indispensable to existence.

3. From habit, which, according to a law of nature, hardens completely against particular kinds of permanent danger.

All the others are artificial, but not, therefore, imperfect; that is, they are not always without admixture of fear, the result either of a dawning, or on already advanced state of civilization. They may be divided into

_a._ Courage out of vanity.

_b._ Out of a feeling of honour.

_c._ Out of duty; under which head may be reckoned the inspiration of religion, and all kinds of enthusiasm; which is also closely allied to _a_. At last we come to the physical conformation which supports courage, or renders it difficult of exhibition, or puts it altogether out of the question.

(There is certainly a fourth kind of courage, in some measure the shady side of the others,--courage from avarice. I omitted it, because it is rather an enormity, and can only produce criminals; it is, therefore, allied to madness, of which I do not speak here.)

They are, firstly, a strong and healthy nervous system, and a sanguine temperament.

Secondly, a weak and excitable constitution, which is called _par excellence_ a nervous constitution.

Thirdly, that unfortunate defective formation, probably of the nerves of the brain, which produces an unconquerable timidity, becomes real suffering and a regular malady, rendering all manifestations of courage next to impossible.

That these divisions are subject to more or less modification, and often branch off into each other through inward motives, or external influences, follows of course. I will in few words touch upon these powers in their general and universal operation, and examine how the different value of the chief combinations are classified.

One, two, and three, I give up; for every one knows that with both man and beast, when a beloved object is in danger, or under the influence of a natural impulse, or when animated by a blind rage, or pinched by hunger, instinct alone acts, and timidity vanishes: but let the excitement cease, and the courage disappears also. When full of food, the lion flees before the feeblest man; and, when the hunger of the terrible boa is quite appeased, it may be laid hold of, without danger. It is equally well known that habit would make us forget the sword suspended over our heads by a single hair. The soldier, continually in battle, is as indifferent to bullets as the boy to the flying ball: and yet the same soldier would shudder at a species of danger that the most cowardly spy encounters in cold blood, and, in all probability, would feel real terror if he were compelled to a conflict with a tiger, which the timid Indian, armed with a short sword, and protected only by a green shield, will go in search of and subdue. The boldest mariner is often absurdly fearful in a carriage; and I have known a brave officer who turned pale whenever he was obliged to leap his horse over a hedge or a ditch.

But the case is very different when the courage of civilisation makes common cause with the physical disposition. If No. 1, in its highest perfection, be conjoined with _a_, _b_, and _c_, it is easy to see that the individual uniting the whole will be the bravest possible man; when, however, No. 1 stands alone, precious as it is, in, and for itself, there is but little dependence on it. The weaker No. 2, united to _a_, _b_, or _c_, is a rock compared to it: for the last motives have this great and invaluable quality--they are lasting, while No. 1 depends upon time and circumstance; and then will produce only the _so-called_ naturally brave, of whom the Spaniards say, _He was brave in his day_; No. 1 reduced to his own resources would perhaps encounter with vermilion cheeks and perfect cheerfulness, danger that would make No. 2 + _a_, _b_, or _c_, pale and serious.

Notwithstanding this, it is by no means certain whether No. 1 would not be seized with a panic in the fight, for all his red cheeks; but No. 2, with his powerful auxiliary, certain that he must fight, is quite secure, while the colour returns to his cheek even in the midst of the danger. As soon as fear seizes No. 1, it must influence his action; with No. 2 + _a_, _b_, or _c_, it is a matter of indifference whether he feels fear or no, as it will be neutralized by the permanent auxiliary qualifications, and its influence on his actions nullified. And, although No. 1 + _a_, _b_, _c_, must always remain the _summum perfectum_, yet No. 2 + _a_, _b_, _c_, will sometimes do bolder and more surprising things, because the nervous excitement is more strongly acted on; especially if enthusiasm be brought into play.

The other sex, for instance, never possess any other than this species of courage; and if our manners had not, as well out of vanity, as a feeling of honour and duty, entirely dispensed with courage in them, and directed their whole education on this principle, then a lady, No. 2 + _a_ alone, even without _b_ and _c_, would certainly have surpassed the bravest man in point of courage, and would probably have been victor in every combat, where only this courage and its endurance, and not merely physical strength or skill, should decide.

No. 1 gifted also with _a_, _b_, _c_, would be brave sometimes, and sometimes not; if No. 2, however, were equally _a_, _b_, _c_, then the disadvantageous side of such a disposition would come into action, and No. 2 would in this case be a regular portion, not so much _because_ he _must_ be such, like No. 3, but because it would be far more convenient, and more suitable to his nature: such would be many men in the lower, and the whole dear sex in the highest, degree. The undeniably cowardly disposition of the Jews has the same foundation. We have so long denied them human and social rights, that the motives of vanity and the sense of honour can operate but feebly on them, while that of duty in relation to us can scarcely exist at all. Nothing but centuries of a more reasonable and humane policy can render this otherwise.

The unfortunate No. 3 would only be courageous in two predicaments; in half-frantic religious ecstacy, or in despair, itself the very extremity of fear, when he might reach a point beyond the limits of courage. We have seen, for example, people destroy themselves out of dread of death!

What I have here said, little as it is, appears to me sufficient to point out a mode of drawing new deductions from every possible combination; to determine their relative value; and, what is most important of all, to excite further reflections, from which all may draw practical benefit.

You may think, my dear friend, that I could not occupy myself with subjects, without endeavouring to analyse my own portion of courage; for who can undertake to study mankind without beginning and ending with himself? Are you curious to be informed on this point? It is a ticklish thing; but you know that I have a pleasure in being candid, and therefore willingly withdraw, at times, the curtains of my most secret chamber, to afford my good friends a glimpse. Listen, then: the result will be found in that admired _juste milieu_, which certain well-known governments have discovered without knowing it, and find that it answers admirably well, because it may be translated by the German word _mittel mässigkeit_ (moderation, or mediocrity.) This is just the case with me also: in the first place, I must own to the feminine temperament No. 2, although I would rather have belonged to No. 1; however, laws are not to be prescribed to the Creator; and to say of myself what I think, without maintaining it as certainly demonstrated, would be too vain on my part: fortunately, in addition to my mediocre No. 2, I possess _a_, _b_, _c_, thoroughly, at least in a high, if not in the highest degree.

I know the nervous agitation which in some is called bashfulness, and in others fear, as do many who would not perhaps admit it so candidly; but it does not conquer me, and acts merely as a shower of rain does on a man wrapped in a waterproof cloak; the water remains on the surface, and does not penetrate. I have before signified that physical conditions, that is, stronger or weaker condition of the nerves, produce great variations, particularly in the dispositions 1 and 2. The advantageous effect of a good breakfast on the courage has become proverbial among the French; and all those who are in the least "nervous" must acknowledge that there is a good deal of truth in it. The young libertine in Gil Blas was perfectly in the right to answer, when he was called at five in the morning to fight a duel, "That he would not rise at such an hour for a rendezvous with a lady, much less to have his throat cut by a man;" at eleven o'clock, when he had breakfasted, and was thoroughly awake--not before--he got up, went out, and was run through the body: a strong illustration of the folly of getting up, too soon. However, when it must be, the admirable _a_, _b_, _c_, can conquer even distasteful fasting, as they can everything else, whether they act together or singly: with the help of this _æs triplex_, my littleness has fought its way very comfortably through the world, as I hope it will continue to do, without any great injury accruing, or being likely to accrue, to my vanity, my sense of honour, or my sense of duty.

Being, in addition, half poet and half enthusiast, even the courage of rashness was not unknown to me in my youthful days; notwithstanding which, it is possible that, without my _a_, _b_, _c_, I might have run away when it was dangerous to stay.

Now that I have grown up a civilised man, I observe one peculiar shade. In danger, I think far less, sometimes not at all, of the danger itself; but I am _afraid of my fear_; that is, I am afraid that others should observe I am not quite so much at my ease, as my vanity and my sense of honour (duty has nothing to do with it) require I should be. At the very moment of danger, this feeling, as well as every other that can be called anxiety, ceases of itself; because action makes stronger claims on the spirit's strength, and the weaker affections fall naturally into the background. This weakness (for such it certainly is) of extreme anxiety respecting the opinion of men, is so characteristic of me, that I feel it continually whenever I am called upon to do anything that brings me under observation,--for example, whether I make a speech, act a part, or encounter mortal danger. Herewith must not, however, be reckoned more or less physical excitement, or when natural impulses such as I, II, III, come into play. I can, without boasting, affirm, with a good conscience, that the mortal danger is, in relation to the others, the lightest of the three; and you will laugh when I tell you, that the strongest fit of timidity that ever seized upon me was, absurdly enough, on one occasion when I was to _sing_ in public!--an unlucky passion that possessed me at one time in my foolish life, and which I renounced merely out of vexation at this ridiculous bashfulness. If I were writing about another, I should, out of civility, call such a disposition, only an exaggerated sense of honour,--at most vanity, well-founded vanity. But I dare not flatter myself, and therefore I give it its true name,--the fear of men; for bashfulness is a part of fear, as audacity is of courage, but of courage, so to say, without soul, consequently without dignity, as bashfulness is fear without shame. It must not be overlooked that the greatest courage cannot, at the bottom, dispense with audacity, and the greatest men in profane history possessed it. It is, however, one of the greatest gifts for the world; and many deceive through their whole lives, by the help of audacity alone. It is not necessary to say that it must, however, be coupled with understanding, and so applied as we must in public go decently clothed. I am sorry that I have it not, and can only obtain it by artificial means; but it appears to me of so much importance, that I am half inclined, dear Schefer, to favour you with a second dissertation, if it were not a principal maxim of my book and letter-writing trade not to give too much of what is valuable. You are quit for the fear this time; and, as you are but too well acquainted with me, I see you smile, and hear you distinctly exclaim, "Another fancy-piece to look like truth." My dear Schefer, a good conjurer shows all the cards, and yet you only see what he pleases to let you. You and the Secret Society understand me. Like Wallenstein, I keep my last word _in petto_. This is my last but one.

THE SONG OF THE COVER. (NOT A SPORTING ONE.)

My Dear Mr. Editor.--I have been for some time troubled by a slight longing to illustrate the title-page (or rather the Cover and its pretty _pages_) of the Miscellany. Today I was taken suddenly worse with this desperate symptom of the _cacoethes scribendi_, but at length being safely delivered of the following doggrel, you will be glad to hear that I am now "as well as can be expected."

Ever, my dear Mr. Editor, yours truly, R. J.

THE SONG OF THE COVER.

"SING a song of half-a-crown-- Lay it out this minute: Buy the book, for half the town Want to know what's in it. Had you all the cares of Job, You'd then forget your troubles," Cried Cupid, seated on the globe, Busy blowing bubbles.

Rosy Summer, pretty Spring, See them scattering flowers-- "Catch who can!" the song they sing: Hearts-ease fall in showers. Autumn, tipsy with the grape, Plays a pipe and tabor; Winter imitates the ape, Mocking at his neighbour.

Bentley, Boz, and Cruikshank, stand, Like expectant reelers-- "Music!"--"Play up!"--pipe in hand, Beside the _fluted_ pillars! Boz and Cruikshank want to dance, None for frolic riper, But Bentley makes the first advance, Because he "pays the piper."

"Then sing a song of half-a-crown, And make a merry race on't To buy the book, all London town; There's wit upon the _face_ on't. Had you all the cares of Job, You'd then forget your troubles," Cried Cupid, seated on the globe, Busy blowing bubbles.

THE COBBLER OF DORT. BY THE AUTHOR OF "MEPHISTOPHELES IN ENGLAND."

"Oh! the world's nothing more than a cobbler's stall, Stitch, stitch, hammer, hammer, hammer! And mankind are the boots and the shoes on the wall; Stitch, stitch, hammer, hammer, hammer! The great and the rich Never want a new stitch; They fit like a glove before and behind, Are polished and neat, and always well lined, And thus wear till they come to life's ending: But the poor and the mean Are not fit to be seen,-- They are things that none would borrow or steal, Are out at the toes, and down at the heel, And are always beyond any mending. So the world's nothing more than a cobbler's stall, Stitch, stitch, hammer, hammer, hammer! And mankind are the boots and the shoes on the wall; Stitch, stitch, hammer, hammer, hammer!

"Jacob!--Jacob Kats, I say!" exclaimed a shrill female voice.

"Stitch, stitch, hammer, hammer, hammer!" continued the singer.

"Are you deaf, mynheer?"

"And mankind are the boots and the shoes on the wall."

"Do leave off your singing, and open the door; the burgomaster will be angry that I have stayed so long."

"Stitch, stitch, hammer, hammer, hammer!"

"You are enough to provoke the most patient girl in Dort. Open the door, Jacob Kats! Open the door this instant, or you shall never have any more work from me!"

"Ya?" drawled the cobbler interrogatively, as he slowly opened the door of his stall.

"Is this the way you behave to your customers, mynheer?" asked a smartly-dressed, plump-faced, pretty little woman, in rather a sharp tone;--"keeping them knocking at the door till you please to open it? It's not respectful to the burgomaster, Jacob Kats!"

"Ya!" replied the mender of leather.

"Here, I want you to do this very neatly," said the girl, producing a small light shoe, and pointing to a place that evidently wanted repairing.

"Ya!" said Jacob Kats, examining with professional curiosity the object spoken of.

"The stitches have broken away, you see; so you must fill up the place they have left, with your best workmanship," she continued.

"Ya!" he responded.

"And mind you don't make a botch of it, mynheer!"

"Ya!"

"And let me have it in an hour, for the burgomaster has given me leave to go to a dance."

"Ya!"

"And be sure you make a reasonable charge."

"Ya."

"I shall be back in an hour," said the little woman, as she opened the door to let herself out of the stall; "and I shall expect that it will be ready by that time:" and away she went. "Ya!" replied Jacob for the last time, as he prepared to set briskly about the job, knowing that his fair customer was too important a personage to be disappointed. "It is not every cobbler that can boast of being employed by a burgomaster's nursery-maid," thought Jacob; and Jacob was right.

Now every one knows what sort of character a cobbler is; but a Dutch cobbler is the _beau idéal_ of the tribe, and the cobbler of Dort deserved to be king of all the cobblers in Holland. He was the finest specimen of "the profession" it was possible to meet with; a profession, by-the-by, which his forefathers from time immemorial had followed, for none of them had ever been, or ever aspired to be, shoemakers. Jacob could not be said to be tall, unless a height of five feet one is so considered. His body was what is usually called "punchy;" his head round like a ball, so that it appeared upon his shoulders like a Dutch cheese on a firkin of butter; and his face, having been well seamed by the ravages of the small-pox, closely resembled a battered nutmeg-grater, with a tremendous gap at the bottom for a mouth, a fiery excrescence just above it, for a nose, and two dents, higher still, in which were placed a pair of twinkling eyes. It will easily be understood from this description, that our hero was by no means handsome; but his father and his grandfather before him, had been remarkable for the plainness of their looks, and therefore Jacob had no earthly reason to desire to put a better face on his business than his predecessors. Much cannot be said of his dress, which had little in it differing from that of other cobblers. A red woollen cap ornamented his head,--a part of his person that certainly required some decoration; long sleeves, of a fabric which could only be guessed at, in consequence of their colour, cased his arms; half-a-dozen waistcoats of various materials covered the upper part of his body; and his nether garments were hid under an immense thick leather apron,--a sort of heir-loom of the family.

But Jacob had other _habits_ beside these; he drank much--he smoked more--and had an equal partiality for songs and pickled herrings. Alone, which is something like a paradox, he was the most sociable fellow in existence; he sang to himself, he talked to himself, he drank to himself, and was evidently on the most friendly terms with himself: but when any one made an addition to the society, he became the most reserved of cobblers; monosyllables were all he attempted to utter; nor had he any great variety of these, as may have been observed in the preceding dialogue. His stall was his kingdom; he swayed his hammer, and ruled his lapstone vigorously; and, as other absolute monarchs have done,--in his subjects he found his _tools_. His place of empire was worthy of its ruler. It had originally been an outhouse, belonging to one of those low Gothic-looking dwellings with projecting eaves and bow windows that may be seen in the unfashionable parts of most Dutch towns; and its interior, besides a multitude of objects belonging to the trade, contained a variety of other matters peculiar to himself. Such spaces on the wells as were not hidden from view by superannuated boots and shoes, were covered with coloured prints from designs by Ostade, Teniers, and others, representing boors drinking, playing at cards or at bowls, and similar subjects. On a heavy three-legged stool, the throne of the dynasty of the Kats, sat the illustrious Jacob, facing the window to receive all the advantages the light could give: before him were the paraphernalia of his vocation: on one side was a curious old flask, smelling strongly of genuine Schiedam, which invariably formed "a running accompaniment" to his labours; and on the other was an antique pipe, short in the stem, and having a bowl on which the head of a satyr had been carved, but constant use for several generations had made the material so black, that it might have been taken for the frontispiece of a more objectionable personage.

Jacob Kats had been diligently waxing some flax preparatory to commencing the repairs of the burgomaster's nursery-maid's shoe, occasionally stopping in his task to moisten his throat with the contents of the flask, which, either from a prodigal meal of pickled herrings having made him more thirsty than usual, or the Schiedam appearing more excellent, had been raised to his mouth so often that day, that it had tinged his nose to a more luminous crimson, and had given to his eyes a more restless twinkling, than either had known for some time; when, having prepared his thread, laid it carefully on his knee ready for immediate use, and placed the object on which his skill was to be exercised close at hand, he turned his attention to his pipe,--it being an invariable rule of his progenitors never to attempt anything of importance without first seeking the stimulating influence of the Virginian weed. On examining his stock of tobacco, he discovered that he had barely enough for one pipe.

"Donner und blitzen! no more? Bah! I wish to the Teufel my pipe would never want refilling," exclaimed the cobbler of Dort, filling the bowl with the remains of the tobacco; and then, having ignited it with the assistance of flint, steel, and German tinder, puffed away at the tube, consoling himself with the reflection that, when his labour was done, he should be able to procure a fresh supply. He smoked and stitched, and stitched and smoked, and smoked and stitched again, and, while his fumigations kept pace with his arms, his thoughts were by no means idle; for, to tell the exact truth, he became conscious of a flow of ideas more numerous and more ambitious than he had ever previously conceived. Among other notions which hurried one another through his pericranium, was one particularly interesting to himself. He thought it was high time to attempt something to prevent the ancient family of the Kats becoming extinct, as he was now on the shady side of forty, enjoying in single blessedness the dignities of Cobbler of Dort, and, if such a state continued, stood an excellent chance of being the last of his name who had filled that honourable capacity. He could not help condemning the taste of the girls of his native town, who had never looked favourably upon his advantages: even Maria Van Bree, a fair widow who had signified her affection every day for fifteen years by repeating a joke upon his nose, only last week had blighted his dearest hopes by marrying an old fellow with no nose at all. Jacob thought of his solitary condition, and fancied himself miserable. He became sentimental. His stitches were made with a melancholy precision, and in the intensity of his affliction he puffed his miserable pipe; but, as song was the medium through which he always expressed his emotions, his grief was not tuneless: in tones that, without any exaggeration, were wretched to a degree, he sung the following exquisite example of Dutch sentiment:

"Ach! had ik tranen kon ik schreijen, De smart knaagt mij het leven af; Neen wanhoop spaargeen folte ringen, Stort bij Maria mij in't graf."

Which is most appropriately rendered thus:

"Ah! had I tears, so fast they'd spring, Nought from these eyes the flood could wipe out; But had I songs, I could not sing,-- The false Maria's put my pipe out."

The conclusion of this pathetic verse brought to his mind the extraordinary circumstance of his pipe (the one he had been smoking) continuing to be vigorously puffed long after it had usually required replenishing. He might have exhausted three in the same time. He also became conscious of a curious burning sensation spreading from immediately under his red cap to the very extremities of his ten toes. The smoke he inhaled seemed very hot; and the alarm which his observations on these matters created was considerably increased by hearing a roar of small shrill laughter burst from under his very nose!

"Donner und blitzen!" exclaimed the bewildered cobbler, as he took the pipe out of his mouth and looked around him to discover from whence the sounds proceeded.

"Smoke away, old boy! Smoke away! You won't smoke me out in a hurry, I can tell ye."

Jacob directed his eyes to the place from whence came this strange address, and his astonishment may be imagined at perceiving that _the words were uttered by his pipe!_ The ill-looking, black satyr, carved on the bowl, seemed to cock his eye at him in the most impertinent manner, twisted his mouth into all sorts of diabolical grimaces, and laughed till the tears ran down his sooty cheeks. Jacob was, as he himself expressed it, "struck all of a heap."

"You know you wished to the Teufel your pipe would never require refilling," said the voice as plainly as it could, while laughing all the time; "so your desire is now gratified. You may smoke me till the day of judgement."

Jacob, in fear and trembling, recalled to mind his impious wish; and even his regret for having been jilted by the widow Van Bree was forgotten in the intensity of his alarm.

"Smoke away, Jacob Kats!--I'm full of capital tobacco," continued the little wretch, with a chuckle.

The terrified cobbler was thinking of refusing, yet too much afraid of the consequences; while his tormentor, distorting his hideous features into a more abominable grin, shrieked out in his shrill treble,

"You _must_ smoke me--no use refusing _now_! Here I am, old boy, with a full bowl that will never burn out--never, never, never! so you'd best smoke." And then, as if noticing his indecision, he exclaimed, with a fresh burst of horrid laughter, "Well, if you won't, I'll make you: so, here goes!" and, before his wretched victim was aware of the manoeuvre, he jumped stem foremost into his mouth.

"Now, smoke away, old boy, or worse will follow!" said the little satyr threateningly.

Jacob was in such a state of fright that he did not dare to refuse; but the first mouthful of smoke he inhaled seemed to choke him, as if it was the burning flames of sulphur, and, gasping for breath, he brushed the pipe from his mouth.

"Smoke away, Jacob!--capital tobacco!" screamed the voice in a roar of more fiendish mirth, as he immediately regained his position. In vain, with one hand after the other, the miserable cobbler knocked the pipe from between his teeth: as fast as he struck it away, it returned to the same place. "Smoke away, old boy!" continued his unrelenting enemy, as often as his fits of laughter would allow. "Smoke away!--capital tobacco!"

Jacob Kats seemed in despair, when, casting his eyes upon his lapstone, a way of getting rid of the accursed pipe presented itself to his mind. He threw down the grinning demon on the floor, and with his lapstone raised above his head was about to crush it at a blow. "Smoke away, old boy!" fixing itself again firmly between his teeth, before Jacob had time to put his intention into execution, jeeringly continued the detested voice; "smoke away!--capital tobacco!"

With one great effort, such as great minds have recourse to on great occasions. Jacob let fall the stone, with a vigorous grasp caught hold of the grinning pipe, and, as he thought, before it could make a guess as to what he was about to do, dashed it into a thousand pieces upon the lapstone at his feet.

"Donner und blitzen!" cried the delighted cobbler; "I have done for you now!"

Alas for all sublunary pleasures!--alas for all worldly convictions!--instead of his enemy being broken into a thousand pieces, it was multiplied into a thousand pipes,--every one a facsimile of the original, each possessing the same impertinent cock of the eye, each disclosing the same satirical twist of the mouth, and all laughing like a troop of hyenas, and shouting in chorus, "Smoke away! smoke away, old boy!--capital tobacco!"

The patience of a Dutchman may be great, but the concentrated patience of all Holland could not stand unmoved on so trying an occasion as that which occurred to Jacob Kats. He saw his multitudinous tormentors form into regular rank and file, and then, as if his mouth had been a breach which he had "armed to the teeth," they presented their stems like so many bayonets, and charged in military fashion, screaming, laughing, and shouting, in a manner sufficiently terrible to scare the senses out of all the cobblers in Christendom. Slowly the trembling wretch retreated before the threatening phalanx; but he was surrounded--his back was against the wall--there was no escape; and with one leap the enemy were in the citadel. Extraordinary as it may appear, Jacob did not lose his presence of mind. As they were all jostling, and giggling, and crying out to be smoked, the unconquered cobbler firmly grasped the whole mass of his foes in both his hands to make a last attempt at their destruction, by throwing them into a tub of water, in which he soaked his leather, that happened to be just within reach; but, in a manner inexplicable to him, he felt that the more vigorously he grasped them in a body, the more rapidly they seemed to shrink from his touch, till nothing was left but the original pipe, which suddenly slipped out of his hands.

"Well then, you _won't_ smoke me," coolly remarked the sooty demon;--"but," added he, in tones that made the marrow in Jacob's bones turn cold as ice, "I'LL SMOKE YOU!"

While the last of the family of the Kats was reflecting upon the meaning of those mysterious words, to his increasing horror he observed the well-smoked features of the satyr gradually swell into an enormous bulk of countenance, as the same process of enlargement transformed the stem into legs, arms, and body, proportionately huge and terrific; but the monstrous face still wore its original expression, and seemed to the unhappy Dutchman as if he was looking at the cock of his eye through a microscope. Without saying a word, the monster, with the finger and thumb of his right hand, caught up Jacob Kats by the middle, just as an ordinary man would take up an ordinary pipe, and with his left hand twisted one of his victim's legs over the other, as if they had been made of wax, till they came to a tolerable point at the foot; then, taking from a capacious pocket at his side a moderate-sized piece of tobacco, with the utmost impudence imaginable, he rubbed it briskly upon Jacob's unfortunate nose, which, as would any fiery nose under such circumstances, was burning with indignation; and the weed immediately igniting, as the poor cobbler lay with his head down gasping for breath, he thrust the flaming mass into his mouth, extended a pair of jaws that looked like the lock of the Grand Canal, quietly raised Jacob's foot between them, and immediately began to smoke with the energy of a steam-engine! Miserable Jacob Kats!--what agonies he endured! At every whiff the inhuman smoker took, he could feel the narcotic vapour, hot as a living coal, drawn rapidly down his throat, through his veins and out at his toes, to be puffed in huge volumes out of the monster's mouth, till the place was filled with the smoke. Jacob felt that his teeth were red-hot,--that his tongue was a cinder,--and big drops of perspiration coursed each other down his burning cheeks, like the waves of the Zuyder Zee on the shore when the tide's running up. Jacob looked pitiably at his tormentor, and thought he discerned a glimpse of relenting in the atrocious ugliness of his physiognomy. He unclosed his enormous jaws, and removed from them the foot of his victim. The cobbler of Dort congratulated himself on the approach of his release.

"Jacob Kats, my boy!" exclaimed the giant, in that quiet patronising kind of voice all great men affect, carelessly balancing Jacob on his finger and thumb at a little distance from his mouth, as he threw out a long wreath of acrid smoke; "Jacob, you are a capital pipe,--there's no denying _that_. You smoke admirably,--take my word for it;" and then, without a word of pity or consolation, he resumed his unnatural fumigations with more fierceness than ever. Jacob had behaved like a martyr,--he had shown a spirit worthy of the Kats in their best days; but the impertinence of such conduct was not to be endured. He would a minute since have allowed himself to have been dried into a Westphalia ham, to which state he had been rapidly progressing, but the insult he had just received had roused the dormant spirit of resistance in his nature; and, while every feature in his tyrant's smoky face seemed illuminated with a thousand sardonic grins, having no better weapon at hand, Jacob hastily snatched the red cap off his head, and, taking deliberate aim at his persecutor, flung it bang into the very cock of his eye. The monster opened his jaws to utter a yell of agony, and down came the head of Jacob Kats upon the floor, that left him without sense or motion.

