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So. 350. NEW SBKHS. SATURDAT, MARCH 27, 1875 sail •<• Diamond's appreciation of himself was CHARMING FELLOW. likely to be a just one, and he was a little BT FKAKCKS ELEAKOB TBOLLOPB. vexed and discomfited, that his tutor had «r " Auxrr UASOASTT'S TROUBLI," given him no word of praise behind his PBoaBzas," &c., Ac. back. Mra. Errington saw that she had made an impression, and began to heighten CHAPTEE VI. and embellish her stetemente accordingly. IT is exceedingly disagreeable to find " But, my dear boy," said she, " how can. that a scheme you have set your heart on, we expect him to recognise talente like or a prospect which smUes before you, is youra—gentlemanly teleats, so to apeak P displeasing to the persona who surround The man himself is a mere plodder. Why, you. It gives a cold shock to the glow of he was a sizar at college !" anticipation. Algy felt himself to be a very generous Algernon did not perhaps care to sym­ fellow for continuing to " stend up for old pathise very keenly vrith other folks' Diamond," as he phrased it. pleasure, but he certainly desired that "Well, ma'am, plenty of great men they should be pleased vritii what pleased have been poor scholara. Dean Swift him, which is not quito the same thing. was a sizar." Hia mother informed him—perhaps with "And Dean Swift died in a madhouse! a dash of the Ancram colouring; although So you see, Algy!" i we have seen how unjustly the worthy Mrs. Errington plumed herself a good lady was suspected of falsehood by Dr. deal upon this retort, and retumed to the Bodkin on a lato occasion—that Mr. atteck upon Mr. Diamond with fresh Diamond disapproved of his refusing Mr. vigour; being one of those persons whose Filthorpe's offer, and of his resolve to go mode of warfare is elephantine, and who, to London. Dr. Bodkin, Algernon knew, never content with merely killing their did not approve it; neither did Minnie, enemy, must ponderously stamp and mash although she had never said so in words. every semblance of humanity out of him. How unpleasantly chUly people were, to Algernon did not like all this. His be sure! vanity was—at least during this period of Mra. Errington did not like Mr. Diamond. hia Ufe—a great deal more vulnerable than She mistmstod him. His silence and gra­ his mother's. And she, although she rity, his odd sarcastic smiles, and taciturn doated on him, would say unpleasant politeness, made her uneasy. Despite the things, indignantly repeat mortifying re­ patronising way in which she had spoken marks which had been made, and in a of him to Minnie Bodkin, in her heart hundred ways unconsciously wound the she thought the young man to be horribly sensitive love of approbation which was presuming. one of Algernon's tenderest (not to say " I'm sure he doesn't appreciate you at weakest) points. all, Algy," she declared, winding up a list It was all very disagreeable. But it of Mr. Diamond's defecte and misdemea- was not the worst he had to look forward nonra with this culminating accusation. to. There was one person who would be Algy had a shrewd notion that Mr. so cast down, so despairing, at the news

VOL. XIII. 830 ^ yL ^ [Conducted by 554 [Mardh 27,1876.1 ALL THB TBAB BOUND.

of his going away, that—that—it wonld descriptions she gave of hor ancestral be quite painful for a fellow to witness home in Warwickshire, Rhoda's imagina­ such grief. And yet it could not bcex- tion put in the hoy as the central figure tiected—it conld never have been expected of the piece. She could see hki in the 1-that he *hottld stay in Whitford all hiB great hall hung round with armour; life! Be must point that out to Rhoda. although she knew that he had never been in the fanuly mansion in his life ; in the Poot Rhoda! grand drawing - room, with its purple For ten years, that is to say for more carpet, and gilt furniture ; above aU, in the than half her life, Algernon Errii^on long portrait gallery, of which Rhod(* was had been an idol, a hero, to her. Prom never tired of hearing. Heaven kiiows the firat day when, peeping from behind how she, innocently, and Mre. Errington, the parlour door, she had beheld the exercising her hereditary talent, em­ strangers enter—Mrs. Errington, majestic, bellished and transformed the old brick in a huge hat and plume, such as young honse in ite deer park, or what enchanted readers may have seen in obsolete fashion landscapes the child at all evente conjured books (the mode was so absurd fifty years np, among the gentle slopes and tufted • ago, and had none of that simple elegance woods of Warwickshire 1 which distinguishes your costume, my dear young lady), and Algy, a lovely fair Even the period !of hobbledehoydom, child, in a black velvet suit and faUing fatal to beauty, to grace, almost to civilised collar—from that moment the boy had humanity in most school-boys, Algernon been a radiant apparition in her imagina­ passed through triumphantly. He had a tion. How small, and poor, and shabby she great sense of humour, and fastidious felt, as she peeped out of the parlour at pampered habite of mind and body, which that beautiful, blooming mother and son! enabled him to look down with more or Not poor and shabby in a milliner's sense less disdain—a good-humoured disdain, of the word, but UteraUy of no account, or always, Algy was never bitter—npon beauty, or value, in the world, little shy tbe obstreperous youth at the Whitford motherless thing! She had an intense Grammar School. delight in beauty, this Whitford grocer's One fight he had. He -waa foreed into daughter. And all her little life the it by circumstences, against his vrill. Not craving for beauty in her had been sterved: that he was a coward, but he had a not wUfuUy, bnt because the very concep­ greater, and more candidly expressed tion of such food as would wholesomely regard for the ease and comfort of his have fed it, was wanting in the people bcSy, than his schoolfeUows conceived to with whom she lived. be compatible vrith pluck. However, our That was a great day when she first, by young friend, if less stoical, was a great chance, attracted Mrs. Errington's notice. deal cleverer than the majority of hig She was too timid and too simple to peera; and perceiving that the moment had scheme for that end, as many chUdren arrived when he must either fight or lose would have done, although she tremblingly casto altogether, he frankly accepted the desired it. What a surprisingly splendid former alternative. He fought a boy sight was the tortoise-sheU work-box, full bigger and heavier than himself, got of amber satin and. sUver! What a beaten (not severely, bnt fairly well beaten) delightful revelation the sound of the old and bore his defeat—in the dialect of his harpsichord, touched by Mrs. Errington's oompeera, " took his licking "—admirably. plump white fingera! What a perennial He was quite as popular afterwards, as if source of wonder and admiration were he had thrashed his adversary, who was a that lady's accomplishments, and conde­ loutish boy, the cock of the school, as to scension, and kind soft voice ! strength. Had he bruised his way lo the As to Algernon, there never was such a perUous glory of being cock of the school clever and brilliant little boy. At eight himself, it would have behoved him to years old he could sing little songs to his maintein it against aU comers; which is mother's accompaniment, in the sweetost an anxions and harassing position. Algy piping voice. He could recite little veraes. had not vanquished the victor, but he had He even drew quite so that you could tell " teken his Ucking Uke a trump," and, on —or Rhoda could—his trees, houses, and the whole, may be said to have achieved men from one another. his reputetion, at the smaUest cost possible under the circumstences. In all the stories his mother told about the greatness of hor family, and in aU the His mother and Rhoda almost shrieked

