Chapter III: "Tipsy dance and jollity."--L'Allegro (2)

"I was present under Dumouriez at Valmy, where the allies, as if panic-stricken, showed the futility of their threats, for we were victorious. Conquest succeeded to conquest. The battle of Jemmapes was fought, and Belgium became ours. It was whilst prosecuting a hazardous march that intelligence reached me that Louis was no more. Madame T----'s revenge was satiated; but she herself perished near the guillotine, an awful instance of fearful retribution. She had hurried in disguise to the place of slaughter, and obtained a near approach to the fatal instrument. Her joy at seeing the axe fall was unbounded; she shrieked with delight, and, being recognised, was raised upon the shoulders of the women, and in the madness of the moment was worshipped with enthusiastic fervour: they bore her along through the swelling crowds, and, amidst their awe and homage, she cried for fresh victims,--'The queen! the queen!' Her shout was reiterated by the mob, in whom the sight of royal blood had quickened the tiger-like ferocity of their sanguinary thirst for gore; and they were hurrying towards the prison of the bereaved wife and wretched mother, when a _garde du corps_, in female attire, fought his way to the head of the procession. He, too, had witnessed the murder of his royal master; and, terror for his own fate inspiring him with a desire to fall at once, he formed the determination to have a companion in his exit. He stood before the shouting mob, who were compelling every one to do obeisance to their idol; he stooped down, as if in obedience to their mandate; but, making a sudden spring, like the panther from his lair, or the snake from his coil, he gripped the sibyl by the throat, dragged her to the earth, and stabbed her to the heart! 'Twas the work of an instant; the sound of her voice had scarcely died away in the distance as she stirred up the vindictiveness of the populace, when she lay extended on the frost-bound ground a lifeless corpse. The _garde du corps_ was instantly seized, and in a short time his dissevered limbs were scattered through the Place Louis Quinze. Thus terminated the life of Madame T----, and the queen was spared a little longer.

"Anxious for the security of Amelie, I requested leave of absence, but it was refused me,--'my services were required with the army.' Again, and again, at intervals, I renewed my application, with no better success; till, goaded by agony, I threw up my commission, and returned to Paris, where I found Robespierre the leader of the day. The queen had shared the fate of her royal consort, and the countess was under condemnation in a dungeon of the Conciergerie. Maddened and desperate, I sought out Danton, and endeavoured to enlist him on my side for the preservation of her I loved; but he had argued himself into cold-blooded policy, and recommended my abandoning Amelie to her fate. With difficulty I was allowed an interview with the devoted lady; and, oh! Monsieur, language cannot describe the bitterness of those moments! Her affection was unchanged and unsubdued. She was calm and collected, though there was the prospect of only a few hours' division between her and eternity. Young and beautiful, though somewhat wasted by distress and hunger, I could not look upon her resigned and heroic conduct but as something too valuable for my possession, and only worthy of that heaven to which she was hastening. We parted; and I left her with the assurance that no means should be left untried to preserve her life. I hurried to Robespierre, and met Danton coming out; a cold sick shuddering rushed through my heart; nevertheless, I entered the bureau of the tyrant, who commenced a rapid series of questions relative to the defection of Dumouriez, (who had passed over to the enemy,) and the state of the army of the North. Repeatedly did I attempt to introduce the object of my visit, and as often did he foil me. The insatiate monster! the consummate villain! At length I obtained a hearing, described my services, promised the most implicit compliance with every order he might give, provided the life of the countess was granted me as a boon. 'Her attachment to the queen,' said he, 'has rendered her conspicuous, and these are not times in which to suffer the milk of human kindness to overflow the current of a just retribution.'--'Her devotion to her mistress ought to excite admiration, Monsieur Citizen,' returned I; 'but I will answer with my own existence that henceforth she will cause no trouble, but bend to the will of the nation.'--'You promise well,' said he, 'and, did it rest with me, the pardon might be easily accomplished; but we want recruits to meet the enemy, and they refuse to join our standard, lest, during their absence, the aristocrats should again usurp the power, and revenge themselves on the families and friends of those who are in the field. Young man, I fear the case is hopeless.'--'You want trusty servants, Citizen,' rejoined I,--'men on whom you can rely with confidence that they will neither desert nor betray the interests of the nation. Save the life of this innocent, and you bind me yours for ever.' He held me for some time in conversation. I entreated, I implored,--nay more, I wept! and the drops that were wrung from my eyes were like boiling and scalding blood rushing from my heart. He seemed moved to compassion; tears stole down his cheeks! Bah! the wretch was mocking me! no soft distilment of generous sympathy was ever wormed from out his breast! 'I have an important duty for you to execute;' said he, 'perform it with fidelity, and the pardon shall be granted,'--'But the time is short,' remonstrated I; 'Citizen Danton----!' 'You are right,' he answered, and, hastily snatching a piece of paper, he hurriedly wrote a few lines, which he presented to me. 'This will stay the execution,' he added; 'Danton is not to be trusted.'--'The pardon, Monsieur Citizen!' exhorted I; 'let me but see her released, and I am yours, soul and body!'--'The populace, my friend,' returned he; 'the populace and Danton! Has she not seduced a brave officer from the defence of his country? Believe me, she is more safe within the walls of the Conciergerie than if exposed to popular violence.'--'As my wife, Monsieur,' responded I, 'she will immediately return with me to the army. Grant me her pardon and her liberty, let the rest fall upon my head.'--'You are wilful,' said he, somewhat sternly; 'but take your wish.' Again he wrote, and once more I received a document, that seemed like renewed light, and hope, and life to me. 'You will return here,' continued he, 'when your mission is accomplished; I have business for you. Use despatch now, but do not fail hereafter.'