How long the cobbler of Dort remained in this unenviable situation it is impossible to say, but he was first recalled to consciousness by a loud knocking at the door of his stall.

"Jacob! Jacob Kats!" exclaimed the well-known voice of his fair customer, in a tone of considerable impatience; and Jacob, raising himself on his elbows, discovered that he had fallen back off his stool; and the empty flask at his side, and the unfinished work on his lap, while they gave him a tolerably correct notion of his condition, did not suggest any remedy for the fatal consequences of disappointing the burgomaster's nursery-maid. It is only necessary to add, that, with considerable difficulty, he managed to satisfy his important patroness; but, to the very day of his death, Jacob, who proved to be the last of the long dynasty of Kats who enjoyed the dignity inseparable from the situation of Cobbler of Dort, could not, with any degree of satisfaction, make up his mind as to whether the strange effects he had that eventful day experienced had been caused by extraordinary indulgence in the luxury of pickled herrings,--or too prodigal allowance of Schiedam,--or intense disappointment for the loss of the widow Van Bree.

AN EPIGRAM.

On Sabbath morn two sisters rise, And each to chapel goes; Fair Caroline to close her eyes, And Jane to eye her clothes (close).

ANOTHER.

All Flora's friends have died, it seems, before her:-- I wish my wife had been a friend of Flora!

HERO AND LEANDER. FROM THE GREEK OF MUSÆUS.

The lamp that saw the lovers side by side In furtive clasp; the swimmer bold o' nights; The close embrace Aurora never spied, Sing Muse! and Sestos, nest of their delights, Where Hero watched, and Eros had his rites Duly performed. My song is of Leander, And lovingly the beacon-lamp requites, Which lured him o'er the ocean's back to wander, Sweet Hero's message-light, love's harbinger and pandar.

Zeus should have placed that signal-light above, (Their love-race ended) 'mid the constellations, And called its name the bridal star of love, As minister of rapture's keen sensations, The cresset, by whose aid they found occasions Of sleepless nights--till blew the fatal blast. Come, Muse! and join with me in lamentations For that clear night, by which love's bidding past, And for Leander's life, extinguished both at last.

Sestos is opposite Abydos, near And neighbour cities--parted by the sea: Love with one arrow scorched a virgin there, And here a youth; the fairest Hero she, The handsome bachelor, Leander, he. Stars of their cities, but resembling each The other. Sestos keeps her memory Where Hero's lamp was wont his way to teach, And for Leander moans Abydos' sullen beach.

Whence grew Leander's passion? Whence again Did the same fire sweet Hero's heart devour? Priestess of Cypris, and of noble strain, Untaught in Hymen's rites, and of love's power Unconscious, Hero in a sea-side tower, An ancient and ancestral pile, was dwelling,-- Another Cypris, but a virgin flower, In sensitive white purity excelling, The slander and the touch of license rude repelling.

She went not where the light-foot choir assembled, Shunned ribalds, and the breath that Envy blew, (The fair hate those are fairer,) and she trembled At thought of young Love's quiver,--for she knew His mother favoured every shaft he drew; Prayers to the mother, and with girlish art Cates to the son she offered: nathless flew From the sly urchin's bow the fire-plumed dart Straight to its destined mark, the maiden's trembling heart.

What time came round the Sestian festival, Sacred to Cypris, and her Syrian fere, All who inhabited the coronal Of sparkling isles their way to Sestos steer; Some from Emonia gather far and near; Others from Cyprus; in Cythera now No woman stays; in Sestos now appear The Phrygian, and the dancer on the brow Of spicy Lebanon, as thereto bound by vow.

Thither the virgin-hunters thick repair, As is their wont; a rash and reckless race, Whose prayers are only offered to the fair. There moved our Hero with majestic pace; A star-like glory scattered from her face Sparkles of light, as when the moon discloses Among the stars her cheek's clear-shining grace; Like a twin-rose, one white, one red, reposes On either snow-white cheek the blushing bloom of roses.

You'd say her limbs were rose-buds; for a light Of rose-like hues fell from them; you might see The rose-blush on her feet and ankles white; And from her limbs with every movement free Flowed many graces: they who feigned them three Said falsely, for in Hero's laughing eyes A thousand graces budded. Such was she-- Fit priestess of the beauty of the skies, For without question hers was mortal beauty's prize.

Into the young men's minds her beauty entered: Who wished not loveliest Hero for his wife? Where'er she paced the temple, still she centred All eyes, hearts, wishes. "I have seen the strife For beauty's prize in Lacedemon, rife With virgins radiant, with love's dazzling splendour; But never there, nor elsewhere in my life, Saw I a girl so dignified, yet tender; She surely is a Grace: Oh, would Queen Cypris lend her--

"Or give her me! I've tired, not filled mine eye With gazing. Let me press her dainty side, And die! A god's life on Olympus high Would I refuse, had I that girl for bride: But, since to me thy priestess is denied, Queen! let my home with such a one be gladdened." Thus spake one bachelor; another tried To smile and mock, as tho' he were not saddened, Hiding the secret wound, which all the time him maddened.

But thou, Leander, wouldst not hide the wound, And vex thy secret soul; but when Desire Surprised thee looking on the maid renowned, Tamed by the sudden darts of arrowy fire, Thou wouldst not live without her; fiercer, higher, Flamed love's hot torch, and pierced into thy marrow, Fed by her eye-beams. Loveliness, entire And blameless, sharper is than any arrow, Reaching the heart of man thro' channel sure tho' narrow.

The liquid fire from hers to his eye glides, Thence passing inward, dives into his breast: A sudden whirl of thoughts his mind divides; Amazement at her loveliness confest; Shame at himself soon caught; fear, love's unrest, And hope, impatient for love's recompense; But love to this delirious whirl gave zest, And furnished him with resolute impudence To venture, and outface that glorious innocence.

He turned on her askant his guileful eye, With speechless nods the damsel's mind assailing: She gladly saw his love, and silently Her sweet face ever and anon was veiling, And then with furtive nods her lover hailing, Bowed to him in return. He with delight Observed she saw, nor scorned his love. Then, trailing His robe of beams, the Day departed quite, (Leander watched the hour,) and rose the star of night.

Nor, when he saw the dark-robed mist, he lingered, But hastened boldly to the maid beloved, And with a sigh her rosy palm he fingered. But, drawing back her hand, the virgin moved In silence from th' intruder; unreproved, For he had seen her nods, and they were kind, He pulled her broidered robe, and, as behoved, He drew her gently to the gloom behind: She slowly followed him, as if against her mind.

And then with art and language feminine She threatened him:--"Why pullest me, lewd ranger? Pursue thy way, I beg, and leave me mine. To touch a priestess is a deed of danger; A virgin's bed is not for any stranger." She spake as virgins should; and yet she missed To frighten him, who reckoned soon to change her, When he her chiding heard; for well he wist That women chide the most when they would fain be kissed.

Kissing her polished, fragrant neck, he cries: "After the fairest Cytherea, fair! And after the most wise Athena, wise! For with Jove's daughters thee will I compare, And not with any dames that mortal are; Happy thy father! happy she who bore thee! But hear, and pardon, and accept my prayer; I come for love; for love I now implore thee; Perform love's ministry with me, for I adore thee.

"A virgin priestess to the Cyprian Queen! No grace in virgins Cytherea trows; To marriage only point her rites, I ween; Then if to her thy heart true service vows, Accept me for thy lover and thy spouse, Whom Eros hunted as a spoil for thee. As Hermes of the gold-wand (Fame allows) Led Hercules to serve Queen Omphale, So Cytherea now, not Hermes, leadeth me.

"The tale of Atalantis too is known, Who fled the couch of Prince Milanion, To keep her virgin flower; but wrath was shewn By Cypris, who, for scorn to marriage done, Him once she loved not, made her dote upon: Beware lest thou too anger her." Commenting Thus cunningly, the maiden's ear he won, And willing mind, to dulcet words consenting, To love's soft eloquence, that genders love, relenting.

In silence on the ground she fixed her eyes, And gently turned aside her glowing cheek, And shuffled her small feet, and modest-wise Drew round her graceful neck, and bosom sleek, Her robe yet closer. These are signs that speak; A virgin's silence ever means consent; The bitter-sweet of love was hers, and eke The glow of heart, hopeful, but not content, While yet the thoughts are lost in love's first wonderment.

This for Leander gentle Hero felt; But, while she downward looked, his greedy eyes Fed on her neck. With words that dew-like melt, While blossom on her cheek the moist red dies Of modesty, she says: "Such power there lies In thy sweet eloquence, that it might move The flinty rock; who taught the harmonies Of such enticing words? What impulse drove Thee hither? Who thy guide? Oh was it, was it Love?

"Perchance thou mockest me; but how canst thou, A stranger and unknown, my love enjoy? I never can be thine by open vow; My parents shut me up. Can we employ Art for our secret, love? Oh, men destroy Who trust them! ever babbling in the street Of what they do in secret. Wilt decoy A trusting heart to ruin? yet, as meet, Speak truth; thy fatherland and name to me repeat.

"My name is Hero; my abode is lonely, A tower that lifts its echoes to the sky, For so my parents will; one handmaid only Dwells with me there; no choirs e'er court mine eye, Nor friends of equal years. The shores close by Rebellow; night and day the roaring tide Rings in mine ears, and eke the clanging cry Of the sea-winds." She spake, and sought to hide, Shamefaced, her rosy cheek, her words to chide.

Leander then did with himself advise, How in love's contest he might best contend; For wily Love, though wont to tyrannise, Heals whom he wounds, and ever loves to lend His subjects wit, their counsellor and friend. He helped Leander, then, who deeply sighed, And said: "Dear virgin! for our wished-for end I dauntless on the rugged surge will ride, Tho' in it ships be whelmed, and o'er it lightnings glide.

"Seeking thy bed, I tremble not, nor cower At ocean's angry roar and frightful front: A dripping bed-mate, nightly to thy tower Will I swim o'er the rapid Hellespont; Abydos is not far from Hero's haunt. But promise me to shew a lamp, to be My nightly star; and it shall be my wont, E'en like a ship, to swim across the sea, Thy lamp the blessed star that guides my course to thee.

"And, watching it, I ne'er will turn mine eye on Setting Boötes, nor th' unwetted Wain, Nor on the sworded, storm-engirt Orion, But, guided by the lamp, I soon shall gain Safe anchorage and sweet. Strict guard maintain Against the blasts, for fear my safety-light They rudely quench, and in the howling main I perish so. Leander am I hight, And Hero's happy spouse." Thus they their love-vows plight.

She from her tower to shew a lamp agrees, And he from the swelling waves at night to cleave: Then to her tower the anxious maiden flees, While he must in a pinnace Sestos leave, And in Abydos wait till he receive The promised signal, his appointed guide, When he must swim, not sail. Till they achieve Love's celebration, rest is them denied. Haste, Night! and canopy the bridegroom and the bride.

In veil of darkness Night ran up the sky, Bringing on sleep, but not for Hero's lover; He, where the swelling waves roared mightily, For by the shore, stood waiting to discover The lamentable lamp that lured him over-- To death at last. But Hero, seaward turning, Perceived the gloom, and for her ocean-rover Kindled the signal; but on his discerning Its promised flame, he burned with love, as that was burning.

At first he trembled at the ringing roar Of the mad surge, but with the soothing spell Of hopeful words took courage; "What is more Cruel than love, or more implacable Than ocean? in moist ruin this doth swell; That in the heart, a burning furnace, raves. Fear not, my soul! why shouldst thou fear the hell Of waters? Aphrodite from the waves Sprung, and rules over them, sways our love pains and saves."

He then put off his vest with playful glee, And twined it round his head; and from the shore Plunged fearlessly into the surf o' the sea; And where the signal shone, he hastened o'er, Ship, sail, and oars himself. But yet before He reached his port, how oft the Sestian flower Kept off the breezes with the robe she wore From the trimmed lamp! It is her nuptial hour-- Leander comes at last, and now ascends her tower.

With a mute clasp she welcomed to her home The panting youth, and to her chamber led, While from his hair fast dropt the salt sea-foam: She rubbed his limbs with rose-oil, and then led Her lover to her virgin couch, and said, Embracing him the while, and softly willing "Enough of brine and odours which bred: No bridegroom but thyself was ever willing To run such risk, such toil none else but thou fulfilling.

"No longer lies our joy and us between That envious sea--now lay thee down to rest." Silence was there, and Night drew round her screen; Their nuptial troth was by no minstrel blest; The bridal pair were in no hymn addrest; No choir danced round them; and no torches lightened About the genial bed; no marriage guest Led the gay dance; nor hymeneal heightened The joy, approving it; no parent's smile there brightened.

Silence arranged the couch, and Darkness drew The curtains; paranymph and bridemaid none Had they beside. Aurora ne'er did view Leander lying, when the night was done, In Hero's arms. He was already gone,-- Already wishing for the night again. The wife at night, by day a virgin shone. As thought her parents wise; while she was fain, Of night, to welcome him who made their wisdom vain.

Thus they enjoyed awhile their furtive pleasure, He to his bed-mate nightly swimming o'er; But soon their life's bloom fell, and scant their measure Of bridal hours. When came the winter frore, And brought the cold blast and the whirlwind's roar, Sharp gusts the bottom of the deep confounding, And lashing up the main from shore to shore, Whirling and rushing, roaring and rebounding, The watery paths above and shaken depths astounding--

What time a desperate pilot, who no more Amid the waters wild his course could hold, Had run his ship upon a fork o' the shore; Not then the tempest checked Leander bold, For Hero's signal-light her summons told. Oh! cruel, faithless light of love! to scout him On such a night! to plunge him in the cold And hissing waves, that rudely toss and flout him! Why could not Hero sleep, while winter raged, without him?

But love and fate compelled her; light of love, Drawn by desire, she shewed not, but the black Torch-gloom of fate. The winds collected drove Volumes of gusty darts upon the track Of the sea-broken shore; but on the back Of raving ocean lost Leander went. The water stood in heaps; with fearful crack The winds ran counter, and were madly blent, Rushing from every side, in wildest minglement.

Wave upon wave! ocean with ether mixt! Mighty the crash! How could Leander ride on The monstrous whirl? Sore tost, he one while fixt In prayer on Cypris, then on King Poseidon, And e'en the fierce and frantic Boreas cried on, Who then forgot his Atthis. Lover lorn! None helped him, none! Love, whom he most relied on, Averted not his fate; tost, tumbled, torn, By every counter wave he was at random borne.

He can no longer ply his hands or feet; Drench'd with the brine, his strength is failing fast; On him the cruel waves remorseless beat; The lamp is now extinguished by the blast, And with it his young life and love at last: But while the waves his lifeless body drove, How many a glance poor Hero seaward cast! In vain into the gloom her glances rove; Her anxious thoughts a pool of spectred troubles move.

The morning came, nor yet Leander came! Upon the sea's broad back her glance was thrown, If haply, missing that unfaithful flame, He wandered there; but soon she spied him strown A mangled corse below. She tore her gown, And shrieked, and for Leander madly cried, And from the tower fell whizzing headlong down. Thus, on her husband dead sweet Hero died, And who were joined in life, then death did not divide.

THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON.

"Signor Giacomo caro, non vi accorgete che sete un giovane senza pare? Nobile, bello, dotto, e robusto, ed alto quasi egualmente, or lingua or mano ad oprando, a dire e fare ogni bene?"

So, in or about the year of Grace 1582, wrote Sperone Speroni the Paduan, to James Crichton the Scotchman:

"Dear James, do you not know that you have no equal? Noble, handsome, learned, and robust,--equally apt to use the tongue or the hand,--to say or to do what is excellent?"

There cannot be the smallest doubt that James knew all this himself; and now, since the appearance of Mr. Ainsworth's romance, all the world knows it. Wherefore, as the Admirable has suddenly become an object of admiration, we are moved to say a few words about him.

A number of learned people, remarkable chiefly for the dullness of their learning, have on various occasions undertaken to prove the egregious quackery and pretension of the famous Scot. Such-like people are, naturally enough, given to such researches; for they cannot endure in any shape the rebuke of an obvious superiority. "How now, thou particular fellow?" said Jack Cade to the man who sought to recommend himself on the score of being able to write and read; and, "How now, thou particular fellow?" is the exclamation of plodding pedants to the illustrious Crichton, when, instead of approaching them covered with the dust of folios, he bounds into their presence beaming with grace and beauty, the idol of the gay and the young, the observed of all observers, crowned with the favours of women, and followed by the applauding shouts of men!

We are not pedants, and therefore we have faith in Crichton. How otherwise? In philosophy and learning was he not a Bayle's Dictionary? In the universality of his literary accomplishments, a perfect Bentley's Miscellany? Who shall impugn the opinions of the most classic time of Scotland, or set up his dogmas against the generous acknowledgments of Italy in her golden day? And was not Crichton so beautiful in body only because he was in mind so beautiful;--for, where true beauty exists, who would separate body from mind? Shade of the Admirable, forgive your poor detractors, for the sake of the true worship your memory has inspired! It was natural that to the sight of many men, before whom in life you strode on so far, you should have dwindled in the distance; but now, after many years, you reappear again, graceful as ever in form, and wonderful in accomplishments. We hail you as we should some missing star that once more "swims into our ken!"

And what sort of fame is that, the reader possibly asks, which may seek from the hands of some novelist or romancer its privilege of continuance in the mouths of men? Let that reader first ask himself how many brilliant actions there are which pass away and are forgotten--while a thousandth part of the effort that produced them, embodied in a few words, might have lived for ever. It was the remark of an old writer, that words harden into substances, while bodies moulder away into air. Even Cæsar and Alexander weigh little in comparison with Virgil and Homer. Now Crichton might have been a Cæsar or an Alexander, if he had had legions at his back; or, without the legions, if his youth had been allowed to ripen into age. The great principle of his being was a stirring and irrepressible activity. His learning was as prodigious as his accomplishments; but how, in the short six or seven years of his public life, could he have exhibited them to the admiration of Europe, if he had set to work in the fashion of the schoolmen? With a probable forecast of his early doom, he bethought himself of a different way. He made up for the brevity of his life, by its brightness. He kindled all its fires at once. Resolved to abate no single particle of his brilliancy among the great men of his time, he rose at once to the topmost height of his possible achievements, careless whether he should fall among posterity, dark as a spent rocket, and recognizable by a few fragments of faded paper only. But what of that? What he designed to do, he did. He struck the blow he had desired to strike. And which of the Great Men has done more? How many have done lamentably less! We see the beauty and the learning of Crichton reflected back from the most intellectual minds of the greatest day that ever shone upon Scotland or Italy. What nobler mirror?

Justly Mr. Ainsworth remarks--"It is from the effect produced upon his contemporaries, and _such_ contemporaries, that we can form a just estimate of the extent of Crichton's powers. By them he was esteemed a miracle of learning--_divinum planè juvenem_: and we have an instance in our own times of a great poet and philosopher, whose published works scarcely bear out the high reputation he enjoyed for colloquial ability. The idolized friend of Aldus Manutius, of Lorenzo Massa, Giovanni Donati, and Sperone Speroni, amongst the must accomplished scholars of their age,--the antagonist of the redoubted Arcangelus Mercenarius and Giacomo Mazzoni, men who had sounded all the depths of philosophy,--could not have been other than an extraordinary person." The allusion to Coleridge here is not altogether out of place. Coleridge, like Crichton, though in a humbler sphere, preferred prompt payment to the tardy waiting for posterity. With both it was in some sort necessary that the effort and the applause should go together. To Coleridge, for instance, so strong had this habit of excessive talking become, even the certainty of seeing what he wrote in print the next day was too remote a stimulus for his imagination; and it was a constant practice of his to lay aside his pen in the middle of an article, if a friend happened to drop in upon him, and to finish the subject more effectually aloud, so that the approbation of his hearer and the sound of his own voice might be co-instantaneous. But what would Coleridge have done, if, besides having to write an article for the Courier, in which he was to unravel some transcendentalism about humanity and universal brotherhood into a slavish support of the Allies--(a difficult task we admit),--if, besides this, the ball-room, the ladies' chamber, the hunting-fields, the riding-house, the lists at the Louvre, and some profoundly learned controversies with the doctors of Navarre or Padua, had all, nearly at the same instant, awaited him? Poor Coleridge would have died at twenty, untouched by opium, and unknown, except by the admiring testimonies of his less accomplished contemporaries.

Mr. Ainsworth has omitted, by-the-by, a very characteristic, and, we think, a very decisive opinion of Crichton, by the famous Joseph Scaliger. "He was a man of very wonderful genius," observes that laborious and self-satisfied person; "but he had something of the coxcomb about him. He wanted a little common sense." Here is an unbiassed opinion. What Joseph means by the coxcombry is obvious enough. Why, thinks Joseph, should a scholar have cheerfulness of blood? All the women ran after Crichton,--a most indecorous thing, and a certain evidence of coxcombry to a person who cannot get a woman to run after him,--"Nor were the young unmarried ladies," as Sir Thomas Urquhart remarks in his jewel of a book, "of all the most eminent places of Italy anything respected of one another, that had not either a lock of Crichtown's haire, or a copy of verses of his composing." Who doubts his coxcombry, or that it was other than a very delightful thing in him?

A want of common sense, in Scaliger's notion, was probably an over supply of modesty. Nothing is so remarkable in Crichton as the modesty which in him united with the most perfect confidence. He proved that a coxcomb and a confident man may possess the truest modesty. There is a charming anecdote told of him at a great levee of learned men in Padua, where, having exposed the errors of the school of Aristotle with equal solidity, modesty, and acuteness, and perceiving that the enthusiasm of his audience was carrying them too far in admiration of himself, he suddenly changed his tone, assumed an extreme playfulness of manner, and declaimed in exquisite phrase upon the _happiness of ignorance_. Nothing could have been so perfectly devised to self-check any exuberance of pride. But in all things his modesty was remarkable, when taken in connexion with his extraordinary powers. Observe it in the circumstance of his melancholy death, where a romantic sense of what was due to his prince and master induced him to throw aside his unmatchable skill, and present himself naked and defenceless to the dagger of an assassin. This was not weakness in Crichton. Himself the descendant of rulers of the earth, of princes and bishops,--(shall we ever forget that perfect model of ecclesiastical fitness, Bishop George Crichton of Dunkeld, "a man nobly disposed, very hospitable, and a magnificent housekeeper, but in matters of religion not much skilled"?)--a weak and unmanly feeling would have given him presumption, not deference,--would have thrown insult in the face of Gonzaga, and not ill-required chivalry at his feet.

But what more need we say of Crichton? Have not three volumes of brilliant writing been just devoted to the delineation of two days of his matchlessly brilliant life? We may refer the reader, whether he is curious after the Admirable Crichton, or after his own amusement solely, to William Harrison Ainsworth's last romance. An expression of character equally poetic and dramatic, a rich glow of colouring which diffuses itself through every part of the work, and a generally easy and effective style, have secured for this book a high and permanent place in the literature of fiction.

MEMOIRS OF SHERIDAN.

Though it may appear paradoxical to say so, yet there is no more melancholy reading than the biography of a celebrated wit. In nine out of ten cases, what is such a memoir other than a record of acute suffering, the almost inseparable attendant of that thoughtless and mercurial temperament which cannot, or will not, conform to the staid usages society; which makes ten enemies where it makes one friend; is engaged in a constant warfare with common sense, and lives for the day, letting the morrow shift for itself? Instances there are of prosperous wits, such as Congreve, Pope, and some others that we could mention, whose singular tact and provident habits have preserved them from the usual fate of their fraternity; but these instances are rare: the majority, though enjoying, it is true, their sunny hours, and realising for a brief season their most brilliant hopes, have struggled through life a prey to the bitterest disappointments.

The life of Sheridan will go far to verify these cursory remarks. No wit ever enjoyed more intoxicating successes, or suffered more humiliating reverses. He had frequent opportunities of realising a handsome independence; but, with that recklessness and inattention to the business of life peculiar to such natures as his, he flung away all his chances, and died a beggar, deserted by almost all his old associates, his celebrity on the wane, and his character under a cloud. Never was there a more impressive homily than his death-bed inculcates; it speaks to the heart, like the closing scene of "great Villiers," and is worth all the sermons that ever were preached from the pulpit.

Many, however, of poor Sheridan's defects seem to have descended to him as a sort of heir-loom from his ancestors. His grandfather, Dr. Sheridan, the friend and butt of Swift, though an amiable, was a singularly reckless and improvident man; and his father, the well-known teacher of elocution, is mentioned more then once by Johnson as being remarkable for nothing so much as his "wrong-headedness." It is but justice, however, to this individual to state, that by fits and starts he paid every attention to his son's education that his straitened means and capricious temper would allow. In the year 1758, when young Sheridan had just completed his seventh year, he sent him to a private school in Dublin, whence, at the expiration of fourteen months, he brought him over with him to England, and placed him at Harrow, under the care of Dr. Sumner. From this period to the day of his death, the subject of our memoir never again beheld his native city.

Sheridan had not been long at Harrow when he attracted the favourable notice of Dr. Parr, at that time one of the head-masters of the establishment, who, perceiving in him unquestionable evidences of superior capacity, did all he could to stimulate him to exertion. But his endeavours were fruitless, for the boy was incorrigibly idle, though a general favourite by reason of his good-humour and the social turn of his mind,--and left Harrow at the age of eighteen, with a slender amount of Latin and less Greek, but at the same time with a very fair acquaintance with the lighter branches of English literature.

In the year 1770, Sheridan accompanied his family to Bath, which was then what Cheltenham and Brighton now are,--the head-quarters of gaiety and dissipation. Here he promptly signalised himself, after the usual Irish fashion, by an elopement and two duels; thus literally fighting his way to celebrity! The young lady who was the cause of these sprightly sallies was Miss Linley, daughter of the eminent musician of that name, and one of the most beautiful women of her day. At the time when Sheridan first became acquainted with her she was but sixteen, the favourite vocalist at the Bath concerts, and the standing toast of all the wits and gallants of the city. It is to the impassioned feelings which the charms of this lovely girl called forth in his breast that we owe our hero's first decided plunge into unequivocal poetry. Having on one occasion--for the families of the young couple were in habits of strict intimacy--presumed to offer her some sober counsel, she resented his officiousness, and a quarrel took place between them, which was not made up till Sheridan sent some stanzas of a most penitential character, by way of a peace-offering. We subjoin a specimen or two of this poem, which evinces unquestionable feeling, but is deformed, as was the fashion of those days, by tawdry and puerile conceits:

Oh, this is the grotto where Delia reclined, As late I in secret her confidence sought; And this is the tree kept her safe from the wind, As blushing she heard the grave lesson I taught.

Then tell me, thou grotto of moss-covered stone, And tell me, thou willow, with leaves dripping dew, Did Delia seem vexed when Horatio was gone, And did she confide her resentment to you?

Methinks now each bough, as you're waving it, tries To whisper a cause for the sorrow I feel, To hint how she frowned when I dared to advise, And sighed when she saw that I did it with zeal.

True, true, silly leaves, so she did, I allow; She frowned, but no rage in her looks could I see; She frowned, for reflection had clouded her brow; She sighed, but perhaps 'twas in pity to me.

Then wave thy leaves brisker, thou willow of woe, I tell thee no rage in her looks I could see; I cannot, I will not, believe it was so; She was not, she could not, be angry with me.

For well did she know that my heart meant no wrong; It sank at the thought but of giving her pain; But trusted its task to a faltering tongue, Which erred from the feelings it could not explain.

