SCENE III.

A drawing-room; doors in the flat; one opening into Miss Juliana Smashaway's boudoir, and the other to her bed-chamber. She is discovered standing at the window in a pensive attitude. She sighs heavily, and rubs her temples with "eau de Cologne."

_Miss S._--He comes not--half-past four! Ah, fickle Connor! Is this thy plighted faith, and thrice-pledged honour? Was it for this, I waived a grocer's hand, And twice refused a counter in the Strand, Sent back an offer from a Tenth Hussar, And without warning left Soho bazaar, Rejected Griskin, that rich man of mutton; Shy'd Lincoln Stanhope, and cut Manners Sutton?

(_Sudden noise. Voices without._)

_1st voice._--Fare's sixteen-pence, and with one bob I'm shamm'd! Fork out the four-pence!

_2nd voice._ First I'd see you d--d!

(_Door opens. Clipclose rushes in, and embraces Miss Smashaway._)

_Miss S._ (_with considerable spirit._)--Unhand me, fellow! Whence this bold intrusion? I think I'll faint, I feel in such confusion.

DUET--_Clipclose and Miss S._--("Pray Goody.")

_Mr. C._

Oh, come, Juliana, lay aside your anger and surprise; One trifling kiss you'll scarcely miss, you know. I saw a ready pardon seal'd already in your eyes, Else, 'pon my soul! I scarce had ventur'd so.

_Miss S._

True, sir; but you, sir, Should recollect what's due, sir, To one so young and innocent

_Mr. C._

As pretty Missus Ju--. Oh, come, Miss S. do lay aside your anger and surprise; A trifling kiss you'll scarcely miss, you know. I saw a ready pardon seal'd already in your eyes, Else, 'pon my soul! I had not ventur'd so.

(_Cab stops suddenly at the door. Miss S. looks out alarmed. Loud knocking. Alarum._)

_Miss S._--Lost--lost for ever!

_Mr. C._ Pray, madam, what's the matter?

_Miss S._--Heard ye no broadsword on the pavement clatter?

_Mr. C._--A broadsword! Zounds! My teeth begin to chatter!

_Miss S._--Where shall I hide him?--(_Opens the chamber door._)--In, sir, or you 're dead.

_Mr. C._--Can nothing save me?

_Miss S._ Creep beneath the bed.

(_Door opens. Mags peeps in._)

_Mags._--She's quite alone. Oh, happy Matthew Mags!

(_Maid-servant enters._)

_Maid._--A chap's below who says he's Samuel Snags.

_Mags._--I'm a done man; for that 'ere cove will blow me.

_Miss S._--Follow me in, and I will safely stow ye.

(_Enter Snags._)

_Snags._--Divine Miss Smashaway, I humbly kneel To plead a passion you can never feel; A smile will save, a frown as surely kill, One who for you has robb'd his master's till.

_Miss S._--Well, after that the man deserves some pity.-- Knocking again! and here comes my maid Kitty.

(_Enter Maid._)

_Maid._--One Mr. Poppleton.

_Miss S._ Was ever one so courted?

_Snags._--All's up with me; for life I'll be transported! Ma'am, could you save a lover?

_Miss S._ Let me see. Oh, yes; the bed will surely cover three.

(_Puts Snags into bed-chamber. Enter Poppleton._)

_Pop._--Where is my charmer?

(_Enter Maid, hastily._)

_Maid_ (_to Pop._) Sir, you're dead as mutton; The Captain's come. Your life's not worth a button.

_Pop._--Where shall I hide?

_Miss S._ (_to the Maid._) Put him with t'other three; They're the same firm, "Clipclose and company."

(_A heavy footstep is heard, and a sword strikes against the stairs. Enter the Captain, whistling "Darby Kelly."_)

_Miss S._ (_flies into his arms._)--My own loved Guardsman, and my fancy beau. Oh, Terence Connor! (_Kissing him._)

_Capt._ (_embracing her._)--Sweet Juliana, O!

_Miss S._--Why did you dally, dearest; tell me all? Were you on guard?

_Capt._ Yes, sweetest, at Whitehall.

_Miss S._--Ah, you false man,--(_taps his cheek playfully,_)--I'll watch you close.

(_Somebody sneezes within._)

_Capt._ What's that?

_Miss S._--Nothing, dear Terence, but the landlord's cat.

(_Somebody coughs twice._)

_Capt._--A cough!--another! Do cats cough so, my fair? Ha! her cheeks redden! Tell me who is there? That guilty look! Zounds! If my fears be true, He'll curse the hour he dared to visit you!

(_Draws his sword, and rushes into the bed-chamber. Miss S. faints. Voices within._)

_Capt._--A man!--my eyes! another!--and another! A fourth one still!

_Snags._ I'm dead with fright!

_Pop._ I smother!

(_Capt. drives them before him into the drawing-room._)

_Capt._ (_in a frenzy._)--Why, hell and Tommy! the maid whom I adore To prove untrue, and play me false with four! But all shall die!

(_Captain Connor cuts No. 6. with his sword, while Clipclose and company fall upon their knees._)

_Mags._ Oh, Lord! I'm dead already!

_Capt._--Prepare for death!

_Snags and Pop._ Indeed, sir, we an't ready.

_Mr. C._--Probably, sir, affection for my wife Might plead my pardon, and reprieve my life.

(_Enter, hastily, Mrs. Clipclose and Annette._)

_Mrs. C._--Why, what's all this? What do my eyes discover? An errant husband, and a truant lover! (_Aside to Mr. C._)--Was it for this I gave my faith to you? (_Aside to Capt. C._)--Was it for this I drove you out to Kew, Paid cab and lunch, brown stout, and ruin blue?

(_Capt. C. drops the point of his sword, and evinces great contrition for attempting the lives of the company, when enter an elderly pieman with a juvenile dealer in "all-hots," attended by two policemen. Pieman identifies Miss Smashaway._)

_Pieman._--That 'ere flash madam hit me in the withers.

_All-hot (pointing to Mr. Clipclose)._--And that cove knock'd my kitchen-range to shivers!

_Mr. C._ (_to Policeman._)--Let me explain, sir.

_Miss S._ Pray, sir, let me speak.

_Policeman._--Silence! and keep your gammon for the beak.

(_A rumbling noise heard underneath, attended by a disagreeable vapour._)

_Policeman._--Zounds! what is this? it smothers me almost. Is it the gas-pipe?

_Capt. C._ No, dash my wig! a ghost!

(_Slow music. Apparition of Old Clipclose rises through the stage, dressed in a white shirt, and scarlet nightcap._)

ROUNDELAY--_Ghost and Company._

("Good morrow to you, Madam Joan.")

_Ghost._

All in the family way, Whack-fal-li, fal-la-di-day! Are you met here to take tea? Whack-fal-li, &c. Or is it love-making you're come? Tol-de-re-lol, &c. Or to keep clear away from a bum? Whack-fal-li, &c.

_Miss S._

Oh, no, sir! we're going to jail, Whack-fal-li, &c. Unless, Mister Ghost, you'll go bail, Whack-fal-li, &c.

_Policeman._

A spectre, Miss S. will not do, Whack-fal-li, &c.

(_To the Ghost._)

Where the blazes! should we look for you? Whack-fal-li, &c.

(_Enter Capt. C's four wives._)

_1st Wife._

Ah, Terry, you traitor, you're there! Whack-fal-li, &c.

_2nd Wife._

As usual, deceiving the fair! Whack-fal-li, &c.

_3rd Wife._

You'll pay dear enough for your pranks! Whack-fal-li, &c.

_4th Wife._

You're broke, and reduced to the ranks! Whack-fal-li, &c.

(_Capt. C. seems thunderstruck, grinds his teeth passionately, then strikes his forehead, and sings._)

AIR--_Capt. C._--("The night before Larey was stretch'd.")

_Capt. C._

By St. Patrick, I'm done for, at last! From a captain come down to a private. Terry Connor, your glory is past; A very nice pass to arrive at!

(_To the Ghost._)

I say, you old rum-looking swell, I would deem it a favour, and civil, In spite of your sulphur'ous smell, To take me down stairs to the devil, And get me a troop in his guards.

_Ghost_ (_to the Capt._)--Shut your potato-trap! we still refuse-- The corps's so moral--Life-Guardsmen and Blues.

_4th Wife._--Cheer up, my Connor; 'twas in jest I spoke, When I affirm'd my best beloved was broke.

_Ghost (addressing the company)._--Ladies and Gemmen, give the ghost a hearance, As this, his first, must be his last appearance. (_To Mr. and Mrs. Clipclose_)--Bent upon wedlock, and an heir, to vex ye, If toasted cheese had not brought apoplexy, I died asleep, and left my hard-won riches; Search the left pocket of my dark drab breeches; Open the safe, and there you'll find my will; Deal for cash only and stick to Ludgate-hill; Watch the apprentices, and lock the till; And quit the turf, the finish, and the mill; Turn a new leaf, and leave off former sins; Pay the pieman, and mend young "All-hot's" tins.

_Mr. C._ (_doubtfully._)--Did you die rich, dad?

_Ghost._ Rich as any Jew; And half a plum, son Bob, devolves on you.

_Mrs. C._--What a dear ghost, to die when he was wanted! Will you forgive me?

_Ghost._ Ma'am, your pardon's granted. My time's but short; but still, before I go, With Miss Juliana I would sport a toe.

_Miss S._--With all my heart. What would your ghostship order?

_Ghost._--Tell them to play, "Blue bonnets o'er the border."

_Apollonicon_ strikes up the country-dance. _Ghost_ leads off with _Miss Smashaway_; the _Captain_ follows with _Mrs. Clipclose_; _Clipclose_, _Mags_, _Snags_, and _Poppleton_ each choose one of the _Captain's Wives_; the _Police_ dance with the _Ladies' Maids_; and the _Pieman_ with "_All-hot_." Twice down the middle, poussette, and form hands round. At the end of the dance, the _Ghost_ vanishes, and the remainder of the _dramatis personæ_ take hands, and advance to the stage-lights.

GRAND FINALE--("There's nae luck about the house.")

Dad's away, and we may play, Nor dread Old Grumpy's frown; Well may we say, "thrice happy day When Square-toes toddled down!" There's now luck about the house, There's now luck to a'; There's now luck about the house Since grumpy dad's awa!

(_Curtain falls amid tremendous applause, and a call for the author._)

CRITICAL REMARKS BY AN M.P.

"I am not in the habit of frequenting the theatres, nor indeed any public house, except the House of Commons; neither do I pretend to be particularly conversant with the drama: but, by general consent, this play has been declared not inferior to the happiest effort of the bard of Avon, as player-people call William Shakspeare. I have not seen it represented; for, the free list being suspended, prudence would not permit me to attend. Had half-price been taken, I think I should have gone to the two-shilling gallery; but this question is irrelevant.

"The author deserves well of his country. Indeed, his is a double claim; and the debt consequently due by the public would amount to a large _tottle_. No doubt the restoration of the drama is a matter of some importance; but surely the diminution of drumsticks is one of infinitely greater consideration!

"I perceive by the playbills,--one of which I was enabled to obtain _gratis_,--that a gentleman called Tambourette performs upon two drums with a single stick. Now, I call the public attention to this important discovery; and, in these times of retrenchment and reform, the introduction of this system into our military establishment should be at once insisted on. The saving would be immense. Assuming that there are one hundred and three battalions of foot, and, on an average, twelve drums to each regiment,--a shameful waste of public money, by-the-bye, one drum and fife being quite sufficient for each corps, as they only alarm an enemy in war-time, and, in peace, destroy the utility of servant-maids by seducing them eternally to the windows. Well, even permitting this extravagant number to remain; by adopting Mr. Tambourette's system of performance, one thousand two hundred and thirty-six drumsticks would be saved to the country. Now, averaging the cost of the smaller-sized drumstick at sixpence, and the larger at one shilling, a reduction in the army estimates might be effected of _one thousand one hundred and thirty-three small_ and _one hundred and three large ones_; making a _tottle_ to the credit of the nation of 33_l._ 9_s._ 6_d._!!!