"With a bold step and a bounding heart I hurried from his presence, and ran toward the prison. In one of the streets I met a _fiacre_ accompanied by the officers of justice, and I knew it was some poor wretch whose hours were numbered; and, oh! how did my spirit exult in the thought that Amelie--my own Amelie--would be rescued from a similar fate! I stopped not to ascertain who the condemned prisoner was; but with my quickest speed presented myself at the prison gate. I showed my paper, the porter admitted me; and, oh! Monsieur, what tongue can tell the joyous and eager delight that held a sainted fête within my breast! In a few minutes I should hold her within my arms, should clasp her in my embrace, and lead her forth to freedom. And yet I trembled: the perspiration stood in big drops upon my face. I felt a sickness steal over me; though not a fear, not a doubt arose in my mind of Amelie's liberty. The head gaoler was engaged; but in a time,--though short, it was an age to me,--he came; I delivered the document into his hands; he read it, shook his head, and, whilst a suffocating sensation almost stifled every faculty, I heard him say, 'I fear you are too late. Amelie de M---- has already departed for the place of execution!'"

Here vivid recollection appeared to overcome the Frenchman's strength of mind; he paced the deck athwart-ships with impetuous strides; the picture of desolation was probably present to his imagination in all its horrors; and Lord Eustace could not behold his apparent agony unmoved, but he did not speak, rather preferring to leave nature to its own operations. In a few minutes the captive grew more composed; he again placed himself by his lordship's side, folded his arms, and proceeded.

"Yes, my lord, she had indeed departed, and was the inmate of that _fiacre_ I had passed on my hurried way to the prison. The truth instantly flashed upon me; in my disregard for the sufferings of another, I had consigned her to an ignominious end. I had the pardon in my hand. I might be her murderer!--Might be? there was a hope in that surmise; and, resuming the document, I flew rather than ran towards the fatal spot. People stared at my headlong speed, and gave way before me. I saw the guillotine, with the prostituted figure of Liberty presiding over it. My breath began to fail; but yet I shouted. There was a commotion in the crowd as I held up the paper high above my head. I rushed forward. The few persons who had collected opened a passage, and I reached the scaffold at the very moment the axe fell, and the decapitated trunk of the young and beautiful, sent forth its gush of blood to waste the fountain of life! At first I stood speechless with horror and amazement; but when the head was raised, and I saw those tresses I had loved to weave amongst my fingers, stained with gore,--when I beheld the cheek that had been pressed to mine still quivering in the last death-pang,--phrensy drove reason from her seat. I raved till the air rang with my maledictions. I cursed the Convention, and denounced the monsters Robespierre and Danton. The guard were about to seize my person, when a young man caught me by the arm, claimed me as his brother, and declared I was a lunatic, escaped from the control of my keepers. He dragged me away with him to his lodgings, and, when my fit of passion was passed, I recognised the youth I had saved from drowning during the earthquake of Messina.

"That night we quitted Paris together, for he would not suffer me to remain alone, and despair had fixed a melancholy upon my mind that rendered all places alike to my despondency. For a time we sojourned in the country; but my friend received orders to join the army employed against Toulon, and I accompanied him. He had been a pupil in the artillery school of Brienne; he was soon raised to eminence by his skill and judgment, and the whole artillery department of the army before Toulon was placed at his disposal. Through his talent and intrepidity Toulon fell; and I obtained by his recommendation a lucrative office, and ultimately rose through the several grades to that in which you found me,--_capitaine de frégate_. Monsieur, the youth of Messina, the artillery officer who snatched me from the myrmidons of Robespierre, is now the First Consul of the French nation,--Napoleon Buonaparte!"

Here Citizen Begaud ceased. The chase was closing nearly within hail, and, without exchanging another word, Lord Eustace walked to the gangway.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 28: The present King of the French.]

LINES

_Occasioned by the death of the Count Borowlaski, a Polish dwarf, whose height was under thirty-six inches, and who died at Durham, on the 5th of September last, aged ninety-eight._

A spirit brave, yet gentle, has dwelt, as it appears,
Within three feet of flesh for near one hundred years;
Which causes wonder, like his constitution, strong,
That one so _short alive_ should be _alive so long_!
J.S.

A CHAPTER ON WIDOWS.

Widows! A very ticklish subject to handle, no doubt; but one on which a great deal may be said. An interesting subject, too,--what more so? What class of persons in the universe so interesting as weed-wearing women? We are not sure that on paper they have ever been treated as they deserve. We don't think they have been considered as they ought to be: their past, their present, and their future, have not been speculated upon; their position in the world has not been decided. They have simply been spoken of _as_ widows, in the gross: the various circumstances of widowhood have never been distinguished; as if those circumstances did not subdivide and classify, giving peculiar immunities to some, and fixing peculiar obligations on others; as if every good woman who has the fortune, or misfortune, to call in an undertaker, is placed in precisely the same situation as far as society is concerned, or ought to be judged or guided by the same rules. We shall begin with a definition; not because any one can doubt what a widow is, but because we have a reason.

