Chapter 1 (2)

Shakspeare designed him to be a maker of fine sentences,--a dresser forth in sweet language of the ordinary common-places or the common-place mishaps of mankind, and he takes care to show us that he did not intend him for anything beside. With what admirable art he is confronted with Touchstone. He enters merrily laughing at the pointless philosophising of the fool in the forest. His lungs crow like chanticleer when he hears him moralizing over his dial, and making the deep discovery that ten o'clock has succeeded nine, and will be followed by eleven. When Touchstone himself appears, we do not find in his own discourse any touches of such deep contemplation. He is shrewd, sharp, worldly, witty, keen, gibing, observant. It is plain that he has been mocking Jaques; and, as is usual, the mocked thinks himself the mocker. If one has moralized the spectacle of a wounded deer into a thousand similes, comparing his weeping into the stream to the conduct of worldlings in giving in their testaments the sum of more to that which had too much,--his abandonment, to the parting of the flux of companions from misery,--the sweeping by of the careless herd full of the pasture, to the desertion of the poor and broken bankrupt by the fat and greasy citizens,--and so forth; if such have been the common-places of Jaques, are they not fitly matched by the common-places of Touchstone upon his watch? It is as high a stretch of fancy that brings the reflection how

"----from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale,"

which is scoffed at by Jaques, as that which dictates his own moralizings on the death of the deer. The motley fool is as wise as the melancholy lord whom he is parodying. The shepherd Corin, who replies to the courtly quizzing of Touchstone by such apophthegms as that "it is the property of rain to wet, and of fire to burn," is unconsciously performing the same part to the clown, as _he_ had been designedly performing to Jaques. Witty nonsense is answered by dull nonsense, as the emptiness of poetry had been answered by the emptiness of prose. There was nothing sincere in the lamentation over the wounded stag. It was only used as a peg on which to hang fine concepts. Had Falstaff seen the deer, his imagination would have called up visions of haunches and pasties, preluding an everlasting series of cups of sack among the revel riot of boon companions, and he would have instantly ordered its throat to be cut. If it had fallen in the way of Friar Lawrence, the mild-hearted man of herbs would have endeavoured to extract the arrow, heal the wound, and let the hart ungalled go free. Neither would have thought the hairy fool a subject for reflections, which neither relieved the wants of man nor the pains of beast. Jaques complains of the injustice and cruelty of killing deer, but unscrupulously sits down to dine upon venison, and sorrows over the sufferings of the native burghers of the forest city, without doing anything further than amusing himself with rhetorical flourishes drawn from the contemplation of the pain which he witnesses with professional coolness and unconcern.

It is evident, in short, that the happiest days of his life are those which he is spending in the forest. His raking days are over, and he is tired of city dissipation. He has shaken hands with the world, finding, with Cowley, that "he and it would never agree." To use an expression somewhat vulgar, he has had his fun for his money; and he thinks the bargain so fair and conclusive on both sides, that he has no notion of opening another. His mind is relieved of a thousand anxieties which beset him in the court, and he breathes freely in the forest. The iron has not entered into his soul; nothing has occurred to chase sleep from his eyelids; and his fantastic reflections are, as he himself takes care to tell us, but general observations on the ordinary and outward manners and feelings of mankind,--a species of taxing which

"----like a wild-goose flies,
Unclaim'd of any man."

Above all, in having abandoned station, and wealth, and country, to join the faithful few who have in evil report clung manfully to their prince, he knows that he has played a noble and an honourable part; and they to whose lot it may have fallen to experience the happiness of having done a generous, disinterested, or self-denying action,--or sacrificed temporary interests to undying principle,--or shown to the world without, that what are thought to be its great advantages can be flung aside, or laid aside, when they come in collision with the feelings and passions of the world within,--will be perfectly sure that Jaques, reft of land, and banished from court, felt himself exalted in his own eyes, and therefore easy of mind, whether he was mourning in melodious blank verse, or weaving jocular parodies on the canzonets of the good-humoured Amiens.

He was happy "under the greenwood tree." Addison I believe it is who says, that all mankind have an instinctive love of country and woodland scenery, and he traces it to a sort of dim recollection imprinted upon us of our original haunt, the garden of Eden. It is at all events certain, that, from the days when the cedars of Lebanon supplied images to the great poets of Jerusalem, to that in which the tall tree haunted Wordsworth "as a passion," the forest has caught a strong hold of the poetic mind. It is with reluctance that I refrain from quoting; but the passages of surpassing beauty which crowd upon me from all times and languages are too numerous. I know not which to exclude, and I have not room for all; let me then take a bit of prose from one who never indulged in poetry, and I think I shall make it a case in point. In a little book called "Statistical Sketches of Upper Canada, for the use of Emigrants, by a Backwoodsman," now lying before me, the author, after describing the field-sports in Canada with a precision and a _goût_ to be derived only from practice and zeal, concludes a chapter, most appropriately introduced by a motto from the Lady of the Lake,

"'Tis merry, 'tis merry in good greenwood,
When the mavis and merle are singing,
When the deer sweep by, and the hounds are in cry,
And the hunter's horn is ringing,"

by saying,

"It is only since writing the above that I fell in with the first volume of Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald; and I cannot describe the pleasure I received from reading his vivid, spirited, and accurate description of the feelings he experienced on first taking on him the life of a hunter. At an earlier period of life than Lord Edward had then attained, I made my debut in the forest, and first assumed the blanket-cloak and the rifle, the moccasin and the snowshoe; and the ecstatic feeling of Arab-like independence, and the utter contempt for the advantage and restrictions of civilization, which he describes, I then felt in its fullest power. And even now, when my way off life, like Macbeth's, is falling 'into the sere, the yellow leaf,' and when a tropical climate, privation, disease, and thankless toil are combining with advancing years to unstring a frame the strength of which once set hunger, cold, and fatigue at defiance, and to undermine a constitution that once appeared iron-bound, still I cannot lie down by a fire in the woods without the elevating feeling which I experienced formerly returning, though in a diminished degree. This must be human nature;--for it is an undoubted fact, that no man who associates with and follows the pursuits of the Indian, for any length of time, ever voluntarily returns to civilized society.