"If the author will furnish me with the necessary information to enable me to frame a bill, I will move for a return of the drummers attached at present to the army: specifying their respective names, weights, heights, and ages, and take the earliest opportunity of bringing the matter before parliament.

"J.H.

"July 1, 1837.

"P.S. If one thousand two hundred and thirty-six drumsticks be dispensed with, it follows that a similar number of drummers' hands will then remain unoccupied. Might not a _one-handed fife_ be introduced, or a pandean pipe substituted, and fifers totally abolished? I see no reason why the same man should not play the drum and fife together. This, indeed, would be a reduction worthy a reformed parliament, and a tremendous saving to the public purse.

"J.H."

THREE NOTCHES FROM THE DEVIL'S TAIL; OR, THE MAN IN THE SPANISH CLOAK.

A TALE OF "ST. LUKE'S."

I had often met with him before in my travels, and had been much struck with the peculiar acumen of his remarks whenever we entered into conversation. His observations were witty, pungent, and sarcastic; but replete with knowledge of men and things. He seemed to despise book-knowledge of every kind, and argued that it only tended to mislead. "I have good reason to be satisfied on this point," he said to me one day at Vienna. "History is not to be relied on; a fact is told a hundred different ways; the actions of men are misrepresented, their motives more so; and as for travels, and descriptions of countries, manners, customs, &c. I have found out that they are the most absurd things in the world,--mere fables and fairy tales. Never waste your time on such trash!"

I again met this gentleman in Paris; it was at a _salon d'écarté_; and he amused me much by informing me of the names and circumstances of the most distinguished persons present. Whether English, French, or Germans, he knew something of the private history of each, some ridiculous adventure or silly _contre-tems_. I marvelled how he could have collected so great a store, such as it was, of anecdote and information; how he carried it all in remembrance; and, still more, at the perfect _sang-froid_ with which he detailed these things under the very noses of the persons concerned, who would, had they heard them, no doubt have made as many holes in his body with "penetrating lead" as there are in a cullender.

To avoid getting into any scrape myself, I invited this _well-informed_ gentleman to spend an evening with me at my hotel, where, over a bottle of claret, we might discuss some of those amusing matters, more, at least, to my own ease. Before we separated, I pointed out a certain Englishman to him, who was playing high, and did not notice us: I asked him "If he knew anything respecting that gentleman?" I had my private reasons for asking this question, unnecessary now to mention, and was pleased to find my colloquial friend knew, as they say, "all about him;" so we parted, with a promise on his side that on the following evening he would visit me, and give me every particular.

He came punctually to appointment, but I could not prevail on him to put off his large Spanish cloak, what they call technically "_an all-rounder_;" he complained of cold, said he had been accustomed to a _warm climate_, and sat down just opposite to me, when, without hesitation, in a sort of business-like way, he entered at once into the details I most wished to know respecting the young Englishman we had left at the _salon d'écarté_; and left no doubt on my mind, from some circumstances I already knew respecting him, that the account was most veracious. I fell into a fit of musing in consequence of his narration, which he did not interrupt by a single remark; but, fixing his eyes upon me, seemed to be amusing himself with watching the progress of my thoughts.

"It will never do!" said I, forgetting I was not alone; "he is not worthy of her."

I stopped, and the stranger rose, gave me a peculiar significant look, and was retiring, but I would not permit it; and, apologising for my abstraction, insisted that he should finish the bottle with me: so he sat down again, and we tried to converse as before, but it would not do.

There we sat, facing each other, and both nearly silent; and now it was that I remembered I had never once seen this stranger without this same Spanish cloak,--a very handsome one it is true, richly embroidered, and decorated with Genoese velvet, and a superb clasp and chain of the purest gold and finest workmanship. I pondered on this circumstance, as I recollected that even in Italy and the Ionian islands, where I had before met him by some extraordinary chance, as well as at Constantinople and at Athens, he had always been enveloped in this same most magnificent mantle. At last I thought of the fable of the man, the sun, and the wind; so concluded that he wore this Spanish cloak to guard him equally from heat and cold, to exclude the sun's rays and the winter's winds; or, perhaps, I argued, he wears it to conceal the seedy appearance of his inner garments, or sundry deficiencies of linen, &c. "Things will wear out, and linen will lose its snowy whiteness, but what the devil have I to do with the matter? Let him wear his cloak, and sleep in it too, if it please him; why should I trouble my head about it?"

"You are returning to England soon, sir," said, at length, the cloaked stranger (but I am certain that I had not intimated such intention to him); "I am proceeding there myself on some pressing business, and will do myself the honour of there renewing our acquaintance."

I paused and hesitated ere I replied to this proposition. It is one thing to invite an agreeable stranger to drink a bottle of claret with you at an hotel in Paris, and another to bring him to the sanctuary of your home, to the fireside of an Englishman, to the board of your ancestors, to suffer him to gaze freely on the faces of your sisters, and to pay his court at his ease to every other female relative beneath the paternal roof!

The stranger saw my embarrassment, and seemed to penetrate the cause. He gave me a smile of most inexplicable expression as he said,

"Your late father, Sir George F----, and myself, were old acquaintances. We spent some months together at Rome, and met with a few adventures there, which I dare say have never reached the ears of his son."

This was said in his usual sarcastic way; but I could not endure that he should allude in the slightest manner of disrespect to my deceased father; so I answered, with much reserve, and some sign of displeasure, "That I did not wish to pry into the youthful follies of so near a relative; at the same time I thought it odd I never should have heard my father mention that he had formed any particular intimacy with any one at Rome, but, on the contrary, had even been given to understand that all his recollections of the Eternal City were rather of an _unpleasing_ nature."

"Did he never mention to you the baths of Caracalla?" demanded my strange guest; "but it matters little, for the son of Sir George F---- merits every attention from me _on his own account_, as well as for the sake of _another_----" He did not finish the sentence; but, folding his cloak more closely round him, he made me a profound bow, something between an Eastern salaam and the bow of a dancing-master, and politely took his leave.

For two or three days I thought much of this extraordinary man; but after that time I became so deeply interested in a Platonic _liaison_ with Madame de R----, the beautiful wife of a Parisian banker, that I forgot him altogether. I had to read, as well as to write, sentimental _billets-doux_ sometimes twice a day, for so often they passed between my fair Platonist and myself. I had to select all her books, her flowers, and to choose her ribbons. I know not how it might have ended, for affairs began to wear a very critical aspect; but I was summoned to England by an express. My beloved mother was dangerously ill. I tore myself away, disregardful of the tears that gathered in the brightest pair of eyes in the world, and travelled post-haste to Calais.

Scarcely had I put my foot on the deck of the vessel ere I perceived my acquaintance of the Spanish cloak. There he was, walking up and down the deck,--tall, erect, gentlemanly; there was his magnificent cloak, without a wrinkle or a spot, the gloss still on it. I sat still, and watched him, not without a sensation of annoyance, as I was not at all in the humour just then to enter into conversation. I was uneasy respecting the life of an only parent, and I had just parted with one of the prettiest women in France, at the moment, too, when we both wished Platonism in the same place its founder was, dead and buried; but I might have saved myself the trouble of being annoyed, for the stranger did not seem to recognise me, nor wish to speak to any one. His carriage was lofty and reserved; his eye was proud, and sought to _overlook_ the rest of the passengers as unworthy of its notice; and so marked was his avoidance of myself, that I began to feel piqued, and to imagine that my own personal appearance, if not our former knowledge of each other, might have gained for me the honour of his notice. Never before did I see so imperious an eye, or so magnificent a cloak!

The passage was a very boisterous one; and all the passengers, both male and female, began to show evident signs enough that the human animal was never intended by Nature to ride upon the ocean's billows. Strange sounds were heard from the very depths of human stomachs, as if in response to the roaring of the winds and the dashing of the waves! I began to sympathise most sincerely with the unhappy sufferers; for such sights and sounds are sure to affect the feelings of those who both see and hear. In short, I began to look grave, and become squeamish. I saw nothing but livid lips and blue cheeks around me,--a perfect pandæmonium of wretchedness; yet there walked the stately man in the cloak, perfectly unmoved in countenance and stomach. I perceived he had lighted a cigar, which glowed of a bright red colour, and threw a glow over his handsome features.

I grew still worse, and my disorder was coming to its climax, when the eye of the stranger for the first time condescended to notice me, and he bowed ceremoniously, with a smile which seemed to say, "I wish you joy, young man, of your sea-sickness!" I turned from him, and sincerely wished him in the same condition as myself and the other victims of the wrath of Neptune. He advanced towards me.

"You look ill, sir!" he exclaimed. "Take the advice of an old sailor; only try one of my cigars; _they are not of common use_; one or two whiffs will drive away your nausea. I never knew them fail."

Now I loathe smoking at all times; it is a vulgar and idle amusement, fit only, as a modern writer says, for "the swell-mob;" but at this moment the thought of it was execrable. I could have hurled the stranger, when he offered me one of his cigars already ignited, into the sea.

"I never smoke, sir," said I, pettishly, "and I always get as far away as I can from those who do. May I thank you to go a little to the windward?"

"My dear sir, do not be obstinate," said the pertinacious stranger; "we have many hours before we shall touch the shore, for you see both wind and tide are against us. I assure you the remedy is always efficacious;" and he handed me a lighted cigar, immediately under my nose.

I snatched at the burning preparation, and flung it overboard, with an exclamation of no gentle kind; it dropped into the boiling waves, making a noise like a hissing red-hot iron, as it is put by the smith into the water of the stone cistern.

"It is not of the slightest consequence," said my tormentor, affecting to believe I had dropped the cigar by accident, "I have plenty more in my case;" and with the most provoking coolness he lighted another from his own, and presented it to me. I was puzzled what to do, for the courtesy of this man was extreme. I was exceedingly sick, and wished to get rid of him; for who likes to have a witness during the time of Nature's distress? I therefore accepted his cigar, and turned from him, with a very equivocal bow of acknowledgement.

There was something of a very refreshing nature in the smell of this extraordinary-looking cigar, which was burning steadily in my hand. I resolved to try its boasted efficacy; and accordingly put it to my lips, and inhaled its fragrance. In a moment I was well, more than well; for a delicious languor seized me. After that, my nerves were braced, invigorated; I felt as a hunter does after a long day's sport, hungry almost to famine, and I descended to the saloon, and called lustily to the steward to bring me a cold fowl, a plate of ham, and a bottle of porter. No more nausea, no more livid lips and blue cheeks. All of a sudden I became eloquent, poetical, and brimful of the tender passion. I wished to console some of my fair companions who were languishing around me, and offered my cigar to all who would accept it. Had it not been for an occasional thought of my mother's illness, which would intrude upon me whether I wished it or not, what folly and entanglement might I have got into with a pretty milliner on board, just returned from Paris, with fashions in her head, and French levity in her heart!

I ought to have acknowledged my obligation to the stranger for his remedy; but I had conceived so insuperable a dislike to him, that I could not account for it, and my only wish was to escape from his society at Dover, as I feared he would offer to accompany me to London, and I could hardly refuse him after the service he had rendered me. I therefore lingered below some few minutes when we arrived, and looked cautiously around me when I ascended the companion-ladder; but the stranger was gone. I saw no trace of his august person then, or his superb Spanish cloak.

I hastened on with four horses to ---- Square, and met my weeping sisters. My mother still breathed; but that was all. The physicians could not comprehend her malady, but agreed to call it a general debility, an exhaustion of the vital energies, without any particular complaint. She was extremely weak, but knew me instantly, and smiled her welcome as I knelt and kissed her hand.