A widow is--"a woman who has lost her husband." We must here premise that it is no part of our present plan to say a syllable about those whose husbands have taken themselves off--the dear departed,--and not been heard of, Heaven knows how long: nor of those who have lost the affection, and attention, and care of their husbands; for, however much they may be widows as to the comforts and endearments of married life, they are not widows for our purpose.

We shall define a widow in other words. A widow is--"a woman whose husband is dead." This would not be sufficiently intelligible unless we were to add "dead by due course of nature, accident, or physic," because there is such a thing as a man being dead in law; and as we have ever carefully eschewed all things pertaining, directly or indirectly, to that dangerous "essence," as far as volition could assist us, so we intend to eschew them. We mean, then, dead in fact, and comfortably buried, or otherwise safely disposed of.

And now, having settled a definition, let us proceed to the division of our subject.

We propose to treat of young widows, middle-aged widows, and old widows; to speak of them the truth, and nothing but the truth, and, if not the whole of it, sufficient we trust to show that they have merited our attention.

A young widow must be on the tender side of twenty-eight; the tough side begins, and ten additional years limit, middle-aged widowhood; while all from thirty-eight to a hundred must take rank, in this army at least, as granny-dears.

A young widow!--to what emotions of tenderness and pity do these words give rise! With what a vivid scene of wretchedness is the mind oppressed! Do they not tell us a tale--and how briefly too!--of joy and sorrow, rejoicing and wailing?--happy anticipations and blighted hopes crowded into one little space? In our mind's eye, we see a fair and blushing bride, an animated ardent bridegroom, a group of happy friends, favours, and festivals; in the background of the picture, a grave. One is missing from the party, never to return; gone from the light and warmth of love, to the cold but constant embrace of the tomb,--from the _few living_ to the _many dead_! The atmosphere was sweet, and life-instilling; an arc of promise was above us: that arc has vanished, that atmosphere has changed,--it is thick, oppressive, dank! Hope's lamp flickers, as if it would go out for ever.

This is undoubtedly the cambric-pocket-handkerchief view of the matter, making, as some would say, the "devils" very blue indeed; but it is one that strikes many, perhaps all, who are not of a fishy or froggy temperament: at the same time, we will admit the brush is dipped in the darkest colours, and that we might have been a little less sombre by imagining the defunct a fat and apoplectic old fool, who had only decided upon going to church when he ought to have been looking to the church-yard; in which case, "a young widow," instead of drawing on the deep wells of the heart, draws upon our cheerful congratulations, and stands forth "redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation."

Whether under the melancholy or the happy circumstances to which we have alluded, a young widow is a very different being to what she has ever been before; in identity of person she is the same, but there is no identity of position; as regards society, there is no identity of rights, privileges, licences, or liabilities. The great difference as regards herself is, that, for the first time in her life, she is her own protector: many things that she could not do as a girl, and dare not do as a wife, are now open to her. She has been "made a woman of," and is a very independent person. After languishing a fitting time in calm retirement and seclusion, having "that within which passeth outward show," she reappears to the world decked in "the trappings and the suits of woe." We purposely use the word "decked," because in its most familiar sense it implies "adorned," at least as applied to the "craft" we are now convoying. We should very much like to be told, and very much like to see, a more interesting sight than a young widow, when, after having been laid up in ordinary the ordinary time, she leaves her moorings, in proper "rig and trim," to prosecute the remainder of the voyage of life. The black flag is up, and no doubt she means mischief; but all is fair and above board. No mystery is made of the metal she carries, the port she is bound for. She may take a prize, or make one; but it must be by great gallantry if she is captured.

To drop metaphor: a young widow is, we repeat, an extremely delightful and highly privileged creature. Mark her in society,--we do not care how limited or how extensive,--and she bears the palm in the interest that is excited. We will give a showy animated girl of eighteen the benefit of a first appearance; we will allow her to have excited the attention of the room, to be the observed of all observers; every one shall be asking, "Who is the young lady in pink crape?"--she shall have danced and sung herself into full-blown importance,--she shall have turned as many heads as she has times in her waltzing;--and then, a little late in the evening, we will introduce, very quietly,--no loud double knocking at the door, no voices of servants echoing her name, no rustling of silks or satins,--a young widow! just "one year off;" she shall slide gently into the room, seeming to shun observation, as they all do, (lest perchance some ill-natured person should wonder what business they have there,)--and, contented with a simple recognition from her host or hostess, she shall occupy some "silent nook," and rest satisfied in its shade. Presently, some one shall chance to _speak_ of her as "a young widow,"--the lady of the house, for instance, who usually occupies every leisure moment in informing groups of her old visitors the names and et-ceteras of her young ones,--she shall happen to say, "Excuse me one moment, I _must_ go and speak to poor Mrs. Willow."

"_Poor_ Mrs. Willow!--what can that mean?" wonder all who hear it.

And then the lady comes back, and explains that Mrs. W. is a widow.

"Poor thing!" says one.

"Only think!" says another.

"How very young!" says a third.

"Any children?" asks a fourth.

