CHAPTER II.

Time progressed, and though Mrs. Heartwell still laboured under unaccountable agitation and alarm, yet there was a counteracting influence that diffused itself through her frame and buoyed her up with hope. Honest Ben more than once or twice entered the room, and with diffidence inquired whether his mistress had any commands; he asked no intrusive questions--he made no observations--the matter was something beyond his comprehension, and it never for one moment entered into his thoughts to speculate upon causes and effects; yet desirous of affording all the comfort and consolation which suggested itself to his mind, he took especial pains in making some excellent coffee, which he carried up to the distressed lady.

"You are kind and considerate, my good friend," said she whilst accepting the proffered refreshment. "I wish Mr. Heartwell was here to partake of it with me. Surely something unusual must have happened to detain him."

"No doubt on it, my lady," returned the seaman; "an ould messmate or shipmate mayhap, or an extra glass of grog or two."

The lady shook her head as she mournfully replied, "No, no, those would not be inducements strong enough to keep your master away from his home."

"Bless you, my lady," responded the seaman earnestly, as he busied himself about the parlour; "as to the strength of the deucements, all I can say is, that they mixes 'em strong enough when they pleases--though half-and-half ought to satisfy any reasonable man. But there, what's the odds so as you're happy?"

"You must prepare yourself, Ben, to go to Lincoln's Inn, and see if your master has been detained by business," said the lady, disregarding, or perhaps not observing the poor fellow's mistake. "You know the office of Mr. Brady."

"Yes, my lady," returned the seaman; "and I'll make sail as soon as ever you pleases to give orders."

"Wait then a little longer," added Mrs. Heartwell, as she looked at the watch: "go down now, and I will ring for you presently."

Accustomed to implicit obedience when afloat, the seaman still adhered to it now that he was ashore; and therefore again descending to the kitchen, he awaited the expected summons.

Drearily and heavily the minutes passed away, and yet as the fingers of the dial moved progressively over the divisions of the hour into quarters--marking the march of time--they seemed to have flown too quickly, for they afforded additional evidence that some calamity must have befallen the individual whose continued absence had caused increasing pain. Yet there the mourning watcher sat, suffering the extreme trial of human patience--waiting for those who came not.

Several times had the silent contemplations of Mrs. Heartwell been disturbed by the loud ticking and sudden stopping of a clock or watch. At first she scarcely heeded the noise, but the frequent repetition drew her attention more strongly to it, and she sought for the cause: it could not be the dial, for the vibrations of that were clear and continuous--it could not be her own watch, the sound was so different; but to satisfy herself, she wrapped it in a handkerchief and placed it in the table-drawer. Again the ticking came; it seemed to fill every corner of the apartment, sometimes heard in one place and sometimes in another; and when Mrs. Heartwell fancied she had found the spot from which it emanated, it suddenly ceased, and then commenced elsewhere. She rang the bell for Ben, who promptly answered, and stood within the open door. "Did Mr. Heartwell take his timepiece with him?" inquired she.

"Yes, my lady," responded Ben; "I saw the chain and seals hanging down as he went out at the door."

"Is there any strange watch or clock in the house that you know of?" demanded she again.

"No, my lady, not as I knows of," replied Ben, much surprised at the question, and somewhat fearful that grief had unsettled the reason of his mistress.

"Hark then, Ben,--listen, and tell me what is that," exclaimed she energetically, as the ticking was loudly renewed. "There must be a clock somewhere to produce such sounds."

Ben did listen as the eyes of his mistress were intently fixed upon him, but the tar shook his head and was silent.

"It must be some trick," said Mrs. Heartwell; "can you hear it distinctly?"

"It's easy enough to hear," responded the seaman with another slow shake of his head; "and though it's some years since I heard it afore, yet there's no mistaking _that_, my lady."

"What is it then?" demanded the excited woman in a tone assuming peremptory command; "what is it that produces so loud and peculiar a noise?"

"Bless you, my lady," returned the seaman solemnly, as he folded his arms across his breast. "Them sounds are out of all natur, for the works were never made by mortal fingers--there's no living hand as winds 'em up--no human spring as sets 'em a-going--that my lady is the death-watch:" and then Ben added his usual expletive, though his countenance was ruefully sad, "but what's the odds so as you're happy?"

Mrs. Heartwell was perfectly aware that what had generally been called "the death-watch," was nothing more than a small insect, and the noise it produced was caused by striking its proboscis against hollow wood to release itself from confinement; but her nervous system was greatly relaxed and her mental energies impaired through the violent agitation she had undergone during the night. For several minutes, therefore, a superstitious dread came over her mind--it was the first time she had ever heard the supposed monitor of the shroud and coffin, and Ben's impressive manner as he announced its alleged character threw an additional weight of gloom over her already oppressed spirits. But reason was not long in resuming its sway, though it could not utterly banish feelings which had been excited by such a visitation, especially acted upon as she was by previous apprehensions of some direful but unknown calamity.

The tapers on the table were nearly consumed, and the re-assured lady directed Ben to supply others in their places: she then walked towards the window, and unclosing one of the shutters, the bright gleams from a beautiful daylight mingling with the fading light of the newly-risen moon streamed full upon her.

Hallowed and tranquillising are the effects of a lovely dawn; darkness has fled before a mighty conqueror--the face of nature is again unveiled, and smiling beauty colours every feature with its rosy tints; the sorrows of the heart are for a time absorbed in the universal peace which prevails, and even the dying who cannot expect to see its close, rejoice in the opening glory of another day.

The weary watcher as she looked up to the heavens felt relieved and comforted; a prayer rose spontaneously from her heart to that Being who had sent light from above to cheer her in the dreariness of night; and now with humble adoration she poured forth her gratitude at being spared to witness the early beams that illumed the east, and called man forth to his daily labour.

Ben was again summoned--the servants were called up from their beds--Mrs Heartwell went to the pillow of her sleeping boy, but his repose was so calm, his rest so undisturbed, that she would not awake him; but imprinting one gentle kiss on his fair forehead, she descended to the parlour to commence active operations in search of her husband.

The seaman was despatched to Lincoln's Inn, as the first essay, and after an absence of about an hour, he returned to report that he had waited some time at the door of Mr. Brady's office, till the porter had told him the office would not be open till nine o'clock, and he thought it best to come and let his mistress know.

"It is fast approaching that hour," said the lady. "Be quick and get your breakfast; I will go myself, and you and Frank shall accompany me."

"I wants no breakfast, my lady," returned the seaman. "I'm rigged and ready at once, if so be as you wishes to get under weigh"--

"No,--do as I direct you "--responded the lady, firmly. "Frank is not yet ready--we have had our meal whilst you were away, and you must not be deprived of yours."

The tar made his bow and descended to the kitchen, where the servants were assembled, and each endeavoured to catechise Ben on the events of the night; but he could tell them nothing, for he had nothing to tell, and even Sally failed in drawing forth any communication from the seaman.

When Frank entered the parlour, he ran and kissed his mother, but looked astonished at beholding his father's vacant chair--he gazed earnestly in his mother's face, and though she strove to smile upon her boy, yet fatigue and anxiety had left too visible an impression on her countenance--With the intuitive quickness of childhood Frank became instantly aware that something was wrong, and throwing his arms round his parent's neck, he burst into an agony of grief, whilst she strained him to her heart, and the tears of the mother and the child ran mingling down together.

As soon as emotion had subsided, Mrs. Heartwell briefly informed the lad that she feared something had happened to his father, and that she was about to make inquiries after him. The returning confidence and self-command of the mother produced not only a soothing influence, but also an animated spirit of investigation in the son; the mind of the child was fresh and vigorous from a night's repose--he had cherished no harassing fears, had endured no torturing suspense, and therefore, young as he was, his courage was aroused, and he longed to set out on the search which his mother had proposed.

His desire was soon gratified, and a very short time beheld Mrs. Heartwell and Frank, followed by Ben, proceeding from their residence in Ormond Street towards Lincoln's Inn. The streets were not much crowded, for the worthy citizens were at that time accustomed to reside under the same roofs with their shops and warehouses, and consequently were always on the spot ready for business. Not that they are negligent in the present day, for no class of men are more punctual than our merchants and tradesmen; but the extension of commerce has compelled vast numbers to convert their dwellings into storehouses; and the City is, to a certain degree, deserted in the evening for the rural suburbs with their handsome mansions--delightful villas and cottage retreats. Man has a natural love for the country--the green fields--the pure air--and the fragrance of flowers--these are the works of the Creator, and our grateful admiration should be mingled with the worship which is his due.

The clock had not struck nine when they passed through the spacious area of Lincoln's Inn Fields, the trees in which had already become leafless, and gave an air of desolation to the dingy scenery. What a crowd of reflections do our Inns of Court give rise to--and yet how few who pass through them ever bestow one thought on the thousands who are toiling daily, and many nightly, within those walls to render perfect and secure for others the property which without the aid of the law would be unsafe! A writer in an American work has remarked, "what a happy country that would be where there were no lawyers;" but he must first people it with immaculate beings, to whom the ten commandments would become as a dead letter, and every one of the inhabitants must enjoy equality. To suppose such a thing is an absurdity--human passions and human prejudices will prevail, and it is to govern the one and guide the other--to protect the right--avenge the injured, and to punish crime--that laws were framed; and men indefatigably devoted themselves to study all their bearings that they might be carried into full effect. An honourable, useful, and manly profession is that of the lawyer; and though there are some unworthy members amongst the fraternity--(and what community is without them?)--yet, taken as a body, they bear a character of which England is justly proud.

Exactly at nine they reached the chambers of Mr. Brady, and at the same moment a tall, stout, boney man took a key from his pocket and opened the door.

"Mr. Brady is not yet come, madam," said he, observing that Mrs. Heartwell was about to address him. "His business-time is half-past nine, and you will find him punctual to the moment. Would you like to wait, or will you call again?"

"You are, I presume, in Mr. Brady's service?" said the lady, as she passed within the door.

"His assistant, madam--his clerk--his confidential clerk," responded the man, stiffly bowing and assuming a pompous manner.

But Mrs. Heartwell heeded not his conduct, her mind was too much engrossed by other matters, and she earnestly remarked, "You are then acquainted with all Mr. Brady's employers--"

"His clients, madam, I suppose you mean," interrupted the person addressed, as he bent a keen look on the interesting countenance of the lady. "Oh yes--I necessarily know his clients well--"

"Then," returned she, "you perhaps can inform me whether Mr. Heartwell"--her voice became tremulous with emotion, but by a sharp struggle she mastered her feelings and repeated "whether Mr. Heartwell was here yesterday?"

"Lieutenant Heartwell of the Royal Navy, madam, I presume," said the clerk, obsequiously bowing. "Have I the honour to address his worthy lady?"

"He is my husband, sir," answered the lady, proudly, for there was something in the manners of the man that excited unpleasant sensations--a smirking attempt to please that but ill accorded with his look and appearance. "Was Mr. Heartwell here yesterday?"

"Most assuredly he was, madam," responded the clerk. "I hope nothing unpleasant has occurred."

"Confound the lubber, he seems to know it," mumbled Ben, whose keen gaze had been fixed upon the man. "I wish my lady ud let me ax him a bit of his catechiz."

"At what hour did Mr. Heartwell quit this office?" inquired the agitated woman.