My mother was only of the middle age, which made it more strange that physical weakness should thus overpower her. I inquired at what time she was first seized; and on reference to my note-book, found out that her first appearance of illness was at the _precise hour_ when the stranger in the Spanish cloak was sitting with me at my hotel, and talking to me of my father. Well! what of that? it was a mere chance!

It is no use disguising it. I am naturally superstitious. We can no more help the frailties of our minds than the blemishes of our features. As I sat by my declining mother's side, I pondered again and again on this mysterious stranger. I recollected how he had cured me of my sickness in a moment; how wonderfully he knew the private history of every individual; and I ended by believing that there was something of a supernatural agency about him. "Perhaps," thought I, starting up suddenly, and speaking aloud, "perhaps this wonderful cigar of his might recover my beloved mother." I searched every pocket, hoping that a remnant of it might have remained: but, no; it had been whiffed away by the ladies in the cabin, and I had not a vestige left.

When once an idea seizes hold on the mind, it scarcely ever lets go its hold. I began to consider myself mad, yet could not prevent myself from going out I knew not whither, to make inquiries for the cloaked stranger, and request him to give me another of his marvellous cigars. As I passed Louisa and Emily, my sisters, and----, now no more, they were alarmed by the wildness of my looks, and endeavoured to arrest my progress.

"I go to seek a remedy for my mother," exclaimed I, breaking from them, and I darted from the house.

I made inquiries at all the principal hotels and club-houses for the stranger in the magnificent cloak. The waiters at the Oriental, the Travellers, and the Albion, had all seen him, but knew not his address or name. I sought him in the parks, at the exhibitions; but could not find him. At length I thought of the British Museum, but _why_ I did so appears to me most mysterious; I drove instantly thither, and ran through all the rooms with the most searching gaze. In George the Fourth's splendid library there, seated at his ease by special permission from Sir Henry Ellis, I beheld the man I sought, with a large folio volume of Eastern learning spread open before him.

I felt ashamed to address him; for, had I not been most uncourteous, most repulsive to him? and now I wanted another favour. I stood before the table at which he sat, and watched his countenance as he seemed engrossed with his Oriental literature; but it was only for a moment, for he raised his eyes by some sudden impulse, and fixed them straight upon me.

The stranger acknowledged me not even by a bow or a look of recognition. I knew not what to say to him, yet the case was urgent.

"Pardon me, sir," I stammered out, "I fear I interrupt you; but----"

"Proceed, sir," said the stranger, coldly. "I am always ready to listen to the son of Sir George F----, for I owe to the father some obligation."

"You possess the power of allaying the most tormenting sickness by some mysterious drug or preparation," I said, hesitating as I spoke: "that was no common cigar. Have you other remedies?"

"A thousand," replied the stranger. "Pray go on."

"My mother lies dangerously ill; can you restore her?"

"May I behold the patient?" demanded the stranger, and an inexpressible glance flashed from his brilliant eyes.

What made me tremble at this natural request? for such it might have been deemed, since every medical man has free liberty to inquire into the symptoms of the case before he prescribes.

Fixedly did his eyes rest on mine; they seemed as if turned to stone, for they moved not in the slightest degree.

"I will _describe_ my mother's case to you, sir," I said, evasively.

He made me no answer; but, casting down his eyes, he calmly resumed his reading, and I walked up and down the spacious apartment, in which there were not above a dozen other persons, in a state of mind resembling a chaos, occasionally glancing with angry eyes at the reading stranger, who seemed perfectly composed, and unconscious of my presence.

"What a fool am I!" said I, mentally; "what _harm_ can this man do my dying mother? but, then, _she_ may see him--this being that resembles a demi-god--and _she_ too of so peculiar a mind, so enamoured of all that is great and wonderful; so romantic, too! Wretch that I am! is my beloved mother's life to be sacrificed--at least the chance of saving her--to a wild and jealous fantasy? No!" and I walked up again to the table.

The stranger was rising as I approached him, had closed his book, and returned it to the librarian. He would have passed me, but I laid my hand upon his arm.

"Most extraordinary being!" said I, "_come_, I conjure you, and save my mother!"

He entered my carriage without saying a word, and silently followed me to the apartment of my languishing parent, who was dozing in a sort of lethargic stupor, that appeared to be the precursor of death. My two sisters stood gazing on her pale features, and---- was holding her thin white hand in one of hers, and bathing it with her tears.

The stranger took my mother's hand from hers, and--I cannot be mistaken, for I watched every movement--some strong agitation, some convulsive spasm, passed over his countenance as he looked upon that face which never had its equal yet on earth; but, whatever was his emotion, he soon mastered it, and desired that a silver plate and lamp might be brought to him.

From a small crystal box the stranger took out a brown preparation, and, breaking it in two, placed them on the silver plate; then with a slip of paper lighted from the lamp he ignited the substance so placed, which sent up a pale blue flame, and a most intoxicating odour. He desired that my mother should be raised in bed, even to a sitting posture, when he placed the blazing plate immediately beneath her nostrils, and some portion of the actual flame entered and curled about her face. My sisters shrieked, but ---- spake not a word, and I waited the result with agonised impatience.

"She revives! she revives!" exclaimed the latter, "and my blessed aunt will live!"

It was true. Years have gone by, and _my mother is still alive_. Never has she had an hour's illness from that hour. Was I grateful to the stranger for saving a life so prized? No. In my heart I loathed him at the very time he was heaping benefits upon me. And why? I detected a look of wonder, and admiration, and gratitude, and a smile of ineffable beauty directed towards him by one who----

Disguising as well as I was able the hatred that swelled within my heart, I offered to place on the finger of this mysterious visitant a ring of great value, that belonged once to my father. He started as he saw it, and, pressing a secret spring in it that I knew not of, restored it to me.

"It was a present from myself to him at Rome," he said, and his voice faltered, "for a signal benefit conferred. Behold! there is my own miniature!"

And it was so. Most exquisitely painted was there concealed, a minute resemblance of himself. I now perceived, and I cursed him in my heart for it, that ---- retained the ring, after having expressed her astonishment at the fidelity of the likeness. I rudely snatched it from her hand, and threw the ring from me.

"Theodore," said my mother, "give me that ring. I know full well who it was presented that ring to him who is now no more. Marquis! I must speak to you alone, but not now. Come hither to-morrow. Now, I beseech you, retire!"

How dreadful is it to bear about with us the seeds of insanity. I have felt them shoot and grow within me from my childhood. The fibres had twined about my very being. _I knew_ that madness must some time or other scorch my brain; I was full of delusions; I could behold nothing clear with my mental vision. I once heard a learned physician say to my father, "Take care of him, sir. Excitement may drive that boy mad. Do not let him study too much; and, above all, I trust he will never meet with disappointment in any affair of the heart."

Have I met with such? Let me not think about it, or----_And yet I am not mad now._

From this time I became gloomy and morose, and always worse whenever this accursed man in the Spanish cloak came to the house, which now was very often. He charmed all but myself. I hated the sound of his voice. My sisters would come and try to soothe me into sociability and calmness. I repelled them with harshness and severity; and even when my gentle cousin tried each soft persuasive art to lead me to his presence, I taunted her in the cruellest manner with her hypocrisy, as I chose to call her blandishments, and bade her "go to the fascinating marquis, and heap her witcheries on him." Nothing could exceed the patience of this devoted being, her sweetness of temper, her angelic forbearance, but my own ferocity and hellish brutality; yet how did I love her, even when I bitterly reviled her! Once, when I observed that ring upon her finger, which my mother had permitted her to wear,--that ring, bearing the portrait of _that man_,--I absolutely spurned her from my presence, and wonder now that I did not murder her.

Cloud after cloud obscured the light of reason in my brain, and it was deemed advisable by those who loved me still, notwithstanding my growing malady, to have some one with me night and day, lest I should lay violent hands upon myself, as if a life like mine were worth the caring for.

An intelligent young man, one of my tenants, accepted this painful task, and he performed it with gentleness and fidelity. He soon perceived that I grew more furious when the voice or the name of the Marquis ---- met my ears. He mentioned this circumstance to my mother, and from that time the marquis was not permitted to enter the house. I heard of this at first with incredulity, then with complacency. By degrees I grew calmer. I was afterwards shown a letter from the cloaked stranger, dated Rome; and it confirmed their assertions. I once more enjoyed the society of my family, and basked in the smiles of my beloved cousin. She was all kindness, all attention; and I began to flatter myself that the ardent love I had borne her from my very boyhood was returned. It was her reserve that before drove me from my country.

To my great astonishment and delight, that young Englishman who had interested me so much in the _salon d'écarté_ at Paris, was formally refused by her who was dearer to me than life. He was of ancient family, and of great possessions; I knew he loved her, and feared he would gain her: but on my saying one day, as if by accident, in her presence, "that I feared S---- gamed high, and consequently was not worthy of the regard of any woman of discretion," she gave me a smile of ineffable sweetness, and told me, "It was of little consequence to her his frailties or his virtues; for she had long determined to give him a refusal, and, in fact, had done so before he went to Paris."

I considered the _manner_ of my cousin, more than her mere words, as encouragement to myself, and with all the ardour of my nature declared to her my passion. These were her words in reply: "Theodore, I pretend not to misunderstand you; and, if it be any comfort to you, believe that I most tenderly return your affection. But, oh, my beloved cousin! think how you have been afflicted,--and then ask yourself whether I ought to listen to your proposals? whether you ought to marry? Theodore, I solemnly promise you that, for your sake, never will I wed another; but, oh! ask me not to become your wife whilst you are subject to such a fearful malady."

In vain I represented to her that my late mental affliction had been caused wholly by my fear of losing her, as I believed that detested foreigner was exactly the man to charm her, and thus I considered her lost to me for ever.

"This, dear Theodore," she answered, "is one of your delusions. You had no cause why you should form such a preposterous notion,--a man old enough to be my father, and----"

"That is true," said I, "there is disparity of years; but, then, what a splendid being!"

"Yes," she replied coldly, "he wears a most magnificent cloak."

"Not always, sure?" I asked inquiringly, for I had never entered the room where he was, since he had cured my mother. "Did he not remove it when he dined and drank tea with you so often, and stayed so late, that I could have torn him to pieces for it?"

"Softly, my beloved cousin," said the sweet girl, placing her soft hand before my lips; "why are you so excited now when talking of this stranger? _Your_ mother, Theodore, has been restored by him; and for that service what do we not all owe him?"

"Was it for this," I said, "from gratitude alone, you wore that ring?"

"Yes, from gratitude only. Are you now satisfied?"

"Blessings on you, dearest, for your kindness!" I continued. "But say, did you ever see him without that cloak?"

"Never, Theodore, never. It was always too hot or too cold; or he was poorly, or some excuse or other. We never could persuade him to take off that cloak."

I fell into a long reverie after this; nor could I blame her for her decision. I knew myself that my brain was not steady, and consequently I had no right to marry, to entail on my innocent offspring such a calamity. But then this inexplicable stranger;--perhaps he had the power to cure me,--he had already performed almost a miracle; if he could but settle my head, my beloved cousin would become mine, and I should be free from those fears that were constantly besetting me of becoming incurably mad.

Nothing would now do but my immediately setting out for Rome to seek the stranger with the large Spanish cloak. My mother did not think it advisable that I should go alone; so it was determined that she, with Louisa and Emily, accompanied by our sweet relative, should bear me company to Italy, and thither we accordingly went. We lingered not on our progress to look at curiosities, or paintings, or prospects. We journeyed as fast as four horses could carry us, and arrived quite safe at imperial Rome.