"I thought she looked melancholy!" observes a fifth; and then, after staring at the object of their commiseration and curiosity sufficiently long to be sure they will know her again, they separate with the view of advertising the interesting intelligence. It being known to four old women, and one middle-aged man who doesn't dance, it speedily spreads over the whole room; and, provided no one intimates off-hand a superior case of affliction in the person of any one present, the young widow has to bear the brunt of a very wholesale inspection. There is also a great deal of wonder; people wonder in classes:--the elderly, What her husband died of,--the young ladies, Whether she has any family,--the gentlemen, Whether she has any money. During all this wonderment, "the young lady in pink crape" is entirely forgotten.

Now, if the young widow should happen to feel at all "at home," and chooses to "come out" a little, mark what follows: "the young lady in pink crape" has to dance the remainder of the evening with red-haired, freckled, pock-marked, snub-nosed, flat-footed fellows, with whom she would not have touched gloves an hour ago, while all the stylish staff that then surrounded her, are doing homage at another shrine.

And no wonder!--A girl may be very agreeable and "all that," as people say when they want to cut description short; but it's impossible she can hold a candle to a young widow. She is obliged to be circumspect in all she says,--to weigh every word,--to cripple her conversation, lest she should be thought forward; but, worse than this, she is so deuced simple and credulous, that a man with a fine flowing tongue is apt to mislead her, and place himself in a false position before he gets through a set of quadrilles; whereas with the other partner it is _tout au contraire_. "Old birds are not to be caught with chaff;" and old the youngest widow is, in "the ways of men," compared with the bread-and-butter portion of the unmarried world. You may rattle on as much as you please, so may she; you neither of you mean anything, and both of you know it: besides, no one has a right to forbid it; you are your own master, she her own mistress. Dance ten times in an evening with her, and call in the morning. What then!--she has her own house, her own servants. What more?--she is--able to take care of herself.

So much for a young widow in society, or those scenes of life in which the actors and actresses play more immediately against one another; scenes in which tragedy, comedy, melo-drama, and farce--the last predominating--are brought before us. Now, if we step behind the scenes, and look a little into the privacy of the domestic circle, and observe her as one of the "select few," we fancy we shall still find her maintaining her pre-eminence as an intelligent companion and delightful friend. When we use the term "intelligent," we do not presume to say that she is necessarily more acute than she was as a coy maiden, or than the virgin of our acquaintance, as touching any branch of historical, artistical, or scientific information; but we mean intelligent in an unobtrusive but every-day-available knowledge of "men and things,"--in other words, a knowledge of the world. She has pushed off from shore, and has learnt a little of the current of life, its eddies, shoals, and quicksands. She has lost the dangerous confidence of inexperience, without having acquired an uncharitable distrust; and smiles at the greenness of girlhood, without assuming the infallibility of age. She is not too old to have sympathy for youth, nor so young as to slight the experience of years. In her past, joy and sorrow have commingled; in her future, hope is chastened by reason.

Some imaginative people of bygone centuries decided that fire produced all things, and that this fire was inclosed in the earth. Of fire, Vesta was the goddess; or, as the Romans sometimes thought, Vesta herself was fire. Ovid is our authority for this:

"Nec tu aliud Vestam quàm vivam intellige flammam."

The same gentleman, also, synonymizes her with another element:

"---- Tellus Vestaque numen idem est."

Now, whether Vesta was fire, or fire Vesta, or whether the earth and Vesta were one and the same fire, we are not in a condition to determine; and as there are no muniments of any Insurance Office to throw light on the matter,--even the "Sun" had not then begun business in this line,--the curiosity of the curious must remain unquenched. This, however we know, that Vesta's waiting-women;--we beg their pardon, the goddess's lady's-maids,--the Vestales of her Temple, had, beyond the usual routine of their business, such as dressing and undressing her; waiting her whims, and getting up her linen, the onerous charge of watching and guarding the holy fire, and lighting it once a year, whether it required lighting or not. The first of March was the appointed day for this ceremony; though the first of April might have been, under all the circumstances, a more appropriate anniversary. We have no distinct records as to whether these young women were familiar with the application of flint and steel to tinder, or whether the royal-born Lucifer had, in those days, taken out a patent for his matches; there is little reason for regret, however, in this uncertainty, inasmuch as neither the one nor the other could have been made use of. The holy fire might be supplied from no common flame, and they had therefore to ask "the favour of a light" from the pure and unpolluted rays of the Sun.

Now we humbly conceive that our motive for introducing this interesting little classical episode must be obvious from its conclusion.

We were talking of one--though certainly not in any probability a Vestal virgin--whose "sacred flame" had gone out, and we felt we should be expected to say something of its re-lighting. Thinking, preparatory to writing, we recollected all that we _have_ written, and we were interested and amused with the identity of means employed for a common end two thousand years ago and in the present day; as it then was, so it now is, managed by _attraction_.

It has just occurred to our reflective mind, that the imaginative people before-mentioned must have been figurative also; and meant by earth, human clay,--and by the fire therein, love. We should like to know what love will _not_ do; and, until we are told, we shall deem it capable, as the ancients did fire, of producing everything.

And now a few words upon the marriage of a young widow. We might be expected to discuss the question of second marriages generally, and weigh the arguments pro and con,--the romance against the reality of life; but we decline doing so at present, on the ground that, right or wrong, young widows at any rate have ever had, if possible, and even will have, a second string to their bow, should grim Death rudely snap the first,--a second arrow to their quiver, should the first be lost "beyond recovery."