Sentimental poetry, it is well known, has a great effect in softening the female heart; and Sheridan soon succeeded in sonnetteering Miss Linley into sympathy. He had, however, a sturdy opponent to contend against in the person of Captain Mathews, a married man, of specious address and persevering gallantry. This _roué_ beset the fair vocalist in every possible way, and, when mildly but firmly repulsed, threw out a menace of attacking her good fame. Alarmed at this unmanly threat, and at the consequences of her father's indignation should the captain's dishonourable proposals become known to him, Miss Linley had recourse to Sheridan, who instantly advised her to accept of his escort to France, where he promised that he would place her under the secure protection of a convent. With some hesitation she complied with his advice, assisted not a little in her resolution by the repugnance which she had long entertained to her profession; and the parties set out for Calais, accompanied by a third person, a female, by way of chaperon.

On reaching the place of their destination, Sheridan at once threw off the mask of the friend, and, addressing Miss Linley as the lover, so worked upon her feelings by artful hints about the injury her character would sustain, if she did not give him a legal title to protect her, that she consented to a private marriage, which accordingly took place in 1772, at a little village near Calais. The parties then made the best of their way back to England where they returned to their respective families; old Linley, from whom the marriage was kept a profound secret, being, of course, not less incensed than surprised by the, to him, unaccountable conduct of his daughter.

Meanwhile Captain Mathews, on learning Miss Linley's extraordinary flight, instantly made good his threat of defaming her character in the local journals, for which he was twice called out by Sheridan, who in the second duel received a wound which long confined him to his bed. His situation at this period must have been one of extreme uneasiness. He was separated from his wife, and was on ill terms with his father, who, on his return from London shortly after the catastrophe, refused to see him, and even went the length of forbidding any of his family to hold the slightest intercourse with the Linleys. A communication was nevertheless kept up between the lovers through the agency of Sheridan's sisters, who had not the heart to resist the imploring appeals of their brother.

In the autumn of 1772 the young Benedict was sent by his father--who was anxious to detach him wholly from the Linleys--to the house of a friend in Essex, where he remained for some months in strict retirement, and spent much of his time in study. While here, he paid occasional flying visits to London, for the purpose of seeing his wife, who was then professionally engaged at the Covent Garden oratorios; but, finding no means of procuring an interview with her, so closely was she watched by her father, he more than once, it is said, disguised himself as a hackney-coachman, for the sole pleasure of driving her home from the theatre.

The time, however, was at hand when his perseverance was to meet with its reward. Old Linley, finding that neither threat, supplication, nor remonstrance could change the current of his daughter's affections and that, by some mysterious process, letters from her husband always found their way into her hands, at length gave his reluctant consent to their union, and they were re-married, by licence, in 1773.

About this time Sheridan entered himself of the Middle Temple, and took a small cottage at East Burnham, whither he retired immediately after his marriage, with no other resources than his wife's slender jointure and his own talents afforded him. Yet, though cramped in his finances, he had the fortitude to resist all the golden temptations which Mrs. Sheridan's musical abilities held out to him; and withdrew her for ever from public life, resolving henceforth to be himself the artificer of his own fortunes.

After a short stay at East Burnham, to which in after-years he often looked back with regret as being the happiest period of his life, Sheridan took a house in the neighbourhood of Portman-square, which his father-in-law kindly furnished for him. Here he laboured with great assiduity; wrote several political tracts, among which was a reply to "Junius;" and completed his comedy of the "Rivals," which was brought out at Covent Garden in the year 1775, and proved a failure on its first representation, though it subsequently won its way into public favour. The "Rivals" is a lively play, whose interest seldom or never flags; is easy and graceful in its dialogue; and contains one or two characters drawn with consummate skill. That of Falkland, in particular,--the sensitive, wayward lover, the idea of which was, no doubt, suggested by Sheridan's own personal experience,--is a masterpiece; and not less effective is the sketch of Sir Anthony Absolute. Mrs. Malaprop--an evident imitation of Fielding's Mrs. Slip-slop--is a mere whimsical caricature; while, as respects Lydia Languish, she is one of the insipid common-places to be picked up at all watering-places, well delineated, it is true, but scarcely worth the labour of delineation.

Sheridan's next production was "St. Patrick's Day;" a clever, bustling farce, but bearing marks of haste and negligence. It was followed, in the winter of 1775, by the well-known opera of the "Duenna," which at once obtained a popularity unexampled in the annals of the drama. The plot of this delightful play is remarkable for the tact with which it is conducted; the language is elegant, without being too ornate or elaborate,--a very common defect in Sheridan's dramas;--and the songs are prettily versified, which is the highest praise we can accord them.

In the year 1776, on the retirement of Garrick from the stage, Sheridan became one of the proprietors of Drury Lane Theatre. How, or by whose assistance, he obtained the large sum--upwards of forty-five thousand pounds--necessary to make this purchase, is a mystery which none of his numerous biographers, with all their research and ingenuity, have ever been able to fathom. We conclude it must have been by that winning address, and the strenuous exercise of those unrivalled powers of persuasion, which, at a later period, enabled Sheridan to work a miracle,--that is, to soften the soul of an attorney! It was in allusion to these fascinating powers that a rich City banker once observed, "Whenever Sherry makes me a bow, it always costs me a good dinner; and when he calls me 'Tom,' it is a full hundred pounds out of my pocket!"

The year 1777 was rendered memorable by the production of the "School for Scandal," which is incomparably the finest comedy of which modern times can boast. Its success was proportionate to its deserts. It completely took the town by storm. Nevertheless, transcendent as are the excellencies of this brilliant play, it is not without many and serious defects. Its dialogue is too studiously artificial; it has little or no sustained interest of plot; and its characters--with the exception of Charles Surface, whose airy, Mercutio-like vivacity conciliates us in spite of ourselves--are such as them from first to last we regard with indifference. The incessant dazzle of the language, however,--for the "School for Scandal" is a perfect repertory of wit,--its consummate polish, and the power of quick, apt repartee, that it exhibits in every page, altogether blind us to its defects. The only play that can bear a comparison with it is Congreve's "Love for Love," which shows an equal opulence of wit, and an equal sacrifice to effect, of the free and easy play of nature.

Sheridan had now the ball at his feet. He was the lion of the day, courted by all classes; the proprietor of the most thriving theatrical establishment in London; and, could he but have been industrious, and exercised ordinary forethought, he might have insured, not merely what Thomson calls "an elegant sufficiency," but a splendid independence for life. But indolence was his bane,--the fertile source of all his errors and all his misfortunes,--the rock on which he split,--the quicksand in which he was finally engulfed.

In the year following the production of the "School for Scandal," Sheridan brought out "The Critic,"--an admirable farce, the conception of which is derived from the Duke of Buckingham's "Rehearsal." The best character in this drama, and the most natural and spirited ever drawn by its author, is that of Sir Fretful Plagiary, which is supposed to have been meant for Cumberland, who witnessed the representation from one of the side-boxes, and, being of an irritable, tetchy temperament, must of course have been highly entertained.

We are now to regard Sheridan in a new character. Hitherto we have seen him as the triumphant dramatist,--we are now to see him as the triumphant orator. He had always, from his first entrance into public life, had a strong predilection for politics; and the acquaintance with Burke, Fox, Wyndham, and other eminent statesmen, which he made at Johnson's Literary Club, decided him on trying his chance in the House of Commons. Accordingly, in 1780, he stood, and was returned, for Stafford; and made his first speech, as an avowed partisan of Fox, in the November of that year, on the presentation of a petition complaining of his undue election. Though he was listened to with marked attention, yet so general was the impression that he had failed, that the well-known printer, Woodfall, who happened to be in the gallery at the time, said to him, as they quitted the house together, "Oratory is not your forte; you had much better have stuck to the drama;" on which Sheridan impatiently interrupted him with, "It is in me, however, and, by G--! it shall come out."

But, despite this determined confidence in his own powers, he did not for months afterwards take any active part in the debates; but, when he did speak, spoke briefly and unassumingly, with a view, no doubt, to feel his way. By this shrewd conduct he gained insensibly on the good opinion of the house, and became at length so useful an auxiliary to his party, that, on their accession to office in the year 1782, he was appointed one of the Under Secretaries of State; a snug, easy post, but which he was compelled shortly to resign by the sudden breaking up of the ministry, occasioned by the death of the Marquis of Rockingham.

In the following year he was reinstated in office as Secretary of the Treasury, a coalition having been formed between Lord North and the Whigs, much against Sheridan's wishes; for he had the sagacity to foresee that a junction of such discordant interests could have but one termination; and the result proved that he was right. The Coalition Ministry was speedily defeated, chiefly by the King's own personal exertions; and the Under Secretary of the Treasury found himself once again transported to that Siberia,--the Opposition bench.

Up to this period, Sheridan, though acknowledged to be a skilful, ready debater, had not particularly distinguished himself in the House; but the hour was approaching which was to draw forth all his powers, and place him on the very highest pinnacle of oratorical fame. In the year 1787, on the question of Warren Hastings' conduct as Governor-general of India, he was chosen by his party to bring forward in Parliament the charge relative to the Begum princesses of Oude. His speech on this occasion produced an effect on all who heard it, to which there is no parallel in the records of the senate. It startled the House like a thunderbolt. Men of all parties vied with each other in lavishing on it the most enthusiastic praises. Burke declared it to be the "most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or tradition." Fox said, "all that he had ever heard, all that he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing;" and Pitt--even the cold, reserved Pitt--confessed that, in his opinion, "it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient or modern times, and possessed everything that genius or art could furnish, to agitate and control the human mind." So intense, in short, was the sensation created by this philippic, that the Minister actually moved an adjournment of the debate, in order, as he observed, that honourable members might have time to recover from the mental intoxication into which they had been thrown by the spells of the enchanter!

Sheridan was now considered of so much consequence by the Whig party, that when the trial of Warren Hastings was finally determined on, he was appointed one of the managers to make good the articles of impeachment; and brought forward in Westminster Hall, before the most august assembly in the world, the same charge which he had previously urged in the House of Commons. On this occasion he spoke for four successive days, exciting, as before, the astonishment and admiration of all his hearers. Fortunately this celebrated oration, unlike the former one, has been preserved, and we are therefore enabled to form a tolerable estimate of it. It contains much brilliant wit, dexterous reasoning, and ready sarcasm; but is at the same time defaced by the most tawdry, patchwork imagery. Whenever Sheridan essays the poetic, he is invariably affected and on stilts. He cannot soar, like Burke, into the empyreum; for he had capacity, not imagination. His best passages are his most unlaboured ones; but of these he seems to have thought least. He tricks out superficial thoughts and obvious common-places in glittering trope and metaphor; piles hyperbole on hyperbole, conceit on conceit; and mistakes such showy, elaborate fustian for the true work of the fancy. There is as much difference between the figurative composition of Sheridan and that of Burke, as there is between specious tinsel and sterling gold; yet, throughout the Westminster Hall proceedings, the former appears to have thrown the latter completely into the shade,--so apt is the world to be caught by the mere show and glare of oratory!

The illness of his Majesty, George the Third, and the discussion on the Regency question which took place in consequence, afforded Sheridan numerous other opportunities of distinguishing himself in Parliament. He espoused, of course, the side of the Prince of Wales, whose confidence he soon gained, and at whose splendid entertainments he was ever the favoured guest. He was, in fact, the chief adviser of the heir-apparent, to whom was entrusted the delicate task of drawing up his state papers; and he would, no doubt, in the event of a change of ministry, have been raised to one of the most valuable posts that his party could offer, had not the King's recovery put an end to his golden expectations.

Shortly after, a dissolution took place, when he hurried off to Stafford, with the intention of again trying his luck with that borough. One of his fellow-passengers chanced to be an elector; on discovering which, Sheridan took the opportunity of asking him for whom he should vote. The other, ignorant who it was that put the question, replied that neither of the candidates were much to be depended on, but that he would vote for the devil sooner than that scamp Sheridan. The conversation here dropped for a while; but, having in the interim contrived to learn from the coachman the name of his opponent, Sheridan resumed the discourse by observing, that he had heard say there were many corrupt rogues among the Stafford electors, and that among them was one Thompson, the biggest scoundrel in the borough. "I am Mr. Thompson," exclaimed his fellow-traveller, crimson with rage. "And I am Mr. Sheridan," rejoined the other. The joke was immediately seen, and the parties became sworn friends ever after. Another anecdote, equally characteristic of Sheridan, is told of him at this period. A few days after his return to town, having hired a hackney-coach to take him from Carlton Palace to his own house, he found himself, as usual, without the means of paying for it. Luckily he espied his friend Richardson in the street, and, calling to him to get in, he engaged him in a favourite discussion, which he was well aware would draw forth all his energies; and then, after adroitly contradicting him, and so rousing his utmost indignation, he affected to grow angry himself; and, exclaiming that he would not remain an instant longer in the same coach with a man capable of holding such language, he insisted on Jehu setting him down, and walked quietly to his own house, which was now but a few yards off, leaving his angry friend to pay the fare!

In the year 1792, Sheridan lost his beautiful and accomplished wife; a loss which he took greatly to heart. It was indeed an irreparable one; for she had long been his best "guide and friend;" and her benign influence removed, he plunged headlong into that reckless extravagance which ultimately sealed his ruin. Henceforth, for some time, he seldom or never distinguished himself in Parliament, though the French Revolution was then setting all England in a ferment; but was chiefly to be heard of in the circles of fashion, and at the Carlton House revels. On the occasion, however, of the Nore Mutiny, he took a decided part, nobly sacrificing all party considerations in his zeal to maintain his country's honour.

About four years after the death of his first wife, Sheridan entered into a second marriage with Miss Ogle, daughter of the Dean of Winchester. His affairs were now in a sad state of embarrassment, for he obtained but a slender jointure with his wife; and, to retrieve them, he once again turned his attention to the stage. In 1799 he brought out the play of "Pizarro," which had a prodigious run, and is still occasionally performed. The style and sentiments of this drama are in the worst possible taste, utterly at variance with nature, and outraging all the legitimate rules of composition. Strange, however, to say its author was as proud of it as even of his "School for Scandal."

On the death of Mr. Pitt, and the accession of the Whigs to power, Sheridan was appointed Treasurer of the Navy,--a situation which he held but a short time, the ministry being unexpectedly broken up by the demise of Mr. Fox. It was while holding this office that he gave a splendid entertainment to the Prince of Wales, which swallowed up his whole year's income. Nevertheless he turned even this absurd extravagance to account; for, having occasion to allude to his resignation in Parliament, he, with matchless effrontery, thanked God that he quitted office as poor as when he entered upon it!

Parliament being dissolved soon after Fox's death, Sheridan, after a violent struggle, was returned for Westminster, but was unseated on the next dissolution, which occurred in 1807. Somewhere about this time his friend the Prince made him a privy-councillor, and appointed him to the Receivership of the Duchy of Cornwall; but, whatever were the pecuniary advantages he derived from this sinecure, they were more than counterbalanced by the destruction of all his theatrical property by fire. This calamity took place in 1809, when Sheridan was on his legs at St. Stephen's. He instantly quitted the House, and, after coolly looking on at the conflagration, retired to a neighbouring tavern, where he was found by a friend, luxuriating over a bottle of wine. On being asked how he could think of enjoying himself at such a time, he replied, "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass by his own fireside!"

We now approach the last and most melancholy period of poor Sheridan's life. The sun that we have seen blazing so long and brilliantly, is now about to set in storm and cloud. Having committed himself with his party by some mysterious intrigues in which he had engaged, relative to the formation of a new ministry, Sheridan lost almost all his political influence; and, on the dissolution of Parliament in 1812, was defeated in his attempts to be re-elected for Stafford. Ruin now begun to stare him in the face. The management of the new theatre had been, some time before, taken out of his hands; his debts were on the increase; his duns grew daily more clamorous; and he had no longer the House of Commons to fly to for shelter. To such a wretched state of destitution was he now reduced, that he was absolutely compelled to pawn his books, his pictures, and all his most valuable furniture. Nor was this the worst. In the spring of 1814 he was arrested and carried to a spunging-house, where he remained in "durance vile" upwards of three days!

From this moment he never again held up his head, or ventured abroad into the world. His heart was broken, and he would sit for hours weeping in the solitude of his chamber. Yet, though hovering on the very threshold of the grave, his duns allowed him not the slightest respite; writs and executions were multiplied against him; and the bailiffs at length forced their way into his house. He was then dying; yet, even in that state, the agents of the law were about to carry him out in blankets, when the interference of a friend saved him from the humiliation of drawing his last breath in a spunging-house. And where were all his fashionable and titled friends during this season of distress? Where were the princes, and dukes, and lords, of whom he had so long been the idol? All had flown; the sight of his death-bed--and such a death-bed!--would, no doubt, have been too much for their delicate sensibilities; and, with the exception of Messrs. Moore, Rogers, and one or two other friends, who remained faithful to the last, there was not one to close his dying eyes. But when all was over, then came the pomp and the pageantry, the titled pall-bearers, the long array of mourners, the public funeral, and the tomb in Westminster Abbey! Poor Sheridan! He was thought of sufficient consequence to be laid by the side of the departed worthies of England; yet the very men who paid this homage to his ashes, scorned to come near him in his poverty!

At the period of his death, which took place in 1816, Sheridan had just completed his sixty-fifth year. His constitution was robust and healthy; and he might have lived full ten years longer, had not grief and his own excesses cut short the span of his days. In youth he was considered handsome; but long confirmed habits of conviviality had obliterated, ere he had yet entered on the autumn of life, every trace of comeliness. His manners were remarkably insinuating, especially to women; his wit ever at command; and his flow of animal spirits unflagging. His worst failing was his unconquerable indolence. To this may be attributed all his misfortunes, and those humiliating expedients to which he was compelled to have recourse in order in ward off the evil day. So deeply was this vice implanted in his nature, that, even when he had to attend the funeral of his old friend Richardson, he could not be prevailed on to set out in time, but arrived after the service was concluded, which, at his particular request, was performed a second time.

Lord Byron, who saw much of him in his decline, has stated--as we see by Moore's admirable life of that poet--that Sheridan's wit was bitter and morose, rather than sparkling or conciliatory. It should be borne in mind, however, that he was then worn down by sickness, disappointed in all his hopes, and deserted by that Prince on whose favour he laid so much stress, and to preserve which he had made so many sacrifices. The concurrent testimony of those who knew him in his best days represents him as having been, like a Wharton or a Villiers, the "life of pleasure and the soul of whim." That in the course of his meteor-like career he committed many indefensible acts, and carried the faculty of non-payment to its highest point of perfection, is true; but, before we finally condemn him, let us consider what was his education, what his original position in society, and, above all, what were his temptations. He was never taught in early life to set a right value on thrifty and industrious habits. His father was an eccentric being from whose example he could derive no benefit; and, at an age when the majority of men are yet in the parental leading-strings, he was cast adrift upon the world, to sink or swim as might happen. Thus situated, without any legitimate profession or certain income, he made his own way to celebrity; and if, while associating with people infinitely his superiors in rank, wealth, and all worldly advantages, he imbibed their extravagances and aped their follies, such weakness is surely a fitter subject for our regret than indignation. At any rate, let us not forget that, if he erred, he paid the penalty; and that many men a thousand times worse than ever he was, but with more tact in concealing their faults, have gone down to the grave honoured and lamented as good citizens and good Christians.

A SUMMER NIGHT'S REVERIE.

'Tis night--and, save the waterfall That murmurs through the stony vale, No sound is near the castle wall On which the moonlight falls so pale!

There is no wind, but up on high The clouds are passing hurriedly; And the bright tops of tree and tow'r Look chilly cold, although the hour Is midtime of a summer's night, When moon is mixt with morning light.

There is a terror o'er the scene, As if but lately it had been A battle-plain,--and dead and dying Were silent in the shadows lying!

Is it within the night's lone hour-- The open vale, or closed bower-- The murmur of the distant dells, That such wild melancholy dwells? Is it the silvery orbs that sleep So tranquilly in heaven's deep, That with their silence wake the mind To such calm sorrow--such refin'd, And mixture sweet of joy and grief, That makes young hearts think tears relief?

Why should the softest season bring The mind such blissful suffering, As oft we feel when Nature's rest Seems most divinely--calmly blest?

Who ever roam'd on moonlit night, And thought its beam was gaily bright? Who ever heard a serenade, With ev'n a theme of lightest mirth, But melancholy echoes play'd, And sighs within the heart had birth? Who ever trode, in glenwood way, The trellised shadows of the trees, But felt come o'er his spirit's play A mournful cadence like a breeze?-- A mingled thrill of pain and bliss-- A dream of hopes and mem'ries lost? Oh! even happiest lovers' kiss, By moonlight is with sadness crost! At such an hour the gayest thing Is sicklied o'er with pleasing sorrow: The nightingale would gladly sing, Were we to list its song by morrow!

Such is to-night--a soft, calm, summer night-- Dim in its beauty,--gloomy in its light!-- Breathing a peacefulness o'er vale and hill, But in its quiet, something sadden'd still! W.

SONGS OF THE MONTH. No. V. May, 1837.

MAY MORNING.

Welcome, sweet May! There is not a day On the wings of the whole year round, That sheds in its flight Such heart-felt delight As thou dost, with even thy sound! May! May! There's music in May, From the breath of the mead To the song of the spray!

Welcome, fair May! The first dewy ray That awaken'd the infant earth, Descended when Thou (With spring-summer brow) And Beauty were twins of a birth! May! May! There's something in May That even the lips Of thy son[88] could not say! W.

[88] Mercury, god of eloquence, son of Jupiter and Maia.

LEARY THE PIPER'S LILT.

This is the first o' the May, boys! Listen to me, an' my planxty pipe Will show ye the fun o' the day, boys! I know for a spree that ye're always ripe, And fond o' gingerbread while it is gilt. "Hurroo! for Leary the Piper's Lilt!"

First, on the _first_ o' the May, boys! Do as the birds did Valentine morn; Find out a lass for the day, boys! And then together go _gether_ the thorn-- I warrant she'll never be jade or jilt. "Hurroo! for Leary the Piper's Lilt!"

Go where ye _may_ for the May, boys! Folla yir nose, an' ye'll find it soon: On every hedge by the way, boys! Ye'll hear it singin' its scented tune, Unless by the breath o' your darlin' _kilt_! "Hurroo! for Leary the Piper's Lilt!"

But isn't it betther the _May_, boys! All living to _lave_ on its flow'ry tree, Than wound it by _braking_ away, boys! A branch that in blossom not long will be When the rosy dew that it drank is spilt? "Hurroo! for Leary the Piper's Lilt!"

An' when ye're all tir'd o' the May, boys! Come to the sign o' the Muzzle an' Can: An' there, at the close o' the day, boys! Let ev'ry lass, by the side of her man, Dance till the daisies are spreadin' their quilt. "Hurroo! for Leary the Piper's Lilt!" W.

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

ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.

OLIVER CONTINUES THE REFRACTORY.

Noah Claypole ran along the streets at his swiftest pace, and paused not once for breath until he reached the workhouse-gate. Having rested here, for a minute or so, to collect a good burst of sobs and an imposing show of tears and terror, he knocked loudly at the wicket, and presented such a rueful face to the aged pauper who opened it, that even he, who saw nothing but rueful faces about him at the best of times, started back in astonishment.

"Why, what's the matter with the boy?" said the old pauper.

"Mr. Bumble! Mr. Bumble!" cried Noah, with well-affected dismay, and in tones so loud and agitated that they not only caught the ear of Mr. Bumble himself who happened to be hard by, but alarmed him so much that he rushed into the yard without his cocked hat,--which is a very curious and remarkable circumstance, as showing that even a beadle, acted upon by a sudden and powerful impulse, may be afflicted with a momentary visitation of loss of self-possession, and forgetfulness of personal dignity.

"Oh, Mr. Bumble, sir!" said Noah; "Oliver, sir,--Oliver has----"

"What? what?" interposed Mr. Bumble, with a gleam of pleasure in his metallic eyes. "Not run away: he hasn't run away; has he, Noah?"

"No, sir, no; not run away, sir, but he's turned wicious," replied Noah. "He tried to murder me, sir; and then he tried to murder Charlotte, and then missis. Oh, what dreadful pain it is! such agony, please sir!" and here Noah writhed and twisted his body into an extensive variety of eel-like positions; thereby giving Mr. Bumble to understand that, from the violent and sanguinary onset of Oliver Twist, he had sustained severe internal injury and damage, from which he was at that speaking suffering the acutest torture.

When Noah saw that the intelligence he communicated perfectly paralysed Mr. Bumble, he imparted additional effect thereunto, by bewailing his dreadful wounds ten times louder than before: and, when he observed a gentleman in a white waistcoat crossing the yard, he was more tragic in his lamentations than ever, rightly conceiving it highly expedient to attract the notice, and rouse the indignation, of the gentleman aforesaid.

The gentleman's notice was very soon attracted; for he had not walked three paces when he turned angrily round, and inquired what that young cur was howling for, and why Mr. Bumble did not favour him with something which would render the series of vocular exclamations so designated, an involuntary process.

"It's a poor boy from the free-school, sir," replied Mr. Bumble, "who has been nearly murdered--all but murdered, sir--by young Twist."

"By Jove!" exclaimed the gentleman in the white waistcoat, stopping short. "I knew it! I felt a strange presentiment from the very first, that that audacious young savage would come to be hung!"

"He has likewise attempted, sir, to murder the female servant," said Mr. Bumble, with a face of ashy paleness.

"And his missis," interposed Mr. Claypole.

"And his master, too, I think you said, Noah?" added Mr. Bumble.

"No, he's out, or he would have murdered him," replied Noah. "He said he wanted to--"

"Ah! said he wanted to--did he, my boy?" inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

"Yes, sir," replied Noah; "and, please sir, missis wants to know whether Mr. Bumble can spare time to step up there directly, and flog him, 'cause master's out."

"Certainly, my boy; certainly," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, smiling benignly, and patting Noah's head, which was about three inches higher than his own. "You're a good boy--a very good boy. Here's a penny for you. Bumble, just step up to Sowerberry's with your cane, and see what's best to be done. Don't spare him, Bumble."

"No, I will not, sir," replied the beadle, adjusting the wax-end which was twisted round the bottom of his cane for purposes of parochial flagellation.

"Tell Sowerberry not to spare him, either. They'll never do anything with him, without stripes and bruises," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

"I'll take care, sir," replied the beadle. And, the cocked hat and cane having been by this time adjusted to their owner's satisfaction, Mr. Bumble and Noah Claypole betook themselves with all speed to the undertaker's shop.

Here the position of affairs had not at all improved, for Sowerberry had not yet returned, and Oliver continued to kick with undiminished vigour at the cellar-door. The accounts of his ferocity, as related by Mrs. Sowerberry and Charlotte, were of so startling a nature that Mr. Bumble judged it prudent to parley before opening the door: with this view, he gave a kick at the outside, by way of prelude, and then, applying his mouth to the keyhole, said, in a deep and impressive tone,

"Oliver!"

"Come; you let me out!" replied Oliver, from the inside.

"Do you know this here voice, Oliver?" said Mr. Bumble.

"Yes," replied Oliver.

"Ain't you afraid of it, sir? Ain't you a-trembling while I speak, sir?" said Mr. Bumble.

"No!" replied Oliver, boldly.

An answer so different from the one he had expected to elicit, and was in the habit of receiving, staggered Mr. Bumble not a little. He stepped back from the keyhole, drew himself up to his full height, and looked from one to another of the three bystanders in mute astonishment.

"Oh, you know, Mr. Bumble, he must be mad," said Mrs. Sowerberry. "No boy in half his senses could venture to speak so to you."