I was sorry to learn that the Marquis ---- was now at Naples; and, after settling my family in an elegant villa a few miles from modern Rome, I set off in quest of the man for whom I had an antipathy, powerful, incurable; and for what purpose? To request his aid, mysterious, perhaps sinful, to cure me of a disorder, of which the consciousness was part of its calamity. The raving madman, at least, is saved from _knowing_ his own misery.

I had not been an hour at Naples, attended by my favourite servant, the young man who once acted to me as my keeper, when I saw from the window of my hotel the cloaked stranger pass with a lady on his arm. But I hesitated not,--I might lose him for ever; so I ran into the street, and hastily accosted him.

What I said to him I know not, for my words were wild and ambiguous; but he promised that he would dine with me the following day, although his manners were even more reserved than when I spoke to him at the Museum.

Our instincts ought ever to be attended to; the brute creation follow nothing else, and _they_ commit no sin. The first time I saw this stranger, he was looking at an inscription at Athens, and I felt a secret desire to get from his presence; but he entangled me with his talk, his knowledge of everything around, his high bearing, his intelligent eyes, and his superb Spanish cloak.

Again we were seated at the same table, and I again requested him to remove his mantle.

"Not yet," he said significantly; "but after the cloth is removed I will, if you still wish it, take off this upper clothing."

Oh how sarcastically were these words pronounced! My heart beat violently; I could not eat, and became abstracted and melancholy; not a word was said respecting my request to him, nor did he ask me why I sought him. He ate in silence, and seemed to have forgotten he was not alone.

When the table was cleared, the stranger coolly took a book from under his cloak, and began to read; whilst I, pondering on all I had ever known of him, began to feel the most burning desire to see this man once _without_ his cloak, and was determined to do my utmost to effect it.

"The cloth _is_ now removed, signor," said I, "and you promised _then_ you would take off that everlasting garment."

"It displeases you, then?" retorted my companion. "_Is it not unsafe to penetrate below the exterior of all things?_ Is not the surface ever the most safe? Is not the _outer_ clothing of nature ever the most beautiful to the eye? What deformity dwells in mines, in caverns, at the bottom of the ocean! Nature wears a cloak as beautiful as mine: do you wish also to strip off her covering as well as mine?"

"At this moment, signor," said I gloomily, "I was not thinking of Nature at all, but of the strangeness of your ever wearing that cloak."

"Was it for this you came from England, Sir Theodore?" inquired the marquis, "and sought me at Naples? The knowledge, I should deem, could never compensate you for the loss of your cousin's society so many days."

"It was not for this I sought you, noble marquis," I replied, piqued at his irony; "but, when a man ever wears a cloak, it must be for some purpose."

"Granted," slowly said my companion; "I have such purpose."

"Which you promised to unfold!" I exclaimed, with pertinacity. "Is it still your pleasure so to do?"

"_It is necessary first that we should have no intruders_," he answered, with a tone that froze me to the heart. Oh, how cutting, how sarcastic did it sound in my ears!

"No person will enter this apartment save my faithful servant, Hubert; therefore----"

"I promised to enlighten the master, and not the servant. If you insist on this strange request, the door must be securely locked; there must be no chance of interruption."

"Oh, what a fuss," I thought, "about a mantle! Why, _he_ must be mad too! How can he cure me of an evil he has himself? Lock the door, forsooth, because he takes off his cloak! But I must humour him, I suppose, or he will find an excuse for breach of promise." As I thought this, I walked to the door, locked it, and, placing the key upon the table, merely said, "Now, signor, your promise?"

"Would it not be prudent, young gentleman," he observed, laying his finger on my sleeve, "that you should speak of your request,--that one that brought you hither, and which I should conceive of more importance than the satisfying an idle curiosity,--would it not be wiser of you to mention this previously to my taking off my cloak."

"Oh, what importance he attaches to so trifling a thing!" thought I; "but, after all, the man is right; I had better attend to the most essential, nor was I wise to couple two requests together."

"Signor Marquis," said I, "have you any cure for insanity?"

"_I cured your father_," was the answer, "and this your mother knows. He in return did _me_ a service; he presented me with--this excellent cloak."

I was more puzzled than ever; I had never before _heard_ that my poor father had unsettled reason, but many circumstances made me now believe it. I fancied too that my youngest sister gave indications of the same disorder; she was growing melancholy and reserved. "Oh, heavens!" thought I, "there will be more work for this man to do; I had better invite him at once to England, and make him physician in ordinary to our family."

"I have an engagement at nine," said the stranger; "have you any other inquiries to make?"

"But, if you _cured_ my father, Signor Marquis," I observed, "how is it that I have inherited the disease? Should not the _cure_ have eradicated it for ever from him and his posterity?"

"Is it not enough that I prevented the display of such a malady during his life? that I drove away the cloud that obscured his day, so that the sun of reason shone brightly on him until his death? What had I to do with future generations? with a race of men then unborn? _I performed my contract_, and he was satisfied. Shall the son be more difficult to please than the father?"

I interrupted him, "Oh, mysterious man! canst thou not cure the _root_ of this disease? stop its fatal progress? prevent the seed from partaking of the nature of the plant?"

"Young man!" solemnly returned the marquis, "was not thy first progenitor, the man who resided in Paradise, _mad_--essentially mad? and has not his disease been carried on, in spite of all physicians, down, down to the present hour? It is woven into man's very nature; the warp and woof of which he is composed. I can check its open manifestation in a single individual; but the evil will only be dammed up during his time, to give it an increased impetus and power to those who follow him. Art thou not an instance of this fact? Hast thou not been madder than thy father?"

I groaned aloud. I remembered my own wild delusions, my sudden bursts of passion. I even began to think that madness ruled me at that very hour; that all I saw and heard was the coinage of a distempered brain.

At length I said, dejectedly, unknowing that I spoke aloud, "Then I must never marry; my children will become worse than myself. Farewell then----"

"Or rather," interrupted the cloaked stranger, "farewell to human marriages altogether, if those who marry must be free from madness. Why, 'tis the very sign they are so, their wishing to rivet fetters on themselves; but, no matter. What have I to do with all the freaks and frenzied institutions of such a set of driveling idiots?"

"Art thou not a man?"

"Thou shalt judge for thyself, thou insect of an hour!" and he unclasped his cloak, and stood erect before me. Coiled around him like a large boa-constrictor, reaching to his very throat,----But I sicken as I write! The remembrance of that moment, how shall it be effaced? Time deadens thousands of recollections, but has never weakened the impression made upon me at that appalling moment!

The immense mass that wound its lengthy fibres round him, like a cable of a ship, now became sensibly animated by life! I beheld it move, and writhe, and unfold itself! I heard its extremity drop upon the floor! I saw it extend itself, and creep along! More--more still descended; fewer coils were round him! He turned himself to facilitate its descent; and, when the enormous whole encircled him, still undulating on the ground, that being looked towards me with one of those smiles, that Satan might be supposed to use.

"Behold!" said he, pointing to the dark undulation on the floor, "_behold the reason why I wear a cloak!_"

Insensibility closed up my senses. I could behold no more. When I recovered, I was alone. The stranger had departed, leaving the door ajar; but he had written on a slip of paper, and placed it just before me, these words:

"The remedy I bestowed upon the father, for _his_ sake I will give unto the son. _Three notches of the devil's tail_ will perfectly restore you; but it must be cut off by the hand of _the purest person that you know on earth_. _It will grow again!!_"

* * * * *

I hastily caught up this paper on hearing the step of my attendant, and placed it in my bosom. I think he saw the action, for he looked mournfully on me, and shook his head. I told him I was ready to set off instantly for Rome: his simple answer was,

"I wish we had remained there!"

"And _why_, Hubert?"

"You are pale as a sheeted corpse, and the boards of the floor are _singed_, yet there has been no fire in the room!"

I looked where he pointed; and, in a serpentine form, I beheld the traces of that enormous tail I had seen fall from the body of the cloaked stranger, coiled round him as an immense serpent twines itself around a tree. I shuddered at the sight. I felt my brain working; yet I wrestled with the spirit of darkness within. I tried to persuade myself that I had been overtaken only by a dream; that my whole acquaintance with the pretended marquis was nothing but an illusion, a vision of the imagination, an optic delusion, an hallucination of an excited state of mind; but it would not do. There were the dark and calcined marks, which it was my duty to account for to my host, who cared very little how they were occasioned, so as he received an ample sum to have the boards removed, and others in their place.

Our accounts were soon arranged, and I returned to my anxious family; but my disorder was increasing hourly. The wildest imaginations haunted and perplexed me. My beloved mother looked at me with tears swimming in her eyes. My eldest sister strove, by a hundred stratagems, to dispel the gloom that arose amongst us all. Emily sat, absorbed in her own melancholy thoughts, a fellow-sufferer, I fancied, with myself. My lovely, innocent, affectionate cousin held my fevered hand in one of hers, and imploringly asked me to be tranquil; said she would sing to me if I would try to sleep. I felt the gentle charm, and gave myself up to it. I laid myself upon the sofa; and she, whose name I cannot utter, sitting on a low stool by my side, sought to soothe me with her voice.

THE SONG OF ----.

"Come from Heaven, soft balmy Sleep, Since thou art an angel there! Come, and watch around him keep-- Watch that I with thee will share.

Strew thy poppies o'er his head, Calm the fever of his mind; All thy healing virtues shed, That he may composure find!"

"Oh, God!" I cried, jumping up; "and must I never call this angel mine? Better to die at once, or lose all consciousness of what a wretch I am!"

"Hush, my dearest cousin! I have invoked an angel from the skies to visit you; drive her not away by ill-timed violence; here, let me hold your hand;" and she began again to murmur in a low tone,

"Strew thy poppies o'er his head, Calm the fever of his mind."

and so I fell asleep.

When I awoke, my gentle cousin, (more constant than my heavenly visitant, Sleep,) was still seated by my side; all the rest were gone; candles burned on the table--it was midnight; I had slept for hours, she yet retained my hand. I looked at her, and burst into tears.

"We are alone, Theodore," said my beloved; "tell me, I beseech you, what is labouring on your mind. You have spoken strange things during your sleep. You have declared that I had the power to restore you; can I do this? Theodore, be candid! Were it to cost my life, I would gladly lay it down to be of benefit to you."

I could not answer her; but I clasped my arms round that pure, angelic form, and wept like an infant on her bosom.

"Can I do you service, Theodore? You deny not what your lips murmured in sleep."

"You can restore my reason, for you are the purest person that I know on earth."

"By what means? But, alas! you are wandering still; this is one of your delusions! Would that it were in my power to heal thy mind, my dearest cousin."

"In this, my heart's treasure, I am at least perfectly sane. _You have the power to cure me._"

"Tell me the means."

I related to ---- the whole of my adventures at Naples. I hid nothing from her excepting that our children might be infected with the same disease. Many reasons prevented my naming this. She was too delicate for me to allude to such a circumstance; I was willing to run all hazards of my posterity inheriting so dreadful a disease. My father had done as I intended to do; and the remedy was as open to _my_ offspring as to myself, for had not the cloaked stranger told me that "the tail would grow again"? Even without such growth, had it not notches enough for a whole line of my posterity, supposing them all in want of such a restorative.

There was a pause of a full minute ere she spoke; her cheek was blanched, and her hand trembled in mine.

"Theodore, I know not what to think, whether from madness or from sanity comes your wondrous tale; but I will go through it, come what may. I will see this being; and, should he be indeed the author of all evil, out of evil shall come good, for I have courage, for your dear sake, to take from him the horrid remedy; but speak not of it, even to your mother or your sisters. Ah, poor Emily! she too may need such help! I will procure enough for her also."

Every thing was arranged. I was in that state that all I demanded was granted to me, for they feared to oppose my wishes. I entered the travelling carriage with my beautiful betrothed.