She marries again,--may we say, loves? If she has loved before, we may not. _He_ is in the grave, and her "heart is in the coffin there." But she marries; and, though she may exclaim,

"No more--no more,--oh! never more on me
The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,"

in the spirit of the words,--she takes nothing from their truth by substituting one reading for another:

"No more--no more,--oh! never more on me
The _greenness_ of the heart," &c.

And this, there is no doubt, she does, as she embarks in matrimony with comfortable confidence a second time.

It is believed that many very sensible men have married young widows. Without saying whether we believe it, we may observe that _we_ have never done anything of the kind, and never intend. This declaration is not inconsistent with perfect sincerity in all we have said. We have been treating of young widows _as_ widows, not as wives. Our objections to any transformation on our own account are many; we shall give only one,--our extreme diffidence and modesty, which would never allow us to be judged by comparison as to the essentials of a good husband. So strong, indeed, is our feeling on this point, that, notwithstanding our extreme prepossession in their favour, we verily believe that the most fascinating relict that ever lived, with the best fortune that was ever funded, might say to us by her manner, as plainly as a brass-plate on a street-door, "Please to ring the bell-e," only to suffer defeat and disappointment.

And now we approach the second division, and proceed to pay our respects to middle-aged widows; generally, stout, healthy-looking women with seven children. We have omitted, by-the-bye, to observe, that young widows cannot have more than two, or at the most three, without losing caste. Seven children form a very interesting family, and confer considerable importance on their proprietor, of whose melancholy bereavement they are perpetual advertisements. In proportion to the number of pledges presented to a husband, is a wife's love for him; or, if this be not invariable, at any rate in proportion to her little ones is her sorrow for his loss; particularly when he dies leaving nothing behind him but the "regret of a large circle of friends." For some time, the afflicted woman places great reliance on an extensive sympathy, and has very little doubt that some one will some day do something: godfathers and godmothers rise into importance, and directors of the Blue-coat School are at a premium. If she be fortunate, her motherly pride is gratified before long by gazing on her first-born with a trimmed head and yellow cotton stockings; and by this time she generally finds out she has nothing more to expect from any one but--herself.

We have begun with the poor and heavily-burthened middle-aged widows, because they are by far the most numerous of the class. It is a singular thing, that we seldom meet with a middle-aged widow with a small family, or a large provision. The young and the old are frequently wealthy; not so the other unfortunates. We suppose the reason of this is, that the harassing cares of an increasing family kill off a prodigious number of men; and, inasmuch as these cares would not have existed had Fortune been propitious, they make their exit in poverty.

Occasionally, however, we meet with a middle-aged widow without children, and with fortune, or a comfortable independence. Of such a one we shall say a word or two. Generally speaking, she looks with extreme resignation on the affliction that has overtaken her; and, when she speaks of it, does so in the most Christian spirit. Of all widows, she is the most sure that "everything is for the best;" and, as she has no living duplicates of the lost original, her bosom is less frequently rent by recollections of the past. Anxious, however, to prove her appreciation of the holy state, and offer the best testimony of her sense of one good husband, she rarely omits taking a second; and, purely to diminish the chance of having twice in her life to mourn the loss of her heart's idol, she generally selects one some ten or fifteen years younger than herself. We say "selects," because it is very well known, that, though maids are wooed, widows are not. The first time a woman marries is very frequently to please another; the second time, invariably herself: she therefore takes the whole management of the matter into her own hands. We think that this is quite as it should be: it stands to reason that a woman of seven or eight and thirty, who has been married, should know a great deal more about married life than a young gentleman of twenty-five, who has not. And then he gets a nice motherly woman to take care of him, and keep him out of mischief, and has the interest of her money to forward him in his profession or business,--the principal has been too carefully settled on the lady to be in any risk.

We do occasionally encounter some "_rara avis in terris_"--a middle-aged widow who thinks nothing of further matrimony; and so convinced are we of the "dangerous tendency" of such characters, that we would at once consign them to perpetual imprisonment. If they declared their resolution in time, we would undoubtedly try it, by burying them with their first lover, or burning them Hindoo fashion; for, supposing them to have no children, to what possible good end can they propose to live? It is our firm belief that they know too much to be at perfect liberty, with safety to society; and they must of necessity be so thoroughly idle, beyond knitting purses and reading novels, as to make mischief the end and aim of their existence. We ask fearlessly of our readers this question--"Did you ever in your lives know an unmarrying, middle-aged, childless widow, who was not a disagreeable, slanderous, and strife-inducing creature?" If you ever did, you ought to have tickled her to death,--so as to have avoided disfigurement,--and sent her in a glass-case to the British Museum.

Perhaps it will be said by some, that they have known such a woman as we have just enquired about, and that they don't think she merited any such fate; perhaps they will say that she was a very harmless, pleasant person, and only remained single because she held her heart sacred to her departed lord. Cross-grained and ugly middle-aged widows may occasionally foster this romance; as also may those whose husbands have exemplified by their wills that jealousy may outlive life, by decreeing that their flower should lose its sweetness upon another presuming to wear it,--in other words, that, upon a second marriage, the worldly advantages of the first should determine.

