'Herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses?'
"Since then, imagination has been at play; and, in accordance with its suggestions, his bib and tucker have been donned, as trusty adjutants to the formidable wooden spoon. Thus armed, while sister Phillis—the creative genius of the savoury structure—regards the baker's boy with her modest glance, young Corydon, with his prophetic anticipation, is ogling the baker's burden. If his knife be as sharp as his appetite, 'twill want no whetting! We must expect that, in the afternoon, when anticipation shall have faded through the stages of its fulfilment, if no longer entranced by the pleasures of Hope, he will solace himself with those of Memory." And there, sure enough, is the grinning baker's boy, and the pie admirably baked; and the boy of the bib and tucker, and the wooden spoon, realizing it through his nostrils, and magnifying it through his eyes; and there is the neat-handed Phillis, who cares little for the eating. Feminine and gluttonous seldom come together. "The little glutton" is ever the male. This was in Webster's own way, and he has hit it off truly; he has seen it hundreds of times, and knew as well as Townsend who should have the wooden spoon. We find we have omitted to notice one plate, and that by Redgrave. We did not expect landscape by his hand. It is, however, very clever; there is a light over the dark church-tower which a little offends. Keep down that a little, and you recognize the true effect of nature. It is a view of Worcester. "A spot," says Mr Redgrave, "memorable as the scene of that battle signalized by Oliver Cromwell as the 'crowning mercy;' and whence the young Charles II. commenced the series of romantic and perilous adventures which terminated in his safety."
Our work of criticism is at an end; not so our pleasure. We shall look at this choice volume again and again; and as we have somewhat arrogantly, and with a conceit of our ability and right so to do, taken the Etching Club under our especial care, regard, and patronage, we shall think ourselves at liberty to encourage and to exhort them whenever we see fit. We therefore do exhort them to go on, to give a taste for painters' etchings, to improve themselves, too; and let each make it a rule to himself never to take the trouble to touch a subject that is not worth doing; nor to tell a story not worth telling, however such may seem to look pretty or with effect upon copper or paper; by all means to avoid "annual sentimentalities," and commonplace "acting charades;" and never to forget that expression is the soul of the art. For the present, we dismiss them with thanks—like the prudent physician, who, as Fielding says, always stands by to see nature work, and contents himself by clapping her on the back, by way of approbation, when she does well.
A LOVE-CHASE—IN PROSE.
CHAPTER I.
Bandvale Hall had lain empty for a long time—old Frank Edwards, so well known as a sportsman, had been dead for eighteen years, his horses sold, his kennels dismantled, and his son, after so absurdly long a minority, (for his father had capriciously fixed his majority at twenty-three,) only now coming of age; but whether he would reside at Bandvale, or continue in the neighbourhood of Leicester, where his guardian lived, or what he would do, nobody could tell. The estate, we were told, in spite of the economical management of four or five attorneys, and a couple of stewards, was more involved than when old Frank died; and many a time have I sighed, as I ambled past the lodges, and saw grass growing over the drive, contrasting these appearances with the jolly days I had known in the hall, "when the beards wagged all—shall we ever see the like again?" But change passes over all; and Bandvale was not the only place or the only thing that felt its influence. We were all very different from what we were; we had a railway within half an hour's drive; we had a Methodist chapel in the village; we had a clergyman who preached in his surplice, and would have had a hurl off a lame donkey if he had ventured into the saddle; the hounds were given up; you were asked to dinner at half-past seven, and got home again by ten; rather a changed state of affairs since old Frank kept the ball alive, and Parson Holt rode his grey nag over bank and fence, and we had two packs within ten miles, and no Methodists in the village, and no railroad in the county, and every thing was exactly as it ought to be; and we dined at five, and got home—when it pleased Heaven. Sometimes I turned down the avenue, and took a melancholy look at the old Hall. It is a great square house; flanked with two turrets, with fine old stone windows, and a stone porch in the middle. The Bandvale river runs through the park about three hundred yards from the front door, and is crossed by two bridges in the direction of the lodges, east and west; and beyond it rises the upland, all dotted over with clumps of elm—and at the highest part of the park is the church; a great black figure, kneeling on one knee, used to bear up the sun-dial in the centre of the sweep—his leg had given way from the weight of years and the huge globe he supported, and the poor old fellow lay on his back, kicking up the stump of his leg in a most audacious manner, in the very face of the sun. "The great globe itself had dissolved, and left not a wreck behind." They talk of Marius among the ruins of Carthage, and Coliseums unroofed, and temples of Theseus with crumbling pillars—all these are desolate enough; but then, their condition is picturesque: and I doubt whether Marius in the capitol, and the Coliseum newly finished, and the Temple at the time of its consecration, were half such interesting objects as in the days of their decline and fall. But to me the true representative of