We had no attendants. We drove to the same hotel in which I had been before. We were shown into the same room; but the marks upon the floor were gone,--new boards were there. We ordered dinner _for three_; and I went out in search of the cloaked stranger.

It may seem strange that those who seek the devil, should seek in vain; but what is so perverse as the Origin of Evil?

Towards the close of day I however brought him in, as lofty, proud-looking, and handsome as ever; his features bore the stamp of angelic beauty; but, alas! the expression was--_the fallen angel_. He saluted with much politeness, nay, even kindness, my lovely friend; and we entered at once upon the business.

When he heard _who_ was to perform the operation, he absolutely turned pale, and made a thousand objections. Some other person might be found; but I, fool that I was! overruled them all, and insisted on it, that she was the purest person that I knew on earth.

He then endeavoured to intimidate her; but she was resolute, though her lip quivered. We had a long argument about it, and most subtle was his reasoning. Yet he seemed as if he had no power absolutely to refuse. Reluctantly he drew from a secret pocket in his cloak a small steel hatchet, with many figures inscribed upon it. She received it at his hands; but I observed a fixedness in her beautiful eyes, and a rigidity about her mouth, that I did not like; still she grasped the shining instrument, and hesitated not. But, when his cloak fell off, oh, what a look of horror did those dear eyes assume!

Slowly descended the voluminous appendage; its extreme end fell on the chair on which he had been sitting. She flew like lightning thither, raised the glittering tool, marked the precise spot, and severed at a blow "three notches of the devil's tail!"

"Take--take your remedy, dear Theodore!" she whispered, "for I cannot touch it."

I stooped, and took the severed quivering part, _but could not hold it for its heat_; so thrust it into my coat-pock; I then turned to congratulate my deliverer, _but she was a lifeless corpse at my feet_; and the stranger had vanished, I knew not and I cared not whither.

How often have I called on madness, or on death, to take from me the memory of her loss! Neither would come! I have had no return of my malady, but I have experienced anguish fourfold! The only benefit derived has been that my sister Emily has been totally cured by the specific that was so dearly purchased, for it proved efficacious in both cases.

Perchance it may prove useful for the future members of our family, should they be infected with this hereditary complaint; for myself, I shall never need it for my offspring, my affections are buried in the grave; but I have bequeathed it to my beloved sisters--with my hopes, more than my belief, that it may prove effective,--"the _three notches of the devil's tail_!"

TRANSLATION FROM UHLAND.

THE SERENADE.

What soft low strains are these I hear That come my dreams between? Oh! mother, look! who may it be That plays so late at e'en?

"I hear no sound, I see no form; Oh! rest in slumber mild: They'll bring no music to thee now, My poor, my sickly child!"

It is not music of the earth That makes my heart so light; The angels call me with their songs, Oh! mother dear, good night!

THE PORTRAIT GALLERY.--No. III.

My friend was proceeding to relate many curious anecdotes of SIR RUBY RATBOROUGH, when a row of several portraits of persons I had seen abroad struck me. The librarian informed me that they were those of the Cannon family, who had long resided on the Continent; and I immediately recognised a most eccentric set of people, met so often, and at various places, with such a rapidity of locomotion, that many fancied they were gifted with ubiquity. The portraits, my conductor informed me, were taken at Florence; and their history might serve as a hint to artists. The painter had, unfortunately, commenced with the handsomest of the girls; and, having somewhat flattered the likeness, of course the family were delighted with his performance: but, when the older and the uglier Cannons came to sit, no flattery could render their portraits tolerable to them. The consequence was, that they were considered as bad resemblances, and left on the painter's hand; the more favoured young ones, of course, not being allowed by their indignant elders to take theirs away. I had heard so much of this family that I requested my friend to postpone our review of the political character, to give me some account of these wandering emigrants; and he gratified my curiosity by putting into my hands the following MS. containing a sketch of their adventures at home and abroad, drawn out by Quintilian Quaint.

THE CANNON FAMILY.

Who has not seen the Cannons in their Continental excursions? or, to use Mrs. Cannon's malapropic expression, their _incontinental_ tours? Whoever has strolled, or lounged, or lurked in a French _promenade_, a Spanish _alameda_, or an Italian _corso_, has fallen upon some branch of the family; nay, more properly, on two or three of them; for, if a body perchance hits upon one individual of that numerous race, he is sure to be rebounded on a brother or a sister, illustrating their name by making what is called a _canon_ in billiard-room parlance.

So very _répandu_ is this moving train of curious ordnance, and the young ladies have been so walked about, and stalked about, and dragged about in pick-nicks, _déjeuners champêtres_, gipsy-parties, marooning-parties, through woods and forests, hills and dales, brushwood and underwood, that the witty Lady A---- called them _the field-pieces_.

What took this family from their delightful box at Muckford, in Shropshire, to visit France, and Italy, and Germany; to paddle in the Seine, dabble in the Arno, and stroll with the rabble along the Rhine? Surely it must have been love of the fine arts, or the cultivation of foreign tongues, with the ladies; or pursuits of political economy, statistics, or the study of men and manners, with the gentlemen. Not in the least degree. The only paintings the fair part of the family admired were their own lovely faces. All foreign tongues were as foreign to them as Sanscrit. The only pursuit of polity that occupied Messrs. Cannons', senior and juniors, was where to find cheap wines and parsimonious amusements; their statistics, a census of the geese and turkeys, turbots and mullets, brought to market; and their study of the "varying shore o' the world" was, congregating with their countrymen, who, like themselves, disported their nonentity in gambling-houses and _restaurans_.

What was it then that induced the Cannons to quit their delightful box in Shropshire? Simply because Lord Wittington and his family had purchased the estate of Myrtle-Grove, near unto Wick-Hall,--the name given by Mr. Cannon to his aforesaid delightful box. Now the motives that induced Mr. Commodus Cannon to bestow upon this box the euphonious appellation of _Wick-Hall_, arose from a natural association of ideas and a proper sense of gratitude; for, be it known, that Mr. Commodus Cannon had once been a tallow-chandler of great renown in the ward of Candlewick, in which business he had realised a large fortune; therefore, without much perplexity of the various ramifications of the brain, its circumvolutions and ventricles, it may be conjectured why his rural residence was denominated, despite all the arguments of the ladies, _Wick-Hall_.

The next question that arose in the curious and impertinent minds of those who must know the causation of all causes, was, how did it come to pass that the arrival of the Earl of Wittington at Myrtle-Grove should have induced, in a manner direct or indirect, the family of an ex-tallow-chandler to migrate from a comfortable residence; to have left Muckford and their Penates, their well-trimmed lawns, their well-stocked gardens, their orchards and their paddocks, their dairy, and their brew-house, and their wash-house, and their ice-house, and their hot-house, their cosey fire-side and their snug bed-rooms, to wander about the world, and dwell in cold and dreary, or in broiling and stewing lodgings; drink sour _ordinaire_ wine instead of port, sherry, gooseberry, and nut-brown October; be cheated and laughed at by foreign servants, instead of being attended by worthy, homely, and honest domestics; and become the ridicule of strangers, instead of being respected and liked by their neighbours? How did it come to pass that the Earl of Wittington's arrival should have driven the Cannons away from their Eden? The reader who cannot guess it at once,--who gives it up, like a hard riddle or a puzzling conundrum,--must be stultified, unread, unsophisticated, never have subscribed to a circulating library. However, as dulness of intellect is more a misfortune than a fault, we shall kindly condescend to inform him.

Myrtle-Grove had long been untenanted. Mr. Cannon was the wealthiest resident in or near the village; therefore was _Wick-Hall_ called "the squire's mansion." Now, stupid, do you take?

Everybody has read Joe Miller. Now it may be recollected that, in that valuable vade-mecum of _very delightful_ and _charming fellows_, there is recorded the strange vanity of an ugly scholar in the College of Navarre, who maintained most strenuously and syllogistically,--nay, would have met any modern Crichton with a thesis on the subject to show and prove, that he was the greatest man in the world; and he argued that Europe being the finest part of the creation, France the most delightful country in Europe, Paris the most splendid city in France, the College of Navarre the most enlightened and precious establishment in Paris, his room unquestionably the best chamber in the college, and he most undoubtedly the greatest ornament in his room, _ergo_, he was the greatest man in the world.

In the same train of ratiocination did the Cannons come to the conclusion that they were the magnates, the top-sawyers, the leaders of fashion of the village of Muckford. They patronised the Rev. Mr. Muzzle, the curate, whose meek back was suited to the burthen of a wife and eight little ones on fifty pounds a year; Mr. Hiccup, M.R.C.S., who, to the duties of his profession in the attendance of man and beast, added the pursuits of rat and mole-catcher, perfumer, stationer, and tobacconist; and Mr. Sniffnettle, the attorney, solicitor, conveyancer, proctor, appraiser, auctioneer, poet-laureat and parish-clerk. A _hop_ at Wick-Hall was anticipated with as much delight by all the young and old ladies as the opening of Almacks; a game at loo or twopenny long-whist offered all the attractions of Crockford's; and the Sunday visits after church were as distinguished for figure and fashion as a St. James's drawing-room on a birth-day.

This high patrician stand in society unfortunately made the Cannons proud,--some say haughty, supercilious, and arrogant. It might have been so; such is the nature of frail mortality, for, alas!

"Pride has no other glass To show itself but pride; for supple knees Feed arrogance!"

and Mr. Muzzle, and Dr. Hiccup, and Mr. Sniffnettle, had their _vertebræ_ and their articulations so greased, and oiled, and anti-attritioned, that they would bob, and bend, and curl, and coil like a tom-cat's tail, whenever they visited the mansion.

And strange dreams, and visions, and fantasies would be brewing in the brains of Mr. Cannon, both when sleeping and awake. He was wealthy; the Cannons had a dragon rampant for their crest, and _Crepo_ for their motto,--a motto that was traced to the discovery of a bronze figure of the Egyptian god Crepitus in the tomb of one of his noble ancestors. To this proud circumstance the family also owed the Christian-name of "Commodus," which the elder Cannon always bore,--Commodus being of Gallic origin. Sometimes Mr. Commodus Cannon thought that he might purchase a peerage by paying some damages incurred by indiscreet influential personages; sometimes he fancied that he might be created a baronet upon a mortgage, or a marriage of one of the Miss Cannons to some broken-down nobleman.

But, alas! how transient are the visions of glory! of worldly greatness! Greatness--that gaudy torment of our soul!

"The wise man's fetter, and the rage of fools!"

Lord Wittington arrived, and the Countess of Wittington, and the Ladies Desdemona Catson, and Arabella Catson, and Celestina Catson, and Euripida Catson, and the Hon. Tom Catson, and the Hon. Brindle Catson, with their aunt, Lady Tabby Catson; and all Muckford was in a state of commotion, of effervescence, of ebullition, boiling over with hope and fear. A comet wagging its tail over their steeple,--an eclipse, which would have set all the Muckfordians smoking bits of glass, and picking up fragments of broken bottles for astronomical observations,--could not have occasioned such a stir as the arrival of four travelling carriages, with dickeys and rumbles crowded with ladies' women, and gentlemen's gentlemen, rattling away with four post-horses to Myrtle-Grove.

And now were speculations busily at work. The minds of Mahomet and Confucius, of Galileo and Copernicus, of Locke and Bacon, were idle when compared to the brains of the Muckfordians. What was the point in question? Was it the increase of business and of profit that would accrue from the consumption of these wealthy visitors?--No. Was it the advantages that might be derived from their parliamentary connexions and ministerial interest?--No. Was it the hopes that their residence might induce other rich families to inhabit the neighbourhood?--No--no--no! If the reader cannot guess, he must have lived at the antipodes, or in a desert, or never lived _in life_. The question was, "I wonder if his lordship and her ladyship will visit Wick-Hall?" No treaty of alliance, of commerce, of peace--no protocol that ever issued from the most perfect cerebral organ in Downing-street--was ever weighed with more momentous disquietude than this question, "I wonder if his lordship and her ladyship will visit Wick-Hall?"