"At what hour, madam?" repeated the clerk, casting his eyes up to a clock that hung, or rather stood, in the corner; "why really I cannot call to recollection the precise hour--I was so busily engaged upon the will of Mr. Checkwell, the rich banker, who was not expected to live many hours--indeed he died this morning, and if that last testament had not been made out as quick as it was, so as to enable him to sign it, all his property would have gone amongst his poor relations--but now he has bequeathed it to a favorite niece"--and the man smiled--"he will be a fortunate fellow who wins her favour--two hundred thousand pounds and--"

"Oh, what's the odds so as you're happy?" exclaimed Ben, peevishly interrupting him. "Jist tell my lady when the leftenant hauled his wind out of this."

"Hauled his wind out of this?" reiterated the clerk, giving the worthy tar a sidelong glance of contempt. "Speak English, my friend."

Ben was about to reply in no very gentle terms, but his mistress raised her hand, and the tar was silent. She then turned to the clerk. "I have put a plain and simple question to you, sir; will you oblige me with an answer?"

"Why really, madam, I beg pardon--but the question has escaped my memory," responded the man, as if desirous of gaining time.

"I asked you at what hour Mr. Heartwell quitted this place," repeated the lady, her heart swelling almost to bursting.

"Oh--ay--I trust you will excuse me. I remember now," answered the clerk, as he retired to his desk; "but the will, madam, the will of Mr. Checkwell occupied my whole attention. Yet let me see: it must have been eight o'clock. No, it was later than that; but Mr. Brady can inform you most correctly, I have no doubt: he will be here in a few minutes. Will you walk in, and the young gentleman with you?" and, rising, he opened the door to an inner room. "There are chairs: as for my friend here, he will perhaps remain in the outer office."

Mrs. Heartwell entered a spacious apartment, the windows admitting an unobstructed light, which was thrown upon a large oblong table, bearing innumerable packages of letters and documents tied up with red tape or green ribbon, according to the rank of the client. The walls of the room were nearly concealed behind law-books and japanned boxes with painted initials on their fronts--though some bore in full the names of highly respectable firms and companies, and one or two displayed the titles of noblemen. On the floor were pieces of carpet resembling ancient tapestry, and there were three chairs of dark oak, the seats cased with leather, the original colour of which it was impossible to detect.

The lady, with her son by her side, retired into a part of the apartment that was somewhat obscured by shade; and here, as she sate awaiting the coming of the individual on whose knowledge seemed to rest her future happiness or misery, her thoughts reverted to the previous evening when her husband was in that very same apartment; and as there were two chairs placed at a part of the table that was cleared from papers, she conjectured that one had been occupied by the lieutenant; and small as the matter might seem in the estimation of others, she would have given much to have known which of the two it was. Then arose other contemplations: one of the chairs was doubtless for the clients--the other, at a more respectful distance, for the suppliants who came to entreat for delay against the execution of the law, or to appeal for the extension of mercy from his creditor. Oh! how many sorrowing spirits grieving over blighted hopes and desolated prospects--how many breaking hearts, crushed beneath the torturing pressure of affliction that verged upon despair--how many upbraiding consciences, filled with remorse at past deeds of shame or extravagance--had been there! Parents, who had reduced their offspring from affluence to poverty, through crime or indiscretion--husbands that had wasted their substance, and brought their wives to want--ruined merchants and tradesmen who had borne a good name in the world, but, surrounded by difficulties which they could not master, were compelled to have their names announced in the Gazette. What a wide field for reflection was there!

At length Mr. Brady arrived; and, after a short consultation with his clerk, the door of his room opened, and Mrs. Heartwell beheld a gentlemanly-looking man of about thirty years of age, whose firm-set frame gave evidence of strong muscular powers. His limbs were large, but yet in just proportion to the rest of his body; and a handsomely formed pair of legs were well displayed in tight black silk stockings. His features were of a repulsive cast: a round, bullet-head, with high cheek-bones and protruding bushy eyebrows that frowned above a pair of large but piercing black eyes, which, like the rattlesnake's, had something of fascination in them.

There is a world of language in the human eye that carries with it its own translation; and when Mrs. Heartwell saw the bright orbs of the lawyer as he looked round the room, a strange thrill came over her bosom--an indefinable sensation that sickened her very heart: she had never, to her recollection, seen Mr. Brady before that moment; yet the piercing keenness of his eyes was vividly pictured on her memory--they were familiar to the mind as having at some former period occasioned much distress, but where or when, or with what connexion, baffled remembrance was utterly at fault.

The lady tremblingly arose as the lawyer approached; but her agitation was considerably diminished when a voice, soft and gentle, and sweetly harmonious, requested her "to be seated," and she again resumed the chair; whilst Frank, overawed by the presence of Mr. Brady, took up a position nearly behind his mother so as scarcely to be seen, though he commanded a perfect view of all that was going on. The lawyer retired to the corner of the table, against which he reclined with his left hand resting on the corner; he raised his right to his chin, and fixing his eyes on the distressed lady, seemed to devote himself to mute attention.

Mrs. Heartwell told her name and related the cause of her visit, which drew forth no remark nor a single token that she was heard, till the narrative was ended, and even then he continued for a minute or two in deep and unmoved silence. At length he uttered in accents of soothing kindness--

"I trust, my dear lady, that you will not distress yourself unnecessarily. Affairs may not be so bad as you anticipate; and yet--" he paused for a moment, and then inquired, "Had Mr. Heartwell no friends in your neighbourhood on whom he could call in his way home?"

"We have but few acquaintances, sir, and but fewer friends," returned the lady mournfully; "besides, I am certain that my husband would not have willingly remained away from home all night."

"Was Mr. Heartwell at all addicted--you will excuse my putting so plain a question, nothing but the urgency of the occasion would compel me--but was Mr. Heartwell at all addicted to drinking,--I mean so as to become inebriated?" inquired the lawyer.

"No, sir, never--never," said the lady firmly; "a better husband, a kinder father, a more sober man never existed--and these very qualities do but increase my fears for his safety."

"I am gratified to hear it," responded the lawyer. "Mr. Heartwell transacted business with me yesterday to a very large extent; we had some wine together, and what with his good fortune and the generous liquor, I must own he was somewhat elevated when we parted."

Mrs. Heartwell paused for a moment or two before she responded. The affection she had always cherished for her husband had produced unbounded confidence in all his actions: she knew that sailors were fond of the social glass, but she had never seen him indulge to excess, nor witnessed anything that could induce her to suppose that he had done so; and the thought that Mr. Brady implied, that he was drunk, went with thrilling anguish to her very soul, for it wounded her pride whilst it increased her fears. "Oh, do not say so, sir," said she; "do not say he was intoxicated; indeed he was ever too guarded to yield to intemperance."

"You are labouring under error, my dear lady," said the lawyer mildly; "I did not say that he was intoxicated, but merely elevated--a single glass of wine when joy is overpowering the heart will oftentimes produce the semblance of inebriety. I know you are not aware of the whole fact, for he mentioned his intention to surprise you, and great was his gratification at the thoughts of it--the property of his uncle exceeded his expectations--the whole was converted into gold, and notes, and securities, to the amount of many thousand pounds; he received it in this office from an agent of the bank, and at nine o'clock last night, both himself and the bags were deposited in a hackney-coach--the number of which, I dare say, can be ascertained--though, probably, my clerk, who is very particular in all matters of business, may recollect it--and the coachman was ordered to drive to Ormond Street." The lawyer touched a bell, and the clerk entered. "Pray, Mr. Shipkins, do you remember the number of the coach in which Mr. Heartwell left here last night?"

"Four hundred and seventy-five," replied the clerk; "coachman, red face, carbuncle nose--small eyes--drab box-coat, with seven capes; each cape bound with scarlet,--he held the light whilst we put in the bags."

The superior nodded, and the clerk withdrew. "Thus far then, my dear lady, it will not be difficult to trace your husband's progress; but it is necessary that we should claim the assistance of a magistrate."

Whilst these explanations were going on, Mrs. Heartwell felt almost crushed beneath the weight of perplexity that appeared to accumulate at every step. The mention of many thousand pounds as being in the possession of her husband had conjured up fearful visions; but when, in addition to this, she found that he was sent away in a coach alone, and that too in at least a state of elevation, her mind was wrought up to a pitch of indescribable anguish; she sprang from her chair, and wildly exclaimed, "It is but too plain, sir--it is but too plain! You send him in a coach with large sums of money. When he left me he mentioned his intention to surprise me--he would have returned--delightedly returned; but he has never been home--Oh my God, sustain me--he is dead--he is murdered!" and sinking back into her chair, she buried her face in her handkerchief, and sobbed hysterically, whilst little Frank clung to his mother, and fixing his tearful eyes upon Mr. Brady, who he supposed had caused her distress, he observed a twitching spasm convulse the lawyer's face, and a peculiar cast in one of his eyes, which had so fierce an expression as to terrify the lad, and which from that moment was never forgotten. The whole did but occupy a passing instant--the lawyer's face resumed its usual expression as he uttered,

"No, no, no; do not think that, my dear lady--do not give way to so horrid a thought. But come, no time should be lost." He started from the table and put on his hat. "We will walk to the nearest coach-stand, and proceed to Bow Street."

In accordance with this proposition they left the office; and Ben was despatched back to Ormond Street for the purpose of ascertaining whether anything had transpired during their absence, and with instructions to join his mistress with all expedition at Bow Street. The mother and son, with Mr. Brady, hastened to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where they found the very coach 475, in which the clerk had stated that the lieutenant had quitted the office the night before. The quick eye of Frank was the first to detect this; and he directly pointed it out to his mother, who at the first glance saw that the coachman perfectly answered the description given by Shipkins; and she would have instantly questioned him but for the request of Mr. Brady, who cautioned her to take no notice lest it might excite his suspicion. He called him off the stand to receive a fare.

"To Bow Street Police Office," said the lawyer, as the coachman stood waiting for orders; and the door was closed, the box mounted, and off he drove. But who can describe the sensations of the agitated wife as she entered and took her seat in the very vehicle in which it was alleged that her husband had been conveyed from the office of the lawyer! her whole frame trembled and her heart grew sick. Mr. Brady was not idle--he examined every nook and corner of the interior of the carriage in which the lady assisted him, and every spot on the padded cushions raised a horrible terror in her breast as she fancied that it might be blood; but they discovered nothing that could in the slightest degree elucidate the matter. On reaching their destination, the coachman was directed to wait for the purpose of conveying them back again.

The doors of the office were thronged with a miscellaneous assemblage of characters, principally of the lower classes; but there were also many well-dressed persons in the crowd, for the notorious pickpocket George Waldron, or, as he named himself, George Barrington, had that morning been brought up for examination, charged with stealing a purse of money and a gold watch from the person of a gentleman in Drury Lane Theatre, and numbers of curious individuals of all ranks were desirous of beholding a man who by education and manners was the finished gentleman, but in habit a confirmed thief.

Through this crowd the lawyer and his party pushed their way into the outer office; and what a scene was presented there!--squalid poverty in rags--maudlin sensibility awaking from intoxication, and feverish from the night's debauch--the bucks of fashion, as the dandies of that day were called, still labouring under the influence of liquor, and detained to answer for a midnight spree--the detected pickpocket glorying in the mechanism of his profession, and only ashamed that he should have practised the art so clumsily as to be caught: these and numerous others occupied distinct portions to themselves--attended by the various peace-officers and watchmen, who hoped to profit, and largely too, by their earnest zeal in protecting his Majesty's liege subjects from let, hindrance, and molestation.