desolation was the long tufts of grass that grew in old Frank Edwards's stable-yard, the weeds that choked up the hall door, and the broken panes of the great dining-room windows—the spacious yard, the hospitable door, the jocund dining-room. And now young Frank was just coming to his legal age, and we were all forming our guesses and conjectures as to what the youth's proceedings would be when he came into possession. I made sure, if the property was really involved to the extent reported, that he would sell some of the lands he had in other counties; a farm or two he had in Sussex; a tolerable estate in the north; and a foolish marine villa somewhere in Devonshire, and pay off all incumbrances, and settle himself for life at Bandvale Hall. He would still have a very fine fortune; and it had been the family seat since the reign of Charles the Second. All the mothers and aunts in the county thought it was a seat like a Spanish saddle, and would carry double; and it certainly was amazing to see the preparations that were made to get the proper foot in the stirrup. It seemed agreed that for a young gentleman of twenty-three, seventeen was the only admissible age; and to reach that desirable date, as great cruelty was practised on the baptismal register books as on ancient travellers by the bed of Procrustes-girls of twenty-four were shortened by seven years, and little children of fourteen elongated by three. In some families there were three or four daughters all of the same age, yet not the least like twins; brothers and fathers were kept in marching order, ready to be dispatched to make poor Frank's acquaintance the moment he took possession. I also, though unendowed with any possession so valuable as either daughter, or sister, or niece, kept myself prepared to welcome my old friend's son, whenever he arrived.
The day of majority came at last—the third of June. The tenants of the Bandvale farms had a dinner at the Rose and Crown, and one of the managing attorneys proposed the young landlord's health in a speech full of amazing eloquence, but with a countenance that would have been more appropriate to a funeral oration than a toast; and it was, in fact, the funeral oration over his stewardship, as he gave notice that it was Mr Edwards's intention to take the management into his own hands—a piece of information that gave great satisfaction to every one except the firm of Goody and Fripp. But in spite of this announcement, young Frank never made his appearance—the walks continued overgrown with grass—the wounded Atlas looked proudly to heaven from his deathbed of fame-and the young ladies remained on the tiptoe of expectation.
"What can be the matter with the boy?" thought I; "has he no regard for his father's neighbours, and his own birthplace?"
"What can be the matter with the boy?" thought Miss Sibylla Smith, and all the maidens young, old, and middle aged. "Has he fallen in love with his tutor's daughter, or got engaged to his guardian's niece?" for our young people had studied life so zealously in three-volume novels, that they never doubted for a moment that Frank Edwards's tutor (if he had a tutor) had a daughter, or that his guardian (and they knew he had a guardian) had a niece. But in spite of all our thoughts Bandvale Hall continued empty.
"I'll take another look at the old place," I said, one day in August as I was passing the lodge, and rode at a quiet contemplative walk down the avenue. I hung my rein over one of the rails of the porch steps, and passed round into the garden. Not a flower to be seen; but the place of them famously supplied with potatoes and other useful articles—and the same evidence of absenteeism in the shape of tottering walls, and grass grown walks, and dusty fountains in all directions. What a shame!—if I knew the boy's address, I would write to him to come home at once; but that Leicestershire guardian has kept him quite separated from those who ought to have been his friends, and had the bringing up of him from his youth. If we are to have him all the rest of his life, he could not have come among us too early; and in the firm intention of carrying this resolution into effect, I determined to look out for some workman about the place, to ask where Mr Edwards was to be found. The man that has the care of the garden can't be far off;—and accordingly I went in search of him. But either the vegetables were illustrations, like Southey's butlers, of self-culture, or the gardener had gone to dinner; and in the expectation of finding him in the kitchen, I clambered into the house by an open window, and walked quietly along the passage. I thought I heard voices in the garden library, a delightful room on the ground-floor, where I had passed many an evening with old Frank; and, supposing the gardener had taken possession of it, I opened the door. Close to the window two persons were sitting, so deeply engaged in conversation that they did not remark my entrance, and I took the opportunity of observing them at leisure. They were both young men—both tall and good-looking; one remarkably dark, with great umbrageous whiskers and mustaches; the other a chestnut-haired, fresh-complexioned youth, so like poor old Frank in the set on of his head and breadth of his shoulders, that I knew in a moment it could be no one but his son. They seemed both very much excited about something; but from the whispered tone of their conversation, it was difficult to make out what it was. The dark man, who was six or seven years older than his companion, had apparently been saying something that shocked the other, for he clenched his hand, and threw his eyes despairingly to the ceiling; and no wonder, for the words I heard, as I advanced from the screen at the door, were enough to raise a shudder in any person's breast. He said—