"What a companion in the woods Lord Edward must have been! and how shocking to think that, with talents which would have made him at once the idol and the ornament of his profession, and affections which must have rendered him an object of adoration in all the relations of private life,--with honour, with courage, with generosity, with every unit that can at once ennoble and endear,--he should never have been taught that there is a higher principle of action than the mere impulse of the passions,--that he should never have learned, before plunging his country into blood and disorder, to have weighed the means he possessed with the end he proposed, or the problematical good with the certain evil!--that he should have had Tom Paine for a tutor in religion and politics, and Tom Moore for a biographer, to hold up as a pattern, instead of warning, the errors and misfortunes of a being so noble,--to subserve the revolutionary purposes of a faction, who, like Samson, are pulling down a fabric which will bury both them and their enemies under it."

Never mind the aberrations of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the religion or the politics of Tom Paine, or the biography of Tom Moore. On all these matters I may hold my own opinions, but they are not wanted now; but have we not here the feelings of Jaques? Here are the gloomy expressions of general sorrow over climate, privation, disease, thankless toil, advancing years, unstrung frame. But here also we have ecstatic emotions of Arab-like independence, generous reflections upon political adversaries, and high-minded adherence to the views and principles which in his honour and conscience he believed to be in all circumstances inflexibly right, coming from the heart of a forest. The Backwoodsman is Dunlop; and is he, in spite of this sad-sounding passage, melancholy? Not he, in good sooth. The very next page to that which I have quoted is a description of the pleasant mode of travelling in Canada, before the march of improvement had made it comfortable and convenient.[102]

"But your march of improvement is a sore destroyer of the romantic and picturesque. A gentleman about to take such a journey now-a-days, orders his servant to pack his portmanteau, and put it on board the John Molson, or any of his family; and at the stated hour he marches on board, the bell rings, the engine is put in motion, and away you go smoking, and splashing, and walloping along, at the rate of ten knots an hour, in the ugliest species of craft that ever disfigured a marine landscape."

Jaques was just as woe-begone as the Tyger, and no more. I remember when he--Dunlop I mean, not Jaques--used to laugh at the phrenologists of Edinburgh for saying, after a careful admeasurement, that his skull in all points was exactly that of Shakspeare,--I suppose he will be equally inclined to laugh when he finds who is the double an old companion has selected for him. But no matter. His melancholy passes away not more rapidly than that of Jaques; and I venture to say that the latter, if he were existing in flesh and blood, would have no scruple in joining the doctor this moment over the bowl of punch which I am sure he is brewing, has brewed, or is about to brew, on the banks of Huron or Ontario.

Whether he would or not, he departs from the stage with the grace and easy elegance of a gentleman in heart and manners. He joins his old antagonist the usurping Duke in his fallen fortunes; he had spurned him in his prosperity: his restored friend he bequeaths to his former honour, deserved by his patience and his virtue,--he compliments Oliver on his restoration to his land, and love, and great allies,--wishes Silvius joy of his long-sought and well-earned marriage,--cracks upon Touchstone one of those good-humoured jests to which men of the world on the eve of marriage must laughingly submit,--and makes his bow. Same sage critics have discovered as a great geographical fault in Shakspeare, that he introduces the tropical lion and serpent into Arden, which, it appears, they have ascertained to lie in some temperate zone. I wish them joy of their sagacity. Monsters more wonderful are to be found in that forest; for never yet, since water ran and tall tree bloomed, were there gathered together such a company as those who compose the _dramatis personæ_ of "As You Like It." All the prodigies spawned by Africa, "_leonum arida nutrix_," might well have teemed in a forest, wherever situate, that was inhabited by such creatures as Rosalind, Touchstone, and Jaques.

* * * * *

* * As to the question which opened these Papers,--why, I must
* leave it to the jury. Is the jesting, revelling, rioting
Falstaff, broken of fortunes, luckless in life, sunk in habits,
buffeting with the discreditable part of the world, or the
melancholy, mourning, complaining Jaques, honourable of conduct,
high in moral position, fearless of the future, and lying in the
forest away from trouble,--which of them, I say, feels more the
load of care? I think Shakspeare well knew, and depicted them
accordingly. But I must leave it to my readers, _si qui sunt_.
W. M.

[97] It may be thus attempted in something like the metre of the
original, which the learned know by the sounding name of
Tetrameter Iambic Acatalectic:

"Does Clinia talk of misery? Believe his idle tale who can?
What hinders it that he should have whate'er is counted good for
man,--
His father's home, his native land, with wealth, and friends, and
kith and kin?
But all these blessings will be prized according to the mind
within:
Well used, the owner finds them good; if badly used, he deems them
ill.
_Cl._ Nay, but his sire was always stern, and even now I fear him
still," &c.

[98] This is printed as prose, but assuredly it is blank verse.
The alteration of a syllable or two, which in the corrupt state of
the text of these plays is the slightest of all possible critical
licenses, would make it run perfectly smooth. At all events, in the
second line, "emulation" should be "emulative," to make it agree
with the other clauses of the sentence. The courtier's melancholy is
not _pride_, nor the soldier's _ambition_, &c. The adjective is used
throughout,--_fantastical_, _proud_, _ambitious_, _politic_, _nice_.

