Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II

by Various

No. II.

Our Scottish Solomon, King James the First, amongst other instances of wisdom, was especially addicted to favourites. During his whole reign he was governed by a succession of minions. His prime favourite, Buckingham, (the celebrated "Steeny,") was preceded in his affections by a man little less remarkable, the Earl of Somerset. Robert Carr, a young man of a respectable Scotch family, appeared at court very soon after James's accession to the English crown. At a tilting-match, where the king was present, Carr by an accident was thrown from his horse, and had his leg broken. The king, who had been struck with his handsome figure, made him be attended by his own surgeons, visited him daily, and soon became immoderately fond of his society. The young favourite did not neglect the means of advancement; before many months were over he was knighted and made a gentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time became all-powerful at court. There is a letter from Lord Thomas Howard to Sir John Harrington, written about the year 1608, which shows the feelings of the courtiers upon the subject. "Carr," says the writer, "hath all the favours, as I told you before. The king teacheth him Latin every morning, and I think some one should teach him English too; for he is a Scottish lad, and hath much need of better language. The king doth much covet his presence: the ladies, too, are not behind hand in their admiration; for, I tell you, good knight, this fellow is straight-limbed, well-favoured, and smooth-faced, with some sort of cunning and show of modesty, though, God wot, he well knoweth when to show his impudence. Your lady is virtuous, and somewhat of a good housewife; has lived in a court in her time, and I believe you may venture her forth again; but I know those would not so quietly rest, were Carr to leer on their wives, as some do perceive, yea, and like it well too they should be so noticed. If any mischance be to be wished, 'tis breaking a leg in the king's presence; for this fellow owes all his favour to that bout. I think he hath better reason to speak well of his own horse than the king's roan jennet. We are almost worn out in our endeavours to keep pace with this fellow in his duty and labour to gain favour, but in vain; where it endeth I cannot guess, but honours are talked of speedily for him." These honours speedily followed, Carr having been soon afterwards created Viscount Rochester.

Robert, Earl of Essex, the son of the unfortunate favourite of Queen Elizabeth, had married, in the year 1603, the Lady Frances Howard, eldest daughter of the Earl of Suffolk. The earl was only fourteen, and his bride a year younger. Immediately after the marriage the young earl was sent abroad on his travels, the countess remaining at court,—of which she was one of the brightest ornaments. Under a form, however, of singular loveliness, she concealed a mind of not less singular depravity. When Essex returned, after a few years' absence, he found her affections quite estranged from him. She had conceived a passion for the handsome favourite, and received her husband with contemptuous coldness; while she endeavoured, by her arts and allurements, to captivate the object of her guilty flame. To these means she added others more peculiarly characteristic of the age. There was a woman of the name of Turner, a servant or dependant of the countess's family, and with whom she appears to have associated much in her childhood and youth. This woman was of an atrocious character, and soon succeeded in making her patroness as wicked as herself. Mrs. Turner, as well as the countess, had an illicit amour; and they were in the habit of resorting to a Dr. Forman, a celebrated quack and dealer in magic, in order, by means of love-philters and conjurations, to obtain the objects of their wishes.

Whether Dr. Forman's charms prevailed, or the countess's own were sufficient, Rochester was soon caught; and a guilty liaison was formed between them.

Sir Thomas Overbury was then Lord Rochester's secretary. He was an able and accomplished man, in the prime of life, of a bold and aspiring disposition; and, being high in the good graces of the reigning favourite, appeared to be on the road to political distinction. To the raw youth, who had had "greatness thrust upon him" so rapidly, the services of a man of parts and experience were invaluable; and Overbury, by acting as the guide and counsellor of the favourite, directed, in a great measure, the movements of majesty itself.

Rochester made Overbury the confidant of his intrigue with Lady Essex; and the secretary, in order to pay his court to his patron, encouraged and assisted him in the prosecution of it. He even composed the billets-doux which the illiterate lover sent to his inamorata.

The countess, not content with the clandestine indulgence of her adulterous passion, now conceived the idea of getting rid of her husband. The intercourse between her and Rochester had become so shameless and open that it was loudly talked of by the world; and it appeared evident that a divorce from her husband, followed by a marriage with her lover, was the only way to prevent their separation. The countess, therefore, instituted proceedings against her husband for a divorce, on grounds to which only a shameless and abandoned woman could think of resorting. The favourite gained the king's sanction and support to this scandalous suit; and, after a course of procedure which is a disgrace to the judicature of that age, a sentence of divorce was pronounced by judges influenced and intimidated by the king himself, whose interference was grossly arbitrary and indecent. Within six weeks after the divorce, Lady Essex was married to Rochester, whom the king had previously created Earl of Somerset.

While his patron's connexion with Lady Essex was merely an adulterous intrigue, Overbury had no objection to it; but he seems to have been shocked and frightened at the idea of Lord Rochester's marrying a woman of whose atrocious character he was well aware. He, therefore, earnestly dissuaded Rochester from this marriage. One night, when they were walking together in the gallery at Whitehall, Overbury made use of the most earnest remonstrances.

"Well, my lord," he said, "if you do marry that base woman you will utterly ruin your honour and yourself. You shall never do it by my advice, or with my consent; and, if you do, you had best look to stand fast."

"My own legs are strong enough to bear me up," cried Rochester, stung with such language applied to a woman whose fascinations retained all their power over him; "but, in faith, I will be even with you for this." So saying, he flung away in a rage, and left the place. The conference was terminated with such heat that the words of the speakers were overheard by persons in an adjoining room, who soon had cause to remember them.

Rochester allowed his resentment apparently to subside, and treated his secretary as before. He even requested the king, as a mark of favour, to appoint Overbury ambassador to Russia. The king complied; and Overbury accepted the appointment with great alacrity. But this act of kindness, as it seemed to be, on the part of Somerset, was the first step to a deep and deadly revenge for the insult to the woman whom he had resolved to marry, and whose fury he had roused by informing her of what had passed.

Having allowed Overbury to accept the office which he had procured for him, Somerset now advised him to decline it. "If you serve as ambassador," he said, "I shall not be able to do you so much good as if you remain with me. If you are blamed, or even committed for refusing," he added, "never mind: I will take care that you meet with no harm." Overbury, in an evil hour, listened to this perfidious counsel, sent his resignation to the king, and was instantly sent to the Tower.

Sent to the Tower for declining to accept an office! Even so. Such was the "Divine right" of an absolute king, in England, in the seventeenth century. Without even the shadow, or the accusation, of a crime, Sir Thomas Overbury was immured in a dungeon, because he declined the honour of being sent as ambassador to Russia.

This act of tyranny was committed at the instigation of the favourite; and Overbury, in the Tower, was entirely in the hands of his enemies. Somerset, in the first place, obtained from the king the dismissal of the lieutenant of the Tower, and the appointment, in his stead, of Sir Jervis Elwes, one of Somerset's creatures. One Richard Weston, who had been shopman to an apothecary, was made under-keeper, and specially charged with the custody of Overbury. This man had been an agent of Lady Essex in her secret transactions with Dr. Forman and Mrs. Turner, and in affording opportunities for her guilty meetings with Lord Rochester at Mrs. Turner's house, and elsewhere, and was quite ready to perpetrate any deed of darkness which they might desire. Weston, thus become Overbury's keeper, confined him so closely that he was scarcely permitted to see the light of day; and debarred him from all intercourse with his family, relations, and friends.[19]

The associates in wickedness lost no time in commencing their operations on their victim, whom they had determined to destroy by degrees, so as to prevent suspicion. Weston, on the very day he became Overbury's keeper, administered to him a slow poison, provided by Mrs. Turner; and, from that time, some poisonous substance was mingled with every article of food or drink which was given him. "He never ate white salt," said one of the witnesses on the trials which afterwards took place, "but there was white arsenic put into it. Once he desired pig, and Mrs. Turner put into it lapis costitus (lunar caustic). At another time he had two partridges sent him from the court; and water and onions being the sauce, Mrs. Turner put in cantharides instead of pepper; so that there was scarce any thing that he did eat but there was some poison mixed."

Under such treatment Overbury's constitution (which seems to have been of extraordinary strength) began to give way. Relying on Rochester's promise, that his refusal to accept the embassy should bring him to no harm, he daily expected his release. After remaining in this state for three or four weeks, he wrote to Rochester, urging him to remember his promise, and received for answer that "the time would not suffer; but, as soon as possible might be, he would hasten his delivery;" a promise which he certainly intended to fulfil, though not in the sense in which it was meant to be understood. By way of "hastening his delivery," Rochester sent him a letter, containing a white powder, which he desired him to take. "It will," he said, "make you more sick; but fear not: I will make this a means for your delivery, and the recovery of your health." Unsuspicious of treachery, Overbury took the powder, which acted upon him violently, and (as he indeed expected) increased his sickness. Weston afterwards confessed that it was arsenic.

In this situation Overbury languished for two months, growing worse and worse. His suspicions being now, to some extent, awakened, he wrote to Rochester: "Sir,—I wonder you have not yet found means to effect my delivery; but I remember you said you would be even with me, and so indeed you are: but, assure yourself, my lord, if you do not release me, but suffer me thus to die, my blood will be required at your hands." Overbury appears to have remembered Rochester's threat that he would be even with him for the manner in which he had spoken of Lady Essex; but never seems to have dreamed that more was meant than to punish him by a protracted imprisonment. He therefore was satisfied with the explanations and excuses sent him by Lord Rochester, who affected, at the same time, to show the utmost anxiety for his comfort. He was daily visited by creatures of Lord Rochester and Lady Essex, who delivered him encouraging messages from Rochester, and pretended to furnish him with various comforts in the articles of food and drink, which he could not otherwise have had in the Tower. To gratify a sickly appetite he expressed a wish for tarts and jellies, which were provided by Mrs. Turner, and sent to Elwes, the lieutenant of the Tower, to be given to Overbury, by Lord Rochester and Lady Essex. These sweetmeats were not poisoned at first; but the poisoned ones were accompanied by a letter from Lady Essex to Elwes, in which she said, "I was bid to tell you that in the tarts and jellies there are letters, but in the wine none; and of that you may take yourself, and give your wife, but, of the other, not. Give him these tarts and jelly this night, and all shall be well." The meaning of the word, letters, is sufficiently evident; but the countess afterwards removed any doubt on the subject, by confessing, on her trial, that "by letters she meant poison." Rochester appears to have been then residing at some little distance from town; for Lady Essex was the immediate agent in these transactions, and carried on a correspondence with Rochester on the subject. In one of his letters to her he expressed his wonder "that things were not yet despatched;" on which she sent instructions to Weston to despatch Overbury quickly. Weston's answer was, that he had already given him as much as would poison twenty men. Still, however, the victim survived. He was now reduced to extremity; but the patience of his destroyers was exhausted, and they put an end to his sufferings by a dose of corrosive sublimate. He died in October 1613, having been for nearly six months in their hands. His body, carelessly wrapped in a sheet, was buried in a pit on the very day of his death, without having been seen by any of his friends, or the holding of a coroner's inquest; though, as Elwes admitted on his trial, the duty of the lieutenant of the Tower was, that if any prisoner died there, his body was to be viewed, and an inquisition taken by the coroner. These circumstances excited suspicion, and Overbury's relations were persuaded to take some steps towards the prosecution of an inquiry: but the attempt was defeated by the power and influence of the noble criminals.

The marriage between Rochester, now Earl of Somerset, and Lady Essex, took place in February 1614, four months after the close of this tragedy. It was celebrated with a pomp and splendour more befitting the nuptials of a prince than those of a subject. The king himself gave away the bride. A masque, according to the fashion of the times, was exhibited by the courtiers, and another by the gentlemen of Gray's Inn; their repugnance to this act of sycophancy having been overcome, it is said, by the persuasions of Bacon,—a man whose moral deficiencies formed a strange contrast to his almost superhuman vastness of intellect. A splendid banquet, too, was given by the City, at which the king, queen, and all the court, were present. But the public knew enough of the open profligacy of this brilliant pair to look upon them with indignation,—a feeling accompanied with abhorrence of the dark deeds already strongly suspected.

Somerset was now at the height of his greatness; but he no longer possessed the qualities which had gained him the king's favour. His appearance and manners underwent a total change. His countenance became care-worn and haggard; his dress neglected; his manners morose and gloomy. The alteration was apparent to all; and the king became weary of one who no longer ministered to his amusement. His majesty had now, too, found a new favourite,—George Villiers, afterwards the famous Duke of Buckingham, who gained James's affections by the same means as Somerset himself had done,—a handsome person, graceful manners, quick parts, and courtly obsequiousness. These two men became rivals and enemies. Somerset was universally odious from his arrogance and rapacity; and Villiers was looked upon with favour as the probable instrument of his fall. Somerset, now aware of his danger, and trembling for the discovery of his guilt when he might no longer have the king for a protector, availed himself of his remaining influence with James to obtain from him a pardon for all past offences. This he begged as a safeguard against the consequences of any errors into which he might have fallen in the high offices which he had held, and the secret and important affairs with which it had been his majesty's pleasure to intrust him. Strange to say, the king signed a document, whereby he pardoned "all manner of treasons, misprisions of treasons, murders, felonies, and outrages whatsoever, committed, or to be committed," by Somerset. But, when this deed was carried to the Lord Chancellor, he absolutely refused to affix the great seal to it, declaring it to be absolutely illegal. No importunity could prevail on him to yield; and Somerset remained without the shield with which he had endeavoured to provide himself.

The rivalry between the favourites went on increasing; but the Earl of Somerset's rank and standing still gave him the ascendancy. The king wished them reconciled; and, for this purpose, desired Villiers to wait on Somerset with a tender of his duty and attachment. But the haughty earl, though he had received a hint that the king expected this offer to be graciously received, spurned at it. "I will none of your service," was his answer, "and you shall none of my favour. I will, if I can, break your neck, and of that be confident." It was immediately after this interview that an inquiry was set on foot into the circumstances of Overbury's murder; and the supposition of a contemporary writer is not improbable, that, "had Somerset complied with Villiers, Overbury's death had still been raked up in his own ashes."

The first step that appears to have been taken in this inquiry was a private examination of Sir Jervis Elwes, the lieutenant of the Tower, by the king himself, who piqued himself on his skill in conducting judicial investigations; in which, indeed, he had acquired great experience during his turbulent reign in Scotland. Pressed by the king's questions, Elwes admitted his knowledge of Weston's intention to poison his prisoner, but denied his own participation in the crime. Weston, being apprehended and examined, admitted circumstances which involved Mrs. Turner, and the Earl and Countess of Somerset. The king issued his warrant for the commitment of the earl and countess to private custody, which was executed on the 15th October 1615. The circumstances attending this arrest, as related by a contemporary, Sir Anthony Weldon, in his "Court and Character of King James," are curious, and characteristic of that monarch.

"The day," says this writer, "the king went from Whitehall to Theobald's, and so to Royston, the king sent for all the judges, (his lords and servants encircling him,) where, kneeling down in the midst, he used these words:—'My lords the judges, it is lately come to my hearing that you have now in examination a business of poisoning. Lord, in what a miserable condition shall this kingdom be, (the only famous nation for hospitality in the world,) if our tables should become such a snare as none could eat without danger of life, and that Italian custom should be introduced among us! Therefore, my lords, I charge you, as you will answer it at that great and dreadful day of judgment, that you examine it strictly, without favour, affection, or partiality; and, if you shall spare any guilty of this crime, God's curse light on you and your posterity; and, if I spare any that are guilty, God's curse light on me and my posterity for ever!'"

We shall presently see how his majesty kept this solemn vow, uttered in such awful terms. "The king, with this," continues Weldon, "took his farewell for a time of London, and was accompanied with Somerset to Royston, where, no sooner he brought him, but instantly took leave, little imagining what viper lay among the herbs; nor must I forget to let you know how perfect the king was in the art of dissimulation, or, to give it his own phrase, kingcraft. The Earl of Somerset never parted from him with more seeming affection than at this time, when he knew Somerset would never see him more; and, had you seen that seeming affection,—as the author himself did,—you would rather have believed he was in his rising than setting. The earl, when he kissed his hand, the king hung about his neck, slabbering his cheeks, saying, 'For God's sake, when shall I see thee again? On my soul I shall neither eat nor sleep until you come again.' The earl told him 'On Monday,'—this being the Friday. 'For God's sake, let me!' said the king. 'Shall I? shall I?' then lolled about his neck. 'Then, for God's sake, give thy lady this kiss for me!' In the same manner at the stairs' head, at the middle of the stairs, and at the stairs' foot. The earl was not in his coach when the king used these very words in the hearing of four servants, one of whom was Somerset's great creature, and of the bed-chamber, who reported it instantly to the author of this history; 'I shall never see his face more.'"

It afterwards appeared that, when Somerset returned to London, he found that his wife had received the fatal tidings of Weston's apprehension. There was an apothecary of the name of Franklin who had been employed by the countess and Mrs. Turner to procure the poisons. At a late hour in the night Mrs. Turner was despatched to bring this man to the earl's house. When he arrived, he found the countess in a state of violent agitation. "Weston," she said, "was taken; he should likely be seized immediately, and they should all be hanged." She went into an inner room, where Franklin heard her conversing with her husband. On her return she again urged Franklin to be silent, and made him swear not to reveal any thing. "The lords," she told him, "if they examine you, will put you in the hope of a pardon upon confession: but believe them not; for, when they have got out of you what they want, we shall all be hanged." "Nay, madam," said Mrs. Turner, who was in the room, "I will not be hanged for you both." That same night, or next morning, the earl and countess, with Mrs. Turner, were arrested, and committed to prison.

Weston was first tried. At first, by the direction of Serjeant Yelverton, "an obliged servant of the house of Howard," he stood mute, and refused to plead; but, after a few days, the terror of being pressed to death overcame his resolution, and he pleaded "Not guilty." The circumstances already detailed, in which he was concerned, were fully proved. He himself confessed that he had been the medium of the correspondence carried on between Lord Rochester and Lady Essex, not only in regard to the poisoning of Overbury, but during their adulterous intercourse; and he also confessed that, after Overbury's death he had received, as a reward, one hundred and eighty pounds from the countess, by the hands of Mrs. Turner. He was convicted, and executed at Tyburn. At the time of his execution, Sir John Holles and Sir John Wentworth, friends of the Earl of Somerset, went to Tyburn, and urged Weston to deny what he had before confessed; but he refused to do so: and these gentlemen were afterwards prosecuted in the Star-Chamber for traducing the king's justice in these proceedings.

The next trial was that of Mrs. Turner. It excited intense interest, as it involved, besides the murder of Overbury, the circumstances of Lady Essex's connexion with Rochester. Some letters from the countess to Mrs. Turner, and Forman the conjuror, were read, and are preserved in the record of the proceedings. To Mrs. Turner, (whom she addresses "Sweet Turner,") after complaining of her misery in her husband's society, and giving vent to her passion for Rochester, she says, "As you have taken pains all this while for me, so now do all you can, for I was never so unhappy as now; for I am not able to endure the miseries that are coming upon me, but I cannot be happy so long as this man liveth: therefore, pray for me,(!) for I have need, and I should be better if I had your company to ease my mind. Let him know this ill news" (her husband's insisting on cohabiting with her); if I can get this done, you shall have as much money as you can demand: this is fair-play. Your sister, Frances Essex." In a letter to Forman, she says, "Sweet father,—I must still crave your love, although I hope I have it, and shall deserve it better hereafter. Keep the lord [Rochester] still to me, for that I desire; and be careful you name me not to anybody, for we have so many spies that you must use all your wits,—and all little enough, for the world is against me, and the heavens favour me not. Only happy in your love, I hope you will do me good; and, if I be ungrateful, let all mischief come unto me. My lord is lusty and merry, and drinketh with his men; and all the content he gives me is to abuse me, and use me as doggedly as before. I think I shall never be happy in this world, because he hinders my good; and will ever, I think so. Remember, I beg, for God's sake, and get me out from this vile place. Your affectionate loving daughter, Frances Essex." Some of the magical implements made use of by these wretches, such as images, pictures, &c. were exhibited in court. "At the showing of these," says the account in the State Trials, "there was heard a crack from the scaffolds, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion among the spectators, and throughout the hall; every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed by such as were not his scholars. There was also a note showed in the court made by Dr. Forman, and written on parchment, signifying what ladies loved what lords in court; but the Lord Chief Justice would not suffer it to be read openly in court." The scandal of the day was, that Coke suppressed the note because he found his own wife's name at the beginning of it.

Mrs. Turner's share in the death of Overbury was amply proved; and Coke pronounced sentence upon her, telling her that she had been guilty of the seven deadly sins, among which he enumerated witchcraft and popery. "Upon the Wednesday following," says the account of the trial, "she was brought from the sheriff's in a coach to Newgate, and was there put into a cart; and, casting money often among the people as she went, she was carried to Tyburn, where she was executed, and whither many men and women of fashion came in coaches to see her die; to whom she made a speech, desiring them not to rejoice at her fall, but to take example by her. She exhorted them to serve God, and abandon pride and all other sins; related her breeding with the Countess of Somerset, having had no other means to maintain her and her children but what came from the countess; and said further, that, when her hand was once in the business, she knew the revealing it would be her overthrow. The which, with other like speeches, and great penitency there showed, moved the spectators to great pity and grief for her."

Immediately after Mrs. Turner's execution, Sir Jervis Elwes, the lieutenant of the Tower, was brought to trial. He was convicted upon the evidence of the correspondence which he had held with the Earl and Countess of Somerset, and also with the Earl of Northampton, the countess's uncle; from which it appeared that that nobleman had been deeply implicated in Overbury's murder. By the letters read on this and some of the other trials it was shown that Northampton was not only aware of Somerset's adulterous intercourse with his niece, but had aided them in carrying it on; that he had been a principal promoter of the scandalous divorce, and the equally scandalous marriage which followed it; and that he was not only privy to the murder, but actively instrumental in the steps taken to conceal the crime. He was, however, freed by his death the preceding year from the earthly retribution which would now have overtaken him. In the course of this trial the name of Sir Thomas Monson, the chief falconer, was also implicated; it having appeared that through his recommendation Weston had been employed as Overbury's keeper, and that he was at least aware of the crime. One of the principal pieces of evidence was the voluntary confession of Franklin the apothecary, who had been employed to provide the poisons. This man, among many other things, said, "Mrs. Turner came to me from the countess, and wished me from her to get the strongest poison I could for Sir Thomas Overbury. Accordingly I bought seven, viz. aquafortis, white arsenic, mercury, powder of diamonds, lapis costitus (lunar caustic), great spiders, and cantharides: all these were given to Sir Thomas Overbury at several times." He declared also, that the lieutenant knew of these poisons: "for that appeared," he said, "by, many letters which he writ to the Countess of Essex, which I saw, and thereby knew that he knew of this matter."—"For these poisons," he further said, "the countess sent me rewards. She sent many times gold by Mrs. Turner. She afterwards wrote unto me to buy more poisons. I went unto her, and told her I was weary of it; and I besought her upon my knees that she would use me no more in these matters: but she importuned me, bade me go, and enticed me with fair speeches and rewards; so she overcame me, and did bewitch me." The cause of the poisoning, he said, as the countess told him, was because Sir Thomas Overbury would pry so far into their suit (the divorce) as he would put them down. He added, that, on the marriage-day of the countess with Somerset, (which was after Overbury's death,) she sent him twenty pounds by Mrs. Turner, and he was to have been paid by the countess two hundred pounds per annum during his life. The Lord Chief Justice, when he produced Franklin's confession upon this trial, prefaced his reading of it by informing the court that this poor man, not knowing Sir Jervis should come to his trial, had come to him that morning at five o'clock, and told him that he was much troubled in his conscience, and could not rest until he had made his confession: "and it is such a one," added the Chief Justice, "as the eye of England never saw, nor the ear of Christendom ever heard." Sir Jervis, who had defended himself strenuously against the other articles of evidence, was struck dumb by this unexpected disclosure. He was found guilty, condemned, and executed, after having at the place of execution made a full confession of his guilt.

Franklin was then tried, convicted, and executed, on his own confession alone, to which, as it was entirely voluntary, he seems really to have been prompted by remorse. In passing sentence upon him, the Lord Chief Justice said, that, "knowing as much as he knew, if this had not been found out, neither the court, city, nor any particular family, had escaped the malice of this wicked cruelty."

Sir Thomas Monson was next arraigned, and strongly exhorted by the crown lawyers to confess his crime; one of them (Hyde) declaring him to be "as guilty as the guiltiest." The trial, however, was brought to a strange and abrupt conclusion. In the middle of the preliminary proceedings the culprit was suddenly carried off from the bar by a party of yeomen of his majesty's guard, and taken to the Tower, from whence he was soon afterwards liberated without further trial. This singular interference is ascribed to some mysterious expressions dropped by the Lord Chief Justice. "But the Lord Chief Justice Coke," says Sir Anthony Weldon, "in his rhetorical flourishes at Monson's arraignment, vented some expressions as if he could discover more than the death of a private person; intimating, though not plainly, that Overbury's untimely remove had in it something of retaliation, as if he had been guilty of the same crime towards Prince Henry; blessing himself with admiration at the horror of such actions. In which he flew so high a pitch that he was taken down by a court lure; Sir Thomas Monson's trial laid aside, and he soon after set at liberty; and the Lord Chief Justice's wings were clipt for it ever after." There can be no doubt that the conduct of Coke on these trials was used as a handle against him by his rival and enemy, Bacon, to deprive him of the royal favour; and, that the manner in which his language on the above and other occasions was represented (or misrepresented) to the king, was one cause, at least, of his removal from his office a few months afterwards. But this was not the only mystery connected with this matter.

All these trials took place in close succession between the 19th of October and the 4th of December 1615; but the principal criminals were not tried till May following. During this interval the earl and countess were frequently examined, and many efforts were made to bring them to confession. On the 24th of May the countess was arraigned before a commission of the peers. A graphic account of her demeanour is given in the State Trials. The Clerk of the Crown addressed her:

"'Frances, Countess of Somerset, hold up thy hand!'

"She did so, and held it till Mr. Lieutenant told her she might put it down; and then he read the indictment. The Countess of Somerset, all the while the indictment was reading, stood, looking pale, trembled, and shed some tears; and at the first naming of Weston in the indictment, put her fan before her face, and there held it half covered till the indictment was read.

"Clerk.—'Frances, Countess of Somerset, what sayest thou? Art thou guilty of this felony and murder, or not guilty?'

"The Lady Somerset, making an obeisance to the Lord High Steward, answered, 'Guilty,' with a low voice, but wonderful fearful."

After the proceedings consequent on this confession, she was asked in the usual form what she could say for herself why judgment of death should not be pronounced against her. Her answer was,

"I can much aggravate, but nothing extenuate, my fault. I desire mercy, and that the lords will intercede for me with the king."

"This," says the account, "she spake humbly, fearfully, and so low, that the Lord Steward could not hear it; but Mr. Attorney repeated it."

The Lord High Steward then sentenced her to the punishment of the law.

The earl's trial took place on the following day. He refused to follow his wife's example, and pleaded Not guilty. The most remarkable feature of this trial is the correspondence between Somerset and his victim. The following passages are striking.

In Overbury's first letter to Somerset, after his imprisonment, he said,

"Is this the fruit of my care and love to you? Be these the fruits of common secrets, common dangers? As a man, you cannot suffer me to lie in this misery; yet your behaviour betrays you. All I entreat of you is, that you will free me from this place, and that we may part friends. Drive me not to extremities, lest I should say something that you and I both repent. And I pray God that you may not repent the omission of this my counsel in this place whence I now write this letter."

Overbury afterwards writes,

"This comes under seal, and therefore I shall be bold. You told my brother Ledcate that my unreverend style might make you neglect me. With what face could you do this, who know you owe me for all the fortune, wit, and understanding that you have."

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"Yet this shall not long serve your turn; for you and I, ere it be long, will come to a public trial of another nature,—I upon the rack, and you at your ease, and yet I must say nothing! When I heard (notwithstanding my misery) how you went to your woman, curled your hair, and in the mean time send me nineteen projects how I should cast about for my liberty, and give me a long account of the pains you have taken, and then go out of town! I wonder to see how much you should neglect him to whom such secrets of all kinds have passed."

---

"Well, all this vacation I have written the story between you and me; how I have lost my friends for your sake; what hazard I have run; what secrets have passed betwixt us; how, after you had won that woman by my letters, you then concealed all your after proceedings from me; and how upon this there came many breaches between us; of the vow you made to be even with me, and sending for me twice that day that I was caught in the trap, persuading me that it was a plot of mine enemies to send me beyond sea, and urging me not to accept it, assuring me to free me from any long trouble. On Tuesday I made an end of this, and on Friday sent it to a friend of mine under eight seals; and if you persist still to use me thus, assure yourself it shall be published. Whether I live or die, your shame shall never die, but ever remain to the world, to make you the most odious man living."

Overbury is aware that he has been betrayed and entrapped, and is left by his treacherous patron to languish in a dungeon. He addresses him in the bitterest and most indignant language, and threatens him with a desperate and fatal revenge. He remembers, too, the threat which had been applied to himself; knows himself to be in the power of the man who used it; feels himself to be dying by inches, of maladies which the most rigorous confinement could not have produced; and yet it never enters his mind that his unscrupulous enemy may have determined, by his death, to get rid of him and his dangerous secrets!

The evidence of Overbury's father is affecting. "After my son was committed," he said, "I heard that he was very sick. I went to the court and delivered a petition to the king, the effect whereof was, that, in respect of my son's sickness, some physicians might have access unto him. The king answered, that his own physician should go to him; and then instantly sent him word by Sir W. Button that his physician should presently go. Upon this, I only addressed myself to my Lord of Somerset, and none else, who said my son should be presently delivered, but dissuaded me from presenting any more petitions to the king; which notwithstanding, I (seeing his freedom still delayed) did deliver a petition to the king to that purpose, who said I should have present answer. And my Lord of Somerset told me he should be suddenly relieved; but with this, that neither I nor my wife must press to see him, because that might protract his delivery, nor deliver any more petitions to the king, because that might stir his enemies up against him; and then," added the poor old man, "he wrote a letter to my wife, to dissuade her from any longer stay in London."

This letter was, "Mrs. Overbury,—Your stay here in town can nothing avail your son's delivery; therefore I would advise you to retire into the country, and doubt not before your coming home you shall hear he is a free man."

Thus did this monster amuse the unhappy parents with delusive hopes till all was over; and he then wrote to the aged father the following unparalleled letter:

"Sir,—Your son's love to me got him the malice of many, and they cast those knots on his fortune that have cost him his life; so, in a kind, there is none guilty of his death but I; and you can have no more cause to commiserate the death of a son, than I of a friend. But, though he be dead, you shall find me as ready as ever I was to do all the courtesies that I possibly can to you and your wife, or your children. In the mean time I desire pardon from you and your wife for your lost son, though I esteem my loss the greater. And for his brother that is in France, I desire his return, that he may succeed his brother in my love."

Somerset defended himself stoutly. His desperate situation seems to have sharpened his faculties. He cross-examined the witnesses with much acuteness and presence of mind, made ingenious objections to their testimony, and laboured to explain away the facts which could not be denied. From eight in the morning till seven at night he exerted himself with an energy worthy of a better cause; but in vain. He was found guilty by the unanimous voice of his judges. He then desired a death according to his degree; but this was denied him, and he received the usual sentence of the law.

Thus were these great criminals brought to justice; and they received, it may be supposed, the punishment of their crimes. No: they were pardoned by the king,—nay more, received especial marks of royal favour! They were imprisoned in the Tower till January 1621, when the king, by an order in council, granted them the liberty of retiring to a country-house. "Whereas his Majesty is graciously pleased," thus ran the order, "to enlarge and set at liberty the Earl of Somerset and his lady, now prisoners in the Tower of London, and that nevertheless it is thought fit that both the said earl and his lady be confined to some convenient place; it is therefore, according to his majesty's gracious pleasure and command, ordered that the Earl of Somerset and his lady do repair either to Greys or Cowsham, the Lord Wallingford's houses in the county of Oxon, and remain confined to one or other of the said houses, and within three miles' compass of either of the same, until further order be given by his majesty." In 1624, they both obtained full pardons; the lady, on the ground that "the process and judgment against her were not as of a principal, but as of an accessory before the fact;" and the earl, merely on the ground of the king's regard for his family. Nor was this all: his majesty granted the earl an income of four thousand pounds a-year out of his forfeited estate; and, what was still worse, in order to save this minion from disgrace, committed a gross outrage on the order of knighthood to which he belonged. "The king," says Camden, "ordered that the arms of the Earl of Somerset, notwithstanding his being condemned of felony, should not be removed out of the chapel at Windsor, and that felony should not be reckoned amongst the disgraces for those who were to be excluded from the order of St. George; which was without precedent." Without precedent indeed!