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year's seniority made a greater difference was bnt a boy, however; and he always between them then, than it did later) had a great gift of enjoying the present and had always been nsed to do him moment, and sending Janus-headed Care, sisterly service in a hundred ways. And that looks forward and backward, to the all this was by no means favourable to deuce. As yet there was no Lord Seely the young gentleman's falling in love with on his horizon; no London society; no her. diplomatic career. The latter indeed was But at Llanryddan, Rhoda appeared bnt an Ancramism of his mother's, when under quite a different aspect. She she spoke of it to Mr. Diamond, and Algy looked prettier than ever before, Algernon at that time had never enterteined the thought. And perhaps she really was so ; idea of it. for there is no such cosmetic for the com­ So these two young peraons sat side hy plexion as happiness. Apart from her side, on the bench outside the Welsh cot­ vulgar relations, and treated as a lady by tege, and were as happy as the midsummer the few strangera with whom they came days were long. in contact, it was surprising to find how Bnt long as the midsummer days were, good her manners were, and how much they passed. Then came the time for natural grace she possessed. Mra. Erring­ going back to Whitford. The day before ton had teught her what may be termed their return home Rhoda received a shock the technicalities of polite behaviour. of pain—the firat, but not the last, which From her own heart and native sensi­ she ever felt from this love of here—at bility she had learned the essentials. The these words, said carelessly, but in a low people in the village turned their heads to voice, by Algy, as he lounged at her side, admire her, as she walked modestly along. watching the sunset: Who conld help admiring her ? Algernon "Rhoda, darling, yon mnst not say a decided tbat there was not one among the word to any one about—about yoa and young ladies of Whitford who could com­ me, yon know." pare vrith Rhoda. " She is ten times as Not say a word ! What had she to say ? pretty as those raw-boned McDougalls, And to whom? "No, Algy," she answered, and twenty times as weU bred as Alethea in a faint little voice, and began to medi- Dockett, and ever so much cleverer than tete. The idea had been presented to her Miss Pawkins," he reflected. Minnie for the firat time that it was her duty, or Bodkin never came into his head in the Algy's duty, to drag their secret from its list of damsels with whom Rhoda could home in Fairyland, and subject it to. the be compared. Minnie occupied a place eyes and tongues of mortels. But being apart, quite removed from any idea of once there, the idea stayed in her mind love-making. and would not be banished. Her father— Dear Little Rhoda ! How fond she was Mrs. Errington—what would they say, if of him ! they knew that—that she had dared to Altogether Rhoda appeared in a new love Algernon ? The future began to light, and the new light became her look terribly hard to her. The gUttering mightUy. Tes ; Algy was certeinly in mist which had hidden it was drawn love with her, he acknowledged to him­ away Vike a gauze curtain. How could self. There was no scene, no declaration. she not have seen it aU before ? Wonld It all came to pass very gradually. In any one believe for evermore that she had Rhoda the sense of this love stole on as been snch a chUd, such a fool, so selfishly subtly as the dawn. Before she had begun absorbed in her pleasant day-dreams, as •St to watch tho glowing streaks of rose- not to calculate the cost of it for one colour, it was daylight! And then how moment nntil now ? (tlit warm and golden it grew in her little " Oh, Algy!" the poor child broke out, world! How the birds chirped and flut­ lifting a pale face and startied eyes to his; tered, and the flowers breathed sweet " if we could only go on for ever as we breath, and a .thousand diamond drops are I If it would be always summer, and stood on the humblest blades of grass I we two conld stey in this viUage, and If she had been nine years old, instead never go back, or see any of the people of nearly nineteen, she could scarcely have again—except father," she added hastUy. given less heed to the worldly aspects of And a pang of remorse smote her as her I'C the situation. conscience told her that the father who Algernon perhaps more consciously set loved her so weU, and was so good to her, aside considerations of the future. He whatever he might be to others, was not ^ Cbarlea Dickeas.] A CHARMING FELLOW. [March 27,1875.] 557" at all necessary to the happiness of her contend with on Mrs. Errington's part, existence henceforward. and Algy acknowledged that there would. , "Don't let's be miserable now, at all Of course she had known before that it events," retumed Algernon cheerfully. must be so. But Algy had declared that " Look at that purple bar of cloud on the he would always love her; that was the gold! I wonder if I could paint that. I one comforting thought to which she •wish I had my colour-box here. The clung. Rhoda had grown from a child to pencU sketches are so dreary after aU that a woman since yesterday. Algy was only colour." older by four-and-twenty houra. Rhoda had no doubt that Algernon After their return to Whitford came could paint " that," or anything else he Mr. Filthorpe's letter. Then his mother's appUed his brush to. After a while she application to Lady Seely, brought about said, with her heart beating riolently, and by an old acquaintance of Mrs. Errington, the colour coming and going in her cheeks, who lived in London, and kept up an "Don't you think it would be wrong, intermittent correspondence with her. deceitful—to—if we—not to toU " Both these events were telked over in Poor Rhoda could not frame her sentonce, Rhoda's presence. Indeed, the girl filled and was obUged to leave it unfinished. the part towards Mra. Errington, that the " Deceitful! Am I generally deceitful, confidant enacts towards the prima donna Bhoda ? Oh, I say, don't cry; there's a in an Italian opera. Mrs. Errington was pet! Don't, my darling ! I can't bear to always singing scenas to her, which, so see you sorry. But, look here, Rhoda, far as Rhoda's share in them went, might dear; I'm so young yet, that it wouldn't just as well have been uttered in the shape do to talk abont being in love, or anything of a soliloquy. But the lady was used to of that sort. Though I know I shaU her confidant, and liked to have her near, never change, they would declare I didn't to take her hand in the impressive pas­ know my own mind, and would make a sages, and to walk up the stage with her during the symphony. joke of it"—this shot told with Rhoda, who shrank from ridicule, as a sensitive plant So Rhoda heard Algemon's prospects shrinks from the north wind—" and bother canvassed. In her heart she longed that my—our lives out. Can't you see old he should accept Mr. FUthorpe's offer. It Gnmgriffin's great front teeth grinning would keep him nearer to her in every atns?" sense. She had few opportunities of talk­ It was in these terms that Algy was ing with him alone now—far fewer than wont to aUude to that respectable spinster. at dear Llanryddan; but she was able to Miss Elizabeth Grimshaw. say a few words to him privately one Rhoda knew that Algy wished and ex­ afternoon (the very afternoon of Dr. Bod­ pected her to smUe, when he said that. kin's whist-party), and she timidly hinted And she tried to please him; but the smile that if Algy went to Bristol, instead of to London amongst all those great folks, she would not come. Her Up quivered, and would not feel that she had lost him so teare began to gather in her eyes again. completely. She would have sobbed outright if she had tried to speak. The more she thought, " My dear chUd!" exclaimed Algy, the sadder and more frightened she grew. whose outlook on life had a good deal Ridicule was painful, but that was not changed during the last three months. the woret. Her father! Mra. Errington ! " How can you talk so ? Fancy me on ghe lay awake half the night, terrifying Filthorpe's oSice stool!" herself vrith imaginations of their wrath. " London is such a long way off, Algy," Algy found an opportunity the next murmured the girl plaintively. " And then, moming to whisper to her a few words. amongst all those grand people, lords and "Don't look 80 melancholy, Rhoda. They'll ladies, you—you may grow different." wonder at Whitford what's the mattor if " Upon my word, my dear Rhoda, your you go back with such a wan face. And appreciation of me is highly flattering! as to what you said about deceit, why we For my part it seems to me more likely shan't pretend not to love each other! that I should grow 'different' in the Look here, we mnst have patience ! ^ I society of Bristol tradesman than amongst shaU always love you, darling, and I'm my own kith and kin—people like myself sure to get my own way with my mother and my parente in education and manners. in the long run : I always do." I am a gentleman, Rhoda. Lord Seely is Bo then there would be obstacles to not more." tM= = tf 558 [Marcb 27,1875.] ALL THB TEAR BOUND. [Conducted by

Rhoda shrank back abashed before this abhor anything that is popular; carping magnificent young gentleman. Snch a scribblers, "like gnats in a summer's flourish was very unusual in Algernon. evening, which are never very troublesome But the Ancram strain in him had been bnt in the finest and most glorious season;" asserting itself lately. He was sorry when poets who cannot accept any verses save he saw the poor girl's hurt look and their own as poetry; and disappointed downcast eyes, from which the big tears writere, soul sick vrith envy of successful were silently falling one by one. He took competitore, were aUowed to over-ride her in his arms, and kissed her pale the verdict of the many, and discrown cheeks, and brought a blush on to them, all who faUed to satisfy their crotohety and an AprU smile to her lips ; and called notions. Let us recal some of the pretty her his own dear pretty Rhoda, whom he things minorities have, from time to time, could never, never forget. had to say about the favonritos of the "Perhaps it would be best to forget majorities, and what would be the fate of me, Algy," she faltered. And although many of onr brightest literary stera if his loving words, and flatteries, and Sydney Smith's idea could be worked 3 caresses, were inexpressibly sweet to her, out. the pain remained at her heart. Among our classical friends we should She never again ventured to say a word have to condemn Homer, for stealing aU to him about his plans. She wonld liston, that is good in the Iliad and Odyssey from meekly and admiringly, to his vivid pic­ some unknown predecessora ; .^schylns tures of all the fine things he was to do in for his inabUity to make his verse mn the future: pictures in which her figure smoothly; Aristotle for his profound igno­ appeared—like the donor of a great altar- rance ; Xenophon for turning history into piece, full of splendid saints and golden- romance; and Thucydides for not knowing crowned angels—kneeling in one comer. how to properly marahal his facte. Livy And she would sit in silent anguish whilst and Herodotus must go for their want Mre. Errington expatiated on her son's of truthfulness; Virgil for his want of in­ prospects ; wherein, of late, a " great vention, Plautns for his coaraeness; Cicero alUance " played a large part. But she for his cold artificiality and tediousness; could not rouse herself to elation or en­ and Pliny for presuming to pass himself thusiasm. This mattered little to Mra. off for something better than a paltry Errington, who only required her confidant fabulist. to stand tolerably stiU with her back to There would be a torrible thinning of the audience. But it worried Algernon to England's sons of song. That Paradise see Rhoda's sad, downcast face, irrespon­ Lost which has nothing meritorious abont sive to any of his bright anticipations. It it save its length, although some people must be owned that the young fellow's are pleased to caU it a poem, would in position was not entirely pleasant. Tet iteelf suffice to drag MUton from his high his admirable temper and spirits scarcely estete, even if he were not responsible for flagged. He was never cross, except, now an inelegantly splendid masque, a parcel *( and then, just a very little to his mother. of Bonnete, of which only two are not And if no one else in the world less de­ absolutely bad, sundry lesser pieces whose served his ill-humour, at least no one else peculiarity is not excellence, and the in the world was so absolutely certain to vulgar Lycidas, in which there is forgive him for it! no nature for there is no tmth, no art for there is nothing new, but some­ thing akin to impiety, clothed in harah CRITICISM EXTRAORDINART. diction, unpleasing numbers, and uncertein rhymes. John Dryden must pay the SYDNET SMITH proposed, as an entertain­ penalty as the author of The Hind and ing change in human affairs, that every­ the Panther, the worst poem of the age; thing should be decided by minorities, as and Pope, all tnne and no meaning, has they were almost always in the right. If no claim for merciful consideration on it were possible to act npon the wit's account of his unintelligible essays, his suggestion, and apply it retrospectively to barbarous rhapsody upon Windsor Forest, literature,- there would be some rare gaps or the pert, insipid heap of commonplaces in the ranks of standard authors. Very he dignified with the title An Essay on few of the time-honoured lords of literature Criticism. The fact that he obteined would escape degradation, if critics who admittance into literary society because •^'T-r33C»i/-,if»0->- -