[99] "Senectus ipsa est morbus."--Ter. Phorm. iv. i. 9.

[100] Query _on_? "Where_in_ we play _in_" is tautological. "Wherein we
play _on_," _i.e._ "continue to play."

[101] Psalm xc. "A prayer of Moses, the man of God," v. 10.

[102] Formerly, that is to say, previous to the peace of 1815, a journey between Quebec and Sandwich was an undertaking considerably more tedious and troublesome than the voyage from London to Quebec. In the first place, the commissariat of the expedition had to be cared for; and to that end every gentleman who was liable to travel had, as a part of his appointments, a provision basket, which held generally a cold round of beef, tin plates and drinking-cups, tea, sugar, biscuits, and about a gallon of brandy. These, with your wardrobe and a camp-bed, were stowed away in a batteau, or flat-bottomed boat; and off you set with a crew of seven stout, light-hearted, jolly, lively Canadians, who sung their boat-songs all the time they could spare from smoking their pipe. You were accompanied by a fleet of similar boats, called a brigade, the crews of which assisted each other up the rapids, and at night put into some creek, bay, or uninhabited island, where fires were lighted, tents made of the sails, and the song, the laugh, and the shout were heard, with little intermission, all the night through; and if you had the felicity to have among the party a fifer or a fiddler, the dance was sometimes kept up all night,--for, if a Frenchman has a fiddle, sleep ceases to be a necessary of life with him. This mode of travelling was far from being unpleasant, for there was something of romance and adventure in it; and the scenes you witnessed, both by night and day, were picturesque in the highest degree. But it was tedious; for you were in great luck if you arrived at your journey's end in a month; and if the weather were boisterous, or the wind a-head, you might be an indefinite time longer.

FAMILY STORIES.--No. V.--
HON. MR. SUCKLE-THUMBKIN'S STORY.

THE EXECUTION.
A SPORTING ANECDOTE.

My Lord Tomnoddy got up one day;
It was half after two,
He had nothing to do,
So his lordship rang for his cabriolet.

Tiger Tim
Was clean of limb,
His boots were polished, his jacket was trim;
With a very smart tie in his smart cravat,
And a smart cockade on the top of his hat;
Tallest of boys, or shortest of men,
He stood in his stockings just four foot ten;
And he ask'd, as he held the door on the swing,
"Pray, did your lordship please to ring?"

My Lord Tomnoddy he raised his head,
And thus to Tiger Tim he said,
"Malibran's dead,
Duvernay's fled,
Taglioni has not yet arriv'd in her stead;
Tiger Tim, come tell me true,
What may a nobleman find to do?"

Tim look'd up, and Tim look'd down,
He paus'd, and he put on a thoughtful frown,
And he held up his hat, and peep'd in the crown,
He bit his lip, and he scratch'd his head,
He let go the handle, and thus he said,
As the door, releas'd, behind him bang'd,
"An't please you, my lord, there's a man to be hang'd!"

My Lord Tomnoddy jump'd up at the news,
"Run to M'Fuze,
And Lieutenant Tregooze,
And run to Sir Carnaby Jenks, of the Blues.
Rope-dancers a score
I've seen before--
Madame Sacchi, Antonio, and Master Blackmore;
But to see a man swing
At the end of a string,
With his neck in a noose, will be quite a new thing!"

My Lord Tomnoddy stept into his cab--
Dark rifle green, with a lining of drab;
Through street, and through square,
His high-trotting mare,
Like one of Ducrow's, goes pawing the air.
Adown Piccadilly and Waterloo Place
Went the high-trotting mare at a deuce of a pace;
She produc'd some alarm,
But did no great harm,
Save fright'ning a nurse with a child on her arm,
Spattering with clay
Two urchins at play,
Knocking down--very much to the sweeper's dismay--
An old woman who wouldn't get out of the way,
And upsetting a stall
Near Exeter Hall,
Which made all the pious Church-Mission folks squall.
But eastward afar,
Through Temple Bar,
My Lord Tomnoddy directs his car;
Never heeding their squalls,
Or their calls, or their bawls,
He passes by Waithman's Emporium for shawls,
And, merely just catching a glimpse of St. Paul's,
Turns down the Old Bailey,
Where, in front of the jail, he
Pulls up at the door of the gin-shop, and gaily
Cries, "What must I fork out to-night, my trump,
For the whole first floor of the Magpie and Stump?"

* * * * *

The clock strikes Twelve--it is dark midnight--
Yet the Magpie and Stump is one blaze of light.
The parties are met;
The tables are set;
There is "punch," "cold _without_," "hot _with_," "heavy wet,"
Ale-glasses and jugs,
And rummers and mugs,
And sand on the floor, without carpets or rugs,
Cold fowl and cigars,
Pickled onions in jars,
Welsh rabbits, and kidneys--rare work for the jaws!--
And very large lobsters, with very large claws;
And there is M'Fuze,
And Lieutenant Tregooze,
And there is Sir Carnaby Jenks of the Blues,
All come to see a man "die in his shoes!"

The clock strikes One!
Supper is done,
And Sir Carnaby Jenks is full of his fun,
Singing "Jolly companions every one!"
My Lord Tomnoddy
Is drinking gin-toddy,
And laughing at ev'ry thing, and ev'ry body.
The clock strikes Two!--and the clock strikes Three!
--"Who so merry, so merry as we?"
Save Captain M'Fuze,
Who is taking a snooze,
While Sir Carnaby Jenks is busy at work,
Blacking his nose with a piece of burnt cork.