Remembering the king's solemn vow when, kneeling in the midst of the judges whom he had summoned into his presence, he exclaimed, "If you shall spare any guilty of this crime, God's curse light on you and your posterity; and, if I spare any that are guilty, God's curse light on me and my posterity for ever!" how are we to account for so flagrant a violation of it? Even had he not so earnestly called down the curse of Heaven upon his head, he was bound by the strongest obligations of public justice not to screen from condign punishment criminals so atrocious. Nor can we ascribe his failure in so sacred a duty to personal regard for Somerset. His attachment to him was long since extinguished; a newer favourite had engrossed his capricious affection. Fear, not love, seems to have been the cause of his forbearance.

Before Somerset's trial, mysterious circumstances were remarked, both in his conduct and in that of the king. It is stated by several historians that the earl, while in the Tower, loudly asserted that the king durst not bring him to trial; and there is still extant a letter from him to the king, written immediately after his condemnation, in which he desires that his estate may be continued to him entire, in a style rather of expostulation and demand than of humble supplication. There is a studied obscurity in the style of this letter, as if it darkly hinted at things meant to be understood only by him to whom it was addressed; but its tone indicates that it was meant to impress the king with the dread of a secret which the writer had it in his power to reveal.

The king, on the other hand, showed the most extreme anxiety about the earl's behaviour and the event of the trial. He himself selected certain persons to examine Somerset in secret, among whom was Bacon. They had the king's instructions to work upon the earl's obstinate temper by every method of persuasion and terror; now to give him hopes of the king's compassion and mercy, and now to impress him with the certainty of conviction and punishment. Moreover, the king ordered Bacon (then Attorney-General) to put in writing every possible case which might arise at the trial out of Somerset's behaviour. Bacon accordingly drew up a paper of this sort, on which the king with his own hand made some marginal notes. Bacon having said, "All these points of mercy and favour to Somerset are to be understood with this limitation,—if he do not, by his contemptuous and insolent carriage at the bar, make himself incapable and unworthy of them," the king's remark in the margin was, "That danger is well to be foreseen, lest he upon one part commit unpardonable errors, and I on the other part seem to punish him in the spirit of revenge." Why this solicitude to prevent the "danger" of Somerset's adopting a "contemptuous and insolent carriage at the bar?" And what were the "unpardonable errors" it might lead him to commit? No error could be so unpardonable as the crime he had already committed; and we are led, therefore, to the inference that the king wished it to be understood, that though he was ready to pardon the crime of which Somerset should be convicted, provided he conducted himself discreetly on his trial, yet an error on this score should be held as unpardonable.

Notwithstanding all these precautions and pains taken to bring Somerset to a safe frame of mind, he appears to have been very untractable; and the king's dread of his conduct during his trial, and anxiety to know the result, seem to have amounted to agony. His behaviour cannot be so well described as in the words of Sir Anthony Weldon.

"And now for the last act enters Somerset himself upon the stage, who, being told, as the manner is, by the lieutenant, that he must provide to go next day to his trial, did absolutely refuse it, and said they should carry him in his bed; that the king had assured him he should not come to any trial, neither durst the king to bring him to trial. This was in a high strain, and in a language not well understood by George Moore, [Sir George Moore, lieutenant in the room of Elwes,] that made Moore quiver and shake; and, however he was accounted a wise man, yet he was near at his wit's end. Yet away goes Moore to Greenwich, as late as it was, being twelve at night; bounceth at the back-stairs as if mad; to whom came Jo. Loveston, one of the grooms, out of his bed, inquiring the reason of that distemper at so late a season. Moore tells him he must speak with the king. Loverton replies, 'He is quiet,' which in the Scottish dialect is, fast asleep. Moore says, 'You must wake him.' Moore was called in (the chamber left to the king and Moore). He tells the king those passages, and desired to be directed by the king, for he was gone beyond his own reason to hear such bold and undutiful expressions from a faulty subject against a just sovereign. The king falls into a passion of tears: 'On my soul, Moore, I wot not what to do: thou art a wise man; help me in this great strait, and thou shalt find thou dost it for a thankful master;' with other sad expressions. Moore leaves the king in that passion, but assures him he will prove the utmost of his wit to serve his majesty. Sir George Moore returns to Somerset about three o'clock next morning of that day he was to come to trial, enters Somerset's chamber, tells him he had been with the king, found him a most affectionate master unto him, and full of grace in his intentions towards him. 'But,' said he, 'to satisfy justice you must appear, although you return instantly again without any further procedure; only you shall know your enemies and their malice, though they shall have no power over you.' With this trick of wit he allayed his fury, and got him quietly, about eight in the morning, to the Hall; yet feared his former bold language might revert again, and, being brought by this trick into the toil, might have more enraged him to fly out into some strange discovery, that he had two servants placed on each side of him, with a cloak on their arms, giving them a peremptory order that if Somerset did any way fly out on the king, they should instantly hoodwink him with that cloak, take him violently from the bar, and carry him away; for which he would secure them from any danger, and they should not want a bountiful reward. But the earl, finding himself overreached, recollected a better temper, and went on calmly in his trial, where he held the company until seven at night. But who had seen the king's restless motion all that day, sending to every boat he saw landing at the bridge, and cursing all that came without tidings, would have easily judged all was not right, and that there had been some grounds for his fear of Somerset's boldness. But at last one bringing him word he was condemned, and the passages, all was quiet."

The reader will remember that the abrupt termination of the proceedings against Sir Thomas Monson, who was carried off from the bar by a party of yeomen of the guard, was caused by the Lord Chief Justice's having made some indiscreet allusion to suspicions regarding the death of Prince Henry, the king's eldest son, which had taken place in 1612, about four years before the time of these trials.

This young prince at a very early age displayed talents and virtues which endeared him to the nation. The accounts of his short life are pleasing and interesting. He was thus described when he was twelve years old, in a letter from the French ambassador. "None of his pleasures savour in the least of a child. He is a particular lover of horses, and what belongs to them; but is not fond of hunting; and, when he does engage in it, it is rather for the pleasure of galloping than for any which the dogs give him. He is fond of playing at tennis, and at another Scotch diversion very like mall;[20] but always with persons older than himself, as if he despised those of his own age. He studies two hours in the day, and employs the rest of his time in tossing the pike, or leaping, or shooting with the bow, or throwing the bar, or vaulting, or some other exercise of that kind; and he is never idle. He is very kind to his dependents, supports their interests against all persons whatsoever, and urges all that he undertakes for them or others with such zeal as ensures it success; for, besides his exerting his whole strength to compass what he desires, he is already feared by those who have the management of affairs, and especially by the Earl of Salisbury, who appears to be greatly apprehensive of the prince's ascendency; as the prince, on the other hand, shows little esteem for his lordship." This high-spirited and magnanimous boy could not fail to be aware of the faults and vices of his father's character. He entertained great admiration for Sir Walter Raleigh; was often heard to exclaim, "No king but my father would keep such a bird in a cage;" and his aversion to the Earl of Salisbury was understood to have arisen from that nobleman's share in Raleigh's ruin.[21] His strong sense of religion rendered his father's habit of profane swearing repulsive to him. "Once," we are told by Coke, "when the prince was hunting the stag, it chanced the stag, being spent, crossed the road where a butcher and his dog were travelling. The dog killed the stag, which was so great that the butcher could not carry him off. When the huntsman and the company came up, they fell at odds with the butcher, and endeavoured to incense the prince against him; to whom the prince soberly replied, 'What! if the butcher's dog killed the stag, how could the butcher help it?' They replied, if his father had been served so, he would have sworn as no man could have endured it. 'Away!' replied the prince, 'all the pleasure in the world is not worth an oath.'"

A young prince, who, at twelve years old, was "feared by those who had the management of affairs," must, when he grew up, have been a formidable object to a worthless minion like Carr. He disliked this man from the first; and his aversion grew into a rooted hatred. When Carr was made Viscount Rochester, Henry, then about fourteen, as we are told by Osborn, "contemned so far his father's election of Rochester, that he was reported either to have struck him on the back with his racket, or very hardly forborne it." The prince continued to express on all occasions an abhorrence of favourites, and an utter contempt of Carr; and made no secret of his resolution to humble both him and the family into which he was allied if ever he came to the throne.

Carr, then, must necessarily have feared and hated the prince; and it is hardly to be supposed that such feelings would remain passive in a mind like his. Henry did not enjoy his father's favour. The king's "genius was rebuked" in the presence of a son so much his superior in every moral and intellectual quality; and he was jealous of the esteem and admiration in which the youth was held by the nation. "The vivacity, spirit, and activity of the prince," says Dr. Birch, "soon gave umbrage to his father's court, which grew extremely jealous of him."—"The king," says Osborn, "though he would not deny any thing the prince plainly desired, yet it appeared rather the result of fear and outward compliance than love or natural affection; being harder drawn to confer an honour or pardon, in cases of desert, upon a retainer of the prince, than a stranger." The prince himself, in a letter written within a few weeks of his death, excused himself from applying on behalf of a friend, for some piece of court favour, "because, as matters now go here, I will deal in no businesses of importance for some respects." At this time Carr was in the height of his power; and this position of the prince at his father's court must be ascribed in no small degree to the influence of the favourite.

Prince Henry died on the 6th of November 1612, (at the age of eighteen,) of an illness under which he had laboured for two or three weeks. The symptoms (as detailed by Dr. Birch in his Life of the prince) were of the most violent kind; dreadful affections of the stomach and bowels, excessive thirst, burning heat, blackness of the tongue, convulsions, and delirium. The physicians "could not tell what to make of the distemper," were confounded by "the strangeness of the disease," and differed in their opinions as to its treatment. The day after the prince's death his body was opened by order of the king; and the report of the physicians who examined it does not indicate the operation of poison. They say, in particular, "his stomach was without any manner of fault or imperfection."

The grief of the nation pervaded all ranks, and almost all parties. The king himself, however, manifested the utmost insensibility. Only three days after the prince's death, Carr (then Lord Rochester) wrote, by the king's orders, to the English ambassador at Paris, directing him to resume the marriage treaty, which had been begun for Prince Henry, in the name of his brother Charles. After a very short interval, all persons were prohibited from appearing in mourning before the king; and orders were given that the preparations for the Christmas festivities should proceed without interruption. The Earl of Dorset, in a letter written at this time to the English ambassador in France, uses these expressions: "That our rising sun is set ere scarcely he had shone, and that with him all our glory lies buried, you know and do lament as well as we; and better than some do, and more truly, or else you are not a man, and sensible of this kingdom's loss."

Suspicions that the young prince had come foully by his death became prevalent immediately after that event. They were by no means of that vague and unmeaning kind which the untimely end of an illustrious person is apt to occasion among the vulgar. "The queen," says Dr. Welwood, "to her dying day could never be dissuaded from the opinion that her beloved son had foul play done him." Bishop Burnet, in his History of his own time, says, that Charles the First declared that the prince, his brother, had been poisoned by the means of the Viscount Rochester, afterwards Earl of Somerset. And contemporary writers afford innumerable proofs of this opinion having been entertained by persons engaged in public affairs, and conversant with the transactions of the time.

The opinions of modern writers, as may be supposed, are divided on a question so dark and mysterious. "Violent reports were propagated," says Hume, "as if Henry had been carried off by poison; but the physicians, on opening his body, found no symptoms to confirm such an opinion. The bold and criminal malignity of men's tongues and pens spared not even the king on the occasion; but that prince's character seems rather to have failed in the extreme of facility and humanity, than in that of cruelty and violence." Hume's facts, it is notorious, often assume the colouring of his political feelings; of which a pretty strong instance occurs in this very case of Sir Thomas Overbury, whose imprisonment in the Tower, says this historian, "James intended as a slight punishment for his disobedience" in refusing to go as ambassador to Russia. James ordered Overbury to be most rigorously confined, and even sent a gentleman to the Tower for having simply exchanged a word with the prisoner. Nay, more: James knew all along that Overbury was languishing in his dungeon; having received, and disregarded, repeated petitions from his afflicted father for his release. And this, according to Hume, was intended by James as a slight punishment for what was, in truth, no offence.

In the preface, by Lord Holland, to Fox's History of the early part of the reign of James the Second, we find the opinion of that illustrious statesman upon the subject. Lord Holland, speaking of Mr. Fox's historical researches, and his correspondence with the Earl of Lauderdale and others of his friends respecting them, says: "Even while his undertaking was yet fresh, in the course of an inquiry into some matters relating to the trial of Somerset, in King James the First's reign, he says to his correspondent, 'But what is all this, you will say, to my history? Certainly nothing; but one historical inquiry leads to another: and I recollect that the impression upon my mind was, that there was more reason than is generally allowed for suspecting that Prince Henry was poisoned by Somerset, and that the king knew of it after the fact. This is not, to be sure, to my present purpose; but I have thought of prefixing to my work, if ever it should be finished, a disquisition upon Hume's history of the Stuarts; and in no part of it would his partiality appear stronger than in James the First.'"

For ourselves, we shall not pretend to penetrate a mystery which is now, perhaps, for ever inscrutable. But the events which we have related form an impressive and instructive page of the great book of human life.

The guilty pair, who were the chief actors in these tragic scenes, though they escaped the death which they had merited, did not escape, even in life, the retribution of their crimes. They suffered "a living death." For many years they resided together, in the house allotted to them as their place of banishment, detested by the world and by each other. The unceasing torments of an evil conscience were embittered by mutual hatred so rancorous and implacable, that they passed year after year in the same dwelling without the interchange of a single word. Their doom may be likened to that so fearfully described in the tale of the Caliph Vathek. It seemed as if their punishment was begun ere yet they had tasted of death. The everlasting fire was already burning in their hearts; hope, the last and most precious of Heaven's blessings, had forsaken them for ever; and they read in each other's eyes nothing but rage, aversion, and despair. So they lived, in seclusion and solitude, till their existence was forgotten; and, of those who have commemorated their crimes, hardly any one has cared to record the periods when, one after the other, they dropped into eternity.

---

AN EXCELLENT OFFER.

BY MARMADUKE BLAKE.

"It's an excellent offer—so plain and handsome!"

The above contradictory description was applied by Mrs. Gibbs to the contents of a letter which a few hours previously, had been received by her husband, Mr. John Gibbs, of Adelaide Crescent, Camberwell.

Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs were rather elderly: a stranger would have taken them to be brother and sister; for, having lived together during the greater part of a long life, not only had their habits and modes of thought become congenial, but even the expression of their respective features had assumed a strong resemblance.

On the evening in which it is our purpose to introduce the reader to their acquaintance, Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs occupied the precise position which they had at the same hour occupied evening after evening for the preceding forty years; that is, Mrs. Gibbs was by the side of the table with her "work," and Mr. Gibbs sate with his feet upon the fender, an open book by his side, on which his spectacles were deposited, while his body was assuming a backward inclination, which was occasionally checked by a sudden bobbing forward of the head, accompanied by a pulmonary effort of a most profound description.

"A little more, and I should have been asleep," said Mr. Gibbs; and, as the remark had escaped from the lips of that gentleman once every evening during nearly half a century, it did not seem to Mrs. Gibbs to call for any particular reply.

"I was speaking, my dear," said she, "of Mr. Paine's offer."

"And I," responded Mr. Gibbs, "was thinking upon the very same subject at the moment when you spoke; I was thinking that we must keep our eyes open to the advantages which are now presented."

Mr. Gibbs took a glass of wine, resumed his horizontal position, and seemed disposed to nod.

"Well, my dear,—now do rouse up,—if we are to accept Mr. Paine as a son-in-law, what will young Langton say to us?"

"I hope," said Mr. Gibbs, rubbing his eyes and yawning most uncomfortably,—"I hope Mr. Langton doesn't dream——"

"Why, my dear," interrupted the lady, "you must allow, we have given him a little encouragement."

"Not at all—not at all," was the reply; "nothing could be further from my intention: if indeed he had such an idea as you seem to intimate, I'm sure it has never been encouraged by me; he may have fancied otherwise, but anything of the sort on my part was mere manner, I assure you."

Mrs. Gibbs seemed satisfied, and the conversation on Mr. Paine's offer was resumed.

"He is so very respectable," said Mr. Gibbs, "and at a very suitable age for Caroline; two giddy people together would never do any good: I don't think much good ever comes of early marriages."

"We were neither of us of age when we married," interposed Mrs. Gibbs: "I hope you consider that case to have been an exception."

Mr. Gibbs was still dozy, and he nodded his head just at the right moment. The lady continued.

"If I were asked to choose a husband for my daughter, I shouldn't hesitate to give her Paine."

"Nor I either," replied Gibbs, who misunderstood his wife; "it would be entirely for her own good."

"He is a very pleasant man," ruminated Mrs. Gibbs.

"He has a thorough knowledge of the world, a great deal of philosophy, and——"

"A nice house in the Regent's Park."

We need not further pursue the interesting dialogue; suffice it to say that it terminated in a decision favourable to Mr. Paine, and a comfortable belief that if Mr. Charles Langton should go out of his mind, it would be entirely his own fault, as any encouragement which he might fancy to have been given, was only to be attributed to Mr. Gibbs's "manner."

Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs were "early people;" the clock struck ten, the housemaid and cook were heard ascending to their places of repose. Mrs. Gibbs followed, while her husband commenced, according to nightly custom, a perambulation in the dark, in order to see that everything was right; and having descended into the kitchen, and peeped into the cellar, and put his foot into a dish of water and red wafers set as a black-beetle trap, and knocked his forehead against a half-open door, he felt, as he said, satisfied in his mind, and could go to sleep in the most comfortable manner.

"What a beautiful night!" said the gentleman as he placed the extinguisher on his candle and the bright light of the moon entered his dressing-room. He manifested, however, no romantic desire to sit and watch her silent progress, so in a short time her beams were falling on the unconscious features of Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs.

The night was beautiful indeed,—so beautiful that we can only hope to bring it to the mind's eye of our matter-of-fact friends by stating that it was one of those evenings when the moon attains a brilliancy so extraordinary, that "you may see to pick up a pin;" having arrived at which point, we have been accustomed to believe lunar brightness can no further go.

The number of moonlight nights which shed their influence upon us during a passing year is of very small amount; and yet, when we suffer memory to look through "the waves of time," how much of moonlight is brought upon the mind. Day after day passes away, and although they give birth to new events and unlooked-for changes, yet they leave no more impression behind than we should experience after a survey of the fragmental patterns of a kaleidoscope,—each movement produces a variation, but there is nevertheless a general sameness of character which is altogether destructive of a permanent effect;—but in the lives of all men there have been moonlight "passages" which stand alone in their recollection, and which come upon them in after years, remembered as the periods when the heart, escaping from the stifling struggles of daily life, assumed a freer action,—moments in which they made resolutions which perhaps were broken, but which nevertheless it is some credit to them only to have made.

By daylight we are apt to consider mankind in the mass; by moonlight we invariably individualize,—we feel more deeply how mysteriously we stand, lonely in the midst of countless multitudes, and we draw more closely to our hearts those who have sought to lighten

"The heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world."

Reader, when you take a retrospect of life, we will answer for it that your fancy turns to some moonlight game with happy schoolfellows beneath a row of ancient elms, which threw their long cold shadows upon the greensward by the side of a village church. Let your fancy wander on, there is moonlight still: you roam, perchance, near the same church, and a gentle maiden is by your side; but you do not choose the elm-walk now, because the "school-boys" divert themselves thereon, and you prefer a semi-solitary stroll. Onward still: you are mixing in the bustle and heat of life; and there are moonlight hours when the thought of your vain career comes upon your mind, and you form in your heart new resolves, and pant with higher aspirations. Onward once more: and the scene is drawing to a close, the mist is on your sight, and memory wanders o'er a field of graves; and now how often do you lift your aching eyes to the silent and trembling stars, and suffer fancies to dwell upon your mind, that perchance from those orbs the spirits of the dead may be permitted to look down!

We only intended to venture a few words upon this subject, but we are afraid that we have written a "discourse."

There is a range of hill running from Westerham to Sevenoaks, the neighbourhood of which abounds with quiet scenery of surpassing beauty; and during the period in which Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs's dialogue took place, the young lady to whom it referred was indulging in a pleasant stroll in the garden of a cottage which stood in one of the little valleys at the foot of this range, and in which dwelt the parents of the young gentleman who was the companion of her walk, and who was the identical person whom Mr. Gibbs so strenuously stated to have received no "encouragement" whatever.

They wandered round a lawn encircled by a shrubbery path, which was glittering in the silver light: they were very silent, but they felt all that youth can feel, although an occasional exclamation of "How beautiful this is!" was all that mutually escaped their lips. A midsummer night and a garden-path are capable of imparting much power to the most delicate young ladies; and instances are by no means rare of some who would have shrunk from the prospect of an excursion extending to a mile from home, who will nevertheless stroll unrepiningly in company with a cousin or a friend two or three hundred times round a gravel-walk!

There was a happy family within doors,—brothers and sisters,—the light from the cottage-windows shining on the shrubs in front, and the merry laugh sounding from within: occasionally they were interrupted in their stroll, and messages were sent to know "whether they were coming in,—and that the grass was wet, and the night-air dangerous, and Miss Gibbs very delicate," &c. &c. &c.; to which messages replies were given that "they were not walking on the grass, and that the air was exceedingly mild, and that Miss Gibbs had a headache, and found herself better out of doors;" and then they were told that it was past ten o'clock,—and they promised to come in directly; and Mr. Langton only asked Caroline to take one turn more, and during that time he took Miss Gibbs's arm; and then he must walk once more round, and "this should positively be the last;" and so they took another turn, and this time his arm gently encircled her waist; and as they came in, there was a little hesitation while they were scraping their feet, and Caroline upon entering looked a little confused, and Mr. Langton seemed remarkably buoyant, and he rattled on for an hour or two, till his mother declared that there was "no getting him to bed;" and after Caroline and his mother and sisters had retired, he entered into an elaborate speech to his father concerning his prospects in life, which was only discontinued upon the discovery that his respectable parent had been asleep for upwards of an hour.

The reader who compares the stern reality of our opening scene with the poetic character of that by which it was succeeded, will have little difficulty in anticipating the result: the first disclosed the decision upon a plan which it had long been the chief object of a worldly man to effect; the latter was the idle dream of a boy and girl who knew nothing of the world, and still less of themselves.

On the morning subsequent to his moonlight walk, cool reflection had operated on the mind of Mr. Langton so far as to reduce the ardour with which he desired to communicate to his father his design of immediately entering into some active pursuit, with the view of sharing with an amiable partner an income which he was quite sure he could not fail to realize, but which as yet existed only in his own imagination. Nevertheless, although the daylight had thus produced its usual effect, and had given a matter-of-fact turn to his thoughts, he felt that he really did love Caroline, although it might be prudent to wait some few years before he made a formal declaration to that effect. Like most other young persons, he imagined that it was the easiest thing in the world to live on with unshaken affection, however distant might be the realization of his hopes: he was little aware of the numberless and apparently trivial influences which, during a period of prolonged separation or suspense, tend effectually to give a new colour to the views of those who have thus drawn upon futurity.

As he seated himself at the breakfast-table, he received from Caroline, in return for one of those

"Looks and signs

We see and feel, but none defines,"

a very kind glance, which assured him that he was the object of kind thoughts: he fancied that Fate had already twined the wreath that was to bring their happy fortune within one bright round,—that their love would be sanctified by the very difficulties with which he might have to contend before he could make her his wife,—that, with her as the reward of his exertions, he could not fail to succeed, and that to her influence alone he should proudly attribute whatever honours he might ultimately gain:—that look across the breakfast-table, unobserved by others, was the source from whence his imagination found no difficulty in tracing the Nile-like current of his future career!

We want to compress into one paper, events which were brought about by the course of several years; we must therefore hurry the reader over a few facts which perhaps he will have anticipated already.

Shortly after the consultation between Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs, Caroline received a letter from them, written in a tone of more than ordinary affection, interweaved with some little sermon-like passages touching the implicit obedience which children should at all times bestow upon their parents, and enforcing the same by the observation that those who had lived in the world nearly sixty years must of course in that time have acquired a nice sensibility of the manner in which to deal with the affections of the young. It concluded by requiring her immediate return to town; it gave their best love to Mr. and Mrs. Langton, and their compliments to Mr. Charles.

On Caroline's return the arrangements respecting Mr. Paine were fully detailed. Caroline cried, and Mrs. Gibbs said it was very natural she should dislike to leave her mother,—that she would consult her wishes in every way,—that she lived only in the happiness of her child, but that she must insist upon her acceptance of Mr. Paine: and then Caroline's friends were entreated to come and see her as often as possible, and they were particularly requested by Mrs. Gibbs not to put any idle fancies into her head which might prejudice her against the match; and one young lady of four-and-thirty, who had once possessed some charms, and who had flirted away all her chances, was desired to come and "cheer her up" whenever she could find time: the said young lady having for the last five years been in the habit of expressing a contempt for very young men, and an extreme desire to become the wife of some "nice old gentleman who kept his carriage."

After the detail of these circumstances, it will not be thought surprising that at a period of seven years from the opening of our story Caroline had long been the wife of Mr. Paine; and, having become the mother of three children, had made every effort, although perhaps she had not succeeded, to forget the moonlight walk in which she had been "so happy" with Charles Langton.

Mr. Paine was a merchant. His father, who had been a warehouseman in Friday-street, had, as is the custom of warehousemen, amassed a considerable fortune; and, although he had not been known to think very highly of himself while he was in indifferent circumstances, his own estimate of his value as a man, gradually grew with the strength of his pocket. His friends considered this a very proper view, and towards the end of his life he became much respected. Some time before his death he had purchased for his son a partnership in a house of "high standing," in which that gentleman had gradually risen from junior partner until he became the head of the firm. He inherited along with his father's wealth a great similarity of disposition; and his ideas of the importance of the "house," and consequently of his own importance as the head of the firm, had become the all-absorbing feature of his mind. Now this, although it told with admirable effect in Broad-street, was scarcely calculated to astonish his West-end connexions, nor was it likely to give that freedom of manner which forms the peculiar charm of domestic life.

Mr. Paine, on account of his mercantile standing, had been elected to a directorship of a prosperous insurance company; and as he was accustomed to look in daily at the office of the establishment, where he found himself surrounded by bowing clerks, and porters in bright waistcoats, who never heard a whisper from his voice without raising their hands to their hats, he became very deeply impressed with the idea that he really was an extraordinary person. No doubt he was so; but it was the misfortune of Mr. Paine that he never contemplated that "unbending of the bow" which is rather necessary to make home happy, and consequently when he returned from town he was cold and formal, in order to produce an impression on his servants, similar to that which gratified him in the City; and when he took his seat at the dinner-table there was hardly any variation from the manner which characterised him as chairman at the weekly meetings of the company, each remark being delivered in a style which sounded very much like a Resolution of "the Board."

Men choose their acquaintances as they choose their wives, and are very apt to select those whose qualities differ most widely from their own. Acting upon this principle, Mr. Paine had become intimate with a person to whom he condescended in a more than ordinary degree.

This person was Mr. Hartley Fraser, an unmarried man, at about the middle, or, as it is very pleasantly termed, the prime of life. He was of good family and small income; which latter circumstance he always assigned as the cause of his determination to live single, although it was attributed by some to a habit of ease and self-indulgence which he was now not disposed to correct. He knew and liked everybody in the world; and his philanthropy was not thrown away, for he was universally sought after, and in the making up of parties was always spoken of as a very desirable man. He humoured the foibles and flattered the caprices of his friends; the ladies liked him because he was "so useful," and the men spoke well of him because he never became a rival. He had always avowed his intention of remaining unwived, since, to use his own words, he found that he could drag on quietly enough with six or seven hundred a year as a bachelor, and he felt no inclination to go back in the world by becoming the proprietor of an expensive wife and a needy "establishment."

His manner, which, as we have already stated, was quite antithetical to Mr. Paine's, was as easy and kind as possible; and his stiff friend was never able to unravel the means by which, in the absence of a cast-iron stateliness, he invariably seemed to produce a feeling of deference in the minds of those with whom he came in contact. Though professing poverty, he never borrowed. His appearance was extremely good; while in conversation he rarely spoke of himself, and, if ever he did so, it was with an air of so little reserve, that his hearer could not help entertaining an idea that he was the most candid person in the world.

Mr. Paine felt quite proud of his popular acquaintance; and, as pride was the only attribute through which it was possible to gratify or wound that gentleman's feelings, of course he entertained as much regard for him as he could under any circumstances feel for any one. Fraser was therefore a frequent visitor at his house, which, despite of the governor's formality, was pleasant enough, for Caroline was always kind and cheerful, and "the children" were never visible.

Mr. Fraser soon became aware that his visits were rendered more frequent by the attraction of Caroline's society, while she could not sometimes help acknowledging to herself that her husband's selfish coldness was not placed in the most favourable light by a contrast with his agreeable friend. This was a dangerous discovery; but just at the period when it might have led to serious inroads on her happiness, an accident occurred which gave a new turn to her thoughts, and which tended to a catastrophe as unforeseen as it was fatal.

At an early hour in the afternoon a servant who had charge of the children would frequently request permission to take the eldest, a fine boy six years of age, for a short walk. Her consideration for the health and mental improvement of her young charge invariably induced her to wend her way to Oxford-street, where, by a strange coincidence, she invariably met a young gentleman in a flour-sprinkled jacket who emerged from a neighbouring baker's, and with whom, though they only met on these occasions, it afterwards appeared she was "keeping company." During the period of their conversation the child was told to "play about;" and, with that inherent love of liberty which dwells in the human mind, the boy made a point of availing himself of this permission by forthwith getting into all those spots which at other times he had been taught to shun. Occasionally a foot would become fixed between the iron gratings of an area in such a manner that he was unable to extract it; and then he would immediately roar as though he had been placed there by some tyrannical nursery-maid, and a crowd would collect to sympathise with his pangs, and at length to witness his extrication. At other times the gutter would seem to offer irresistible attraction; and in all cases the attentive guardian to whom he was entrusted consented not to tell her "missus" of his delinquencies if he would promise not to say a word about the young man from the baker's. This system was carried on till it had nearly terminated in a serious event. The child, having on one occasion stepped off the footway, was thrown down in attempting to escape from a carriage that was furiously approaching: in another instant the horses would have trampled upon him, had not a young man who observed his frightful situation rushed, heedless of danger, to the horses' heads, and, with the aid of the coachman, arrested their progress. The stranger learned from the boy his name and residence, conveyed him home, and, after giving an account of the accident, left a card with the footman to whom he delivered the child. About an hour afterwards the guardian angel returned in great alarm, when she was immediately favoured with unlimited leave of absence, and thereby enabled, literally as well as metaphorically, to "keep company" with her interesting friend.

On the following morning, a paragraph, which ran as follows, decorated the columns of the Morning Post.

"Yesterday, as Lady Crushmore's carriage was going down Oxford-street, it nearly passed over a child who had fallen before the horses: the boy was, however, rescued by a person who happened to witness his perilous situation. We merely notice the circumstance in order that we may have the satisfaction of recording a noble instance of humanity on the part of Lady Crushmore, who would not suffer the coachman to drive on until he had inquired whether the child was hurt."

It would be impossible to describe Caroline's feelings when she received the account of the accident: she took the card which had been left by the stranger, but in the excitement of the moment she did not heed the name, and, throwing it on one side, she pressed the terrified boy to her breast with hysteric minglings of tears and laughter. That afternoon Mr. Paine returned in company with Fraser; and, as he entered, he received an account of what had happened. He was by no means moved, but went into the matter, and asked questions in a most cool and dignified manner.

"Really," he said, "I think this is a case we ought not to look over; and therefore I must move, that is, I would suggest, that the boy should receive a very severe whipping."

The motion, not being seconded, fell to the ground, and Mr. Paine continued,

"Have you learned the name of the person by whom he was accompanied home?"

Caroline recollected the card, and, without looking at it, handed it to her husband.

"Langton—Charles Langton, Raymond Buildings," ruminated Mr. Paine; "I don't know the name."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Caroline; "Charles Langton?"

"Yes, my dear; is there anything so extraordinary in the name—is he any connexion of your family?"

"Yes—no—that is, my father had a very old friend of the name of Langton, who lived near Sevenoaks."

"Ah," said the amiable Paine, who prided himself on the sarcastic, "Raymond Buildings are within a stone's throw of Sevenoaks."

Mr. Paine had not observed any great peculiarity in Caroline's manner; but he was excessively fond of giving utterance to an occasional sneer, which was the highest effort of his conversational power. But with Fraser, who had been a silent spectator of the scene, the emotion which Caroline betrayed when the card was read did not pass unnoticed or unremembered.