Charles I>l

his peraon was as ridiculous as his writings, matter, the thread, tho coUective know­ should not save the flimsy poems, wanting ledge, and much of the large, cool, reason­ alike in genius, dignity, fancy and fire, of able phUosophy with which they abound; OUver Goldsmith; or excuse the preserving whilst sweet WiU only found the melody, of that incoherent piece of stuff, without the phrase-making, the vibratory words, plot or incident, known as She Stoops and all the passionate things that hang to Conquer—as much ont of place in a about and are suggested by them. It literary collection as the works of Cowper, may be true, as the gentleman says, a good man but no poet; or of Crabbe, that he does not greatly derogate from •who vrrote the very converee of poetry. Shakespeare, by despoiling him of the The ricious style and vulgar sentimentality beggarly elements of his plots and his of Thomson calls for his exclusion from material philosophies; but we do not good company, along with the poet who know that it is true, because we do not, in passed that judgment npon The Seasons, the least, underatend what he means; and who, in his own long, weak, lame that, spite of this despoiling, " we must lacnbrations, wavering so prettily between stiU class him among the men who crown pathos and siUiness, an epoch, and burn for ever with an eternal glory, because that in their day Both by precept and example sbowa, their ear was true to find, and their hearts That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose; were true te utter; while no other could, or, being able, dared sum up in song its ' besides having achieved the writing of canticle of canticles ! " the very worst poem ever printed in a quarto volume, The White Doe of Ryl- Supposing the old monarchs of rhyme Btone, the sad outcome of poetical in­ to be deposed, who are to be their toxication, produced by extreme solf- successors ? Well, it is easier to upset admiration. Despite Bis nobiUty, to than te sot up. We have no means of which Byron, great in so little a way, ascertaining the views of the minority, owed his awaking one morning and and, unfortunately, the bards sublime, finding himself famous, he must be put whose songs are caviare to tho multitude, ont in the cold; with the gratuitously have not the faculty of making their names . nonsensical Keate, given to setting forth echo through the corridors of time, and con­ the most incongruous ideas in the most sequently become lost to memory alto­ uncouth language ; with Shelley, who. gether. Still we may make a few sugges­ Betting grammar and common-sense equally tions. MUton's place might be occupied by at defiance, warred against reason, taste, Blackmore, admired by Locke for his pene­ and •rirtae in driveUing prose run mad— trating judgmentand flights of fancy, unless all brilliance, confusion, and vacuity; and it belongsof right to the inimitable Phillips, with Scott, one of the poets who are no " the Milton of his age," of whose Splendid poets, who obteined a spurious fame hy Shilling, Cider, and Blenheim, it was prophesied that they would last as long •writing imitations of black-letter ballads, as valour, generosity, and the language snd literary pantomimes in the worst they were written in. Dryden might make dialects of the English language, making way for the handsome sloven. Captain Rag, one believe helmets were always paste­ otherwise Edmund Neale, but better known board and horaes always hobby. as Edmnnd Smith, who "touched upon" Unkindest cut of aU, under the minority nearly every sort of poetey, and of whom dispensation, we should be compelled to it has been written: "His contrivances part company with Shakespeare. There were adroit and majestic; his images can be no doubt about that; for, we are lively and adequate; his sentiments assured, he was sadly deficient in judg­ charming; his expressions natural and ment, lacked inventive power, and was bold; .his numbera various and souuding; utterly out of his element in tragedy; that and that enamelled mixture of classical he could only rave without reason, rule, wit, which, without redundance and affec- or coherency; and, when at his best, tetion, sparkled through his writings, and bnt produce mere farces, without salt were no less pertinent and agreeable." For or savour, wherein there is not so much Pope we should have the Earl of Doraet, meaning as in the neighing of a horse declared by Dryden to be as great in satire or the growUng of a dog. He cannot be as Shakespeare was in tragedy; and for spared on the plea, raised by modern Cowper, Christopher Pitt, clerk, "very admirera, that somebody else consteucted eminentfor his talents in poetry." Byron his plays for him, and furnished the J" 560 [March 27,1876.] ALL THB TEAR BOUND. [Condueted by himself points ont his successor, Mr. the irate giver reteliated in a savage qua­ Wright, sometime consul-general for the train. The poet did not like being criticised Seven Islands, who was inspired by no in rhyme ; and, we dtire say, the author of common muse, " to hail the land of gods The Angel in the House would have pre­ and god-like men;" and surely he who ferred haring his poem " slated " in plain sang "The Aboriginal Britons," and, prose, rather than parodied, as a cruel with his genuine poetic fires made modem critic chose to do, after this fashion: Britons praise their sires, might fairly The gentle reader, we apprise. That this oust Waltor Scott. Colchestor's Quaker new Angel in the House Conteins a tele poet might be eligible for Wordsworth's not very wise. About a parson and a place, but for his modesty; the chief of spouse. The author, gentle as a lamb. the Lakers could never have written him­ Has managed his rhymes to fit; He haply self down thus:— fancies he has writ Another "In Memo- riam." How his intended gathered flowera. Davenant was bom npon the third of March, Waller was bom npon tbe third of March, And took her tea, and after sung. Is told Otway was bom npon tbe third of Marcb, in style somewhat Uke oura. For delectetion And I was bom upon the third of March; of the young. Bnt, reader, lest you say Bnt this afTords no proof I am a poet— Thousands of blockheads, in tbe lapse of time. we quiz The poet's record of his she. Were also bom upon the third of March. Some little pictures you shall see, Not in Milton was bom in sixteen hondred and eigbt. onr language, but in his :— And I was bom in eighteen hundred and eight; But what a mighty interval divides us, Besides the simple interval of time! While thus I grieved and kissed her glove. My man brought in her note to say And as for Shakespeare, we are sure of Papa bad bid her send bis love, And hop'd I'd dine •with them next day; having the minority with us, in dethroning They bad leamed and practised Porcell's glee. him in favour of the Poet of Humanity, To sing it by to-morrow night: Walt Whitman, who claims to have a forte The postscript was-j-her sisters and she. Inclosed some violets blue and white. for loafing, and singing " Man's physiology • ••••• from top to toe." Bestless and sick of long exile, It is comforting to be assured by the From those sweet friends I rode, to see The church repairs, and, after awhile. unimpeachable Clarissa Richardson, that Waylaying the Dean, was asked to tea. Tristram Shandy may be read with They introduced the Cousin Fred safety, since that execrable work is too I'd heard of, Honor's favourite; grave. Dark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred. gross to be inflaming; but it is not so And with an air of the salt ware. pleasant to learn that Thackeray " settled, like a meat-fly, on whatover one had got Fear not this saline Cousin Fred, He for dinner, and made one sick of it; " gives no tragic mischief birth; There are that Miss Edgeworth made moraUty an no teara for you to shed. Unless they may impertinence; that it has only been with be teara of mirth. From ball to bed, from fear and trembling that any good novelist field to farm. The tale flows nicely purl­ has ventured to show the slightest bias in ing on; With much conceit there is no favour of the Ten Commandments; while harm. In' the love-legend here begun. Charlotto Bronte inculcates a heathenish The rest will come some other day. doctrine of religion, and, moreover, be­ If public sympathy allows; And this is trays great coarseness of tasto and a totel all we have to say About the Angel in the ignorance of the mannera of society. Mr. House. Disraeli's novels owe their success, we have Litorary journals would certainly be more been told, to possessing the most frivolous enterteining if rhymed reviews were the qualities of that sort of writing, and a kind rule ; but critics would require a nicer ear of diablerie making up for the want of than the reriewer who, wishing to give an telent; and the works of the author of example of the Laureat's " measured or David Copperfield are so extremely lyric blank verse," quoted Tristem's song— difficult to read in their present s'hape, another prophet of the minority has in­ •A-y, ay, O ay—the winds that bend the brier! A star in Heaven, a star within the mere! formed us, that they require translating •^yi *yi 0 »y—a star was my desire, into classical English, as the language of And one was far apart, and one was near; the lower orders ought never to appear in -A.y, ay, 0 ay—the winds that bow the grass, And one was water, and one star was fire. print. And one will ever shine, and one will pass! When Thomson's one-eyed friend ac­ -A-yi ayj O ay—the -fvinds that move tho mere. knowledged the receipt of a copy of Tet more necessary to the critic than a Winter, with a condemnatory couplet. good ear for rhyme, is a good memory. =tP C! Cfluirliw Diekani,] CRITICISM EXTRAORDINART. [M»rch 27, 1876.] 561