The clock strikes Four!
Round the debtors' door
Are gather'd a couple of thousand or more;
As many await
At the press-yard gate,
Till slowly its folding doors open, and straight
The mob divides, and between their ranks
A waggon comes loaded with posts and with planks.

The clock strikes Five!
The sheriffs arrive,
And the crowd is so great that the street seems alive;
But Sir Carnaby Jenks
Blinks, and winks,
A candle burns down in the socket, and stinks.
Lieutenant Tregooze
Is dreaming of Jews,
And acceptances all the bill-brokers refuse;
My Lord Tomnoddy
Has drunk all his toddy,
And just as the dawn is beginning to peep,
The whole of the party are fast asleep.

Sweetly, oh! sweetly, the morning breaks,
With roseate streaks,
Like the first faint blush on a maiden's cheeks;
Seem'd as that mild and clear blue sky
Smil'd upon all things far and nigh,
All--save the wretch condemn'd to die!
Alack! that ever so fair a Sun
As that which its course has now begun,
Should rise on such scene of misery!
Should gild with rays so light and free
That dismal, dark-frowning Gallows tree!

And hark!--a sound comes big with fate,
The clock from St. Sepulchre's tower strikes--Eight!--
List to that low funereal bell:
It is tolling, alas! a living man's knell!
And see!--from forth that opening door
They come--He steps that threshold o'er
Who never shall tread upon threshold more.
--God! 'tis a fearsome thing to see
That pale wan man's mute agony,
The glare of that wild despairing eye,
Now bent on the crowd, now turn'd to the sky,
As though 'twere scanning, in doubt and in fear,
The path of the Spirit's unknown career;

Those pinion'd arms, those hands that ne'er
Shall be lifted again,--not ev'n in prayer;
That heaving chest!---- Enough--'tis done!
The bolt has fallen!--the Spirit is gone--
For weal or for woe is known to but One!
Oh! 'twas a fearsome sight! Ah me!
A deed to shudder at,--not to see.

Again that clock!--'tis time, 'tis time!
The hour is past:--with its earliest chime
The cord is sever'd, the lifeless clay
By "dungeon villains" is borne away:
Nine!--'twas the last concluding stroke!
And then--my Lord Tomnoddy awoke!
And Tregooze and Sir Carnaby Jenks arose,
And Captain M'Fuze, with the black on his nose;
And they stared at each other, as much as to say
"Hollo! Hollo!
Here's a Rum Go!
Why, Captain!--my Lord!--Here's the Devil to pay!
The fellow's been cut down and taken away!
What's to be done?
We've miss'd all the fun!
Why, they'll laugh at, and quiz us all over the town,
We are all of us done so uncommonly brown!"

What _was_ to be done?--'twas perfectly plain
That they could not well hang the man over again:--
What _was_ to be done?--The man was dead!--
Nought _could_ be done--nought could be said;
So--my Lord Tomnoddy went home to bed!

EPIGRAM.

'Tis strange, amid the many trades
By which men gather riches,
That ridicule should most attach
To those who make our breeches!
But so it is; yet, as they sew,
Rich is the harvest made:
Then call not theirs, unseemly wags!
A _so-so_ sort of trade.
R. J.

THE ROMANCE OF A DAY.
A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF AN ADVENTURER.

WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

When things are at the worst, they are sure to mend, says the old adage; and the hero of the following narrative is a case in point. Dick Diddler was a distant connexion, by the mother's side, of the famous Jeremy, immortalized by Kenny. He was a shrewd, reckless adventurer, gifted with an elastic conscience that would stretch like Indian-rubber, and a genius for raising the wind unsurpassed by Æolus himself. At the period to which this tale refers, he had dissipated at the minor West-end hells, and elsewhere, the last farthing of a pittance which he inherited from his father; and was considerably in arrears with his landlady, a waspish gentlewoman who rented what she complacently termed "an airy house" in the windiest quarter of Camden Town. This was embarrassing; but Dick was not one to despair. He had high animal spirits, knowledge of the world, imperturbable self-possession, good exterior, plausible address, and a modesty which he felt persuaded would never stand in the way of his advancement.

Thousands of London adventurers, it has been observed, rise in the morning without knowing how they shall provide a meal for the day. Our hero was just now in this predicament, for he had not even the means of procuring a breakfast. Something, however, must be done, and that immediately, so he applied himself to a cracked bell which stood on his ill-conditioned table; and, while waiting his landlady's answer to the tintinnabulary summons, occupied himself by casting a scrutinizing glance at his outer Adam. Alas! there was little here to gratify the eye of taste and gentility! His coat was in that peculiar state denominated "seedy," his linen was as yellow as a sea-sick cockney, and his trousers evinced tokens of an antiquity better qualified to inspire reverence than admiration.

Just as he had completed his survey, his landlady entered the room, accompanied by her first-born,--a hopeful youth, with a fine expanse of mouth calculated seriously to perplex a quartern loaf. Dick perused her features attentively, and thought he had never before seen her look so ugly. But this of course: Venus herself would look a fright, if she came to dun for money.

"Ah, poppet, is that you?" exclaimed Dick, affectionately patting the urchin's head, by way of an agreeable commencement to the conversation; "Why, how the dear boy grows! Blessings on his pretty face: he's the very image of his Ma!"

"Come, come, Mr. Diddler," replied Mrs. Dibbs, "that language won't do no longer. You've been blessing little Tom twice a day ever since you got into my books, but I'm not going to take out my account in blessings. Blessings won't pay my milk-score, so I must have my money,--and this very day too, for I've got a bill to make up to-morrow."

"Have patience, my good lady, and all will be right."

"Ay, so you've said for the last month; but saying's one thing, and doing's another."

"Very good."