"I should think not," observed Mrs. Curate Muzzle; "the Wittingtons are great folks, and the Cannons were chandlers!"

"Tallow-chandlers, my dear madam," remarked Mrs. Doctor Hiccup.

"Had they even been wax-chandlers," added Mrs. Sniffnettle.

"Or corn-chandlers," replied Mrs. Hiccup.

"But a tallow-chandler," exclaimed Mr. Sniffnettle, who, as we have seen, was the laureat of Muckford, "as Gay says,

'Whether black, or lighter dies are worn, The chandler's basket, on his shoulders borne, With tallow spots thy coat.'"

This appropriate quotation not only drew forth a loud laugh of approbation, but illumined the minds of the party as brightly as two pounds of fours might have enlightened Mr. Hiccup's back-shop parlour on a long-whist and welsh-rabbit night.

"I'm sure I wish them no harm," remarked Mrs. Muzzle, with a benevolent smile; "but pride is a sad failing, which deserves to be brought down."

"Oh, the deuce mend them!" rejoined Mrs. Sniffnettle; "if they're brought to their proper bearings a peg or two."

"Because they had a little dirty cash--the Lord knows how they made it!--they were as pert as a pear-monger's horse!" exclaimed Mr. Hiccup.

"Pride comes first, shame comes after," added Mr. Sniffnettle.

"The priest forgets that he was a clerk," professionally observed Mrs. Muzzle.

"I could put up with pride, now," said Mr. Hiccup, "from the Wittingtons."

"Ay!" replied the poet, quoting Byron,

'The vile are only vain, the great are proud.'"

"Exactly!" observed Mrs. Hiccup, who, like most persons doting upon poesy, did not understand what she most admired.

Is it not strange that none of these ladies or gentlemen ever said "I wonder if _we_ shall be invited to Myrtle-Grove?"

Whoever expected or fancied that on such an occasion such a thought could have entered any well-disposed and educated mind must be an ass. Who cares, if they are at the foot of the ladder, if those who are climbing up are properly rolled down? There is no need of crying "Heads below!" the grovellers will all get out of the way, and let the tumblers roll in the mire to their hearts' content. I mean the hearts' content of the lookers-on.

Now, while this most important point was discussed by the chief authorities of Muckford, a question of still greater importance was agitated at Wick-Hall.

"I wonder if we ought to call first upon the Wittingtons, or wait until they call upon us?" said Mrs. Cannon, after dinner.

Mr. Commodus Cannon halted a glassful of port that was marching towards his mouth, and kept it suspended in air like Mahomet's tomb.

Miss Molly Cannon delayed the cracking of a nut she had just introduced between two ivory grinders.

Miss Biddy Cannon kept her hand under a roasted chestnut napkin, unconscious of its temperature, without withdrawing it.

Miss Lucy Cannon cut into an orange she was carefully peeling with a steel knife; a circumstance that would have produced a galvanic thrill under other circumstances.

Miss Kitty Cannon filled a bumper of cherry brandy instead of "just the least drop in the world."

Mr. Cannon, junior, drove a toothpick in his gums instead of his teeth.

George Cannon started, and trod on the cat's tail.

Cornelius Cannon (commonly called Colcannon, having had an Irish godfather,) made a horrible mistake, by drinking out of his finger-glass instead of his tumbler.

Peter Cannon used his damask napkin instead of a pocket-handkerchief; and Oliver Cannon, who had been lolling and rocking his chair, rolled off his centre of gravity.

A dead silence followed the important question. The ghost of Chesterfield ought in mercy to have burst from his cerements to have answered it. Mr. Cannon first ventured to give an opinion--a judicious opinion.

"Why, as to the matter of that," he said, scratching his brown wig,--which was, by-the-bye, an action which might have been called manual tautology, since it was a scratch already,--"as to the matter of that, it is clear that, if we are to be acquainted with his lordship, they must call upon us, or we must call upon them."

Now, it is a matter worthy of consideration, that, in difficult and knotty points, perspicuity of language seldom or ever elucidates the business. Nothing could be more clear, more lucid, nay, more pellucid, than Mr. Commodus Cannon's remark,--more self-evident, more conclusive,--yet it only tended to make darkness visible. Mrs. Cannon, who possessed greater powers of eloquence, was therefore imperiously called upon for a rejoinder.

"If you could think, Mr. Cannon, of waiting until my Lord What-do-you-call-him thinks proper to _honour_ us with a call, you are a mean-spirited, petty-minded fellow. I'd have you to know we are every inch as good as they are."

"To be sure we are!" replied all the Cannons in one simultaneous and spontaneous roar, one well-fired volley of approbation without a straggling shot,--all but Mr. Cannon senior, who remained as still as a target.

"We owe nothing to nobody," added the speaker; "and can hold up our heads as high as anybody that ever wore one."

This reloaded the Cannons, and another fire of coincidence was let off.

"If your nobility give themselves airs with us, let me tell you, Mr. Cannon, just look at your crest and your motto, and show them that you can let fly at them hollow."

All applauded except Mr. Cornelius Cannon, who was a good Latin scholar.

"For my part I wouldn't give a brass farthing--no, that's what I wouldn't--to know them, as it's ten to one they will be shortly wanting to borrow money from us; but, as we are neighbours, and we are longer resident at Muckford, it's our business to leave our cards with them, more especially as there's no _quality_ whatever in this here neighbourhood but ourselves."

There was no necessity of putting this proposition to the vote; it was carried by _nem. diss._ acclamations, and the visit fixed upon that day week.

Now, strange to say, by one of those singular anomalies in the human mind that puzzle metaphysicians, psychologists, materialists, and immaterialists, although this acquaintance with the family of Myrtle-Grove was not, to use Mrs. Cannon's expression, "worth a brass farthing," everything in the house, from the furniture to the young ladies, was turned topsy-turvy for a week. There was nothing but dusting, and polishing, and furbishing, and scrubbing, and rubbing, and bees'-waxing, and varnishing, and tweezing, and plucking, and puffing, and blowing at all ends; and swearing, and cursing, and shouting from the top of the stairs to come up, and bellowing from the foot of the stairs to come down; and souls, and eyes, and blood, and bones were sent the Lord knows where by the impatient gentlemen, while the ladies, who were too well bred to pronounce the vulgar name of the infernal regions, only wished every servant in the house a visit to the monarch of that grilling kingdom every hour of the day; and every horse, and every ass, nay, the very colts and fillies, shod and unshod, broken or unbroken, were sent to and fro from Wick-Hall to the neighbouring town, like buckets up and down a well, for silks, and ribands, and bobbins, and laces, and caps, and bonnets, and feathers, furs, and furbelows, and rouge-pots, and cold cream, and antique oil, and pomatum, and washes, and lotions, Circassian and Georgian, that were ever employed since the days of Jezebel to scrub out freckles and wrinkles, fill up pits and creases, pucker relaxed fibres and relax puckerings, eradicate warts, pimples, blossoms, excrescences, efflorescences, and effluences; with collyria for red eyes, and ointments for crusty eye-lids, liniments for gummy ankles, with odoriferous and balsamic tooth-powders, and gargles; with stores of swan and goose down for gigots, and rear-admirals, and polissons, and bussels; not to mention the means of throwing out various forms that distinguish the _beau idéal_ of the undulating line from the rigid severity of the straight line and the acute angle; while all the wigs, tops, toupets, fronts, tresses, plaits, curls, ringlets, black, brown, auburn, fair, and foxy, were put into requisition.

It was not only physical brushing up that was resorted to; the mind received a proper frizzing; and Debrett's Peerage and Joe Miller, the Racing-calendar and the Court-guide, were studied during every leisure moment; while all the scandal-registering Sunday papers were devoured with avidity.

Various were the accidents that arose in this confusion. Biddy Cannon broke a blood-vessel in straining her voice to D alt. in practising a fashionable Italian song. A pet cat of the same (who had been trodden on by George Cannon) was well nigh scalded to death by the overboiling of a pipkin of oil of cucumber for Lucy Cannon's sunburns; and Kitty Cannon caught a desperate sore-throat in trying to catch a hint of a fashionable walking-dress one rainy morning that the Ladies Catsons were riding out, peeping at them under a heavy shower from behind a holly hedge. Poor Kitty Cannon was in a most piteous plight from having made a trifling mistake in the use of some medicines sent her by Mr. Hiccup; for, in a very great hurry to try on an invisible corset, she rubbed her throat with some palma Christi oil, and swallowed a hartshorn liniment that had been intended for external use. In her burning agonies she of course kept the whole house in hot water, for everybody was so busy that nobody could attend upon the poor sufferer; who, unable to call out, and having torn up her bell by the roots, was only able to attract attention to her wants by throwing every thing she could lay hands on about the room, more especially water-jugs, basins, physic bottles, and every vessel within her reach. Mrs. Cannon swore she was an unnatural child; and her sisters accused her of being ill-natured and jealous when she disturbed them in their important occupations. In short, the Tower of Babel, or the Commons on an Irish question, were nothing to Wick-Hall, in-doors and out-of-doors, where the young Cannons were grooming, and docking, and trimming, and figging their horses.

Mr. Commodus Cannon was the wisest of the party; he smoked his pipe, muddled over a bowl of punch, and only ordered his scratch wig to be _curled tight_, with the not unfrequent vulgar wish that the whole family might be _blown_ to the same exiguous dimensions. He was ambitious, but he did not like to be _bothered_ with any schemes but his own.

The day, the great day, big with the fate of the Cannons, was drawing nigh, and impatiently looked for, as a circumstance had taken place which gave the Wick-Hall family much to think of and inwardly digest.

Lady Tabby Catson, his lordship's aunt, was subject to night-mare and sleep-walking when in bed, and liable to fearful hysterics when out of it. Her case was altogether most distressing, since, according to her account, she could not lie on either side, was in agony when on her back, and distracted in any other position. A physician was called in, but, as he could only pay occasional visits, Mr. Hiccup was in constant attendance; and as the Ladies Catsons were well supplied with novels, and were of a most amiable disposition, Hiccup carried various new publications to his daughters, who immediately ran to show them to the Miss Cannons, calling the ladies by their Christian names with singular impertinence,--such a book having been lent by the beautiful Lady Arabella,--such a review by the lovely Lady Celestina. Moreover, Lady Tabby Catson, during the intermissions of her ailments, had fits of devotion that took her like stitches in the side, when Mr. Muzzle was instantly sent for in one of the carriages. Thus were the curate and the surgeon in constant attendance, and many little acts of kindness shown to them by the family, such as presents of fruits and flowers, all of which passed under the windows of Wick-Hall like the fearful regal apparitions to Macbeth; and, what was still more offensive, the favoured families, even the attorney, Sniffnettle, began to grow rigid in their vertebræ though in the heat of summer, walking past the Cannons with a mere nod of recognition, and preserving an insulting perpendicularity.

There was no time to lose in recovering their lost ground, and the day for commencing a campaign that would terminate in the utter discomfiture of these vulgar intruders was fast approaching. But, alas for human and mortal hopes! one hour,--nay, one half-hour,--one quarter,--the time of reading a letter on foolscap paper, on letter paper, on note paper, only a few lines written in an intelligible unauthor-like hand, that required neither time nor spectacles, a hand that could be read running,--and all the airy fabric of the Cannons' visions was dissolved.