" Bums," vyrote one, not long ago, " in of Notes and Queries, who, quoting from language which offends the artificially James the Firat's sonnet on the Armada— delicate modern ear, avows that he does They forward came in monstrous array. not mind nakedness if he has an abundant Both sea and land beset us everywhere; supply of good ale." The assertion might Bragges threatened us a ruinous decay— he safely challenged, and Bishop Stilling- asked " Who is Bragges who threatened fleet cited to refuto it. A defender of England with ruinous decay ? " Some Bunyan's originality, indigmant at the critics, however, have done worse than revival of the exploded libel that the blunder over a word. Chatterton's Rowley Pilgrim's Progress was adapted from the and Ireland's Vortigern had plenty of mediseval French, complained, " Since Pope beUevers and defenders among the critical set the example of robbing authora of their bigwigs of their day. Sundry leamed just dues, by declaring'Garth did not men, teking More's Utopia seriously, pro­ write his own Dispensary, there has been posed to send missionaries to Christianize a growing tendency to deny everybody the intoresting inhabitants of the newly- the credit of everything." It is hard that discovered island. Meinhold's Amber Bunyan cannot be justified without tra­ Witch was pronounced upon internal ducing Pope, who actually cries out against evidence to be a genuine history, nntil the the injustice he is charged vrith perpetrat­ writer claimed it as his own invention. ing, drawing the portrait of an abandoned Gilbert Wakefield, after profound cogite- critic, he says : tion and an exemplary analysis, discovers All books he reads, and all he reads avails, Pope's Song by a Person of Quality to From Dryden's Fables down to D'Urfey's Tales j With him most authors steal their works, or buy. be a collection of unconnected lines, dis­ Garth did not write bis own Dispensary. graceful to the poet; and, in our own time, the author of Firmilian had the gratifi­ Commenting upon an advocate for the cation of seeing his poem welcomed as the incorporation of Holmfirth winding up his worthy effort of a new disciple of the argument vrith some verses with the refrain, spasmodic school he intended to ridicule. " Clear the way ! " a newspaper writer said, Too matter of fact in another sense was "I do not quite know why an ardent Dr. Moseley, who declared Colman's Inkle desire to get a small town incorporated and Tarico would never do, because the should not be allowed to incite a man to finale ran— express his thoughte in poetry. I hope the to^wn wUl be incorporated, and that Come let us dance and sing, this writer may be the firat mayor. He While all Barbadoes' bells shall ring! may then rival his French prototype, whereas there was only one bell to be who, to welcome his king, inscribed found in the whole island ! In the same on a triumphal areh, 'Vive le Roi, Ma spirit a reviewer took a novelist to task Femme et moi!' " The hit was sadly mis­ for giring a little to^wn two churches, directed under the idea that the Holm- when it was well known it could only firthian was his o^wn poet, whereas he had boast of one. There was more sense in pressed Dr. Mackay into his service for the Scoteh weaver's complaint that he the occasion. had not time to read Chalmers's Sermons: In the Taming of the Shrew, Bion- " Tou see, sir, I had to sit with the book dello announces " Petenchio is coming, in in the tae hand and the dictionar' in the a new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old ither ; and the waret o' it was, I conldna breeches thrice turned; a pair of boots find his long-nebbed words in the dictionar." that have been candle-cases, one buckled, Dr. Guthrie probably was not so much another laced; an old rusty sword te'en astonished by his weaver friend, as Wallack out of the town armoury, with a broken the actor by the Frenchman to whom he hUt and chapeless; with two broken had read the first scene of Macbeth: "Ton pointe." Upon this Johnson observes said. Monsieur Vallake, dat Shakespere is " How a sword should have two broken de poet of nature and common-sense! pomts I cannot toll!" The doctor was Here is his play open—Macbess—yes. aware of bnt one meaning attached to the Well, here is tree old—old—vat you call word "pointe," but he never dreamed of veetoh, rid de broom and no close on at hiding his ignorance by tempering vrith all—npon de blasted heath—good ! Von his author's text, after the manner of some veetch say to de oder veetch, ' Ven shall modem editora. A more ludicrous mis­ ve tree meet agen ? ' De oder veetoh she reading still was that of the correspondent say, 'In tondare,' de oder she say, 'In yz J:^C

562 [March 27,1876.] ALL THB TBAB ROUND. [Conducted by

lightning,' and she say to dem heraelf but in effectually burying the ill-dressed agen : ' In rain !' Now dis is not nature, Ophelia. We never attended a funeral dis is not common-sense. Oh, no 1 De with more pleasure." tree old veetch shall nevare go out to meet It is, however, in panegyric that the upon the blastod heath •with no close on, American critic especially shines. Of in tondare, lightning, and in rain. Ah, Salrini's Othello one said, "It was the no ! It is not common-sense, dey stay at awakening fury of the Hyrcanian tiger home, aha!" disturbed at his feast of blood, or the dis­ If we desired to mako a collection of tended tempest of a tropic land, laying all comical criticisms, we should go to the waste before it." Of a pianoforte player American newspapers for choice specimens. we read, " Rubinstein is on the isthmus A St. Francisco journalist, announcing the that divides the Orient and the Occident. arrival of a certain painter in that city, Their spray dashes over into each other, says, "He possesses merit, as an artist, but they do not sing. There is an erident but it is hard to toll whether it lies in conflict and stmggle in his nature and his landscape or marine painting. Tou never music. He roara like a Uon and is soft as can toll his cows from his ships, except a sucking dove, by tnms. He springs when they have their tails exalted; then like a panther, and, with his grace and the absence of spars betrays their cha­ pressure, upon the keys; but his hands racter. Even then you may misteke them are claws in velvet—they smito like a for schooners scudding under bare poles." hammer, they caress like a mother!" Of Bierstadt, we are told that his study This must surely have come from the of nature lies all outeide, and has nothing hand that Ukened a lady-singer's "Amen " whatever to do with the spirituality of all to the crowning faggot of a pyramid of the matchless archimage of form and fire. Mdlle. II Muraka ought to have colour, which she displays upon the been in the seventh heaven of deUght mighty theatres of her creative power. when her vocalization was compared to an A once-great singer is compared to an elaborate work of the jeweller, sparkling aged nightingale with a cold, who has with priceless gems, adorned with every retained the perfection of his method, elegant and rare device, with fret-work, while his voice, like the memory of a and crystel flowera, and twining tendrils buried joy, may be uninjured, but hardly of fine-spun gold, and glistening dew- admits of description. A popular prima drops of diamonds, and every conceivable donna is thus gently handled by an unim- beauty that the mere practised artiste could passionable gentleman—" She is little, she lay upon it. Mdlle. Nillson could not com­ . is fat, and she is not young, but she puts plain of non-appreciation, likened, as she on those nippy, rosebud aira, and jumps was, to the Venus de' Medici, coming like and teetors about, and is so blessed a gust of bright sunshine, her notes falling playful—the young, sweet thing—that the on the tendrUs of her listener's hearts like near-sightod critics teke off their spec­ the bubbling music of distant waterfalls tacles, lest in her gambols she break on a bed of roses; whUe her singing of them." Bat, for a good setting down, "Home, sweet Home," made the critic commend us to the following notice of feel as if he were buUding a castle of a performance of Hamlet, at Lafayette, alabaster and gold, surrounding it with Indiana:—" Hamlet must have been a rainbows, shutting it in with gates of pearl remarkable man not to have gone mad in and moonshine, and embowering it with the midst of snch good charactera as his roses. This is pretty well, bnt surpassed, aimless mother, the insipid discordant we think, by the foUowing tribute to Ophelia, and the noisily-empty Laertes, Madame Rudersdorff, culled from a New as they were presented on this stege. We Tork journal:—" To teU you how she confess to a secret satisfaction at the sang would be impossible; but if one may poisoning of the queen, who, on rouging compare an object of sight to an object of her cheeks, got a double dose at the end sound, we should say—her voice is like a of her nose; and we experienced a rocket, which, from the first, burste upon malicious joy in the unskilful stebbing of the sight with a magnificence that claims Laertes, who deserved death for his un­ undivided attention, and in an instant accented lamentations over a horae-fiddle carries your attontion from earth to heaven; sister, whose departure should have been where it burste into ten thousand orbs of to him a source of joy. The grave-digger glory that scintiUate each a separate gem did well, not only in his professional work, npon the blue empyrean ; and bum, each Cbarlea Diokens. ] ODD MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT. [March 27,1876.] 563 with a -varied hue of beatity that at once I saw tJiie bright bead down amid the spears, I saw the Koundbead's arm was up to strike, distracte and commands attention; until And dashing in, amid our comrade's cheers, they bnrat with a fleecy trail of stera that I flung myself between him and the pike. floats down the vaulted sky softly and Our brave lads rallied round us. Masterless, Pall many a steed of Fairfax ran, I trow. slowly, nntU the earth seems over­ We tore oar bloody way amid the press. arched by a lacework of fire, that And I bad Harry on my saddle bow. drops earthward as it falls, grovring And not till many a league of heather lay Behind our thundering boofs^ I reeled and fell. thinner, finer; tUl, Uke the last expiring But as I sank, I heard old Gilbert say, breath of a sigh, it is lost in the evening " See, see, the boy breathes yet," and all was well. air." If that is not fine writing we should Poor Harry! Aye, he died at red Dunbar, like to know where it is to be found. At And, like a blighted flower, she followed fast; And thou, safe in thy convent walls afar, any rate, it makes clear to us the hitherto Wert left to cheer thy graudsiro's hearth at last. dark sajring of Mr. Boucicanlt—" Music But thy sweet mother, ever ou that day. hath made idiote of us all. It is the At gloaming, creeping to my side wonld oome. And bid me toll her of the desperate fray. iBsthetic stimulant of the day, and we are When her old father brought her Harry home. all in a condition of harmonic delirium tremens." ODD MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT. IN TWO PABIS. PART II. GfiANDPATHER'S STOBT. LET US now haU a jovial ghost—one who Givi me the helin, child. Why, the steel is dimmed, has known men and prisons, but a gay And on the breast-plate, gauntlet, cuisse, and all; Oar gallants now are grown so dainty-limbed, shade withal. A squinting Alcibiades They let tbe armour rust npon the w^l. bedecked with scarlet and gold, in ruffles Bee, how the dust upon the feather lies ; and cravat of choice Mechlin. His figure Out on the carpet knights! Nay, never pout. Go, bid them do their devoir for thine eyes. in china once adorned countless mantel­ The old mail sickens for one rousing boat. pieces; his health was drunk by the enthu­ There, put tby little finger in the cleft. siastic electors of Middlesex out of punch­ Through which the life-blood poured like summer bowls, within whose depths lurked the isin, Wben 'mid the best of Astley's riders left, magic words " Wilkes and Liberty." This I lay and groaned on Edgehiirs fatal plain ; quaint old shadow is that of a great ex­ Aye, if old Gilbert there, at break of mom, pellee, a gloriously odd member of Par­ Had not come back to seek me 'mid the dead, No naoy w^ich bad in these balls been bom. liament, Jack Wilkes—whilome editor To try my casque upon her golden head. of the North Briton, Monk of Medmen- Those covenanting knaves struck hard and deep. ham. Lord Mayor of London, the liver Sec, here a sword right through tbe plating shore :• That dint a lance-bead made ou Naseby steep. of a life of jokes and gaols, of reck­ When onr wild charge their bravest backward bore. less extravagance and utter insolvency, Bat this jagged hole! fiercest and fellest stroke. bravest of wits, and most kaleidoscopic Of all I gave, or took, in days of old, I had it when onr line at Marston broke; of men. Gay days spent at Leyden, in Sit here, child, thou shalt hear the story told. the springtime of youth, did not produce When the gay sun on black Long Marston rose, any more distesto to matrimony in Wilkes Thy mother was a bride of seventeen. Thoa'rt like her, girl; like hers tby soft cheek glows, himself, than did his outrageous squint on Bat thy bine eyes are scarce so blue, I ween I the part of the fair. At Great George Street, And as we mustered in tbe castle court. Westminster, now abandoned to men^ of She came to me as sbe was wont to come. curves and gradients, he once held high And whispered, maskine fear in wistful sport, " My father, bring my Btarry safely home." wassail, and succeeded at last in frightening Poor Harry, frank and joyous out he rode. his wife away from his table; bnt there Waving the flag sbe wrought bim in the van. was.yet method in the madness of the wild And as rankg closed, nnd war's fierce fever glowed, He bore him like a gallant gentleman; son of a distUler. CoUecting around him And Oase ran redly through each willowed bank, a hopeful band of boon companions (mostly Ere the dark day was done, and all was lost. hailing from Aylesbury or the neighbour­ And with the sun tbe hopes of Stnart sank. And, snow-like, melted all tbe northern host. hood)—such as Thomas Potter, son of the Fast to the sheltering walls of loyal York, Archbishop of Canterbury; Sir Francis Fled proud Newcastle, all his projects o er; Dashwood, afterwards Lord le Despenser; And keen Prince Rupert, whose hot morning's work, Had wrecked tbe royal barque in siirbt of shore. the Earl of Sandwich, Sir Francis Blake What did it boot to linger there to die, Delaval, Sir WUliam Stanhope, Sir 'Neath rebel lance, or rebel axe and cord ? Thomas Stapleton, Paul Whitehead, hoc Better to wait beneath a happier sky. genus omne—he led a free and easy Ufe, Till Giod saw His anointed hue restored. Yet ere I turned old Warrior for the flight, apparently without any particuhu- object. (It irks me yet, girl, though 'tis past so long) Bat when a general election occurred in I heard our Harry's shout ring through the hght, 1754, his roysterers were bound te sup- ittw his-creet stmck backward 'mid the throng. 564 [Uarch 97,1876.] ATiL THB TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