"But it ain't very good; it's very bad."

"Well, well, no matter, Mrs. D----"

"No matter! But I say it is a great matter,--a matter of ten pounds fifteen shillings, to say nothing of them oysters what you did me out on last night."

"Exactly so; and you shall have it all this very day, for it so happens that I'm going into the City to receive payment of a debt that has been owing me since November last. And this reminds me that I have not yet breakfasted; so pray send up--now don't apologise, for you could not possibly have known that I had an appointment in Fenchurch-street at ten o'clock."

"Breakfast!" exclaimed Mrs. Dibbs with a disdainful toss of her head; "no, no; not a mouthful shall you have till I get my money: I'm quite sick of your promises."

"Nay, but my dear Mrs. D----"

"It's no use argufying the pint; what I've said, I'll stand to. Come, Tom--drat the boy! why don't you come?" and so saying, the choleric dame, catching fast hold of her son by the pinafore, flounced out of the room, banging the door after her with the emphasis of a hurricane.

Dick remained a few minutes behind, in the hope that breakfast might yet be forthcoming: but finding that there was not the slightest prospect of his landlady's relenting, he, in the true spirit of an indignant Briton, consigned her "eyes" to perdition; and, having thus expectorated his wrath, began to furbish up his faded apparel. He tucked in his saffron shirt-collar; buttoned up his coat to the chin, refreshing the white seams with the "Patent Reviver;" smoothed round his silk hat, which luckily was in good preservation; and then rushed out of the house with the desperate determination of breakfasting at some one's expense. There is nothing like the gastric juice to stimulate a man's ingenuity. It is the secret of half the poetic inspiration in our literature.

Chance--or perhaps that ruling destiny which, do what we will, still sways all our actions--led Dick's steps in the direction of the Hampstead Road. It was a bright, cool, summer morning; the housemaids were at work with their brooms outside the cottages; the milkman was going his rounds with his "sky-blue;" and the shiny porter-pots yet hung upon the garden rails. As our hero moved onward, keeping his mouth close shut, lest the lively wind might act too excitingly on his unfurnished epigastrum, his attentive optics chanced to fall on a cottage, in the front parlour of which, the window being open, he beheld a sight that roused all the shark or alderman within him,--to wit, a breakfast set forth in a style that might have created an appetite "under the ribs of death." Dick stopped: the case was desperate; but his self-possession was equal to the emergency. "A Mr. Smith lives here," said he, running his eye hastily over the premises: "the bower, and the wooden god, those trees so neatly clipped, and that commonplace-looking terrier sleeping at the gate, with his nose poked through the rails, all betoken the habits and fancies of a Smith. Good! I will favour the gentleman with a call;" and with these words Dick gave a vehement pull at the garden-bell.

"Is Mr. Smith at home?" he inquired with an air of easy assurance that produced an instant effect on the girl who answered the bell.

"No, sir."

"Upon my life, that's very awkward; particularly so as he requested me to be----"

"Oh! I suppose, then, you're the gentleman that was expected here to breakfast this morning?"

"The very same, my dear."

"Well," continued the girl, unlocking the gate, "master desired me to say that you were to walk in, and not wait for him, for he had to go into Tottenham-court Road on business, and should not be back for an hour."

Dick took the hint, walked in, and in an instant was hard at work.

How he punished the invigorating coffee! What havoc he wrought among the eggs and French rolls! Never was seen such voracity since the days of the ventripotent Heliogabalus. His expedition was on a par with his prowess, for Mr. Smith's guest being momentarily expected, he felt that he had not a moment to lose. Accordingly, after doing prompt, impartial justice to every article on table, he coolly rang the bell, and, without noticing the muttered "My stars!" of the servant as she glanced at the wreck before her, he desired her to tell Mr. Smith that, as he had a visit to pay in the neighbourhood, he could not wait longer for him, but would call again in the course of the day; and then, putting on his hat with an air, he quitted the cottage on the best possible terms with himself and all the world. There is nothing like good eating and drinking to bring out the humanities.

Having no professional duties to attend to, Dick strolled on to Hampstead Heath, where he seated himself on a bench that commands an extensive view towards the west and north. Here he continued musing upwards of an hour, in that buoyant mood which a good breakfast never fails to call forth. It was early yet to trouble himself about dinner or his landlady's bill; and Dick was not the man to recognise a grievance till it stared him in the face, when, if he could not give it the cut direct, he would boldly confront and grapple with it: so he occupied himself with whistling one of Macheath's songs in the Beggar's Opera.

While thus idling away his time, and picturing in his mind's eye the perplexed visages of Mr. Smith and his guest when they should become acquainted with the extent of their calamity, Dick's attention was suddenly directed to the sound of voices near him. He listened; and, from the dulcet accents in which the conversation was carried on, felt persuaded that the parties were making love. Curious to ascertain who they were, he retreated behind one of the broadest elms on the terrace, and there beheld a dry old maid, thin as a thread-paper, and straight as a stick of sealing-wax, smirking and affecting to blush at something that was whispered in her ear by a young man. Our adventurer fancied that the latter's person was familiar to him; so, the instant the enamoured turtles separated, he emerged from his hiding-place, and saw, advancing towards the bench he had just quitted, an old com-rogue, to whom in his better days he had lost many a sum at the gaming-table.

The recognition was mutual.

"What! Dick Diddler?"

"What! Sam Spragge?"

"Why, Sam, what has brought you here at this hour?" quoth our hero.

Samuel smiled, and pointed significantly towards the ancient virgin, who was just then crossing the Heath, near the donkey-stand.

"Hem! I understand. Much property?"