"It's not madness, ma'am," replied Mr. Bumble, after a few moments of deep meditation; "it's meat."

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry.

"Meat, ma'am, meat," replied Bumble, with stern emphasis. "You've overfed him, ma'am. You've raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, ma'am, unbecoming a person of his condition, as the board, Mrs. Sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you. What have paupers to do with soul or spirit either? It's quite enough that we let 'em have live bodies. If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma'am, this would never have happened."

"Dear, dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to the kitchen ceiling. "This comes of being liberal!"

The liberality of Mrs. Sowerberry to Oliver had consisted in a profuse bestowal upon him, of all the dirty odds and ends which nobody else would eat; so that there was a great deal of meekness and self-devotion in her voluntarily remaining under Mr. Bumble's heavy accusation, of which, to do her justice, she was wholly innocent in thought, word, or deed.

"Ah!" said Mr. Bumble, when the lady brought her eyes down to earth again. "The only thing that can be done now, that I know of, is to leave him in the cellar for a day or so till he's a little starved down, and then to take him out, and keep him on gruel all through his apprenticeship. He comes of a bad family--excitable natures, Mrs. Sowerberry. Both the nurse and doctor said that that mother of his made her way here, against difficulties and pain that would have killed any well-disposed woman weeks before."

At this point of Mr. Bumble's discourse, Oliver just hearing enough to know that some further allusion was being made to his mother, recommenced kicking with a violence which rendered every other sound inaudible. Sowerberry returned at this juncture, and Oliver's offence having been explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies thought best calculated to rouse his ire, he unlocked the cellar-door in a twinkling, and dragged his rebellious apprentice out by the collar.

Oliver's clothes had been torn in the beating he had received; his face was bruised and scratched, and his hair scattered over his forehead. The angry flush had not disappeared, however; and when he was pulled out of his prison, he scowled boldly on Noah, and looked quite undismayed.

"Now, you are a nice young fellow, ain't you?" said Sowerberry, giving Oliver a shake, and a sound box on the ear.

"He called my mother names," replied Oliver, sullenly.

"Well, and what if he did, you little ungrateful wretch?" said Mrs. Sowerberry. "She deserved what he said, and worse."

"She didn't!" said Oliver.

"She did!" said Mrs. Sowerberry.

"It's a lie!" said Oliver.

Mrs. Sowerberry burst into a flood of tears.

This flood of tears left Sowerberry no alternative. If he had hesitated for one instant to punish Oliver most severely, it must be quite clear to every experienced reader that he would have been, according to all precedents in disputes of matrimony established, a brute, an unnatural husband, an insulting creature, a base imitation of a man, and various other agreeable characters too numerous for recital within the limits of this chapter. To do him justice, he was, as far as his power went,--it was not very extensive,--kindly disposed towards the boy; perhaps because it was his interest to be so, perhaps because his wife disliked him. The flood of tears, however, left him no resource; so he at once gave him a drubbing, which satisfied even Mrs. Sowerberry herself, and rendered Mr. Bumble's subsequent application of the parochial cane rather unnecessary. For the rest of the day he was shut up in the back kitchen, in company with a pump and a slice of bread; and, at night, Mrs. Sowerberry, after making various remarks outside the door, by no means complimentary to the memory of his mother, looked into the room, and, amidst the jeers and pointings of Noah and Charlotte, ordered him up stairs to his dismal bed.

It was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the gloomy workshop of the undertaker, that Oliver gave way to the feelings which the day's treatment may be supposed likely to have awakened in a mere child. He had listened to their taunts with a look of dogged contempt; he had borne the lash without a cry, for he felt that pride swelling in his heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, if they had roasted him alive. But, now that there were none to see or hear him, he fell upon his knees on the floor, and, hiding his face in his hands, wept such tears as God send for the credit of our nature, few so young may ever have cause to pour out before him.

For a long time Oliver remained motionless in this attitude. The candle was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet, and having gazed cautiously round him, and listened intently, gently undid the fastenings of the door and looked abroad.

It was a cold dark night. The stars seemed to the boy's eyes further from the earth than he had ever seen them before; there was no wind, and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees on the earth looked sepulchral and death-like, from being so still. He softly reclosed the door, and, having availed himself of the expiring light of the candle to tie up in a handkerchief the few articles of wearing apparel he had, sat himself down upon a bench to wait for morning.

With the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices in the shutters Oliver rose, and again unbarred the door. One timid look around,--one moment's pause of hesitation,--he had closed it behind him, and was in the open street.

He looked to the right and to the left, uncertain whither to fly. He remembered to have seen the waggons as they went out, toiling up the hill; he took the same route, and arriving at a footpath across the fields, which he thought after some distance led out again into the road, struck into it, and walked quickly on.

Along this same footpath, Oliver well remembered he had trotted beside Mr. Bumble, when he first carried him to the workhouse from the farm. His way lay directly in front of the cottage. His heart beat quickly when he bethought himself of this, and he half resolved to turn back. He had come a long way though, and should lose a great deal of time by doing so. Besides, it was so early that there was very little fear of his being seen; so he walked on.

He reached the house. There was no appearance of its inmates stirring at that early hour. Oliver stopped, and peeped into the garden. A child was weeding one of the little beds; and, as he stopped, he raised his pale face, and disclosed the features of one of his former companions. Oliver felt glad to see him before he went, for, though younger than himself, he had been his little friend and playmate; they had been beaten, and starved, and shut up together, many and many a time.

"Hush, Dick!" said Oliver, as the boy ran to the gate, and thrust his thin arm between the rails to greet him. "Is any one up?"

"Nobody but me," replied the child.

"You mustn't say you saw me, Dick," said Oliver; "I am running away. They beat and ill-use me, Dick; and I am going to seek my fortune some long way off, I don't know where. How pale you are!"

"I heard the doctor tell them I was dying," replied the child with a faint smile. "I am very glad to see you, dear; but don't stop, don't stop."

"Yes, yes, I will, to say good-b'ye to you," replied Oliver. "I shall see you again, Dick; I know I shall. You will be well and happy."

"I hope so," replied the child, "after I am dead, but not before. I know the doctor must be right. Oliver; because I dream so much of heaven, and angels, and kind faces that I never see when I am awake. Kiss me," said the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his little arms round Oliver's neck. "Good-b'ye dear! God bless you!"

The blessing was from a young child's lips, but it was the first that Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through all the struggles and sufferings of his after life, through all the troubles and changes of many weary years, he never once forgot it.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON, AND ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT OF YOUNG GENTLEMAN.

Oliver reached the stile at which the by-path terminated, and once more gained the high-road. It was eight o'clock now; and, though he was nearly five miles away from the town, he ran, and hid behind the hedges by turns, till noon, fearing that he might be pursued and overtaken. Then he sat down to rest at the side of a mile-stone, and began to think for the first time where he had better go and try to live.

The stone by which he was seated bore, in large characters, an intimation that it was just seventy miles from that spot to London. The name awakened a new train of ideas in the boy's mind. London!--that great large place!--nobody--not even Mr. Bumble--could ever find him there. He had often heard the old men in the workhouse, too, say that no lad of spirit need want in London, and that there were ways of living in that vast city which those who had been bred up in country parts had no idea of. It was the very place for a homeless boy, who must die in the streets unless some one helped him. As these things passed through his thoughts, he jumped upon his feet, and again walked forward.

He had diminished the distance between himself and London by full four miles more, before he recollected how much he must undergo ere he could hope to reach his place of destination. As this consideration forced itself upon him, he slackened his pace a little, and meditated upon his means of getting there. He had a crust of bread, a coarse shirt, and two pairs of stockings in his bundle; and a penny--a gift of Sowerberry's after some funeral in which he had acquitted himself more than ordinarily well--in his pocket. "A clean shirt," thought Oliver, "is a very comfortable thing,--very; and so are two pairs of darned stockings, and so is a penny; but they are small helps to a sixty-five miles' walk in winter time." But Oliver's thoughts, like those of most other people, although they were extremely ready and active to point out his difficulties, were wholly at a loss to suggest any feasible mode of surmounting them; so, after a good deal of thinking to no particular purpose, he changed his little bundle over to the other shoulder, and trudged on.

Oliver walked twenty miles that day; and all that time tasted nothing but the crust of dry bread, and a few draughts of water which he begged at the cottage-doors by the road-side. When the night came, he turned into a meadow, and, creeping close under a hay-rick, determined to lie there till morning. He felt frightened at first, for the wind moaned dismally over the empty fields, and he was cold and hungry, and more alone than he had ever felt before. Being very tired with his walk, however, he soon fell asleep and forgot his troubles.

He felt cold and stiff when he got up next morning, and so hungry that he was obliged to exchange the penny for a small loaf in the very first village through which he passed. He had walked no more than twelve miles, when night closed in again; for his feet were sore, and his legs so weak that they trembled beneath him. Another night passed in the bleak damp air only made him worse; and, when he set forward on his journey next morning, he could hardly crawl along.

He waited at the bottom of a steep hill till a stage-coach came up, and then begged of the outside passengers; but there were very few who took any notice of him, and even those, told him to wait till they got to the top of the hill, and then let them see how far he could run for a halfpenny. Poor Oliver tried to keep up with the coach a little way, but was unable to do it, by reason of his fatigue and sore feet. When the outsides saw this, they put their halfpence back into their pockets again, declaring that he was an idle young dog, and didn't deserve anything; and the coach rattled away, and left only a cloud of dust behind.

In some villages, large painted boards were fixed up, warning all persons who begged within the district that they would be sent to jail, which frightened Oliver very much, and made him very glad to get out of them with all possible expedition. In others he would stand about the inn-yards, and look mournfully at every one who passed; a proceeding which generally terminated in the landlady's ordering one of the post-boys who were lounging about, to drive that strange boy out of the place, for she was sure he had come to steal something. If he begged at a farmer's house, ten to one but they threatened to set the dog on him; and when he showed his nose in a shop, they talked about the beadle, which brought Oliver's heart up into his mouth,--very often the only thing he had there, for many hours together.

In fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man, and a benevolent old lady, Oliver's troubles would have been shortened by the very same process which put an end to his mother's; in other words, he would most assuredly have fallen dead upon the king's highway. But the turnpike-man gave him a meal of bread and cheese; and the old lady, who had a shipwrecked grandson wandering barefooted in some distant part of the earth, took pity upon the poor orphan, and gave him what little she could afford--and more--with such kind and gentle words, and such tears of sympathy and compassion, that they sank deeper into Oliver's soul than all the sufferings he had ever undergone.

Early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place, Oliver limped slowly into the little town of Barnet. The window-shutters were closed, the street was empty, not a soul had awakened to the business of the day. The sun was rising in all his splendid beauty, but the light only seemed to show the boy his own lonesomeness and desolation as he sat with bleeding feet and covered with dust upon a cold door-step.

By degrees the shutters were opened, the window-blinds were drawn up, and people began passing to and fro. Some few stopped to gaze at Oliver for a moment or two, or turned round to stare at him as they hurried by; but none relieved him, or troubled themselves to inquire how he came there. He had no heart to beg, and there he sat.

He had been crouching on the step for some time, gazing listlessly at the coaches as they passed through, and thinking how strange it seemed that they could do with ease in a few hours what it had taken him a whole week of courage and determination beyond his years to accomplish, when he was roused by observing that a boy who had passed him carelessly some minutes before, had returned, and was now surveying him most earnestly from the opposite side of the way. He took little heed of this at first; but the boy remained in the same attitude of close observation so long, that Oliver raised his head, and returned his steady look. Upon this, the boy crossed over, and, walking close up to Oliver, said,

"Hullo! my covey, what's the row?"

The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer was about his own age, but one of the queerest-looking boys that Oliver had ever seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough, and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had got about him all the airs and manners of a man. He was short of his age, with rather bow-legs, and little sharp ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of his head so slightly that it threatened to fall off every moment, and would have done so very often if the wearer had not had a knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to its old place again. He wore a man's coat, which reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back halfway up his arm to get his hands out of the sleeves, apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers, for there he kept them. He was altogether as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood three feet six, or something less, in his bluchers.

"Hullo, my covey, what's the row?" said this strange young gentleman to Oliver.

"I am very hungry and tired," replied Oliver, the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke. "I have walked a long way,--I have been walking these seven days."

"Walking for sivin days!" said the young gentleman. "Oh, I see. Beak's order, eh? But," he added, noticing Oliver's look of surprise, "I suppose you don't know wot a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on."

Oliver mildly replied, that he had always heard a bird's mouth described by the term in question.

"My eyes, how green!" exclaimed the young gentleman. "Why, a beak's a madg'st'rate; and when you walk by a beak's order, it's not straight forerd, but always going up, and nivir coming down agen. Was you never on the mill?"

"What mill?" inquired Oliver.

"What mill!--why, _the_ mill,--the mill as takes up so little room that it'll work inside a stone jug, and always goes better when the wind's low with people than when it's high, acos then they can't get workmen. But come," said the young gentleman; "you want grub, and you shall have it. I'm at low-water-mark,--only one bob and a magpie; but, _as_ far _as_ it goes, I'll fork out and stump. Up with you on your pins. There: now then, morrice."

Assisting Oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to an adjacent chandler's shop, where he purchased a sufficiency of ready-dressed ham and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself expressed it, "a fourpenny bran;" the ham being kept clean and preserved from dust by the ingenious expedient of making a hole in the loaf by pulling out a portion of the crumb, and stuffing it therein. Taking the bread under his arm, the young gentleman turned into a small public-house, and led the way to a tap-room in the rear of the premises. Here, a pot of beer was brought in by the direction of the mysterious youth; and Oliver, falling to, at his new friend's bidding, made a long and hearty meal, during the progress of which the strange boy eyed him from time to time with great attention.

"Going to London?" said the strange boy, when Oliver had at length concluded.

"Yes."

"Got any lodgings?"

"No."

"Money?"

"No."

The strange boy whistled, and put his arms into his pockets as far as the big-coat sleeves would let them go.

"Do you live in London?" inquired Oliver.

"Yes, I do, when I'm at home," replied the boy. "I suppose you want some place to sleep in to-night, don't you?"

"I do indeed," answered Oliver. "I have not slept under a roof since I left the country."

"Don't fret your eyelids on that score," said the young gentleman. "I've got to be in London to-night, and I know a 'spectable old genelman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the change; that is, if any genelman he knows interduces you. And don't he know me?--Oh, no,--not in the least,--by no means,--certainly not."

The young gentleman smiled, as if to intimate that the latter fragments of discourse were playfully ironical, and finished the beer as he did so.

This unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted, especially as it was immediately followed up, by the assurance that the old gentleman already referred to, would doubtless provide Oliver with a comfortable place without loss of time. This led to a more friendly and confidential dialogue, from which Oliver discovered that his friend's name was Jack Dawkins, and that he was a peculiar pet and _protegé_ of the elderly gentleman before mentioned.

Mr. Dawkins's appearance did not say a vast deal in favour of the comforts which his patron's interest obtained for those whom he took under his protection; but as he had a somewhat flighty and dissolute mode of conversing, and furthermore avowed that among his intimate friends he was better known by the _sobriquet_ of "The artful Dodger," Oliver concluded that, being of a dissipated and careless turn, the moral precepts of his benefactor had hitherto been thrown away upon him. Under this impression, he secretly resolved to cultivate the good opinion of the old gentleman as quickly as possible; and, if he found the Dodger incorrigible, as he more than half suspected he should, to decline the honour of his farther acquaintance.

As John Dawkins objected to their entering London before nightfall, it was nearly eleven o'clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington. They crossed from the Angel into St. John's-road, struck down the small street which terminates at Sadler's Wells theatre, through Exmouth-street and Coppice-row, down the little court by the side of the workhouse, across the classic ground which once bore the name of Hockley-in-the-hole, thence into Little Saffron-hill, and so into Saffron-hill the Great, along which the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, directing Oliver to follow close at his heels.

Although Oliver had enough to occupy his attention in keeping sight of his leader, he could not help bestowing a few hasty glances on either side of the way as he passed along. A dirtier or more wretched place he had never seen. The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours. There were a good many small shops; but the only stock in trade appeared to be heaps of children, who, even at that time of night, were crawling in and out at the doors, or screaming from the inside. The sole places that seemed to prosper amid the general blight of the place were the public-houses, and in them, the lowest orders of Irish (who are generally the lowest orders of anything) were wrangling with might and main. Covered ways and yards, which here and there diverged from the main street, disclosed little knots of houses where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in the filth; and from several of the doorways, great ill-looking fellows were cautiously emerging, bound, to all appearance, upon no very well-disposed or harmless errands.

Oliver was just considering whether he hadn't better run away, when they reached the bottom of the hill: his conductor, catching him by the arm, pushed open the door of a house near Field-lane, and, drawing him into the passage, closed it behind them.

"Now, then," cried a voice from below, in reply to a whistle from the Dodger.

"_Plummy and slam!_" was the reply.

This seemed to be some watchword or signal that it was all right; for the light of a feeble candle gleamed upon the wall at the farther end of the passage, and a man's face peeped out from where a balustrade of the old kitchen staircase had been broken away.

"There's two on you," said the man, thrusting the candle farther out, and shading his eyes with his hand. "Who's the t'other one?"

"A new pal," replied Jack, pulling Oliver forward.

"Where did he come from?"

"Greenland. Is Fagin up stairs?"

"Yes, he's a sortin' the wipes. Up with you!" The candle was drawn back, and the face disappeared.

Oliver, groping his way with one hand, and with the other firmly grasped by his companion, ascended with much difficulty the dark and broken stairs which his conductor mounted with an ease and expedition that showed he was well acquainted with them. He threw open the door of a back-room, and drew Oliver in after him.

The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt. There was a deal-table before the fire, upon which was a candle stuck in a ginger-beer bottle; two or three pewter pots, a loaf and butter, and a plate. In a frying-pan which was on the fire, and which was secured to the mantelshelf by a string, some sausages were cooking; and standing over them, with a toasting-fork in his hand, was a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villanous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair. He was dressed in a greasy flannel gown, with his throat bare, and seemed to be dividing his attention between the frying-pan and a clothes-horse, over which a great number of silk handkerchiefs were hanging. Several rough beds made of old sacks were huddled side by side on the floor; and seated round the table were four or five boys, none older than the Dodger, smoking long clay pipes and drinking spirits with all the air of middle-aged men. These all crowded about their associate as he whispered a few words to the Jew, and then turned round and grinned at Oliver, as did the Jew himself, toasting-fork in hand.

"This is him, Fagin," said Jack Dawkins; "my friend, Oliver Twist."

The Jew grinned; and, making a low obeisance to Oliver, took him by the hand, and hoped he should have the honour of his intimate acquaintance. Upon this, the young gentlemen with the pipes came round him, and shook both his hands very hard,--especially the one in which he held his little bundle. One young gentleman was very anxious to hang up his cap for him; and another was so obliging as to put his hands in his pockets, in order that, as he was very tired, he might not have the trouble of emptying them when he went to bed. These civilities would probably have been extended much further, but for a liberal exercise of the Jew's toasting-fork on the heads and shoulders of the affectionate youths who offered them.

"We are very glad to see you, Oliver,--very," said the Jew. "Dodger, take off the sausages, and draw a tub near the fire for Oliver. Ah, you're a-staring at the pocket-handkerchiefs! eh, my dear? There are a good many of 'em, ain't there? We've just looked 'em out ready for the wash; that's all, Oliver; that's all. Ha! ha! ha!"

The latter part of this speech was hailed by a boisterous shout from all the hopeful pupils of the merry old gentleman, in the midst of which they went to supper.

Oliver ate his share; and the Jew then mixed him a glass of hot gin and water, telling him he must drink it off directly, because another gentleman wanted the tumbler. Oliver did as he was desired. Almost instantly afterwards, he felt himself gently lifted on to one of the sacks, and then he sunk into a deep sleep.

THE PORTRAIT GALLERY.--No. II.

Dr. Cleaver, whose portrait we next reviewed, displayed a physiognomy widely different from that of DR. DULCET. It did not exhibit any of the milk of human kindness; or, if ever such a benign fluid had circulated in his veins, it had been curded by the rennet of early disappointment in every young hope. The features were stern and inflexible,--cast-iron, moulded by philosophy; a Cynic smile portrayed contempt of the world, or rather of society, such as it then was, is, and most probably ever will be. Yet his rubicond cheeks and vinous nose proclaimed that he was fond of the good things of this perishable globe; and few men, when he had acquired wealth, enjoyed life and its luxuries with greater zest than he did. His maxim was founded on what he would call _the whole duty of man_; which was, _to keep what we get, and to get all we can_.

Edward Cleaver was born in that class of human beings denominated _paupers_. He was ushered into life a burthen on the parish in which he had been found, at the door of a butcher of the name of Cleaver, (whose patronymic was generously bestowed on him,) in a condition as natural as his birth. Cleaver was a man of a _serious_ way of thinking; and, fearing that the adoption of an orphan infant might asperse his sanctimonious character, and thereby injure his trade, very properly sent the child to the parish officers. These worthies would willingly have made him paternise the thing; but he had evidence of its having been found abandoned in the street.

Whether a burthen be carried by a body corporate or an individual, it is nevertheless an obnoxious incumbrance, of which the bearer is anxious to rid himself as soon as he possibly can; and therefore, maugre the puling and mawkish cant of some would-be philanthropic scribblers, a parish has just the same right to grumble at a burthen, and cast it off as feasibly as may be, as a hod-bearer to relieve himself of his load, a donkey of his panniers, or a nursery-maid of a squalling and ponderous brat. Therefore, overseers are perfectly justifiable in having recourse to all the industrious methods that sound political economy can suggest to shake off the taxation imposed upon their parishioners by improvidence and vice. However, all their ingenuity could not prevent the growth of Ned Cleaver, who attained the age of seven, illustrating the fact, that vital air can support the functions of life with the aid of but little sustenance: and the imp was so hale and hearty, that they thought him "ragged and tough" enough for anything, and sent him to sea.

To relate his mishaps as a cabin-boy on board a collier would fill a volume; suffice it to say, the lad was naturally stubborn, and would not be persuaded that he was created to work without sufficient food, and get thrashed in lieu of wages; and finding, to use the old joke, that, although he was _bred_ to the sea, the sea was not _bread_ to him, he decamped at Plymouth, and joined a company of strolling tumblers, hurdy-gurdy players, and mountebanks, that were travelling about the country.

Ned had now attained is sixteenth year, and had perfected himself; in forecastle and caboose, in various accomplishments; he could sing a slang-song, chop his jaws in various modulations, was a very _Moscheles_ on the salt-box, danced a hornpipe, mimicked all sorts of infirmities, and could make the most horrible faces, that would so disfigure him that no one could recognise his natural features, which were uncommonly handsome; so much so indeed, that he became a great favourite of the ladies of the company: but, although he _ruled the roost_ with the fair sex, he was scurvily _basted_ upon every trivial occasion by the gentlemen performers, and was therefore not much better off on land, than when at sea he was flogged up aloft to reef, or flogged down to the salutary exercise of the _holy stone_, which would teach the most impious chap to pray. Cleaver, therefore, betook himself to his _lower extremities_ in the neighbourhood of London; and, once more a _filius populi_, threw himself in the tide of our population in search of work and food. For several days he strayed about this wealthy metropolis, and was well-nigh proving the veracity of those sapient legislators, who maintain that such vagabonds have _no business to live_,--which is indeed a truism. Happily for our young vagrant, he one night fell in with a drunken old man who was endeavouring to chalk upon the walls, in gigantic letters, the name of a celebrated physician. It immediately occurred to Master Ned that, if he could afford assistance to the staggering artist, he, in return, might afford him some relief. It was a providential inspiration. Ned helped his new-made acquaintance to what he politely termed his _boozing ken_,[89] where he was feasted with a _blow-out_ of what his patron called _grub and bub_ (_Anglicè_, victuals and drink); and, after enjoying a delicious night's rest in an Irish _dry lodging_ upon wet straw, he was admitted as an assistant in the chalking line, at sixpence per diem. His master, who when sober could not read, would oftentimes make sad mistakes when he was, in every sense of the denomination, a "_knight of the brush and moon_,"--which, in the language of the holy land, meaneth "_in the wind_,"--and our apprentice soon became an indispensable assistant, since his master could earn six shillings a day, and get as drunk as a lord, by paying him sixpence out of his salary. Now, although our youth was not ungrateful, yet he was ambitious, and he could not see the reason why such a disproportion in the wages of labour should exist; he one morning took it into his head to work on his own bottom, and therefore presented himself to his chief employer, a Dr. Doall, with the abominable intention of basely undermining his benefactor at half-price.

[89] A pot-house lodging.

Doall was much pleased with his appearance and his candour, but still more with his proposal; and Ned was forthwith taken into his service. His occupation _merely_ consisted in cleaning the whole house, answering the door, running errands, helping to cook the dinner, serving at table, pounding medicines, washing dishes, scouring knives and forks, and blacking shoes, _mooning_ about the streets at night chalking his master's name, and during his leisure moments he was advised to study physic, and wash out phials and gallipots; for which services he was put upon board wages, at the rate of ninepence per diem. All these duties he fulfilled most cheerfully, for he had an incentive to his labours. Next to good living--when he could get it--Cleaver was a warm admirer of the fair sex, even when hungry; and, when beauty drank to him with her eyes, he would have pledged her in small-beer as rapturously as in half-and-half. Doall had a daughter, an only child; she was remarkable for her beauty, and no less recommendable by her accomplishments. She was ever engaged in reading novels and plays, could strum upon the guitar, and all day long, was either singing or spouting: our apprentice looked upon her as the paragon all loveliness. If he admired her, he soon perceived that his youth, his innocence, and perhaps his good figure, had produced a favourable impression upon the maiden. A conversation with her father confirmed the surmises of vanity, when he overheard her sweet voice admitting that he was a _monstrous nice_ young fellow, and impressing upon her father the propriety of giving him decent clothes, and making him look like a gentleman.

This conversation had the "desired effect." Ned was sent to suit himself in Monmouth-street, cooky allowed him to dip his crust in the dripping-pan on roasting-days; and, although on board wages, Emmelina, the doctor's lovely daughter, permitted him a fair run of his teeth when her father was out. As the cook was often junketing with her lover, the sexton of the parish, she did not grudge him these little advantages.

One morning, just as he had come home from chalking, the doctor called him, and bidding him be seated, (a most unexpected honour, which nearly drove the lad out of his senses,) he informed him that he was highly satisfied with his conduct, would henceforth allow him four pounds a year wages, and pay him by the job for other services, which were to commence by his _doing fits_; so saying, he gave him a treatise on epilepsy, and bidding him study the symptoms, he left him, slipping half-a-crown into his hand.

The enchanted Cleaver was not long in understanding the doctor's intentions, and sedulously applied himself to acquire the means of qualifying himself for his novel occupation; although he was rather staggered when he read the following: "The patient falls down without any previous notice, his eyes are so distorted that only the whites of them are to be seen, his fists are clenched, he foams at the mouth, thrusts out his tongue, and his body and limbs are agitated and convulsed. After a continuance of this terrific state, the symptoms gradually abate; but the patient continues looking wildly and vacantly around him, perfectly unconscious of what has passed." Cleaver immediately proceeded to make the most awful faces in his looking-glass, till he actually frightened himself into the belief that a real fit was coming on. Delighted with his attempt, no sooner had Doall returned, than Cleaver fell down in the hall, in all the fearful distortions of an epileptic.

"Bravo!--bravo!" exclaimed the doctor;--"admirable!--excellent!"