Mr. Paine having on the subsequent day made strict inquiries as to the respectability of the man who had saved his child, condescended to forward a note of thanks and an invitation to dine. This was immediately accepted, for Langton was not ignorant that the mother of the boy was his early friend; and, although circumstances were so sadly altered, he could not resist an opportunity of renewing the acquaintance.

The dinner to which he thus had the honour of being invited, went off rather flatly. There was a large party, principally composed of that class of persons who get their heads muddled in wool and tallow speculations during the day, and who attempt to become particularly brilliant and exclusive in the evening, when unfortunately it generally happens that, despite their best exertions,

"Let them dress, let them talk, let them act as they will,

The scent of the city will hang round them still."

Fraser, to whom Mr. Paine always looked as the enlivener of his otherwise cold dinners, was on this occasion unusually quiet, Langton and Caroline were mutually embarrassed, and Mr. Paine's platitudes grew more and more tiresome, till at length, when the dessert made its appearance, he took an opportunity of effecting an elaborate speech, the object of which was to impress upon his friends the sensation which would have been created if the eldest child and only son of Mr. Paine, of the firm of Paine, Grubb, and Jones, had been the victim of any serious accident, and the gratitude which in consequence they ought to entertain to the person by whom such an event had been arrested.

"A shock so calamitous," he said, "has been averted by the intrepid conduct of Mr. Langton; and I must therefore beg that he will accept the cordial thanks of this meeting,—that is, of myself and friends,—for the courage and presence of mind which he so seasonably displayed."

This speech exhibited such a style of pompous foolery, that during its delivery Fraser was tempted to glance at Caroline with peculiar significance, which seemed to intimate a considerable degree of contempt for her husband, and an idea that a similar feeling could not be altogether a stranger to her bosom.

Langton observed all this; and although it was with little surprise, for he knew that love is more easily alienated by pride than any other sentiment, yet he could not help feeling the most sincere regret that Caroline had entered upon that dangerous path, the first step of which is the condescending to show to any man a feeling of this nature.

"I have not learned to love her less," he said, when afterwards meditating on this circumstance, "and I love her too well to see her comfort or fame lightly lost while it may be in my power to save her. It was always her nature to be easily led by the influence of others; and although her pliant disposition may have linked her destiny with one whom it is evident she can never love, yet she may still be saved from a more fearful sacrifice. I will see her, and in the recollection of our early friendship, as well as in the recent claim which I have acquired upon her feelings, I will venture to speak boldly and sincerely. In warning her of the precipice on which she stands, she must not, however, be violently aroused to a sense of danger which perhaps she has not yet acknowledged to herself. I must first gently win her back to that spirit of confidence which we formerly knew, and, if I succeed in my ultimate aim, how slight in comparison will seem the peril from which I have saved the child, to that from which I shall have rescued the mother!"

Alas! that the morality of the young, which is so strong in thought, should be so weak in practice as it ever is. Here was another stone added to that pavement which is said to be composed of good intentions.

From this time he became a frequent visitor in the Regent's Park, and the result of this course will be best given in the description of an interview between himself and Caroline which took place about three months afterwards.

"Caroline," said he, as during a morning call, which had been prolonged to a most unfashionable extent, he sate alone by her side, "I find you the same kind being that you always were; it is from that tenderness of feeling, which under happier circumstances would have given additional value to your character, that I now dread an inroad on your peace. You confess that you are wearied with the cold and monotonous routine of your daily life, and that it is your fate to be linked with one who is incapable of understanding or returning any deep emotion of the heart; can you then wonder that I should tremble for your peace, when I see you flattered by the attentions of a man from whom I am afraid you have not been sufficiently discreet to conceal the disquiet which you suffer?"

"Indeed, indeed you have mistaken me," exclaimed Caroline. "I have neither been flattered by his attention, nor have I in any way confided in him: to you only have I spoken thus. I was wrong, very wrong, in doing so; but you entreated me to speak without reserve, and it is hardly kind of you now to tax me with the fault." As she said this, the tears started to her eyes, and as Langton gazed upon her he knew that the very confidence which had appeared so dangerous when he imagined it to be given to another, was now unreservedly bestowed upon himself: did he remember his indignant anticipations of broken happiness and degraded character on the part of Caroline, or did he apply to himself those rules which he had deemed so necessary to be considered by another? Alas! no. He took her hand, and said in a voice which faltered with emotion,

"Caroline, dear Caroline, I cannot bear to see you give way thus. Come, come, we must not have any tears: you may be very happy yet."

"No," she said, making a vain attempt to repress her sobs, "I do not hope to be happy,—I have not deserved to be so; for I knew, when they wished me joy on my wedding-day, that my happiness was gone for ever. But I must not talk thus to you, Charles; I have no right to trouble you with sorrows of my own seeking. Besides," she continued, smiling bitterly through her tears, "you are about to be married to one who cannot fail to love you, and I must claim no share in your thoughts. Believe me, I will conquer every emotion that you desire to be repressed. I will endeavour to be all that you would wish to see me,—indeed I will: only tell me that you are not offended,—that you do not think less kindly of me than you have always done,—and that you will sometimes think of her who, while she lives, can never cease to think and pray for you." She buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. "Don't, don't speak to me now," she said, as her tears flowed more quickly; and Langton, taking her hand, felt them falling on his own. At that moment he considered himself pre-eminently wretched; he pressed her head upon his shoulder, bidding her be more calm, and, as he imprinted one kiss upon her forehead,—a servant entered the room.

"Did you ring, sir?"

"No!" said Langton furiously, and the intruder disappeared. Servants always think you ring at the very moment when you wish you were in a wilderness!

The party who received Mr. Langton's impetuous negative was a fat housemaid of extreme sensibility; and as the sensibility of housemaids is usually concentrated upon themselves, of course, in the description of the indignity she had received, any very delicate consideration for the character of her mistress could not be expected to find a place. A committee was immediately formed in the pantry, where she related the "undelicate" conduct of that lady to her sympathising colleagues, and several strong resolutions were immediately carried expressive of their unqualified admiration of virtue in general, and their particular disapprobation of the deviation from its strict rules which had just been detailed; but as the said committee could not perceive any particular benefit to themselves that was likely to result from a disclosure to Mr. Paine, they determined to let the matter drop, and merely to suffer it to exist as an occasional topic to give intensity to those sublime denunciations of the wickedness of their betters in which they were accustomed to indulge round the kitchen fire, when their thoughts were glowing beneath the stimulus of an occasional bottle of wine which had been abstracted from the cellars of their "injured master."

Of course, however, it was not to be expected that the knowledge of the circumstance should be concealed from their immediate circle of acquaintance; and as the green-grocer wished he might drop if he ever breathed a syllable about it, and the milkwoman thanked Heaven that she never was a mischief-maker, of course the insulted housemaid "didn't mind telling them," upon their promise of profound secrecy; which was especially necessary, as, with the exception of the servants on each side of Mr. Paine's, and the nurserymaid opposite, not a soul knew a word about the matter.

Now it so happened that the watchful being who had been discharged on account of the affair in Oxford-street, was one of those amiable characters by whom forgiveness of injuries is accounted a duty. She had carried out this principle so far, that, although she had been desired never to enter the house again, she would occasionally call after dark to see her old fellow-servants, with whom she would sometimes take a glass of ale, in order to show how completely she had subdued those feelings of animosity which she might be expected to entertain towards the person at whose cost it was provided. She always seemed to take the same interest in the family as she had formerly done, and, with a spirit of Christian charity which did honour to her nature, she would sometimes declare "that although they had injured her, yet she hoped it would never come home to them."

Any concealment from a person of this disposition was of course unnecessary; and, when she was made acquainted with the circumstance, her horror was unlimited. "Poor Mr. Paine, who was so much of a gentleman!—and Mrs. Paine, too, who always seemed to love the dear children so!—who would take care of them now?—and then that Mr. Langton, she always said from the first she never liked him! But no," she continued, her goodness of disposition again overmastering every other feeling, "I won't believe it,—I can't do so; though I know, Mary, that you wouldn't tell a falsehood for the world, and, if you couldn't speak well of anybody, would rather say nothin' at all."

The reader will be surprised to learn that, although Mr. Paine's servants had acted with such praiseworthy reserve, a letter was received by that gentleman at the insurance office of which he was chairman, (the seal bearing the royal arms, which had been produced by the application of a sixpence; and the post-mark giving indications of the existence of a place called "Goswell-street Road,") the purport of which was as follows:

"Sir,—Nothin but my ankziety for your peas of mind could indews me to writ this letter, which i am afeard will set your fealings in a flame, & cause you grate distres. i am sorry to say your confidens is abused, and that you have little idere of the fallshood which will be found in what i am goin to relate.

"Your wife is untrew—the young man who pickt up Master Eddard when he would run into the rode, is one of her old bows. You may depend upon my assurance, for altho' there is an animus signatur at the bottem of this, the writer is a steddy young woman and knows what wickedness is.

"If you don't take warnin by what I have writ you will peraps be unhappy all the rest of your days, and so I hope you will.

"From your sincere well-wisher,

"J.J."

It is said that, for the deprivation of one sense, compensation is not unfrequently given by an increased action which is acquired to the remainder; and those who have seen men cut off from the enjoyment of some long-cherished feeling at the moment when its gratification seemed most essential to their happiness, must have admired the benevolence with which Providence has thus bestowed upon the mind a capability, when it is deprived of one pursuit, of falling back with redoubled ardour upon another. But Mr. Paine was an exception to this rule; he was rather the incarnation of a single feeling than a sharer in the complicated emotions of mankind. Pride was the only thing that he was conscious of,—the one point from which all his ideas radiated; and, when this was destroyed, his existence might virtually be considered at an end.

From the moment that he had received the wretched scrawl, the alteration which took place in this unhappy man was of the most extraordinary kind. He had never been suspicious, for, loveless though he was, the possibility that his wife could sink to frailty had never entered into his mind; but, when the idea was once aroused, he seemed without hesitation to receive it as a truth; and that that truth should be forced upon him by the agency of a person who was evidently of the lowest class was an aggravation of the keenest kind. His spirit was from that day broken. Homage seemed a mockery, for he felt that the most despised among those who showed him reverence possessed a more enviable lot than it could ever be his fate to know again.

For a few days the secret remained fixed in his own heart,—that heart which had sought to citadel itself in its indomitable pride, and which was now crushed and powerless. At length to Fraser, by whom his altered manner had been remarked, he ventured to ask, with an air of forced coldness, "Whether it had ever occurred to him that Mr. Langton had been in the habit of paying more than proper attentions to the mother of the boy whom he had rescued?—he did not mean to hint that those attentions had been encouraged or received—that of course was out of the question; but still——"

He hesitated; and Fraser, deceived by the quietude of his manner, thought it a very good opportunity to say a few words upon a subject that had given him some little annoyance. He readily avowed "that he entertained no very high opinion of the gentleman in question, but" (of course) "his opinion of Mrs. Paine's correct feeling was so strong that he thought the matter need cause very little discomfort. Nevertheless, he imagined it would be as well to intimate to Mr. Langton that his constant attendance in the Regent's Park was no longer expected or desired."

This was the confirmation that was sought—the vulgar letter was accurate enough—all the world were pointing at him. Fraser had noticed it, but in delicacy to his feelings, and in gallantry to his wife, had forborne to speak more explicitly: he had no remedy; wronged as he was, he had no remedy. He might go into a court of justice, and there, in consideration of his shame being recorded upon oath, he might receive a sum equal to about a tithe of his yearly income. He might kill the man; and then also the world, with whom suspicion only might exist at present, would be certified of the fact. No; his course was run,—there was but one way left for him to pursue.

It was dusk on a summer's evening, a few days after this, that Caroline and Langton met for the last time.

"Charles," she said, "it is not a resolution lightly formed; it has cost me a struggle which I knew I should experience, but which I never expected to have conquered, you must not see me more! Nay, do not utter one word of remonstrance; you may by so doing make the separation more bitter, but you cannot shake my resolution. I dare not trust myself to say all that now rushes to my mind; yet, perhaps, parting as we do for ever, I may be forgiven for saying that I always loved you: this I could not help; but, with such a feeling, I ought to have shown more strength of mind than to have sacrificed your happiness and my own even to a parent's wish. I failed to do so, and it is right that the penalty should be borne. Farewell! You can appreciate all that I now suffer, and you will tell me that you love me better for the determination which I have made. Believe me, a time will come when you will praise God that I had sufficient strength to endure the agony of this trial. We have been very foolish,—we ought never to have met; but thank Heaven that, having met, we have escaped from guilt. There, now leave me—pray leave me, and——"

At this moment they were interrupted by a hasty knock at the street-door; they stood still for a moment: it was Mr. Paine. He seemed, upon entering, to make some inquiries of the servant: he ascended the stairs, paused for an instant at the drawing-room door, as if about to open it, and then with a hurried step ascended to his dressing-room above. Caroline and Langton moved not; they seemed to dread some coming event, and yet they had no definite ground for fear. Several minutes elapsed: at length Langton smiled and was about to speak, when they heard a heavy, lumbering fall upon the floor above, followed by a long, low groan, the sound of which was never afterwards forgotten.

We willingly draw a veil over the circumstances of this scene, and have only now to detail the events to which it ultimately led.

The parting between Caroline and Langton on that dreadful night was final: he made an attempt to see her once more during the period of her suffering, but this she positively refused. The suicide of her unhappy husband caused some little talk at the time; but as it was proved, to the satisfaction of a coroner's jury, that his death took place on a Wednesday, and that upon that day he had written a short note which he had dated "Thursday," they without hesitation returned a verdict of "Temporary Insanity," and the newspapers saw no reason for departing from their usual plan, by attributing the rash act to any other cause than the unsuccessful result of some speculations on the Stock Exchange.

The world, (that is to say, those immediate connexions who became acquainted with the circumstances of the case,) upon a retrospect of the affair, condemned Mr. Paine for his pride, Mr. Fraser for his politeness, and Caroline and Langton for their indiscretion;—the only persons mentioned in our story with whom the said "world" found no fault were—Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs!

Mr. Paine had made no alteration in his will, and a large portion of his property was left to his widow during her life. Caroline passed some years in deep seclusion, devoting herself to the education of her children, and seeking consolation in the exercises of religion, wherein alone she could hope that it might be found. She died at the commencement of the present year; and an extract from a letter addressed to Langton, which was discovered among her papers, may serve to conclude her history, and to impart a moral which may not be altogether vain.

"You will perhaps be surprised at this request," (she had entreated that he would undertake the guardianship of her children,) "but, after all that I have suffered, I could not feel one moment's peace if I thought it possible that in the course of events a similar fate might attend upon them. Edward will require little care,—to the girls my anxiety is directed: the destiny of women is too often fixed when they possess little power of judging wisely for themselves; and, even if they should possess this power, strength of character is required to enable them to resist all other influences, and to abide firmly by the judgment they have formed. Remembering that my fate was thus rendered unhappy, you will not hesitate to guard my children against the misery I have endured. Watch over them, I entreat you; and let that love which, when it was bestowed upon me, could lead only to sorrow, descend upon them with the consciousness of purity. I know that you will do this; I know, above all, that in affairs of the heart you will consult their feelings of affection rather than their dreams of pride; and while, on the one hand, you prohibit a union that might degrade them, you will, on the other, be equally cautious never to enforce the acceptance of 'an excellent offer.'"

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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A GOOD JOKE.

The diamond is precious from its scarcity, and, for the same reason, a new thought is beyond all price. Unluckily for us moderns, the ages who came before us have seized upon all the best thoughts, and it is but rarely indeed that we can stumble upon a new one. In the pride of superior knowledge, we sometimes imagine that we have succeeded in coining a new thought in the mint of our own brain; but, ten to one, if we make any researches into the matter, we shall find our bran new thought in some musty volume whose author lived a thousand years ago. This is exceedingly provoking, and has often led me to imagine that the ancients (so miscalled) have been guilty of the most atrocious plagiarisms from us, who are the real ancients of the world. It seems as if by some unhallowed species of second-sight they have been enabled to see down the dim vistas of futurity, and have thus forestalled us in the possession of the choicest thoughts and the most original ideas. This is especially the case with regard to jokes; all the best of them are as old as the hills. On rare occasions some commanding genius astonishes the world by a new joke; but this is an event,—the event of the year in which the grand thing is uttered. Hardly has it seen the light ere it passes with the utmost celerity from mouth to mouth; it makes the tour of all the tables in the kingdom, and is reproduced in newspapers and magazines, until no corner of the land has been unhonoured and ungladdened by its presence. Reader! it was once my fortune to be the creator, the Ποιητὴς, of a witticism of surpassing excellence,—of a joke which, as soon as it proceeded from my brain, made a dozen professed wits ready to burst with envy at my superior genius! Many a time since, has that bright scintillation of intellectual light brought smiles into the faces, and gladness into the hearts of millions! and many a joyous cachinnation has it caused, to the sensible diminution of apothecaries' bills and undertakers' fees! If I had been a diner-out, I might have provided myself with dinners for two years upon the strength of it; but I was contented with the honour, and left the profit to the smaller wits, who, by a process well known to themselves, contrive to extract venison out of jests, and champagne out of puns. For years I have reposed on my laurels as the inventor of a new thought; and, but for the hope that there were still more worlds to conquer, I would have folded my arms in dignified resignation, and acknowledged to myself that I had not lived in vain. About a month ago, however, my complacent pride in my production received a severe check; and circumstances ensued which have led me to doubt whether in these degenerate days it is possible for a man to imagine any new thought. I was in the society of half a dozen men of real wit, but of no pretension,—men of too joyous a nature to be envious of my achievement,—when one of them actually uttered my joke,—the joke upon which I pride myself,—coolly looking me in the face, and asserting that he was the author of it. I felt at first indignant at so dishonest an act; but, convinced of my own right, I smiled contemptuously, and said nothing. My friend noticed the smile, and saw that it was not one of mirth but of scorn, and has ever since treated me with the most marked coolness. When I returned home I retired to my chamber, and throwing myself into my comfortable arm-chair, I indulged in a melancholy reverie upon the vanity of human exertion, and the disposition so common among mankind to rob the great of their dearly-acquired glory. "Even Homer," said I to myself, "did not escape the universal fate. Some deny his very existence, and assert that his sublime epic was the combined work of several ballad-mongers; others, again, generously acknowledge his existence, but still assert that he was no poet, but the mere singer of the verses that abler men composed! And, if Homer has not escaped detraction and injustice, shall I?" These, and similar thoughts, gradually growing more and more confused and indistinct, occupied my attention for a full hour. A bottle of champagne, corked up and untasted, stood upon the table before me. It was just the dim faint dawn of early morning; and in the grey obscurity I could plainly distinguish the black bottle as it stood between me and the window. Notwithstanding the hour, I felt half-inclined to take a draught of the generous juice it contained, and was stretching forth my hand for that purpose, when, to my great surprise, the bottle gave a sudden turn, and commenced dancing round the table. Gradually two arms sprouted forth from its sides; and, giving them a joyous twirl, the bottle skipped about more nimbly than before, and to my eyes seemed endeavouring to dance a Highland fling. I thought this very extraordinary behaviour on the part of the bottle. I rubbed my eyes, but I was wide awake. I pinched myself, and came to the same conclusion. As I continued to gaze, the mysterious bottle grew larger and larger, and suddenly sprung up as tall as myself. Immediately afterwards, the cork, which had become supernaturally large and round, changed colour, and turned to a ruddy hue; and I could by degrees distinguish a pair of sparkling eyes, and a whole set of rubicund features smiling upon me with the most benign expression. The forehead of this apparition was high and bald, and marked with wrinkles,—not of decrepitude, but of a hale old age,—while a few thin grey hairs hung straggling over his temples. As soon as my astonishment was able to vent itself in words, I addressed the apparition in a query, which has since become extremely popular, and called out to it, "Who are you?"

The Autobiography of a Joke

Ere it had time to reply to this classical question, my eyes fell upon a roll of parchment which it held in its hand, and on which were inscribed the magic words of my joke.

"Do you not know me?" said this Eidolon of my wit, pointing to the scroll. "I am the joke upon which you pride yourself, and, although I say it myself, one of the best jokes that ever was uttered. Don't you know me?"

"I can't say that I should have recognised you," said I, as I felt my heart yearning with paternal kindness towards him; "but—Come to my arms, my son, my progeny!"

"Aha! ha! ha!" said the Joke, looking at me with very unfilial impertinence, and holding his sides with laughter.

"The contempt with which you treat me is exceedingly unbecoming," said I with much warmth, and with the air of an offended parent; "and, what is more, sir, it is unfeeling and unnatural—'tis past a joke, sir!"

"'Tis no joke!" said the Joke, still laughing with all his might, and peering at me from the corners of his eyes, the only parts of those orbits which mirth permitted to remain open; "really, my good friend, the honour to which you lay claim is nowise yours. Lord bless your foolish vanity! I was a patriarch before the days of your great grandfather!"

"Pooh, pooh!" said I, "it cannot be! You know that you are my production;—you cannot be serious in denying it."

"I am not often serious," said the Joke, putting on a look of comic gravity; "but there is no reason for so much solemnity in telling an unimportant truth. However, we will not argue the point; I will proceed at once to tell you my history, to convince you how little claim you have to the honours of paternity in my case."

"I shall be very happy," said I, with more reverence than I had yet assumed towards my mysterious visitor.

"For fear you should find me dry," said the Joke, "get a bottle of wine."

I did as I was desired, drew the cork, filled two glasses, one of which I handed to the Joke, who, nodding good-humouredly at me, commenced the following narrative.

THE JOKE'S STORY.

"I have not the slightest recollection of my progenitors; like the great Pharaohs who built the pyramids, their names have sunk into oblivion in the lapse of ages. They must, however, have lived more than thirty centuries ago, as my reminiscences extend nearly as far back as that period. I could, if I would, draw many curious pictures of the state of society in those early ages, having mixed all my life with persons of every rank and condition, and traversed many celebrated regions. I say it with pride that I have always delighted to follow in the track of civilization, and claim as a great honour to myself and the other members of my fraternity, that we have in some degree contributed to hasten the mighty march of human intelligence. It is only savage nations who are too solemn and too stupid to appreciate a joke, and upon these people I never condescended to throw myself away. One of my earliest introductions to society took place about two thousand five hundred years ago, among a company of merchants who were traversing the great deserts of Arabia. Methinks I see their faces now, and the very spot where they first made acquaintance with me. It was towards sunset, under a palm-tree, beside a fountain, where the caravan had stopped to drink the refreshing waters. It has been often said that grave people love a joke, and it was a grave old trader who showed me off on this occasion, to the infinite delight of his companions, who laughed at my humour till the tears ran down their cheeks. In this manner I traversed the whole of civilized Asia, and visited at different periods the luxurious tables of Sardanapalus and Ahasuerus, and brought smiles into the faces of the queenly beauties of their courts. From Asia I passed into Greece, and I remember that I used often to sit with the soldiers round their watch-fires at the siege of Troy. At a much later period I was introduced to Homer, and shall always remember with pleasure that I was the means of procuring him a supper when, but for me, he would have gone without one. The poor peasants to whom the still poorer bard applied for a supper and a lodging, had no relish for poetry; but they understood a joke, and the bard brought me forth for their entertainment; and, while my self-love was flattered by their hearty laughter, his wants were supplied by their generous hospitality. But I was not only acquainted with Homer, for Aristophanes very happily introduced me into one of his lost comedies. Anacreon and I were boon companions; and, while upon this part of my career, you will permit me to give vent to a little honest pride, by informing you in few words that I once brought a smile into the grave face of the divine Plato; that I was introduced into an argument by no less an orator than Demosthenes; that I was familiarly known to Esop; that I supped with Socrates; and was equally well received in the court of Philip of Macedon and the camp of his victorious son. Still a humble follower in the train of civilization, I passed over to Rome. I was not very well received by the stiff, stern men of the republic; but in the age of Augustus I was universally admired. The first time that I excited any attention was at the table of Mecænas, when Horace was present. I may mention by the way that it was Horace himself who, in a tête-à-tête, first made known my merits to his illustrious patron, and the latter took the first opportunity of showing me off. I was never in my life more flattered than at the enthusiastic reception I met from the men of genius there assembled, although I have since thought that I was somewhat indebted for my success to the wealth and station of the illustrious joker. However that may be, my success was certain; and so much was I courted, that I was compelled to visit every house in Rome where wit and good-humour stood any chance of being appreciated. After living in this manner for about a hundred years, I took it into my head to go to sleep; and I slept so long, that, when I awoke, I found the victorious Hun in the streets of the city. This was no time for me to show my face; and, seeing so little prospect of happy times for me and my race, I thought I could not do better than go to sleep again. I did so, and when I awoke this second time found myself at the gay court of old king René of Provence. Among the bright ladies and amorous troubadours who held their revels there, I was much esteemed. There was, however, I am bound in candour to admit, some falling-off in my glory about this period. I was admitted to the tables of the great, it is true; but I was looked upon as a humble dependent, and obliged to eat out of the same platter with the hired jester. I could not tolerate this unworthy treatment for ever, and it had such an effect upon me that I soon lost much of my wonted spirit and humour. In fact, I was continually robbed of my point by these professed wits, and often made to look uncommonly stupid; so much so, that my friends sometimes doubted of my identity, and denied that I was the same joke they had been accustomed to laugh at. I contrived, however, to be revenged occasionally upon the unlucky jesters who introduced me mal-à-propos. They used to forget that their masters were not always in a humour to be tickled by a joke, and a sound drubbing was very often the only reward of their ill-timed merriment. This was some slight consolation to me; but I could not tolerate long the low society of these hired buffoons, and, as I did not feel sleepy, I was obliged to think of some scheme by which I might escape the continual wear and tear, and loss of polish, that I suffered at their hands. I at last resolved to shut myself up in a monastery, and lead a life of tranquillity and seclusion. You need not smile because so merry a personage as myself chose to be immured within the walls of a monastery, for I assure you that in the intellectual society of the monks,—the only intellectual society that one could meet with in those days,—I was soon restored to my original brightness. I lived so well and so luxuriously among these good people, that I quickly grew sleek and lazy, and somehow or other I fell into a doze, from which I was not awakened until a wit in the reign of Elizabeth stumbled upon me, and again brought me out into the busy world. I ran a splendid career in England."

"Did you?" said I, interrupting the Joke at this part of his narrative, and appealing to him with considerable energy of manner, for I began to be apprehensive that some of my friends, more learned than myself, might have discovered the antiquity of my "joke," and would quiz me on the subject. I restrained my impetuosity, however, and, with some alarm depicted in my countenance, I asked him in a trembling voice, "Did you—did you—ever—meet with—Joe Miller?"

"D—Joe Miller!" said the Joke with much vivacity; "I suffered more from the dread of that fellow than I ever suffered in my life. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping out of his way, and I only managed it by going to sleep again. You awoke me from that slumber, when, like many others who came before you, you passed me off as your own. You remember you got much credit for me, as all ever have done who have good sense enough to introduce me only at a proper time, and wit enough to launch me forth with all my native grace and brilliancy about me."

"Then you are not a Joe?" said I, much relieved.

"A Joe!" said the Joke, reddening with anger. "Have I not told you already that I am not? Do you mean to insult me by the vile insinuation that I ever showed my face in such despicable company? Do you think, sir, that I am a pun?"

"Oh, by no means," said I; "I assure you I meant no offence."

"You did, sir," replied the Joke, striking his fist upon the table with great vehemence. Immediately afterwards I observed that his face became dreadfully distorted, and he shook his head convulsively from side to side. As I continued to gaze without the power of saying a single word to calm the irritation I had so unintentionally raised, I noticed that his neck grew every instant longer and longer, until his chin seemed to be fully two feet from his shoulders. I was unable to endure the sight, and rising up, half frantic with nervous excitement, I put my hand convulsively upon his head, with the benevolent intention of squeezing it down to its proper level. He glared furiously at me with his swollen eyes, and, horrible to relate, just as I came in contact with him, his head flew off with a tremendous explosion, and bounced right through a chimney-glass that ornamented my mantel-piece. The glass flew in shivers round me. In a dreadful state of alarm I rang the bell for assistance, and sank down overpowered upon the chair.

"Beggin' your honour's pardon for being so bould," said my tiger, a good-natured Irish boy named Phelim, who had entered at the summons, "I think your honour had better drink a bottle of soda-water and go to bed."

"Where's his head, Phelim?" said I.

"Your own, or the bed's?" said Phelim.

"The Joke's," replied I.

"Och, you must mane your own; it's light enough, I dare say," said Phelim as he pulled my boots off. "You took a dhrop too much last night, anyhow."

"Phelim," said I solemnly, "did you hear nothing?"

"To be sure I did," said Phelim. "Haven't you, like a drunken baste as you are, (begging your pardon for my bouldness,) been trying to broach that bottle of champagne at this early hour of the mornin', and haven't you driven the cork through the lookin'-glass?"

I looked at the bottle; it was uncorked, and the champagne was even at that moment sparkling over the neck of the bottle, and running over my books and papers.

"A pretty piece of work you have made of it," said Phelim, picking up the cork and pointing to the looking-glass.

"'Twas a good joke," said I, although my faith was somewhat staggered by Phelim's explanation.

"Troth, an' I'm glad you take it so asy," said Phelim, ramming the cork into the bottle; "you'll find it a dear one when the landlady brings in her bill for the lookin'-glass. But never mind it, sir, now. Go to bed and get sober."

I took Phelim's advice, and went to bed. To this day I am unable positively to decide whether his explanation was the true one or not. I incline, however, to the belief that I was not drunk, but that the illustrious Joke actually visited me in propriâ personâ. I am the more inclined to this belief from the remarkable coherency of his narrative, which I now leave, without a word of comment, to the consideration of the curious.

---

THE SECRET.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. PAUL DE KOCK.

Nathalie de Hauteville at the age of twenty-two had been for three years a widow. She was one of the most beautiful women in Paris; a brunette, with large black eyes, and one of those fascinating faces whose charm consists more in expression than in regularity of features, and in which are portrayed at once all the elegance of the Frenchwoman, all the vivacity of the Italian, and all the fire of a daughter of Spain.

When she married, at eighteen, a man of nearly three times her age, Nathalie, a mere child in character, had not bestowed a thought on any thing beyond her wedding dresses, her marriage presents, and the delight of being called Madame. Her husband was as generous to her as he was rich. Twelve months had passed in a continued round of gaiety and amusement, when M. de Hauteville was suddenly attacked by a disease which carried him off in a few days, and left his young widow to mourn for a husband as she would have mourned for the loss of a friend and protector.

But, at eighteen, sorrow soon passes away; the heart is so new to every feeling, to every illusion. Madame de Hauteville found that she was courted by the world; that she was invited everywhere; and that, by her fortune and her position, she was called upon to become an ornament of society. Yet she felt that she was too young to live without a mentor, and to go out alone; so she asked her uncle, M. d'Ablaincourt, to come and live with her.

M. d'Ablaincourt was an old bachelor: one love only, had he ever known, and the object of that was—himself. His love for himself was paramount; and, if ever he went so far as to show any liking for any other individual, he must have received from that individual such attention as to make him a gainer by their intimacy. M. d'Ablaincourt was an egotist; but, at the same time, a well-bred, a well-mannered egotist. He had all the air of devoting himself to the wishes of others, whilst he was exclusively occupied in compassing his own; he would appear to be taking a lively interest in those around him, whilst, in reality, he never felt any interest in anybody but himself. Too thoughtless to do harm, he was as little disposed to do good, unless it were for his own advantage. In short, he liked to be at his ease, and to be surrounded with all the enjoyments which luxury could invent. Such was the character of M. d'Ablaincourt, who readily acceded to his niece's proposal, because Nathalie, though a little giddy, had a good and affectionate heart, and would load him with kindnesses and attentions.

M. d'Ablaincourt went out into the world with his niece, because he had not yet lost his relish for its pleasures; but, if an invitation came for any party which he thought held out no amusement for him, he would turn to her, and say, "I am afraid, my dear, you will not like this party; there will be nothing at all but play. I shall be very happy to take you; you know I always do exactly as you wish, but I think you will find it dull." And Nathalie, who was all confidence in her uncle, never failed to answer, "You are quite right, uncle; it will be much better for us not to go."

The Secret

So it was with everything else. M. d'Ablaincourt, who, without wishing to be thought so, was an excessive gourmand, said one day to his niece, "You know, my dear, I am no gourmand; I care very little myself how things are served up, and am always satisfied with what is laid before me; but your cook puts too much salt in everything, which is not wholesome for a young woman; and then, she sends up her dishes in a careless, slovenly way, which is very annoying to me on your account, as you often give dinners. The other day there were six people at table, and the spinage was badly dressed. You must consider what people will say of your management when they see such neglect. They will say that Madame de Hauteville has no idea of having things as they ought to be; and this may do you harm, as there are persons who notice everything."