port his attempt to get into Parliament the greatest scholar I ever knew." " His for Berwick. Here the Delaval interest name," said Dr. Johnson—whom he had was supposed to be strong enough to reriled for accepting a pension, after retum him. AU his relations dissuaded having defined it as " pay given to a stete him from the attempt; but, having a hireling, for treason to his country"—"has wholesome contempt for famUy counsels, been sounded from pole to pole as the he stood for Bervrick, and was utterly phoenix of convivial felicity;" and added, defeated, at the cost of three or four thou­ very characteristically, " Jack has a great sand ponnds. This behaviour encouraged variety of telk. Jack is a scholar, and Jack his wife to separate heraelf from him. His has the mannera of a gentleman." The dissipated life she could and did condone, moral doctor, it is tme, had one feeling in but the waste of the family property was common with the gay reprobate—^witness not to be passively borne. his letter to Mre. Thrale. " I have been Aftor signing the deed of separation, breakingjoke s vrith Jack Wilkes npon the Wilkes, being now a free man, spent his Scotch. Such, madam, are the vicissitudes life in the fashion supposed to become a of things." A greator man than Johnson, gentleman of wit and pleasure upon Town. the " ingenious " Edward Gibbon himself, He frequentod the DUettenti Club, the was shocked at the blasphemy and in­ Beefstoak Club, and, above all, Medmenham decency of Wilkes's convereation, but was Abbey. Sneering at the Aylesbury set, subdued to this conclusion : " I scareely with whom he consortod, he yet detor­ ever met with a better companion; he mined to make use of them upon occasion. has inexhaustible spirite, infinite vrit and This soon arrived. Potter, the member humour, and a great deal of knowledge." for Aylesbury, was appointed in June, Agreeable as a friend, Wilkes was a 1757, one of the vice-treasurera of Ireland; torrible enemy. In 1763, he put the and, haring vacated his seat, made a climax to his attacks on Lord Bute by private agreement with Wilkes, that if he publishing an edition of Ben Jensen's could obtain a seat for any other place, he Pall of Mortimer, for the sole purpose of should endeavour to secure Wilkes' election prefixing to it a sarcastic dedication to his for Aylesbury. In purauance of this lordship, wherein it was intimatod that unholy compact. Potter was chosen for George the Third was held in no less Oakhampton, and Wilkes came in for subjection by Bute and the Princess Aylesbury, at a cost of seven thousand Dowager of Wales, than Edward the pounds—a large proportion of which, Second had been by Queen Isabella and doubtless, found ite way into Pottor's her minion Roger Mortimer. Lord Bute pocket. Again making use of his friends, shortly afterwards resigned; and Wilkes Wilkes brought himself into friendly next distinguished himself by publishing relation with Earl Temple, by raising a a garbled veraion of the king's speech regiment of militia, at the head of which before it was delivered, and by making a was Sir Francis Dashwood. Shortly after virulent attack upon it. This freak was getting into the house, he sterted the proclaimed by the law oflScera of the famous "North Briton,"in opposition to the "Briton," conducted by Smollett on behalf Crown " an infamous and seditious libel;" of Lord Bute. In this sensational journal, a warrant was issued to apprehend and Wilkes made furious onslaught on Lord bring before the Secretery of State, the Bute and Scotehmen generally; quoted authora, printers, and publishers of Num­ Dr. Johnson one day, and sneered at him ber 45 of the North Briton, and to seize the next; laughed at Hogarth himself for their papera. After forty-eight peraons representing the ugly side of nature; and had been arrested on a general warrant, brought forward Churchill, whom he Wilkes refused to obey it, and told the justly described as a manly genius. messenger he would kiU him if he en­ At this period he was very popular, deavoured to enforee it. Nevertheless, he and was successful in reteining his hold was compelled to surrender to numbers, npon society for several years. The was committed to the Tower, and deprived fascination of his manner was so extra­ of his militia rank. Wilkes was discharged ordinarily great, that he secured at last from the Tower on a question of privUege the admiration of those whom he had of Parliament, and immediately attacked most bitterly assaUed. "Mr. Wilkes," the Secreteries of Stete. Actions for said Lord Mansfield, " was the pleasantest damages for illegal arrest were brought companion, the politest gentleman, and and tried before Lord Camden and a jury. Wilkes recovered damages. His action 4 h Cbarlea Dickans.] ODD MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT. [March 27,1876.] 565

was foUowed by the other persons arrested, Tribune displayed all his ancient fire in and many costly suite were thrown upon the defence of the great Pro-consul. the crown. Warren Hastings's accusera had been Nevertheless, Parliament ordered Num­ thundering out diatribes, in which Hastings ber 45 te be burnt, as a Ubel; and, in the was compared to Verres ; but Wilkes meanwhUe, Wilkes got through several significantly remarked that "the House duels vrith success, but found his debts ought to recoUect that, when the governor too much for him. Returning to England of SicUy was accused before the Roman after a sojourn in Paris—aftor protracted Senate, scarcely an inhabitant of the island Utigation, public riote, and iUuminations— could be found who did not exhibit com­ he was sentenced to fine and imprison­ plaints against him. In the instence ment, and was, moreover, expeUed from before us, though the prosecution, or, the House of Commons, on the motion of rather, the persecution of Mr. Hastings Lord Harrington, by two hundred and has been already nearly three years in nineteen votos against one hundred and progress, yet not a single charge or im­ thirty-six. Wilkes, however, was uncon­ putation upon his conduct has been quered. He lived sumptuously, in the transmitted from India." "When we King's Bench, on the wine, poultry, game, consider," resumed he, "that, while the frnit, and hard cash, sent him from every empire was mouldering away elsewhere "— part of England—nay, even from Charles­ America had been lost—"Mr. Hastings, ton, South Carolina. On the expulsion of by his exertions, preserved, unimpaired, Wilkes, a new vmt was issued for the our possessions in the East, I am covered with astonishment that a faction in this election of a member for the county of assembly should have been able te carry Middlesex. On the 14th February, a on the proceeding to the present point." meeting of freeholders was held on the This manly declaration brought down subject and the result of their delibera­ upon Wilkes a curious M.P., the eccentric tions was that ho was re-elected on the Courtenay, who, after a few sneera at Lord 16^1. But the House of Commons declared •.„ ..t" I r Hood, went on to say: " The worthy the election void, and added that " Mr. alderman (Wilkes) possesses more sense Wilkes was, and is, incapable of being than to feel anger when I mean him a elected into the present Parliament." compliment, as I do when I assert that his After considerable controveray, it was de­ country owes him great obligations for cided that an expeUed member is incapable having, at one period of his life, diffused a of being elected again to the same Parlia­ spirit of Uberty throughout the general ment which expeUed him. But the free- mass of the people unexampled, except, holdera of Middlesex thought that Parlia­ indeed, in the times of Jack Cade and ment had exceeded its powers, and per­ Wat Tyler. The honourable magistrate sisted in re-electing Wilkes, once more, on has defended Mr. Hastings's treatment of the 16th of March. On the following day the Begums, by asserting that those this election was also declared null and void. princesses were engaged in rebeUion. Another writ was issued, and Colonel Surely he must have looked at the ques­ Henry Lawes Luttiell was brought forward tion obliquely, or he never could have to oppose Wilkes, who, on the 13th AprU, formed so erroneous an idea. Two old was retumed by the sheriffs as having women iu rebellion against the governor! eleven hundred and forty-three votes, to Impossible. Nor would the worthy alder­ Colonel LuttreU's two hundred and ninety- man have made an Essay on Woman in sir, but the House of Commons, foUowing the same manner that Mr. Hastings did." the Comyns-TufneU precedent, in the This odd flight of eloquence teaches us, of llaldon case, ordered the retum to be modem times, to wonder but little at the amended, by inserting Colonel LuttreU's violence of WilkeS. It is of no use reply­ name in the place of that of WUkes. On ing with a tep of a lady's fan when people the expiration of his term of imprison­ attack you with a flail. ment, WUkes was more popular than ever. He was magnificently enterteined Next turns up an unsavoury ghost, !at the Mansion House; presented with topped by an ancient scratch wig picked a sUver cup, elected sheriff, alderman, and, up in a gutter—that oddest of all odd mem­ at last. Lord Mayor, and triumphantly bera of Parliament, John Elwes, miser and re-entered Parliament as member for gambler. His father, Mr. Meggot, a mem­ Middlesex. In 1787, although begmning ber of the beerocracy located in South­ to feel tho infirmities of age, the great wark, left him a large fortune; but the Z-^ 566 [March 27,1876.] ALL THB TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