The first object of Mr. Brady was to detain the coachman; and on applying to one of the superiors, an officer was promptly set to watch his movements, with orders to take him into custody should he attempt to drive away. But the jarvey did not manifest the slightest intention to depart, for he sat apparently contented on his seat eyeing the different groups, and perhaps moralising on the instability of human affairs--for men of sedentary habits are generally found to be moralists, however humble their pretensions.

The urgency of Mrs. Heartwell's case procured an immediate admission to the office where the magistrates were sitting; but as they were at that moment busily engaged, the party was requested to stand aside till the hearing was disposed of.

At the bar was a tall man of very genteel appearance, whose habit and demeanour might readily have introduced him to society as a highly respectable clergyman. He appeared to be about thirty years of age; his countenance was sedate and indicative of benevolence; but there was at the same time an arch look in his small sharp eyes that evidenced pleasantry and wit. His hair was frizzed out and powdered according to the fashion of the times, and a queue with a plentiful expenditure of black silk hung down behind. His left hand was raised to his face, and displayed amazingly long fingers ornamented with rings, and he bowed occasionally in the most graceful manner to Mr. Bond, the sitting magistrate, when he had to reply to questions that were put to him. At the entrance of Mrs. Heartwell, he had turned and cast a rapid but sharp glance at the lady; and for the moment his dark sallow complexion assumed a more sickly hue; but finding that she was a stranger, he politely inclined his head, and resumed his position.

This was Barrington, the notorious pickpocket; and near him stood, in remarkable contrast, a smart well-made dapper little man, sprucely dressed, with silver buckles in his shoes, both of which were brightly polished; his head combed smooth and straight, so that not a hair was misplaced or out of order, but with a "natty curl" on each side--much in the same way as in after years the friseur was accustomed to ornament his brown wig;--his eyes were keen and hawk-like; and diminutive as he was, there was a something in his manner which strongly marked him as a man not to be trifled with. This was the afterwards celebrated Townsend.

On the bench with the magistrates, were two or three noblemen and gentlemen in high life, who had been summoned to give evidence; and amongst them was the well-known Major Hanger and General St. John, who deposed to "the previous capture of the pickpocket at the Theatre, his being taken to the lobby and searched, and the purse and watch found upon him."

"Pardon me, General," said the prisoner, respectfully bowing; "your memory has not served you correctly--neither purse nor watch was found upon my person, for this very simple but convincing reason--they had never been there."

"I remember now," resumed the General; "they were not found upon your person, but upon the floor close to where you were taken into custody."

"And I saw you drop them," exclaimed Major Hanger, hastily interrupting the witness.

Barrington bowed his head in the most bland manner, and gracefully waving his hand, uttered with much seeming good-humour, "One at a time, gentlemen, if you please--it is neither fair nor honourable to try and crush a man whom misfortune loves to sport with."

It is not necessary to go through the whole of the examination, which proved that from the Theatre, Barrington had been conveyed to the Brown Bear in Bow Street, where he contrived to escape from the charge of the constable, and since then had been levying contributions in different parts of the country, assuming a variety of characters as best suited his purpose.

He was subsequently detected in a northern town, mingling in the first circles, and dexterously carrying on his depredations; from thence he was conveyed to the metropolis. The charge was considered sufficiently proven to commit; and this "king of thieves" was removed from the bar without evincing outwardly the slightest want of self-command.

As soon as he was gone, and the buzz arising from the conversation of the noblemen and gentlemen had subsided by their taking their departure, the next case was about to be called, when Mr. Brady earnestly solicited the private hearing of the magistrates for a few minutes, on a charge of some magnitude, involving, as it was supposed, the life and property of an officer in his Majesty's navy.

This was not spoken aloud, but only within the hearing of a few of the officers, and the request was promptly granted; Mr. Bond passed into a private room, where Mr. Brady having stated the case, Mrs. Heartwell was called in to give her deposition, which narrated every circumstance relative to the lieutenant's quitting his home the afternoon before, and promising "to be back early, and that he would then communicate something that would delight and astonish them." The lawyer and the magistrate looked earnestly at each other, for the former had mentioned that the circumstance of the officer having to receive considerable property had been concealed from the wife.

"Were you not at all acquainted with the object to which your husband alluded?" inquired Mr. Bond.

"Not to its full extent, sir," replied the lady; "I knew that he had business to transact with Mr. Brady, but was not informed of its purport, though I supposed it was in some measure connected with the decease of an uncle in the East Indies."

"My client," remarked the lawyer, "mentioned that his wife was not cognisant of the transactions between us; and he expressed great delight at the idea of communicating to her the intelligence that he was now able to raise his family to affluence."

"I must beg of you to compose yourself as much as possible, madam," said Mr. Bond with kindness; "the affair is certainly mysterious, but my best assistance shall be given."

The magistrate then went on with the examination, and Ben having in the mean time arrived, made his statement, corroborating that of his mistress--the lawyer also gave his testimony, and ultimately, the coachman was brought forward. His deposition went in substance to state, that "his name was Gervase Simpson, and on the night before, he had been hired off the stand in the 'Fields' shortly before nine o'clock, to take up a fare in Lincoln's Inn--that he went, and a middle-aged man brought out a light, which he held, whilst four or five small, but apparently heavy bags were put into the vehicle; the light was then taken away, and a navy officer came out with another gentleman; the former getting into the coach, and the latter bidding the navy officer 'good night,' told the deponent to drive to Ormond Street, and then he believed went in again. That he accordingly drove to Ormond Street, and felt the check-string pulled; he drew up, dismounted, and opened the door--the navy officer alighted, and having removed the bags, paid him his fare, and went down the street; but deponent took no further notice of his proceedings, remounted his box, and drove to the stand in Charles Street, Covent Garden. He then got another fare to the Borough, and afterwards went home to the stables at Newington."

"All this, if true, can easily be traced," said the magistrate; "it certainly is extremely mysterious--And the lieutenant did not go to his residence, nor has he been seen since? Was he a man of sober habits and reputable character?"

"Most unexceptionable in both," replied the lawyer; "it is true that he had taken a glass or two of wine, but he was perfectly master of his actions--though I cannot altogether account for his leaving the coach where he did."

"Pray," said the magistrate, addressing the coachman, "had you sufficient light or opportunity to observe the person of the officer?"

"Vy not exactly, your vurship," answered Jehu; "it vas wery dark in Linkun's Inn, and them lamps arn't much good, only to blind people; but I saw the glittering of his buttons and his hanger, and could jist make out he vas a tall man; but he vhipped in in sich a hurry, that I hadn't much time to notice; nor did I think of anything of this here kind happening, for as long as I'm civil and gets my full fare, your vurship, I seldom troubles myself about other consarns."

"But in Ormond Street," urged the magistrate, "there you possibly had better light and more time--what took place there?"

"Vell, your vurship, I've tould you all as I knows," responded the witness. "The lamps in Ormond Street arn't never no better nor the rest in regard of lighting--they're pretty much like an ould watchman's eye. I seed as he was an officer of the navy, but arter he tipped the fare, and there was somut handsome over and above the reglar, I was too busy reckoning my money to take much notice--he went off with the bags, some on 'em he had got tied up in a handkercher; but what he had in em' I never guv a moment's thought to."

"Was the officer sober?" inquired the magistrate.

"Vell, your vurship, it arn't ezactly clear vot sobriety is," answered the coachman; "he might or he might not, for I took no perticklar notice, only he seemed to valk avay steady enough. He guv me five shillings; I said 'Thanky, yer honor,' and he says 'Good night,' and that vos all."

"Should you know the gentleman again?" asked the lawyer, bending his keen gaze upon the man.

"Vy, yes, I think I should, if I vos to see him as I did last night," responded the coachman; "but daylight alters people's looks, and I shouldn't like to svear."

After other questions of no very material consequence, the magistrate decided that "the affair should be put into the hands of an experienced officer, who should thoroughly investigate the whole, and he would be ready to attend to any information as soon as it was obtained; but if no further light was thrown upon the transaction, and the lieutenant still remained absent, then he must request Mr. Brady to be in attendance at eleven o'clock the following morning, accompanied by his clerk, the bank agent, and all the evidence he could procure." In the mean time he recommended that intelligence should be given at the other offices, and diligent inquiry made at the hospitals; though in the first instance it would be best to commence the investigation in the neighbourhood of Ormond Street. Mr. Brady promised strict attention, and the parties withdrew.

LOVE HAS LEGS.

Strolling about from bower to hall, Love paid Lavinia a morning call. An hour soon went--she chatted and sang-- He staid--till at last the dinner-bell rang. He staid, still charm'd; and rather alarm'd, Lavinia felt she must ask him to stay. "To tell you the truth," cried the radiant youth, "I'm here for life, I shall ne'er go away."

Love's fire shot through her in one wild flush, Till her heart itself might be seen to blush; Love saw, and finding it faithful and kind, Exclaim'd, "O Beauty, how long I've been blind!" More grateful grew he, more fervent she, More watchful, sensitive, warm, and fond; So much like light was he to her sight, She could not trust him a step beyond.

Still more she cherish'd him year by year, Till at last each joy came tinged with fear; She fear'd, if he stroll'd where wild flowers meet, Lest thorns might pierce his delicate feet; Or a reptile's sting beneath his wing She fear'd, if he lay in the greenwood asleep; Or walk'd he awake by the moonlit lake-- In dread of an ague, how would she weep!

She chatted and sang to Love no more, Lest music and chat should prove "a bore;" But she hung on his steps wherever he went, And shut from the chamber the rose's scent. She slept not a wink, for fear he should think She dream'd not of Love--so her eyes grew dim; She took no care of her beautiful hair, For she could not spare one moment from him.

Love's bright fireside grew dark with doubt, Yet home was a desert if Love went out; In vain were his vows, caresses, and sighs; "O Love," cried the lady, "I've given you eyes! And ah! should some face of a livelier grace Than mine ever meet them! Ah! _should_ you stray!" Love, wearied at last, was in slumber lock'd fast;-- "Those wings!" said the watcher, "he _might_ fly away."

One awful moment! Oh! could she sever Those wings from Love, he is hers for ever! With trembling hand she gathers the wings-- She clips--they are off! and up Love springs. "Adieu!" he cried, as he leapt from her side, "Of folly's cup you have drunk the dregs; My home was here; it is now with the deer; Thank Venus, though wingless, _Love has legs!_" L. B.

BERNARD CAVANAGH,

THE IRISH CAMELEON.

Bernard Cavanagh is the name of a person who is now raising considerable sums of money in Dublin by professing to work miracles--the greatest of them all consisting in his ability to live without any food whatever--which he is now said to have done for several months. Crowds flock to him to be cured of their lameness, deafness, &c.--_Irish Papers._

Marvellous Erin! when St. Patrick's feat Thy hills, vales, plains, and bogs from reptiles freed, He little dream'd what monsters would succeed; Sinners who drink not, saints who never eat! And is there one, in whom the piece of meat Which Paris raves about, no care can breed! One who can never know a time of need, Though corn be trampled by the tempest's feet!

Poor fellow! what enjoyment he foregoes! Nothing but air, a scrap of summer cloud, Fog with the chill off, is to him allow'd; A fine thick mist, or rainbow when it shows; But ah! for him no kitchen's steam up-flows; No knives, forks, spoons, or plates, a pilèd crowd, No dishes, glasses, salts, make music loud! Sad sinecurists all--mouth, ears, and nose!

THE ASS ON THE LADDER.