"What you say is very true, dear uncle; will you take the trouble of looking out for a good cook for me?"

"To be sure, my love; you know I think nothing of trouble when I can be of service to you."

"How lucky I am in having you always by me to tell me of all these little things, which I should never think of!" said Nathalie, kissing her uncle; and he, good old man, forthwith discharged the cook who dressed the spinage badly, to make way for one who shone particularly in all his favourite dishes.

Another time some improvements were to be made in the garden; for instance, the trees in front of the old gentleman's windows were to be felled, because they might occasion a dampness which would be dangerous for Nathalie. And then, the elegant calash was to be exchanged for a landau, as being a carriage in which a young lady could be much more at her ease. So minutely attentive was M. d'Ablaincourt to the comforts and enjoyments of his niece!

Nathalie was somewhat of a coquette: accustomed to conquest, she used to listen with a smile to the numerous proposals which were made to her, and sent off all suitors to her uncle, telling them, "Before I can give you any hope, I must know what M. d'Ablaincourt thinks of you."

Had her heart favoured any individual, it is probable that the answer of Nathalie would have been different; but, as it was, she thought nothing could be more agreeable than to please all, and be the slave of none.

The old gentleman, for his part, being master in his niece's house, was not at all anxious that she should marry again. A nephew might be less inclined to give way, less indulgent to him than Nathalie, so that he never failed to find some serious fault in every fresh aspirant to the hand of the pretty widow, and, as in every other case, he seemed to be thinking of nothing but her happiness.

In addition to his egotism, and his fondness for good living, M. d'Ablaincourt had of late years been seized with a violent passion for tric-trac. His favourite pastime, his highest delight, was this game; but, unfortunately for him, it was one very little played. The ladies do not like it in a room, because it is noisy; the gentlemen prefer bouillotte or écarté; so that the old gentleman very seldom found an opportunity of indulging his propensity. If any of his niece's visitors did happen to play, he seized upon them for the whole evening;—there was no possibility of escape. But, as they did not come to the pretty widow's for the sake of a game at tric-trac with the old uncle, many were the nights he sighed in vain for somebody to play with.

To please her uncle, Nathalie attempted to learn; but in vain. She was too giddy to give the necessary attention, and was continually making mistakes: the uncle scolded; and at last, Nathalie, throwing away dice and dice-box, said, "It is no use,—I never can learn this game."

"I am sorry for it," answered M. d'Ablaincourt, "very sorry; it would have given you so much pleasure. I only wished to teach it you for your own amusement."

Such was the state of affairs, when, at a very large party, where Nathalie was allowed to stand unrivalled for personal beauty and elegance of dress, was announced M. d'Apremont, a captain in the navy.

Nathalie expected to see a blunt, gruff old sailor, with a wooden leg, and a black patch on his eye. To her great astonishment there entered a tall, handsome young man, with a graceful figure and commanding air, and without either a wooden leg or a black patch.

Armand d'Apremont had entered the service very early in life; his whole soul was in his profession; and, though only thirty, he had risen to the rank of captain. His family property was considerable, and he had increased his fortune by his own exertions. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that, after fifteen years spent at sea, he should have yielded to a longing for repose; yet he never could be persuaded to listen to the solicitations of his friends, who urged him to marry: hitherto he had only laughed at love as a passion unworthy of a sailor.

The sight of Nathalie changed all his ideas,—the whole man underwent a sudden revolution. He watched her dancing, and could look nowhere else. All the other beauties in the room passed before him but as vain shadows, so busy were his eyes in following the graceful movements of the young widow.

"Who is that lovely creature who dances so beautifully?" at last he exclaimed to a person next him.

"That is Madame de Hauteville, a young widow. You admire her, captain?"

"I think her enchanting."

"She is very beautiful! And her mental qualifications are at least equal to her personal charms. But you must ask her to dance, and then you will be able to judge for yourself."

"I ask her to dance! I never danced in my life!" and for the first time Armand felt that this was a deficiency in his education. However, he went and stood close to the beauty, watching an opportunity of entering into conversation with her. Once he was on the very point of succeeding, when a young man came up, and led her away to the quadrille. Poor Armand bit his lips, and was obliged again to content himself with admiring her dancing. This whole evening he made no further advances, but he did not lose sight of his enchantress for an instant.

The captain's behaviour did not pass unobserved by Nathalie,—so soon do women see what effect they produce,—and, although she did not appear to notice it, she felt secretly not a little flattered; for D'Apremont had been described to her as a man who was far from agreeable in the society of ladies, and who had never been known to pay a single compliment. And Nathalie said to herself, "What fun it would be to hear him make love!"

D'Apremont, who, before he had seen Nathalie, went very little into society, particularly to balls, from henceforth never missed going wherever he had a chance of meeting his fair widow. He had succeeded in speaking to her, and had done his utmost to render himself agreeable. His behaviour was entirely changed, and the world was not more slow than usual in discovering the cause, or in commenting upon the marked attention which he paid to Nathalie.

"Mind you are not caught, captain!" a good-natured friend would say. "Madame de Hauteville is a coquette, who will but make a toy of your love, and a joke of your sighs." And to Nathalie some equally kind friend would say, "The captain is an original, a bear, with every fault that a sailor can possess. He is passionate, he is obstinate, he swears, he smokes. You will never make anything of him."

In spite of these charitable warnings,—the result, perhaps, of envy and jealousy,—the sailor and the coquette enjoyed a mutual pleasure in each other's society. Whenever D'Apremont was on the point of forgetting himself, and letting out an expression a little too nautical, Nathalie looked at him with a slight frown. He stopped short, stammered, and dared not finish his sentence, so afraid was he of seeing a harsh look on that pretty face. Nor is it a slight proof of the mighty power of love that it can thus implant fear in the breast of a sailor.

Some rumours of his niece's new conquest had reached the ears of M. d'Ablaincourt; but he had paid but little attention to them, thinking that this new admirer would share the fate of all the others, and that it would be very easy to get him dismissed. Yet the report had so far increased, that when Nathalie one day told her uncle that she had asked the captain to her house, the old gentleman almost flew into a passion, and said, with a vehemence quite uncommon to him, "You have acted very wrong, Nathalie; you do not consult me as you ought. I am told that Captain d'Apremont is a blunt, unpolished, quarrelsome——. He is always behind your chair, and he has never even asked me how I did. There was no necessity at all for you to ask him. You know, my dear," added he, softening his tone, "all I say is for your good; but indeed you are too thoughtless."

Nathalie, quite afraid that she had acted very inconsiderately, was going to put off the captain; but this the uncle did not require:—he thought he should be able to prevent too frequent a repetition of his visits.

It is a trite observation, that the most important events in life are frequently the result of the most trivial incidents,—that on a mere thread, which chance has flung in our way, may hang our whole future destiny. Such was the case in the present instance: to the game of tric-trac it was owing that Madame de Hauteville became Madame d'Apremont. The captain was an excellent player; and happening in the course of conversation to broach the subject, M. d'Ablaincourt caught at him immediately, and proposed a game. D'Apremont consented; and, having understood that it was necessary to play the agreeable to the old uncle, spent the whole evening at tric-trac.

When everybody was gone, Nathalie complained of the captain's want of gallantry,—that he had hardly paid her any attention at all.

"You were quite right," said she pettishly to her uncle; "sailors are very disagreeable people. I am very sorry I ever asked M. d'Apremont."

"On the contrary, my dear," replied the old bachelor, "we had formed quite an erroneous opinion of M. d'Apremont. I found him so agreeable and so well-bred, that I have asked him to come very often to play with me,—I mean, to pay his court to you. He is a very clever, gentlemanlike young man."

Nathalie, seeing that the captain had won the heart of her uncle, pardoned his want of attention to her. Thanks to tric-trac, and to his being necessary to M. d'Ablaincourt's amusement, he came very often to the house, and at last succeeded in winning the heart of the young widow. One morning she came, her face covered with blushes, to tell her uncle that M. d'Apremont had proposed to her, and to ask his advice.

The old gentleman thought for a few minutes, and he said to himself, "If she refuses him, there will be an end to his visits here; no more tric-trac. If she accepts him, he will be one of the family; I shall always be able to nail him for a game;" and the answer was, "You cannot do better than accept him."

The happiness of Nathalie was complete, for she really loved Armand; but, as a woman never should seem to yield too easily, she sent for the captain to dictate her conditions.

"If it is true that you love me," she began.

"If it is true! Oh, madame, I swear by all——"

"Allow me to speak first. If you love me, you will not hesitate to give me the proofs I demand."

"Whatever you ask, I——"

"In the first place, you must no longer swear as you do occasionally; it is a shocking habit before a lady: secondly,—and on this point I insist more particularly,—you must give up smoking, for I hate the smell of a pipe of tobacco; in short, I never will have a husband who smokes."

Armand heaved a sigh, and answered, "To please you I will submit to anything,—I will give up smoking."

Her conditions being thus acceded to, the fair widow could no longer withhold her hand, and in a short time Armand and Nathalie reappeared in the world as a newly-married and happy couple. Yet the world was not satisfied. "How could that affected flirt marry a sailor?" said one. "So, the rough captain has let himself be caught by the pretty widow's coquetry," said another. "This is a couple ill-matched enough."

Poor judges of the human heart are they who imagine a resemblance of disposition to be essential to love! On the contrary, the most happy effects are produced by contrast: mark but the union of light and shade; and is not strength wanting to uphold weakness:—the wild bursts of mirth to dispel melancholy? You join together two kindred tempers, two similar organisations, and what is the result? 'Tis as the blind leading the blind.

Our young couple passed the first few months after their marriage in undisturbed happiness. Yet in the midst of the rapture he experienced in the society of his lovely bride, Armand sometimes became pensive, his brow was contracted, and his eyes betrayed a secret uneasiness: but this lasted not; it was but as a fleeting cloud, which passes without leaving a trace. Nathalie had not hitherto perceived it. After some time, however, these moments of restlessness and gloom recurred so frequently as no longer to escape her observation.

"What is the matter, my love?" said she to her husband one day when she saw him stamping his foot with impatience; "what makes you so cross?"

"Nothing, nothing at all!" answered the captain, as if ashamed of having lost his self-possession. "With whom do you think I should be cross?"

"Indeed, my dear, I know not; but I have fancied several times that I perceived a something impatient in your manner. If I have unconsciously done anything to vex you, do tell me, that it may never happen again."

The captain kissed his wife affectionately, and again assured her that she was mistaken. For some days he manifested none of those emotions which had so disturbed Nathalie; but at length the same thing occurred again: Armand forgot himself once more, and she racked her brain to guess what cause her husband could have for this uneasiness. Not being satisfied with her own solution of the problem, she communicated her thoughts to her uncle, who replied immediately, "Yes, my dear, you are quite right; I am sure something must be the matter with D'Apremont; for several times lately, at tric-trac he has looked round with an abstracted air, passed his hand across his temples, and finished by making an egregious blunder."

"But, my good uncle, what can the mystery be? My husband must have some secret which preys upon his mind, and he does not choose to trust me with it."

"Very likely; there are many things which a man cannot tell his wife."

"Which a man cannot tell his wife! That is a thing I do not understand. I expect my husband to tell me everything, to have no mysteries with me, as I have none with him. I can never be happy so long as he on whom I have bestowed my heart, keeps any secret from me."

M. d'Ablaincourt, to comfort his niece, or rather, perhaps, to cut short a conversation which began to bore him, promised to do his utmost to discover the cause of his nephew's uneasiness; but he went no further than trying to make him play oftener at tric-trac, as being an excellent method of keeping him in good humour.

Early in the summer they left Paris for a beautiful property belonging to the captain in the neighbourhood of Fontainebleau. He appeared still as fond of his wife as ever; to afford her pleasure was his delight, to anticipate her wishes his study; but, as she was not fond of walking, he begged to be allowed to take a stroll into the country every day after dinner. This was too natural a request to be denied; and after dinner, whether they were alone or not, out went Armand, and returned in the best humour imaginable. Still Nathalie was far from being satisfied; her suspicions returned, and she said to herself, "My husband has no longer the serious, gloomy look he used to wear in Paris; but it is only since he has gone out every evening after dinner. Sometimes he is away two hours,—where can he go?—and he always likes to be alone. There is some mystery in his conduct, and I shall never be happy until I have found it out."

Sometimes Nathalie thought of having her husband followed; but this was a step too repugnant to her feelings. To take a servant into her confidence, to place a spy on the path of a man the business of whose life seemed to be to give her pleasure, she felt would be wrong, and she gave up the idea. To her uncle alone she ventured to disclose her anxiety, and he simply answered, "True, your husband plays less at tric-trac, but still he does play; and as to my following him in his walks, it is out of the question, for he has very good legs, and I have very bad ones;—I should be fatiguing myself to no purpose."

One day that Madame d'Apremont gave a party, a young man present said, laughing, to the master of the house,

"What were you doing yesterday, Armand, in the disguise of a peasant at the window of a little cottage about half a mile from hence? If my horse had not started, I was coming to ask if you were feeding your sheep."

"My husband in the disguise of a peasant!" exclaimed Nathalie, fixing her eyes upon Armand in amazement.

"Oh! Edward has made a mistake," replied the captain, endeavouring to conceal a visible embarrassment; "he must have taken somebody else for me."

"Very likely," said the young man, hurt at the impression which his words had made upon Nathalie, and perceiving that he had been guilty of an indiscretion; "I must have been deceived."

"How was the man dressed?" asked Nathalie. "Where was the cottage?"

"Really I know the country so little, I should have some difficulty in finding the spot. As for the man, he had on a blue smock-frock, with a sort of cap on his head. I don't know what could have put it into my head that it was the captain, as it is not the carnival."

Madame d'Apremont said no more on the subject, but remained persuaded that it was her husband. The assumption of a disguise proved that he was engaged in some extraordinary intrigue, and in a flood of tears poor Nathalie complained of the bitterness of her lot in having married a man of mysteries.

Whether secrets of this nature are the only ones which women can keep, far be it from me to decide; but certain it is that they always connect some infidelity with those of our sex. Madame d'Apremont did not form an exception to this general observation, and in a fit of jealousy she begged to return to town. Her husband consented immediately, and in a few days they were in Paris. Here the captain again betrayed the same symptoms of discontent, until one day he said to his wife, "My dear, a walk after dinner does me a great deal of good. During the latter part of our stay in the country I was quite well in consequence. You can easily conceive that an old sailor wants exercise, and that he cannot remain cooped up in a room or a theatre all the evening."

"Oh! very easily," replied Nathalie, biting her lips with spleen; "go and take your walk, if it does you good."

"But, my love, if it annoys you——"

"Oh! not in the least; take your walk; I have no objection."

So the husband took his evening walk, returned in excellent spirits, and again every sign of impatience had vanished.

"My husband is carrying on some intrigue: he loves another, and cannot live without seeing her," said poor Nathalie to herself. "This is the secret of his strange conduct, of his ill-humour, and of his walks. I am very, very wretched; and the more so that when he is with me he is all kindness, all attention! I know not how I can tell him that he is a monster, a traitor! But tell him I must, or my heart will burst! Yet if I could but get some undeniable proof of his faithlessness. Oh! yes, I will have some proof." And with a swelling heart, and eyes full of tears, she rushed into her uncle's room, crying that "she was the most miserable woman alive!"

"What is the matter?" said the old gentleman, burying himself in his arm-chair. "What has happened?"

"Every day after dinner," answered his niece, sobbing, "my husband goes out to walk, as he did in the country, and stays away two hours. When he returns, he is always cheerful and gay, gives me a thousand little marks of his attention, and swears that he adores me as he did the day of our marriage. Oh! my good uncle, I can bear it no longer!—You must see that this is all treachery and deceit. Armand is playing me false."

"He plays less with me at tric-trac," was the answer of the imperturbable uncle; "but still——"

"My dear uncle, if you do not help me to discover this mystery, I shall die of grief—I shall commit some rash act—I shall get separated from my husband. Oh! my good uncle, you who are so kind, so ready to oblige, do render me this service,—do find out where my husband goes every evening."

"There can be no doubt about my readiness to oblige, seeing that it has been the business of my life; but really I do not know how I can serve you."

"Again I repeat, that, if this mystery is not cleared up, you will lose your niece."

M. d'Ablaincourt had no wish to lose his niece, or, for the matter of that, his nephew either. He felt that any rupture between the young couple would disturb the quiet, easy life he was now enjoying, and he therefore decided upon taking some steps to restore peace. He pretended to follow the captain; but, finding this fatiguing, he returned slowly home after a certain time, and said to his niece, "I have followed your husband more than six times, and he walks very quietly alone."

"Where, where, my dear uncle?"

"Sometimes one way, and sometimes another; so that all your suspicions are entirely without foundation."

Nathalie was not duped by this answer, though she pretended to place implicit confidence in her uncle's words. Determined on discovering the truth, she sent for a little errand-boy, who stood always at the corner of their house, and whom she had heard more than once praised for his quickness and intelligence. Having ascertained that he knew her husband by sight, she said to him, "M. d'Apremont goes out every evening. To-morrow you must follow him, watch where he goes, and bring me back word immediately. And take care not to be seen."

The boy promised to execute her orders faithfully, and Nathalie awaited the morrow with that impatience of which the jealous alone can form any idea. At length the moment arrived, the captain went out, and the little messenger was on his track. Trembling, and in a fever of agitation, Nathalie sat counting the minutes and seconds as they passed until the return of the boy. Three quarters of an hour had elapsed when he made his appearance, covered with dust, and in a violent perspiration.

"Well," said Nathalie in an altered tone of voice, "what have you seen? Tell me everything."

"Why, ma'am, I followed the master, taking care he shouldn't see me—and a long chase it was—to the Vieille Rue du Temple in the Marais. There he went into a queer-looking sort of a house,—I forget the number, but I should know it again,—in an alley, and there was no porter."

"No porter!—in an alley!—Oh, the wretch!"

"As soon as the master had gone in," continued the boy, "I went in too. He kept on going up stairs till he got to the third floor, and then he took out a key and opened the door."

"The monster!—he opened the door himself,—he has a key,—and my uncle to take his part! You are quite sure he opened the door himself,—that he did not knock?"

"Quite sure, ma'am; and, when I heard him shut the door, I went up softly and peeped in at the keyhole: as there were only two doors, I soon found the right one; and there I saw the master dragging a great wooden chest across the room, and then he began to undress himself."

"To undress himself!—O Heavens!—Go on."

"I couldn't see into the corner of the room where he was; but presently he came out dressed in a grey smock, with a Greek cap on his head. And so, ma'am, I thought you'd like to know all I'd seen, and I ran with all my might to tell you."

"You are a very good boy. You must now go and fetch a coach directly, get up with the coachman, and direct him to the house."

Nathalie, meanwhile, flew to her room, put on a bonnet and shawl, rushed down to her uncle crying out, "My husband has betrayed me,—I am going to catch him;" and before the old gentleman could extract another word from her, she was out of the house, in the coach, and gone. In the Vieille Rue du Temple the coach stopped; Nathalie got out, pale, trembling, and scarcely able to support herself. The boy showed her the entrance, and she declined his further attendance. With the help of the hand-rail she ascended a dark narrow staircase till she reached the third story, when she had just force enough left to throw herself against the door, and cry out,

"Let me in, or I shall die!"

The door opened, the captain received her in his arms, and she saw nothing but her husband alone, in a smock and a Greek cap, smoking a superb Turkish pipe.

"My wife!" exclaimed Armand in utter amazement.

"Yes, sir," replied Nathalie, resuming her self-command,—"your injured wife, who has discovered your perfidy, and has been made acquainted with your disguise, and who has come in person to unravel the mystery of your conduct."

"What, Nathalie!—could you, then, suppose that I loved another? You wish to fathom the mystery,—here it is;" and he showed her the pipe. "Before our marriage you forbade me to smoke, and I promised to obey. For some months I kept my promise most faithfully. Oh! Nathalie, if you did but know what I suffered in consequence,—the fretfulness, the depression of spirits under which I laboured for hours together!—it was my old friend that I missed, my darling pipe that I sighed for in vain! At last I could hold out no longer; and, when we were in the country, happening to go into a cottage where an old man was smoking, I asked him if he could afford me a place of refuge, and at the same time lend me a smock and a hat; for I was afraid that my clothes might betray me. Our arrangements were soon made; and, thanks to this precaution, you had not the slightest suspicion of the real cause of my daily absence. Shortly afterwards you determined upon returning to Paris; and, being obliged to find a new way of indulging myself with my pipe, I took this little garret, and brought hither my old dress. You are now, my love, in possession of the whole mystery, and I trust you will pardon my disobedience. You see I have done everything in my power to conceal it from you."

Nathalie threw herself into her husband's arms, and cried out in an ecstasy of delight,

"So this is really all!—how happy I am! From henceforth, dearest, you shall smoke as much as you like at home; you shall not have to hide yourself for that!" and away she went to her uncle with a face all beaming with joy, to tell him that Armand loved her, adored her still,—it was only that he smoked. "But now," added she, "I am so happy, that he shall smoke as much as he likes."

"The best plan will be," said M. d'Ablaincourt, "for your husband to smoke as he plays at tric-trac; and so," thought the old gentleman, "I shall be sure of my game every evening."

"My dear Nathalie," said the captain, "though I shall take advantage of the permission you so kindly give me, still I shall be equally careful not to annoy you, and shall take the same precautions as before."

"Oh! Armand, you are really too good; but I am so happy at being undeceived in my suspicions, that I think now, I quite like the smell of a pipe."

---

SHAKSPEARE PAPERS.—No. IV.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
BOTTOM, THE WEAVER.

"Some men are born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and others with a wooden ladle."—Ancient Proverb.
"Then did the sun on dunghill shine."—Ancient Pistol.

It has often been remarked that it is impossible to play the enchanted scenes of Bottom with any effect. In reading the poem we idealize the ass-head; we can conceive that it represents in some grotesque sort the various passions and emotions of its wearer; that it assumes a character of dull jocosity, or duller sapience, in his conversations with Titania and the fairies; and when calling for the assistance of Messrs. Peas-blossom and Mustard-seed to scratch his head, or of the Queen to procure him a peck of provender or a bottle of hay, it expresses some puzzled wonder of the new sensations its wearer must experience in tinglings never felt before, and cravings for food until then unsuited to his appetite. But on the stage this is impossible. As the manager cannot procure for his fairies representatives of such tiny dimensions as to be in danger of being overflown by the bursting of the honey-bag of an humble-bee, so it is impossible that the art of the property-man can furnish Bottom with an ass-head capable of expressing the mixed feelings of humanity and asinity which actuate the metamorphosed weaver. It is but a pasteboard head, and that is all. The jest is over the first moment after his appearance; and, having laughed at it once, we cannot laugh at it any more. As in the case of a man who, at a masquerade, has chosen a character depending for its attraction merely on costume,—we may admire a Don Quixote, if properly bedecked in Mambrino's helmet and the other habiliments of the Knight of La Mancha, at a first glance, but we think him scarcely worthy of a second.

So it is with the Bottom of the stage; the Bottom of the poem is a different person. Shakspeare in many parts of his plays drops hints, "vocal to the intelligent," that he feels the difficulty of bringing his ideas adequately before the minds of theatrical spectators. In the opening address of the Chorus of Henry V. he asks pardon for having dared

"On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

So great an object. Can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France? or, may we cram

Within this wooden O, the very casques

That did affright the air at Agincourt?"

and requests his audience to piece out the imperfections of the theatre with their thoughts. This is an apology for the ordinary and physical defects of any stage,—especially an ill-furnished one; and it requires no great straining of our imaginary forces to submit to them. Even Ducrow himself, with appliances and means to boot a hundred-fold more magnificent and copious than any that were at the command of Shakspeare, does not deceive us into the belief that his fifty horses, trained and managed with surpassing skill, and mounted by agile and practised riders, dressed in splendid and carefully-considered costumes, are actually fighting the battle of Waterloo, but we willingly lend ourselves to the delusion. In like manner, we may be sure that in the days of Queen Elizabeth the audience of the Globe complied with the advice of Chorus, and,

"Minding true things by what their mockeries be,"

were contented that

"Four or five most vile and ragged foils

Right ill-disposed, in brawl ridiculous,"

should serve to represent to their imagination the name of Agincourt.

We consent to this just as we do to Greeks and Romans speaking English on the stage of London, or French on that of Paris; or to men of any country speaking in verse at all; or to all the other demands made upon our belief in playing. We can dispense with the assistance of such downright matter-of-fact interpreters as those who volunteer their services to assure us that the lion in Pyramus and Thisbe is not a lion in good earnest, but merely Snug the joiner. But there are difficulties of a more subtle and metaphysical kind to be got over, and to these, too, Shakspeare not unfrequently alludes. In the play before us,—Midsummer Night's Dream,—for example, when Hippolita speaks scornfully of the tragedy in which Bottom holds so conspicuous a part, Theseus answers, that the best of this kind (scenic performances) are but shadows, and the worst no worse if imagination amend them. She answers that it must be your imagination then, not theirs. He retorts with a joke on the vanity of actors, and the conversation is immediately changed. The meaning of the Duke is, that, however we may laugh at the silliness of Bottom and his companions in their ridiculous play, the author labours under no more than the common calamity of dramatists. They are all but dealers in shadowy representations of life; and if the worst among them can set the mind of the spectator at work, he is equal to the best. The answer to Theseus is, that none but the best, or, at all events, those who approach to excellence, can call with success upon imagination to invest their shadows with substance. Such playwrights as Quince the carpenter,—and they abound in every literature and every theatre,—draw our attention so much to the absurdity of the performance actually going on before us, that we have no inclination to trouble ourselves with considering what substance in the background their shadows should have represented. Shakspeare intended the remark as a compliment or a consolation to less successful wooers of the comic or the tragic Muse, and touches briefly on the matter; but it was also intended as an excuse for the want of effect upon the stage of some of the finer touches of such dramatists as himself, and an appeal to all true judges of poetry to bring it before the tribunal of their own imagination; making but a matter of secondary inquiry how it appears in a theatre, as delivered by those who, whatever others may think of them, would, if taken at their own estimation, "pass for excellent men." His own magnificent creation of fairy land in the Athenian wood must have been in his mind, and he asks an indulgent play of fancy not more for Oberon and Titania, the glittering rulers of the elements, who meet

"—— on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,

By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,

Or on the beached margent of the sea,

To dance their ringlets to the whistling wind,"

than for the shrewd and knavish Robin Goodfellow, the lord of practical jokes, or the dull and conceited Bottom, "the shallowest thickskin of the barren sort," rapt so wondrously from his loom and shuttle, his threads and thrums, to be the favoured lover of the Queen of Faëry, fresh from the spiced Indian air, and lulled with dances and delight amid the fragrance of the sweetest flowers, filling with their luscious perfume a moonlighted forest.

One part of Bottom's character is easily understood, and is often well acted. Amid his own companions he is the cock of the walk. His genius is admitted without hesitation. When he is lost in the wood, Quince gives up the play as marred. There is no man in Athens able to take the first part in tragedy but himself. Flute declares that he has the best wit of any handicraftman in the city. This does not satisfy the still warmer admirer,[22] who insists on the goodliness of his person, and the fineness of his voice. When it seems hopeless that he should appear, the cause of the stage is given up as utterly lost. When he returns, it is hailed as the "courageous day," and the "happy hour," which is to restore the legitimate drama. It is no wonder that this perpetual flattery fills him with a most inordinate opinion of his own powers. There is not a part in the play which he cannot perform. As a lover, he promises to make the audience weep; but his talent is still more shining in the Herculean vein of a tyrant. The manliness of his countenance, he admits, incapacitates him from acting the part of a heroine; but, give him a mask, and he is sure to captivate by the soft melody of his voice. But, lest it should be thought this melodious softness was alone his characteristic, he claims the part of the lion, which he is to discharge with so terrific a roar as to call forth the marked approbation of the warlike Duke; and yet, when the danger is suggested of frightening the ladies, who all, Amazons as they were, must be daunted by sounds so fear-inspiring, he professes himself gifted with a power of compass capable of imitating, even in the character of a roaring lion, the gentleness of the sucking dove, or the sweetness of the nightingale. He is equally fit for all parts, and in all parts calculated to outshine the rest. This is allowed; but, as it is impossible that he can perform them all, he is restricted to the principal. It is with the softest compliments that he is induced to abandon the parts of Thisbe and the lion for that of Pyramus. Quince assures him that he can play none other, because "Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely, gentlemanlike man; therefore YOU must undertake it." What man of woman born could resist flattery so unsparingly administered? the well-puffed performer consents, and though he knows nothing of the play, and is unable to tell whether the part for which he is cast is that of a lover or a tyrant, undertakes to discharge it with a calm and heroic indifference as to the colour of the beard he is to wear, being confident, under any circumstances, of success, whether that most important part of the costume be straw-coloured or orange-tawny, French crown or purple in grain. With equal confidence he gets through his performance. The wit of the courtiers, or the presence of the Duke, have no effect upon his nerves. He alone speaks to the audience in his own character, not for a moment sinking the personal consequence of Bottom in the assumed part of Pyramus. He sets Theseus right on a point of the play with cool importance; and replies to the jest of Demetrius (which he does not understand) with the self-command of ignorant indifference. We may be sure that he was abundantly contented with his appearance, and retired to drink in, with ear well deserving of the promotion it had attained under the patronage of Robin Goodfellow, the applause of his companions. It is true that Oberon designates him as a "hateful fool;" that Puck stigmatizes him as the greatest blockhead of the set; that the audience of wits and courtiers before whom he has performed vote him to be an ass: but what matter is that? He mixes not with them; he hears not their sarcasms; he could not understand their criticisms; and, in the congenial company of the crew of patches and base mechanicals who admire him, lives happy in the fame of being the Nicholas Bottom, who, by consent, to him universal and world-encompassing, is voted to be the Pyramus,—the prop of the stage,—the sole support of the drama.

Self-conceit, as great and undisguised as that of poor Bottom, is to be found in all classes and in all circles, and is especially pardonable in what it is considered genteel or learned to call "the histrionic profession." The triumphs of the player are evanescent. In no other department of intellect, real or simulated, does the applause bestowed upon the living artist bear so melancholy a disproportion to the repute awaiting him after the generation passes which has witnessed his exertions. According to the poet himself, the poor player

"Struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more."

Shakspeare's own rank as a performer was not high, and his reflections on the business of an actor are in general splenetic and discontented. He might have said,—though indeed it would not have fitted with the mood of mind of the despairing tyrant into whose mouth the reflection is put,—that the well-graced actor, who leaves the scene not merely after strutting and fretting, but after exhibiting power and genius to the utmost degree at which his art can aim, amid the thundering applause,—or, what is a deeper tribute, the breathless silence of excited and agitated thousands,—is destined ere long to an oblivion as undisturbed as that of his humbler fellow-artist, whose prattle is without contradiction voted to be tedious. Kemble is fading fast from our view. The gossip connected with every thing about Johnson keeps Garrick before us, but the interest concerning him daily becomes less and less. Of Betterton, Booth, Quin, we remember little more than the names. The Lowins and Burbages of the days of Shakspeare are known only to the dramatic antiquary, or the poring commentator, anxious to preserve every scrap of information that may bear upon the elucidation of a text, or aid towards the history of the author. With the sense of this transitory fame before them, it is only natural that players should grasp at as much as comes within their reach while they have power of doing so. It would be a curious speculation to inquire which personally has the greater enjoyment,—the author, neglected in life, and working for immortal renown, or the actor living among huzzas, and consigned to forgetfulness the moment that his hour is past. I suppose, on the usual principle of compensation, each finds in himself springs of happiness and self-comfort. The dim distance, in its shadowy and limitless grandeur, fills with solemn musings the soul of the one; the gorgeous gilding of the sunny scenery in the foreground kindles with rapturous joy the heart of the other. Shenstone lays it down as a principle, that, if it were left to our choice whether all persons should speak ill of us to our faces, and with applause behind our backs, or, vice versâ, that the applause should be lavished upon ourselves, and the ill-speaking kept for our absence, we should choose the latter; because, if we never heard the evil report, we should know nothing about our bad reputation, while, on the contrary, the good opinion others entertained of us would be of no avail if nothing reached our ears but words of anger or reproach. Since, after all, it is from within, and not from without, the sources of joy or sorrow bubble up, it does not matter so very much as the sensitive Lord of Leasowes imagines what the opinions of others concerning us may be,—at least as compared with those which, right or wrong, we form of ourselves. The question is of no great practical importance; and yet it would be somewhat curious to speculate in the manner of Hamlet, if we could do so, on the feelings of Kean and Wordsworth in the zenith of the popularity of the former, when he was worshipped as a demi-god by the unquestionable, or, at least, the scarce-questioned dispensers of daily renown; while the other by the recognised oracles of critical sagacity was set down as a jackass more obtuse than that belaboured by his own Peter Bell.