There is a class of men in the world, who go through two-thirds of their life single, and who, if you were to believe them, never entertain the remotest notion of being "bothered with a wife." In some instances this arises from an early indulgence in dissipation; and, from keeping very equivocal company. In their own opinion they are extremely knowing, and are continually wondering "how men can make such asses of themselves" as to put their necks into the matrimonial noose; if you attempt to argue with them on the stupidity, if not baseness of their creed, they assure you confidently that "women are all alike." We once made a fellow of this sort ashamed of himself, when, having ended a long tirade, which was a coarse amplification of Pope's line,

"But every woman is at heart a rake,"

we asked him, with sufficient emphasis, "Who his mother and sisters were _living_ with?"

Another portion of the ring-renouncers are men who are so abominably selfish, that they would not share an atom of their worldly substance with the most perfect specimen of "the precious porcelain of human clay" that the world could produce them;--men who look with horror on the expenses of an establishment, and live in miserable hugger-muggery on some first-floor, sponging on their friends to the extremity of meanness;--men who look upon children with as much horror as that with which they would view a fall in the funds or the stoppage of their banker, and see nothing in them but a draft upon their pockets.

There is yet another body of solitaries, much smaller in number though, than either of the other two;--men who underrate themselves, and who are so extremely diffident and bashful as never to have "popped the question," though their tongues have often had the itch to do it;--men who people their room, as they sit over the fire, with an amiable woman and half-a-dozen little ones, and, when they rub their eyes into the reality of their nothingness, sigh for the happiness of some envied friend. It was necessary that we should make this digression.

We left the middle-aged widow with a large family and small means, convinced that, having got one child provided for,--enabling every one to speak of a kind act as though they had something to do with it,--she had then only to rely upon herself. She _does_ rely upon herself; and, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, her own resources are sufficient to change her state. Men may make fools of girls, but women make fools of men. In this work of retribution, middle-aged widows with families pre-eminently take the lead. They work particularly on those gentlemen whom we have here introduced; and more particularly and successfully on the first and third class, though the second are not unfrequently made examples of. It will be said that the first class are fools to hand: so they are; and, when caught, they find it out themselves. They are flies, buzzing about and blowing every fair fame they are not scared from. The widow spreads her web of flattery and flirtation; and when the poor insect ventures boldly in, confident that he can at any moment "take wing and away," she rolls him round and round in her meshes, as a spider does a blue-bottle,--or, to use a very expressive idiom, she "twists him round her finger," ring-shape. The consequential, slanderous, and boasting booby sinks into the insignificance of a caged monkey, and lives and dies a miserable Jerry Sneak! Look into society, and you will find many of them.

We admit it is a hard fate for a man, whose only failing, perhaps, has been his modesty, to be secured for the purpose of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked; but then it must be remembered that, had not a widow proposed to him, he would never have had courage to propose to anybody, and that he gets a companion for life and a ready-made family, instead of lingering on in envy and despair.

Seeing that we have called all widows old, who are on the grave side of forty, we feel that we have the most difficult portion of our subject to discuss,--difficult, and, we may add, delicate, because so very few of those who are obnoxious to what we may say, will be inclined to admit it; indeed, if we had any hope of getting over this difficulty by throwing in ten or fifteen years more, we would do so, and date only from fifty or fifty-five. We know, however, that this would not extricate us, and so prefer adhering to our original scale. Widows of forty and upwards command very little of the sympathy that waits on those bereaved in earlier life. The reason of this, perhaps, is, that they are not themselves so interesting. It is astonishing how much we feel through our eyes. We are told that "Pity is akin to love," and we might enter into some curious speculations as to the various deductions to be drawn from these words. Supposing we see a young creature of one-and-twenty, in all the freshness of life and first grief, who has buried a lover in a husband after two or three years of unalloyed happiness; she has an infant, perhaps, in each arm. Do we pity her? Deeply,--acutely; we could almost weep for her. Well; we meet a woman in the autumn of life, whose summer has been passed with the first and only object of her affections; hearts that yearned towards each other in youth, time has made one; in every inclination, wish, hope, fear, they have heightened the pleasures of life by a mutual enjoyment of them, and alleviated its sorrows by sharing them together. Death has divorced them, and we see her--alone! We are very sorry for her, and her four or five children; it is "a sad loss:"--we say so, and of course we mean it; but are we as sensitive to this picture as to that?

If we make second marriages a principal feature in this dissertation on widows, we do so because it is their "being's end and aim," as is incontrovertibly proved by their all but universality. Old widows, even if poor, sometimes lend an able hand in the retaliation of which we have before spoken; but, unfortunately, they also very frequently, when they happen to have wealth, become themselves objects of scorn and derision. Perhaps the most offensive creature in existence, and, save one, the most contemptible, is the worn-out, toothless, hairless, wrinkled jade, who attempts,

"---- Unholy mimickry of Nature's work!
To recreate, with frail and mortal things,
Her withered face;"

and then, upon the strength of a long purse, puts herself up, a decayed vessel, to Dutch auction, herself proclaiming what she is worth, to be knocked down--we are almost unmanly enough to wish it were not figuratively--to some needy young spendthrift, of whose grandmother she must have been a juvenile contemporary. Widows of this stamp are almost always women raised from low stations, from whom, perhaps, little delicacy or refinement is to be expected. There is hardly a season in which some carcase-butcher's or grocer's wealthy relict is not the talk, and wonder, and emetic of the town.