"For lowliness is young Ambition's ladder."--_Julius Cæsar._

At the end of the second volume of a Hebrew MS of the Bible, written on beautiful vellum, is the following passage, in fine large Hebrew characters:--"I, Meyer, the son of Rabbi Jacob, the scribe, have finished this book for Rabbi Abraham, the son of Rabbi Nathan, the 5052nd year (A.D. 1292); and he has bequeathed it to his children and his children's children for ever. Amen. Amen. Amen. Selah. Be strong and strengthened. May this book not be damaged, neither this day nor for ever, until the ASS ascends the LADDER." After which the accompanying rude figure is drawn.--_Pettigrew's Bibliotheca Sussexiana_, part I. vol. i.

It would appear from the curious sentence copied above, that no longer ago than five centuries and a half, the feat which is pictured to the spectator in a fac-simile of the original drawing was regarded as an event of extremely improbable occurrence. The inference indeed may be, that it was deemed an impossibility. The prayer of the inscription is, "May this book be undamaged for ever."--May it be preserved "until the ass ascends the ladder!"

"Till Birnam wood shall come to Dunsinane," is the unlikely occurrence which the weird sisters specify as the omen of Macbeth's fall; and "That will never be!" is the cry of the confident thane. In modern days we wish a man "good luck till he's tired of it;" or "prosperity till the sky falls." The despairing and lovelorn damsel in the ditty sings--

"When fishes fly, and swallows dive, Young men they will prove true."

And one of the same ballad-family sets out with the affecting declaration, that--

"When gooseberries grow on the stem of a daisy,"

the singer's passion will be no more. These, and a thousand examples of the "Not till then," are but versions of the Hebrew assumption of impossibility, expressed in the grotesque fancy of "the ass on the ladder." But it is clear that Meyer the son of Rabbi Jacob was not in Moorfields last year; it is certain that Abraham, the son of Rabbi Nathan, little dreamed of what would be doing at Pimlico in the nineteenth century; for whether at Mayfair or at Bethnal Green, at Wapping or at Islington, one or both must have seen the impossibility realised, in the elevation of the donkey, before the upturned wondering eyes of a crowd of lingering mortals in the public thoroughfares.

Lest there should be some who never saw the modern street-mountebank, going forth like Leporello with his ladder, and like Sancho with his donkey, we must describe his performance. His greatest feat consisted in balancing upon his chin a ladder with an ass on it. All other tricks performed, and all eyes and mouths opened, curiosity on tiptoe and incredulity on the stretch, forth came the wooden machine, and with legs twisted through the staves, up went the animal. "Who," exclaims the minstrel, "Ah who can tell how hard it is to climb!" But what poet ever found a steep so difficult as that _gradus ad Parnassum_ to the seemingly dislocated donkey? To the topmast round, you would see him clinging like Shakspeare's giddy sea-boy on the mast; and surveying the mountebank who had taught him to be such an astonishing ass, with a look that seemed to say, "You're another!" Then would his master send round the hat upon its last and greatest voyage of discovery; then would the halfpence therein be rattled harmlessly in the vacant faces of boys with vacant pockets, and then would the irresistible appeal be heard, "Come, good gen'lemen, be liberal, be liberal--tuppence more, and up goes the donkey." Then bending up each corporal agent for the terrible feat, up indeed would go the ladder, donkey and all; high up in air, until its lowest stave rested fairly and firmly on the protruded chin of the mountebank, where it stood poised, fixed, moveless--the astonishing type, or rather the exact model, of the balance of power in Europe.

The amazement now should be transferred from the balanced to the balancer; for what is the difficulty of such a _gradus ad Parnassum_ to the ass, compared with the sore trial of the man below, who has made the bridge of his nose a _pons asinorum_! But in rivalship with the donkey, the human being shrinks into insignificance; the grotesque patience of the brute beats the strength and dexterity of the man hollow; the gazers are all wrapped in ecstasy to see how the ass hangs on, not how the cunning mountebank balances him. The sympathies of the crowd, men and boys, are triumphantly borne off by the four-legged performer, and every one of them goes away more convinced of the uncommon cleverness of the ass, and consequently on better terms with himself.

But the obstinacy of the long-eared animal is proverbial; and in nothing is it more strikingly exhibited than in the fact that he _will_ eat if he can. So was it before the days of Æsop's ass, that cropped a thistle and was torn in pieces for confessing it; and so has it been before and since the hour when Sterne's ass consumed the macaroon which curiosity and not charity presented to him. It is possibly this expensive habit that has led the mountebank, of late, to cast off the donkey, and to substitute a boy for him, in the feat of the ladder. The performance to this hour is the same, with that exception--a two-legged juvenile for a four. Perhaps the mountebank was jealous of the ass! Can we assume that, in the nature of a mountebank balancing on his chin a ladder surmounted by a long-eared brute, there is no room for vanity? Can we imagine a donkey-balancer incapable of feeling annoyed, when he sees his subordinate--the agent through whom his own abilities are to be demonstrated--creating peals of laughter by doing nothing, trotting off with the spoils he did not win, and cropping every thistle of fame that belongs to another? There is no mind too shallow for vanity to take root in, no talent too small for it to twine itself round, no competitor too contemptible to pique and wound it. "Why, Edmund Kean couldn't get a hand of applause, with such a noisy brute as that in the piece!" said an actor in the drama of the _Dog of Montargis_, when the quadruped was howling over the murdered body of his master, and breaking the hearts of the audience.

At all events the Boy _has_ taken the Ass's place on the ladder. The change may have arisen out of that tenderness for the brute creation which is too amiable a feeling--when in excess--to pass unadmired. There is a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and to risk a donkey's life on a ladder, for the sport of a heedless crowd, might be dangerous to the mountebank. In _this_ age, society at large knows what is due to donkeys; we can all enter into their feelings. But as there is no law, and no moral principle, against the elevation of a human urchin, even to the top stave of the ladder, there is no reason why the sport should not continue. Philosophers will explain to you, that a boy is a free agent, and has a right to be balanced on a human chin, if he likes; but a donkey has no will of his own at all--_except_--except when you've hired him for an hour, at Ramsgate, and are endeavouring to persuade yourself that you're trotting him out of the town.

The last boy we saw balanced was worthy of the chin that sustained him. The mountebank to be sure was a miracle, and could have balanced anything. If the books of the Bank of England were to get into disorder, every sum confused, and every figure out of its place--he could balance them. But the boy was at least two miracles rolled into one--a more than Siamese prodigy--a boy, and yet an ass too. He looked more like one than the reality, his predecessor. He evidently felt the past importance of his elevation, high above his compeers. He seemed quite conscious that every inhabitant, not of _that_ simply, but of the _next_ parish, was gazing at him in profound amazement. He turned no glance, whether of contempt or benignant pity, on the open eyes and mouths around, but looked unutterable things at the knocker of a door opposite.

"So stands the statue that enchants the world!"

This, however, was only at the commencement of the performance, while the spectators were being coaxed to contribute, and while several among them, not knowing exactly what they were doing, were giving a half-penny. But when the ladder was deliberately hoisted up, and fixed on the chin, then came the utter hopelessness of presenting a true resemblance of the ass's face--the boy's we mean;--of the conscious pride in its own blankness, of its self-complacency, tinged with a slight touch of fear, amounting only to a pleasurable excitement! He was a boy picked out of the crowd around,--yet he was matchless. You saw at once that he was not _employed_ by the mountebank--that he was not _paid_ for being balanced. There was something in his look that distinguished him at a glance from the hired professor. It might be supposed that, the boy not being hired, there would be a little difficulty in procuring a substitute for the ass: not so; only blow a trumpet or beat a drum in the street, and you are surrounded in less than no time with able and willing volunteers. This boy entered into the soul of the ass's part; he did not hug, and hang on the ladder mechanically, or like one who had done the same thing a dozen times before, that very day. There was the freshness of the young aspiration, the delicious novelty of the first grand step in life--in the attempt. It was young Ambition (as Brutus says) just mounting his ladder. He was animated by the glorious intoxication of getting up in the world. He looked direct forward; not at, but through, the brick wall opposite, into futurity. If one of his schoolfellows had called out, "Master's a coming;" or, "Here's your father with the cartwhip;" or, "Bill, I'm blessed if here arn't the woman what we stole the apples on;"--no, even these notes of alarm would have failed to disturb his equanimity--or his equilibrium. "Have a slice o' cold pudden, Bill?" might have communicated perhaps to some part of his frame a momentary touch of human weakness--we can't say positively--boys are but men;--but nothing short of such an appeal to the weak side of his nature could have disturbed his rapt and lofty musings.

Since the days of the Hebrew with which we set out, when the Ass on the Ladder was but a fiction, history has recorded the doings--we had almost said the sayings--of scores of wonderful quadrupeds. We have had gifted horses, who should have been elected F.R.S.'s; learned pigs, who should have been chosen LL.D.'s; humane dogs, who merit statues like Howard's; and industrious fleas, who do the work of hot water in putting lobsters to the blush. But such an ass as the Lad on the Ladder eye never beheld but that once. His face spread before our curious and inquiring gaze, like a map of the world, and we traced in recollection an infinite variety of character. What it more immediately suggested was the expression in the face of a successful candidate at the moment of "chairing," elevated in some fantastic car, surrounded with banners bearing patriotic mottoes and devices, and accompanied by roaring raggamuffins. It also conjured up a vision of a youthful aspirant, fresh from the office or the shop, strutting in Richard, or fretting in Hamlet, before eight long sixes, and a full bench of aunts, in a private theatre.

The ass on the ladder brings to memory a thousand other spectacles. When we behold an orator (to listen is impossible) flourishing his arms on the hustings, and ever and anon placing his hand upon his crimson waistcoat, or declaiming for an hour together before a private company to the exclusion of conversation, in full force of lungs, but in virtue of no mental superiority, we are forcibly reminded of the ass on the ladder.

When we see a sprig of fashion, who only obtained his nobility yesterday, and whose worth, if put up to auction, would be dear at the price of a mushroom, insolently claiming precedence of the untitled bearer of an ancient and honourable name; or when we observe the high-born, starched up to the eyes, sneering at humble birth, however associated with merit, and cutting modest respectability for a parvenu; in these cases we cannot help thinking of the ass on the ladder.

When we see a vulgar jack, in virtue of his office raised to the rank of gentleman, treating a poor suitor, who asks for his own, as if he were a beggar asking alms; or a sleek-headed, rosy-gilled idiot, who lives only in his own breeches-pocket, pretending to patronise talent because he doles out, for its exercise, what scarcely keeps its possessor from starving, we are very apt to call to recollection the ass on the ladder.

When a connoisseur, influential by position, sits down to decide, in just ten minutes, upon the merits of a work of art or science, which has cost the producer years of anxious study and ceaseless labour; or when a military despot lives but to harass, irritate, and torture the sensitive and honourable minds of those ill-fated officers, who, superior perhaps in everything else, happen to be below him in rank and fortune,--we immediately recur for a parallel to the ass on the ladder.

When we see a millionnaire, who has crawled along the road to riches until he can't stand upright, grasping with usurious hands at the little still retained by those who helped him to rise; or when a sudden puff of fortune has blown an adventurer into power and affluence, and we see him so giddy that he doesn't know his own poor relations, and actually can't recognise in broad daylight the struggling friend who lent him five pounds three months before,--then, and under all similar circumstances, we are sure to think of the ass on the ladder.