"Delicious!--wonderful!--he's a very artist. Oh, what a tragedian he would make!" exclaimed the daughter; "how charmingly he would die!

'Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold,-- Thou hast no speculation in those eyes!'"

"I'll be d--d if he hasn't, though!" replied Doall; "and if this chap does not make his way in the world, I'll swallow a peck of my own _anti-omnibus pills_. Now mutter away, my boy--more foam--more foam--that's it!--now for a kick--that's your sort!--clench your fist--capital! capital! Now, my fine fellow, get up, and I'll renovate you with some of my _cardiac anti-nervous balm_;" and, so saying, he took out of his closet a small bottle which contained the aforesaid liquor, which was neither more nor less than a dram for ladies, who dared not indulge in more vulgar potations, and which I afterwards found was composed of cherry-bounce, Curaçoa, Cayenne pepper, ginger, and some other drug of a most stimulating nature, which once recommended a certain holy man to a certain great personage;--a fact which may be now noticed, since both parties are in the _Elysian_ Fields.

It was now settled that the following day at four o'clock, Cleaver was to fall down in a fit in Albemarle-street, at the door of a fashionable family-hotel, the doctor driving past at the very time. In a moment he had collected a crowd around him. One exclaimed, "The fellow's drunk!"--another bystander maintained it was apoplexy; a second, epilepsy; and an old woman assured the group that it was catalepsy. The lad's face was sprinkled with kennel water, hartshorn charitably applied to his nostrils, and a stick humanely crammed between his teeth for fear he should bite his tongue. On a sudden, and to his infinite satisfaction, Doall jumped out of his job-fly, and, after looking at the patient for a moment, observed that it was an _attack of idiopathic epilepsy, arising from a determination of the sanguineous system to the encephalon_. This learned illustration proclaimed the man of science, and every one made way for him with becoming respect. Our esculapius then took out a small phial from his pocket, and, pouring two or three drops into Ned's foaming mouth, he added, "These drops are infallible in recovering people from all sorts of sympathetic, symptomatic, and idiopathic attacks;" when Cleaver immediately opened his eyes, looked around him with a vacant stare, to the great amazement of every one present, and in a stuttering voice asked where he was. The doctor generously told him where he lived in a loud and audible manner, gave him half-a-crown, and was about ascending his pill-box, after bidding him call upon him in a day or two, when a servant in a splendid livery stepped forward from the hotel, and informed him that Lady Coverley wished to see him. He was immediately ushered into the presence of a superannuated countess, just arrived from the country.

"My dear sir!" she exclaimed, "I am positively the most fortunate woman in the world, to have thus accidentally met with such a prodigy. I witnessed your wonderful cure upon that poor creature, and I must absolutely get you to see my daughter Virgy. All the physicians in town have attended her, and I do declare I think they have done her more harm than good. When Lord Coverley arrives with Lady Virginia, Virgy shall see you immediately; I declare she must."

Doall bowed obsequiously, tendered his address, and, slipping half-a-guinea into the footman's hand, drove off, not without having heard the servant proclaim to all around, "that he was the cleverest man in _Lunnun_, and beat out all other doctors by _chalks_;" the fellow being little aware at the time that his vulgar expression was so applicable.

The doctor was fortunate. Lady Virginia, a nervous, romantic fidget, had been reduced by bleeding, starving, and other expedients, to _linger long_; and in a short time Doall, having discovered that she was in love, recommended marriage, with repeated doses of his "_cardiac anti-nervous balm_;" his prescription effected a perfect cure.

Cleaver was now in great favour, and every day proved to him that the doctor's daughter's partiality was assuming a more affectionate character. One morning he was pounding some combustible drugs in a mortar, when Emmelina familiarly entered into conversation with him. After having asked him various questions about his parentage,--when she heard that he was an orphan, she expressed great sympathy. She then reverted to her favourite topic, the drama; and asked him if he often went to the play.

"Only once, miss," he replied.

"And what was the performance?"

"Romeo and Juliet."

"Delightful piece! How did you like the garden scene, Edward?

'See how she leans her cheek upon that hand! O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!'

And tell me, Edward," she continued with great emotion, "did you not weep?"

"Oh, bitterly!" he sighed; "bitterly!"

"I'm sure you did. When he takes the deadly draught, and says,

'Here's to my love! Oh, true apothecary, Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.'"

Unfortunately the enraptured girl suited her action to the words, and imitating Romeo casting from him the fatal phial, she seized a bottle of some diabolical ingredient, and threw it into the mortar. A tremendous detonation followed, blowing up the stuff Cleaver was pounding, singeing all his hair and burning his face.

Emmelina's terror at this accident was as great as the pain it had inflicted; and Cleaver was bellowing, and stamping, and kicking, when fortunately Doall came in. The poor sufferer expected some immediate relief from his skill, but was amazed to see him draw back with looks of admiration, and exclaim, "Beautiful, by Jupiter!--beautiful!--Oh, what a thought!--what a grand idea!--beautiful!"

Emmelina entreated him to dress Ned's scalds, which he set about doing with hesitation, ever and anon stepping back to gaze upon him with delight; and, having applied some ointment to his face, he thus proceeded:

"Edward, my boy, I love you, I admire you; your fits have worked wonders, and I have now to put your skill to another trial. The accident that has just blown you up, has admirably suited you for my purpose. I shall--what do I say?--_we_ shall make a fortune. I must send you on an important mission: you must know that the very ingredients you were pulverising were for the preparation of a remedy of my invention, which infallibly cures carbuncly noses; when I say cures, I mean white-washing them, that they may break out again as extravagantly as they chuse in other hands. Now, the eldest son of Lord Doodly has a nose--that I must have hold of: oh, such a nose! like--like----"

"A will-o'-the-wisp," exclaimed his daughter.

"A most appropriate simile," rejoined the doctor. "Well, Edward, see here; his conk is nothing to the one you shall wear:" and, so saying, he drew forth from a drawer a most horrible snout of wax, ingeniously fixed upon leather; and, applying it to the youth's face, he was actually struck with horror when he beheld himself in the glass. Emmelina shrieked, and her father roared out in raptures, "Admirable! the scalds on your face will add to the beauty of your countenance."

It was arranged that, on the following day Cleaver was to start by the stage for Southampton, where Lord Doodly and his son resided. He was there to sport his awful nose in churches, theatres, public walks, until the whole town should call him "the wretch with the horrible nose!" According to agreement, after a tender farewell scene with Emmelina, he proceeded on his journey; but as he was stepping into the coach at the Golden Cross, a lady with a child upon her lap shrieked out most vehemently, exclaiming, "Coach! guard! coach! let me out--let me out! I will not travel if that there gentleman comes in, with his nose."

"What! ma'am," replied the coachman: "would you have the gemman travel without his snorter to accommodate you?"

"Oh! I shall faint; I will faint! Oh! sir, take that nose away!"

Cleaver began to wink and blink most awfully.

"Let me out! let me out! Oh Lord! where could a man get such a nose!"

Cleaver pretended to suffer most cruelly, and clapped his handkerchief to his face in apparent agony.

"It's not a nose," exclaimed a gaunt East Indian in a corner, just awaking from a doze: "it's more like the proboscis of a rhinoceros: it is a disease which we call in Bengal an elephantiasis; and, egad! I'll get out of the coach also, for it's the most d--nable infectious disorder next to leprosy."

"Oh, Gracious!" shrieked the lady, rushing out; "my darling infant has caught it; my Tommy, my jewel, will have an elephant's nose!"

"It's a shame," exclaimed the nabob. "I'll complain to the proprietors. One might as well travel with the plague, and go to bed to the cholera morbus. Let me out, coachy! let me out this instant!"

Coachy now began to apprehend the consequences of a complaint from a person of much weight in Southampton, and politely begged of Cleaver to take an outside seat. The travellers on the top of the coach were as much terrified as the inside ones; and Cleaver was forced to sit on the box next to the driver, who sported an enormous mangel-wurzel smeller of his own, and seemed much amused with the terrors of his passengers.

Cleaver's expedition was most prosperous. He terrified gipsy parties at Netly, shocked the members of the Yacht Club, interrupted the sketches of tourists, and kept High-street, above and below bar, in a state of constant consternation, after having been refused admittance into half of the hotels. The very parish beadles seemed to have an eye to his nose. In short, the Strasburg burghers had not been more terrified with the sneezer of Han Kenbergins's traveller, than were the good people of Southampton with that of their visitor. Having thus brought his snout into notoriety, he returned to town on a day when he had discovered that Lord Doodly's butler was going up. The conversation naturally fell upon noses, as the butler declared that he never in all his born days had seen such a pair of nozzles as Cleaver's and his young master's. Our adventurer then informed him that there was only _one doctor upon earth_ who could cure such terrific diseases, and him he was going up to consult. His fellow traveller of course observed, that if he could cure _his_ scent-box he could cure anything; and Cleaver promised him, over a tankard of ale, to let him hear from him if he was so fortunate as to get rid of his distressing disorder.

Two months after, a loud ringing announced a stranger at the gate of Doodly Hall. It was Cleaver, with his natural facial handle, asking for the butler. Overjoyed at a discovery so acceptable to his master, who, in return for his services, might be disposed to overlook his spoliations with more indulgence, Cleaver was introduced by him to the family, who all recollected his former frightful appearance. Lord Impy, the heir of the title and estate, was forthwith sent to London to be placed under Doall's care. Again he had the good fortune to relieve him, and his fame had spread far and near, ere the nasal conflagration broke out again with redoubled virulence.

Cleaver's services were soon requited by the hand of Emmelina, and a partnership in _the board_. He gradually acquired a smattering of medical knowledge; and, being well aware that affable manners bring on conversation, and conversation tends to draw out ignorance, he very wisely assumed a haughty, and at times a brutal manner; making it a rule never to answer a question, and requesting his patients to hold their tongues when they presumed to trespass on their ailments. His unmannerly behaviour was called _frankness_, his silence _erudition_, and his insolence _independence_. He thus became one of the wealthiest quacks in London. His romantic Emmelina for some time rendered him most miserable; but, fortunately for him, she one night set fire to the house while performing "_The Devil to pay_" in her private theatricals, and was duly consumed with the premises. With his usual good luck, they had been insured for three times their value; and the doctor was enabled to move to a more fashionable part of the West End, with the additional _puff of a fire, a burnt wife, and a disconsolate husband_!

The librarian proceeded to relate the adventures of various other medical men; and we then entered an adjoining room, hung round with portraits of distinguished characters, amongst whom I was particularly anxious to learn the history of the once popular patriot, SIR RUBY RATBOROUGH.

PETER PLUMBAGO'S CORRESPONDENCE.

Dear Tom,--I'm aware you will need no apology For a nice short epistle concerning geology; The subject perhaps has been worn to a thread,-- But I can't drive _Philosophy_ out of my head! Before the great meeting in Bristol, no doubt It was harder to drive such a thing in than out; But a one-pound subscription once placing it there, It takes root in the brain, and sprouts faster than hair: So that, though I get lectures at night from the wife of me, I can't pluck Philosophy out for the life of me.

Well, Tom,--a prime fellow, brimfull of divinity, Told jokes about chaos and bones to infinity; And proved that the world (this he firmly believes) Long before Adam's day had seen thousands of EVES! Now, Tom, do you know in this earth that so great a Proportion of hard rocks inclining in strata Is caked with dead lizards and crocodiles' bone, That a singular fact's incontestably shown-- Viz. ALL FLESH (WHICH IS GRASS) MUST IN TIME BECOME STONE! Either limestone, or crystal, or mineral salt, (Vide specim.) Lot's wife--crystallized "in a _fault_." Fancy, Tom, that your skull may come under the chisel, And turn out a filter for water to drizzle! Or imagine the rubicund nose of our uncle, In some fair lady's brooch, blazing forth a carbuncle! Though learning is grand, and one labours to win it, There perhaps lurks a something distressing, Tom, in it. Thus, whate'er our good character while our life lasted, When turned into rocks, may we not, Tom, be blasted? However refined were our tastes and behaviour, When slabs, to be thumped by the vulgarest pavior! Who knows but that Newton's immortalised pate May not some day become a dull schoolboy's old slate; That head, which threw such astonishing light upon The secrets of nature--a ninny to write upon! Man's knowledge is ignorance, wisdom is folly; The more philosophic, the more melancholy.

But, Tom, I've a theory,--my own, Tom,--my pet, Though not quite mature to be published as yet, Next year I expect 'twill be brought to perfection, And be read at the great Geological Section. The subject of FROGS having pleased the community, (A subject on which none may gibe with impunity,) It struck me the cold-blooded matter they own Must be midway 'twixt animal substance and stone. They have heads, so have we!--and no tails, so have rocks!-- They've no red blood, like pebbles! but two eyes, like cocks! Then again,--unlike Christians, with warm, "vital spark,"-- They are cold, so are flints! a strong circumstance--mark! An argument _some_ use--there is not much in 't, That stones have no skins--Hah! then what's a _skin flint_? Every day, Tom, I feel more secure my position, _Frogs_ are ANIMAL ROCKS _in a state of transition_! If I prove this,--and savans but act with propriety,-- I'm sure to preside at the Royal Society! Then think, Tom, the glory of Bristol! a resident Elected in London, to sit as the President! Hark! I hear, Tom, my unphilosophic virago Of a wife! I must finish-- Yours, PETER PLUMBAGO. October 14th, 1836.

THE BLUE WONDER.[90] A MARRIAGE ON CREDIT.

[90] This story has been adapted from the German of Zschokke.

Doctor Falcon looked one way, and pretty Susan looked another, as it has been customary for young people to do, from the remotest antiquity. The doctor was a very pretty fellow, had been to two universities, had walked the hospitals of Vienna, Milan, and Pavia, and had learned so much that there was not one of his craft better able than himself to post his patients to a better world according to the most legitimate principles of the most modern systems of the medical art. But science such as this, is not to be acquired for nothing; it had cost our worthy doctor nearly every penny of his modest patrimony. "Never mind!" thought he to himself; "when I get home, I'll marry some rich girl or other, who may take a fancy to become the doctor's lady; and so both our turns will be served."

But what are the wisest resolutions against the eloquence of a pretty face? Susan was as pretty as a lover could wish her; she felt the best disposition in the world to become a doctor's lady, but then she had no money.

"Never mind, my dear Susan!" said the doctor, as he impressed a kiss on the lips of the weeping maid; "you see, a doctor must marry, else people have no confidence in him. You will bring me _credit_, credit will bring me _patients_, the patients money, and, if they should fail, we have good expectations. Your aunt, Miss Sarah Bugle, is forty odd, not far from fifty, and rich enough for the seventh part of her fortune to help us out of all our trouble. We may venture something upon that!"

Heavens! what will a young girl not venture for her lover! Susan's mother had nothing to object, nor her father either, for they were both in heaven; and her guardian was well pleased to see his ward form a respectable connexion. Her aunt, Sarah, was also well-pleased, though, in general, she was little friendly to wedding of any kind: but, as long as Susan remained unmarried, she saw very clearly that she would every year be obliged to make some pecuniary advances to the worthy guardian; and Miss Sarah Bugle was rather stingy, or, as she was herself wont to say, "she had not a penny more than she wanted."

Well: Susan became Mrs. Falcon, and the doctor looked most industriously out of his windows to see the customers pour into his house, on the strength of his increased claims to credit. They came very sparingly; but in their stead there appeared every year, a little merry face that had never been seen in the house before, to augment the parental joys of Doctor Falcon and his lady. Sometimes the doctor would pass his finger, cogitatingly, behind his left ear; but what could that avail him? There was no driving the little Falcons out of the nest. They could not cut their bread into thinner slices, for the children must live; but the doctress made her soups thinner. However, they all seemed to thrive,--father, mother, and the four little ones. They sat on wooden benches and straw chairs as comfortably as they could have done on quilted cushions; they slept soundly on hard mattresses, and wore no costly garments, being well contented if they could keep themselves neatly and respectably clad. And this was an art in which Susan was a perfect adept; everything in her house looked so pretty and neat, that you would have sworn the doctor must have been extremely well off. "How they manage to do it, I can't think!" Aunt Sarah would often exclaim. "It's a blue wonder to me!"

Not that it was always sunshine: there were days when the exchequer was quite exhausted; and sometimes whole weeks would elapse without a single dollar finding its way into the house. But then it was always some consolation to know that Aunt Sarah was rich, and sickly, and growing old; and, the worse matters looked at home, the more hopeful they always became at the maiden's mansion.

EXPECTING HEIRS.

The doctor and Susan reckoned rather too confidently on the inheritance of the aunt; for, even supposing that the dear old lady had been so near to her beatification as her loving friends imagined, still it was matter of speculation whether her dear niece would or would not be her heir. The sighing pair of wedded lovers stood indeed most in need of the inheritance: but it so happened that there was another niece, married to one Lawyer Tweezer; not to speak of two nephews, the Reverend Primarius Bugle, and a certain doctor of philosophy of the same name. Their claims were all as strong as those of Susan and her husband, and all looked forward with equal longing to the ascension of the blessed virgin.

Bugle, the philosopher, had perhaps least cause of all. He was rich enough; and, while enjoying the delicacies of his table, and smacking his lips after his Burgundy, his philosophy was perfectly edifying to his guests. We have a proof of his acuteness in a work of his, in five volumes, now forgotten, but once immortal, entitled "_The Wise Man surrounded by the Evils of Life_;" in which he proved that there was no such thing as suffering in the world; that pain of every kind was the mere creature of imagination; and that all a man had to do, was to contemplate every object on the agreeable side.

Accordingly, he always contemplated his aunt on the _agreeable_, namely, on her _money_ side. He visited her assiduously, often invited her to dinner, sent her all sorts of tit-bits from his kitchen, and was accordingly honoured with the appellation of her "own darling nephew."

He would have succeeded well enough with his philosophy, had not his cousin, the Reverend Primarius Bugle, by means of his theology, exercised great influence over the aunt. She was very pious and devout, contemned the vanities of the world, visited the congregations of the godly, in which the spiritual bugle at times was heard to utter a loud strain, and was mightily comforted by the visits of her reverend nephew, who joined her frequently in her devotions, and gave her pretty clearly to understand, that, without his assistance, she would find it difficult to prepare her soul for its future blissful abode. When, sighing and with weeping eyes, she would come from the edifying discourses of her godly nephew, she would call him the saviour of her soul, her greatest of benefactors, and promise to think of him in her last hour. This was music to the ears of the theologian. "I can scarcely fail to be the sole legatee," he would think to himself; "or, as our pious aunt is wont to say, it would be a blue wonder indeed."

Nor would his calculation have been a bad one, but for his cousin Lawyer Tweezer; whose legal ability made him a man of great importance to the aunt. The chaste Sarah did indeed despise the Mammon of unrighteousness, and sincerely pitied the grovelling children of the world; but on that very account she did her best to detach them from their Mammon, or at least their Mammon from them, which is all the same. She lent money on high interest and good security, and worked so diligently for the salvation of those who borrowed from her, that they were always sure to became poorer and poorer under her ministration. "Blessed are the poor!" she would exclaim when they were paying her interest on interest; "if I could have my way, I would have the whole town poor, that they might all inherit the kingdom of heaven. The less people have in this world, the more they will long for the world to come."

It would sometimes happen, however, that the pious maid was carried too far by her virtuous zeal for the future welfare of her neighbours; so that, what with her securities, and her compound interest, and the wickedness of her debtors, she would occasionally find herself involved in disputes and litigation. Without the aid of Lawyer Tweezer, who was universally looked on as the most cunning pettifogger in the whole town, she would frequently have seen interest and principal slipping through her fingers. But, between her piety, and his cunning and obduracy, a poor debtor was fain to bundle with bag and baggage out of his house, rather than a single guilder she had lent out, should miss its way back to her strong-box.

"I should be a poor, forsaken, lost woman, my dearest nephew," she would often say to Tweezer, "if you were not there, to take my part. I may thank you for nearly all I have; but the time may come when I shall be able to repay you." This was music to the ears of the jurist. He hoped one day to find himself sole heir, and fancied he should he able to touch the right note when it came to the drawing out of the will.

THE PICTURE OF THE VIRGIN.

Miss Sarah Bugle, in her fits of devotion, talked much of death, and of her longings after the heavenly Jerusalem and her spiritual bridegroom; yet this did not prevent her from thinking, even more frequently still, of an earthly bridegroom. Since her five-and-fortieth year she indeed solemnly declared that she never would marry; nevertheless, she had her fits of maiden weakness, particularly when some stately widower would banter her, or some gay bachelor look up to her window as he went by. "I dare say he has some designs," she would then say. "Well, time will show; it's wrong to swear anything rashly! If it is to be,--well; the Lord's will be done! I'm in my best years. My namesake in the Old Testament was eighty when she christened her first child. It would be no blue wonder if it did turn out so!"

Thus she would soliloquize, particularly when some single man had been looking kindly at her; and, as this seemed to her to be frequently the case, she at last came to suspect every man in the place, of "evil designs," as she called it, on her chaste person. At length,--for her imagination had been wanton with her for more than twenty years,--she came to look upon every single man as her silent adorer, and every married man as her faithless one.

It may easily be conceived with what inveteracy she declaimed against weddings of every kind, and how bitterly she abused the whole godless, light-minded male sex, (for her quarrel was with the whole sex,) and with what transcendent venom she inveighed against the coquettish minxes who had the impudence to think of a man before they were out of their leading-strings; though these same minxes in leading-strings were all the while walking about in shoes such as are generally manufactured for damsels about to bid adieu to their teens.

Some elderly maidens, pure and pious like herself, assisted her in the laudable occupation of prying into the domestic occurrences of the town, and moralising over them while sipping their coffee. In this conclave, every new gown, every wedding, every christening, was conscientiously discussed; and no time was lost in dispersing the result of their amiable confabulations through every corner of the town. A saucy sign-painter being once called on to paint a picture of the goddess of Fame, armed her with a bugle instead of a trumpet; and, when some pre-eminent piece of scandal became current, it was customary to say "the bugle has been sounded,"--by which it was intended to indicate the quarter where the report originated.

If to these amiable qualities we add the extreme godliness of the chaste Sarah, and her invincible partiality for compound interest, it is not difficult to understand why, with the exception of the said ancient maidens and the four expecting nephews, every creature was careful to remain at a most respectful distance from her.

THE CARES OF LIFE.

She had not the least inclination to die. She was, therefore, by no means displeased with the competition of the four faculties, for her inheritance. Nobody gained by it more than herself. It brought her the dainties of philosophy, the consolations of religion, the protection of the law, and moderate doctor's bills. Doctor Falcon was as dear to her as the others, but not a bit more so: only when some transitory indisposition seemed to hint at the instability of everything human, the doctor never failed to become, for the time, the dearest of all her nephews.

"Quick doctor! Pray come immediately! Miss Sarah is dying!" exclaimed one morning, the antiquated maid-servant of the aunt, as she popped her head in at the door. "My lady has been looking most wretchedly for some days."

Falcon was sitting, when this news came, upon his unpretending sofa; and, with his arm round her waist, was endeavouring to console his weeping Susan. He knew that Miss Sarah was not likely to be very serious in her intentions of dying: so he promised the maid he would come immediately, but remained nevertheless with his wife, to console her.

But he had little success this time in his attempts at consolation. Poor Susan wept more bitterly than ever; and the poor doctor sat beside her, unconscious of the cause of her tears.

"Come, be open-hearted to your husband, my dearest love," he said; "you torture me,--you kill me,--to see you thus, while you conceal from me the cause."

"Well, then listen to me. Oh!"

"What further, my dear Susan? you said that before."

"We have four children."

"Ay, and the finest in the town, if I am not mistaken! They are all so gentle, so amiable, so----"

"Oh! they are little angels."

"You are right; they _are_ angels, all of them. You do not, I hope, grieve over the presence of the little angelic circle?"

"No, my dear husband; but what is to become of the future?"

"Oh, thou unbelieving Susan! Let us rely on Providence."

"It is difficult for us to bring them up decently. The older they grow, the more they want."

"They have been growing older all this while, and they have wanted for nothing as yet."

"Ay; but, if----"

"What then?"

"Alas!" she sighed, and sobbed more bitterly than before.

"What then?" exclaimed the doctor, with undissembled anxiety.

She concealed her face in his bosom, clung to him with both her arms, and, in a scarcely audible whisper, said: "I am to be a mother for the fifth time."

The papa was half inclined to cry himself at this unhoped-for announcement; however, he concealed his consternation as well as he could. "Nay, sweetheart, is that all?" he exclaimed. "Come, Susan, we shall have five little angels instead of four. We cannot fail to be happy!"

"But, my dear husband, we are so very, very poor!"

"The little angels will bring a blessing upon us. He who feeds the young ravens will also show me where to find a crumb for my little ones. Come, tranquillise yourself."

Susan had had her cry out, and so became more tranquil, as a matter of course; but the doctor had found no such vent for his uneasiness. He walked up and down the room, looked out of the window; nothing could divert his thoughts.

"Every year more children and less bread! Every year bigger boarders and thinner slices!" sighed he to himself. He would have forgotten the dying Miss Bugle, had not Susan reminded him that it was time to hasten to her death-bed.

THE BLUE WONDER.

He took up his hat, but he did not run. The little domestic dialogue still weighed on his spirits. He thought only of the small number of his patients, and the exhausted state of his exchequer. He drew his hat over his brow, and looked straight before him like a rhymester: on his way he saluted neither right nor left, and had nearly run down the superintendent-general,--a man looked upon by most people as one of the brightest shining lights in the church.

When he arrived at his dearly-beloved aunt's, he did not, indeed, find her on her death-bed; but she had mounted her spectacles, and was seated before a large book, from which she had opened at Reflections on Death, and from which she was devoutly reading sundry Prayers for the Dying. She looked wretchedly; but it would have been difficult to say when her face looked anything else. Round her head she had tied one handkerchief; and another, which passed over her head, was fastened under her chin.

"What is the matter with you?" asked the learned Doctor Falcon, as he laid his hat and stick aside.

"The Lord knows," sighed Miss Bugle in a soft and plaintive tone; "I have suffered much for several days. I feel as if my hour were come; and that would be terrible."

The doctor thoughtfully felt her pulse, and said unconsciously, half to himself, "It fills, with a vengeance!" All the good man's thoughts were at home with Susan.

"I thought as much," sighed the terrified virgin. "Do you think there is danger, my dear Falcon?"

"Not at your years," replied the doctor, scarcely knowing what he said.

"Well, that is some consolation," replied the lady in a more cheerful tone; "in fact, I am in my best years; my strength unbroken. My constitution must bring me through. Don't you think so, dear Falcon? Only, no expensive medicines, if they can be done without. Since bark, rhubarb, and mixtures have been turned into colonial produce, there's no enduring them. The Lord be merciful to us! but really, my dear Falcon, I am not at all well."

Our worthy aunt now gave the reins to her tongue; spoke, as she was wont to do, of a thousand different things, none of them in any way connected with her indisposition. The doctor, meanwhile, hummed a tune, and beat the devil's tattoo upon the table, without listening to a word of what the good lady was saying. At length he was beginning to lose patience.

"What then _is_ the matter with you?" he exclaimed.

"Oh, my appetite! I have not relished a spoonful of soup these two days. And then my head aches as if it would burst."

"Something you have eaten has, perhaps, disagreed with you, aunt; some philosophical _pâté de foie gras_ may be in fault."