influence of his mother, who, though a of the effecte of the Reform BUl is, that very rich widow, is said to have starved the bone-grubber, W. Cobbett, is retumed herself to death, instilled into his mind for Oldham, while, on the other hand, the those saving principles by which he was notorious Mr. H. Hunt has been turned afterwards di-itinguished. It appears clear out of his seat at Preston. The new that the miserly spirit came from his borough of Brighton, under the very nose mother's family, for it was carried to of the Court, has returned two most decided great lengths by his uncle, Sir Harvey Radicals, Wigney and Faithful!, who talk Elwes, of Stoke in Suffolk, on visiting openly of reducing the allowance made to whom the young man invariably dressed the king and qneen. The famous pugUist for tho part of the saving nephew. This and bettor at Newmarket, Gully, has been generalship completely won the heart returned for Pontefract. In short, the of the uncle, who loved to sit with his now Parliament will produce a enrious nephew before a miserable fire, with one medley." glass of wine between them, while they John Gully, like Neate, and other inveighed against the extravagance of famous boxera, was a Bristol boy, and one the times. As soon as night came of the finest specimens of humanity to be on they went to bed, because they thns found in England. At that time prize­ saved the expense of candlelight. One fighting was as much a national institution of Sir Harvey Elwes's biographera says as horee-racing itself, while cricket and that he never fell in love, for he made it rowing were almost unborn. Gully was a the cardinal rale of his life never to give singularly fortunate man in either ring. anything—not even his affections. Toung Defeated, after a tremendous encounter Meggot, who was at this time a daring with the celebrated Game Chicken, he rider, a considerable gourmand, and a tre­ subsequently became champion of Eng­ mendous gambler, was known to all the land, after beating Gregson in two g^at fashionable circles of the metropolis, and battles. Understending both figures and frequented those clubs where play was horaes, he soon left the P. R. for the deepest and longest; but his skilful betting ring, and, as a "bettor, round" with management of his nncle was at length those tremendous gamblera. Old Q., Lord rewarded by a legacy of two hundred and Foley, Lord Abingdon, Colonel MeUish, fifty thousand pounds and the name of Charles Fox, and WUliam Pitt, no doubt Elwes. His avarice was fall of quaint made a handsome percentege out of his peculiarities. He would sit up all night book. Haring gradually acquired suffi­ at play, risking thousands with the most cient capitel, he owned a smaU string of fashionable and profligate men of the time, horaes of his own, and, haring given Lord aud, about four in the morning, wonld Jeraey four thousand ponnds for Mame­ walk in the cold or rain to Smithfield to luke, winner of the Derhy of 1827, at meet his own cattle, and would squabble the subsequent Ascot meeting, in three energetically with a carcase butcher for a bets alone lost twenty-one thousand shilling. In 1774, Mr. Elwes was nomi­ pounds on him in the St. Leger. This nated for Berkshire by Lord Craven; but famous, but unlucky, horse, brought back only consented to stand for that county, his owner some of his money the following on the condition that he was to be brought year; but this severe experience was only in for nothing. All he actually did was the prelude to the victories of Margrave to dine at the ordinary at Abingdon, so in the Leger, Mendicant in the Oaks, tho that he obtained a seat in Parliament Hermit in the " Guineas," and of Pyrrhus for eighteen ponce. Chosen for Berk­ the Firat and Andover in the Derby. shire in three successive Parliaments, he sat alftogether about twelve years as a In the agitetion which preceded the thoroughly independent member. Dying passing of the first Reform BiU. Mr. in 1789, at the age of seventy-seven, this Gully, who then resided at Ackworth, queer member left a fortune of half-a- near Pontefract, took an active part, and, million sterling, besides enteiled estetes. being accused of having spoken teo strongly on the dictetion practised by Also possessing a teste for gambling, Lord Mexborough on the electora of but otherwise utterly unlike Elwes, was Pontefract—wherein he was wide of the the celebrated "M.P. Gaily." mark—^he consented to stand in opposition The ingenious Thomas Raikes, writing to him for the borough, and was trium­ under the date of December 15th, 1832, phantly retumed for the firet Refomied liberates his soul.in this fashion: "One Parliament, and also sat in the second one.

^= X. J'

Charles Diokens.] A SILENT WITNESS. [March 27,1876.] 507

But the late hours of St. Stephen's were CathoUcism and Protestantism; he had ill suited to a man accustomed to the fresh respected few feelings that Englishmen air of the heath, and the sunlit bustle respect. He had been a butcher; ho had of the ring side. The health of the been a bankrupt, of a trade which excluded famous athlete, who had "polished off" him from the jury box, and in a list which tbe gigantic Gregson on the memorable proclaimed him publicly to be insolvent." occasion when the championship was Tet, alone and unaided, he had at last cut fought for in silk stockings, was found his way into the great council of tho unequal to the wear and tear of Parlia­ country, at an age exceeding that allotted ment ; and, although his constituente gave to man—a respecteble-looking, red-faced him a carte blanche about his attendance, gentleman, in a dust-coloured coat, and he felt constrained to forsake an assembly drab breeches with gaiters. TaU, and wherein he had acquired the respect and strongly built, with a round and ruddy good-wUl of all with whom he came in countenance, and a peculiarly cynical contect. mouth, he entered the House of Commons The " bone-gmbber " alluded to by Mr. an old man of seventy, and immediately Raikes, was the country lad who, after took his place as one of the best debaters in running away from home, becoming a it—a feat unparaUeled in the annals of the lawyer's derk, serving in the ranks, rising House. to be sergeant-major, and risiting Canada Many more odd members have teken and the United Stetes, settied in Pennsyl­ part in the assembly at St. Stephens. vania as a publisher, and soon became a There are ribald persons, who would not political writer of some power under the hesitete to pronounce the behariour of the name of " Peter Porcupine." Having present premier as savouring somewhat made America too hot for him, Cobbett of oddity in his " young and curly " days set sail for England, shaking the dnst of velvet " continuations," when he uttered from his feet on what he then stigmatised the famous prophecy—" The day will come as " that infamous land, where judges when you shall hear me!" Out of the minds become felons, and felons judges;" and, of middle-aged men has not yet died the returning to England, became editor of memory of Colonel Sibthorp, who never the "Porcupine." Cobbett had a mania for tired of denouncing the Great Exhibition pitohing into men and institutions; and of 1851 and of expressing his utter " want possessing real common-sense, and a happy of confidence in the ministry." An honour­ knack of giving his opponente ridiculous able member has been heard to declare his nicknames, became a power in the land. wUlingness te "die on the floor of the Again visiting America, he, in a fit of House ;" and the Sergeant-at-arms has, on enthusiasm, brought Tom Paine's bones more than one occasion, been called upon back vrith him—an action by which he to exercise his functions; bnt in bidding suffered mnch in public opinion. Burning fareweU to odd members I cannot do to get into Parliament, he made unsuccess­ better than make my final bow to the ful attempts at Coventry and Preston; drab spectre of that thorough representa­ and, at last, haring regained his popularity, tive of insular oddity—sturdy old Cobbett during his trial for publishing a seditious —quaint, passionate, sensible, and obsti- article in the Registor, was retamed to nato—an odd Member of Parliament, bnt Parliament for OUham. Tho ploughboy, a man and an Englishman every inch of the privato of the Fifty-fourth, after a him. variety of vicissitudes had become a mem­ ber of the British Legislature. " Nor for this," wrote Lord DaUing and Bnlwer, A SILEJ^T WITNESS. "had he bowed his knee to any minister, BY EDMUND TATES. nor served any party, nor administered AUTHOR OF "BLACK SHEEP," "OASTAWAT," "THE TELU)W with ambitious interest to any popular FLAG," &C. lia. feeling. His pen had been made to serve as a double-edged sword, which smote BOOK UI. CHAPTER II. LOOKING BACK. ahke Whig and Tory, Pitt and Fo^ IF Mr. Heath had had his way, it is Castlereagh and Tiemey, Canning and probable that he would have answered Brougham, Wellington and Grey, even the question put to him by the shabby Hunt and Waithman. He had sneered at man, us to whom "he should like to education, at philosophy, and at negro murder next ? " in a very practical manner, emancipation. He had assaUed alike by then and there disposing of his inter- H yz \