When we behold a gentleman turning jockey or stage-coachman, quitting the legislature for the stable or the cockpit, winking at the worst vices until he becomes himself tainted, and devoting his time and money to the destruction of his own health and the demoralisation of his hangers-on; or when we see a barrister, bullying with conscious impunity a trembling, blushing, inexperienced witness (perhaps a woman) until common sense becomes confused, truth begins to contradict herself, and honesty steps out of the witness-box, looking very much like a rogue,--why, who can fail to associate with spectacles like these, the ass on the ladder?

But it is not merely in the army and on the stage, at the bar and in literature, in the walks of commerce and in the world of fashion, that we daily detect some living prototype of the long-eared animal in the ascendant. If public meetings exhibit them, public schools do so no less abundantly. There is a great deal of ladder-climbing going on at the universities; and not a proctor in the precincts of learning but could tell many tales of asinine ambition. Who more irresistibly calls to mind the ass on the ladder than the noble knocker-wrencher, or the gentlemanly bell-destroyer, when brought up--many staves up the ladder now--before a magistrate, and indulgently allowed to take his choice--a fine of forty shillings, _or_ a month at the treadwheel? When the noble and gentlemanly sport extends to the pummelling of police-officers, only stopping within an ace of manslaughter, then the animal may be said to have reached the topmost stave--an elevation where every kick with which he indulges himself in his playful humour adds incalculably to his own imminent danger. The higher the ascent, the greater the ass. We have seen many instances, more melancholy than ludicrous, of asses falling from the very top.

For ourselves, we must candidly confess to a painful consciousness of having been--occasionally, and for not many days together--yet of having been, ere now, beyond all mistake, upon the ladder adverted to. Nay, emboldened by the virtuous frankness of this self-criminating admission, we even venture to put it to our (male) readers, whether they cannot recollect having had their own feet, at some time of their lives, on the first round of the ladder; whether they do not feel sensible of having placed just one foot on that lowest step of the ascent--one only--for we would not dare to insinuate that they ever got farther, lest they should turn upon us with the mortifying, and perhaps not altogether mistaken discovery, that we ourselves, even in this moment of moralising, have reached the top of it!

OMNIBUS CHAT.

The "Omnibus" had hardly started off, on the first of the month, from the door of Messrs. Tilt and Bogue, and taken a westerly direction up Fleet Street, commencing without the loss of an hour its monthly tour in search of the picturesque, when it was stopped for the purpose of taking in a passenger. This was at the corner of Bolt Court, out of which classical and celebrated avenue tumbled rather than walked a gentleman stout and elderly, with a bluff good-humoured countenance, all the pleasanter for an air of sternness which was evidently affectation. Having got in, he seated himself immediately opposite to us, that is to say, at the left-hand corner of the vehicle next the door, and at once began, as though he had been the ghost of Dr. Johnson, and possessed the unquestionable right in that neighbourhood to take the lead in conversation.

"Sir," he said, "you have made a fair start, but a start is not a journey. Now there's a fact for you--and it's a fact which the producers of Number-ones are deplorably prone to forget. With me, Sir, first numbers go for nothing. Some people will tell you that your No. 1. is _a proof as far as it goes_ of what you mean to do in this new vehicle of yours. Sir, some people are very fond of a 'proof as far as it goes.' But how far does it go? If you see a man in a black coat to-day, and you meet the same man in a blue coat to-morrow, it's 'a proof as far as it goes,' that he is the possessor of three hundred and sixty-five coats, or one for every day in the year. But still, sir, you have made a fair start. Let me warn you against stoppages; never stop but when you have to take up or set down. Don't overload your vehicle. No racing, but go quietly. All of which means, don't cut knotted oaks with razors, and when you have a 'wee crimson-tipped flower' to paint, don't make a great red flare of it. Above all, sir, never follow advice, however excellent, when it is offered to you in a long speech; for the man who would presume to take up two minutes and a half of your valuable time at one sitting, deserves to be put into a Mile-end omnibus by mistake, when he's bound for Turnham Green direct."

We had scarcely time to thank our gruff but good-humoured adviser--whom we at once set down for a chip of that respectable old block, the Public in General, and identified as a specimen of Middle-aged People in Town and Country--we had barely time to assure him that his last important suggestion at all events should be especially remembered, when a voice burst forth from the further end of the vehicle, where in the dim light the speaker was only just visible. He was a very young man, evidently of the last new school, and in a tone of jocular familiarity he called out, "I wish that gentleman from Bolt Court would explain the phenomenon of a new work being started with a preface so totally unlike the prefaces of all new works published during the last half-century, which invariably begin with 'Dr. Johnson has observed.'"

The elderly passenger appealed to, frowned; but in less than a minute the frown gave way to a smile, and without further noticing the challenge, he said, "Dr. Johnson is not responsible for a ten-thousandth part of what during the last half-century has been observed in his name. His mimics are calumniators, and they have distorted his sentiments as remorselessly as they have disfigured his style. Since subjects of caricature are not prescribed in the present company, I may safely put it to the vote whether any exaggeration is more gross than that which commonly passes in the world for exact imitation. There are people who can trace resemblances in the most opposite and unlikely forms. Old ladies, stirring the fire, and tumbling the bright cinders into new combinations, will often hit upon a favourite coal and cry, 'Well, I declare if that isn't like Mrs. Jenkinson.' And no doubt the resemblance is quite as perfect as that between the ridiculed manner of Johnson, and the rumblings of his sneering mimics. He, with a full measure of language but not an overflow, with nice inflexions, a studied balance, yet with a simple elegance not destroyed by his formality, opens a story--stay, I can give you a graceful passage of the Doctor's, and in the same breath you shall hear how it would come spluttering forth from the clumsy pen of his imitators.

"'DR. JOHNSON HIMSELF.

"'Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promise of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.'

"'DR. JOHNSON IMITATED.

"'Ye who listen with ignorant credulity to the whispering blandishments of fancy, and pursue with inconsiderate eagerness the enchanting and seductive phantoms of hope; who idly expect that grudging age will perform the rash but generous promise of thoughtless youth, and that the glaring deficiencies of the present day will be providentially supplied by the inexhaustible profusion of the morrow; attend to the moral history of Rasselas, Crown Prince of Abyssinia.'"

"There is much truth in what you observe," said a quiet modest-looking passenger on our left to the talkative Johnsonite, who deprecated long speeches; "much truth; and perhaps as you dislike exaggeration in whatever professes to imitate, you might be entertained with one of my 'Photographic Pictures,' warranted accurate. I am, sir, yours respectfully, H. G. A. Now as there happens to be one of these pictures distinctly present to my eye at this moment, though the scene is far from Fleet Street, I think I can copy it to the life, and if you please we'll call it--

"A SCENE NEAR HOGSNORTON.

"A ditch frequented much by water-rats, With velvet-headed rushes borderèd; Two little boys who fish for tittlebats With sticks, and crooked pins, and bits of thread; Three willow trees that stand with drooping boughs Upon the banks, and look disconsolate; A bull that flings his tail up as he lows-- He's coming at those boys, as sure as fate! A church spire peeping from amid the trees, With vane in semblance of a fiery cock; And Farmer Stubbles lolling at his ease, Across a gate to view his fleecy flock; A barn that seems just ready to fall down, And _would_, but for the shores that stay its falling; And, where yon row of elms the green slopes crown, Is Thomas Noakes, with hand to mouth, outcalling To Simon Simpson in the fields below, And telling him to mind that precious bull-- He's fresh from town, poor lad, and does not know What danger lurks amid the beautiful; Here a tall oak its branches flingeth out, As if it said--"I am of trees the king!" And there an aged hawthorn spreads about Its crooked arms--a queer misshapen thing; Far off you see a mill--more trees--some houses-- Look at this frisking colt, why what a kicker!-- _Feathers and parasols!_ here come the spouses Of Dr. Dobbs, and Mr. Trench, the vicar, The Smiths, the Joneses, and Jemimah Prescot-- I'm off, before they nail me for their escort!"

The reciter, who wore an air that bespoke him of the country, was here addressed by a metropolitan gentleman seated in his vicinity, who announced himself as a brother initialist, A. G. K. "Well, sir, Simon Simpson, 'fresh from town,' was not more awkwardly situated than I once was, in this very lane here, when fresh from the country. You see the vehicle has just turned out of Fleet Street, and is making for Holborn; so if you like to listen, I'll give you my impressions on first finding myself in

"CHANCERY LANE.

"I meditated the desperate design of hastening to Holborn by the first street which led thither; a desperate design, indeed, as I knew not the street through which I should have to pass. As ill-luck would have it, "Chancery Lane" was the first that offered, and well does it deserve the name; dark, narrow, crooked, long, and tedious is this Elysium of the Law! On every side I beheld long and careworn faces, and, as is generally the case with legal suits, I might easily have got through it alone, had I not been prevented by the many passengers, like the numerous little cases put into causes to protract and swell the client's difficulties. Perhaps it may be thought that I could have stepped into the middle of the street, and so have managed to walk on; not so--the vehicles were as numerous nearly as the passengers, and there was no resource but to wait. On this, I began to look around me, to see if I could discover anything that could take away the tedium of stoppage. I gazed on the persons nearest to me; from the youngest to the oldest--from the poorest to the richest, there was the same invariable careworn look.

"First there came the young office-boy, groaning under a large bag of parchment and what not; then the unfortunate articled clerk, desponding at the idea of five years in so gloomy a place, wherein his youth's best years were to be spent. The needy clerks, who received a stipend, came next; their little all had, with the characteristic theatrical mania of lawyers' clerks, vanished the night previous at the Adelphi, or adjacent tavern. But not alone did these wear a look of gloom: the fishermen, the snarers, even the attorneys themselves, looked vexed; the stoppage of the way teased them sadly. It was five minutes past the time when that little bony wretch, the office boy, should have been screwed down to his comfortless stool, far from the apparition of a fire, from the phantom of heat! Last of all came the client: it will easily be surmised why he looked gloomy.

"The sun never shines there--the houses take care of that; in fact, the very 'fretwork' of the heavens seemed of a parchment yellow; the air breathed of briefs! No merry laugh is heard in Chancery Lane; no girl trips gaily along! No! the moaning of the dupe is heard there; the decrepit, grief-worn widow totters there, to find that her hope of subsistence is faded in useless expense. I have spoken of the numerous conveyances in the street. The horses were half-starved, the people within seemed bailiffs; and the omnibus proprietors (unlike our '_Omnibus_') looked anxiously for in-comers.

"Chancery Lane is, indeed, a fit place for the law: the houses overhang the street--the smoky windows, ay even the few shops seem impregnated with it. I turned to a book-stall to relieve my aching gaze, when a massive row of calf-bound volumes frowned upon me; I looked in a fruiterer's stall,--dry musty raisins, bitter almonds, olives and sour apples met my view. I then cast my eyes at a perfumery-shop; the wax dummies were arrayed in judge's wigs and black legal drapery. In despair I turned to a tailor's: a figure arrayed in black, on a wooden mould, appeared; but it was swathed in a barrister's gown. There was another figure with finely-cut clothes certainly; but allegorically, I suppose, it had no head. Such is Chancery Lane. My associations with it are none of the pleasantest. What are yours?"