We must not conclude with exceptions, however, where they create so unfavourable an impression; we will rather turn to those portly and obliging widows who, after looking a little about them as single women, fall in with some comfortable old gentleman who very much wants a housekeeper, and somebody to mix his grog o' nights, and at once agree to take the situation. The old boy puts all his affairs into her hands, and they rub on together cosily enough the remainder of their days. Every one admits it to be "a very suitable match;" if an objection be made by anybody, it merely comes from some expectant nephews or nieces.

There _are_ widows we think, we must admit it, who, widows once, remain so for ever, and from inclination, or rather from disinclination to encourage any impression, or even thought, that might weaken or interfere with the memory of the past; but we must repeat that they are never young, and rarely middle-aged widows: they are women past the meridian of their days, whose griefs, not violent or obtrusive, have yet been solemn and absorbing; women who have lost the vanity of believing they can accommodate themselves to any man; and, dwelling on the happiness they _have_ enjoyed, cherish its recollection as an act of devotion to one "not dead, but gone before." They wear their "weeds" as long as they are of this world; and there is always a quietness, if not gravity of demeanour, that perfectly assorts with them. In society they are always respected; by those who know them, loved; they do not hesitate to talk of their married life, and live over many of its scenes, to those who are interested in listening: herein they differ from married widows, if we may use the expression, who very rarely talk of their first union to any one but their husbands; they, perhaps, hear of it something too much, and too often!

And now, having passed our compliments and paid our respects, we must take our leave. We have been guilty of one rudeness,--we have had all the talk to ourselves: in return, we promise to be patient listeners, should any fair controversialist think fit to propound her views on this "highly-interesting and important subject."

PETRARCH IN LONDON.

I.

Near Battersea a lonely flower grew,
It was in truth a sweet and lovely thing:
The skies smiled on its blossoming,
And poured into its breast their balmy dew;
Its breath was fragrant as the month of May;
Its face was fairer than the mist that veils
Aurora's self, ere she has bid the day
Laugh on the hills, and smile upon the dales.
Fairest of all!--companions she had none;
For Fate had torn them from her tender side.
She seemed a virgin suing to be won,
And yet all-shrinking in her modest pride.
This cauliflower,--which I now call a flower,--
I took into my arms, and boiled that very hour.

II.

The Irish hodman, on his ladder high,
Surveys each chimney-pot that smokes around,
Then turns his anxious eyes upon the ground
To where his pipe doth in his jacket lie:
Sweet thoughts of "'bacco," and the opium feel
That lays a handcuff on Care's iron wrist.
Come o'er his mind; and pots of porter steal,
Illusive settling on his outstretched fist!
Entranced he stands: the tenants of his hod
Fall down before the spirits of his heart;
Till Reason interferes her magic rod,
"Puts out his pipe," and shows his bricks apart,
So 'twas with me: Ambition once did fix
An airy structure, which fell down "like bricks!"

ADVENTURES IN PARIS.

BY TOBY ALLSPY.

THE FIVE FLOORS.

The Boulevards may be said to perform for Paris the functions fulfilled by the cestus of Venus towards that amphibious goddess, by surrounding it with a magic girdle of fascinations. Every sort and variety of entertainment is to be found comprised in their cincture of the city,--from the stately Académie de Musique and Italian Opera (full of dandies and dowagers), to the trestles of rope-dancers, amphitheatres of dancing-dogs, and galleries of wax-work, (full of ploughboys and pickpockets,)--and every species of domicile, from the gorgeous hôtel to the humble stalls of the vendors of liquorice-water and _galette_. At one extremity we have the costly _menu_ of the Café de Paris, with its _ortolans_ and _poudings à la Nessebrode_; at the other, the greasy _fricots_ of La Courtille. The Café Turc brays forth with Tolbecque, and an orchestra of trumpets and bassoons; the _guinguettes_ of the Faubourg St. Antoine scrape away with their solitary fiddle. Every species of shop and merchandize, from the sumptuous _magazin_ of Le Revenant to the _boutique à vingt-cinq sous_; every species of temple, from the Parthenonic Madeleine, to that aërial shrine of liberty, the site of the Bastille. Every gradation of display between splendour and misery is epitomized in the circuit of the Boulevards.

Play, opera, farce, feats of equestrianism, funambulism, somnambulism, and humbugism of every colour, industrious fleas, and idle vendors of magic eye-salve, successively arrest the attention; while in the vicinity of the Café Tortoni, famous for the coldness of its ices and heat of its quarrels, the _courtier marron_ plies his trade of trickery; stock-jobbing has full possession of the _pavé_; and almost within hearing of the knowing ears of the Jockey-Club, and the ears polite of the _Club Anglais_, bulls and bears outbellow the fashionable jabber of the Boulevards.

On emerging from the head-quarters of English Paris,--the Rue de la Paix,--to the Boulevards des Capucines and des Italiens, the eye is dazzled by gilding, gas-light, plate-glass, scagliola, or moulu, varnished counters, and panelling in grotesque and arabesque, interspersed with glittering mirrors, as appliances and means of getting off the lowest goods at the highest rate. A little further, and by an imperceptible gradation, vice succeeds to frivolity. Instead of milliners and jewellers, we find billiard-tables and gambling-houses, deepening at length, into the more tremendous hazards of the Stock Exchange. After passing the vicinity of the Bourse, we come, naturally enough, to the quarter of the Jews; passing through the speculative neighbourhood of Le Passage des Panoramas, which is but a splendid game of chance materialised into stone and marble.