568 [March 27,1876.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

rogator. If, whUe denying himself this like to murder next, with the perfect pleasure, he had desired to indulge in the knowledge of what you wonld say if yon rare chance of speaking the truth, the spoke the tmth," words which wonld have sterted unbidden Heath's face darkened for a moment, to his lips would have been, " That she- bnt the cloud was quickly gone. " It is deril, your daughter ! " scarcely advisable, is it," he said, " to use For the shabby man in the foreign-cut snch ugly words, even if yon have reason coat covered with wom and shining braid, to complain of me, and I do not think you and the slouch hat—the man with the have? Bat we will telk that subject out tottering gait, and the thick hot breath, at length. I was going to write to you in who stood swaying about uneasily in reply to your letter from Ostend, bnt your his bulbous boots—was all that remained presence hero simplifies the matter, and of Ned Studley: the man who "looked we can arrange it much better in conver­ like a duke, don't yon know," and than sation. Have you dined ? " whom, at one time, neither Long's nor " I had some infernal comed beef and Limmer's ever turned out a more perfect bottled stout on board the Ostend boat, at type of the ex-military swell. There was three o'clock, if you caU that dining," a leer in his bloodshot eyes, and a half- said the captein, "bnt I have tonched fatuous, half-insolent smUe on his blotohed nothing since—at least nothing soUd, I and bloated face, that drove Heath nearly mean." wild with rage; and it was all that he could " Then let us get some dinner and have do to bring the power of self-interest to our telk at the same time," said Heath. his control, and to prevent himself from " No, not in there," he continued, as his seizing the mouthing idiot by the throat, companion made a move towards the and shaking him soundly. An instant's station resteurant; " we should find that reflection, however, made him appreciate too noisy, too crowded, and too British the enormous price which he would have to altogether. I know a place where we can pay for the luxury. The old man then stand­ be more at our ease, and where the cuisine ing before him, weak and wretched, with and cellar are both irreproachable." a craving for drink, which, without his aid, He offered his arm to his companion as he was unable to supply—a pauper, home­ he spoke, and, pulUng his hat far over his less and friendless—was easUy managed eyes, to avoid the chance recognition of and disposed of; but if he once were made any passing acquaintence, led him ont of aware of the fact of his daughter's exist­ the stetion and across to Leicester-square, ence, of her bold self-reliance, and of the plunging into a labyrinth of streete, where way in which she had exerted her power, the houses, from their external appear­ he would doubtless stUl have sufficient ance, would seem to have been trans­ natural cunning left to see how his hold planted from some foreign city. Entering over Heath had been strengthened, and to one of them, in which, from the obsequious avaU himself of the knowledge. Plainly, bows bestowed upon him by the portiy, therefore, it was Mr. Heath's business to bald-headed landlord, and the brisk French temporise with his disreputeble father-in- waiter, he seemed to be well known and law, and render him as amiable as possible. highly respected, Mr. Heath made his way " Is it you ? " he said, with that to a small private room on the firat floor, affectetion of frankness and bonhomie not much larger than a warm bath, but which had often stood him in good stead; prettily furnished and tastefully decorated, " I declare I did not know you at first, and there issued his ordera for the repast; your foreign appearance quite deceived which, he said, might be commenced at me." once, whUe the soup and fish were in But the captain was very far from preparation, with a few bora d'oeuvres in being moved by these blandishments. the shape of prawns and radishes, and a " My appearance is something more than bottle of Santerne. foreign," he said, with a downward glance A deep draught of the rich, meUow at his shabby clothes; " and, in the samo wine, for the glass from which he drank way that there are none so deaf as those was bell-shaped and thin, sent the colour that won't hear, there are, I reckon, none mantling again through Captein Studley's so difficult to convince of our existence as bloated face, and brought the light into those who wish us dead. That is about his bleared and rheumy eyes. " That's your sentiment towards me, Mr. Heath; good tipple, glorious tipple," he said, and that is why I ask you who you would smacking his lips as he replaced his empty

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Otuuiea Dickeni.] A SILENT WITNESS. [March 27, 1876.] 669

glass upon the teble. " If I could drink "But I don't, sir," said the captain, that always, I should be a man again. I intermpting him; "both skUl and luck am not the man I was, sir, when we used seem to be gone. They have introduced to do business together. Age has clutched some new games, too, that I do not me in his claw, as I recollect hearing one manage to get hold of aa I did of old ; of them say at one of the penny readings ; and even when there seems to be a decided and I am left alone in the world, at a time run of luck, I find myself funking in when I ought to have my friends and backing the card or the colour. Besides, famUy about me." I am too old, and too ill, to be carrying on As he concluded these maundering this sort of game any longer. I don't remarks he shook his head solemnly, and want to be dependent on the clearness of poshed his glass across the teble. my head or the steadiness of my hand any " Tou mnst not give way in this fashion, more. I want enough to keep me in com­ Studley," said Heath, filling the glass and fort on the Continent—I have lost all reterning it to his companion with a plea­ taste for London—with my half bottle of sant smile. " Tou know the saying,' There wine for my breakfast, my bottle at dinner, is life in the old dog yet ? '" and some hot grog at night. What I get " Tes," said the captain, after sipping now won't do that, and that's why I wrote his wine, " that's all deuced fine about the to you. Ton got my letter ? " old dog, but the quantity of life in him " Oh, yes," said Mr. Heath, through hia entirely depends npon the stete in which teeth; " I got your letter." he ia kept. Let him have the run of the " I thought I would come over myself kitchen, stretehed before the fire and fed for the answer, as you were not too quick with the scraps which fall from the master's about it," said the captein. They were table—^themastor's teble," said the captain, half through the dinner by this time; and repeating the words as with a duU remi­ the empty bottle of Sauterne had been niscence of something that he had heard replaced by one of Beaune, which was before, " and he vrill go on all right; but nearly in the same stete as its predecessor. if he is left out to sleep in an old barrel, "What have you to say to my pro­ and only gete dirty bones and such like— position ? " weU, he wiU have a very bad time of it. " I do not clearly recoUect what it is in Anfl that's my case. Heath; I am rather deteU," said Heath, with a smile; "but I in the old-barrel-and-dirty-bone line, I am suppose it may be generally teken as ask­ thinking, and I don't see why I should ing for more money. I do not wholly stand it, sir; and, what's more, I don't object to that, but my notion is you are intend to." arguing on false premisses. Tou seem " Here is the soup," said Heath ; " we to take me for a wealthy man ? " wiU go into that question by-and-by, when " I only echo the general opinion," said we have got rid of the waiter. Don't put Studley; " and there cannot be much any pepper into it, my good feUow," he doubt about it, I should think. The continued, lifting np his hand in horror; manager of Middleham's bank, besides "the cook would faint if he saw you getting a pretty heavy screw of his own, experimenting vrith his bonne femme after must be in the way of getting certain that fashion." information which cannot fail to tum into "My palate wante a little exciting, it money." isn't so keen as it was, and that's the " It is precisely by declining to avail fact," said the captain. "I have often myself of any of the information of which heard about the doctora who tell the poor you speak, and rigorously confining myself people to supply themselves with good to my duties at the bank, that I have been port wine; but I never appreciated the able to hold my position, and to secure pomt of the joke untU lately. I ought to what is, undoubtedly, a very good salary," live well, I know, and I can't—that's said Heath. about the truth of it." " Well, but the young lady," muttered "I don't see that yon have much to the captein, whose voice was gradually compkin of, Studley," said Heath, with­ becoming indistinct, " the heiress that you ont any anger in his tone; " the allowance are going to marry ? Hold on a minute, which I have hitherto been able to make I have got it here—I am not one to speak yon is certeinly not large, but it ought to without book." He fumbled in his breast­ be enough to keep you going; and if you pocket, and after much trouble, from the keep up your old skiU at play " recesses of a greasy note-case, produced cSfc 670 [March 27,1876.] ALL THB TEAR ROUND. [Conducted br