"Eight hundred a year at her own disposal, and two thousand _three per cents_ at the death of a crusty, invalid brother-in-law, who lives with her in that old-fashioned house she is now entering."

"Eight hundred a year!" said Dick musing; "lucky dog! And how long have you known her?"

"Oh! an eternity. Three days."

"And where did you pick her up?"

"Under a gateway in Camden Town, where we were both standing up from the rain."

"You seem to have made excellent use of your time."

"Nothing easier. I could see at a glance that she was quite as anxious for a husband as I am for a rich wife; so, after some indifferent chat about the weather, &c. I prevailed on her to accept of my escort home; talked lots of sentiment as we jogged along under my umbrella; praised her beauty to the skies,--for she is inordinately vain, though ugly enough, as you must have seen, to scare a ghost--and, in short, did not quit her till she had promised to meet me on the following day."

"And she kept her word, no doubt?"

"Yes, I have now seen her four times, and am sure that if I could but muster up funds enough for a Gretna-green trip,--for she has all the romance of a boarding-school girl,--I could carry her off this very night. But I cannot, Dick, I cannot;" and Sam heaved a sigh that was quite pathetic.

"Can you not borrow of her?--'tis for her own good, you know."

"Impossible! I have represented myself as a man of substance; and, were she once to suppose me otherwise, so quick-witted is she on money matters, that she would instantly give me my dismissal."

"And what is your angel's name?"

"Priscilla Spriggins."

"My dear fellow," exclaimed Dick with a sudden burst of emotion, "from my soul I pity you; but, alas! sympathy is all I have to offer:--look here!" and, turning his empty pockets inside out, he displayed two holes therein, about as big as the aperture of a mousetrap.

An expressive pause followed this touching exhibition; shortly after which the two adventurers parted,--Sam returning towards London, with a view, no doubt, of seeking, like Apollyon, "whom he might devour;" and Dick remaining where he was, casting ever and anon a glance towards the house where the fair Priscilla vegetated, and meditating, the while, on the revelation that had just been made to him.

Tired at length of reverie, he rose from the bench, and made his way back into Hampstead,--slowly, for every step was bringing him nearer the residence of his unreasonable landlady. On passing down by Mount Vernon, he beheld the walls on either side of him placarded with hand-bills announcing that an auction was to take place that day at a large old family mansion (the by-streets of Hampstead abound in such) close by: and, on moving towards the spot, he saw, by the groups of people who were lounging at the open door, that the sale had already begun. By way of killing an idle half-hour or so, Dick entered; and, elbowing his way up stairs, soon found himself in a spacious drawing-room, crowded with pictures, vases, old porcelain, and other articles of _virtù_.

Just at that moment the auctioneer put up a landscape painting by one of the old masters, on which he expatiated with the customary professional eloquence. "Going, ladies and gentlemen, going for two hundred pounds--undoubted Paul Potter--highly admired by the late lamented Lawrence--sheep so naturally coloured, you'd swear you could hear 'em bleat--frame, too, in excellent condition--going--going----"

"Two hundred and thirty!" said a small gentleman in spectacles, raising himself on tip-toe to catch the auctioneer's eye.

"Two hundred and fifty" shouted another.

"Going for two hundred and fifty," said the man in the rostrum; after a pause, "upon my word, ladies and gentlemen, this is giving away the picture. Pray look at that fore-shortened old ram in the background; why, his two horns alone are worth the money. Let me beg, for the honour of art, that----"

"Three hundred!" roared Dick, with an intrepid effrontery that extorted universal respect,--for to his other amiable qualities he added that of being a "brag" of the first water, and was proud, even though it were but for a moment, of displaying his consequence among strangers.

As this was the highest bidding, the picture was knocked down to our hero, who, having cracked his joke, and gratified his swaggering propensities, was about to beat a retreat, when he found his elbow twitched by a nervous, eager little man,--a duodecimo edition of a virtuoso,--who had only that moment entered the room.

"So you have purchased that Paul Potter, sir, I understand," said the stranger, wiping the perspiration from his bald head, and evidently struggling with his vexation.

Dick nodded an affirmative, not a little curious to know what would come next.

"Bless my soul, how unlucky! To think that I should have been only five minutes too late, and such a run as I had for it! Excuse the liberty I am taking, but have you any wish to be off your bargain, sir?--not that I am particularly anxious about the picture--I merely ask for information; that's all, sir, I assure you," added the virtuoso, aware that he had committed himself, and endeavouring to retrieve his blunder.

Dick cast one of his most searching glances at the stranger; and, reading in his countenance the anxiety he would fain have concealed under a show of indifference, said in his slyest and most composed manner, "May I beg to be favoured with your name, sir?"

"Smithson, sir,--Richard Smithson, agent to Lord Theodore Thickskull, whose picture-gallery I have the honour of a commission to furnish; and happening to read a day or two ago in the "Times" that a few old paintings were to be disposed of by auction here on the premises, I thought, perhaps----"

"Indeed! That alters the case," replied our hero with an air of dignified courtesy, "for I have some slight acquaintance with his lordship myself."

"Bless my soul, how odd!--how uncommon odd! Possibly, then, for my lord's sake, you will not object to----"

"No," replied Dick smiling, "I did not say that."

"Rely on it, sir," continued the fidgety little virtuoso, "you are mistaken in your estimate of that painting. They say it is a Paul Potter; but it's no such thing--no such thing, sir."

"Then why are you so anxious to get possession of it?"

"Who? I, sir? Bless my soul, I'm not anxious. I merely thought that as his lordship was particularly partial to landscapes, he might be tempted, perhaps, to give more--"

"Well," said Dick, eager to bring the matter to a conclusion, "as I have no very pressing desire to retain the picture, though it is the very thing for my library in Mount-street, you shall have it; but on certain conditions."