It was on a Friday morning, the day previous to the intended visit,--one of those unlucky days in the calendar of human disappointments, the fifth day of the month, which, according to Hesiod, is inevitably calamitous; a day that gave birth to Pluto and the Eumenides; a day when the earth brought forth the monster Typhon, and those vile giants who dared the Father of the gods,--on this day did Mr. Commodus Cannon draw on his stockings the wrong side, the eldest Miss Cannon--I know not why or wherefore--took a morning walk among the nettles, and her sister Biddy spilled salt at breakfast, forgetting to propitiate the angry heavens by casting some over her left shoulder. A thundering rap at the hall-door made the whole family jump, start, and stare. A footman in the Wittington livery was at the door! he delivered a letter! Oh! how all the young hearts did beat and leap! and how the old fount of circulation of Mrs. Cannon did palpitate, as in days of yore! Scarcely had the door been closed, when the whole family, with the exception of Mr. Cannon, who was buttering toast, rushed like a torrent, or a cataract, or any thing else you like, to secure the missive, anxious as they were to ascertain its contents. Much time was lost in scrambling for possession of the letter, snatched alternately from hand to hand without any regard to filial duty or the rights of primogeniture. At last the letter, be-buttered, be-honeyed, be-marmaladed, and be-egged, fell into the possession of Miss Cannon. But oh! horror! instead of the broad armorial seal of the noble earl, the note was wafered!--ay, gentle reader, wafered!--moreover, the wafer, still damp, had been broken, and bent, and divided, exhibiting evident marks of having been moistened by an abundant secretion of the salivary glands! Oh, fie, my Lord W.!

Philosophers and naturalists tell us there is a method in roasting eggs; now there is a method in closing letters, which has lately been adopted by a nobleman whom I have the honour to know, which may be considered a wrinkle in politeness. To his superiors, such as emperors, kings, popes, and newspaper editors, his lordship writes on coloured, perfumed, ornamented, and gilt-edged satin paper, and he closes his epistle with his armorials, six of which usually consume a stick of odoriferous wax. To his equals, though they are but few, he writes on paper somewhat inferior, with a smaller seal. To his titled inferiors, plain note paper, with a crest and motto. To his untitled correspondents, half a sheet of letter paper (it must be cut in an uneven and ragged manner), with a fancy seal, that his noble blazon may not be polluted by vulgar eyes. To people in business, cits, snobs, a wafer--but still a wafer--gently dipped in water. But to solicitors, postulants, petitioners, and humble applicants, he actually spits in their faces in the same manner as the Earl of Wittington spat in the crimson phiz of all the Cannons. But the offence did not rest there. MR. CANNON was on the superscription! ay, a plain MR.! a _Mr._ that could only be washed out in blood! a _Mr._ that would even make a respectable tailor jump from his shopboard, and grasp his goose with proper indignation.

"Lord Wittington, wishing to become the purchaser of Mr. Cannon's paddock under Breakneck-Cliff, part of his domain, is willing to treat with him, and will direct his steward to call upon him. His lordship has been led to understand that Mr. Cannon's young men have been in the practice of shooting on his grounds; now his lordship wishes it to be distinctly understood that his keepers have received instructions to proceed with all the severity of the laws against trespassers."

Mrs. Cannon of course fell into fits; Commodus Cannon cast his scratch _jasey_ into the fire; some of the young ladies rushed out of the room; others, in whom no rush had been left, drooped in or on various supporting parts of the furniture. The _young men_, as his lordship had dared to call Mr. Cannon's promising and amiable sons, bore the insult with all the calm dignity of men wantonly offended; they only bit their lips, turned pale and red, clenched their fists, and paced about the room at the rate of fourteen miles per hour, while the words "young men" were muttered and murmured in deadly indignation.

"I'll be d----d if the fellow ever gets my paddock! sooner see him, and all his seed, breed, and generation, tumbling off Breakneck-Cliff!"

The allocution of Leonidas to his Spartan heroes at the Thermopylæ could not have been more spirit-stirring than this short and pithy speech of Commodus Cannon; even Mrs. Cannon, forgetting, in a moment of just indignation, that female discretion that ought to characterise a lady's language, could not help supporting the vote by an amendment, exclaiming, "Ay, and doubly d----d too!"

"And, moreover," added Mr. Cannon, "I'll be blown if I don't stick my paddock chokefull of buck-wheat, and not leave the fellow a pheasant or a partridge,--that's what I will!"

It is difficult to say what dire plans of destruction and desolation might not have been suggested in the family council, had not another rap at the door, louder, if possible, and more authoritative than the footman's, interrupted the discussion. All and every one ran to the windows. Mr. Carrydot, Lord Wittington's steward, was at the entrance of Wick-Hall, and desired a private interview with Mr. Cannon.

Mrs. Cannon reluctantly swept out of the room, followed by all the young ladies and the _young men_.

Mr. Carrydot was a smart, dapper, little man, with a bald head, ferret eyes, aquiline nose tipped with purple, and with a prying countenance that would have picked out flaws in Magna Charta or the Bill of Rights. His costume sable; but coat, waistcoat, and unavoidables to match, were all of a different black, more or less rusty and shining; his coat-sleeves, or rather cuffs, were short, and allowed his duty wristbands to be seen puckered up above his hairy and meagre hands, and bony, long, crooked fingers, with hooked nails in half mourning. How comes it that the coat-sleeves of certain petty attorneys and apothecaries are generally too short, save and excepting when they have donned their Sabbath and visiting raiment? It surely must arise from the usual practice of extending the arms beyond the limits of their restrictions whenever a body is going to perform some dirty business, possibly and probably that the said dirty business may not stain the cloth they wear, since a cloth may be respectable although the wearer may be as spotted as a panther. Mr. Carrydot walked, or rather stalked in; and, without a bow or a preamble, seated himself, without being asked to take a seat.

Cannon looked an encyclopedia of indignation.

"His lordship has directed me to call upon you, Mr. Cannon, regarding the approaching county election. You can command several votes, sir?"

"Of course, sir," replied Mr. Cannon, with a proper emphasis and conciseness.

"You are aware, sir, that his lordship intends to put up Mr. Elfin Eelback, of Stoop-Lodge?"

"Well, sir! what's that to me? What do I care for his lordship's candidate?"

Bravo, Cannon! Mrs. Cannon would have inflicted a kiss had she been present.

Mr. Carrydot's eyes glared with indignation, and beamed with _ousters_ and _ejectments_, as he repeated the words, "What's that to you, sir!"

"Ay!" replied Cannon, giving the table a liberal thump. "What the devil is it to me?"

"Why, his lordship desires that you will vote for Mr. Eelback."

"Then tell his lordship that I'd sooner see Mr. Eelback skinned alive!"

Cannon was furious. Carrydot was calm, nay, he smiled; for the fury of Cannon spoke volumes of prospective _foreclosures_, and _distresses_, and _rescous_, and _replevin_, and _denial_; more especially as Cannon seemed to be a _good man_, with a silver urn and tea-pot on the table, and every appearance of wealth and independence about the goods and chattels on the premises. "You seem to forget, sir," he quietly replied, "that you only hold Wick-Hall upon a lease, and that your interest in the lease expires next Michaelmas."

This was a thunderbolt to Cannon, who had laid out upwards of three thousand pounds on Wick-Hall.

"What, sir, if I refuse to vote for this Eelback?"

"You must turn out, sir, _nolens volens_; so sayeth the law!"

"But justice, sir?"

"So sayeth the law. Every man has a right to do what he likes with his own, Mr. Cannon."

"What! whatever my political opinions may be?"

"You must poll for his lordship's candidate."

"This is infamous, oppressive, tyrannical!"

"Perhaps you may think so. Your politics, as you say, may differ from those of his lordship, but his lordship must be in the right. _Primò_, he is lord of the manor; _secundò_, his property in the county is very considerable; and, _ergo_, he has a better right to know what is good for the people than a mere tenant."

"But, sir, he has no right--"

"Once more, sir, every one has a right to do what he likes with his own."

"Then, let me tell you, sir," replied Mr. Cannon, in a paroxysm of rage, "that there cudgel is my own, and suppose I knocked you down with it? This here foot is my own, and suppose I kicked you out of my house, Mr. Thingembob?"

"In that case," replied Carrydot, with a tranquillity which would have made Job himself smash all his crockery,--"In that case, sir, if you made use of that _there_ cudgel, as you call it, the law would soon make you _cut your stick_; and if you did make the aforesaid use of that _there_ foot, unless you took _leg-bail_, you should pay dearly for the experiment."

So saying, Mr. Carrydot took an enormous pinch of snuff, clapped on his broad beaver with forensic dignity, pulled up his coat-sleeves still higher with a twisting thrust of the hand, ready for anything--as the Irish say--from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter, and bidding Cannon, in a vulgar language unbecoming a solicitor, to prepare "to tip his rags a gallop by roast-goose time," which in the dignified metaphorical phraseology of the bar meaneth Michaelmas, he left Commodus Cannon to his deep reflections.

He was roused from this apathetic state by the entrance of Mrs. Cannon. "Well, sir?" said she, in an anxious tone. "Well, sir?"

"Mrs. Cannon, I regret it, but we _must_ have a revolution in this here slavish, this here degraded country!"

"Lord-a-mercy! what has happened?" replied his affrighted lady.

"It is not what has happened, madam," replied the regenerated free-born Briton; "it is what shall happen. By gums!--(he was already beginning to be somewhat puritanical and sanctified; the day before, nay, a few moments previous to Carrydot's entrance, he would have sworn by G--, like any duke or marquis,)--by gums! this here proud big-wig aristocracy must be brought down; nothing can save poor England but the abolition of this insolent peerage, these hereditary law-makers from father to son. I say, no peers! no bishops! no lords! a yearly parliament! universal sufferance!--(it is presumed he meant suffrage,)--vote by ballot! Throw up your pew, Mrs. Cannon! kick the tax-gatherer down stairs! I'll kick the fat gold-laced beadle myself! and tell Parson Muzzle that he's a humbug and a leech!"

Mrs. Cannon, and all the Cannons, great-guns and small-arms, were terrified, and fancied the worthy man was out of his senses. She proposed to send for Mr. Hiccup.

"Hiccup be d--d! Do you think, woman, that Hiccup would condescend to come to you and me were we kicking in fits, dying with the pip, or had swallowed a mutton-chop the wrong way? Hiccup is with his lordship, with the Most noble, the Right honourable the Earl of Wittington, the Right honourable the Lady Tabby Catson! If their noble fingers ached, 'twould be in the Gazette, so it would. If they got a surfeit from cramming turtle down their noble throats, it would be in the papers! Hiccup! the rascal! the Tory pill-gilder! wouldn't give a commoner, an independent citizen, or an honest pauper, second-hand physic if a lord wanted him! No, not to save a fellow Christian's life!"

All this was inexplicable to the open-mouthed and alarmed family, when a sudden burst of tears followed this violent paroxysm; and the Cannon circle, drawing round their chief with becoming uneasiness, were soon made _au fait_ to the full extent of the fresh indignities offered their name and fame.

What was to be done? To remain at Wick-Hall after such an insult would have been the height of degradation; to keep possession of it at the expense of conscience by voting for Mr. Eelback, an abnegation of a freeman's independence. All was doubt; and the thoughts of the Cannon family were, to use the words of Otway,

"Like birds, that, frighted from their rest, Around the place where all was hush'd before, Flutter, and hardly flutter, and hardly settle anywhere,"

when another nerve-upsetting rapping at the hall once more interrupted the busy circle. Mr. and Mrs. Grits were announced.

"Who is Mr. Grits?" exclaimed Mrs. Cannon.

The question was answered by Mrs. Grits in person; and in her, to her utter horror, Mrs. Cannon recognised the daughter of Mr. Suet, a carcase butcher, who had lived near them when Mr. C. was in the tallow line.