Next to this gaudy section of the modern Babylon dwells solid trade,--the streets of St. Denis and St. Martin,--accompanied by such theatres and such coffee-houses as might be expected to minister to the sensual and intellectual delights of the _marchand en gros_; melo-drama, and the Porte St. Martin,--the _Cadran Bleu_, and its unctuous _cuisine_. The vicinage of Rag Fair (the _marché aux vieux linges_) succeeds; then the Boulevard still bearing the name of Beaumarchais (the mansion formerly inhabited by the creator of Figaro being appropriately occupied by a refinery of salt); and lastly, in the wake of rags and wits, the site of the Bastille,--the rallying-point of the most seditious parish of Paris, the republican quarter of the manufacturers, the tremendous Faubourg St. Antoine.

It was precisely at the boundary limit between the pleasure and business sections of the Boulevards, at the corner of the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, on an airy second-floor with a projecting balcony, commanding a view of the sporting world to the right, and the trading world to the left,--the idle west, and active east,--that there lived a certain Monsieur Georges,--a little wizened man, of doubtful age, doubtful fortune, doubtful reputation. Everything about him was equivocal. In Paris people occupy themselves far less than in London with the affairs of their neighbours: the great have something better to do, the little something worse; the rich being too busy with play, the poor too busy with work, to have leisure for the dirty scandals which spring up like _fungi_ in that region of lords and lackeys, Grosvenor Square. Nevertheless, the porter's lodge of every Parisian house is a chartered temple of echo, having a gossipry and a jargon of its own. The porter's lodge knits stockings, reads novels, and composes romances; peeps into letters, interrogates chambermaids, and confederates with duns. A man loose in his habits had need be very close in his domestics, in order to escape the detection of his porter's lodge.

Yet, in spite of fifteen years' domiciliation in that polished corner of the Boulevards, Monsieur Georges, though far from a beauty, was still a mystery. _Madame la portière_ had never been able to discover whether "Georges" was a surname given by father to son, or a Christian name given by godfather to godson. She sometimes thought him a single man, sometimes a double, nay, sometimes a treble. Curious varieties of the fair sex occasionally visited the balconied saloon,--young, old, and middle-aged,--shabby-genteels who passed for poor relations, and glaring tawdry who passed for worse. There was no roost in his abode, however, either for the birds with fine feathers, or the birds without. Monsieur Georges's foible was not that of hospitality. His interests were too intimately cared for by a ferocious _femme de confiance_, who set himself and his house in order, and caused his establishment to be designated in the neighbourhood as that of Georges and the Dragon.

If not generous, however, the little man was strictly just; he gave nothing, but he kept nothing back. He paid his way with the praiseworthy punctuality remarkable in those who never pay an inch of the way for other people.

It is a hard thing, by-the-bye, that while male designations leave the facts of the man's bachelorhood uncertain, a spinster is specially pointed out by the malice of conventional phraseology. Mr. or Monsieur may be married or single, as he pleases; but Mrs. and Madame assume, even on the direction of a letter, their airs of matronly superiority over Miss or Mademoiselle. While her master rejoiced in his ambiguity as _Monsieur_ Georges, _Mademoiselle_ Berthe was designated to mankind and womankind in all the odium of spinsterhood; and exclamations of "old maid" and "_chissie_" followed her daily passage past the porter's lodge, the moment the "grim white woman" reached the first floor.

Among those who indulged in the acrimonious apostrophe, the most persevering, if not the loudest, was an urchin of some fourteen years old, whom Monsieur Georges had added to his establishment two years before, by way of Jack Nasty, foot-page, or errand-boy, under an engagement to clean Monsieur Georges and the housekeeper's shoes, without dirtying the ante-room with his own; to work much, eat little, sleep less; to keep his ears open, and his mouth shut; his hands full, and his stomach empty; his legs were to be evermore running, his tongue never. Now, little Auguste, (Auguste in the parlour, and Guguste in the porter's lodge,) though reared in a provincial foundling hospital, where infants are fed, like sheep, on a common, by the score, and washed, like pocket-handkerchiefs, by the dozen, had unluckily both a will and an appetite of his own. Cleaning Mademoiselle Berthe's shoes inspired him with a fancy for standing in them; and, on more than one occasion, he was found to have encroached upon the housekeeper's breakfast of coffee and cream, instead of contenting himself with wholesome filtred water. He was forthwith accused of being a greedy pig, as well as of making a litter in the apartments; till, after six months of faultiness and fault-finding, Monsieur Georges pronounced him to be an incorrigible _gamin_, sentenced him to "bring firing at requiring," and blacken shoes as usual, but to have his bed in an attic under the roof, (Parisianly called, after the famous Parisian architect, a _mansarde_,) and his board in the porter's lodge, where the board was exceedingly hard; Madame Grégoire,--the knitter of stockings, reader of novels, and coiner of romances for the corner-house of the Rue Montmartre,--having consented to feed and cherish him at the rate of twenty-five francs per month, _id est_, five weekly shillings lawful coin of her Majesty's realm. Monsieur Georges perhaps intended to starve the saucy gamin into submission; he _did_ almost succeed in starving him into an atrophy.