Pardon, therefore, the wearers of the sock and buskin for being obnoxious to such criticism as that lavished by Quince upon Bottom. We have no traces left us of what constituted the ordinary puffery of the Elizabethan days; but, as human nature is the same in all ages, we must suppose the trade to have been in its own way as vigorously carried on then as now. And, without hinting at anything personal, do we not week after week find attached to every performer making (whether with justice or not is no part of the consideration) pretensions to the omnifarious abilities of Bottom, some Peter Quince, who sticks to that Bottom with the tenacity of a leech, and is ready to swear that he, the Bottom, is the only man in Athens; that his appearance spreads an universal joy; his occultation involves the world in dramatical eclipse; that his performance of the lover can only be surpassed by his performance of the tyrant; and that it must puzzle an impartial public to decide whether nature and art, genius and study, designed him for a heroine couchant, or a rampant lion. To this it is little wonder that the object of applause lets down his ears too often donkey-like, and permits himself to be scratched by a Master Cobweb, spun though he be by a bottle-bellied spider, or a Master Peas-blossom, who can only claim Mistress Squash for his mother and Master Peascod for his father. In Peter Quince, Shakspeare shadowed forth, by anticipation, Sheridan's Puff. Quince is a fool, and Puff a rogue; and yet I think the criticism of the elder reviewer just as valuable. It is in the end as useful to the object of applause to be told, in plain terms, that he alone can act Pyramus because he is a sweet-faced man, a proper man, a most lovely, gentlemanlike man, as to have the same flummery administered under the guise of mock philosophy, with gabbling intonations about breadth, profoundness, depth, length, thickness, and so forth; which, being interpreted, signify, in many cases, "I know nothing about acting or writing, but I do know that you can give me a box or a dinner, and therefore let me play to your Bottom, Quince the carpenter, in an ass's head, intended as a representation of Aristotle the Stagirite."

Alas! I am wandering far away from the forest. I can only plead that my guide has led me into my own congenial land of newspaper from his native soil of poetry. But he never long remains out of his own domain, and the jokes and jests upon the unlucky company who undertook to perform

"A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus

And his love Thisbe, very tragical mirth,"

are but intrusive matter amid the romantic loves, all chivalrous and a little classical, of Theseus and Hippolita, and the jealousies unearthly, and yet so earthly, of Fairy Land. The romance of early Greece was sometimes strangely confused by the romance of the middle ages. It would take a long essay on the mixture of legends derived from all ages and countries to account for the production of such a personage as the "Duke ycleped Theseus" and his following; and the fairy mythology of the most authentic superstitions would be ransacked in vain to discover exact authorities for the Shakspearian Oberon and Titania. But, no matter whence derived, the author knew well that in his hands the chivalrous and classical, the airy and the imaginative, were safe. It was necessary for his drama to introduce among his fairy party a creature of earth's mould, and he has so done it as in the midst of his mirth to convey a picturesque satire on the fortune which governs the world, and upon those passions which elsewhere he had with agitating pathos to depict. As Romeo, the gentleman, is the unlucky man of Shakspeare, so here does he exhibit Bottom, the blockhead, as the lucky man, as him on whom Fortune showers her favours beyond measure.

This is the part of the character which cannot be performed. It is here that the greatest talent of the actor must fail in answering the demand made by the author upon our imagination. The utmost lavish of poetry, not only of high conception, but of the most elaborate working in the musical construction of the verse, and a somewhat recondite searching after all the topics favourable to the display of poetic eloquence in the ornamental style, is employed in the description of the fairy scenes and those who dwell therein. Language more brilliantly bejewelled with whatever tropes and figures rhetoricians catalogue in their books is not to be found than what is scattered forth with copious hand in Midsummer Night's Dream. The compliment to Queen Elizabeth,

"In maiden meditation fancy-free,"

was of necessity sugared with all the sweets that the bon-bon box of the poet could supply; but it is not more ornamented than the passages all around. The pastoral images of Corin

"Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love

To amorous Phillida;"

the homely consequences resulting from the fairy quarrel,

"The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,

The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn

Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;

The fold stands empty in the drowned field,

And crows are fatted with the murrain flock;"

and so on, are ostentatiously contrasted with misfortunes more metaphorically related:

"We see

The seasons alter; hoary-headed frosts

Fall on the fresh lap of the crimson rose;

And on old Hyems' chin and icy crown

An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds

Is, as in mockery, set."

The mermaid chaunting on the back of her dolphin; the fair vestal throned in the west; the bank blowing with wild thyme, and decked with oxlip and nodding violet; the roundelay of the fairies singing their queen to sleep; and a hundred images beside of aërial grace and mythic beauty, are showered upon us; and in the midst of these splendours is tumbled in Bottom the weaver, blockhead by original formation, and rendered doubly ridiculous by his partial change into a literal jackass. He, the most unfitted for the scene of all conceivable personages, makes his appearance, not as one to be expelled with loathing and derision, but to be instantly accepted as the chosen lover of the Queen of the Fairies. The gallant train of Theseus traverse the forest, but they are not the objects of such fortune. The lady, under the oppression of the glamour cast upon her eyes by the juice of love-in-idleness, reserves her raptures for an absurd clown. Such are the tricks of Fortune.

Oberon himself, angry as he is with the caprices of his queen, does not anticipate any such object for her charmed affections. He is determined that she is to be captivated by "some vile thing," but he thinks only of

"Ounce, or cat, or bear,

Pard, or boar with bristled hair,"

animals suggesting ideas of spite or terror; but he does not dream that, under the superintendence of Puck, spirit of mischief, she is to be enamoured of the head of an ass surmounting the body of a weaver. It is so nevertheless; and the love of the lady is as desperate as the deformity of her choice. He is an angel that wakes her from her flowery bed; a gentle mortal, whose enchanting note wins her ear, while his beauteous shape enthralls her eye; one who is as wise as he is beautiful; one for whom all the magic treasures of the fairy kingdom are to be with surpassing profusion dispensed. For him she gathers whatever wealth and delicacies the Land of Faëry can boast. Her most airy spirits are ordered to be kind and courteous to this gentleman,—for into that impossible character has the blindness of her love transmuted the clumsy and conceited clown. Apricocks and dewberries, purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries, are to feed his coarse palate; the thighs of bees, kindled at the eyes of fiery glowworms, are to light him to his flower-decked bed; wings plucked from painted butterflies are to fan the moonbeams from him as he sleeps; and in the very desperation of her intoxicating passion she feels that there is nothing which should not be yielded to the strange idol of her soul. She mourns over the restraints which separate her from the object of her burning affection, and thinks that the moon and the flowers participate in her sorrow.

"The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye,

And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,

Lamenting some enforced chastity."

Abstracting the poetry, we see the same thing every day in the plain prose of the world. Many is the Titania driven by some unintelligible magic so to waste her love. Some juice, potent as that of Puck,—the true Cupid of such errant passions,—often converts in the eyes of woman the grossest defects into resistless charms. The lady of youth and beauty will pass by the attractions best calculated to captivate the opposite sex, to fling herself at the feet of age or ugliness. Another, decked with graces, accomplishments, and the gifts of genius, and full of all the sensibilities of refinement, will squander her affections on some good-for-nothing roué, whose degraded habits and pursuits banish him far away from the polished scenes which she adorns. The lady of sixteen quarters will languish for him who has no arms but those which nature has bestowed; from the midst of the gilded salon a soft sigh may be directed towards the thin-clad tenant of a garret; and the heiress of millions may wish them sunken in the sea if they form a barrier between her and the penniless lad toiling for his livelihood,

"Lord of his presence, and no land beside."

Fielding has told us all this in his own way, in a distich, (put, I believe, into the mouth of Lord Grizzle; but, as I have not the illustrious tragedy in which it appears, before me, I am not certain, and must therefore leave it to my readers to verify this important point.) Love

"Lords into cellars bears,
And bids the brawny porter walk up stairs."

Tom Thumb and Midsummer Night's Dream preach the one doctrine. It would be amusing to trace the courses of thought by which the heterogeneous minds of Fielding and Shakspeare came to the same conclusion.

Ill-mated loves are generally but of short duration on the side of the nobler party, and she awakes to lament her folly. The fate of those who suffer like Titania is the hardest. The man who is deprived of external graces of appearance may have the power of captivating by those of the mind: wit, polish, fame, may compensate for the want of youth or personal attractions. In poverty or lowly birth may be found all that may worthily inspire devoted affection—

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp,

The man's the gowd for a' that."

In the very dunghill of dissipation and disgrace will be raked up occasionally a lurking pearl or two of honourable feeling, or kind emotion, or irregular talent, which may be dwelt upon by the fond eye, wilfully averting its gaze from the miserable mass in which they are buried. But woe unto the unhappy lady who, like Titania, is obliged to confess, when the enchantment has passed by, that she was "enamoured of an ass!" She must indeed "loathe his visage," and the memory of all connected with him is destined ever to be attended by a strong sensation of disgust.

But the ass himself of whom she was enamoured has not been the less a favourite of Fortune, less happy and self-complacent, because of her late repentance. He proceeds onward as luckily as ever. Bottom, during the time that he attracts the attentions of Titania, never for a moment thinks there is anything extraordinary in the matter. He takes the love of the Queen of the Fairies as a thing of course, orders about her tiny attendants as if they were so many apprentices at his loom, and dwells in Fairy Land unobservant of its wonders, as quietly as if he were still in his workshop. Great is the courage and self-possession of an ass-head. Theseus would have bent in reverent awe before Titania. Bottom treats her as carelessly as if she were the wench of the next-door tapster. Even Christopher Sly,[23] when he finds himself transmuted into a lord, shows some signs of astonishment. He does not accommodate himself to surrounding circumstances. The first order he gives is for a pot of small ale; and after all the elegant luxuries of his new situation have been placed ostentatiously before him,—after he has smelt sweet savours, and felt soft things,—after he begins to think he is

"A lord indeed,
And not a tinker nor Christopher[o] Sly;"

even then nature—or habit, which stands in the place of nature,—recurs invincible, and once more he calls for a pot of the smallest ale. (I may again cite Fielding in illustration of Shakspeare; for do we not read, in the Covent Garden tragedy, of the consolation that

"Cold small beer is to the waking drunkard;"

and do we not hear the voice of Christopher Sly praying, for God's sake, in the midst of his lordly honours, for a draught of that unlordly but long-accustomed beverage?) In the Arabian Nights' Entertainments a similar trick is played by the Caliph Haroun Al-raschid upon Abou Hassan, and he submits, with much reluctance, to believe himself the Commander of the Faithful. But having in vain sought how to explain the enigma, he yields to the belief, and then performs all the parts assigned to him, whether of business or pleasure, of counsel or gallantry, with the easy self-possession of a practised gentleman. Bottom has none of the scruples of the tinker of Burton-heath, or the bon vivant of Bagdad. He sits down amid the fairies as one of themselves without any astonishment; but so far from assuming, like Abou Hassan, the manners of the court where he has been so strangely intruded, he brings the language and bearing of the booth into the glittering circle of Queen Titania. He would have behaved in the same manner on the throne of the caliph, or in the bedizened chamber of the lord; and the ass-head would have victoriously carried him through.

Shakspeare has not taken the trouble of working out the conclusion of the adventure of Sly; and the manner in which it is finished in the old play where he found him, is trifling and common-place. The Arabian novelist repeats the jest upon his hero, and concludes by placing him as a favourite in the court of the amused caliph. This is the natural ending of such an adventure; but, as Bottom's was supernatural, it was to conclude differently. He is therefore dismissed to his ordinary course of life, unaffected by what has passed. He admits at first that it is wonderful, but soon thinks it is nothing more than a fit subject for a ballad in honour of his own name. He falls at once to his old habit of dictating, boasting, and swaggering, and makes no reference to what has happened to him in the forest. It was no more than an ordinary passage in his daily life. Fortune knew where to bestow her favours.

Adieu then, Bottom the weaver! and long may you go onward prospering in your course! But the prayer is needless, for you carry about you the infallible talisman of the ass-head. You will be always be sure of finding a Queen of the Fairies to heap her favours upon you, while to brighter eyes and nobler natures she remains invisible or averse. Be you ever the chosen representative of the romantic and the tender before dukes and princesses; and if the judicious laugh at your efforts, despise them in return, setting down their criticism to envy. This you have a right to do. Have they, with all their wisdom and wit, captivated the heart of a Titania as you have done? Not they—nor will they ever. Prosper therefore, with undoubting heart despising the rabble of the wise. Go on your path rejoicing; assert loudly your claim to fill every character in life; and you may be quite sure that as long as the noble race of the Bottoms continues to exist, the chances of extraordinary good luck will fall to their lot, while in the ordinary course of life they will never be unattended by the plausive criticism of a Peter Quince.

---

LADY BLUE'S BALL.

BY MRS. C.B. WILSON.

"So warmly we met," and so closely were jumbled,

Like pigeons in pies, for the rooms were too small;

I was fearful my new satin dress would be tumbled,

As I gasp'd in a corner at Lady Blue's ball.

Some attempted to dance, but ran 'gainst each other;

Some flirted, some fainted; but this agreed all,

They had ne'er before witness'd a crowd or a smother,

Till jamm'd on the staircase at Lady Blue's ball!

A dance! 'tis a heaven, if a girl's not neglected,

And has plenty of partners to come at her call;

And many a mirror's bright surface reflected

Soft smiles and warm blushes at Lady Blue's ball!

Mammas sat aside, (for eldest sons looking,)

Whose daughters had beauty, but no cash at all;

Younger brothers (in thought) were the bright thousands booking

Of those girls who had fortunes at Lady Blue's ball.

And some they were waltzing, and others quadrilling,

"All pair'd, but not match'd," young and old, short and tall:

While some in sly corners were cooing and billing

Notes at sight, and of hand, at my Lady Blue's ball.

Thus Fashion's gay crowd goes on flirting and whirling,

As they mingle together, the great with the small;

And what's life but a dance, too, where, twisting and twirling,

We jostle each other, to get through the ball!

---

THE MAN WITH THE CLUB FOOT.
TALE (THE SECOND) OF ST. LUKE'S.

"You must know, sir, that our family is of very distinguished origin. My father was descended from the ancient L——s, of L—— Hall, in Leicestershire; my mother is from the sole remaining branch of the renowned family of Maxwell;—of course you must remember, sir, what great actions have been achieved by the Maxwells in olden time?"

"My memory is not very good in such particulars," said I, to the elegant young man with whom I was speaking; "pray proceed with your narration, and never mind your ancestors."

"Not mind my ancestors!" returned L——, a little angrily; "but perhaps you are right, sir, after all; the living ought to claim our attention more than the dead. Well! we were left in the deepest distress,—my excellent mother, and myself, her only child. I will not trouble you in detailing how my poor father, by a hundred improvident and extravagant ways contrived to dwindle down his property; too proud to embark in any profession except the army, and afterwards too poor to enter it. He died of—of—a broken heart when I was about twelve years old. I did nothing but devise schemes after this event to retrieve our wretched circumstances when I became old enough. A thousand plans, wild and visionary, passed through my brain; I could not sleep at night for projects and inventions. I became fevered, restless, taciturn, irritable, and absent. One day, when I had arrived at the age of fifteen, on returning from a solitary walk, weary and exhausted, with a lump of clayey substance, wrapped up carefully, in my hands, which I had extracted from the side of a canal at a great distance from my home, believing it to contain some most precious qualities which might lead to my making a rapid fortune, I was forcibly struck with the extreme dejection of my mother, and the want of all preparation in our little parlour. I could not understand it at first; but the truth came home slowly, heavily upon my heart. She had no longer the means of procuring her son and herself another meal!" Here L—— paused, and looked for sympathy.

"Did not the distress of your mother rouse you, L——, into immediate action?" said I.

"No, sir," replied my companion, with an emphasis that made me start; "would you have had a son of the ancient house of L—— go and work upon the highway? to degrade himself with trade? or——"

"Surely this had been better than seeing a mother starve, young gentleman," said I mildly; "but I interrupt you. Tell me what effect was produced upon your mind by the knowledge of your situation. What did you do?"

"You shall hear, sir, in due time," continued he gloomily; "but I suppose the relation will cause you some displeasure. We cannot always be masters of ourselves, or of our own actions."

"But we ought to be so, Mr. L——; there is no slavery so bad as the slavery of the passions. Then are we slaves indeed," and I looked full upon him.

L—— resumed: "You shall know the exact truth, sir; I will at any rate be strictly impartial. When I was convinced that we had not a meal left in the world,—convinced by remembering the bareness of the walls, and now missing several articles of furniture that had disappeared without my before perceiving it,—I seized my hat, and, totally disregarding the pathetic appeal of my mother's voice,—the beseeching accents of her who had never yet spoken to me a reproachful word from my earliest recollections,—'to be calm, and hope that better times would come,' I darted out of the house like an arrow from the bow, and, coward as I was, after wandering about for hours to summon resolution for the act, rushed to the river about a mile from the village, and threw myself into its rapid current. There I soon lost all recollection of myself and my misery. The last sound I heard was the gurgling of waters in my ears and throat; the last sensation I experienced was that I should not now die the languishing death of famine. My mother's image was before me; then it grew indistinct, and all was darkness, vagueness, insensibility." L—— again paused.

"Then you have actually committed the crime of suicide, young man!" I exclaimed reproachfully; "I trust you have been repentant for it. Your intention was to destroy yourself; the motive makes the crime."

"My narrative, sir, is of events, not of my own feelings," replied Mr. L—— proudly; "if you are already disgusted with my conduct as a boy, perhaps it might be better that you knew not of it as a man. Perhaps I had better stop here?"

"That is according to your own pleasure, my dear sir," said I, affecting an indifference that I did not feel; but wishing to curb the irritability of my young companion.

"Most strange were my emotions," continued he, after a pause and a smile, "on life returning to my bosom,—that is active life; for I suppose the principle itself was not absolutely extinct. What is your opinion, sir, as a medical man? Can life be rekindled in the human breast when once fairly extinguished? for my part I think it can, and that mine is a renewed life. You smile, sir, but I should wish an answer to my question;" and again that proud, yet beautiful, lip of his, curled with impatience, whilst he took a stride across the apartment.

"Can life ever be extinguished?" I demanded.

"Certainly," replied Mr. L——, looking at me as if he thought I was insane, or jesting with him. "Are we not living in one great hospital, amidst the dying and the dead? Are we sure of our existence a single hour? Must we not all die at last?"

"Let each one speak for himself, Falkner L——," said I impressively; "I am sure of the perpetuity of mine own existence; it can never perish."

"Oh! that is your meaning, is it?" sarcastically exclaimed my opponent. "I am no divine, and my question related to that existence I know of. I wished to learn whether I have been absolutely dead? since, if so, I can account better for many of those thoughts and sensations that now puzzle and perplex me exceedingly. But I will not press my inquiry further on you; perhaps you know as little about these things as myself;" and he pressed his hand upon his forehead, whilst a sigh he sought to restrain would be heard.

"Go on with your story, L——," said I; "we will discuss this subject about existence and a future state another time; what were your sensations on recovering the use of your senses? for you must have been brought to life, I conclude, somehow or other."

"I found myself lying on the grass," continued Mr. L——, "quite wet, but with an agreeable warmth within, from some cordial that had been administered to me. I gazed at first, unconsciously, upon the clouds sailing by upon the blue ocean of immensity above my head. I felt myself calm and composed as that depth of sky, fathomless, unsearchable,—for memory was not yet awakened in me,—and the present was to me peaceful, holy. Oh, that such moments should be lost! I thought the moon some new and beautiful appearance just rising from creation. I was roused into recollection thus:

"'Are you able, young man, now to walk?' said a hoarse unpleasing voice near me; 'your mother, perchance, is uneasy at your absence; and she should be spared from the bitter knowledge that her only, her beloved son, intended to have deserted her in her moment of deep affliction. Hide this from her; it will be a pious secret. Conceal your intention of self-destruction from her.'

"During the whole of this speech my entire being seemed to be undergoing a change, rapid and powerful. I awakened as from a trance. I felt the enormity of my past conduct. My mother's tenderness! her uncomplaining sufferings! the sacrifices she had made to procure me the necessaries of life! her total absence of all selfishness! her privations! her patience! all rose before me. And how had I requited her?—by base desertion, by cruel ingratitude! My heart was softened, and, boy-like, I burst into tears.

"'Showers should produce blossoms,—blossoms fruit!' said the same croaking discordant voice close to my ear. 'Tears are showers for good resolutions; they should not be unproductive. Your mother, young man! think of your mother!'

"I started upon my feet, and was going hastily home, when it struck me that this man must have plucked me out of the water; so I turned to thank him. I had not yet set my eyes upon him. A short, squabby figure met my gaze, with a head of extraordinary size, round which hung dark elfish locks; his eyes were immensely large, and had a most melancholy expression, yet they were strongly tinctured with benevolence, and had a most searching quality,—something that seemed not of this earth. My reason still tottered on its throne: the delusion again darted across my mind that I was not in the same state of existence as formerly, and that this strange-looking being was one of the inhabitants of the new one, in which I found myself. I looked at him again curiously, inquiringly; and found that, in addition to his uncouth globular form, enormous head, and eyes with bushy brows, he had an excrescence on his shoulder known commonly by the name of 'a hump,' and had one short, distorted club-foot!"

As Mr. L—— told me this, he turned unusually pale, and a cold shudder passed like a blighting wind over him. I knew he had been subject to all sorts of fancies and wild conjectures, the offspring of a heated imagination; so I only coolly observed,

"Oh! your preserver, then, it seems, was a poor hunchback! I wonder how he fished you out of the river?—how he had the strength to do it?"

Mr. L—— answered me only with a most mysterious look, and another shudder. I took out my watch, and struck the hour; it had the desired effect, for he was sensitive in the highest degree.

"I will not detain you long," said he, in a deprecating tone, "your time is precious;" and thus he continued:—"I stammered out my thanks for the service he had done me; but my knees knocked against each other, and my teeth chattered in my head. I was on the point of falling."

"'You have caught a severe cold, I suppose,' exclaimed the man with the club-foot; 'but it might have been worse. Here, take another draught of this cordial, which has been the means already of doing you some service. Hesitate not; you will find instant relief; I composed it myself in the island of Ceylon, from the rarest spices, and have often proved its efficacy.' He approached me; he only reached my waist; and, what was most strange, I heard not the slightest sound as he moved his feet! Feet!—shall I call them feet?—he had but one; the other resembled the gnarled, disproportioned fragment of the root of an old oak-tree; it had a sort of cradle, on which it rested; it was tipped with brass, and of expensive workmanship. I could draw you the exact pattern of this shoe."

"What matters the shape of a deformed man's shoe?" said I; "a little larger, or a little smaller, makes all the difference, I suppose, between them. They are very expert in manufacturing these helps in Germany; we cannot approach them in such things. There is a man now at Hambro', who——"

"This shoe was never made in Germany!" interrupted Mr. L——, with a deep sepulchral tone of voice; and again he shuddered, whilst a spasm shook his frame.

"Very likely not," said I, with a tone of perfect nonchalance; "perhaps it was one of Sheldrake's shoes; but it is of little consequence:—you and I will never want one of such construction; that is one comfort, however."

"No," he replied musingly, "not for ourselves: but in my family perchance it may be wanted. Tell me, sir, are these deformities hereditary?" and his eyes seemed to penetrate my inmost thoughts.

"Did you mean the shoe or the foot, L——?" I asked jestingly; "one is as likely as the other; but shall we never get beyond or above this piece of leather, or prunella? I declare we have been standing in this man's shoes half an hour at least; they pinch me to death."

"I would not stand in that man's shoes for a single moment, to gain an entire world!" impressively pronounced poor L——, casting up his eyes to heaven.

"Yet," said I, "one of them might fit you better than the other; for I suppose that brass-bitted piece of machinery must be rather uncomfortable to walk with. It would make, too, such a devil of a noise!" and I again had recourse to my watch.

"It made no noise at all, I tell you!" vehemently cried out poor Falkner L——; "no satin slipper of a lady ever trod so silently. A rose-leaf dropping on the ground might have made a louder sound; but you do not credit me."

"Pooh, pooh!" cried I; "the water was still in your ears; that was the reason you could not hear the clatter of the mailed shoe."

"Has the water been in my ears these ten—nay, more,—eleven summers and winters since, nights and days?" inquired my companion petulantly. "No one can, no one will, understand me,—nay, I scarce can comprehend myself. That accursed cordial that he gave me!"

"I should like to have a glass of it this moment, for I feel much exhausted," said I.

"I beg your pardon, I ought to have thought of it myself;" and he rang the bell for a tray and wine. We partook of some potted meats. I drank a couple of glasses of Madeira, my friend one of water; the tray was removed, and I took up my hat.

"Will you not hear me to the end?" inquired L——, fixing his dejected eyes upon me with an expression so appealing, so touching, that I could not resist them.

"When will that end arrive?" said I, playfully. "Did you drink the cordial that this little rotundity offered to you?"

"Yes, I drained it to the bottom. So very delicious was its taste, so grateful to my exhausted frame and spirits, that I left not a drop in the globular vessel that contained it. I returned to him the flask."

"'Thou art not yet cured of thy selfishness, young man,' said the man with the club-foot, in a severe tone which made his voice appear more harsh and grating even than before. 'Couldst thou not have spared a single drop out of that vessel for the next intended suicide I may chance to meet with? Fortunately I have been more provident than thou hast been considerate; I have not exhausted my whole mine of wealth upon thee. Thy mother, boy, has spoiled thy nature, I see, by indulgence. Go, and think of others as well as of thyself.' With this, the strange being I had been speaking with, shaking his coarse and wiry locks at me, trundled himself away,—for walking it did not seem; and I again perceived that not the slightest sound came from his steps!"

"On entering my mother's small but neat abode, she threw her arms around my neck, and wept for joy at seeing me.

"'My beloved Falkner! I am so glad you are returned! I have such delightful news to tell you;—but you are wet, pale, hungry too I doubt not; but that shall not be for long. I have plenty of every thing good in the house; food of every description, and ready for eating, too,—so we will begin: but change your clothes first, Falkner. Why, my dear, dear boy, you must have tumbled into the river,—perhaps in trying to catch fish for your mother's supper;—but we do not want fish now.'

"After changing my wet apparel for the only other suit I had, and that none of the best, we sat down opposite to each other at the clean-scowered deal table,—the others had been parted with previously. We had no cloth,—they too had disappeared one by one long before; but hunger is not over fastidious. A cold fowl was placed upon the table: a tongue, and a bottle of wine, with plenty of fine wheaten bread, cheese, and butter. The word 'selfishness' rung in my ears during dinner; I was resolved to pluck this abominable vice from my bosom even to the very roots. When we had ate and were filled, I began to question my mother how she had been able to procure these dainties.

"'They were sent from the tavern, Falkner, by a very old friend of mine,—one I have not seen for many, many years. He has taken our spare apartments at a price twenty times beyond their value, and has given me a month's rent in advance. He is gone now to order in furniture from C—— both for himself and us. We shall never know want again! My darling son will now be provided for, according to his birth;' and my mother shed tears of joy.

"All this appeared to me exceedingly strange; but, then, it was delightful also. I complained, however, very soon of fatigue, when my tender mother insisted on having my bed warmed, on account of my 'tumble into the water;' and, bringing me a glass of mulled spiced wine, she kissed my forehead, and departed.

"I did not wake till noon. What a change had been effected ere that time, in our white-washed cottage! New handsome carpets were spread over the floors; chairs and tables placed in perfect order against the walls, and of the best quality. Room was left on one side our parlour for a grand piano, which my mother's friend would procure for her use from London. He had already ransacked a considerable market-town near us, and had contrived to get together tolerable things, but not of the quality he wished: he had gone now to London for the purpose of purchasing the piano, and many other luxuries he thought she needed; but would return in the course of a week, and take up his abode as——

"'And who is this friend of yours, my dear mother?' I inquired. 'You say you have known him long. Why has he not sooner attended to your wants?'

"'For a simple reason, Falkner,' she replied; 'he knew not of them; he is but just arrived in England.'

"'Is he a relation, mother? I trust he is, and a very near one too, or——' and I hesitated. 'I am but a young adviser, yet I feel that a female,—a handsome one, too,—a descendant from the proud family of the Maxwells, ought not to be obliged to any one who is an alien in blood and name. I cannot suffer my mother to be degraded. We may perish, but we will not be disgraced.'

"My mother heard me patiently to the end; then, smiling sweetly on me, told me she admired me for my delicacy of feeling and regard for her honour, but that I need be under no apprehension on her account, as her dear and valued old friend was her very nearest relative; also, 'We are sisters' children, Falkner, and in childhood were most intimate. You should hear him on the organ, Falkner; he would rival St. Cecilia herself on that celestial instrument. He wishes now to know in what way he can benefit my son? Have you ever thought of a profession?'

"'Thought of one! Oh, mother! Have I thought of anything else? Who can look at those bright orbs moving above us without longing to be acquainted with their relative positions, their bearings on each other. Let me be an astronomer, I conjure you, but let me not learn of any common master; let me understand the wonders of magnetic and electrical influence, the causes of universal gravitation; whether the infinite expanse above and around me be an entire void—a vacuum, or full of invisible ether, from which matter is formed the subtle essence which, when called together by its Maker's voice, thickens and hardens into worlds like this I tread on.'

"I was now mounted on the hobby that had for the last three years—nay, more, from my very infancy,—carried me on its back, enjoying my day-dreams, and bearing me oft into dark labyrinths of abstruse speculations. This was the first time I had ever ventured to mount it, except in privacy; for there is a secret delight in keeping these same ambling nags, you know, from the sight of others. They are ready at all hours during the day, as well as night, saddled and bridled for our use."

"And so is my Bucephalus, Mr. L——," said I, interrupting him. "I dare say the poor beast is wondering what his master is about this length of time."

"I beg your pardon; I am a long time telling my story," said my companion; "but I wished to show you how very soon the favourite occupation of my mind, indulging in vain abstractions, put to flight all my prudence, my high sense of honour, and delicacy to my mother's fame. To have my ardent wishes gratified with regard to my studies made me forget that perhaps it might be improper to purchase them at such expense; but my selfishness was not wholly departed from me.

"My mother seemed perfectly astonished at hearing what was my desire for the future; but she wrote off that night to consult 'her friend,' whose answer was most propitious. 'He knew a very learned man in Germany, who could instruct me in all these matters, a Dr. Hettmann, a great philosopher and astronomer,—something, too, of an astrologer to boot,—who was certain to receive as a pupil any relative of Mr. Maxwell's; and, as for the means, he begged my mother not to consider about those, but to prepare my equipment, and he would himself take me over to the doctor, by way of Rotterdam, to Vienna, and settle every arrangement on my account.' And so the preparations were begun immediately.

"With that inconsistency with which very young men generally act and think, it struck me forcibly that I could not, ought not, to leave my mother thus domesticated in the same house even with her near relation, and I absent; so, with a very high air of importance, conceit, as well as temper, I told her, 'I should not go to Germany after all, for I should have enough to do to protect her against the evil designs of this accursed relative of hers, who I wished heartily was at the bottom of the Black Sea—the Red one was too good for him.'

"'Do not alarm yourself, my dear Falkner,' said she meekly, and confusedly casting down her eyes; 'there shall be no impropriety on my part. You shall never have cause to blush for your mother. The morning previous to your setting off under the escort of my friend, I intend giving him my hand at C—— church, and trust you will be present at our nuptials.'

"I have no doubt, sir, I jumped from my chair a foot and a half at hearing this proposition," said L——. "I asked her if I had heard aright? and felt that my lips quivered with emotion, and that a cold damp was on my brow.

"'It is a long story, Falkner,' said my mother, 'and I have not the heart to enter into it now; suffice it to say I was engaged to my cousin, Mr. Maxwell, before I saw your father: after I had seen him, I could not fulfil my prior engagement. With a generosity I could not copy, I was relieved from it by him, and he went abroad. But now, though late, I shall do my best to make my first affianced lover happy.' 'Lover!' thought I. From my very soul I detested this abominable Mr. Maxwell. Once or twice I contemplated shooting him, as a kind of rival; at any rate to interpose my authority—to interdict the ceremony, to me so loathsome; but then again I thought of our former poverty, our threatened starvation, of my wretched prospects without the aid of this odious father-in-law. In the end, after a fearful tempest in my mind, and then a fit of gloom and ill-humour, I moodily made up my mind not to prevent my mother's marriage with her cousin; especially as a box of Dollond's best mathematical instruments, with a quadrant and telescope, were sent down to me as a present from this hated Mr. Maxwell. 'I will endeavour to behave decently when he arrives, and give her to him, if I can, at the altar,' thought I.