"Gracious Heaven! no, Falcon, the stomach cannot be in fault. I live so simply, so frugally. Seriously, I don't think I have for several weeks eaten anything likely to disagree with me. But sometimes I have a tooth-ache, sometimes qualmishness, heartburn, vomitings--Good Heavens! do look at me, Falcon, and don't keep drumming upon the table so; look how pale I am,--how my eyes are sunk in my head: oh dear! I am certainly very unwell."

"Well, what do I care?" said the doctor in a peevish tone: his mind entirely occupied by the condition of his Susan: "you're in the family way, that's all."

"Merciful Heaven!" screamed the chaste virgin, in a voice that might have been heard three streets off. Merciful Heaven! that would be a blue wonder indeed!"

A cold sweat came over the doctor as he heard these animated tones from the maiden lips of Miss Sarah Bugle. He immediately recollected that, what with ill-humour, and what with absence of mind, he had been betrayed into a superlatively foolish speech, and one that no chaste virgin was ever likely to forgive; particularly a maid who had triumphantly preserved her painful dignity unimpaired to her fiftieth year; one who never pardoned in another damsel even a gentle pressure of the hand; one who was neither more nor less than an immaculate personification of purity and sanctity; one who was, in short, that virgin of virgins, Miss Sarah Bugle!

"I will let the storm vent itself, and seek safety in flight, before the neighbours come pouring in, to see what's the matter," thought the terrified doctor, as he opened the door and rushed into the street.

ANOTHER BLUE WONDER.

The other three faculties had by this time, by their jealousy, rapacity, and endless misrepresentations concerning each other, utterly ruined themselves in the good opinion of the virgin. Doctor Falcon was the only one who at all bore up against the sudden storm. He could not, for the soul of him, help laughing at his own blunder. Susan, however, on the following day began to reprove her husband's levity, though she had at first joined in the laugh at his thoughtlessness. He caught her in his arms, stopped her mouth with his kisses, and said, "You are right: I ought not to have so rudely assaulted the maiden purity of the heaven-devoted vestal. But, faith! when I left you yesterday, I scarcely knew myself which way my head was turned."

"I would not say another word, my dear, if I were not convinced that you have offended my aunt for ever. Such affront can never be forgiven by so pious a maiden lady. It is ill for us, and particularly now. We have a long winter before us. I heat the stove so sparingly that the windows scarcely thaw the whole day, and yet our stock of wood is going fast, as you know yourself. And for our exchequer, look here!" So saying, she jingled a few small pieces of silver in a large purse close to his ears.

A slight tap at the door, and Sarah's aged attendant entered with a sealed note, and an urgent request from his aunt that the doctor would without fail, immediately after dinner, precisely at one o'clock, favour her with a visit.

"I shall be sure to come," said Falcon; he took the note, and dismissed the maid.

He weighed the note in his hand, and turned jestingly to his wife. "Feel, Susan; it is as heavy as lead." He opened it, and, lo! in a Queen of Hearts sundry delicate incisions had been made, into which had been slipped ten new full-weighted Dutch ducats. He looked at the envelope; it was addressed to Dr. Falcon: there could be no mistake. Such unheard-of liberality on the part of the immaculate Sarah justly excited the amazement of the wedded pair.

"Well, this is the bluest of all my aunt's blue wonders!" exclaimed Falcon. "Come, my pretty one; how long is it since we had such a treasure as this, in our house? Look! Providence watches over us and our children. The winter is provided for; so we'll have no more croaking. What! are you crying still?"

"Oh!" sobbed Susan, as she threw her arms round his neck; "it's for joy I am crying now. But," added she in a lower tone, "I was praying fervently, nearly the whole night, for it was little I could sleep."

Falcon clasped his wife in his arms. He said not another word for several minutes, but he wept inwardly; for he was unwilling that she should see how deeply he was affected.

BLUER AND BLUER.

As the clock struck one, he stood by the bedside of the aunt. With real emotion, with sincere gratitude, he approached her; and--he had vowed to Susan he would do it--impressed a fervent kiss on the benevolent hand that had just diffused so much joy through his little family circle.

"Best of aunts!" he said, "your present of to-day has made Susan and me very happy."

"Dear nephew," said the sick lady, in the gentlest tone of which her voice was capable, for it was long since her hand had been kissed so warmly, "I have long, very long, been your debtor."

"And forgive me my rudeness of yesterday," continued the doctor.

Aunt Sarah modestly covered her face with her handkerchief. After a while she said, but without looking at him, "Nephew, I am about to repose unlimited confidence in you:--my life depends on you. Can you be secret? Will you?"

Falcon was ready to promise everything. Still the lady was not satisfied; she promised him her whole fortune if he would be faithful to her. He made the most solemn oath.

"I know," said she, "that you young people are often badly enough off. Well, I will come and board with you; for my old maid, who has served me so long and so faithfully,"--here she sobbed bitterly,--"I must turn her away. But as long as you keep my secret, I will give you a thousand guilders every year for my board; and, when I die, you shall have all I leave behind me."

The doctor fell on his knee by her bedside, and renewed his oath with increased solemnity.

"But you must live outside the town; for I will not remain here. I will make you a free gift of my large house outside the gate, with the garden and all the grounds belonging to it. You know my house close to the large inn--the Battle of Aboukir; the house was left me six months ago, by my mother's brother, the Director of Excise."

The doctor vowed with extended hand he would move into it the very next day, in spite of wind, frost, and snow.

"As long as you keep my secret, nephew, I will pay you my board half-yearly in advance; and for the little expenses you will be at, in arranging your house for your own family and for me, you will find four rouleaux of dollars in the little cupboard yonder behind the door."

The doctor swore all his vows of secrecy over again. She must imagine the day of judgment or the millennium at hand, he thought. Nothing less can possibly account for so sudden and miraculous a conversion.

But, with all this, Sarah came no nearer than before to the confession of the great secret. As often as she attempted to begin, the words died upon her lips, and she covered her face and sobbed. These beginnings, and breakings off, and lamentations endured for a long time. The doctor rose, seated himself by the side of the bed, wiped his knees with the sleeve of his coat, took a pinch of snuff, and said to himself, "We may pump a well dry in time!; it would be hard if the lachrymal glands of an afflicted virgin could boast of an inexhaustible store of water."

THE BLUEST OF ALL.

He was in the right: when she could cry no longer, she believed she was recovering her Christian resolution, and said with a trembling voice, "Nephew, when you left me yesterday after that dreadful expression----"

The doctor was about to fall once more on his knees: "Pardon the expression, my angelic aunt! It was----"

"No, nephew; perhaps you were right."

"It was an unpardonable stupidity on my part."

"No, nephew; I believe you are not wrong."

"Impossible, my angelic aunt!"

"Alas! only too true, nephew."

"Impossible, aunt! And even if--even supposing--no, aunt, you are certainly----"

"Nephew, you are right. I ought to have been wiser at my time of life, you mean. You are right; but now you know all. The misfortune has happened. I was married,--secretly, very secretly indeed,--but all in an honourable way, all quite orderly. Now who'll believe me? There he lies dead in the Tyrol, killed by a bullet;--here are letters and vouchers. He is dead, and----"

"Who, aunt?" exclaimed Falcon in utter amazement.

"Alas! the trumpeter of the French regiment of hussars, that was quartered here during the summer and autumn,--God be merciful to his soul! He was no common trumpeter, but trumpeter to the regiment; his father and grandfather beat the kettledrums for many years with great applause. But, gracious Heaven! I could not bear to be called a hussar's wife; and, before he could buy his discharge, the regiment was ordered to march. Here I am now, a young widow, not a soul knows it, not a soul would believe it. It will kill me if it become known: it would be a blue wonder to the town. I care little for the trumpeter; but my good name is all in all to me."

The doctor shook his head; he could scarcely recover from his surprise. The trumpeter had indeed been frequently seen in Miss Bugle's apartments; but Falcon, who had always laughed at Goethe's idea of a chemical elective affinity, had never dreamt of such a powerful elective affinity between a trumpeter and a Bugle. As to the immediate uneasiness of the disconsolate maid, for such the widow chose to be still called, he considered it groundless; but she returned such strange replies to his questions as to her sensations, that he began himself to have some suspicions. He had no difficulty now in accounting for the munificence of the anxious lady, who would rather have lost her life than that the whole town should have known that the brightest mirror of all maiden virtue had been dimmed and breathed upon.

He now pledged his word of honour that he would keep her secret, and conceal her from all the world till she was able to appear again with safety. Till then it was to be reported that she was ill; and, under the plea of receiving more careful attendance, she was to live at the doctor's house, and break off every other intercourse.

The gift of the country-house near the large hotel of the Battle of Aboukir was duly and legally executed; the country-house was entered upon in the middle of winter; the maiden matron became invisible there; and no one was allowed to wait on her, but Susan, whom she had herself initiated into her mystery.

GOOD RESULTS.

"Well, to be sure," she would say to Susan in her cheerful hours,--for it was impossible to be always in despair; and, as her niece anticipated all her wishes, she had never felt herself half so comfortable as in the bosom of this happy family,--"Well, to be sure, it is a blue wonder, indeed, to think that I should come to this! Who would have thought it! Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. I believed myself too secure, and now I am chastened for my pride. Oh, trumpeter! trumpeter!"

The event, meanwhile, had exercised a very salutary influence on the maiden lady. Through very fear of betraying herself to the curious eyes of her former companions and gossips, she weaned herself from all intercourse with them, and acquired a taste for more refined pleasures in the circle of Dr. Falcon's family. She continued, indeed, rather too fond of all the tittle-tattle of the town; but then she thought of her own weakness, and judged more charitably that of others. She became so indulgent, so modest, nay, so humble, that the doctor and his wife were completely amazed. The change of circumstances and society,--the heroic resolution by which she had divested herself of a part of her property,--the assurance of the doctor that she was still rich enough to live at her ease,--all this had effected so singular a change in her character, that she seemed to live quite in a new world. She even abandoned all her usurious dealings, which, to be sure, she would have found it difficult to continue in her present seclusion.

The three faculties, meanwhile, were vomiting fire and flame. The two Bugles were apparently reconciled, but only that they might unite more vigorously in their hostility against the pettifogger, who watched their every step for a plausible ground of action against them. The philosopher wrote an excellent book against the human passions; and the worthy ecclesiastic delivered every Sunday most edifying discourses on the abomination of ingratitude, calumny, envy, evil-speaking, and malignity. Both did much good by their arguments, but their own gall became more and more bitter, every day.

THE PIOUS FRAUD.

The winter passed away, and was succeeded by spring. The warm days of summer were approaching. Dr. Falcon had very soon obtained the conviction that his aunt had little cause for her uneasiness. He had told her so, and had explained to her the real nature of her indisposition. In vain: the erring vestal would on no account be undeceived. Susan and her husband were at length obliged to desist from every attempt to dispel the ridiculous illusion of Aunt Sarah, who threatened that she should begin to doubt the doctor's friendship. She seldom left her bed.

"She makes me uneasy," said Susan to her husband; "at times I almost fancy her cracked."

"And she is so, in every sense of the word," said the doctor. "It is hypochondria,--a fixed idea. My physic is of no avail against the extravagancies of her imagination. I know of nothing I can do, unless it be to drive away one fancy by substituting another. Suppose we pass our child off upon her for her own."

"But will she believe it?"

"If she does not, it is of little consequence."

After a few weeks Susan appeared no longer in Sarah's room--it had been so arranged by the doctor; and our aunt was informed that Susan had had a misfortune.

"Is the child dead?" inquired Sarah.

"Alas!" replied the doctor.

"Alas!" rejoined the aunt.

One day before daybreak, Aunt Sarah was awakened in an unusual manner. Her face was sprinkled with water, and strong scents were held to her nose, till it seemed they were going to send her out of the world by the very means apparently employed to bring her to life again.

She opened her eyes, and saw the doctor busy with her nose.

"Righteous Heaven! I am dying!--You are killing me! Nephew, nephew, what are you doing to my nose?"

"Hush, aunt!--don't speak a word!" said the doctor with a mysterious look; "only tell me how you feel yourself."

"Tolerably well, nephew."

"You have been insensible for four hours, aunt. I was uneasy for your life; but it's all right now,--you are saved. A lovely child--"

"How!" exclaimed Sarah, almost rubbing her nose from her face.

"A sweet little boy. Do you wish to see the pretty fellow? If you will keep yourself tranquil, and not stir a limb, why----"

"But nephew----"

"I have passed it off upon every one in the house for my wife's child."

"Oh, nephew! your prudence, your assistance, your counsel! Oh, you are an angel!"

Falcon went away. Aunt Sarah trembled all over with terror and joy. She looked round her:--on the table were burning lights and countless phials of medicine were strewn around. A woman brought in the baby: it was in a gentle sleep. Sarah spoke not a word, but looked at it long, wept bitterly, kissed the little creature again and again; and, when it had been carried away, she said to the doctor, "It is the living picture of the trumpeter to the French regiment--God be merciful to him! It is his living picture--I say, his living picture!"

CONSEQUENCES.

After the prescribed number of weeks had been punctually expended in the consumption of gruels and broths, the chaste Sarah perfectly recovered her spirits, and tripped about the house more cheerful and active than she had been for many years before. She dandled the baby, would scarcely allow it out of her sight, and evidently doted on it with unbounded tenderness. She had been successfully cured of one ridiculous illusion, by one yet more ridiculous. Overflowing with gratitude, her first visit out of the house was to the church, and thence she proceeded to a lawyer to execute a deed of gift of her whole fortune to Dr. Falcon; renewing for herself only a large annuity by way of pocket-money. Between herself and the doctor, to be sure, a secret article was drawn up, by which he bound himself in due time to transfer half of her bounty to the little living picture of the regimental trumpeter.

In this way, the blue wonders of Miss Sarah Bugle suddenly converted our Dr. Falcon into a rich man. The triumph of the medical faculty was irrevocably confirmed; the more furiously did law, theology, and philosophy rage against each other. They could not forgive one another the loss of the expected legacy. Dr. Falcon was readily excused, for he was innocent. With him, all parties were ready to renew a friendly intercourse, for he was now one of the wealthiest men in the town; and a wealthy man, or rather his money, may at times be useful to the philosopher as well as to the jurist: and to the theologian as much as to either.

THE YOUTH'S NEW VADE-MECUM.

TO THE EDITOR OF BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.

Sir,--In submitting for your inspection, the poem which I now do myself the honour of forwarding to you, permit me to intimate to you the origin of its composition, and to indulge in one or two remarks.

The author is a particular friend of my own; a gentleman who, marrying at a rather advanced stage in the journey of life, was unexpectedly and agreeably presented with a small earnest of posterity in the shape of a son. Parental feelings, like many other good things, are better late than never; and it has often struck me that such feelings are much stronger, considerably more fervent, and, indeed, a great deal better when they do come late. Methinks the love of grandfather, grandmother, uncle, great-aunt, and a whole _kit_ of cousins, is blended in the sexagenarian sire. It will be perceived, from the affecting apostrophe or invocation, that my friend commenced his poem with praiseworthy promptitude; and I do hope that its success will be more than commensurate with his expectations. The youth is now half-past six, in the morning of existence. I have, once only, had the pleasure of meeting him. He entered his father's study somewhat abruptly, mounted on a timber steed, which, I am advised, he is already perfectly able to manage; and, immediately he opened his mouth, with a raspberry-jam border to it, I perceived that he would, at no distant day, become not only a worthy member, but an undoubted ornament, of society. But this is from my present purpose.

Your Miscellany, sir, professes to furnish materials for the amusement and delight of the community; and hitherto you have acted up to your professions. But were it not as well, allow me to suggest, that you should combine instruction with amusement,--that you should clear the heart as well as purify the liver--that you should attend to the mind at the same time that you tickle the midriff? You must confess, when I remind you of it, that the rising generation has strong claims upon you, which I am sure you will be anxious, and indeed most happy, to allow. The Youth's New Vade-Mecum, then, is a compendious manual of instruction, which cannot fail of becoming permanently serviceable and efficient. Similar although I allow it to be, in many respects, to certain "Guides to Youth" and "Young Man's Best Companions" which have been published, yet I cannot but think that the precision with which the precepts are laid down in it, and the judicious manner in which they are conveyed, must cause it very shortly to supersede all other works of the same nature.

I enclose for your gratification the real name of the author, and I grant you the discretionary power of whispering it to any grateful parent (there may be many such) who would fain make the acquaintance and cultivate the friendship of their benefactor: and I have the honour to be, sir, Your obedient, humble servant, CHARLES WHITEHEAD.

THE YOUTH'S NEW VADE-MECUM.

My son, whose infant head I now survey, Guiltless of hair, whilst mine, alas! is grey,-- Whose feeble wailings through my bosom thrill, And cause my heart to shake my very frill,-- Incline thine ear, quick summon all thy thought, And take this wisdom which my love has brought: Perpend these precepts; sift, compare, combine; And be my brain's results transferr'd to thine.

Soon as thy judgment shall grow ripe and strong, Learn to distinguish between right and wrong: Yet ponder with deliberation slow, Whether thy judgment be yet ripe or no; For wrong, when look'd at in a different light, Behold! is oft discovered to be right, And _vice versâ_--(such the schoolmen's phrase)-- Right becomes wrong, so devious Reason's maze!

Take only the best authors' mental food, For too much reading is by no means good; And, since opinions are not all correct, Thy books thyself must for thyself select.

Accumulate ideas: yet despise Reputed wisdom,--folly oft is wise; And wisdom, if the mass be not kept cool, Mothers, and is the father of, a fool.

Be virtuous and be happy: good! but, stop,-- They sow the seed who never reap the crop; For virtue oft, which men so much exact, Like ancient china, is more precious crack'd; And happiness, forsooth, not over-nice, Sometimes enjoys a pot and pipe with vice.

Get rich; 'tis well for mind and body's health: But never, never be the slave of wealth. The gain of riches is the spirit's loss; And, oh! my son, remember gold is dross.

Be honest,--not as fools or bigots rave; Your honest man is often half a knave. Let Justice guide you; but still bear in mind The goddess may mislead,--for she is blind.

Hygeia's dictates let me now declare, For health must be your most especial care. Rise early, but beware the matin chill; 'Tis fresh, but fatal,--healthy, but may kill: Nor leave thy couch, nor break the bonds of sleep, Till morning's beams from out the ocean leap; Lest, crawling, groping, stumbling on the stair, Your head descend, your heels aspire in air; As down the flight your body swiftly steals, Useless to know your head has sav'd your heels, Prone on your face with dislocated neck, You find that slumber which you sought to check.

Early to bed, but not till nature call. Be moderate at meals, nor drink at all, Save when with friends you toast the faithful lass, And raise the sparkling, oft-repeated glass; Then, graver cares and worthless scruples sunk, Drink with the best, my son,--but ne'er get drunk.

Bathe in cold water: cautious, and yet bold, Dive,--but the water must not be _too_ cold: And still take care lest, as you gaily swim, Cramp should distort and dislocate each limb. When such the case, howe'er thy fancy urge, Postpone the bracing pastime, and emerge. Dangers on land as well as water teem, But now the bank is safer than the stream.

Say you should chance be ill (for, after all, Men are but men on this terrestrial ball); Should sickness with her frightful train invade, Lose not a moment, but apply for aid.-- Yet fancy oft, imagined symptoms sees, And nervous megrim simulates disease.-- Lo! at our call--the cry of coward fear-- A chemist and a cane-sucker appear: The one, tough roots from earth's intestines dug, Pounds with strong arm, dissolves the nauseous drug; The other, gazing with a portentous air, Surveys the foolish tongue that call'd him there; To dulcet tones that breath deceptive calm, Your cash expires in his diurnal palm, And, sick of physic you were forced to swill, Long-labell'd phials indicate the bill.

As learning's bridge progresses arch by arch, So men, by gradual intellectual march, From savages to citizens advance.-- Then gentlemen are taught to fence and dance; Whilst gay professors, with imposing show, Present the violin, and hand the bow.

Dance gracefully, and move with perfect ease, Nor bend, nor keep inflexible, the knees; Crawl not, nor with your head the ceiling touch-- That were to move too little; this too much.

When first to Music's study you would come, In, and like charity, begin at home: For links of harmony you weave in vain, Whene'er you outrage ears you should enchain. Some have I known, with their vile sharps and flats, Whose fatal cat-gut wrought the death of cats; Yea, a swift doom the very strings provide, Their disembowell'd feline sires supplied!

Fencing's a noble exercise; but thence Flow dangers, may be told without offence. Still scrutinize, at your gymnastic toil, The button of your adversary's foil, Lest you strike off, at active _carte_ and _tierce_, That useful stay to tools which else will pierce; And all too late you feel, consign'd to Styx, Your life not worth the button you unfix.

Swift let me call you to the sylvan grove, Where nightingales and blackbirds sing of love. Should love assail you, as it will, no doubt, Nor rudely fan the flame, nor blow it out: Sometimes, when smother'd, it the stronger grows; And sometimes, when you stir it, out it goes. Close in your breast a heart for beauty keep, Yet ne'er imagine beauty but skin-deep: Beauty is oft--a fact we must deplore-- As deep as Garrick, and a great deal more.

Let not your choice too short or tall appear, No hole her mouth, or slit from ear to ear; And, though 'tis well in daily life to greet The man who struggles to make both ends meet, Yet sure the task can no great triumph win, Accomplish'd by a lady's nose and chin. Yet I, perchance, my pen and paper waste; These the exactions of an erring taste.

But let your wife be modest, and yet free; Coy, but not bashful; active as the bee; And yet unlike that bee of busy wing, That "proffers honey, and yet bears a sting;" Not sad, but thoughtful; pensive, but not glum; Grave without gloom; and silent, but not dumb; Merry when mirth's in season, and yet sad When nought akin to pleasure's to be had. In all that you possess still let her share, Yet wear no vestments you yourself should wear.

And for yourself,--since now must I conclude,-- Be courteous, yet close; and plain, not rude; Open, but strict; and though reserv'd, yet frank; Treat all alike, yet pay respect to rank; Be dubious, e'en when reason would entice, And ne'er take unsolicited advice. So may my precepts sink into thy mind, And make the wisdom which thou canst not find; Until at length, so vast thy mental height, The world, beholding thee, shall take a sight; And men, in want of words to set thee higher, Shall with one voice cry "Walker!" and retire.

A VISIT TO THE MADRIGAL SOCIETY.

Everybody has heard of madrigals, and almost everybody has heard of the Madrigal Society; but everybody does not know what madrigals are, and almost everybody has _not_ dined with the Madrigal Society. Not that that ancient and respectable body is an exclusive one,--keeping its good dinners for its own private eating, and its good music for its own private hearing: its freemasonry is extemporaneous, and a visitor is as welcome to the whole fraternity as to the individual who may introduce him.

The Madrigal Society is the very Royal Exchange of musical enthusiasm and good-fellowship, and certainly bears the palm away from its "_fratelli rivali_." Its component parts are better amalgamated, and the individuals composing them, appear to derive more thorough enjoyment from their attendance, than in any other unions we have seen of the same genus.

For example, at one (which shall be nameless) there is a line of demarcation between the professional and non-professional members; another is so numerous, that it is broken into fifty coteries, as in the boxes of a chop-house; and another enthusiastic little knot of vocal harmonists is so strongly impressed with the sense of one another's capabilities, that the speechifying, and toasting, and returning thanks take up a vast deal more time then the music.

Which of the thousand and one suggested _derivations_ of the _name_ madrigal is the right one, is a question upon which we most humbly beg to decline entering. Whether it owe its origin to some particular feature in the words to which all secular _part music_ was set at an early period; or whether, as some impertinent commentator has suggested, it be a compound of two English words, "_mad_" and "wriggle,"--the one having reference to the ecstatic state into which the listeners were thrown by their first performance, the other to ----. But we dismiss this as unworthy our consideration, and cut the question altogether.

A madrigal may, we think, be best defined as a composition in general set to a quaint little poem on some amatory or pastoral subject, with parts for a number of voices; the majority being for four or five. An unceasing flow of these parts, a kind of "push-on-keep-moving" principle, appears one of its strongest characteristics; one voice taking up the strain ere another lays it down,--seldom moving in _masses_ or "_plain-song_" and with perhaps only one or two "_closes_" (sometimes none) until the end. In the conduct of all this, a very peculiar style of harmony is used. They are one and all imbued with a quaintness, which all who have heard madrigals must have felt, and could at once recognise; but which it is quite impossible to define in anything less than a treatise, six volumes quarto at the least,--a task upon which at present we have not the smallest intention of setting to work.

So much for a definition: now for a test. The best confirmation of the genuineness of a madrigal is, the fact of its _bearing the weight of a great body of voices_; that is to say, instead of its producing its proper effect, each part being sung (as in a glee) by one voice, the number of singers may be increased to any extent. And this, after all, is the true touchstone of first-rate choral writing. The "Creation" of Haydn, and "The Last Judgment" of Spohr, unquestionably produce their best effect in an orchestra of moderate proportions; but to a chorus of Handel, or a madrigal of Gibbons, perfect justice could only be done by a body of singers that would fill St. Paul's, or cover Salisbury Plain.

We have dined. The cloth vanishes,--there is a pause,--the party simultaneously rise from their chairs,--the waiters at last (thanks to a long course of training, mental and bodily,) show signs of standing still for the next five minutes,--perfect silence pervades the room,--when lo! a gentle murmur of high voices steals upon the ear,--the strain is quickly imitated a few notes lower,--the basses massively close up the harmonious phalanx, and we recognise the imperishable "Non nobis, Domine."

Sobered, not saddened, by the noblest of canons,--the most melodious of those ingenious complexities,--a movement takes place among the party. Do not suppose that the _singers_ are going to the bottom of the table, for in that case _nobody_ would be left at the top; or, _vice versâ_, to the top, for then the bottom would be deserted. You find your neighbour to the right, has migrated to the other end of the room, and your _vis-à-vis_ has established himself in his place. After being duly puzzled by so unexpected a move, it appears that, unlike other convivial assemblages, the order of precedency is observed here _after_, instead of _before_ dinner; and that you must shift your position according to your register, not of birth or baptism, but voice. "Order is Heaven's first law," and the high and low characters around you, class themselves accordingly, into altos, tenors, and basses.

This little preparatory bustle over, and everybody again seated, there is a brief pause, which we devote to speculations,--not on the character of our new right-hand man (above mentioned),--not on the contents of the minute-book which the president spreads open before him,--nor on the pile of tomes which almost exclude the bodily presence of the vice,--nor on the gentleman who is going to propose a new member,--but on the "_dints_" in the table before us. The tops of all tables at all taverns are, and have been from time immemorial, remarkable for an infinite number of indentations varying in size and conformation. This peculiarity is not indigenous to the aforesaid tables; they are supposed, at some distant period of their existence, to have had faces as unruffled as others of their kind; but the eternal succession of thumps from glasses, plates, knives and forks, approbatory of speech, sentiment, or song, furrows their physiognomy with deep, ineffaceable lines,--albeit neither of study, thought, nor sorrow.

The time has gone by for the autobiography of guineas, lap-dogs, sofas, and sedan-chairs; birds and beasts no longer sport their apophthegms to human ears; even the pot and kettle have done calling one another names; "The Confessions of a Dinner-table, written by himself," would stand no chance now; a second edition of the life of Mendoza would be as little likely to take the town. Dinner-tables, like boxers, must count their bruises in silence. Yon deeply-indented furrow, over which our wine is absolutely tottering, is evidently a _memento_ of the days when the feet were regularly knocked off the wine-glasses, and they, like their holders later in the evening, lost their power of standing alone; when _daylight_ unendurable and _heel-taps_ impossible. No hand lacking the zeal of political excitement could have inflicted so uncompromising a gash as the one near it. Bees'-wax and turpentine have somewhat softened the sharpness of its outline; but its existence is identified with that of the table itself. And that succession of little "_dibbs_," evidently by the same hand,--what are they, but an unceasing monument to some by-gone beau, who thus tattooed his approval of the best of all possible toasts,--"The Ladies!"