This question, addressed to everybody, was answered by nobody. We had now advanced to the upper end of Chancery Lane; and, passing those buildings on the left, in which Equity presides over the affairs of suitors, a passenger, who introduced himself under the designation of Sam Sly, and in whose eye there was a pleasant twinkle not ill associated with the appellation, observed in an inward tone, as if he were speaking to himself, "A poor devil who has once got into that court, must soon feel himself in the position of the letter _r_." As Mr. Sly's remark was not intended to be heard at all--so at least it seemed--it of course attracted general notice; and as there was a disposition manifested to know "why," Mr. Sly politely explained, "Because, though far advanced in Chancery, he can never get quite to the end of it. By the way," he proceeded, "all law is but an enigma; and talking of enigmas, I happen to have one--yes, here it is. Rather an old-fashioned sort of thing, an enigma, eh? True, but so are epics, you know. Am I to read? oh! very well, since you're all so pressing;"--and then to the following tune Mr. Sly trolled out his

ENIGMA.

"A delinquent there is, and we ever shall scout him, For roguery never would flourish without him. We're lovers of peace; but regardless of quiet, This knave is the first in a row or a riot; A strange, paradoxical elf, we declare, That shies at a couple but clings to a pair. Though at first in the right, still he's found in the wrong; And though harmony wakes him, yet dies in the song. Three fifths of the error that poisons our youth, Yet boasts of a formal acquaintance with truth. Though not fond of boasting, yet given to brag; And though proud of a dress, still content with a rag. He sticks to our ribs, and he hangs by our hair, And brings with him trouble, and torment and care; Stands thick in our sorrows and floats in our tears, Never leads us to Hope, but returns with our Fears; To the worst of our passions is ever allied, Grief, Anger, and Hatred, Rage, Terror, and Pride. Yet still, notwithstanding, the rogue we might spare If he kept back his old ugly phiz from the Fair."

We had by this time stopped at the end of Drury Lane to take up a passenger, who now appeared, emerging from that very dirty avenue, with an exceedingly small roll of MS. under his arm. The new-comer's eye was evidently in a fine frenzy rolling, and it was at once suspected from one end of the vehicle to the other, that he had just been writing a German Opera for Drury-lane Theatre. "Gentlemen," said he, the instant he had taken his seat, "you're all mistaken. Through that miserable cranny I have been picking a path to the theatre for the sole purpose of taking off my hat to the statue of Shakspeare, over the portico, in celebration of the event which renders its presence there no longer a libel and a mockery. You guess what I allude to. Mr. Macready has become the lessee of Drury; and the noble task which he assigned to himself in the management of Covent Garden, he purposes here to complete. The whole public will rejoice in the renewal of his experiment, which should be hailed in golden verse. I wish I could write sonnets like Milton or Wordsworth. Here are two, such as they are, addressed to the regenerator of the stage."

TO WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY,

ON HIS BECOMING THE LESSEE OF OLD DRURY.

I.

MACREADY, master of the Art supreme. That shows to dazzled and else guideless eyes (As doth Astronomy the starry skies) The airy wonders of our Shakspeare's dream; Com'st thou again to shed a wakening gleam Of morals, taste, and learning, where the gloom Most darkens, as around the Drama's tomb! Oh, come, and show us yet the true Extreme; Transcendent art, for coarse and low desire; The generous purpose, for the sordid aim; For noise and smoke, the music and the fire Of time-crown'd poets; for librettos tame, The emulous flashings of the modern lyre-- Come, and put scowling Calumny to shame!

II.

What though with thee come Lear, himself a storm Of wilder'd passion, and the musing Dane, The gallant Harry and his warrior-train, Brutus, Macbeth, and truth in many a form Towering! not therefore only that we warm With hope and praise; but that thy glorious part Is now to raise the Actor's trampled Art, And drive from out its temple a loose swarm Of things vice-nurtured--from the Porch and Shrine! And know, Macready, midst the desert there, That soon shall bloom a garden, swells a mine Of wealth no less than honour--both most bare To meaner enterprise. Let that be thine-- Who knowest how to risk, and how to share!

L. B.

Hereupon, a bard started up in the very remotest corner, and interposed in favour of the epigram, seeing that such oddities as sonnets and enigmas were allowed to pass current. Immediately, and by unanimous invitation, he produced some lines written in the album of a fair damsel, whose sire has but one leg, and complains of torture in the toes that he has not.

"The heart that has been spurn'd by you Can never dream of love again, Save as old soldiers do of pain In limbs they left at Waterloo."

We expressed our acknowledgments, and then heaved a sigh to the memory of an old friend, who, having suffered from the gout before his limb was amputated, felt all the pain, just as usual, at the extremity of his wooden leg, which was regularly flannelled up and rubbed as its living predecessor used to be. But here our reflections were broken off by a stoppage, as if instinctively, at a chemist's shop, the door of which, standing open, afforded a fair view of the scene which follows. On the subject of hom[oe]opathy we profess to hold no opinion; but, considering that it prescribes next to nothing to its patients, it must be an excellent system for a man who has next to nothing the matter with him. It is comical, at all events, to think of a doctor of that school literally carrying his "shop" in his pocket, and compressing the whole science of medicine into the smallest Lilliputian nut-shell. Imagine a little customer going with

A LARGE ORDER

TO A HOMOEOPATHIC APOTHECARY.

_Little Girl._ "Please, sir, I want the hundred-thousandth part of a grain of magnesia."

_Young Chemist_ (Whose hair would certainly stand on end, were it not so tightly pommaded down, at the simplicity of the little innocent in asking for as much medicine as would kill or cure a whole regiment of soldiers). "Very sorry, miss, but we don't sell anything in such large quantities; you had better apply at Apothecaries' Hall." And he follows her to the shop-door to see whether she had brought with her a hackney-coach or a van to carry away the commodity she had inquired for!

* * * * *

_Driver._ I say, Tom, here's that there elderly lady a coming, as wanted to go with us at our first start.

_Cad._ Ay, well, it's no use, Bill--she's too late _agen_--ve're full--ALL RIGHT--GO ON!

"MY VOTE AND INTEREST."

A COMMUNICATION FROM MR. SIMPLETON SCHEMER, OF DOLTFORD-LODGE, CROOKSLEY.

Crooksley doesn't return members to Parliament--I wish it did. I'm sure I took pains enough ten years ago to procure for it--all my property being situate there--the privilege which was at that time accorded to other towns of consideration and respectability; for although the population doesn't much exceed three hundred and sixty, I took upon myself to make a return of our numbers to the then Secretary of State, which _ought_ to have prevailed in our favour; for I proved that the population amounted to within a dozen of seven thousand, merely by including the churchyard, which I well might do, as part and parcel of Crooksley itself, and adding the affectionate wives, virtuous husbands, and filial prodigies, now no more, to the estimate of the living inhabitants; also, by anticipating the returns of christenings for a few succeeding years; which was easily done by guessing, on the authority of Blandish (our medical man, with whom I was at that time friendly), what number of children extra the various increasing families within the boundaries of Crooksley were likely to be blessed with.

Not the smallest notice, however, was taken of my memorial; and Crooksley to this hour does not return a single representative. I read an advertisement the other day in our county paper, of some new patent strait-waistcoats; which advertisement was headed thus:--"Worthy the attention of the Insane!" Now, if Crooksley had been enfranchised, that is the very heading which might have been affixed to an advertisement for an independent candidate to represent it at the present crisis--"_Candidate wanted--worthy the attention of the Insane!_" for a place more unlucky in its elections, more ill-omened and perverse in all its contests, more predestined to choose the wrong candidate, or more wilfully bent on self-destruction by scorning the advice of its best friends and patrons, I never lived in, since the day I sold my stock and good-will, and retired from the Old Jewry for ever.

To every other place with which I am acquainted entrance is obtained by regular roads; to Crooksley, I verily believe, there is no egress whatever but by _cross_-roads. I'm thinking of selling Doltford-lodge--cheap.

The first contest that ever took place in Crooksley--for it is odd enough, but they never could get up a contested election until I, having retired from business, went to settle there in the enjoyment of concord, harmony, and peace,--the first contest occurred several years ago. It was a struggle--and well do I remember it--for the office of organist. No sooner was the place vacant--almost, I might say, before the bellows of the departed holder had lost their last breath of wind--than up started half-a-dozen of the nobs of Crooksley, with Dr. Blandish at their head, and down they came to me at the lodge with a flourishing testimonial to sign--a testimonial in favour of Miss Cramper, as a fit and proper person to fill the post of organist.

Miss Cramper! And who was Miss Cramper, I internally asked myself. But I couldn't answer the question. I knew, in fact, little about her, except that she had lived long in the place, had decent connexions, not over rich, and happened to be a capital musician; the best organ-player, I must admit, that anybody ever heard in or out of our village. But with this exception she hadn't a single claim, not a pretension that I know of, to the post of organist. She was not asthmatic--she had not nine children, seven of them solely depending upon her for support--nor did she even pretend to have lost her eyesight, "or any part thereof," as Knix the lawyer says; for she was ogling Blandish all throughout the interview, as if she looked upon _him_ to be the first-fiddle in Crooksley--Humph!

Well! I confess I didn't like the proceeding; and so, after assuring the requisitionists, in the friendliest manner, that Miss Cramper should certainly have my vote and interest--in the event, I added, more to myself, perhaps, than to them--in the event of no candidate coming forward to oppose her,--what did I do but I brought forward a candidate of my own!

It so happened that I had taken down there with me from the Old Jewry an elderly warehouseman, whom I couldn't well send adrift, and who was of no earthly use to me, either in the house or in the grounds. Now, poor Joggins, besides being bent double, chanced, very luckily, to have eyes like an owl, and there were the strongest hopes of their becoming speedily weaker; so that here at once was a qualification. In addition to that, he had had two sons: one, a waterman, drowned by the usual means, collision with a steamer, was easily elevated into a British seaman dying in defence of his country; and the other, for whom I had obtained a situation in the new police, was, of course, one of the brave devoted guardians of his native land. To crown our good-luck, Joggins had been very fond of playing the flute before wind got so very valuable to him, and really did know something practically of that enchanting instrument, so that his qualifications as an organist were more than indisputable.

Yet, strange to say, his nomination was the signal for violent opposition; and a tremendous conflict ensued. I was determined that Blandish, though backed by the vicar, should not carry everything before him with a high hand, nor become, what, ever since the part I had taken relative to the enfranchisement question, he was striving to be, the dictator of Crooksley. My own influence was not slight, and a powerful party rose up, notwithstanding our adversaries were earliest in the field. The walls were everywhere placarded, families were everywhere divided by circulars. "Vote for Joggins," "Vote for Cramper;" "Joggins and grey hairs," "Cramper and Musical Accomplishments;" "Joggins the veteran parent of our brave defenders," "Cramper and Female Virtue;" "Joggins and the failure of eyesight." "Cramper and Organic changes:" these were among the changes rung throughout the village, and a mile or two round it, for upwards of three weeks. I called public meetings, at which I took the chair, and personally carried the resolutions; and I started a Crooksley Chronicle, of which I was at once the editor and all the correspondents. In both capacities I defied our antagonists to prove that their candidate had any one of the qualifications by which ours was so abundantly distinguished. I dared them to prove that there were any brave defenders on the other side; that there existed any ocular weakness; that there was a single grey hair or any symptom of decrepitude: while, on the other hand, I showed triumphantly that the legitimate candidate for the office of organist was a veteran flute-player, utterly and hopelessly incapable of any exertion whatever, and unobjectionable by the excess of his infirmity.