"Two days after, a plain travelling-carriage stopped at our garden gate; my heart beat wildly—I looked at my mother; she was calm and pale as usual, but her eyes were anxiously, deprecatingly, cast on me. I understood the appealing glances that came from them. 'Mother,' said I, 'fear not; I will behave magnificently!—you shall see how well I will treat him.' I heard the carriage-door slap to; I expected to hear the footsteps of the ardent, thriving bridegroom coming up the little gravel-walk leading from the gate to the parlour; but all was quiet. 'Shall I go to meet him?' I inquired in the plenitude of my intended patronage. There was no need; the intended bridegroom stood before me,—the man to whom I was to give away my tender, my beloved, my beautiful mother. There, in all his native deformity, with his large head, enormous eyes, and dark elf looks, stood the man with the club-foot!

"I will tell you the rest of my story another time—not now—not now!" and Falkner L—— rushed from the apartment. I left the house immediately.

As I rode home to my own house, half a dozen miles distant, I pondered upon the narrative I had just heard. "Perchance," thought I, "the root of this malady is left; it may grow again. I fear he is not quite recovered. I will see him at any rate to-morrow."

L—— fully expected me, and smiled as I entered; but he looked paler than usual, and his hand was feverish. I spoke cheerfully to him; told him some little gossip I had picked up by the way; read him a paragraph or two from a London paper—the crack article of the day; descanted on the weather, as all Englishmen do, and prophesied respecting it for the next four-and-twenty hours. It was his turn next. After a moment's silence, and a sort of struggle with his feelings, he took up the thread of his discourse, but not where he had left off.

"You must have perceived, sir," began my young friend, "that I am of a wayward temper, and have been spoiled by overweening indulgence. My father—but he is in the grave; let me not disturb his ashes more than necessary;—I told you he had died of a broken heart. I am ashamed of the prevarication; his heart certainly was broken, but his own hand assisted the slower operations of nature. He would not brook delay; so ran a sword into that princely organ, and made it stop."

So fearfully pale now looked poor Falkner, that I handed him a glass of wine standing ready on the table, and made him drink it, saying in as cheerful a tone as I could muster up, "Come, come, my dear L——, you have begun now at quite a different part of your story; we must not retrograde. I want to know what you said or did to this same extraordinary-looking being who wanted to be your father-in-law,—this man with the club-foot; what did you say to him?"

"Astonishment chained up my tongue," answered L——, "and disgust to his person turned me sick. On the other hand, gratitude whispered to me that he had saved my life: and self-interest suggested that without his aid, however revolting his person might be, there was nothing left to us but penury and wretchedness. Suspended as between two attractive powers did I stand, my eyes wildly gazing on him, and my brain actually whirling amidst these conflicting emotions."

"'Falkner,' said my mother, 'speak to me!—you alarm me greatly! Why do you look as if you saw a spirit? Randolph, has my son ever beheld you before this moment, for there is recognition in his gaze? He was an infant only when you saved his life thirteen years ago.' 'He has seen me only for two minutes,' croaked out that same harsh unmusical voice: 'he fell by some chance into the millstream the other day, and I helped him out again. To judge by his looks, he would not have done the same thing by me, if I had given him the same chance;' and the monster laughed.

"I roused myself at length from the spell that bound me. 'Mother,' cried I vehemently, 'I must speak to you alone;' the man with the club-foot moved instantly and silently from the apartment.

"'This cannot be,' I exclaimed passionately, 'that you can call this hideous wretch your husband! Nature herself must shudder only at the thought. Deformed, stunted, odious, revolting!—Mother, the very touch of his hand would be a profanation to the dead. My mother sighed. 'And yet, Falkner, how much happier should I have been had I not been dazzled from my plighted faith by exterior advantages alone, and passed my life with one whose qualities are like the fairest diamond placed in a rude shagreen casket. My son, you have not yet looked upon the brilliancy within. Read that paper, Falkner, and be just.' My mother quitted the room as she spoke.

"For the first time in my life I perceived a counteracting influence in opposition to my own in the breast of my tender mother, and the thought enraged me beyond all bounds. Again I meditated self-destruction; again gloomily conceived the thought that I would immolate this intruding wretch, and thus free us both from his persevering attentions. 'It shall be done,' I exclaimed aloud, clenching my hands together in a delirium of passion; 'I have learned a few secrets from Nature in my wanderings alone with her, and one of them I will prove this very evening on——'

"'Your benefactor, Falkner!' interrupted the raven-like croaking of Randolph Maxwell, looking up into my face with those large melancholy eyes of his, and laying his hand on mine. I was taken unawares, and was surprised to find that this same hand of his was delicately white, and soft as that of a woman's. It had on a ring of surpassing brilliancy, which attracted my eyes even in the midst of this exciting scene, so boyish and unfixed at that time was my mind. Was it that the ring itself possessed some powerful spell over my wayward thoughts? or that the hand, looking like a human one,—nay, even beautiful in its kind,—made the owner of it appear at that moment like a being of the same nature as my own? By an impulse I could not control, I extended my own towards him, and I fancied I saw a moisture in those large melancholy eyes of his. 'Emma, my betrothed Emma,' called out that voice, made only for the society of crocodiles and croaking birds of prey, 'come hither, Emma, and behold thy Randolph and thy son friends.' She entered at the call, and pressed our united hands between her own. Then all the loathing and abhorrence of my nature against that inexplicable being returned, and with as much violence as before. But I covered it over with artifice, cloaked it with politeness, obscured it from observation by taciturnity and sullenness. Like a martyr I submitted to my fate; so, the next morning I accompanied this ill-matched pair to the church of C——, and saw them married, forcing myself to give away my almost idolised parent to a thing resembling an ourang-outang. How did I long to spurn the reptile I looked down upon, with my foot! to crush him to pieces as I would a bloated toad!

"That very evening my new father-in-law and myself set off to Germany, my mother having previously put into my hands once more, that paper she had before wished me to read. I thrust it into my pocket. Her blessing to us both, as we seated ourselves in the carriage of the dwarf, still rings in my ears.

"'Farewell, dear Randolph! Farewell, beloved son! For my sake, Randolph, be kind to this unfortunate boy!' Thus did the dwarf answer: 'I swear to you by that faith which has been so powerfully proved, to be careful and indulgent to your son. Write to me, my——' he would have added 'beloved wife;' but catching, I suppose, some strange and threatening expression in my eyes, he changed it into 'my dear and earliest friend!' I felt choking, but would not give way to the tenderness of nature;—I would not say, 'God bless you, best and kindest of mothers!' I threw myself back into the carriage, and, overpowered with various emotions, I wept like an infant. But be it remembered, sir, I was not then sixteen years old. At length a healing slumber closed up my senses. I know not how long it lasted, for when I awoke I was alone; the carriage was standing without horses in an inn-yard; my companion would not have me disturbed, and was gone himself into the house to give orders for our accommodation there that night.

"My mother had used a word in parting that became to me as a constant goad; nay, it entered into my very soul. 'Her unfortunate boy!' Why should she use the word unfortunate? I had been told from infancy, (and I firmly believed what had been so often asserted,) that I was eminently handsome. Both my parents had been distinguished for their great personal attractions, and I had been assured that I possessed in a still higher degree than they did the exterior gifts and graces of nature. Then, as to mental ones, had I not been born a poet, philosopher, everything that was great and noble?—for so my doting parents always said in my hearing. Why then did she now call me unfortunate, especially when she had provided for me so august a patron in her second husband? I have since fully known what she meant by this term unfortunate."

Poor L—— at this time rose from his chair, and gazed up vacantly into the clouds. I knew what he was thinking of, but the subject was too delicate for me to touch on.

He continued:

"I forgot the paper I had thrust into my pocket when I left my mother. We travelled on together wrapt up each in our own thoughts, for I could not force myself to converse with him, although sometimes I was astonished at the depth and genius of his observations. They fell like brilliant gems around me, but I would not pick them up, or even admire their lustre. At length wearied, I suppose, with my obstinacy, he took a book out of the pocket of the carriage, and began to read. This I considered an indignity, an insult, and with marks of temper sought immediately for another. In this mood we reached the house of the celebrated Scheele, in Vienna, where it was agreed I should for some months reside, that I might learn something of chemistry before I began my astronomical researches.

"Not a word was said to me on money matters; all this was arranged without my knowledge. I found a pocket-book on my toilet, containing most ample means for my private expenses, but it was unaccompanied with a single line. No leave was taken of me; but when I arose one morning I was told by the family of the Professor Scheele that 'my friend' had departed at an early hour, leaving me in charge of them, bespeaking their kindest attentions for me, and paying most liberally for me in advance.

"'Tis all beyond my comprehension," said Falkner L—— after a pause, and repeating to himself that line of Milton,

"And found no end, in wandering mazes lost."

Then abruptly he continued thus:

"I learned all sorts of splendid nonsense from Professor Scheele, for I know not its utility. I went from him to the renowned Berzelius, and laid in a stock of more. I studied astronomy under a relation of the famous Schiller, and alchemy from a nephew of Jang Stilling. But what availed all these acquisitions? One fixed idea was ever like an incubus upon my soul,—the thought of my mother's marriage with this club-footed hunchback. Years passed on; and though invited, implored, to return to England, yet I could not endure the thought of seeing her the wife of so distorted a little wretch. She wrote to me ever 'of his nobleness, his generosity:' I felt the latter in the plenitude of his allowance to her son; but I was haunted perpetually by his image, hovering like an imp of darkness over a form moulded by the Graces. I hated my own country because it contained him, and yet I could think of nothing else. I became melancholy, morose, obstinate, taciturn, irritable to excess.

"One day, in clearing out my writing-desk, a paper came into my hand that I had no recollection of; it turned out to be the very one my mother had put into my hands just before my departure. These were the words. It was a letter from 'the Man with the club-foot' to herself.

"'To Emma, the beloved of my heart,—Think you that I am blind to my own imperfections?—that I am fool enough to suppose that this warped and twisted person of mine is a thing to be beloved, to be caressed? I have been conscious of my own deformities from a very child; and then it was that you, many years my junior, and accustomed to the sight of my exterior hideousness from your birth, cared not for it, but gave me the blessing of your companionship, and taught me to hope you could endure my presence through life. So did I delude myself; so did you guilelessly assist me in the delusion. I believed I should call you my own; you sanctioned this belief. But when the fascinating L—— arrived, how soon did I perceive my fatal mistake! I saw it long before my Emma even suspected it, and—why should I pain you now by telling you what I then suffered? enough, you know how I acted;—the hunchback preferred your happiness to his own.

"'Emma, it is unnecessary now to tell you how I employed myself during seventeen years, and how much I thought of those days when my beautiful cousin would gaze fondly in my eyes, and call me 'her dear Randolph!' Need I say what unexpected delight I experienced when once I was enabled to save her child, then a very cherub, and still beautiful as herself, from destruction? You know all this; and how, after this transaction, blessed with her gratitude, I departed for Ceylon. Was I not loaded also with the knowledge and the misery that she, my beloved one, was not happy? I could not stay to witness her regrets.

"'I went to Ceylon. It was with a miser's feeling that I hoarded up riches in that island, which contains more riches than any other part of the world. I trafficked in diamonds; I tried experiments with spices; I found hidden treasure; and, as I amassed wealth almost beyond calculation, I constantly said to myself, 'All this is for her,—she will need it.'

"'And is it not thine own, thou idol of my heart?—and is it not thy darling son's? But think not that Randolph Maxwell's love is tainted by vile selfishness. I know, I feel my person must be abhorrent to my lovely cousin now—it is not like her L——'s; my mind she has some knowledge of. Let our marriage, then, beloved one! be only of the mind; let me live with you, gaze on you, hope that I disgust you not, and you will make your faithful cousin happy. I ask no more. Your child is mine; I have no other; he is the heir of my possessions, and herewith I make over to him and you, wealth enough to satisfy the most craving of our species;—everything, except a small pittance in case you should wish my absence, is yours. And now, Emma, we understand each other, and I think we ever shall. If your son——'

"But here the paper was skilfully divided; my mother would not suffer me to know the opinion Randolph Maxwell had of her wayward Falkner. Oh! that I had read this letter before!—it would have saved me hundreds of hours of anguish; but, now that I had done so, I formed an instant resolution of returning to England and my mother. Having always the means by me, I put no curb to my inclinations; I never had done so in my life, and, to my mother's astonishment, arrived there without informing her she might expect me. Enchantment seemed to have been used, for a palace had risen up close to our former white-washed cottage. I forgot my mother had apprised me. By an expensive process, full-grown trees of every kind had been transplanted to the new abode; it was imbedded in the midst of costly firs and flowering shrubs. I flew to her and tenderly embraced her. I even inquired respectfully for the man with the club-foot. I began myself to honour him. My mother's countenance changed as I mentioned his name, and an unknown kind of dread came over me. 'Let me know the worst at once,' said I, 'for,'—in short, I thought then, as now, that he had more than mortal agency.

"'The worst will soon be told you, Falkner,' said my mother sadly. 'My cousin Randolph is dying: he has been in a declining state for the last two years. He eats nothing, never sleeps, and I shall soon lose a being of such exemplary worth, that I fear it will break my heart. It is impossible to describe to you the nobleness, the disinterested attachment of this creature, now at the very point of death. But here comes Dr. E——; he has been with my poor Randolph for the last two hours; he will tell us what he thinks of his malady;'—and you, sir, came into the room."

"Do you remember this circumstance, doctor?" said Falkner to me, "do you remember coming in from the bedside of your patient to the room where my mother and myself were sitting,—do you remember how closely I questioned you?"

"I do," answered I dryly, "and also what passed in the sick man's chamber. But proceed with your narration—I think you have not much more to say."

"Is it then still a profound secret what that man, or devil,—I know not which he is,—communicated to you at that time?" inquired poor L——, looking at me with eyes that seemed to search my very soul. "You told us, doctor, he was dying, and I thought so too myself afterwards; for I was prevailed on to visit him you both called my benefactor!—Oh God! oh God! what is the reason that he did not die?—that in a few days he—this hunchback—rose from that couch where we all expected he would close for ever those melancholy eyes? Instead of our carrying him to the churchyard, and burying him deep, deep there, he broke his plighted faith to my ill-used mother, and rose from his couch to become the partner of hers—her veritable husband! Was it not this accursed knowledge that utterly destroyed me? Did I not rave then, beat my breast, and become a madman? Did I not attempt the life of her who gave me birth? And was I not prevented from fulfilling my design by this same loathsome being, who bound my hands together with a strength as if he had been a giant; not the pigmy that he is?—He overcame me—I remember this, now, full well."

"All this is nothing new to me," said I, "for I attended you all the time of your illness, and you have been very bad indeed. But what then? These clouds will pass away, and the sun, the brilliant star of your mind, will be much brighter than it has ever been. Can you bear Falkner L—— to hear what passed in the sick chamber of him you have called by such opprobrious names?"

"Before I answer you, doctor, you must resolve me one question," and the brow of the young man darkened:—"How long have I been ill?" This was whispered rather than spoken.

"Exactly ten months," I replied. "Is that your question?" and I smiled upon him, for I knew what was in his mind.

"No," he answered; "it is only the scaffolding about it. It shall out," cried poor L—— furiously, "and on its reply depends whether I will ever speak again to man or woman during my short remnant of life. It is a question to me of vital importance indeed!" I am reluctant to give it utterance, so much disgust do I feel with this whole affair; yet I have a burning desire to know, and I will be satisfied."

"So had our first parents, L——," said I; "but they found the fruit of the tree of knowledge bitter and indigestive. Wisdom is always preferable to knowledge; for it yields content, calmness, holiness. But what is your question? I think I know its purport—out with it."

"Has my mother given birth to a child of that abominable man with the club-foot?" cried poor L—— almost inaudibly, with a lip quivering, an eye flaming; "is there another little wretch upon this earth inheriting the deformities of that monster?—a creature doomed to walk in shoes that give no sound, and therefore of magic and unlawful make?"

"What nonsense you talk, L——!" cried I. "Why, I took up those very shoes and examined them curiously, when I visited the sick chamber of their owner. I was struck with their strange make, and was much pleased with the invention, which is a German one; and I mean to write over for a pair or two of boots, made on this same construction, as I dislike creaking appendages to my feet of all things; for it sounds so material, you know. The soles of these are elastic and hollow, filled, moreover, with gas, which makes the wearer light-footed. We—that is, you and I—do not want such inventions to our heads, you know," I said a little archly; "we are light-headed enough without the assistance of German mechanists; but for their shoes we thank them."

"Perhaps they have helped us a little to be light-headed too, notwithstanding," retorted L—— with a spirit I was delighted to see. "German philosophy may produce the same effects on the head as German boots on the feet. But you astonish me by what you say! Elastic hollow soles!—then there was no necromancy in them after all! But still you have not answered my question, doctor."

"All in good time, L——; let me first put one category to you. What should make you have such a dreadful abhorrence to infants?—are they not the most interesting beings in the universe?—does not heaven lie about them then? As for inheriting a club-foot, that is all stuff. The children of Socrates did not inherit his snub nose, nor the mind either of him who chanced to have this nez retroussé."

"What am I to infer from this preamble?" demanded L—— with a face as white as death.

"Why, that you have as lovely a little sister as ever opened a pair of eyes upon this earthly scene—such a pair of eyes, too!—large, dark, magnificent eyes,—much handsomer than yours, L——, and they are not much to be found fault with. In short, my little god-daughter Emma is a perfect beauty, of about three weeks old,—and I am ready to enter the lists with any one who is bold enough to deny the full power of her infantine charms."

There was a long pause after this.

"And her feet?" inquired L——, gasping for breath, "has she—club feet?"

"Pshaw! you never expected more than one; her father——" But he wildly interrupted me.

"Oh! name him not!—name him not!—Deceiver!—liar!—hypocrite!—I knew it would come to this!—this is what has maddened me—I knew it would be so!"

"Then you have been a seer and a prophet," replied I, "all along. Allow me to bow to your superior wisdom. I never dreamed of such a thing; yet would it not have been as it has turned out, but for my advice, my judgment."

"What on earth could you have had to do with this wretched business?" inquired L——. "Pray, pray, do not confuse me more than you can help."

"I am going rather to enlighten you, L——," said I, "and must beg you seriously to attend now to me. You know that I was summoned to attend upon Mr. Randolph Maxwell, the first cousin of your mother. Well, I found him in almost a dying state,—weak, exhausted, dejected in the extreme, without a wish to live. I inquired into the symptoms of his malady. I could gain no information from his words; but those melancholy yet beautiful eyes of his gave me a suspicion. Having obtained a clue, and not having the same contemptible and erroneous opinion of my patient as yourself, I arrived at length at the truth, and found that this 'demon,' as you are pleased to call him, was falling a sacrifice to his high sense of honour, and delicacy to his idolised wife's feelings. He had adored her ever, and believed firmly, when he wrote that last epistle to her which you saw, that he was capable of keeping his word; that the society of his Emma as a friend and sister only would fully satisfy every desire of his heart. But in living with her, in receiving her smiles, and hearing himself called 'Randolph,' 'dear Randolph,' by lips so lovely and beloved, he found that he was human, and had human wishes to gratify. Thus, like Tantalus, did he languish and droop, yet without a hope, uttering a complaint, or making a single effort to draw her compassion, or even to let his sufferings be understood by her. By heavens! L——, that man, small as he is in stature, deformed and unpleasant to look upon, is one of the greatest heroes, ay, martyrs, let it be added,—I speak as a medical man,—that history has to boast of!"—I paused as I said this, and waited for some observation from my young friend; but he merely leaned his cheek upon his hand, and cast his eyes upon the ground.—"Shall I proceed?" asked I.

"I can finish the narrative myself," said he: "you communicated the state of her friend, of course, to my mother, and she,—to save his life,——"

"—Told me," cried I, "that she had now been so long accustomed to his presence, so familiarised with his uncouth appearance, that she scarcely noticed his deformities; that his attentions, his delicacy, his devotedness to her for so long a time, had taken from her all repugnance to his person; and that she could truly say, 'she loved him even as he was.'" L—— groaned aloud. "Oh!" continued I, "I wish I could describe to you the feelings of this man with the club-foot,—this being so despised, so loathed by you,—when I repeated to him, word for word, what his adored wife had imparted to me,—when the delightful conviction stole into his mind that there was one woman in the world, and that one the most valued and the most lovely, who could look upon him, dwarf, hunchback as he was, with eyes of returning affection,—that he was loved in some measure with a return.—After all, L——, what is there in the outside?"

"Is my mother happy?" at length inquired L—— with a burning cheek, but a softening tone of voice.

"The only drawback on her felicity is from the waywardness, the morbid temper, and the cruel prejudices of her only son," said I. "What is there in a mere form, the husk, the shell, the covering of the immortal mind? Would you have treated Socrates as you have treated Mr. Maxwell?—thus have despised Alexander Pope?"

"Socrates had not a club-foot," answered he; but I fancied that an air of pleasantry accompanied the observation: "Pope had not this deformity."

"But other great men had," I replied, "who were as inferior to the gentleman we have been speaking of in true heroism, as they excelled him in other mere personal attractions. Remember the adage, L——, 'Handsome is who handsome does.'"

"Doctor E——" exclaimed Falkner L——, after a pause of an entire minute, for I noted it by my stop-watch,—"Doctor E——, I will see this infant sister of mine; I will see its—its father also; I will be one of that happy family.—Oh, what a monster of prejudice have I been until this very hour!"

"You say right, my dear L——; prejudice does make monsters of mankind,—it has made you mad,—but happily you are restored. Look not in future on the outside of the cup and platter; for be assured that the pearl beyond all price is to be found within. Prejudice and pride are, according to my experience, the causes of more lunacy even than the use of ardent spirits, or the goad of poverty, that eateth into the very soul."

I had the great satisfaction of seeing that very evening a lovely female infant, dressed in a white cassimere cloak and hood, trimmed with swansdown and rich lace, in the arms of the young man, who caressed the child with every mark of affection, and called her "his dear, dear little sister!" I smiled to myself also at seeing this same young man looking with pleased delight on its small perfect ivory feet, which I took care to display; and much pleased was I in hearing him for the first time in his life say with sincerity,

"My dear Mr. Maxwell, I thank you from my very heart for the kindness you have shown to this beloved lady, your happy wife, and the forbearance you have evinced towards her wayward and insulting son.—Am I forgiven?"

"From my very soul!" said a voice, now heard without disgust, notwithstanding its croaking and discordant tone. It was that of "The Man with the Club-Foot."

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FULL REPORT OF THE
FIRST MEETING OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF EVERYTHING.

We have made the most unparalleled and extraordinary exertions to place before our readers a complete and accurate account of the proceedings at the late grand meeting of the Mudfog association, holden in the town of Mudfog; it affords us great happiness to lay the result before them, in the shape of various communications received from our able, talented, and graphic correspondent, expressly sent down for the purpose, who has immortalised us, himself, Mudfog, and the association, all at one and the same time. We have been, indeed, for some days unable to determine who will transmit the greatest name to posterity; ourselves, who sent our correspondent down; our correspondent, who wrote an account of the matter; or the association, who gave our correspondent something to write about. We rather incline to the opinion that we are the greatest man of the party, inasmuch as the notion of an exclusive and authentic report originated with us; this may be prejudice: it may arise from a prepossession on our part in our own favour. Be it so. We have no doubt that every gentleman concerned in this mighty assemblage is troubled with the same complaint in a greater or less degree; and it is a consolation to us to know that we have at least this feeling in common with the great scientific stars, the brilliant and extraordinary luminaries, whose speculations we record.

We give our correspondent's letters in the order in which they reached us. Any attempt at amalgamating them into one beautiful whole, would only destroy that glowing tone, that dash of wildness, and rich vein of picturesque interest, which pervade them throughout.

"Mudfog, Monday night, seven o'clock.

"We are in a state of great excitement here. Nothing is spoken of, but the approaching meeting of the association. The inn-doors are thronged with waiters anxiously looking for the expected arrivals; and the numerous bills which are wafered up in the windows of private houses, intimating that there are beds to let within, give the streets a very animated and cheerful appearance, the wafers being of a great variety of colours, and the monotony of printed inscriptions being relieved by every possible size and style of hand-writing. It is confidently rumoured that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy have engaged three beds and a sitting-room at the Pig and Tinder-box. I give you the rumour as it has reached me; but I cannot, as yet, vouch for its accuracy. The moment I have been enabled to obtain any certain information upon this interesting point, you may depend upon receiving it."

"Half-past seven.

"I have just returned from a personal interview with the landlord of the Pig and Tinder-box. He speaks confidently of the probability of Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy taking up their residence at his house during the sitting of the association, but denies that the beds have been yet engaged; in which representation he is confirmed by the chambermaid,—a girl of artless manners, and interesting appearance. The boots denies that it is at all likely that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy will put up here; but I have reason to believe that this man has been suborned by the proprietor of the Original Pig, which is the opposition hotel. Amidst such conflicting testimony it is difficult to arrive at the real truth; but you may depend upon receiving authentic information upon this point the moment the fact is ascertained. The excitement still continues. A boy fell through the window of the pastrycook's shop at the corner of the High-street about half an hour ago, which has occasioned much confusion. The general impression is, that it was an accident. Pray Heaven it may prove so!"

"Tuesday, noon.

"At an early hour this morning the bells of all the churches struck seven o'clock; the effect of which, in the present lively state of the town, was extremely singular. While I was at breakfast, a yellow gig, drawn by a dark grey horse, with a patch of white over his right eyelid, proceeded at a rapid pace in the direction of the Original Pig stables; it is currently reported that this gentleman has arrived here for the purpose of attending the association, and, from what I have heard, I consider it extremely probable, although nothing decisive is yet known regarding him. You may conceive the anxiety with which we are all looking forward to the arrival of the four o'clock coach this afternoon.

"Notwithstanding the excited state of the populace, no outrage has yet been committed, owing to the admirable discipline and discretion of the police, who are nowhere to be seen. A barrel-organ is playing opposite my window, and groups of people, offering fish and vegetables for sale, parade the streets. With these exceptions everything is quiet, and I trust will continue so."

"Five o'clock.

"It is now ascertained beyond all doubt that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy will not repair to the Pig and Tinder-box, but have actually engaged apartments at the Original Pig. This intelligence is exclusive; and I leave you and your readers to draw their own inferences from it. Why Professor Wheezy, of all people in the world, should repair to the Original Pig in preference to the Pig and Tinder-box, it is not easy to conceive. The professor is a man who should be above all such petty feelings. Some people here, openly impute treachery and a distinct breach of faith to Professors Snore and Doze; while others, again, are disposed to acquit them of any culpability in the transaction, and to insinuate that the blame rests solely with Professor Wheezy. I own that I incline to the latter opinion; and, although it gives me great pain to speak in terms of censure or disapprobation of a man of such transcendent genius and acquirements, still I am bound to say, that if my suspicions be well founded, and if all the reports which have reached my ears be true, I really do not well know what to make of the matter.

"Mr. Slug, so celebrated for his statistical researches, arrived this afternoon by the four o'clock stage. His complexion is a dark purple, and he has a habit of sighing constantly. He looked extremely well, and appeared in high health and spirits. Mr. Woodensconse also came down in the same conveyance. The distinguished gentleman was fast asleep on his arrival, and I am informed by the guard that he had been so, the whole way. He was, no doubt, preparing for his approaching fatigues; but what gigantic visions must those be, that flit through the brain of such a man, when his body is in a state of torpidity!

"The influx of visitors increases every moment. I am told (I know not how truly) that two post-chaises have arrived at the Original Pig within the last half-hour; and I myself observed a wheelbarrow, containing three carpet-bags and a bundle, entering the yard of the Pig and Tinder-box no longer ago than five minutes since. The people are still quietly pursuing their ordinary occupations; but there is a wildness in their eyes, and an unwonted rigidity in the muscles of their countenances, which shows to the observant spectator that their expectations are strained to the very utmost pitch. I fear, unless some very extraordinary arrivals take place to-night, that consequences may arise from this popular ferment, which every man of sense and feeling would deplore."

"Twenty minutes past six.

"I have just heard that the boy who fell through the pastrycook's window last night, has died of the fright. He was suddenly called upon to pay three and sixpence for the damage done, and his constitution, it seems, was not strong enough to bear up against the shock. The inquest, it is said, will be held to-morrow."

"Three-quarters past seven.

"Professors Muff and Nogo have just driven up to the hotel door; they at once ordered dinner with great condescension. We are all very much delighted with the urbanity of their manners, and the ease with which they adapt themselves to the forms and ceremonies of ordinary life. Immediately on their arrival they sent for the head-waiter, and privately requested him to purchase a live dog,—as cheap a one as he could meet with,—and to send him up after dinner, with a pie-board, a knife and fork, and a clean plate. It is conjectured that some experiments will be tried upon the dog to-night; if any particulars should transpire, I will forward them by express."

"Half-past eight.

"The animal has been procured. He is a pug-dog, of rather intelligent appearance, in good condition, and with very short legs. He has been tied to a curtain-peg in a dark room, and is howling dreadfully."

"Ten minutes to nine.

"The dog has just been rung for. With an instinct which would appear almost the result of reason, the sagacious animal seized the waiter by the calf of the leg when he approached to take him, and made a desperate, though ineffectual resistance. I have not been able to procure admission to the apartment occupied by the scientific gentlemen; but, judging from the sounds which reached my ears when I stood upon the landing-place outside the door, just now, I should be disposed to say that the dog had retreated growling beneath some article of furniture, and was keeping the professors at bay. This conjecture is confirmed by the testimony of the ostler, who, after peeping through the keyhole, assures me that he distinctly saw Professor Nogo on his knees, holding forth a small bottle of prussic acid, to which the animal, who was crouched beneath an arm-chair, obstinately declined to smell. You cannot imagine the feverish state of irritation we are in, lest the interests of science should be sacrificed to the prejudices of a brute creature, who is not endowed with sufficient sense to foresee the incalculable benefits which the whole human race may derive from so very slight a concession on his part."

"Nine o'clock.

"The dog's tail and ears have been sent down stairs to be washed; from which circumstance we infer that the animal is no more. His forelegs have been delivered to the boots to be brushed, which strengthens the supposition."

"Half after ten.

"My feelings are so overpowered by what has taken place in the course of the last hour and a half, that I have scarcely strength to detail the rapid succession of events which have quite bewildered all those who are cognizant of their occurrence. It appears that the pug-dog mentioned in my last was surreptitiously obtained,—stolen, in fact,—by some person attached to the stable department, from an unmarried lady resident in this town. Frantic on discovering the loss of her favourite, the lady rushed distractedly into the street, calling in the most heart-rending and pathetic manner upon the passengers to restore her, her Augustus,—for so the deceased was named, in affectionate remembrance of a former lover of his mistress, to whom he bore a striking personal resemblance, which renders the circumstance additionally affecting. I am not yet in a condition to inform you what circumstances induced the bereaved lady to direct her steps to the hotel which had witnessed the last struggles of her protegé. I can only state that she arrived there, at the very instant when his detached members were passing through the passage on a small tray. Her shrieks still reverberate in my ears! I grieve to say that the expressive features of Professor Muff were much scratched and lacerated by the injured lady; and that Professor Nogo, besides sustaining several severe bites, has lost some handfuls of hair from the same cause. It must be some consolation to these gentlemen to know that their ardent attachment to scientific pursuits has alone occasioned these unpleasant consequences; for which the sympathy of a grateful country will sufficiently reward them. The unfortunate lady remains at the Pig and Tinder-box, and up to this time is reported in a very precarious state.

"I need scarcely tell you that this unlooked-for catastrophe has cast a damp and gloom upon us in the midst of our exhilaration; natural in any case, but greatly enhanced in this, by the amiable qualities of the deceased animal, who appears to have been much and deservedly respected by the whole of his acquaintance."

"Twelve o'clock.

"I take the last opportunity before sealing my parcel to inform you that the boy who fell through the pastrycook's window is not dead, as was universally believed, but alive and well. The report appears to have had its origin in his mysterious disappearance. He was found half an hour since on the premises of a sweet-stuff maker, where a raffle had been announced for a second-hand seal-skin cap and a tambourine; and where—a sufficient number of members not having been obtained at first—he had patiently waited until the list was completed. This fortunate discovery has in some degree restored our gaiety and cheerfulness. It is proposed to get up a subscription for him without delay.

"Everybody is nervously anxious to see what to-morrow will bring forth. If any one should arrive in the course of the night, I have left strict directions to be called immediately. I should have sat up, indeed, but the agitating events of this day have been too much for me.

"No news yet, of either of the Professors Snore, Doze, or Wheezy. It is very strange!"