But our speculations are leading us astray; more especially as the music-desks are before us, the books upon them, and "the boys" arrived. And hark! the pitch-pipe--none of your whipper-snapper German Æolians or waistcoat-pocket tuning-forks, but the veritable pitch-pipe which has been in use since the year 1740--sounds the note of preparation, and the order of the day begins in real earnest.

The Madrigal Society does not, as its name would seem to imply, confine itself exclusively to compositions which come under the designation of madrigal. The motett and the ballet, which are variations of the some genus, come in for a share of its notice.

On referring to the book before us, for the number just given out by the conductor, we find--a motett, Dr. Christopher Tye. The baton falls, and we launch into the unexplored ocean of song before us. What breadth in the harmonies! What stateliness in the progression of the parts!--and what a depth of feeling under the incrustation of these crabbed old modulations!

And now for a madrigal. Will it be "Lady, thine eye," or "Cynthia, thy song," or "Sweet honey-sucking bees?"--No: as we live, it is "Die not, fond man!"--the noblest of them all.

And now, another motett; and now--but stay! here is something unusual. The vice looks to the chair--the chair looks to the vice. The vice, like the sun over a mountain, shows his head above the wall of books before him, and prepares to make a speech. "Gentlemen, I beg to call your attention--" But we have forgotten the form, so we'll give the substance of his observations, which go to prove that he has received a madrigal, according to the rules of the society,--that is, anonymously,--which he has looked over, and deems worthy of a trial. The parts, which are of course not in the book, are distributed, and much good-natured speculation is afloat; for the madrigalians, though conservatives, are not exclusives. We begin:--there is a stoppage at the onset,--something was wrong in the parts,--it is corrected, and we start once more;--the precipice is passed in safety. Still it does not "go." There is no good reason why it should not; and so it is tried again; is better understood, and "goes" accordingly. A sealed paper is delivered to the chairman, who opens it with much solemnity, and announces the name of the composer, casting a most significant glance on an individual at one corner of the table, who, for the last quarter of an hour, has been engaged in the most unpleasing of all sedentary pursuits,--sitting upon thorns. We drink his health; the individual rises, and for upwards of a minute and some seconds, is supposed to occupy himself in making some observations germane to the present subject, but which, from his state of nervous trepidation, are quite inaudible.

The books are again in requisition. We draw on firms of centuries' standing, and our checks are duly honoured. The stately motett, the graceful madrigal, and the sprightly ballet alternate in rapid succession. What a contrast does this enthusiastic coterie present to the listless audience of the concert-room or opera! No mob of apathetical time-killers is here; but true and constant lovers of the divine art, joining "with heart and voice" in strains to them as fresh and beautiful as they were two hundred years ago!

Oh! how we might gossip about and speculate upon the old fellows who treasured up for us this legacy of fine things. Talk of love for their art!----think of Luca Marenjio, who wrote a thousand madrigals; and Dr. Tye, who set to music the whole of "The Acts of the Apostles!"

The human voice is the noblest of all instruments. In the madrigal it finds an exercise worthy of its powers. Music, as developed through the medium of the voice, assumes a far more elevated and poetical form than it ever presents through instrumental performance even of the very highest character. Music is less essentially _music_, coming through throats of flesh and blood than throats of wood or metal; but it is something infinitely finer,--the unchecked emanation of the human heart,--the current fresh from the well-springs of all that is good and beautiful in man's nature.

The changeableness of fashion, the perishability of all instrumental music, is of itself sufficient evidence of this. Five-and-twenty years ago, the works of Pleyel were the delight of every musical coterie in Europe; now, there is not one amateur in fifty who ever heard a bar of his music. And as for the cart-loads of sonatas, gigues, pasacailles, serenatas, follias, fugues, concertantes, and "jewells" of Dr. Bull, Paradies, Scarlatti, Geminiani,--yes, even Handel and Mozart themselves!--they are regarded in about the same light as an Egyptian papyrus, or a loaf of bread from Herculaneum.

It is difficult indeed to conceive "The Jupiter Symphony," or the "Sonate Pathétique," food for the virtuoso; but assuredly "Dove sono," "The Hallelujah Chorus," and "St. Patrick's Day," are as imperishable as expression, grandeur, and sunshine themselves.

Sounds are the _body_ of music, to which the voice gives immortality and a _soul_. To put the voice on the same level as an instrument, is to pit matter against mind,--"man against cat-gut."

There is a sense of personal enjoyment connected, too, with pure vocal music performed in this manner, which it is quite impossible to find in the theatre or concert-room. Our thoughts there, are perpetually brought back to some technical matter, and our imagination curbed by the audience, some individual association with the singers, or the "mise de théâtre;" but here, sitting at our ease around the table, with our "_part_" before us, joining in the harmony or not, as we please,--our only care that the madrigal shall _go_ well, our only interruption a glance now and then at the enthusiastic faces around us,--we feel truly "the power of sound," and that our pleasure is without alloy.

Hold! there is a slight drawback on our pleasure,--perfection is not to be found even in the Madrigal Society. Where are the ladies? Oh, Madrigalians! with what countenance can ye, month after month, and year after year, continue singing Fair Oriana's praise, and bewailing the cruelty of your Phillises, and Cynthias, and "Nymph of Diana," when you thus close up the fountain of all your inspirations? Is your by-law, forbidding all speechifying, a tacit confession of fear lest some gallant visitor, fired with your own sweet songs, should spring on his legs and propose "The Ladies"? Is this the reason why ye only drink "The King," "The Queen," and--your noble selves? Shame on ye!--where are the ladies?

The truth must be spoken at all times. Old as the world is, it is not yet quite steady enough to "chaperon" the fair sex to meetings like those of the Madrigal Society. True; we have pretty well got rid of the six-bottle men, and gentlemen have ceased to return home in wheel-barrows: still something more must be done ere the most courteous of chairmen can with propriety propose a new member with a soprano voice, or the most zealous of secretaries second him.

To do our friends justice, they have made a step in this matter. At the annual festival, where the madrigals put on all their splendour, the ladies _are_ admitted; but, alas! they are perched up in a gallery "all by themselves." And even this bird's-eye view of gentlemen eating and drinking, comes, like "the grotto," only once a-year.

But these knotty points should be agitated before dinner. Let us turn to our books once again,--sing "The Waits,"--"One fa la more,"--and then "Good-night!"

LOVE AND POVERTY.

Little Cupid, one day, being wearied with play, Or weary of nothing to do, Exclaimed with a sigh, "Now why should not I Go shoot for a minute or two?" Then snatching his bow, tho' Venus cried "No," (Oh! Love is a mischievous boy!) He set up a mark, in the midst of a park, And began his nice sport to enjoy. Each arrow he shot--I cannot tell what Was the reason--fell short by a yard, Save one with gold head, which far better sped, And pierced thro' the heart of the card.

MORAL. My story discovers this lesson to lovers: They will meet a reception but cold, And endeavour in vain Beauty's smiles to obtain, Unless Love tip his arrows with gold.

REFLECTIONS IN A HORSE-POND.

TIME--NIGHT.

Let me consider a little where I am! My senses are beginning to clear at present, albeit my body is sticking in the mud, and seems to think of nothing less. This plunge, disagreeable as it is, has been of service to me: we should be thankful for everything, for they say "everything is for the best;" and, upon this principle, a tumble into a horse-pond may be a good. I shall, however, ascertain this better to-morrow (that is, if I ever get out of the mud,--of which I am doubtful). In the mean time I will, by way of passing the time, acknowledge my obligation. I am a regenerated creature! Thanks be to Heaven! I can see: before my tumble into these revivifying waters, my thoughts were wandering, and my sight was dazzled; now they are fixed, immoveably fixed,--to this horse-pond; and I only behold one moon instead of two.

I do not exactly know how I came hither. I spent last evening with Tom Rattlebrain, Ned Flighty, and Will Scamper; we had a famous supper, and resolved to make a night of it. The weather was hot, stormy, and goblinish; it led us to tell ghost-stories, which we did till our marrow froze, and our parched throats cried out, like the horse-leech's two daughters, "Give! give!" Purely to raise our courage and moisten our palates, we had a couple of bottles additionally. I recollect that after this we told some stories partaking more of the flesh than the spirit, and that at two o'clock in the morning I agreed to ride home on Daylight, hand in hand, like the fire-office insignia, with Scamper, who was mounted on Wildfire. I remember something of trying to force Daylight to cross that which I took to be a ferry. I recollect something of our dispute upon this subject, but faintly; I can only guess how the matter ended by the result,--for he is gone, and I am _here_!

I suppose I must have struggled, flopped, and floundered about a good deal before I could have been so firmly wedged in the mud as I am at this moment. The water all around me is up to my chin, and the mud beneath me is up to my knees; I have sunk considerably above my calves. I really cut a very ridiculous figure!

The first thing I remember distinctly was seeing my lighted cigar floating, fizzing, and spitting peevishly upon the water. Poor thing! it did not relish regeneration. I put out my hand to catch it; but it fizzed angrily, and floated away from me. This "was the unkindest cut of all;" and when I saw its light go out, I felt as if abandoned by all the world.

It just occurs to me that I have another cause of thanksgiving: since one must sometimes fall into a horse-pond, I am grateful that it is an English one. In some countries, now, those devils of the air--the birds of prey--would keep wheeling, whirling, and shrieking above my head, complimenting each other upon the good supper prepared for them, and then coolly peck out my two eyes before my face!

This idea is suggested by a somewhat uncomfortable circumstance, which, notwithstanding my patience, I cannot but be sensible of. Something--I conjecture either an eel or a rat--is gnawing at the boot on my right leg; no other animals venture so deeply into the mud. I wish I could raise my foot.

If it be a rat, he will content himself with the leather, and gnaw away till it be gone; but the eel prefers a bit of meat, and in that case he is only busying himself to open his "pantry-door." Pray Heavens it be a rat!

I am a most enduring man. I remember suffering infinite misery a whole season at the house of a particular friend; I was lodged in the best bedroom, and a superb apartment it was. The bed was a magnificent one; but, to my cost, there was a flea in it,--"the last flea of summer!" Never shall I forget what I suffered from that single tormentor. I should have known it was only one, from the peculiar pungency of his bite, even if the invariable character of the mark had not also been a witness. The room had been for a long period unoccupied, save by this flea, the survivor of all his family and friends, who had died of starvation in the course of the summer. I bore it patiently enough for several nights, thinking that it was a tax to flea-manity which must be paid; but when, night after night, week after week, the same torture continued, I began to grow nervous and irritable. I sought after him diligently in the morning, but never found anything save his trail. Like Destiny, he was always to be felt, but never seen. In the night, scarcely had I torn the skin off my shoulder, ere I was imperiously called upon to apply the same remedy to my leg. I felt him hop across my hand as I raised it up; and so rapid were his movements, that he seemed to be jumping in every part of my body at once: like the Indian Apollo, he appeared to have the power of multiplying his person, and of being in fifty places at the same time. He was a single fiend "whose name was Legion." I started in anguish; shook my sheets and my shirt; called upon God, upon the devil; apostrophised the mistress of the house, and mentally sent the housemaid to the hottest place I could think of. It was all to no purpose; he seemed to have some extraordinary power of disgorging his prey and clearing his stomach, which, like Time, was always devouring,--never full. So rapidly did his constant consecutive meals of breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, and supper tread upon each other's heels, that I seemed to live twenty days in one tortured night. I longed to complain to the master of the house; but how tell him there was a flea in his best bed,--that bed in which he took such pride, and beheld with so much admiration? At length I met the housemaid on the stairs. She was as ugly as Repentance, crabbed as Chastity, and old as Mother Shipton: nevertheless I addressed her as "My dear little girl!" gave her a kiss and a piece of money, and entreated her to kill the fleas in my bed. The next day I met her, and she said, "There bean't no fleas in your bed as now, sir." Alas! I knew that,--there was but one; and he was a flea of Fate, beyond her power to destroy. Still the torture went on; still did I lie, night after night, miserable, feverish, sleepless, pinched, torn, and tortured in every part of my burning skin. At length, considering the enormous power possessed by my tormentor, his divisibility, his invisibility, his infallibility, I came at last to the conclusion, that it was no living flea that thus distracted and disturbed me, but the ghost of some starved tenant of former times, who was allowed this recreation to make amends for past sufferings. This idea once established, I knew that I had no hope; I had nothing for it but to fly: so I went to my friend, declared (to his astonishment) my intention, and, when hard pressed for my reason, painfully and reluctantly gave it. "A flea!" shouted he in a voice between displeasure and mirth, "a flea--and in that bed!--_then you must have brought it_!" Now was not this too much? I thought my heart would have broken. I, who had endured so much--I, who had suffered torture in silence for six long weeks, to be accused of having brought that alderman of fleas with me! It was beyond human nature to bear. I burst from his presence, packed up my clothes, and, though I am a very good-tempered man, have not seen that friend since. I can never forgive his accusation--I can never forget what I suffered! As I call to mind that burning sorrow, I take comfort in the knowledge that I am standing up to my neck in a horse-pond!

Thank you, gentle lady moon! I am grateful for any kind of attention, even though it should be of no use to me; but yours is. I wish I was a poet now!--I could make something of this scenery. I have read a good deal about "moonlight on the waters;" but I never was so near its dancing beams before. The devil take this rat--how he nibbles! My boots are new--a hole in them at least! There's a villanous odour that comes over me from some part of the horse-pond, "at which my nose is in great indignation." It strikes me also, from something uncomfortable in my stomach, that in my plunge I must have swallowed a good allowance of Mark Anthony's liquor. (_See_ SHAKSPEARE'S _Anthony and Cleopatra_, Act 1, scene 4.) The bare idea is enough to make me faint;--only who would be fool enough to faint in a horse-pond?

I have been in my life several times taken in, besides to-night, by these waters.

Thank you again, dear gracious moon! She's very bright just now. There is a large tract of blue in the heavens over which, for at least the next twenty minutes, she may travel without being "capped by a cloud;" so I shall have time to look around me. I am nearly in the centre of the pond; the water is perfectly tranquil, except when it bobs against my chin, disturbed by the movement of my head. Lord help me! suppose I should die here!--as, if nobody come to my assistance, I certainly shall.

On my first ascertaining the character of my position, recollecting that horse-ponds are generally in the neighbourhood of towns or farms, I hallooed so lustily that I found my voice grow husky; so I determined to reserve it for a better occasion--I mean in case any persons should approach--Heaven send them! This would be a comfortless bed to die in!

A huge frog has just discovered me; and he sits amongst the weeds below the opposite bank, croaking out his speculations as to what I can be. He stares earnestly; so do I. He takes my eye for a challenge--he is a frog of courage, however, for he plunges into the water, swims towards me, and plants himself directly opposite to my face. He croaks; I answer very naturally, for the water has qualified my voice. The frog stares again: "The voice is the voice of Esau, but the form is Jacob's." Now he very gravely swims entirely round my head, and then again plants himself in front. I laugh aloud; he backs a little. I open my eyes very wide at him; he returns the compliment. My chin splashes the water about him; he takes fright and disappears.

Hark! there are certainly footsteps in the neighbourhood. Halloo!--ough!--ah!--mercy upon me! my voice is quite gone, and I shall be compelled to live in this horse-pond the remainder of my days. Who will feed me, I wonder: the rat will not be so civil to me as the ravens were to Elijah; and I have affronted the frog. Ha! the footsteps come nearer--and nearer. 'Tis a man--I see him--a groom--I'll call. Hallook!--ouk!--cro-ak!

"D--n your croaking soul!" quoth the vagabond; and he flings a huge stone at my head.

Despair and distraction! what shall I do? Die! No, that's cowardly: I'll live bravely; that is, if I can. The fellow is gone, and "I am all alone!" Alone! What do I hear? Voices--yes; they come--most sweet voices. A gentleman and the rascally groom aforesaid.

"You have not dragged this pond to-night," says the master.

"Indeed, sir, we did,--from one end of it to the other," replies the fellow: "see how the weeds are disturbed."

"You lie, you rascal! you did not, or you would have found me there," said I.

"Heighday!" cried the master; "what have we here?"

"A gentleman in distress."

"I should think so: but how came you in this pond?"

"I'll tell you when I am out."

"Help, all of you, fellows!" says the gentleman. "Now, sir, hold fast: I was in search of a drunken uncle who has escaped from his servants. Pull away, boys!--I expected to find him in this horse-pond, and I discover a sober gentleman in his place."

N.B. I did not think it necessary to rectify this latter mistake. MAX.

INSCRIPTION FOR A CEMETERY.

The grave must be the resting-place Of all who come of Adam's race. What matters it, if few or more The years which our frail nature bore? If we upon the roll of Fame Left an imperishable name; Or, safe within some calm retreat, Escaped the turmoil and the heat, The stir, the struggle, and the strife, That make the sum of human life? Of all the family of man, Since first yon rolling spheres began Amid the boundless realms of space Their silent, dread, eternal race, There's little to be said beside, But that they lived, and that they died. Sooner or later, 'tis the doom } Of all, within the quiet tomb } To find a refuge, and a home. }

NIGHTS AT SEA: _Or, Sketches of Naval Life during the War._ BY THE OLD SAILOR.

No. II. THE WHITE SQUALL.

I was born in a cloud of sulphureous hue-- Darkness my mother, and Flame my sire; The earth shook in terror, as forth to its view I sprang from my throne like a monarch of fire! My brother, bold Thunder, hurraed as I sped! My subjects laugh'd wild, till the rain from their eyes Roll'd fast, as though torrents were dash'd overhead, Or an ocean had burst through the bounds of the skies! CHARLES SWAIN.

My last, left the gallant Spankaway with her three topmasts over the side; and a very natural question arises, "How did it happen?" Her commander was as smart an officer as ever lived; an excellent disciplinarian when on duty, a thoroughly brave man, but not much of a seaman;--he was of a happy turn of mind himself, and nothing afforded him greater pleasure than to see everybody else, happy around him. On service no one could be more strict; but he loved to see his officers surround his mahogany; and not one amongst them was more jovial than Lord Eustace Dash.

On the evening in question, Old Parallel had glanced at the glowing clouds in the west; but the invitation to the captain's cabin had driven the circumstances from his remembrance, and, whilst clinging to _port_, he thought but little of a storm at sea. Mr. Sinnitt was the lieutenant of the watch; but on such occasions, when there was no apprehension of danger, the mate was allowed to assume the command of the deck, and his superior joined his messmates over the flowing bowl.

The evening was delightfully serene, and groups of seamen clustered together; spinning yarns, conversing on things in general, or singing songs in a low tone, so as not to disturb the sacred character of the quarter-deck; where, however, the young gentleman left in charge was drawing round him a little knot of favourite youngsters, eager to take advantage of the relaxation of discipline. Some were attentively listening to the hilarity going on in the captain's cabin,--for the heat had rendered it necessary to open the skylights; others were paying equal attention to the vocal talents of honest Jack, who, if he did not possess quite so much grace or talent as his superiors, made ample atonement for the deficiency by his peculiar and characteristic humour. Here and there, the treasured grog was served out with scrupulous exactness, exciting many a longing and envious eye. As in communities on shore, every ship had its choice spirits,--its particular and especial jokers, songsters, and tale-tellers--and, not unfrequently, that pest to society, the plausible pettifogger, whose head, like that of a Philadelphy lawyer, was constantly filled with proclamations.

The moon shone with a crystalline clearness, and the gentle motion of the frigate threw the shadows of the people in corresponding movements on the deck, resembling the _ombres Chinois_ that delighted us so much in boyhood. The look-outs were posted at their appointed stations; some with a shipmate to bear them company--others alone, and thinking upon merry England.

"I say, Bill!" uttered the captain of the forecastle, addressing one of the men, as he was looking to windward from the cat-head--or, as it was more generally termed, 'Old Savage's picture-gallery,'--"I say, Bill! somehow or another I don't much like the looks o' the sky thereaway; to my thinking it's some'at fiery-eyed."

"Gammon!" returned the man without moving from his position, "I'd ha' thought you would have known better, Jem! Well, I'm blowed if we mayn't live and larn as long as there's a flurry o' breath in the windsel! Why, that's ounly the pride o' the sun, to show his glory to the last; would you have him go out like a purser's dip,--a spark and away?"

"No, Bill, I loves to see a good sunset," rejoined the other; "and I never see'd finer then what I've see'd in these here seas. It's some'at strange to my thinking, though, messmate, that God A'mighty should have made this part o' the world so beautiful, and yet have put such d---- lousy, beggarly rascals to live in it! Look at them there Italians, with no more pluck about 'em than this here cat-head!"

"Nay, shipmates," said the serjeant of marines, who had just joined them, "you do yourselves injustice. I hope there is some pluck _about_ the cat-head, though there may be none in it. But you say right--perfectly right, as it regards those lazy-roany; they are a d---- set, to be sure! But, their women, Jem--their women! Oh! they're dear, delicious, lovely creaturs!"

"Mayhap they may be to your thinking," responded the captain of the forecastle rather contemptuously: "but give me a good, hearty, right-arnest, full-plump, flesh-and-blood Englishwoman; and none o' your skinny, half-starved, sliding-gunter-legged, spindle-shank sinoreas for me!"

"You manifest a shocking want of taste, shipmate," returned the serjeant, proudly, and bringing himself to a perpendicular. "The Italian women are considered the most lovely women in the world."

"Tell that to the marines, ould chap!" chimed in a boatswain's mate, who now made a fourth in the party. "The most lovely women in the world, eh? Why, Lord love your foolish heart! I wouldn't give my Mrs. Sheavehole for all that Italy could stow, take it from stem to starn."

"She's your wife, Jack, and the mother of your children," argued the serjeant; "but that cannot make her a bit the more of a beauty."

"Can't it, though!" exclaimed the boatswain's mate, sharply, and at the same time giving the mountain of tobacco in his cheek a thorough twist. "If it don't, then I'm d----! and, setting a case, it's just this here: when we first came within hail of each other, she was as handsome a craft as ever had God A'mighty for a builder; every timber in her hull was fashioned in Natur's own mould-loft, and she was so pinned and bolted together that each plank did its own proper duty."

"But she's declining in years, you know, Jack," urged the serjeant, provokingly; "and though she might have been once handsome, yet age is a sad defacer of beauty."

"And suppose it is a _facer_ of beauty, it can't change the fashion of the heart!" uttered the boatswain's mate. "But, that's just like you jollies!--all for paint and pipe-clay. Now, Suke's as handsome to me as ever she was; and when I sees her like an ould hen clucking over the young uns, I'm blessed if I don't love her more than when she saved me from having my back scratched by the tails o' the cat! I know, when a craft is obliged to be unrigged and laid up in ordinary, she don't look not by no manner o' means so well as when she was all a-taunto, and painted as fine as a fiddle: but still, shipmates, she's the same craft; and as for beauty, why, setting a case, it's just this here: there's ould beauty, as well as young beauty; and it a'nt so much in the figure-head, or the plank-shear, as having done your duty once, and ready to do it again."

"All that _may_ be very true, Jack," persevered the serjeant; "but then, you must allow there is as great a difference in the appearance of some women when compared to others, as there is in the build or rig of a vessel."

"Hearken to that, now!" responded the boatswain's mate. "Do you think Jack Sheavehole wants to be told that a billy-boy arn't a ninety-eight, or a Dutch schuyt a dashing frigate? But, look at this here craft that now rolls us so sweetly over the ocean: arn't she as lovely now as when she first buttered her bottom on the slips, and made a bed for herself in the water? and won't she be the same beauty when she's put out of commission, and mayhap be moored in Rotten-row? Well, she's stood under us in many a heavy gale, and never yet showed her starn to an enemy,--that's why I love her; not for what she may do, but for what she has done."

"But, I say, Jack! it's just the time for a yarn," said the captain of the forecastle. "Tell us how Suke saved you from the gangway."

"I wull, messmate--I wull," returned the other; "and then this lubberly jolly shall see if I arn't got a good right to call her a beauty. I belonged to the Tapsickoree, two-and-thirty; and, though I says it myself, there warn't many more sich tight-looking, clean-going lads as ould Jack Sheavehole--though I warn't _ould_ Jack then, but a reg'lar smart, active, young blowhard of a maintopman. Well, we'd just come home from foreign, and got three years' pay and a power o' prize-money; and so most o' the boys goes ashore on liberty, and carries on till all's blue. This was at Plymouth, shipmates; but, as we wur expecting to go round to Spithead, I saves my cash--'cause why? I'd an ould father and mother, from whom I'd parted company when a boy, and I thought, if I could get long leave--thinks I, mayhap I can heave alongside of 'em, with a cargo o' shiners, and it'll cheer the cockles o' their ould hearts to see their son Jack togg'd off like a jolly tar, and captain of a frigate's maintop; and, setting a case, why it's just this here: I didn't want anything on 'em, but meant to give 'em better ground-tackle to hould on to life by."

"That was very kind of you, shipmate," said the serjeant.

"Well," continued the boatswain's mate, without heeding the serjeant's observation, "I has a bit of a spree ashore at Dock, in course; but soon arter we goes round to Portsmouth. I axes for long leave; and, as I'd al'ays done my duty to Muster Gilmour's--he was first leeftenant--to Muster Gilmour's satisfaction, I gets my fortnight and my liberty-ticket, and the large cutter lands me at Sallyport; so I hauls my wind for the Blue Postes on the Pint, and enters myself on the books of a snug-looking craft, as was bound through my native village.--Well, shipmates, in regard o' my being on liberty, why, I was a gemman at large; so I buys a few duds for ould dad, and a suit of new sails, and some head-gear for the ould woman: for, thinks I to myself, mayhap we shall cruise about a bit among the neighbours, and I'll let 'em see we arn't been sarving the king or hammering the French for nothin'. And, mayhap, thinks I, they arn't never got too much to grub; so I gets a bag, and shoves in a couple of legs o' mutton and a whole shole of turnips, a full bladder of rum, and, as I knew the old uns loved cat-lap, there was a stowage of sugar and tea, with a bottle o' milk; and, having plenty of the ready, I buys a little of everything useful in the small way, that the ould chap at the shop showed me: and, my eyes! but there was thousands of packages twisted and twined in true-blue paper;--there was 'bacca, mustard, snuff, salt, soft tommy, pepper, lickerice, matches, gingerbread, herrings, soap, pease, butter, candles, cheese,--in short, something of everything, not forgetting a Welsh wig and a mousetrap; and I'm blowed if I warn't regularly fitted out for a three months' cruise! Well, by the time I'd got all my consarns ship-shape, I twigs the signal for sailing, and so I gets aboard; and in course, in regard o' my station in the maintop, I goes aloft, as high as possible upon the upper-deck, and claps myself upon the luggage; but when the governor as had charge comes to take the twiddling-lines, he axes me to berth myself on the fokstle, and so, not to be outdone in civility, or to make 'em think I'd let slip my edication, I comes down, and goes forud, and stows myself away just abaft the pilot; when we made sail, there was a party o' liberty boys from the ould Hibernia gives me three cheers, and I waves my bit o' tarpaulin, sports a fresh morsel o' 'bacca, and wondered what made the houses and everything run past us so quick; but I soon found out it was the craft--for I remembered the comb of the sea did just the same when the frigate was walking along at a spanking rate. So, for the first hour, I sits quiet and alone, keeping a sharp look-out on the pilot, to see how he handled the braces, rounding 'em in to starboard, or to port--for, thinks I to myself, it's best to larn everything--'cause why? who can tell but Jack Sheavehole mayn't some day or another command just sich a consarn of his own! and how foolish he'll look not to know which way to shape his course, or how to steer his craft! But, I'm blowed! shipmates, if the horses didn't seem to savvy the thing just as well as the man at the helm; for the moment he tauten'd the gear, the hanemals slued round o' themselves all ship-shape, and Bristor-fashion."