"Name them, my dear sir, name them," said the virtuoso, his eyes sparkling with animation.

"I have bought the painting," resumed Dick, "for three hundred guineas; now, you shall have it for six hundred. You see I put the matter quite on a footing of business, without the slightest reference to his lordship."

"Six hundred guineas! Bless my soul, impossible!"

"As you please," replied our hero with exquisite nonchalance; "I am indifferent about the matter."

"Say four hundred, sir."

"Not a farthing less. The pictures in this house, as the advertisement which brought me up here at this unseasonable hour, before I had even time to complete my toilette, justly observes, have been long celebrated, and----"

"I'll give you five hundred," replied Smithson, cutting short Dick's remarks.

"Well, well, for his lordship's sake----"

"Good!" exclaimed the virtuoso; and hurrying Dick to a more quiet corner of the room, he took out pen and inkhorn, wrote a check on a West-end banker for the amount of the balance, thrust it into his hand, and then, after assuring him that he would arrange everything with the auctioneer, and would not trouble him to stay longer, hurried away towards the rostrum, as though he feared our hero would repent the transfer of a painting for which he himself imagined he should be able to screw about eight hundred pounds out of his lordship, who was remarkable for the readiness with which he paid through the nose.

No sooner had Dick lost sight of Mr. Smithson, than away he flew from the house, bounding and taking big leaps like a ram, till he reached the main street, when, changing his exultant pace for a more sober and gentlemanlike one, he hailed the Hampstead coach, which was about leaving the office, snugly ensconced himself inside, and within the hour was deposited at Charing-cross.

"Coachman," quoth our hero, as the Jehu, having descended from his box, held out his hand to receive the usual fare, "I am rather delicately situated."

"Humph!" replied the man, who seemed perfectly to comprehend, though not to sympathise with, the delicacy of the case, "sorry for it; but master always says, says he----"

"The fact is," continued Dick, interrupting what bade fair to become a prolix Philippic, "though I have not a farthing in my pocket, having forgotten to take out my purse this morning, yet as I am just going to receive cash for a two hundred pound cheque, and shall return with you to Hampstead, I presume the delay of an hour will make no great difference."

The coachman, whose white round face usually beamed with all the bland expression of a turnip, evinced symptoms of an uneasy distrust at this speech; but when Dick exhibited the cheque--not relishing the idea of a "bolt," long experience having no doubt taught him that coachmen running after a fare are apt to run with most inconvenient velocity--when, I say, Dick exhibited this convincing scrap of paper, all Jehu's suspicions vanished, and, touching the shining edge of his hat, he absolved our hero from extempore payment, with a bow that might have done honour to a Margate dancing-master.

This knotty point settled, the ingenious Richard next posted off in a cab to the banker's,--for it was beneath his dignity to walk,--presented his cheque, received the amount, placed it securely in his waistcoat pocket, and then made all possible haste to a well-known shop in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly, where every item necessary to perfect the man of fashion may be procured at a minute's notice.

Our hero entered the shop in a condition bordering upon the shabby genteel, though his person and address were a handsome set-off against the infirmities of his apparel: he came out dressed in the very height of ton. The hue of his linen was unimpeachable; his pantaloons fitted to a miracle; his coat was guiltless of a wrinkle. Then his gay, glossy silk waistcoat, to say nothing of--but enough; the metamorphosis was complete--the snake had cast its skin--the grub was transformed into the butterfly.

But, startling as was the change which his Hampstead speculation had wrought in his person, still more so was its effect on his mind. Here an entire revolution was already in full activity. Vast ideas fermented in his brain. He no longer crept along with the downcast look of an adventurer, but stared boldly about him, as one conscious that he was somebody. And so he was. It is not every one who cuts a figure at the West-end that can boast of the possession of two hundred pounds!

On his road back to Charing-cross, the first object which caught our hero's eye was the Hampstead coach preparing to set out on its return. The sight brought to his recollection the fair Priscilla Spriggins; and in an instant, with the decision of a Napoleon, he resolved to make a "Bold Stroke for a Wife," and carry her of to Gretna that very night. The scheme was hopeless, you will say: granted; but Dick was formed to vanquish, not be vanquished by, circumstances. "Faint heart never won fair lady," said he; "so here goes;" and in he popped.

It was now about two o'clock, the hour when the fair inhabitants of our cockney Arcadia are in the habit of taking the air on the Heath, some with work-bags, some with the "last new novel," but the majority with "Bentley's Miscellany" in their hands. Dick no sooner reached the donkey-stand, than he seated himself on a bench close by,--where two young ladies were standing, fondly imagining that they beheld Windsor Castle through a spyglass,--and looked anxiously about him, to see if he could detect Miss Spriggins among the peripatetics. But no Priscilla was visible. How, therefore, should he act? "Wait," said common sense; so Dick waited.

Half an hour had elapsed, and he was beginning to get impatient, when suddenly, on casting his eyes towards the lady's house, he saw the door open, and Miss Spriggins herself stepped forth, with a novel in one hand, and a pea-green parasol in the other. Dick watched her motions as a cat watches a mouse: saw her steal away towards a retired quarter of the Heath, and, having made up his mind as to the line of conduct he should pursue, started from his seat and followed quickly in her wake.

On reaching her side, "Miss Spriggins, I presume?" said he with a profound obeisance.

"The same, sir," replied the surprised Priscilla.

"Ah! madam," resumed Dick, bursting at once into a sentimental vein, for he felt that every minute was precious, "happy am I to see that enchanting face once more."