"Wednesday afternoon.

"All is now over; and, upon one point at least, I am at length enabled to set the minds of your readers at rest. The three professors arrived at ten minutes after two o'clock, and, instead of taking up their quarters at the Original Pig, as it was universally understood in the course of yesterday that they would assuredly have done, drove straight to the Pig and Tinder-box, where they threw off the mask at once, and openly announced their intention of remaining. Professor Wheezy may reconcile this very extraordinary conduct with his notions of fair and equitable dealing, but I would recommend Professor Wheezy to be cautious how he presumes too far upon his well-earned reputation. How such a man as Professor Snore, or, which is still more extraordinary, such an individual as Professor Doze, can quietly allow himself to be mixed up with such proceedings as these, you will naturally inquire. Upon this head, rumour is silent; I have my speculations, but forbear to give utterance to them just now."

"Four o'clock.

"The town is filling fast; eighteenpence has been offered for a bed, and refused. Several gentlemen were under the necessity last night of sleeping in the brick-fields, and on the steps of doors, for which they were taken before the magistrates in a body this morning, and committed to prison as vagrants for various terms. One of these persons I understand to be a highly-respectable tinker, of great practical skill, who had forwarded a paper to the president of Section D. Mechanical Science, on the construction of pipkins with copper bottoms and safety-valves, of which report speaks highly. The incarceration of this gentleman is greatly to be regretted, as his absence will preclude any discussion on the subject.

"The bills are being taken down in all directions, and lodgings are being secured on almost any terms. I have heard of fifteen shillings a week for two rooms, exclusive of coals and attendance, but I can scarcely believe it. The excitement is dreadful. I was informed this morning that the civil authorities, apprehensive of some outbreak of popular feeling, had commanded a recruiting sergeant and two corporals to be under arms; and that, with the view of not irritating the people unnecessarily by their presence, they had been requested to take up their position before daybreak in a turnpike, distant about a quarter of a mile from the town. The vigour and promptness of these measures cannot be too highly extolled.

"Intelligence has just been brought me, that an elderly female, in a state of inebriety, has declared in the open street her intention to 'do' for Mr. Slug. Some statistical returns compiled by that gentleman, relative to the consumption of raw spirituous liquors in this place, are supposed to be the cause of the wretch's animosity. It is added, that this declaration was loudly cheered by a crowd of persons who had assembled on the spot; and that one man had the boldness to designate Mr. Slug aloud by the opprobrious epithet of 'Stick-in-the-mud!' It is earnestly to be hoped that now, when the moment has arrived for their interference, the magistrates will not shrink from the exercise of that power which is vested in them by the constitution of our common country."

"Half-past ten.

"The disturbance, I am happy to inform you, has been completely quelled, and the ringleader taken into custody. She had a pail of cold water thrown over her, previous to being locked up, and expresses great contrition and uneasiness. We are all in a fever of anticipation about to-morrow; but, now that we are within a few hours of the meeting of the association, and at last enjoy the proud consciousness of having its illustrious members amongst us, I trust and hope everything may go off peaceably. I shall send you a full report of to-morrow's proceedings by the night coach."

"Eleven o'clock.

"I open my letter to say that nothing whatever has occurred since I folded it up."

"Thursday.

"The sun rose this morning at the usual hour. I did not observe anything particular in the aspect of the glorious planet, except that he appeared to me (it might have been a delusion of my heightened fancy) to shine with more than common brilliancy, and to shed a refulgent lustre upon the town, such as I had never observed before. This is the more extraordinary, as the sky was perfectly cloudless, and the atmosphere peculiarly fine. At half-past nine o'clock the general committee assembled, with the last year's president in the chair. The report of the council was read; and one passage, which stated that the council had corresponded with no less than three thousand five hundred and seventy-one persons, (all of whom paid their own postage,) on no fewer than seven thousand two hundred and forty-three topics, was received with a degree of enthusiasm which no efforts could suppress. The various committees and sections having been appointed, and the mere formal business transacted, the great proceedings of the meeting commenced at eleven o'clock precisely. I had the happiness of occupying a most eligible position at that time, in

"SECTION A.—ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY.
"GREAT ROOM, PIG AND TINDER-BOX.
"PRESIDENT—PROFESSOR SNORE. VICE-PRESIDENTS—PROFESSORS DOZE AND WHEEZY.

"The scene at this moment was particularly striking. The sun streamed through the windows of the apartments, and tinted the whole scene with its brilliant rays, bringing out in strong relief the noble visages of the professors and scientific gentlemen, who, some with bald heads, some with red heads, some with brown heads, some with grey heads, some with black heads, some with block heads, presented a coup-d'œil which no eye-witness will readily forget. In front of these gentlemen were papers and inkstands; and round the room, on elevated benches extending as far as the forms could reach, were assembled a brilliant concourse of those lovely and elegant women for which Mudfog is justly acknowledged to be without a rival in the whole world. The contrast between their fair faces and the dark coats and trousers of the scientific gentlemen I shall never cease to remember while Memory holds her seat.

"Time having been allowed for a slight confusion, occasioned by the falling down of the greater part of the platforms, to subside, the president called on one of the secretaries to read a communication entitled, 'Some remarks on the industrious fleas, with considerations on the importance of establishing infant schools among that numerous class of society; of directing their industry to useful and practical ends; and of applying the surplus fruits thereof, towards providing for them a comfortable and respectable maintenance in their old age.'

"The Author stated, that, having long turned his attention to the moral and social condition of these interesting animals, he had been induced to visit an exhibition in Regent-street, London, commonly known by the designation of 'The Industrious Fleas.' He had there seen many fleas, occupied certainly in various pursuits and avocations, but occupied, he was bound to add, in a manner which no man of well-regulated mind could fail to regard with sorrow and regret. One flea, reduced to the level of a beast of burden, was drawing about a miniature gig, containing a particularly small effigy of his Grace the Duke of Wellington; while another was staggering beneath the weight of a golden model of his great adversary Napoleon Bonaparte. Some, brought up as mountebanks and ballet-dancers, were performing a figure-dance (he regretted to observe, that, of the fleas so employed, several were females); others were in training, in a small card-board box, for pedestrians,—mere sporting characters—and two were actually engaged in the cold-blooded and barbarous occupation of duelling; a pursuit from which humanity recoiled with horror and disgust. He suggested that measures should be immediately taken to employ the labour of these fleas as part and parcel of the productive power of the country, which might easily be done by the establishment among them of infant schools and houses of industry, in which a system of virtuous education, based upon sound principles, should be observed, and moral precepts strictly inculcated. He proposed that every flea who presumed to exhibit, for hire, music or dancing, or any species of theatrical entertainment, without a licence, should be considered a vagabond, and treated accordingly; in which respect he only placed him upon a level with the rest of mankind. He would further suggest that their labour should be placed under the control and regulation of the state, who should set apart from the profits, a fund for the support of superannuated or disabled fleas, their widows and orphans. With this view, he proposed that liberal premiums should be offered for the three best designs for a general almshouse; from which—as insect architecture was well known to be in a very advanced and perfect state—we might possibly derive many valuable hints for the improvement of our metropolitan universities, national galleries, and other public edifices.

"The President wished to be informed how the ingenious gentleman proposed to open a communication with fleas generally, in the first instance, so that they might be thoroughly imbued with a sense of the advantages they must necessarily derive from changing their mode of life, and applying themselves to honest labour. This appeared to him, the only difficulty.

"The Author submitted that this difficulty was easily overcome, or rather that there was no difficulty at all in the case. Obviously the course to be pursued, if her Majesty's government could be prevailed upon to take up the plan, would be, to secure at a remunerative salary the individual to whom he had alluded as presiding over the exhibition in Regent-street at the period of his visit. That gentleman would at once be able to put himself in communication with the mass of the fleas, and to instruct them in pursuance of some general plan of education, to be sanctioned by Parliament, until such time as the more intelligent among them were advanced enough to officiate as teachers to the rest.

"The President and several members of the section highly complimented the author of the paper last read, on his most ingenious and important treatise. It was determined that the subject should be recommended to the immediate consideration of the council.

"Mr. Wigsby produced a cauliflower somewhat larger than a chaise-umbrella, which had been raised by no other artificial means than the simple application of highly carbonated soda-water as manure. He explained that by scooping out the head, which would afford a new and delicious species of nourishment for the poor, a parachute, in principle something similar to that constructed by M. Garnerin, was at once obtained: the stalk of course being kept downwards. He added that he was perfectly willing to make a descent from a height of not less than three miles and a quarter; and had in fact already proposed the same to the proprietors of Vauxhall Gardens, who in the handsomest manner at once consented to his wishes, and appointed an early day next summer for the undertaking; merely stipulating that the rim of the cauliflower should be previously broken in three or four places to ensure the safety of the descent.

"The President congratulated the public on the grand gala in store for them, and warmly eulogised the proprietors of the establishment alluded to, for their love of science, and regard for the safety of human life, both of which did them the highest honour.

"A Member wished to know how many thousand additional lamps the royal property would be illuminated with, on the night after the descent.

"Mr. Wigsby replied that the point was not yet finally decided; but he believed it was proposed, over and above the ordinary illuminations, to exhibit in various devices eight millions and a half of additional lamps.

"The Member expressed himself much gratified with this announcement.

"Mr. Blunderum delighted the section with a most interesting and valuable paper 'on the last moments of the learned pig,' which produced a very strong impression upon the assembly, the account being compiled from the personal recollections of his favourite attendant. The account stated in the most emphatic terms that the animal's name was not Toby, but Solomon; and distinctly proved that he could have no near relatives in the profession, as many designing persons had falsely stated, inasmuch as his father, mother, brothers and sisters, had all fallen victims to the butcher at different times. An uncle of his, indeed, had with very great labour been traced to a sty in Somers Town; but as he was in a very infirm state at the time, being afflicted with measles, and shortly afterwards disappeared, there appeared too much reason to conjecture that he had been converted into sausages. The disorder of the learned pig was originally a severe cold, which, being aggravated by excessive trough indulgence, finally settled upon the lungs, and terminated in a general decay of the constitution. A melancholy instance of a presentiment entertained by the animal of his approaching dissolution, was recorded. After gratifying a numerous and fashionable company with his performances, in which no falling-off whatever, was visible, he fixed his eyes on the biographer, and, turning to the watch which lay on the floor, and on which he was accustomed to point out the hour, deliberately passed his snout twice round the dial. In precisely four-and-twenty hours from that time he had ceased to exist!

"Professor Wheezy inquired whether, previous to his demise, the animal had expressed, by signs or otherwise, any wishes regarding the disposal of his little property.

"Mr. Blunderum replied, that, when the biographer took up the pack of cards at the conclusion of the performance, the animal grunted several times in a significant manner, and nodded his head as he was accustomed to do, when gratified. From these gestures it was understood that he wished the attendant to keep the cards, which he had ever since done. He had not expressed any wish relative to his watch, which had accordingly been pawned by the same individual.

"The President wished to know whether any member of the section had ever seen or conversed with the pig-faced lady, who was reported to have worn a black velvet mask, and to have taken her meals from a golden trough.

"After some hesitation a Member replied that the pig-faced lady was his mother-in-law, and that he trusted the president would not violate the sanctity of private life.

"The President begged pardon. He had considered the pig-faced lady a public character. Would the honourable member object to state, with a view to the advancement of science, whether she was in any way connected with the learned pig?

"The Member replied in the same low tone, that, as the question appeared to involve a suspicion that the learned pig might be his half-brother, he must decline answering it.

"SECTION B.—ANATOMY AND MEDICINE.
"COACH-HOUSE, PIG AND TINDER-BOX.
"PRESIDENT—DR. TOORELL. VICE-PRESIDENTS—PROFESSORS MUFF AND NOGO.

"Dr. Kutankumagen (of Moscow) read to the section a report of a case which had occurred within his own practice, strikingly illustrative of the power of medicine, as exemplified in his successful treatment of a virulent disorder. He had been called in to visit the patient on the 1st of April 1837. He was then labouring under symptoms peculiarly alarming to any medical man. His frame was stout and muscular, his step firm and elastic, his cheeks plump and red, his voice loud, his appetite good, his pulse full and round. He was in the constant habit of eating three meals per diem, and of drinking at least one bottle of wine, and one glass of spirituous liquors diluted with water, in the course of the four-and-twenty hours. He laughed constantly, and in so hearty a manner that it was terrible to hear him. By dint of powerful medicine, low diet, and bleeding, the symptoms in the course of three days perceptibly decreased. A rigid perseverance in the same course of treatment for only one week, accompanied with small doses of water-gruel, weak broth, and barley-water, led to their entire disappearance. In the course of a month he was sufficiently recovered to be carried down stairs by two nurses, and to enjoy an airing in a close carriage, supported by soft pillows. At the present moment he was restored so far as to walk about, with the slight assistance of a crutch and a boy. It would perhaps be gratifying to the section to learn that he ate little, drank little, slept little, and was never heard to laugh by any accident whatever.

"Dr. W.R. Fee, in complimenting the honourable member upon the triumphant cure he had effected, begged to ask whether the patient still bled freely?

"Dr. Kutankumagen replied in the affirmative.

"Dr. W.R. Fee.—And you found that he bled freely during the whole course of the disorder?

"Dr. Kutankumagen.—Oh dear, yes; most freely.

"Dr. Neeshawts supposed, that if the patient had not submitted to be bled with great readiness and perseverance, so extraordinary a cure could never, in fact, have been accomplished. Dr. Kutankumagen rejoined, certainly not.

"Mr. Knight Bell (M.R.C.S.) exhibited a wax preparation of the interior of a gentleman who in early life had inadvertently swallowed a door-key. It was a curious fact that a medical student of dissipated habits, being present at the post mortem examination, found means to escape unobserved from the room, with that portion of the coats of the stomach upon which an exact model of the instrument was distinctly impressed, with which he hastened to a locksmith of doubtful character, who made a new key from the pattern so shown to him. With this key the medical student entered the house of the deceased gentleman, and committed a burglary to a large amount, for which he was subsequently tried and executed.

"The President wished to know what became of the original key after the lapse of years. Mr. Knight Bell replied that the gentleman was always much accustomed to punch, and it was supposed the acid had gradually devoured it.

"Dr. Neeshawts and several of the members were of opinion that the key must have lain very cold and heavy upon the gentleman's stomach.

"Mr. Knight Bell believed it did at first. It was worthy of remark, perhaps, that for some years the gentleman was troubled with a night-mare, under the influence of which, he always imagined himself a wine-cellar door.

"Professor Muff related a very extraordinary and convincing proof of the wonderful efficacy of the system of infinitesimal doses, which the section were doubtless aware was based upon the theory that the very minutest amount of any given drug, properly dispersed through the human frame, would be productive of precisely the same result as a very large dose administered in the usual manner. Thus, the fortieth part of a grain of calomel was supposed to be equal to a five-grain calomel pill, and so on in proportion throughout the whole range of medicine. He had tried the experiment in a curious manner upon a publican who had been brought into the hospital with a broken head, and was cured upon the infinitesimal system in the incredibly short space of three months. This man was a hard drinker. He (Professor Muff) had dispersed three drops of rum through a bucket of water, and requested the man to drink the whole. What was the result? Before he had drunk a quart, he was in a state of beastly intoxication; and five other men were made dead-drunk with the remainder.

"The President wished to know whether an infinitesimal dose of soda-water would have recovered them? Professor Muff replied that the twenty-fifth part of a tea-spoonful, properly administered to each patient would have sobered him immediately. The President remarked that this was a most important discovery, and he hoped the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen would patronise it immediately.

"A Member begged to be informed whether it would be possible to administer—say, the twentieth part of a grain of bread and cheese to all grown-up paupers, and the fortieth part to children, with the same satisfying effect as their present allowance.

"Professor Muff was willing to stake his professional reputation on the perfect adequacy of such a quantity of food to the support of human life—in workhouses; the addition of the fifteenth part of a grain of pudding twice a week, would render it a high diet.

"Professor Nogo called the attention of the section to a very extraordinary case of animal magnetism. A private watchman, being merely looked at by the operator from the opposite side of a wide street, was at once observed to be in a very drowsy and languid state. He was followed to his box, and being once slightly rubbed on the palms of the hands, fell into a sound sleep, in which he continued without intermission for ten hours.

"SECTION C.—STATISTICS.
"HAY-LOFT, ORIGINAL PIG.
"PRESIDENT—MR. WOODENSCONSE. VICE-PRESIDENTS—MR. LEDBRAIN AND MR. TIMBERED.

"Mr. Slug stated to the section the result of some calculations he had made with great difficulty and labour, regarding the state of infant education among the middle classes of London. He found that, within a circle of three miles from the Elephant and Castle, the following were the names and numbers of children's books principally in circulation:—

"Jack the Giant-killer	7,943
Ditto and Bean-stalk	8,621
Ditto and Eleven Brothers	2,845
Ditto and Jill	1,998
	———
Total	21,407

"He found that the proportion of Robinson Crusoes to Philip Quarlls was as four and a half to one; and that the preponderance of Valentine and Orsons over Goody Two Shoeses was as three and an eighth of the former to half a one of the latter: a comparison of Seven Champions with Simple Simons gave the same result. The ignorance that prevailed, was lamentable. One child, on being asked whether he would rather be Saint George of England or a respectable tallow-chandler, instantly replied, 'Taint George of Ingling.' Another, a little boy of eight years old, was found to be firmly impressed with a belief in the existence of dragons, and openly stated that it was his intention when he grew up, to rush forth sword in hand for the deliverance of captive princesses, and the promiscuous slaughter of giants. Not one child among the number interrogated had ever heard of Mungo Park,—some inquiring whether he was at all connected with the black man that swept the crossing; and others whether he was in any way related to the Regent's Park. They had not the slightest conception of the commonest principles of mathematics, and considered Sinbad the Sailor the most enterprising voyager that the world had ever produced.

"A Member strongly deprecating the use of all the other books mentioned, suggested that Jack and Jill might perhaps be exempted from the general censure, inasmuch as the hero and heroine, in the very outset of the tale, were depicted as going up a hill to fetch a pail of water, which was a laborious and useful occupation,—supposing the family linen was being washed, for instance.

"Mr. Slug feared that the moral effect of this passage was more than counterbalanced by another in a subsequent part of the poem, in which very gross allusion was made to the mode in which the heroine was personally chastised by her mother

"'For laughing at Jack's disaster;'

besides, the whole work had this one great fault, it was not true.

"The President complimented the honourable member on the excellent distinction he had drawn. Several other members, too, dwelt upon the immense and urgent necessity of storing the minds of children with nothing but facts and figures; which process the President very forcibly remarked, had made them (the section) the men they were.

"Mr. Slug then stated some curious calculations respecting the dogs'-meat barrows of London. He found that the total number of small carts and barrows engaged in dispensing provision to the cats and dogs of the metropolis, was one thousand seven hundred and forty-three. The average number of skewers delivered daily with the provender, by each dogs'-meat cart or barrow was thirty-six. Now, multiplying the number of skewers so delivered, by the number of barrows, a total of sixty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight skewers daily would be obtained. Allowing that, of these sixty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight skewers, the odd two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight were accidentally devoured with the meat, by the most voracious of the animals supplied, it followed that sixty thousand skewers per day, or the enormous number of twenty-one millions nine hundred thousand skewers annually, were wasted in the kennels and dust-holes of London; which, if collected and warehoused, would in ten years' time afford a mass of timber more than sufficient for the construction of a first-rate vessel of war for the use of her Majesty's navy, to be called 'The Royal Skewer,' and to become under that name the terror of all the enemies of this island.

"Mr. X. Ledbrain read a very ingenious communication, from which it appeared that the total number of legs belonging to the manufacturing population of one great town in Yorkshire was, in round numbers, forty thousand, while the total number of chair and stool legs in their houses was only thirty thousand, which, upon the very favourable average of three legs to a seat, yielded only ten thousand seats in all. From this calculation it would appear,—not taking wooden or cork legs into the account, but allowing two legs to every person,—that ten thousand individuals (one-half of the whole population) were either destitute of any rest for their legs at all, or passed the whole of their leisure time in sitting upon boxes.

"SECTION D.—MECHANICAL SCIENCE.
"COACH HOUSE, ORIGINAL PIG.
"PRESIDENT—MR. CARTER. VICE-PRESIDENTS—MR. TRUCK AND MR. WAGHORN.

"Professor Queerspeck exhibited an elegant model of a portable railway, neatly mounted in a green case, for the waistcoat pocket. By attaching this beautiful instrument to his boots, any Bank or public-office clerk could transport himself from his place of residence to his place of business, at the easy rate of sixty-five miles an hour, which, to gentlemen of sedentary pursuits, would be an incalculable advantage.

"The President was desirous of knowing whether it was necessary to have a level surface on which the gentleman was to run.

"Professor Queerspeck explained that City gentlemen would run in trains, being handcuffed together to prevent confusion or unpleasantness. For instance, trains would start every morning at eight, nine, and ten o'clock, from Camden Town, Islington, Camberwell, Hackney, and various other places in which City gentlemen are accustomed to reside. It would be necessary to have a level, but he had provided for this difficulty by proposing that the best line that the circumstances would admit of, should be taken through the sewers which undermine the streets of the metropolis, and which, well lighted by jets from the gas-pipes which run immediately above them, would form a pleasant and commodious arcade, especially in winter-time, when the inconvenient custom of carrying umbrellas, now so general, could be wholly dispensed with. In reply to another question, Professor Queerspeck stated that no substitute for the purposes to which these arcades were at present devoted had yet occurred to him, but that he hoped no fanciful objection on this head would be allowed to interfere with so great an undertaking.

"Mr. Jobba produced a forcing-machine on a novel plan, for bringing joint-stock railway shares prematurely to a premium. The instrument was in the form of an elegant gilt weather-glass of most dazzling appearance, and was worked behind, by strings, after the manner of a pantomime trick, the strings being always pulled by the directors of the company to which the machine belonged. The quicksilver was so ingeniously placed, that when the acting directors held shares in their pockets, figures denoting very small expenses and very large returns appeared upon the glass; but the moment the directors parted with these pieces of paper, the estimate of needful expenditure suddenly increased itself to an immense extent, while the statements of certain profits became reduced in the same proportion. Mr. Jobba stated that the machine had been in constant requisition for some months past, and he had never once known it to fail.

"A Member expressed his opinion that it was extremely neat and pretty. He wished to know whether it was not liable to accidental derangement? Mr. Jobba said that the whole machine was undoubtedly liable to be blown up, but that was the only objection to it.

"Professor Nogo arrived from the anatomical section to exhibit a model of a safety fire-escape, which could be fixed at any time, in less than half an hour, and by means of which, the youngest or most infirm persons (successfully resisting the progress of the flames until it was quite ready) could be preserved if they merely balanced themselves for a few minutes on the sill of their bed-room window, and got into the escape without falling into the street. The Professor stated that the number of boys who had been rescued in the day-time by this machine from houses which were not on fire, was almost incredible. Not a conflagration had occurred in the whole of London for many months past to which the escape had not been carried on the very next day, and put in action before a concourse of persons.

"The President inquired whether there was not some difficulty in ascertaining which was the top of the machine, and which the bottom, in cases of pressing emergency?

"Professor Nogo explained that of course it could not be expected to act quite as well when there was a fire, as when there was not a fire; but in the former case he thought it would be of equal service whether the top were up or down."

---

With the last section, our correspondent concludes his most able and faithful Report, which will never cease to reflect credit upon him for his scientific attainments, and upon us for our enterprising spirit. It is needless to take a review of the subjects which have been discussed; of the mode in which they have been examined; of the great truths which they have elicited. They are now before the world, and we leave them to read, to consider, and to profit.

The place of meeting for next year has undergone discussion, and has at length been decided; regard being had to, and evidence being taken upon, the goodness of its wines, the supply of its markets, the hospitality of its inhabitants, and the quality of its hotels. We hope at this next meeting our correspondent may again be present, and that we may be once more the means of placing his communications before the world. Until that period we have been prevailed upon to allow this number of our Miscellany to be retailed to the public, or wholesaled to the trade, without any advance upon our usual price.

We have only to add, that the committees are now broken up, and that Mudfog is once again restored to its accustomed tranquillity,—that Professors and Members have had balls, and soirées, and suppers, and great mutual complimentations, and have at length dispersed to their several homes,—whither all good wishes and joys attend them, until next year!

Signed Boz.

A REMONSTRATORY ODE TO MR. CROSS.

BY JOYCE JOCUND.

Good Mr. Cross! we hate the fuss

And flames of your Vesuvius,

Whose roaring quite convinces us,

As each successive shock

Grows louder,

That you deem a dose of powder,

With its deafening noise,

As good as medicine given to girls and boys

Suffering with measles or small-pock;—

In short we do believe, beyond a doubt,

You physic us to bring th'eruption—out!

In vain soft balmy sleep one courts,

On exhibition nights; all sorts

Of terrible and strange reports

Drive rest away, and mock it.

Think you our wives can quiet keep,

Or that a child can go to sleep

The while you "squib and rocket?"

I tell you, sir, I cannot count

The dangers to our daughters' fame;

But this I'll publish to their shame,

They find their sparks, and feel love's flame

Increasing in a-mount!

And tho' I'm no amusement hater,

Yet, by my study of Lav-a-ter,

Vesuvius is a dangerous—crater!

Bethink you, on some gala night,

Whether you'd much enjoy the sight

Of beasts and birds all taking flight,

And from the gardens, making out,

Should your Eruption, with its jars,

Just chance to break their cages' bars.

That were indeed a "breaking out"

And din

I rather think you'd be for "driving in!"

Come, Mr. Cross, for once do try

To be good-natured, and your name belie;

Indulge no more these furious fiery fits;

Let such freaks cease,

Blow up your Mount Vesuvius—all to bits,

And prithee let us have—"a little peace!"

---

MEMOIR OF BEAU NASH.

Richard Nash—or Beau Nash, as he is commonly called—was born at Swansea, in the autumn of the year 1674. His father possessed a moderate income, which he derived from a partnership in a glass manufactory; and his mother was niece to Colonel Poyer, a chivalrous old Cavalier, who was executed by order of Cromwell for defending Pembroke Castle against the assaults of the Roundheads. At the usual age young Nash was sent to a private school at Carmarthen, whence in due time he was transferred to Jesus College, Oxford, where he distinguished himself by an extraordinary and precocious genius for intrigue and gallantry. Before he was seventeen, he had got himself into at least a dozen delicate dilemmas; and, but for the seasonable interference of his college tutor, would have married a female of abandoned character, whose wit and beauty had completely turned his brain.

Disheartened by such licentious conduct, his father abruptly recalled him from the university, and purchased him a commission in the army; a profession of which he soon grew weary, the more especially as he had little besides the slender pay of an ensign to support him. Finding, however, that it was necessary to make some sort of exertion in order to obtain a decent livelihood, our Beau entered himself as a law-student in the Temple, and for some months applied himself assiduously to study. But his natural volatility soon regained its usual ascendency over him, and, dismissing all thoughts of acquiring fortune and reputation as a lawyer, he set up for a man of wit and fashion about town, dressing, as one of his biographers observes, "to the very edge of his finances," exhibiting himself conspicuously in the side-boxes of the theatres, cultivating the acquaintance of young men of rank and wealth, and practising those arts of address and persuasion for which he was afterwards so celebrated.

It was while he was a student in the Temple that a circumstance occurred which gave a wondrous lift to his sense of self-importance, and brought him before the gay world in the very way he most preferred. It seems that it had been long the custom of the different inns of court to entertain our sovereigns on their accession to the crown with a dramatic pageant; and, on the accession of William the Third, Nash was appointed to conduct this entertainment, a task which he fulfilled so much to his Majesty's satisfaction, that he made him an offer of knighthood. But he refused this honour, at the same time hinting that he should have no objection to be made one of the Poor Knights of Windsor, for then he should have a fortune sufficient to maintain his new dignity. The King smiled, but took no further notice of this broad hint, for he was not one to give pensions without value received; and jokes, even of the first water, always ranked low in his estimation.

BEAU NASH

This affair of the pageant procured Nash many associates among the rich and the titled, who were delighted by his good-humoured vivacity, his easy assurance, his clever after-dinner stories, and his familiar acquaintance with the habits of town life. Many characteristic anecdotes are told of him at this gay period of his life. On one occasion, when called on by the masters of the Temple for certain accounts, among other items he made this odd charge, "For making one man happy, ten pounds." "What is the meaning of this, sir?" said one of the dignitaries in his gravest and most authoritative manner. "Why, to tell you the truth," replied Nash, "I happened a few days ago to overhear a poor man, who had a large family, say that ten pounds would make him happy for life, and I could not resist the opportunity of trying the experiment." The masters were so much struck with the singularity of this explanation, that they not only allowed the charge, but even insisted on doubling it, in testimony of their approbation of Nash's benevolence. On another occasion, having gone down on a sporting excursion to York, our thoughtless Beau lost all his money at the gaming-table; and on applying for assistance to a college friend whom he met with in the city, was promised the loan of fifty pounds, provided he would stand at the great door of the Minster in a blanket, just as the people were coming out of church. Nash unhesitatingly agreed to do so, but had not stood there long before he was discovered by the dean, who had some slight acquaintance with him. "What!" exclaimed the divine, "Mr. Nash in masquerade?" "Not so, reverend sir; I am merely doing penance for keeping bad company;" saying which, he pointed to his companion, who was not a little annoyed at finding the laugh thus unexpectedly turned against him. A few days afterwards, Nash won another wager by riding naked through a country village on a cow, a freak which in those times was considered a clever practical joke!

But the strangest of all his adventures is the following. He was once invited by some convivial officers of the navy on board a frigate that had just received sailing orders for the Mediterranean; and, after spending some hours in revelry, found that during his debauch the vessel had set sail, and that to return to land was wholly out of the question. He accordingly, nothing loth, made the whole voyage with his boon companions, and in the course of it was engaged in action, and severely wounded in the leg, while one of his friends was shot dead by his side. In after years Nash was singularly fond of repeating this story; but as he was apt, like Foote's liar, to be occasionally "poetical in his prose," his hearers always received it with a wholesome distrust. "I don't believe one word about your having been kidnapped on board ship," said a lady of distinction to him one day in the Bath pump-room. "Fact, upon my honour," replied the unabashed Beau; "and, if you will step with me into another room, I shall be happy to show you my leg, which will convince you whether I speak truth or not."

On his return from this naval trip, Nash, who had now reached the age of thirty, and had neither fortune nor profession to rely on for support, turned his whole attention to gambling. He encountered the usual vicissitudes attendant on this course of life, sometimes winning, but more frequently losing, but always bearing his reverses with equanimity. Vive la bagatelle! was his motto. He was not one to sit down and despond because luck had gone against him. If it rained one day, he felt sure it would clear up the next; so, shrugged his shoulders, and waited patiently the approach of more sunny weather.

We now come to the great epoch in Nash's life,—his accession to the throne of fashion! About the year 1705, a short visit paid by Queen Anne to Bath had the effect of directing the eyes of the gay world to that city. Our Beau, among others, was attracted to it; and, having amassed a large sum by gambling, soon made himself conspicuous by the splendour of his equipage, his trim attire, courteous manners, and invincible good-humour. In those primitive days Bath was little better than an ordinary country town; but Nash, with the prophetic eye of taste, discerned its capabilities as a fashionable watering-place, and by adroitly flattering the local authorities, and worming himself into the good graces of all the most influential inhabitants, succeeded in obtaining the appointment of Master of the Ceremonies, with sole and uncontrolled power to raise subscriptions for building pump-rooms, laying out public walks, and making whatever improvements he might think expedient. From this period down nearly to the day of his death, Nash was, to all intents and purposes, sovereign of the city. King George might rule at St. James's, but King Richard ruled at Bath.

"The eagle he was lord above,

But Rob was lord below."

One of the first reforms projected by the new monarch was in the dress of his subjects. Previous to his accession to the throne it had invariably been the custom for gentlemen to dance in boots. Nash resolved to put a stop to this barbarism, and accordingly issued a ukase ordering his people never henceforth to make their appearance at the Assembly Rooms, save in pumps, silk stockings, and all the finery of full dress. For some time this arbitrary mandate was resisted by more than one Bath Hampden; but perseverance at length gained the day, and the patriots surrendered at discretion. But not only was Nash omnipotent at the city of Bladud, but he subdued also Tunbridge Wells to his authority. In fact, he was as successful a despot as Napoleon, with this difference in his favour,—that he ruled by the force of address, while the other ruled solely by force of arms. Napoleon tamed refractory subjects by threats of exile or imprisonment; Nash, by threats of epigrams in the county newspapers.