Blandish was so alarmed at the progress we made, that he began to give out in reply that Miss Cramper was considerably more advanced in years than had been insidiously suggested; that her eyesight was anything but vivid; that what seemed to be her own hair might not bear examination; and possibly he would have proceeded to other intimations tending to balance her claims with those of Joggins, had she not stopped him with the declaration that she would rather lose her election, rather retire from the contest, than sanction such gross misrepresentations of fact. Truth, she said, was everything, and it must prevail; her hair was her own, and her eyes piercers, she thanked Heaven.

But notwithstanding this electioneering attack upon his own nominee, I saw that Blandish was on the very best terms with Miss C.; and as the interest he took in her success could not solely be attributed to gratitude for her attendance at all his evening parties, to play his guests into patients, by provoking headaches that demanded draughts and powders in the morning, I issued, the day previously to the poll, a placard containing surely a very inoffensive query, thus--"WHY is Blandish the patron of Miss Cramper?" The "why" was in very large capitals. Now will it be believed that this, though it asserted nothing disrespectful, and merely put an innocent question, immediately created a very strong sympathy throughout Crooksley in favour of our adversaries, and that the popular feeling was instantly shown in tumultuous cries of "Cramper for ever!" So it happened, however. The result was, that the venerable Joggins had virtually lost his election before the expiration of the first hour of polling. I then, feeling that every vote was wanted, went forward to record my own; when perceiving Blandish (he had a horsewhip in his hand), I turned back with the view of bringing up a batch of electors from a distant part of the village; and on my return all was at an end, and so my vote wasn't wanted; for Joggins, the old idiot, had resigned. I had a disagreeable encounter afterwards with that Blandish, who is, I really think, fonder of carrying a horsewhip than any man I know; but gloriously was I at a subsequent period revenged; for I shammed a long illness, sent off to a neighbouring town for an apothecary, and paid him thirty-seven pounds odd for attendance which I never required, and medicine which I never tasted! Poor Blandish was so irritated, that he fell really ill himself, and took his own mixtures for three weeks.

About a year after this we had another election in Crooksley. The gravediggership became vacant. The Blandish party, who had the churchwardens with them, wanted to get in young Digdum, the son of the late official; and he would have walked the course sure enough, if I hadn't brought forward little Spick the cross-sweeper to oppose him. Party feeling never ran so high, I think, as on this memorable occasion. Everybody felt the cause to be his own, and put forth his energies as though the issue of the struggle depended upon his exertions. It was like a life-and-death contest; and you would have thought that the consequence of being beaten was the being buried alive by the victorious candidate. I'm sure that if it had been to keep ourselves out of "apartments furnished" in the churchyard, we Spickites could not have toiled harder. Nor were the Digdumites idle.

On our side we had ranged, besides myself, who acted as chairman of the committee, Lawyer Knix (who handsomely volunteered his gratuitous services at two guineas a day); Fobbs, the landlord of the Crumpet and Spade; Tipson, of the Vicar's Head; (both of them very fond of an opposition, and always ready to further my views in bringing forward a candidate, and in keeping the poll open to the latest moment allowed by law;) then we had the crack printer of our town, whose charges were very moderate; several of the neighbouring gentry, friends of my own; and one Swarthy Sam, a character who had no fixed abode in Crooksley, nor indeed anywhere else, and had not, therefore, a vote to give--but who kindly took an interest in the contest, and who proved a most valuable agent, for he particularly knew what he was about in a row, could drown by his own unaided lungs the voice of the most stentorian speaker on the other side, and would tear down, I do think, more of the enemy's placards in an hour than they could stick up in a day. On their side, they had the fat churchwarden, and the stately master of the workhouse; the skeleton of a schoolmaster, the parish-lawyer (Knix was independent), and various other paid functionaries or hirelings.

Well, there wasn't one of them that didn't wish himself well out of Crooksley before the contest was over; for we left nothing of their private history unraked, I can tell you. The "Crooksley Chronicle" came again into play, and I wrote letters--in Junius's style--only under the various signatures of Vindex, Justitia, A Spickite, Philo-Spickite, Veritas, An Admirer of Crooksley, Anti-Digdum, &c. &c. We also raised with remarkable success, a cry of "No brickdust, no pigs' bristles!" in conjunction with the cry of "No Digdum." It did not in point of fact mean anything in particular, as far as we were aware, but it vexed the Digdum party amazingly, and made Spick surprisingly popular[4].

The best of the fun was that we had forestalled them in taking possession of _both_ public-houses--the Crumpet and Spade, and the Vicar's Head--for our committee-rooms; so that they had only a little bit of a beer-shop to assemble in. This drove the Digdum party to distraction. They made incredible exertions to get us out of the Vicar's Head; and a deputation came privately to our worthy host's good dame, and offered, if Digdum were returned, to bury her husband for nothing--for poor Tipson was sadly apoplectic! Such were the too-powerful temptations (for so in some instances they proved), such the demoralising practices, to which our depraved and desperate opponents had resort. They went to Clank the blacksmith, and promised, if he would but vote for Digdum, they would see him and all his family buried with pleasure free of charge; but Clank was not to be seduced, for having once had a turn-up with Swarthy Sam in the skittle-ground, he preferred being on the same side _with_ Sam, you see--not caring to fall out--and to say the truth, they were not a few that had similar feelings. Sam was a capital canvasser, and it wasn't everybody that would like to say "No" to him.

At last dawn'd the day, the important day, "Big with the fate of Digdum or of Spick."

Every soul in Crooksley was out of doors; the excitement was intense; seventeen pots of beer and best part of a round of beef were consumed at the Crumpet and Spade alone before ten in the morning. Every chaise, fly, and hack in old Wheeler's yard was in requisition. Both parties were particularly well satisfied with the result of the canvass, and assembled at the place of nomination with equal confidence. Our flags bore the several inscriptions of "Spick the opponent of Corruption," "Spick and Span," "Spades are trumps," &c.; theirs had, "No Cross-sweeper," "No Sweeping Changes," "Digdum and the Rites of the Departed," &c. &c. Blandish nominated Digdum, and then I proposed Spick in a neat and appropriate speech.

Well we gained our election--that is, we gained it by a show of hands; but the other party took the mean advantage of demanding a poll. There was instantly a rush of upwards of a dozen on their side, and very near a score on ours. To keep up the advantage we had gained was the thing. Unfortunately some of our safest voters were now drunk, having received eighteen-pence a piece to attend the nomination of candidates; and instead of flocking to the poll, off they went to the Vicar's Head, or the Crumpet and Spade, swearing they wouldn't vote at all unless supplied with pots round; which Fobbs and Tipson very readily drew for them: I having desired those disinterested persons in the morning not to stand very nice about a measure or two of ale, and they promised me they would not, as I was to pay. And this, in fact, I shouldn't have minded; but, unluckily, the worthy electors got so drunk that they absolutely forgot what colours they fought under, and went and voted for the wrong candidate.

This turned the scale against us. What was to be done? I had already got some of the Digdumites away; a tenant of mine, seven miles off, having engaged to "coop" them, that is, to make them "fuddled," and to prevent their return in time. A few more must be pounced upon. Swarthy Sam (that invaluable election-agent) undertook to inveigle them and manage the business. We got a vehicle or two; and partly by cajolery, partly by intimidation, and a display of the enemy's colours, off we carried in an opposite direction to the poll a batch of Digdum's supporters. Away we drove, Sam conducting us, through by-lanes and across ploughed-fields, I may say, so that I hardly knew where I was. Deaf to all remonstrances, on we went, till, feeling pretty secure, I pretended it was time to turn back or we should all be too late for the poll, and jumped down to consult privately with Sam as to the expediency of further stratagems; when--to my inexpressible astonishment and confusion, as you may well imagine--my swarthy vagabond of an agent, whom I trusted on account of his bad character, and because nobody else would, indulged his lungs with the most vociferous roar of laughter I ever heard, to which the entire party added a chorus. In one instant the whole line of vehicles wheeled round and galloped off towards Crooksley, leaving me staggering helplessly into a deep ditch on my left, overcome with rage, mortification, and dismay.

They all arrived in time to vote for Digdum, Sam and all, who went up arm in arm with Clank, the blacksmith. As for me, I never found my way back until hours after the poll had closed; and as I approached the scene with a foreboding heart, the first person I encountered was the defeated Spick--Spick the rejected of Crooksley--who bitterly assailed me as the sole cause of his total "ruination," having spoiled his trade of cross-sweeping by exciting everybody against him, and reduced him to a condition that promised his successful rival immediate employment in his new profession. "I shouldn't ha' minded," he said, with a sneer, "your not guving on me your wote, but what I complains on is, you would guv me your hintrest!"

After this, as you may well suppose, I grew rather disgusted, and a little sick of exercising one's public spirit and disinterested philanthropy to no purpose; so I permitted Dr. Blandish to triumph on one or two occasions, rather than subject the town to the inconvenience of a contested election. I allowed the boy Bratts, whom he patronised, to get elected into our Juvenile Asylum without opposition; and when Soppy put up for the situation of turncock, full in the teeth of Blandish's pet candidate, though he came to me and implored the favour of my vote and interest, I gave him neither. I did not poll for him, nor did I solicit a soul in his behalf; yet Soppy won the election by a considerable majority. Indeed Blandish has been disgracefully beaten on more than one occasion when I had disdained to interfere at all; though whenever I _have_ interfered--when I have canvassed my very heart out, and talked the teeth out of my head--bribing here, treating there--threatening this man with the loss of my custom, and tempting the other with all sorts of seductive promises--hang me (for it puts me in a passion!) if he hasn't been triumphantly successful.

There was the election of a contractor to supply leather-shorts to the charity school. I decided to take no part in it; but when I perceived which way the election was sure to go, when I saw which man would beat to a dead certainty, I changed my mind, threw all my influence into the scale of the popular candidate, gave him my entire support, and would have given him my vote--only he resigned on the morning of the election not having a chance of winning; for directly I took up his cause, he began to lose ground:--odd enough, you will say, but it so happened; although I set a barrel flowing at Tipson's, promised old coats at Christmas to two dozen ragged but independent electors, and gave at least half that number of the better class permission to shoot on my property.

The last great battle that I fought was on behalf of widow Bricks, candidate for the office of housekeeper to our Infirmary. Here Dr. B. was "top-sawyer," as they say; this was carrying the war into the enemy's country. All Crooksley was astonished, petrified almost, at my boldness; but I was lucky in my choice of a candidate, the Bricks having been resident in the place as long as Crooksley itself had been in existence, and the widow being left with eleven small children; while the Doctor's candidate hadn't the smallest scrap of offspring to go to the poll with. So to the work of philanthropy I went; and notwithstanding a hint from the Blandish faction, that if beaten the Doctor would certainly resign his office in the institution, I was successful beyond my hopes.

We elected the eleven little Bricks upon our committee, and took them about with us upon our canvas--a procession singularly imposing and irresistible. Nothing could equal the popular enthusiasm; and the greatest possible effect was created wherever they appeared, for we kept them all without their dinners up till bed-time, to make them cry; which is the only method of melting the public heart, since a constant drop, we are told, will wear away a stone. The eldest of the Bricks, a boy, had a turn for spouting; and we made him address the people from the window of the Vicar's Head, by reciting "My name is Norval," which he had heard done by some strolling-players. This was amazingly successful; but unfortunately the mob consisted chiefly of non-electors, for it was only the subscribers to the institution who had the privilege of voting. Voters, therefore, I made in scores, simply by paying their subscriptions for them. As fast as Blandish could extract promises from the old subscribers, I produced new ones; the list of qualified electors exceeded anything ever heard of in the annals of benevolence.