a newspaper cutting; then with much suspect it is only when he is in this crazy, difficulty in adjusting a pair of glasses on muddled stete, that he nttera threats or his nose he read— thoughts of vengeance. Nevertheless, it " Forthcoming marriage.—We are en­ wUl be advisable to get him abroad and abled to state that a marriage has been keep him there, where his ravings are not arranged between Miss Middleham, the so Ukely to be nnderetood or taken hold of. heiress whose debut this season has created What a miserable degjraded wretch he has so great a sensation, and Mr. George become! If his daughter cared but little Heath, a gentleman who for some years for him, any filial feeling she might have has managed the well-known banking wonld probably vanish entirely if she saw esteblishment from which the young lady's him now. Or perhaps the other way," he fortune is derived." continued : " merely to find him in such a " What do you say to that ? " stete of misery and disgrace might soften " Say, my good friend ? " said Heath. her heart towards him—women are so "Isay that the storyis a lie, from beginning perverae, there is no knowing what they to end; that the statement has not the may or may not do." He sat there, occu­ smallest foundation in fact; that some pied with his own thoughte for some little penny-a-lining donkey has leamed through time, with his eyes fixed upon the slum­ the butler, or the kitehenmaid, or some bering figure of his companion, Ustening other source from which these creatures to the stertorous breathing, and eyeing get their information, that I have been in vrith scom the fits of nodding which the habit of seeing a good deal of Miss passed over him, and the contorted pos­ Middleham—which is quite tme, having tures into which he feU. When the waiter to consult her constantiy on matiera of had brought the bill, and received pay­ business—and has started this idiotic ment. Heath thonght it time to rouse the story." captain from his slumbera—prodding him " What! do you mean to say that it is with his stick, as he might have done to a not true that you are going to marry Miss dog, and telling him sharply to get up Middleham ? " asked tbe captain, hazily. and be off. The captain awoke, very much " No more than that you are going to refreshed by the slight nap which he had marry her, my good fellow," said Heath; taken. He had apparently some Uttle " and I suppose that is scarcely likely. difficulty in making ont where he was; Do you know what brought me to the but recollection, when it came to him, was Charing-cross station jnst now ? To see very full and virid. "I have had forty Miss Middleham off to Germany : not to winks," he said, yawning and shaking escort her there, or teke leave of her as himself, " but they have done me good. a friend or as a lover, as they wish to A very pleasant dinner, and a very agree­ make out, though, if I had been her lover, able converaation; so agreeable that I and her affianced lover, I should scarcely think we omitted to settle anything abont have allowed her to go alone. Simply as a the business which we proposed to discuss matter of business, to see her and her— —the question of increasing my allow­ and her maid, off by tho maU train. There ance." is not a word of truth in the report, I tell "It shall be increased," said Heath, you. shortly; " to what extent I cannot say just " There does not seem to be," said the now. It is a heavy tax npon me; but I wish captain, shaking his bemuddled head. you to live in comfort and on the Con­ Then, after a few moments' consideration, tinent, underatend—anywhere out of Eng­ he looked up at his companion with a land. Go back to Ostend, and I VTUI stolid glare, and said, "Anyhow, that is communicate with you at your old lodging. the future, with which we have nothing Meantime, here is some money to go on to do, sir. My business is vrith the past, with." He took a ten-pound note from concerning which I shall have certein his case, and handed it to the old man. things to say, which would be found As the captain clutched it in his moist highly interesting in a court of justice." palm, and listened to the delicious crisp Heath started, but, on looking up, he sound, once so familiar to him, he was discovered that the captain's head had nearly relapsing into his maundering fallen on his breast, and that he was stete; but he pulled himself together suffi­ already in a semi-somnolent state. ciently to wish his benefactor " Good " Very little vrine has an effect npon him night," and with a feeble attempt at dig­ now," muttered Heath to himself; " and I nity he tottered off down the street. A s^ y^ dl3 Charles Dickens.] A SILENT WITNESS. [March 27, 1876.] 571

Even after the retreating figure had lights. There the Nova Zembla Consols fairly passed out of sight. Heath remained Tin Mining Company had its office, the standing on the same spot, debating within destinies of which were presided over by himself what to do. He had had a hard an old man in a mangy sealskin waistcoat, day of it, and was both physicaUy and who looked as if he knew nothing of tin mentaUy weary, and craved for rest; but in any shape, and a boy, whose sole occu­ he knew himself too weU to believe that pation appeared to be to write his name sleep wonld come to him at once. What on the ink-steined desk, and to smear it he had gone through was of too exciting a out again with his elbow. There, Messrs. character to be easUy laid aside, and he Minchin and Minus, solicitors of the doubted whether it would not be better highest respectabUity, carried on their for him to go to the quiet smd decorous business ; and thence Mr. Plantagenet clab to which he belonged, and sit deeper Bouverie, army agent and diamond mer­ into the night in conversation with some chant, otherwise Ezra Moss, bankrupt of the acquaintances he was sure to find baked-potato salesman, issued his polito there, rather than give himself up to circulars to noblemen and gentlemen, thought in his soUtary chambera. Finally, offering at once to advance them any however, he came to the resolution that sums of money simply on their note of it had to be faced and fought through, hand. and that he had to take immediate deci- The rooms on the firat floor, into which in regard to his own future—the Mr. Heath let himself by his latch-key, as of which had been so completely seen by the light of the lamp burning on ;d by the circumstances which had the teble, were large and commodious, tluppened during the day just passed. plainly furnished, with a due regard to I So he turned his &ce to the north-west, comfort, but without any attempt at [and strode forth in the direction of his luxury, save, perhaps, in the well-filled >iiie. book-cases, and in the excellence of the Li selecting his home, Mr. Heath had proof prints hanging on the walls. He lised his usual exceUent judgment. took some letters from a rack fixed on one ith his income he might have lived side of the mantelpiece, and examined where he liked; in chambera in the their addresses under the lamp, but they AUjany, or a bachelor residence in May- were apparently of no interest, for he put fair. There were plenty of City men, them aside unopened, and throwing him­ whose position was nothing Uke equal to self into an easy chair, was at once im­ his, who drove away in their broughams, mersed in a reverie. Not a reverie of a at the conclusion of business houra, and, pleasant kind either, if one could judge antil they retumed again to the hive, were from his knitted brow, and the manner in •8 gay and as useless as any of the drones which he gnawed his nether lip. With of West-End society; but Mr. Heath had unequalled nerve aiding him in the carry­ no purpose to gain by any snch exhibition ing out of the most desperate crime, vrith­ of iuiury and ease; he knew, on the out a trace of conscience, this man was eimtrary, that the less display he made the yet superstitious, and a frightful feeling More highly he wonld be thonght of by of an impending Nemesis was on him now. those whose good-wUl it was desirable for The occurrences of the day had been too him to cultivato, and his ovm inclination much for him, he had lost his usual power led him to select more modest qnartera. of command over hia thoughts, and could He had accordingly teken up his residence tum them into none other than unpleasant in a big rambling block of houses, formerly channels—the recollection of the defeat he an Inn of Chancery, but long since un­ had susteined, the unsatisfactoriness of connected with the law, and let ont in things in general, the extraordinary in­ diambers to anyone who could give the trusion into his life of the woman who steward satisfactory references as to his had played so conspicuous a part in a fiespectability and his rent-paying powers. certain portion of it, and whom he believed In the honse in which Mr. Heath occupied to be dead—the superstitious feeling was one portion of the first floor, a queer colony strong on him at that moment, and he waa boated. There, at the top of the last could not bear up against it. All that steep flight of steira, was the story occupied had happened that day seemed to come to by Mr. Crosshatch, the engraver, where the him in the light of an omen. Was it so, patient man and his assistants sat hour was his career really winding up ? He after hour working away under the shaded sprang from the chair under the spur of J^ y- 4^ 672 ALL THB TEAR ROUND. [March 27, 1876.]

that idea, and commenced pacing the of the bank, so long cogitated over, so room with hasty strides. The fancied cleverly planned, so nearly executed with security in which he had lived, and which success, had it not been for the old man's had enabled him to carry his head so high, awaking; the figure of the old man wildly and set at defiance whatover might come, fighting for life, and the awful hush that was vanished, gone into air ! What safety followed when he succumbed ! A horrible from detection had he now, wonld he ever misteke that mattor altogether! The booty have again ? Who could answer for the secured had been large indeed, but on the circumstances which might induce a acquisition of it had resulted the unin- woman, whose hatred and vengeance were tontional murder, and the commencement all the more terrible because of her clear­ of the compact between himself and ness of brain and strength of mind, to Stadley which had placed him in his reveal all she knew. All was changed present dangerous position. A combi­ now, all his plans for the future had nation of horrora was upon him, from out crumbled away. He smiled bitterly to of which kept looming up, from time to himself as he thought of the career which time, distinctly visible, a woman's face— Mrs. Crutchley had sketched ont for him, bright, fascinating, and bewitching—with , as the lazy member of Parliament, with laughing eyes and a sunny smile; and that I dinnera and wife alike irreproachable. reminiscence was the worat of aU. He No, that pleasant viste was closed for ever; must get rid of it-at any cost. Not there, but there was no rcMon why one almost the closeness of the roOm oppressed him; equaUy pleasant should not open in ite he wonld go ont into the air and walk it stead. Not in England though, there the off. game was played out; bnt he was very well off, he had plenty of money, even Into the teeming thoroughfare, teeming though the coup of marrying the heiress stiU, bnt vrith a very different population on which he had calculated with such from that thronging it during the day. certainty had failed—and on the Continent The Miranda Music Hall, bowing iteelf ; he might enjoy himself in a manner, and under the strong arm of the law, was vrith a freedom which he had never yet closing ite doora, taming off ite gas, and known; his life had been one of toil and taming ont the customera, who would trouble hitherto, and he might now enjoy willingly have remained there for three or it. Not quito yet, though. He had engage­ four hours more. Out they came, stream­ mente on hand—one in particular—a ing into the street, a motiey crew. Boy financial scheme which would teke some clerks, vrith vrizened old faces and youth­ months to secure, but which, if it turned ful figures; dissolute vagabonds, knights of out as he expected, would have the effect the pavement and heroes of the kennel; and of doubling his fortune. women — among whom. Great Heavens ! Heath saw the face which had risen so Tes, vrith snch resources as he would ofton before his mentel vision that night. then possess he could indulge himself to The same face, but oh, how different I the top of his bent; there would be no The Ught had died out of the eyes, and need either of the dissimulation which he the snule had gone from off the lips. The had practised throughout his career, of woman was wom, weary-looking, and the dread so long laboured under lest the glaringly dressed. He moved aside in discovery should be made, that the fault­ horror; and though her gown touched less and decorous bank clerk, so pnre and him as she stepped into a Hansom-cab, so respectable, had his weaknesses and his which an attendant sprite had haUed for passions like other men, and indulged in her, she saw him not. them as freely as the rest, if with more There was no more walking for Mf. watchfulness and secresy. Heath that night. He hurried straight A curse on the thoughts, they would home, and put himself to sleep with a still run in the same groove ! The robbery strong narcotic.

The Right of IVo»nlot»ft!7 Articles from ALL THB YEAB ROUND is reserved by the Authors.

^. Published at the Office, 26, Wellington St., Strand, Printed by CHABLIS OICSEOT b ETABS, Crystal Palace Press.