Having crushed rebellion by the strong arm of power, and brought to a successful issue the important question of boots, or no boots, our Beau next proceeded to draw up a social code, which in the strictness with which it was enforced, and the benefits it conferred on the community for whose use it was intended, may vie with the famous Code Napoléon. "I shall go down to posterity," said the French emperor, "with my code in my hand." Nash has come down to posterity with his code also in his hand. We have diligently perused this celebrated document, which, although it contains as many violations of grammar as a king's speech, is remarkable for the good sense and simplicity of its directions. On the conduct, in particular, to be observed by both sexes at public assemblies, it is shrewd and explicit to a degree. Here Nash showed himself the very incarnation of punctilious etiquette. Even royalty itself endeavoured in vain to mitigate the severity of his decrees. The Princess Amelia having one night humbly requested him to permit her to join in one more country-dance after the hour of breaking up had arrived, Nash assured her that the "established rules of Bath resembled the laws of Lycurgus, which would admit of no alteration without an utter overthrow of all legitimate authority." Of course, as a member of the constitutional House of Brunswick, her Royal Highness succumbed to the force of this logic.

One of Nash's special objects of dislike, and against which he pointed the whole artillery of his sarcasm, was a white apron, then much worn by ladies at public assemblies. To such an extent did he carry his abhorrence of this article of female apparel, that he actually stripped the Duchess of Queensberry one evening at a ball, "and threw her apron," says his biographer, "upon the hinder benches among the ladies' women;" a significant hint which had all the good effect he could have desired. If Peter the Great has been universally praised for his address in prevailing on his countrywomen to adopt European costumes, surely Richard the Great deserves equal credit for having been able to persuade his female subjects to lay aside their darling prejudices in favour of aprons!

Nash had now been upwards of three years Master of the Ceremonies at Bath; and such was the attention which he paid to its amusements, and so numerous the improvements he made in the architecture and public walks of the city, that it soon became the most fashionable watering-place in the empire. But even this did not satisfy his thirst for notoriety, and accordingly he founded another kingdom at Tunbridge Wells, whither he was in the habit of travelling once a year, in a post-chariot drawn by six greys, with out-riders, French horns, and all the paraphernalia of royalty. His arrival at this picturesque spot was always followed by that of the nobility and gentry, who regarded him as their "Sir Oracle." Even the announcement, "Nash is coming," was quite sufficient to raise the price of lodgings, and set every adventurer on the qui vive.

And here it may be asked, how was it that Nash, who started on his career without a sixpence in his pocket, and was generally unsuccessful at play, contrived for so many years to maintain such a splendid establishment? The answer is soon given. He was a sleeping partner in one of the most thriving of the Bath gambling-houses. Connected with his transactions in this line we give the following curious anecdotes, which will show that whatever were the defects of his head, his heart was always in the right place. The Earl of T——, when a young man, was inordinately addicted to gambling, and in particular loved to have the King of Bath for his opponent. He was, however, no match for his majesty, who, after winning several trifling sums from him, resolved to attempt his cure, foreseeing that otherwise he would fall a prey to adventurers who might not be so forbearing as himself. Accordingly he engaged his lordship one evening in play to a very serious amount, and won from him, first, all his ready money, then the title-deeds of his estates, and, finally, the very watch in his pocket and the rings on his fingers. When he had thus sufficiently punished the young nobleman for his infatuation, Nash read him a lecture on the flagrant impropriety of attempting to make money by gambling, when poverty cannot be pleaded in justification of such conduct; after which he returned him all his winnings, merely exacting from him a promise that he would never play again! Not less generously did he behave to an Oxford student who had come to spend the long vacation at Bath. This greenhorn, who also affected to be a gamester, was lucky enough to win a large sum of money from our Beau, and after the game was ended, was invited by him to supper. "Perhaps," said Nash, "you think I have asked you for the purpose of securing my revenge; but I can assure you that my sole motive in requesting your company is, to set you on your guard, and to entreat you to be warned by my experience, and shun play as you would the devil. This is strange advice for one like me to give; but I feel for your youth and inexperience, and am convinced that if you do not stop where you now are, you will infallibly be ruined." Nash was right. A few nights afterwards, having lost his entire fortune at the gaming-table, the young man blew his brains out!

Though it was one of Nash's foibles to be thought "a lady-killer," yet this did not prevent him from befriending the fair sex whenever opportunity offered. He was the means of exposing many a scheming libertine, and more than one heiress owed to him her escape from the snares of penniless adventurers. About the time of the treaty of Utrecht, a certain Colonel M——, a gallant, handsome officer of dragoons, was in great favour with all the Bath ladies. As, however, he had nothing to depend on but his pay, it was an object with him to marry for money; and accordingly he singled out a Miss L——, a wealthy heiress, whose father was desirous that she should espouse a nobleman of distinction. But the colonel had gained her affections; whereupon Nash, who was well acquainted with his circumstances, wrote to the young lady's parents, advising them strongly to put an end to the connexion, which they did, by abruptly removing her from Bath. The disappointed suitor, enraged at the Beau's interference, instantly sent him a challenge, which was declined; for, among other of his prejudices, Nash held the monomachia or duello in the most unequivocal abhorrence. Finding his only chance of retrieving his finances thus cut off, the colonel quitted Bath, where his creditors were become quite clamorous, and in a fit of desperation hurried over to the Continent, and joined the Dutch army in Flanders. Here he enlisted himself as a volunteer; while his friends, not hearing of or from him for a considerable period, gave out that he had been killed in battle. Meantime the nobleman, taking advantage of his rival's absence, pushed his suit with ardour; but, before he could bring it to a satisfactory conclusion, the young lady's father died, leaving her property to the amount of fifteen hundred pounds per annum! It was at this crisis of her fate that Nash happened to hear that the colonel had returned to England, but, fearful of being discovered by his creditors, had changed his name, joined a company of strolling actors, and was then playing at Peterborough. On learning these particulars, our Beau thought that the time was come for him to make reparation to the colonel, especially as the lady was now of age, and fully competent to make her own choice of a husband. He invites her accordingly to join him and some mutual friends in a short trip to Peterborough, where they arrive early in the forenoon, and, by way of passing the evening agreeably, pay a visit to the theatre. Just as they are entering the box, the colonel appears on the stage. The young lady recognises him in an instant, and is so much affected by his altered circumstances, that she faints away. On regaining consciousness, she finds him standing beside her. Nash has brought him there. "You thought me your enemy," said the kind-hearted monarch, "but I was no such thing; I merely thought one of you too extravagant, and the other too inexperienced, to be likely to make a happy match of it. But the case is altered now; if, therefore, you feel inclined to marry, do so in God's name, and d—n him, say I, that would part you!" They were married within the month, and Nash spent many a pleasant day at their villa in the neighbourhood of Bristol.

Mr. Wood, the architect, of Bath, has left on record another anecdote of Nash, which redounds equally to his credit. About the period of his greatest popularity, there came to the city a young lady well known by the name of Sylvia, who, as she was handsome, accomplished, of "gentle blood," and possessed of a large fortune, soon became one of the ruling belles of the day. Among the number of this lady's admirers was a gentleman, nicknamed by his friends the "Good-natured Man," from his easy and indolent temper. He was of sadly improvident habits; and having contracted heavy debts, which he was wholly unable to discharge, he was arrested and thrown into prison, which coming to the ears of Sylvia, she went to consult Mr. Nash upon the best means of freeing him from his embarrassments. His majesty strongly endeavoured to persuade her from interfering in the matter; observing that her interference would be sure to be misconstrued, and that to evince such extreme interest in a young man who had no claim on her consideration further than having occasionally flirted with her in society, would expose her to the cruellest calumnies; and, moreover, that she could do him no good, for that her entire fortune, ample as it was, would be scarcely sufficient to satisfy the demands of his creditors. The thoughtless and enamoured girl listened to, but was not convinced by, Nash's arguments. She expended a large portion of her property in defraying the "Good-natured Man's" debts; but before she could accomplish his liberation he died, and she had the mortification to discover that she had not only lost the greatest part of her fortune, but, which was of more value, her reputation also. In this forlorn condition, her spirits broken, and her society avoided by those who had formerly been proud to rank themselves among her flatterers, she accepted the offer of a plausible old demirep, who kept one of the most splendid gaming establishments at Bath, to pay an occasional visit to her rooms, for the hag was shrewd enough to foresee that Sylvia's beauty would prove a powerful magnet of attraction to the libertines who frequented such places. Here Nash used often to meet her, and, believing that she was still innocent, however thoughtless her conduct might be, remonstrated with her in the kindest terms, and at length succeeded in persuading her to take up her residence with Mr. Wood's family in Queen Square. While here, Mr. Wood describes her as having been most exemplary in her habits, seldom going out, but confining herself to the solitude of her chamber, where she spent the greatest portion of her time in reading. About a month after she had been domesticated in his house, business of importance took her host to London; and it was during his absence that Sylvia first meditated the idea of suicide. One evening, after having been more than usually cheerful, and amused herself by dandling one of Mr. Wood's children in her arms, she ordered supper to be got ready in the library, and, having spent some hours alone there, went up into her bed-room. On her way, she had to pass through the chamber where her host's children lay asleep, and struck with their happy, innocent countenances, and the consciousness of her own meditated guilt, she burst into tears; but, recovering herself with an effort, hurried into her own apartment, carefully locking the door behind her. She then proceeded to dress herself in white like a bride's-maid, neatly arranged her hair, and, having procured a pink silk girdle, which she lengthened by means of another made of gold thread, placed it on the table, and, throwing herself on the bed, spent some time in reading. About midnight she rose, and, after kneeling for a few minutes in prayer, mounted upon a chair, drove a large nail into the closet-door, and, attaching one end of the girdle to it, fastened the other tightly about her neck, and so hung suspended. Her weight, however, proving too much for it, the girdle broke, and she fell to the floor with violence; but, still resolute to destroy herself, she made a second attempt, in which she unfortunately succeeded. Her death created an extraordinary sensation throughout Bath; the coroner's jury brought in a verdict of lunacy; and Nash, who, with Mr. Wood, was the only friend the poor girl had left, attended her funeral, and did his best to protect her memory from insult.

In the year 1734 Bath was honoured by a visit from the Prince of Orange, and in 1738 by another from the Prince of Wales, both of whom took particular notice of Nash; for which, in return, the grateful Beau erected obelisks in their honour. He had now attained the climax of his popularity. His word was law; his bow an honour; his acquaintance a sure passport into the best circles. The Prince of Wales having made him a present of a magnificent gold snuff-box, the rest of the nobility thought it incumbent on them to follow the example; and, accordingly, it soon became the fashion—a fashion which he most disinterestedly encouraged—to give Nash snuff-boxes. As if this were not sufficient distinction, the corporation, in a paroxysm of gratitude for the benefits which he had conferred on their city, determined on erecting a full-length statue of him in the Pump-room, between the busts of Newton and Pope, which gave rise to one of Lord Chesterfield's wittiest and most caustic epigrams. We subjoin the closing stanza of this brilliant gem:—

'The statue, placed the busts between,

Adds to the satire strength;

Wisdom and Wit are little seen,

But Folly's at full length,"

Poor Nash's brains were half-turned by such brilliant prosperity. He had his levees, where he affected all the airs of a legitimate monarch; his buffoons, his parasites, and even his poet-laureate. But, so far was he from being satisfied with the flatteries constantly lavished on him, that his appetite "grew by what it fed upon." If a beggar in the street called him "Your honour," he always bowed low to the compliment; but if he called him "Your lordship," he would give him every farthing he had about him. He has even been known, when in London, to stand a whole day at the window of the Smyrna Coffee-house, merely in the hope of receiving a passing bow from the Prince of Wales or the Duchess of Marlborough!

The numerous dedications to Nash are not the least curious proofs of his universal celebrity. Some of these are such exquisite samples of the servile, that we cannot resist the temptation of extracting a sentence or two from them. One is from a noted highwayman, who was taken up for attempting to rob and murder a Dr. Handcock. This scamp, whose name was Baxter, published a book, dated from Taunton jail, exposing the tricks of thieves and gamblers, which he dedicated to Nash, as follows: "As your honour's wisdom, humanity, and interest, are the friend of the virtuous, I make bold to lay at your honour's feet the following work," &c. Another dedication is from a professor of cookery, who says, "As much as the oak exceeds the bramble, so do you, honoured sir, exceed the rest of mankind in benevolence, charity, and every other virtue that adorns, ennobles, and refines the human species. I have, therefore, made bold to prefix your name, though without your permission, to the following volume, which stands in need of such a patron." We next find a musical composer essaying the complimentary. "To whom," asks this sycophantic dedicator, "could I presume to offer these, my first attempts at musical composition, but to the great encourager of all polite arts; for your generosity knows no bounds, nor are you more famed for that dignity of mind which ennobles and gives a grace to every part of your conduct, than for that humanity and beneficence, which make you the friend and benefactor of all mankind!" These dedications, and a hundred others of the same calibre, which might have turned the stomach of an ostrich, Nash digested with uncommon facility. But it was with the flatteries of the poets that he used to be most tickled; and many a hungry browser on Parnassus has been rescued by his thirst for praise from the fangs of an unimaginative bailiff.

But the hour was at hand when this Wolsey of the fashionable world was doomed to experience the caprice and neglect of those circles whom he had so long ruled with despotic authority. His sun had attained its meridian, and was already journeying westward. Intoxicated with self-conceit, and firmly persuaded that he was the first man of the age, he began to lay aside those magic arts of address to which he owed all his success; became morose and fidgety; and took a pleasure in speaking unpleasant truths, which he mistook for wit. He was, besides, getting fast on in years; and age, which brings wisdom to some, to men like Nash is apt to bring nothing but petulance and imbecility. But he was not splenetic without reason; for his fortune, which he had never husbanded, diminished rapidly, and he had no earthly means left of recruiting it. His greatest grievance, however, was the gradual dropping off of his old friends the nobility, who, it is said, exerted all their influence with the corporation of Bath to get him superannuated, and Quin, the actor, appointed Master of the Ceremonies in his stead. This unparalleled ingratitude, as he called it, stung Nash to the quick, and he threatened to take his revenge of a degenerate aristocracy by writing his memoirs! His intention, however, was never carried into effect; which is a pity, for, judging by the few scraps of composition he left behind, his book would have been a literary phænomenon of the first water.

Nash was now become a confirmed old dotard; nevertheless, he still aped the character of a young beau,—still continued to haunt like a spectre the scenes of his departed glory. Though the snows of eighty-six winters were whitening on his head, it was still his proudest ambition to "settle the fashion of a lady's cap," and assign her her proper station in a country-dance. This, which, to say the worst of it, was but harmless drivelling, roused against him the pious wrath of the more straight-laced among the Somersetshire clergy, who pelted him with the most minaceous pamphlets; exhorted him to quit the assembly-room for the church, and to repent of those colossal enormities of which they charitably took for granted he had been guilty. One of these clerical pamphleteers addressed him in the following indulgent terms: "Repent! repent! or wretched will you be, silly, vain old man, to eternity! The blood of souls will be laid to your charge; God's jealousy, like a consuming flame, will smoke against you, as you yourself will see in that day when the mountains shall quake, and the hills melt, and the earth be burned up at his presence." Another says, "God will bring you to judgment. He sees me now I write; he will observe you while you read. He notes down my words; he will also note down your consequent procedure. Not then upon me, not upon me, but upon your own soul will the neglecting or despising my sayings turn." How different these fanatical fulminations from the honied flatteries, in the shape of poems and dedications, on which Nash's vanity had been so long fed!

The poor old man was now hourly decaying; but this quite as much from grief as age. The season of snuff-boxes was over; the great had altogether forgotten him; and he was preserved from utter penury solely by the munificence of the Bath corporation, who granted him ten guineas the first Monday of every month. For some weeks previous to his decease it was evident that his last hour was at hand; but he himself would never admit it. He clung to life with all the tenacity of a Johnson; and roundly asserted that he was in robust health at the very moment when he was treading, with palsied head and tottering limbs, on the threshold of the grave. At length his exhausted powers wholly gave way, and he expired in the eighty-seventh year of his age, at his house in St. John's Court, Bath, in the spring of 1761.

No sooner was his death known than the press teemed with tributes to his memory. The Muses were called on to lament the eclipse of the brightest luminary of the age; and epitaphs were written on him,—one in Latin, and another in English,—by two of the most accomplished scholars in the kingdom. That in Latin, by Dr. King, is a fine sample of mock-solemnity, comparing Nash, as a legislator, with Solon and Lycurgus, and giving him the preference to both. But, in his own capital, the sensation occasioned by our Beau's decease was unexampled. The very day after, the corporation, with the mayor at their head, met in full and solemn conclave, and voted nem. con. fifty pounds towards defraying their monarch's funeral expenses. The corpse lay four days in state; after which it was conveyed to the Abbey Church, in the midst of one of the greatest crowds that had ever assembled in Bath. The following week, the principal local journal commented on the mournful event as follows: "Sorrow sate on every face, and even children lisped that their sovereign was no more. The peasant discontinued his toil; the ox rested from the plough; all nature seemed to sympathise with our loss; and—the muffled bells rung a peal of bob-major!" It must be confessed, to our shame, that we have no such newspaper writing as this now-a-days. We have become as unimaginative as steam-engines, and no longer indulge in those astounding bursts of eloquence and sensibility which used to electrify our grandfathers and grandmothers.

In person Nash was large and awkward, with harsh, strong, and irregular features. Nevertheless, he was popular with women, and not unsuccessful as a gallant; for he dressed showily, had some wit, abundance of small talk, and was by no means encumbered with modesty. He used frequently to say of himself, that he was, "like Nestor, a man of three generations." The Beau of his youth, he would observe, was stiff, solemn, and formal to a degree; visiting his mistress, as Jupiter visited Semele, in state; toasting her on bended knees; and languishing, a timid suppliant, at her feet, by the hour together. The Beau of his manhood was just the reverse; being a pert, grinning, lively chatterbox,—such as we meet with in Congreve's comedies; ready for any absurd, outré display of sentiment; and deeming it an exalted proof of gallantry to eat "a pair of his idol's shoes tossed up in a fricassee." The Beau of his old age was a still more extraordinary character, for his whole secret in intrigue consisted in perfect indifference. If his mistress honoured him with her approbation, well; if not, she might let it alone. He had no notion of breaking his heart for love. Women were as plentiful as mushrooms, and always to be had for the asking. Nash was a great theorist on all matters of sentiment. It was a favourite maxim with him that good-humour and fine clothes were enough to ruin a nunnery; but that "flummery," or the art of saying nothings, was worth them both put together. Women, he used to say, dote upon lively nonsense; always talk to them, therefore, in the language they best understand. The instant you begin to converse rationally with them the game is up, which is the reason why learned men make such indifferent lovers.

Next to his powers of gallantry, Nash piqued himself on his wit. But he was by no means remarkable for this quality, though never did mortal man labour harder to say good things. His best jokes were always cracked unawares. The majority of them are well known to the world, for Smollett, with the coolest effrontery, has transferred them, unacknowledged, into his own novels. We will, however, give one or two of them. Meeting one morning, in the Pump-room, a lady who was deformed, Nash asked her where she came from. Her reply was, "Straight from London." "Then, madam," replied the Beau, "you must have been confoundedly warped by the way." Doctor Cheney, on some occasion having recommended to him a vegetable diet, he tartly observed, "I suppose you would have me go grazing and eating thistles like Nebuchadnezzar!" "No, no," said the doctor, who was also a wag, "there needs no such metamorphosis; your ears are quite long enough already." Being once confined to his house by sickness, the same physician drew up a prescription for him, and, calling on his patient next day, found him up and well. "I'm glad you had the good sense to follow my prescription, Mr. Nash," quoth the leech. "Follow it!" exclaimed the other. "Egad, if I had, I should have broke my neck, for I flung it out of my bed-room window." We are not without our suspicions that this last witticism is a regular Joe Miller, for we have detected it in at least a dozen different publications. But this is not to be wondered at, for your good joke is the greatest of travellers. The "facetiæ" of the old Greek wag, Hierocles, have been naturalised in every language of Europe.

Though convivial in his youth, yet, for the greatest portion of his life, Nash was rigidly abstemious in his habits. He loved plain dishes, seldom remained long at table, and usually contented himself with two glasses of wine. But he liked to see his friends enjoy themselves, and would encourage them in these elegant and emphatic terms: "Eat, gentlemen,—eat and drink, in God's name; spare, and the devil choke you!" His favourite meal was supper; and so fond was he of potatoes, which he called the English pine-apple, that he used to eat them, like fruit, after dinner. He was also remarkable for his love of early rising, being seldom in bed after four in summer, and five in winter. His generosity and benevolence were unbounded. He gave away enormous sums in charity, and founded a hospital at Bath, the expenses of which for a time almost beggared him. Though he had a great respect for rank, yet he discouraged anything like aristocratic assumption; and, whenever he heard a young lord boasting of his family, never failed to put him down with a sneer. In this respect he resembles the late John Kemble, of whom it is recorded, that, when dining with the Dukes of Hamilton and Gordon, who were boasting somewhat ostentatiously of the antiquity of their blood, he lost all patience, and put an abrupt stop to their egotism by exclaiming, "D—n both your bloods; pass the bottle!" Owing to his frequent intercourse with small poets, Nash fancied that he was a judge of the art. A volume of Pope, who was his favourite writer, generally lay on his table, though we question much whether he ever got beyond the "Rape of the Lock." This, however, was a production every way calculated to please him; and, accordingly,—a rich trait of character,—he was never weary of repeating the lines,

"Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,

And the nice conduct of a clouded cane."

Though he had mixed so much with the world, yet Nash was a man of great simplicity of character. He imagined that others were as frank and sincere as himself; and, in his connexion with the gambling establishments at Bath and Tunbridge Wells, never kept an account, but trusted entirely to the honour of his partners. He was never married, though he once made proposals to a young lady, whose parents favoured his suit, for he was then at the summit of his celebrity. She, however, declined his addresses; but, apprehensive of her father's indignation, went to Nash, and candidly told him that her affections were fixed upon another. He immediately sent for his rival; gave him the lady with his own hand; and reconciled her parents to the match by settling on her a fortune equal to that which they proposed to give her. Unfortunately, however, his generosity was thrown away; for soon after her marriage she ran away with her footman, and her husband died of grief.

Late in life Nash set up for a teller of good stories, which he would repeat half-a-dozen times in the same day. As he seldom allowed truth to stand in the way of a point, his anecdotes were sometimes amusing, despite the "says he's" and "says I's" with which he stuffed them usque ad nauseam. The surest way to gain his favour,—next to dedicating a work to him,—was to laugh, in the right place, at his conceits, and call him an "odd fellow;" for, like the majority of mankind, he looked upon eccentricity as a sure test of genius. But, indeed, vanity was his ruling foible. He had numerous other weaknesses; but this, "like Aaron's serpent, swallowed all the rest." He considered his office to be the most important in the world, and himself the greatest man in it. Yet he was not naturally devoid of good sense; but, having been long accustomed to pursue trifles, his mind insensibly shrunk to the size of the petty objects on which it was employed. Even the most frivolous duties of his office he discharged with the gravest punctiliousness; and, though overflowing with the milk of human kindness, never forgave a breach of his regulations. The man might relent; but the Master of the Ceremonies was inexorable!

The influence that Nash had on the social character of his age was greater than has been generally supposed. Men of far more exalted pretensions than he have not effected one half the good. He was the first who promoted a taste for elegant amusements, and an ease of address, among a people notorious for their anti-gregarious habits, and reserved and awkward bearing. The disposition for familiar intercourse, which—encouraged by his example—strangers acquired at Bath and Tunbridge Wells, they carried with them to the metropolis, and whatever other place they might visit; and thus the whole kingdom became gradually more refined and social in its character. When it is borne in mind that Nash laid the foundation of this wholesome change without any help from birth, fortune, connexions, or superior intellect; that, with nothing but his good-humour and his address to support his claims, he reigned the undisputed monarch of the empire of fashion for upwards of half a century; though we cannot affirm that he was a great man, it is impossible to deny that he was an extraordinary one.

---

GRUB-STREET NEWS.

Acres is made by Sheridan to say, "The best terms will grow obsolete." This, every day's experience proves to be true. "What a shocking bad hat!" "There he goes with his eye out!" and "Flare up!" were doomed to make way for "Who are you?"—as "All round my hat," with the public street vocalists, has been superseded by "Jump, Jim Crow."

But it may be remarked that popular phrases founded on a well-known fact have had a longer duration than those which cannot be proved to have any such origin.

The cry of "Nosey!" at the theatres, when it was wished that the music should play up, which arose about a century ago in honour of Mr. Cervetto, whose nasal promontory used to adorn the Drury-lane orchestra, survived till a very late period, and indeed has hardly yet fallen into desuetude; and "Grub-street news" is still spoken of by our elder quidnuncs, though probably they would be puzzled to tell, not the meaning of the sentence, but how those words came to convey the meaning they embody.

It has been said that they took their rise from the circumstance of a set of needy scribblers having established themselves in Grub-street, a mean narrow passage leading from Chiswell-street to Fore-street, now dignified with the name of Milton-street, and thence sending forth fabricated intelligence. This may be true; but still there was a founder of this hopeful colony, whose name has not been preserved. It is intended in this paper to fill up the hiatus in history which has so long been deplored. George Iland appears to have been the man.

In the early part of the reign of Charles the Second, some very bold inventions were hazarded, and given to the world duly attested, with as good a set of signatures appended as Morison's pills can command now. They somehow attracted the notice of those in authority, and one of the marvellous narratives launched in the year 1661 was thought worthy to be made the subject of an official investigation. Some curiosity will be felt to know what sort of a narrative it could be that received this singular honour. A verbatim copy is therefore subjoined. The original filled six pages, and was adorned with a grotesque engraving, which it is hardly worth while to transcribe. The title-page ran thus:

"A STRANGE AND TRUE
RELATION
OF A WONDERFUL AND TERRIBLE
EARTH-QUAKE,

That happened at Hereford on Tuesday last, being the first of this present October 1661,

Whereby

A Church-Steeple and many gallant Houses were thrown down to the ground, and several of the Inhabitants slain; with the terrible Thunder-claps and violent Storm of great Hail-stones that then fell, which were about the bigness of an Egge, many Cattle being thereby utterly destroyed as they were feeding in the Field.

Also,

The prodigious and wonderful Apparitions that was seen in the Air, to the great amazement of all Spectators, who beheld two perfect Armes and Hands: In the Right-Hand being graspt a great broad Sword, and in the Left, a Bowl full of Blood, from whence they heard a most strange and loud Voice, to the wonderful astonishing of all present, the fright whereof causing divers Women to fall in Travel, amongst whom the Clerk's Wife, named Margaret Pelmore, fell in labour and brought forth three Male-Children, who had all Teeth, and spake as soon as they were born, and presently after gave up the Ghost and died together; the like having never been known before in any Age!

"The Truth hereof is witnessed by
Francis Smalman, and Henry Cross, Churchwardens.
Peter Philpot, Constable.
Nicholas Finch, Gent.
James Tulley, Gent.
George Cox,
Robert Morris,
Thomas Welford, &c.
"London, Printed for J.J. 1661."

"a
"True and perfect Relation of the terrible Earth-quake, great Claps of Thunder, and mighty Hail-stones, which hapned at Hereford, on Tuesday last, the first of this present October, &c.

"Before I mention any further concerning this strange and sudden Accident, which hath so lately befaln at Hereford, and that this Real and Authentique Truth may not seem doubtful, I shall put the Reader hereof in minde to take notice and remember the several Disasters that hath befaln, not long since, in and about London, which I need not here to declare, yet none so wonderful or worthy of observation as this; but let it not seem strange, for we know, and often read, that the Lord doth sometimes manifest his will unto the World in Wonders and Signes, thereby in some part to shew his Omnipotency, and let them know that he is still the Almighty God, and that he sees and knows all our ways, how slight soever we make thereof. Then how can we praise him sufficiently, when we hear of this strange Disaster that did so lately befal at Hereford, in that he was pleased to keep the like from us here in London, we being as sinful as any? But he that is all Mighty and all Powerful, is also all Goodness and all Merciful, whereon depends the best hopes of all good Christians.

"And now to descend to the subject I was before speaking of, which was of the violent Tempest, and terrible Earth-quake, &c. that hapned at Hereford, be pleased to observe the true Relation thereof, which is thus:

"On Tuesday last, being the first of this present October 1661, about 2 of the clock after Noon, there hapned a great and violent storm to arise, to the amazing and astonishing of all the inhabitants. The first beginning was with a most terrible Winde, which continued for the space of 2 hours, with such vehemency, that it forced the Tiles off the Houses, insomuch that none durst come out at their doors; in the midst of which storm was blown down the Steeple of a Church, and many brave Houses, the falling whereof hath killed some persons, but what they are, or whom, we yet know not.

"Then the Air began to be darkned, but, suddenly clearing again, the people began to look abroad; and so continuing for a while, all assuredly thought the storm to be over: but contrary to their hopes, about 6 or 7 of the clock in the evening, their ears were solicited with unwonted Claps of Thunder; and, more to augment their fear, presently fell such Hail-stones, that the like was never seen in any Age before, each Hail-stone being about the bigness of an Egge, which several gentlemen of quality affirm, here present in London, who certifie that they destroyed the Cattle in the Field, and did much other harm.

"Then followed a terrible and fearful Earth-quake, which continued almost for the space of half an hour, which so amazed the inhabitants, that they thought the last Day had been come; and immediately appeared a great brightness, as if it had been Noon-day, but was presently overcast with a Black Cloud, out of which appeared a perfect Armes and Hands; in the right-hand was grasped a great broad Sword, and in the left a Cup, or Boul, as they conceived, full of Blood.

"Having glutted their eyes with amazement, and filled their hearts with great fear, with beholding these prodigious Apparitions, more to astonish both them and us, appeared to their eyes a piece of Corn, ground, ready to mow, and a Sythe lying by, from whence they heard a most strange and loud voice, which said, 'Woe, woe to thee, and to the inhabitants thereof, for he cometh that is to come, and ye shall all see him!'

"At the conclusion of these words, the people made a grievous cry, as indeed they might, and many Women that were with Child, through extream fear, fel in travel; but none so wonderful to be taken notice of, as Mrs. Margaret Pelmore, the Clerk's Wife of the Town, who, for the space of twenty Weeks, wanting her bodily health, had sought for cure of the Doctors: This Margaret Pelmore at that very instant fell in travel, being exceedingly affrighted, and brought forth 3 Male Children, who had all teeth, and spake as soon as they were born. The first said, 'The Day is appointed which no Man can shun.' The second demanded, 'Where would be found sufficient alive to bury the Dead?' And the third said, 'Where will there be Corn enough to satisfie the hungry and needy?'

"As soon as they had spoken these words, they all immediately gave up the Ghost and died, to the great astonishing and amazement of all present; and the Mother of the said Children doth at this moment lie Distracted, and raging in such extream manner, that none can tell, as yet, whether she will live or die!

"The truth whereof is witnessed by
Francis Smalman,
Henry Cross, Churchwardens.
Peter Philpot, Constable.
Nicholas Finch.
James Tulley,
George Cox,
John Groom,
Robert Maurice,
Thomas Welford,
And divers others.
"FINIS."

Such was the experiment then made on public credulity. The inquiry which has been mentioned is proved to have taken place by a paper found some years ago in the State Paper Office, attached to the pamphlet itself, which was marked, "Examina[~c]on of Jo. Jones," and dated "20th 8ber, 1661." The examination is reported as follows:

"This Examinate saith that he had a share in the printing of the booke of an Earth quake at Hereford, but did not Print it; and that it was printed in Mr. Alsop's house in grub streete where one Geo. Iland, who brought the coppy, liveth.

"John Jones."

---

SONG OF THE MONTH. No. XI.

November, 1837.

Of all the months that compose the year,

From January chill, to December drear,

Commend us to November;

For, sure as its period comes around,

Good fellows are over the wine-cup found,—

'Twas so since we remember.

Let April boast of its sunny showers,

Let May exult in its gay young flowers,

And June in its heat and its light;

This, this is the month to surpass them all,

While wine-cups circle in wood-lit hall,

And wit flashes on through the night.

What flowers can vie with the charms we view

Around us then? Love's rosiest hue

To woman's cheek is given.

No shower is like the tear of the grape,

In its rainbow Joy has his happiest shape,

And each tint is direct from heaven.

If mists veil the earth, and if storms arise,

And darkness broods gloomily over the skies,

And the gusty wind sullenly moans;

Let them e'en do their worst:—we care not a pin,

Though it's dreary without, we are merry within

As we listen to music's gay tones.

Then of all the months that compose the year,

From January chill, to December drear,

Commend us to November;

For, sure as its period comes around,

Good fellows are over the wine-cup found,—

And 'twas so since we remember.

---

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

BY BOZ.

ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.