To see her at Muckford appeared to Mrs. Cannon as wonderful as though she had beheld the spirits of all the bullocks Mr. Suet had ever slaughtered scampering about Smithfield. The ex-Miss Suet explained matters. She had married Mr. Grits, a grocer, who had failed thrice, once a bankrupt, and twice an insolvent, by which means he had realised a tolerable independence; yet, for appearance sake, he preferred improving his condition with the means of others, and had travelled abroad as a _maître d'hôtel_, with the Wittingtons.

At another time,--nay, a few hours before their visit,--the Grits would not have been received; now, in the distressed state of the family, they were welcomed with cordiality.

But the mind sickens at the object of their visit,--to advise Mr. Cannon to accede to his lordship's proposals, and not irritate a powerful enemy by an idle show of independence!!--But to think of a reconciliation brought about by a butcher's daughter and a butler!--No, no, thrice no;--the breach was immeasurably widened. Mr. Cannon stuttered and stammered all the insults that had been heaped upon him. Mrs. Grits plainly saw that no pacification could be expected; and, although she expressed the utmost regret, she was inwardly delighted, as it did not exactly suit her views that she should be known to be a butcher's daughter. She, therefore, seizing both Mrs. Cannon's trembling hands in the kindest manner, attempted to console and advise her.

"I can readily imagine, my dear friend, how much this overbearing conduct of my lord should have annoyed you. Oh! he is as proud as Lucifer when he goes to open his parliament! It is such men, my dear, that make me abhor this horrible England."

"Ay, horrible England!" repeated Mr. Cannon with ferocity.

"I have lived too long in that dear delicious France, that _belle France_, to exist, or rather vegetate, in this abominable country."

This word, "_France_," acted like a magic spell; it seemed a password, a _Shibboleth_, an _open sesame_ to regions of delight.

"Ay, France is the country! only ask Mr. Grits."

"Oh, there's nothing like it!" responded Mr. Grits, a jolly red-faced fellow, with an enormous abdomen, rendered more _salient_ by a flapped white waistcoat.

"And such society, oh! such an opening for young people, oh! No one asks who and what you are, only have the caraways! Lord bless me! there was Mrs. Triplet, the pawnbroker of Islington's wife, married her daughter Peg to a French count; and Mr. Rumstuff, the tailor in the Minories, married his daughter to a general,--ay, a real general; and then, such living, and such society, and such amusements! _Gardes du corps_ with such nice moustaches, and _pâtés de truffes_, and _omelettes soufflées_, and _bals champêtres_ at Tivoli, and _glasses_ at Tortoni's, and _poulets à la crapaudine_, and _salmis de lièvre_, and then, the masked-balls at the opera, oh! and _des œufs à la neige_, and _des œufs au miroir_! How many ways have the French of cooking eggs, Mr. G.?"

"Three hundred and forty-three, Mrs. G."

"Only think of that! I make Mr. G. live upon eggs _à la coque_, _à la tripe_. And then meat at fourpence per pound!"

"Fivepence halfpenny for prime joints, if you please, Mrs. G." added Mr. G.

"And such poultry! such capons! You have no capons in England, my dear. Bless us, they don't know what's what! and so many delicious ways of cooking them, _chapon à la barbare_, _chapon à la Veluti_, _chapon au parfait amour_; and then, the Hussars, and the Lancers, and the horse and foot dragoons. Oh! women there may do whatever they like! and girls may string lovers like a _brochette of ortolans_!"

In short, Mrs. Grits gave such a flattering account of France, its pleasures, its cookery, and its economy, that it was decided that to France the family should go. Mr. Cannon said he was too old to learn to _parlez-vous_, but the ladies procured grammars and dictionaries, to brush up their boarding-school education; and in ten days the whole family were packed up in three travelling carriages, and set out for Dover; their only domestics, Sam Surly, a Yorkshire coachman, and Sukey Simper, a Kentish maid, whom we shall again find on the road.

Such is the ingratitude of mankind that all Muckford was delighted with their departure. "_Hurrah! All the Cannons are gone off!_" exclaimed Mr. Sniffnettle.

Lady Tabby Catson died soon after, leaving a handsome legacy to Mr. Hiccup, the surgeon. Muzzle got a living, and resided at Wick-Hall, the name of which he changed into _Cushion-Lodge_, alluding, no doubt, to the _otium_ he enjoyed. Sniffnettle was made under-steward of Lord Wittington's estate; and Mr. Grits opened an inn at the sign of the _Mitre_, opposite _Cushion-Lodge_, and, as the Rev. Mr. Muzzle had been appointed tutor to the youngest of the honourable Catsons, whenever he saw the sign bearing the episcopal diadem swinging in the wind, despite all humility, a warrantable ambition would often lead him to an association of ideas in which a crosier acted as a favourite crotchet; nay, in his sleep sometimes Queen Mab would tickle his nose until he dreamt of bishopricks, _congés d'élire_, and visitation dinners, and then he would suddenly awake and terrify Mrs. Muzzle, roaring out "NOLO EPISCOPARI!"

A CHAPTER ON LAUGHING.

"And Laughter holding both his sides."--MILTON.

If you were to ask a learned physician to explain to you the peculiar sensation termed laughter, it is more than likely he would astonish you with an amazing profundity of erudition, ending in the sage conclusion that he knows nothing more about the matter than that it is a very natural emotion of the senses, generally originating with a good joke, and not unfrequently terminating in a fit of indigestion. If he happened to be (as there are many) a priggish quack, it is not unlikely he would add as a sequel, that it was a most injurious and unmannerly indulgence, particularly favouring a determination of blood to the head, and decidedly calculated to injure the fine nerves of the facial organ! If, on the contrary, he should be a good, honest follower of Galen, he would not fail to pronounce it the most fearful enemy to his profession, as being altogether incompatible with physic and the blues, and, by way of illustration, he might go so far as to read a chapter of Tom Hood's best, in order to prove the strength of his position.

Laughter--good, hearty, cheerful-hearted laughter--is the echo of a happy spirit, the attribute of a cloudless mind. Life without it were without hope, for it is the exuberance of hope. It is an emotion possessed by man alone,--the happy light that relieves the dark picture of life.

We laugh most, when we are young; the thoughts are then free and unfettered, there is nothing to bind their fierce impulse, and we sport with the passions with the bold daring of ignorance. Smiles and tears, it has been observed, follow each other like gloom and sunshine; so the childish note of mirth treads on the heels of sorrow. It was but yesterday we noticed a little urchin writhing apparently in the agony of anguish; he had been punished for some trivial delinquency, and his little spirit resented it most gloriously. How the young dog roared! His little chest heaved up and down; and every blue vein on his pure forehead was apparent,--bursting with passion. Anon, a conciliatory word was addressed to him by the offended _gouvernante_; a smile passed over the boy's face; his little eyes, sparkling through a cloud of tears, were thrown upwards; a short struggle between pride and some other powerful feeling ensued; and then there burst forth such a peal of laughter, so clear, so full, so round, it would have touched the heart of a stoic!

Our natural passions and emotions become subdued, or altogether changed, as we enter the world. The laugh of the schoolboy is checked by the frown of the master. He is acquiring wisdom, and wisdom (ye Gods, how dearly bought!) is incompatible with laughter. But still, at times, when loosened from his shackles, the pining student will burst forth as in days gone by: but he has no longer the cue and action for passion he then had; the cares of the world have already mingled themselves in his cup, and his young spirit is drooping beneath their influence. The laughter of boyhood is a merry carol; but the first rich blush has already passed away. The boy enters the world, full of the gay buoyancy of youth. He looks upon those he meets as the playmates of other hours. But Experience teaches him her lessons; the natural feelings of his heart are checked; he may laugh and talk as formerly, but the spell, the dreams that cast such a halo round his young days, are dissipated and broken.

There are fifty different classes of laughers. There is your smooth-faced politic laugher, your laugher by rule. These beings are generally found within the precincts of a court, at the heels of some great man, to whose conduct they shape their passions as a model. Does his lordship say a _bon mot_, it is caught up and grinned at in every possible manner till, the powers of grimace expended, his lordship is pleased to change the subject, and strike a different chord. And it is not astonishing. Who would refuse to laugh for a pension of two hundred a year? Common gratitude demands it.

There is, then, your habitual laugher, men who laugh by habit, without rhyme or reason. They are generally stout, piggy-faced gentlemen, who eat hearty suppers, and patronise free-and-easys. They will meet you with a grin on their countenance, which, before you have said three sentences, will resolve itself into a simper, and terminate finally in a stentorian laugh. These men may truly be said to go through life laughing; but habit has blunted the finer edges of their sympathies, and their mirth is but the unmeaning effusion of a weak spirit. These personages generally go off in fits of apoplexy, brought on by excessive laughter on a full stomach!

There is, then, your discontented cynical laugher, who makes a mask of mirth to conceal the venom of his mind. It is a dead fraud that ought not to be pardoned. Speak to one of these men of happiness, virtue, &c. he meets you with a sneer, or a bottle-imp kind of chuckle; talk to him of any felicitous circumstance, he checks you with a sardonic grin, that freezes your best intentions. He is a type of the death's head the Egyptians placed at their feasts to check exuberant gaiety.

There is, then, your fashionable simperer, your laugher _à-la-mode_, your inward digester of small jokes and tittle-tattle. _He_ never laughs,--it is a vulgar habit; the only wonder is, that he eats. People, he will tell you, should overcome these vulgar propensities; they are abominable. A young man of this class is generally consumptive, his lungs have no play, he is always weak and narrow-chested; he vegetates till fifty, and then goes off, overcome with a puff of _eau de rose_, or _millefleur_, he has encountered accidentally from the pocket-handkerchief of a cheesemonger's wife!

Last of all, there is your real, good, honest laugher; the man who has a heart to feel and sympathize with the joys and sorrows of others; who has gone through life superior to its follies, and has learnt to gather wisdom even from laughter. Such are the men who do honour to society, who have learnt to be temperate in prosperity, patient in adversity; and, who, having gathered experience from years, are content to drink the cup of life mingled as it is, to enjoy calmly the sweeter portion, and laugh at the bitter.

There is a strange affinity in our passions. The heart will frequently reply to the saddest intelligence by a burst of the most unruly laughter, the effigy of mirth. It seems as though the passion, like a rude torrent, were too strong to pursue its ordinary course; but, breaking forth from the narrow channel that confined it, rushed forth in one broad impetuous stream. It is the voice of anguish that has chosen a different garb, and would cheat the sympathies. But we have ourselves been demonstrating the truth of our last proposition; for we have been writing on laughter till we have grown sad. But what says the old song?

"To-night we'll merry, merry be, To-morrow we'll be sober."

So sadness, after all, is but joy deferred.

A MUSTER CHAUNT

FOR THE MEMBERS OF THE TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES.

Wine! wine! fill up The sparkling cup With champagne hissing to the brim; For wit, and joy, and rapture, swim In bumpers. The grape's blood is mine; I'll steep my heart in it till it shine With the warm flush The purple blush Of wine!

Wine! wine! the frown Of Care we'll drown In deep libations to the God Who planted first on Nysa's sod The branches of the illustrious vine. Bacchus, we worship at thy shrine! In Pleasure's bowers Swift fly the Hours Whose wings are wash'd with wine!

Wine! wine! the brow Is mantling now; The eye is flashing with "the flow Of soul," the cheek has caught its glow; The lips are breathing words divine, While wreaths of song around them twine In glorious lays, Chaunting the praise Of racy wine!

Wine! wine! fill up And quaff the cup To lovely woman! Drink again To all bold festive souls who drain The crystal bowl, and wear the sign Of bacchanals. Hurrah! we're there, Thou soul of joy! Immortal boy! God of immortal wine!

REMAINS OF HAJJI BABA.