"Excuse me, sir," said Miss Spriggins, affecting to bridle up; "but really I do not comprehend----"

"Comprehend, madam!--and how should you? I scarcely comprehend myself. But how should it be otherwise, when for weeks past I have daily wandered over this romantic heath, hoping, but, alas! in vain, to catch one stray gleam of that sunny beauty which last April--how well I remember the date!--so riveted my fancy as it flashed on me from the front drawing-room of yonder house;" and Dick pointed towards Priscilla's dwelling.

"Really, sir, this language----"

"Is the language of frenzy, maybe; but it is the language also of passion. Ah! madam, if you but knew the flame that that one casual glimpse of your bewitching countenance lit up in my unhappy heart, you would pity what I now feel. Would to God that you were as much a stranger to me as I am to you, for then I should cease to be the wretch I am;" and Dick, having no onion ready, turned away his head, and covered his face with his handkerchief.

"Sir," replied Miss Spriggins, startled, yet far from displeased, "I really know not what answer to make to this most extraordinary----"

"Extraordinary, madam? Is it extraordinary to admire beauty--to reverence perfection--to live but in the hope of again seeing her who, once seen, can never be forgotten--is this extraordinary? If so, then am I the most extraordinary of men. Revered Priscilla,--Miss Spriggins, I should say,--your beauty has undone me. I should have joined my regiment at Carlisle ere now; but you, and you only, have kept me lingering in this sylvan district. Ah, lady! Captain Felix O'Flam was happy till he saw you,--happy, even though deceived by one whom he once thought his friend."

The fair Priscilla, whose predominant infirmity, as has been before observed, was an indigestion of celibacy, could not witness the affliction of the dashing young man before her, without sympathising with him; perceiving which, Dick continued, "I see you pity me, lady, and your pity would be still more profound did you know all. It is no later than last week that I became acquainted with the arts of an adventurer named Spragge, who, for months previously, having wormed himself into my confidence, had led me to believe that----"

"Spragge!" interrupted Miss Spriggins with a look of huge dismay; "and pray what sort of a person may he have been?"

In reply, Dick described Sam to the life; whereupon his companion, no longer able to conceal her rage, exclaimed abruptly, "The wretch!--what an escape have I had!"

"Escape, madam! How so? Has the villain dared to deceive you, as he has me? I know that he is one of those plausible, unprincipled adventurers about town, who make a point of preying on the unwary--and such he must have considered me, when he introduced himself one morning as a relation of the commanding officer of my regiment;--but that he should have presumed to----"

"Oh no, captain," replied Miss Spriggins with evident embarrassment; "I was never his dupe. He merely called,--if indeed it be the same person, as I feel convinced it is,--one day last week at my brother's, on some pretence or other, which--which--But I have done with him, the monster!"

"Call on you, madam!" replied Dick, adroitly giving in to the lady's little deviation from fact, "call on you, when _I_ dared not approach your threshold! But enough--I'll cut his throat!"

"No, no, captain; believe me, he is unworthy of your revenge."

"You say right, madam; for, since I have found reason to suspect him, I have instituted inquiries into his character, and am told that he is beneath contempt. Why--would you believe it?--the fellow has been twice ducked in a horse-pond, for thimble-rigging, at Epsom,--flogged at the cart's tail for petty larceny, rubbed down with vinegar and set in the black-hole to dry."

"Mercy on us! you don't say so?"

"Fact. But to quit this unworthy theme, and revert to a more pleasing one:--May I, lady,"--and Dick here put on his most wheedling air,--"may, I, having at length been honoured with one interview with you, presume to hope for a second? Say only that we may again meet,--nay, that this very evening we may take a stroll together through these sequestered shades,--and make me the happiest of men. Alas! I once thought that fortune alone was necessary to constitute felicity; but, now that I have _that_, I feel 'tis as nothing; and that love,--disinterested, impassioned love,--is the main ingredient in the cup of human bliss. Give me but the woman I adore, and I ask--I expect nothing further; but wealth without her is a mere mockery."

This rhapsody had more effect on his companion than anything Dick had yet said. It was a shot between wind and water.

"Oh, captain!" replied Priscilla, "I appreciate your generous sentiments; and, to convince you that I am not unworthy to share them, will--however strange it may appear in a young and timid female--consent to see you once more. But, remember, it must be our last interview;" and she sighed,--and so did Dick.

"Adieu, then, idol of my soul! if so I may presume to call you," exclaimed this ingenuous young man; "adieu, till the shades of twilight lengthen along the horse-pond hard by the donkey-stand, when we will meet again, and the thrice-blessed Felix----" Dick stopped: seized the lady's hand, which she faintly struggled to withdraw; imprinted on it a kiss that "came twanging off," as Massinger would say; and then tore himself away, as if fearful of trusting himself with farther speech.

On quitting Priscilla's side, Dick rattled across the fields to Highgate, wondering at the success that had thus far crowned his efforts. "Will she keep her appointment?" said he. "Yes, yes; I see it in her eye. The 'captain' has done the business; never was there so conceited an old lass!" and, thus soliloquizing, he found himself at the door of the best hotel in Highgate, strutted into the coffee-room, and rang the bell for the waiter.

The man answered his summons, cast a shrewd glance at his exterior, and, satisfied with the scrutiny, made a low bow, prefaced by a semicircular flourish of his napkin.

"Waiter," said Dick, with the air of a prince, "show me into a private room, and let it be your best."

"Please to follow me, sir," replied the man; and, so saying, he ushered our hero into a spacious apartment, which commanded a picturesque view of a brick-field, with a pig-sty in the background.

"Good!" said Dick, and throwing himself full-length on a sofa, he ordered an early dinner, cold, but of the best quality, together with one bottle of madeira, and another of port, by way of appendix.