"Why, it was the _reins_ that guided them," said the serjeant, laughing.

"Then I'm blessed if it was!" returned old Jack; "for there warn't a drop o' _rain_ fell that arternoon--it was a bright, sun-shiny day."

"What you call twiddling-lines, they call reins," explained the serjeant; "and the horses are steered by them."

"Mayhap so, brother,--mayhap so," responded the boatswain's mate; "for I arn't much skilled in them matters--'cause why? I never sail'd in one on 'em afore, and ounly once since;--the first was a happy trip, the last was melancholy; and Jack sighed like an eddy wind in the galley funnel. "But, to heave a-head--"

"A good look-out before, there!" shouted the mate of the watch, from the quarter-deck, where he was showing his authority by thrashing the youngsters.

"Ay, ay, sir!" responded the man at the cat-head; and then added, in a lower tone, "They're having a jolly sheave-o in the cabin!"

"It's a sad heart as never rejoices!" said the captain of the forecastle. "But, I say, Jack! I don't like the look o' that sky to windard."

"It's one of two things--a parting blush o' the sun, or a gathering squall o' the night," returned the boatswain's mate; "but we've no reason to care about it--'cause, why? we're all as snug as possible. Well, shipmates, to get on with my yarn:--when we'd run a league or two, out of Portsmouth, we hove to at a victualling port, and I spied a signal for good cheer hanging out aloft; and so, without any bother, I boards 'em for a reg'lar stiff Nor'-wester, more nor half-and-half, and says I to the pilot, 'Yo-hoy, shipmate!' says I, 'come, and set up the standing backstays o' your heart a bit; and here, ould chap, is someut to render the laneard;' and so I gives him a share out o' the grog-tub, that set his eyes a-twinkling like the Lizard lights on a frosty night. Well, just as we were going to trip the anchor again, a pretty, smart-looking young woman rounds to under our starn and ranges up alongside; and she says to the pilot, says she, 'Coachman, what'll you charge to take me to ----?' and I'm blessed if she didn't name the very port I was bound to!"

"Why, 'tis quite romantic, Jack!" said the serjeant; "we shall, no doubt, have a love-story presently: but, I'll wager you my grog to-morrow, I can tell you who the female was."

"Then, I'm blowed if you can!" retorted the boatswain's mate. "Now, who was she, pray?"

"Is it a fair bet?" inquired the serjeant with a look of conceited knowledge.

"No, she warn't a fair Bet, nor a fair Moll either," returned old Jack surlily. "I thought you'd know nothing whatsomever about it! for that's always the case when a jolly tries to shove his oar into a seaman's rullock--'cause why? he don't savvy the loom from the blade."

The serjeant laughed. "I meant a fair wager--that is, my allowance against yours to-morrow that I name the female."

"Done!" exclaimed the boatswain's mate; "and, shipmates, I call you all to witness that everything's square and above-board."

"Why, it was your Sukey, to be sure--Mrs. Sheavehole--anybody could tell that," replied the serjeant.

"There--you're out in your chrissening, ould chap, as you'll find presently," asserted the veteran; "and so you've lost your grog. But, d--it! I'd scorn to take a marine's allowance from him, though you richly desarves it."

"Come, heave ahead, Jack!" said the captain of the forecastle; "make a clear run of it, and don't be backing and filling this fashion."

"Ay, ay, Jem, I wull, I wull," answered old Jack. "But, I say, shipmate! just clap a stopper on the marine's chattering-gear whilst I overhaul my log.--Oh, now I have it! Up comes the young woman, and 'Coachman, what'll you charge no take me to ----?'--'Seven shillings, ma'am,' says he.--'Carn't you take me for less?' axes she; 'I've ounly got five, and I am very tired with walking.'--'Not a ha'penny less, ma'am,' says he, just as cool as an iceberg in Hudson's Bay; 'carn't do it, ma'am.'--'Oh, do try!' says she, and I could see sorrow was pumping the tears into her eyes; 'I would give you more if I had it,' says she.--'Carn't help it, ma'am,' says ould surly-chops, 'carn't help it; grub for the hanemals is very dear.'--'Oh, what shall I do!' says she so piteously; 'night is coming on, and it's a long way to travel on foot; I shall sink under it: do take the money!'--'Werry sorry, my dear,' says he, shaking his blubber head like a booby, perched on a ratlin, 'werry sorry, but never takes under price. You must use your trotters if you arn't never got seven bob.'--'Then I'm d--if she does!' says I, 'for you shall carry her.'--'Gammon!' says he, as spiteful as a pet monkey; 'who's to tip the _fare_?'--So I ups and tells him a piece o' my mind, and axes him if he ever know'd anything _unfair_ by Jack Sheavehole, or if he thought I wanted to bilk him out o' the passage-money.--'Will you stand the two odd bob?' axes he.--'And d' ye think I won't stand as much as Bob or Dick, or any one else?' says I in a bit of a passion. 'Avast, ould chap!' says I; 'humanity arn't cast off the mooring lashings from my heart yet awhile, and I hopes never will;' and so I gives him a seven-shilling bit without any more palaver, and 'Come, my precious,' says I, houlding out my fin, 'mount areevo;' but I'm blessed if she didn't hang back till the pilot rung out for us to come aboard! And 'Lord love you!' says I, 'you arn't afeard of a man-o'-war's-man, are you?'--Oh no,' says she, brightening up for all the world like the sun coming out of a fog-bank,--'Oh no; you have been my friend this night, and God reward you for it!' So we soon clapped one another alongside upon the break of the fokstle, and got to overhauling a little smattering o' larning, by way of being civil, seeing as we'd ounly just joined company. 'I'm thinking that's a pretty village you're bound to,' says I in a dubersome way; 'I was there once,' says I, 'when I was a boy about the height of a tin pannikin;' for, shipmates, I didn't like to overhaul how I'd run away from home. 'Pray, is ould Martin Joyce alive?' says I.--'He was when I left yesterday morning,' says she; 'but he is confined to his bed through illness.'--'And the ould woman.' says I, 'does she still hould on?'--'Yes,' says my companion; 'but she's lame, and almost blind! Well, I'm blow'd, shipmates, if I didn't feel my daylights a-smarting with pain with the briny water that overflowed the scuppers--'cause why? them there wur my own father and mother, in the regard of my having been entered on the muster-books in a purser's name, my reg'lar right-arnest one being Jack Joyce. 'And what makes you cruising so far away from port?' says I, all kindly and messmate-like.--'It's rather a long story,' says she; 'but as you have been so good to me, why, I must tell you, that you mayn't think ill of me. You shall have it as short as possible.'--'The shorter the sweeter, my precious,' says I, seeing as I oughtn't to be silent. Well, she begins--'Sister Susan and I are orphans; and when our parents died, ould Martin and his dame, having no children, took us under their roof.'--'No children!' says I. 'Why, I thought they had a young scamp of a son.' I said this, shipmates, just to hear what she would log again me.--'Oh yes,' says she; 'but he ran away to sea when a boy, and they never heard from him for many years, till the other day they received a letter from Plymouth to say he was in the Tapsickoree frigate, and expected to be round at Spithead before long. So, the day before yesterday, a sailor passing through the village told us she had arrived; and so his parents getting poorer and poorer, with his father sick and his mother lame, I thought it would be best to go to him and tell him of their situation, that if he pleased he might come and see them once more before they died.'--I was going to say, 'God A'mighty bless you for it!' but I couldn't, shipmates; she spoke it so plaintively, that I felt sumeut rise in my throat as if I was choking, and I gulped and gulped to keep it down till I was almost strangled, and she went on:--'So yesterday I walked all the way to Portsmouth, and went aboard the frigate; but the officer tould me there was no man of the name of Joyce borne upon the the books.'--'It was a d--lubberly thing!' says I, 'and now I remembers it.'--'What,' says she, 'what do you mean?'--'Oh, nothing, my precious,' says I, 'nothing in the world;' for I thought the time warn't come for me to own who I was, and it fell slap across my mind that the doctor's boy who writ the letter for me, had signalised my right-arnest name at the bottom, without saying one word about the purser's consarn of Sheavehole. 'And so you've had your voyage for nothing,' says I, 'and now you're homeward-bound; and that's the long and the short on it. Well, my precious, I'm on liberty; and as ould Martin did me a kindness when I was a boy, why, I'll bring up for a few hours at his cottage, and have a bit of a confab consarning ould times.' And the young woman seemed mightily pleased about it; so that by the time we got to ----, I'm blessed if, in all due civility, we warn't as thick as two Jews on a payday. Well, we landed from the craft, and away we made sail in consort for ould dad's cottage; and I'm blessed if everything didn't look as familiar to me as when I was a young scamp of a boy! but I never said not nothing; and so she knocks at the door, and my heart went thump, thump,--by the hookey! shipmates, but it was just as I've seen a bird try to burst out of its cage. Presently a voice sings out, 'Who's there?'--and such a voice!--I never heard a fiddle more sweeterer in the whole course of my life--'Who's there?' says the voice, in regard of its being night, about four bells in the first watch.--'It's Maria,' says my convoy,--'And Jack Sheavehole,' says I. 'Heave ahead, my cherub! give us a clear gangway and no favour.'--'Oh, Maria, have you brought him with you?' said a young woman, opening the door; and by the light she carried in her hand, she showed a face as beautiful--I'm d--if ever they carried such a figure-head as that, in any dock-yard in the world!--'Have you brought him with you?' says she, looking at me, and smiling so sweetly, that it took me all aback, with a bobble of a sea running on my mind that made my ideas heave and set like Dutch fisherman on the Dogger-bank.--'No,' says Maria, with a mournful sough, just as the wind dies away arter a gale--'No; there was no such person on board the frigate, and I have had my journey for nothing.'--'Nonsense!' says the other; 'you want to play us some trick. I know this is he;' and she pointed to me.--'Lord love your heart!' says I, plucking up courage, for I'd flattened in forud, and fallen off so as to fill again,--'Lord love your heart! I'd be anything or anybody to please you,' says I; 'but my name, d' ye mind, is Jack Sheavehole, at your sarvice in all due civility. But let us come to an anchor, and then we can overhaul the consarn according to Hamilton Moore.' So we goes in; and there sat my poor ould mother by the remains of a fire, moored in the same arm-chair I had seen her in ten years afore, and by her side was an ould wheezing cat that I had left a kitten; and, though the cabin-gear warn't any very great shakes, everything was as clean as if they'd just washed the decks. 'Yo-hoy, dame!' says I, 'how do you weather the breeze?'--'Is that my John?' says she, shipping her barnacles on her nose, like the jaws of a spanker-boom on the saddle; and then Maria brings up alongside of her, and spins the yarn about her passage to Portsmouth, boarding the frigate, finding that she was out in her reckoning, and her return with me; and ould dad, who was in his hammock in the next berth, would have the door open to hear it all. And I felt so happy, and they looked so downcast and sorrowful, that I'm blessed if I could stand it any longer: so I seizes Susan round the neck, and I pays out a kiss as long as the main-t'-bowline, till she hadn't breath to say 'Don't;' and then I grapples 'em all round, sarving out hugs and kisses to all hands, even to the ould cat; and I danced round the chairs and tables so, that some o' the neighbours came running in; and 'Blow me tight!' says I, 'side out for a bend; here I am again, all square by the lifts and braces!'--and then I sings,

'Here I am, poor Jack, Just come home from sea, With shiners in my sack'--

and I whips out a handful of guineas from my jacket pocket, and shows 'em,--

'Pray what do you think of me?'

'What! mother,' says I, 'don't you know me? Why, I'm your true and lawful son Jack Joyce; though, arter I run away, the purser made twice-laid of it, and chrissened me Sheavehole, in regard of his Majesty liking to name his own children. Never say die, ould woman! there's plenty o' shot in the locker. And come, lasses,' says I to the young uns, 'one on you stand cook o' the mess;' and I empties my bag on the floor, and away rolled the combustibles, matches, and mutton, and mousetraps, and all, scampering about like liberty boys arter a six months' cruise; and I picks up the bladder o' rum, and squeezes a good drain into a tea-cup, and hands it to the ould woman, topping up her lame leg while she drinks. And, my eyes! there was a precious shindy that night: the ould uns were almost dying with joy, and the young uns had a fit o' the doldrums with pleasure. So I gets the big pot under weigh, and shoves in both legs o' mutton and a full allowance o' turnips, and I sarves out the grog between the squalls; and ould dad blowed a whiff o' 'bacca, and mother payed away at the snuff; and nobody warn't never happy if we warn't happy that night. Well, we'd a glorious tuck-out o' mutton, wi' plenty o' capers; and arter that I stows the ould woman in alongside o' dad, kisses the girls in course, and then takes possession o' the arm-chair, where I slept as sound as a jolly on sentry."

"That's libellous!" exclaimed the serjeant somewhat roughly, as if offended; "it is an unjust reflection, and is clearly libellous."

"It's all the same to ould Jack whose _bellows_ it is," returned the boatswain's mate carelessly; "it's no lie, howsomever, for none sleeps so soundly as a marine on duty. But I arn't got time to overhaul that consarn now; I know I laid in a stock of 'hard-and-fast' enough to last for a three weeks' cruise. Well, shipmates, we keeps the game alive all hot and warm, and we sported our best duds, and I makes love to Susan, and we'd a regular new fit-out at the cottage, and I leaves fifty pounds in the hands of the parson o' the parish for the ould folks, and everything went on, in prime style, when one day the landlord of the public comes in, and says he, 'Jack, the lobsters are arter you.'--'Gammon!' says I; 'what can them fellows want with me?'--'Arn't your liberty out?' says he.--'I never give it a thought,' says I.--'Where's your ticket?' says he. So I showed him the chit; and I'm blessed, shipmates, but it had been out two days! Well, there I was in a pretty perdiklement; and the landlord, says he, 'Jack,' says he, 'I respect you for your goodness to the ould uns; though I suspects they arn't altogether the cause of your losing your memory:' and he looks and smiles at Suke. 'Howsomever, the lobsters are at my house axing about you; and I thought I'd slip out and let you know, so that you might have time to stow away.'--'Thanky, my hearty,' says I; 'but I'm blessed, shipmates, if I warn't dead flabbergasted where to find a stow-hole, till at last I hits upon a scheme to which Susan consented! And what do you think it was, shipmates?--but you'd never guess! Why, Suke slips on a pair o' my canvass trousers and comes to an anchor in the arm-chair with a blanket round her, below, and I stows myself under her duds, coiling away my lower stanchions tailor-fashion; and the doctor coming in to see the ould folks, they puts him up to the trick, and so he brings up alongside of her, and they whitens her face, to make her look pale, as if she was nigh-hand kicking the bucket: and there I lay, as snug as a cockroach in a chafing-mat, and in all due decency, seeing as Suke had bent my lower casings hind part afore, and there warn't a crack nor a brack in 'em. Presently in marches the swaddies, and 'Pray whose cottage is this?' axed the serjeant as stiff as a crutch.--'It is Martin Joyce's,' said Maria.--'Ay, I thought as much,' says he: 'pray where is his son, Jack Joyce, or Jack Sheavehole?' says he.--'He left us three days ago,' answered Maria, 'to join his ship: I hope nothing has happened to him?'--'Indeed!' says the serjeant. 'Now, pretty as you are, I know that you are telling me what I should call a very considerable ----' Suke shrieked out, and stopped what he was going to say: for, shipmates, she sat so quiet, that, thinks I to myself, they'll find out that she's shamming; so I gives her a smart pinch in an inexpressible part, that made her sing out. Well, the long and the short on it, is, that the party, who were looking out sharp for 'straggling money,' had a grand overhaul; but the doctor would not let them interfere with Susan, who, he declared, was near her cushionmong; and at last, being unable to find me, they hauls their wind for another port.--Well, shipmates, as soon as possible arter they were gone, why, Suke got rid of her trouble, and forth I came, as full-grown and handsome a babby as ever cut a tooth. But I warnt safe yet; and so I claps a suit of Suke's duds over my own gear, and, being but a little chap, with some slutching, and letting out a reef or two here and there, I got my sails all snugly bent, and clapped a cap with a thousand little frills round my face, and a straw hurricane-house of a bonnet as big as a Guineaman's caboose over all, with a black wail hanging in the brails down afore, and my shoes scandaled up my legs, that I made a good-looking wench. Well, I bid all hands good-bye. Suke piped her eye a bit; but, Lord love you! we'd made our calculations o' matrimony, and got the right bearings and distance, (else, mayhap, I should never have got stowed away under her hatches,) and she was to join me at Portsmouth, and we were to make a long splice of it off-hand; but then, poor thing! she thought, mayhap, I might get grabbed and punished. Up comes the coach; but the fellow wouldn't heave to directly, and 'Yo-hoy!' says I, giving him a hail.--'Going to Portsmouth, ma'am?' says he, throwing all aback, and coming ashore from his craft.--'To be sure I am,' says I. 'What made you carry on in that fashion, and be d--to you!--is that all the regard you have for the sex?' says I.--'Would you like to go inside, ma'am?' says he, opening the gangway port.--'Not a bit of it,' says I: 'stow your damaged slops below, but give me a berth 'pon deck.'--'Werry good, ma'am,' says he, shutting the gangway port again; 'will you allow me to assist you up?'--'Not by no manner o' means,' says I. 'Why, what the devil do you take me for! to think the captain of a frigate's maintop can't find his way aloft!'--'You mean the captain of the maintop's wife,' says Susan, paying me back the pinch I gave her.--'Ay, ay, my precious,' says I; 'so I do, to be sure. God bless you! good-b'ye! Here I go like seven bells half struck!--carry on, my boy, and I'm blessed if it shan't be a shiner in your way!' And so we takes our berths, and away we made sail, happy-go-lucky, heaving-to now and then just to take in a sea-stock; and the governor had two eyes in his head, and so he finds out the latitude of the thing, but he says nothing; and we got safe through the barrier and into Portsmouth, and I lands in the street afore they reached the inn,--for, thinks I to myself, I'd better get berthed for the night and go aboard in the morning. Well, shipmates, I parts company with the craft, and shapes my course for Pint,--'cause I knew a snug corner in Capstan-square, and I was determined to cut with all skylarks, in regard o' Suke. Well, just as I was getting to steer with a small helm, up ranges a tall man who had seen me come ashore from the coach, and 'My dear,' says he, 'what! just fresh from the country?' But I houlds my tongue, shipmates, and he pulls up alongside and grabs my arm. 'Come, don't be cross,' says he; 'let me take you in tow; I want to talk with you, my love.' I knew the voice well; and though he had a pea jacket over his uniform-coat, and, take him 'half way up a hatchway,' he was a d-- good-looking fellow, yet nobody as ever had seen him could forget them 'trap-stick legs;' and so, thinks I to myself, Jack, you'd better shove your boat off without delay: for, d'ye see, shipmates, I'd sailed with him when I was a mizen-top-mun in the ould Stag, and I well remembered Sir Joseph Y--ke. But I'm blessed if he didn't stretch out arter me, and sailed two foot to my one; and 'Come, come, my darling,' says he, 'take an honest tar for your sweetheart. Let's look at that beautiful face;' and he catches hould o' the wail and hauls it up chock ablock; but I pulls down my bonnet so as he couldn't see my figure-head, and I carries on a taut press to part company. But, Lord love yer hearts! it warn't no manner o' use whatsomever--he more than held his own; and 'A pretty innocent country wench indeed!' says he. 'What! have you lost your tongue?'--'No, I'm d-- if I have!' says I: for I forgot myself, shipmates, through vexation at not being able to get away. 'Hallo!' says he, gripping me tight by the shoulder; 'who have we here?' I'm blessed, shipmates, if, what with his pulling at my shawl, and my struggling to sheer off, my spanker boom didn't at that very moment get adrift, and he caught sight of it in a jiffy. 'Hallo!' says he, catching tight hold of the pig-tail, and slueing me right round by it. 'Hallo!' says he, 'I never see an innocent country wench dress her hair in this way afore;--rather a masc'line sort o' female,' he says. 'Who the devil are you?' 'It's Jack Sheavehole, your honour,' says I, bringing up all standing; and, knowing his generous heart, thinks I, Now's your time, Jack; overhaul the whole consarn to him, and ten to one but he pulls you through the scrape somehow or other. So I ups and tells him the long and the short on it, and he laughs one minute, and d--ns me for a desarting willun the next; and 'Come along!' says he 'I must see what Captain B--n will think of all this.' So he takes me in tow, and we went into one of the grand houses in High-street; and 'Follow me,' says he, as he walked up stairs into a large room all lighted up for a sheave-o; and there wur ladies all togged out in white, and silver and gold, and feathers, and navy officers and sodger officers,--a grand dinner-party. 'B--n,' hails Sir Joseph, 'here's a lady wants you;' and he takes me by the hand, all complimentary like, and the captain of the frigate comes towards us, and I'm blessed if every soul fore and aft didn't fix their eyes on me like a marine looking out for a squall. 'I've not the pleasure of knowing the lady,' says the skipper; 'I fear, Sir Joseph, you're coming York over me. Pray, ma'am, may I be allowed the happiness of seeing your countenance and hearing your name?'--'I'm Jack Sheavehole, yer honour,' says I, 'captain o' the Tapsickorees maintop, as yer honour well knows.'--'I do, my man,' says he with a gravedigger's grin on his countenance: 'and so you want to desert?'--'Never, yer honour,' says I, 'in the regard o' my liking my ship and my captain too well.'--'No, no, B--n,' says Sir Joseph, 'I must do him justice. It appears that he had long leave, and onknowingly overstayed his time; so he rigged himself out in angel's gear to cheat them devils of sodgers. I'll vouch for the fact, B--n,' says he, 'for I saw him myself get down from the coach--.'--'All fresh from the country, yer honour,' says I.--'Ay, all fresh from the country,' chimes in Sir Joseph. 'He's an ould shipmate o' mine, B--n, and I want you, as a personal favour to myself to back his liberty-ticket for to-morrow. Such a lad as this, would never desart the sarvice.'--'If I would, then I'm d--! saving yer honour's presence,' says I. Well, shipmates, there I stood in the broad light, and all the ladies and gemmen staring at me like fun; and 'Come, B--n,' says Sir Joseph, 'extend his liberty till to-morrow'--'Where's your ticket?' axes the skipper: and so, in regard of its being in my trousers pocket, I hauls up my petticoats to get at it; and, my eyes! but the women set up a screeching, and the officers burst out in a broadside o' laughing, and you never heard such a bobbery as they kicked up,--it was a downright reg'lar squall."

"Ay, squall indeed," said the captain of the forecastle: "here it comes with a vengeance!" he bellowed out with stentorian lungs. "Hard up with the helm--hard a-weather." In an instant the sea was one sheet of foam; the wind came whistling like the rustling of ten thousand arrows in their swiftest flight; a report like the discharge of a heavy piece of artillery was heard forward, and away flew the jib like a fleecy cloud to leeward. The frigate heeled over, carrying everybody and everything into the lee scuppers; the lightning hissed and cracked as it exploded between the masts, making everything tremble from the keel to the truck; broad sheets of water were lifted up and dashed over the decks fore and aft: indeed, it seemed as if the gale were striving to raise the ponderous vessel from the ocean for the purpose of plunging it into the dark abyss; a thick mist-like shroud hung round her, alow and aloft, as she struggled to lift herself against the tempest. The topsail halliards were let go; but the nearly horizontal position of the masts prevented the sails from running down. Inevitable destruction for the moment threatened to engulph them all, when "crack, crack, crack!" away went the topmasts over the side; the spanker sheet had been cut away, and off bounced the spanker after the jib. The frigate partially righted, and Lord Eustace and his officers rushed to the deck. But the squall had passed: the moon again shone beautifully clear; the deceitful sky and still more deceitful ocean were all smiles, as if nothing had happened,--though the evidences of their wrath were but too apparent in the dismantled state of his Majesty's ship. But we must again leave them, as we did before, to

"Call all hands to clear the wreck."

THE USEFUL YOUNG MAN. A SECOND SERIES. BY WILLIAM COLLIER.

"There's one of us in every family."

To make ourselves useful's a duty we owe To mankind and ourselves in our sojourn below; To return good for evil, and always "to do Unto others as you'd have them do unto you:" So I bear all with patience, resolved, if I can, To act well my part as a Useful Young Man!

But, alas! _entre nous_, 'tis a difficult task, As seldom I'm left in life's sunshine to bask; For I'm hurried, and worried, imposed on by all, Who think I should run at their beck or their call: "So obliging," folks say, "is their favourite Sam, That he well earns the name of the Useful Young Man!"

Each morning at breakfast I'm doomed to peruse "The Herald," and "Post," for "the family news," While the toast, eggs, and coffee, which fall to my lot, Get a pretty considerable distance from hot: Yes, such are the COMFORTS--deny it who can?-- That fall to the share of each Useful Young Man!

If Jane, or Maria, for work should agree, The dear creatures invariably send down for me To make myself useful, and read while they knit, Paint, draw, or do anything they may think fit. Thus, Sam--poor pill-garlic!--they safely trepan: Alack! what a life leads a Useful Young Man!

If the day's rather wet, and they can't gad about, They think nothing whatever, of sending me out:-- "Now, Sam, my good fellow, just pop on your hat; Run to _Howell's_ for this thing, and _Holmes's_ for that; You'll make yourself pleasant we know, if you can,-- What a comfort to have such a Useful Young Man!"

When John, our fat butler, or Bridget, the cook, Have leisure for reading "some novelty book," They ne'er think of asking my leave to peruse, But help themselves freely to just what they choose: Making free with my novels is no novel plan, For THEY own Master Sam's such a useful Young Man!

Once Thomas, the footman, kissed Anne on the stairs, Who loudly squalled out, just to give herself airs; When my father ran down, in great anger, to see What the cause of the squeaking and squalling could be. Tom had bolted; but not till they'd settled a plan To throw all the blame on _the Useful_ Young Man!

When the Opera we visit, I'm kept in the rear Of our box, and can scarce get a glimpse, I declare, Of the stage, or the audience;--so only remain, To trot up to _Dubourg_ for _punch à la Romaine_, To run out for a book, or to pick up a fan:-- Alas! what a drudge is a Useful Young Man!

But sad is my fate when I go to a rout. If a toothless old maid sits a partner without, The beaux are looked o'er, but they always agree To fix the _agreeable_ task upon me; For to dance with all _bores_, 'tis the province of Sam, 'Deed the file of each victimised Useful Young Man!

If we're late at the dance, and no coach to be had, There's Sam! the dear fellow! the exquisite lad! He'll search all the stands in the town, but he'll gain A coach for his friends--though it's pelting with rain Oh! such are the _pleasures_--deny it who can-- That fall to the lot of a Useful Young Man!

To be nice about trifles is not over wise; Where's the churl that finds favour in woman's bright eyes? To be nice about trifles, is trifling with folly, For the right end of life is but left to be jolly; So I'll make up my mind just to stick to this plan, And PAG _out_ my _terms_ as a Useful Young Man.

REMAINS OF HAJJI BABA.