I spare you the speech I made at the nomination of candidates; merely remarking, that I wasn't aware there was so much virtue in woman as I discovered in the widow, and that I never knew there were half so many charms and graces in infancy, as I detected in her eleven little angels--who all stood in a heartrending row upon the hustings, crying lustily, for they had not been allowed a bit of breakfast on that important occasion. The effect was seen as the voting proceeded; the compassionate rushed to the poll and voted for Bricks, I may say, _like_ bricks. Still our opponents mustered strongly, and I was compelled to make a good many people benevolent that morning who had never spent a shilling in charity in their lives.

The numbers for a considerable time were pretty nearly balanced; the excitement grew more intense, the shouts of "Vote for Bricks and Babbies," grew more vehement as the day advanced; till towards the close of the poll, the Blandish faction appeared a little a-head of us, but at last they were exhausted; they had polled their last Samaritan--the Doctor himself had given his vote--while I had purposely reserved mine. Now, mine alone was sufficient to win; mine alone would decide the contest in the widow's favour; for, having trebled my usual subscription, I had a right to six votes, and six would give us just a majority of one. With a heart swelling with conscious triumph, exulting in the cause of charity and the defeat of our factious adversaries, I walked up to the ballot-box (we voted by ballot), and there what do you think occurred? Directing a haughty look to the Doctor's generally red face, now pale with rage, I was not sufficiently cautious in distinguishing between the Y for "Yes," and the N for "No," painted on the front of the balloting-machine; and inconsiderately turning my hand to the left instead of the right, I dropped the six cork marbles into the enemy's box--hang me, if I didn't vote against Widow Bricks. Dr. Blandish danced for joy, and I really thought he never would stand still again. Not another shilling will his infirmary get from me.

If Crooksley were to return four members to Parliament, _I_ wouldn't be one of them.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 4: Our respectable correspondent must have visited the English Opera in his younger days, or else Charles Mathews must have paid a visit to Crooksley. He must also have seen the printed addresses circulated lately in Deptford during a contest for the office of gravedigger, where the proceedings were as outrageous as these that he describes.]

THE CENSUS.

Important days to all householders in the United Kingdom, were Sunday and Monday, the 6th and 7th ult., and especially perplexing to those whose ideas of reading and writing were at all circumscribed. Nor was the discomfort confined to the said illuminated members of society. Ladies of a very certain age bridled up at being obliged to tell the number of summers that had passed over their heads: notwithstanding the loop-hole of the "five years" which the gallantry of the commissioners allowed them. Elderly gentlemen also, who wore dark wigs that hid those auricular tell-tales of the _ci-devant jeune homme_, the ears, inwardly execrated the system of exposure to which the census paper gave rise, and willingly ran the risk of a fine "not more than five pounds, nor less than forty shillings," rather than be classed as old bachelors.

From returns into which the commissioners have allowed us to peep, it appears that of the middle-aged population of these kingdoms, one in three has grown five years younger since the date of the last census; one in seven two years younger; one in twelve remains of the same age; one in thirty-eight, is five years older than at the period referred to; and one in five hundred and sixty has attained the full age that might have been anticipated from the lapse of years. We believe it has been distinctly ascertained by these returns that the highest age among the unmarried ladies in this country is twenty-nine--the average age is twenty-one and seven-eighths. The widows willing to marry again, are mostly quite juvenile; and it is a remarkable fact that many are younger now, as widows, than they appear to be in the previous return as wives. Indeed the effect of the whole calculation is to show, perhaps in compliment to our young Queen, that her subjects are the most decidedly juvenile people in Christendom.

Nor was the designation of the respective professions and callings of our fellow-countrymen a task of less difficulty. Commonplace and even plebeian, as is the simple question "Who are you?" widely as the interrogation was diffused a short time back by the _gamins_ of London, it is a query we opine, in common with the cool audacious Mr. Dazzle, that would puzzle half the world to answer properly. Some are all profession--others are not any. Thousands live by their wits--thousands more by the total absence of them; many whom the world gives credit to for working hard in an industrious _état_ for their income, privately lead the lives of gentlemen; and many gentlemen whom we envy on account of their ostensible otiose existence, labour perchance in secret much harder than ourselves. Numbers would shrink if their employment was known, and numbers more would be extremely indignant if any other than their own was assigned to them.

The schedule stated that the professions of wives, or sons and daughters, living with and assisting their parents, needed not to be inserted. There was no mention at all made of the professions of faithless lovers, election candidates, and false friends; probably these were imagined to be of so little value as to be utterly beneath notice.

But although the commissioners were pleasantly minute and clear in their instructions for filling up their circulars, they will still be wide away from the real statistics of the population, when all the bills are returned and the totals properly added. What industrious enumerator, we would ask, did, with praiseworthy indefatigability, leave a schedule at the temporary habitations of the thousand individuals who on the Monday in question were located upon Ascot Heath, in anticipation of the approaching races? Who dared to penetrate into the mysteries of the yellow caravans there collected, or invade the Bohemian seclusion of the tilted hovels? What account was taken of the roadside tent-holders, and the number of the families of these real "potwallopers?" Is the following paper relating to these people, which has fallen into our hands, the mislaid document of a careless enumerator of the Sunning-hill district, or is it an attempt to play upon our credulity:

(COPY.)

Name, (if any) of the House, or of the Village or } Caravan, No. 937,654. Hamlet in which it stands. }

Name of the Street or other part of the Town, (if in } Winkfield Lane. a Town), and No. of the House. }

----------------+-------+---------+--------------+---------+--------- Name and | | |Of what |If born |If born surname of each| Age | | Profession, | in the | in person who | of | Age | Trade, or | County. |Ireland, abode or slept | Males.| of | Employment, | | in this House | | Females.| or if of | |&c. on the night | | | Independent | | of June 6. | | | means. | | ----------------+-------+---------+--------------+---------+--------- Bill Soames | 45 | |Shoman. | No |don't Kno | | | | | Mary Soames | | 38 |Wife--vurks | No | No | | | the barrul | | | | | horgan outside| | Gipsy Mike |not | |None. | No |No veres | Nown | | | | pertickler Phelim Conolly | 35 | |Black vild |not | never Knowd | | | ingian. | sartin | Sarah Cooper | | 24 |tellin off | No | | | | fortuns. | | Young Chubby a | 2 | |ired fur the |St. Giles's| babby | | | Races. | | Brummagim Harry | 40 | |keeps a | Yes | | | | Thimble-rig. | | ----------------+-------+---------+--------------+---------+---------

But there were many, many others, who were excluded from the privilege of registering their names amongst the population of their country. The unfortunate individuals who slept throughout the night in the stony precincts of the police-office lock-up cells, were deprived of this honour. Even admitting that the police had received instructions to take down the names of the stray-flocks under their charge, the ends of the commissioners were still defeated, for it was not probable that the Hon. Clarence Piercefield, who had kicked the head waiter at the Cider-cellars, for telling him not to join in the glees so loudly--who had thrashed the cabman in Holborn--who had climbed up behind King Charles at Charing-cross, and who, finally, upon being pulled down again by the police and taken into custody, had given his name as Thomas Brown,--it was not probable, we repeat, that this honourable gentleman would see any occasion to alter the name in the schedule, or recant his alleged profession of "medical student." His rightful appellation found no place in the paper, no more than the hundreds who slept out altogether that night, from the wretched, shivering, poverty-stricken occupiers of the embryo coal-cellars of future houses in the neighbourhood of railway _termini_, to the tipsy gentleman who tumbled by mistake into a large basket of turnip-tops and onions in Covent Garden-market, and slept there until morning, dreaming that he was the inhabitant of an Eastern paradise, with _houris_ pelting roses at him. Even the ill-used Mr. Ferguson, whom everybody has heard of, but nobody knows, failing in all his attempts to procure a lodging for the night, found no place in the strictly-worded schedule. The real name of Mr. Ferguson is Legion, yet he found a lodging nowhere. And many returns of the erratic youth of respectable families must prove, that their very fathers did not know they were out, to say nothing of their mothers: on the other hand, probably many more would be found wanting in the real numbers, were circumstances narrowly inquired into.

It is fortunate for the correctness of the statistics that Sunday was the day fixed upon for enumerating the population. Had it been any other, the numbers who _slept in the house_ would have materially swelled the lists. The House of Commons might have furnished an imposing array of names every night in the week to begin with. The various literary institutions and scientific meetings of the metropolis, on their respective nights, would not have been behind hand; and even the theatres, might have sent in a tolerably fair muster-roll of slumberers, according to the nature of their performances.

We presume that the guards of mail-coaches, drovers who were going to the Monday's markets, watchmen of houses, newly-buried relations, and medical men attending Poor Law Unions, will be allowed a future opportunity of registering their names; for none of these individuals were ever known--at least we believe not--to sleep or abide one night in their houses. Are these hardworking and useful classes of society to be accounted as nothing--to be placed in a scale even beneath "persons sleeping over a stable or outhouse," who, although not worthy to be inserted along with their betters in the schedule, are, at all events allowed a paper to themselves? The care that arranged the manner of enumerating the population ought to have put forward plans for taking the census of the always-out-of-doors portion of the English on the night in question, hackney-coachmen included; and a space might, at the same time, have been appropriated in the schedule for "those who were not at home, but ought to have been." We will not dwell upon the material difference this important feature would have made to the calculations in many points. We give the commissioners a peep at the fallacy of their plans, and we leave it to them to remedy it. All we have to add, in conclusion is, that we sent in our own name according to the prescribed ordinance, but it was not

ROCKET.

LOVE'S MASQUERADING.

BY LAMAN BLANCHARD.

I.

Love never less surprises Than when his tricks are tried; In vain are all disguises, Himself he cannot hide. He came, the Masquerader, To conscious Kate, one day, Attempting to persuade her; He then was--far away! "Ah Love!" she cried, unfearing, "Take any shape you will, Strange, distant, or endearing, This heart would know you still."

II.

Then Love came clad like Sorrow; His robe was dark as night; But like a golden morrow, Flash'd forth his forehead's light; She knew him, as with languor He play'd the wounded dove: Then fierce he frown'd--'twas Anger! But still she knew 'twas Love!

III.

Then came he wreathed like Pleasure; In vain he cried, "Rejoice!" And sang a laughing measure-- She knew him, by his voice. He tuned his tongue to railing, Performing Envy's task; His scowl was unavailing, She saw him--through his mask.

IV.

Like cloak'd Revenge then stealing, With poniard bare he came, His limbs, his looks, concealing-- Yet still he seem'd the same. Then he, his thoughts dissembling, With Jealousy's wild air, Stood raging, watching, trembling,-- Yet Love alone stood there.

V.

Next came he garb'd like Malice; Yet wore his cheek the rose, No poison crowns his chalice, With wine it overflows. And then as Joy, arrayed in Rare colours from above; He failed again--the maiden In Joy saw only Love!

VI.

Then casting off his splendour, He took black Hatred's guise; But all his tones were tender, She knew him--by his eyes. In all he fail'd; when glancing Like Fear, afraid to stir; And when like Hope, half-dancing-- For Hope was Love to her. "In vain," she cried, "your powers, Take any shape you may; Are hearts less wise than flowers, That know the night from day?"

FRANK HEARTWELL; OR, FIFTY YEARS AGO.

BY BOWMAN TILLER.