THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE.

The cabman, when he brought us to the wharf, and made his usual charge

of six times his legal fare, before the settlement of which he pretended

to refuse the privilege of an exeat regno to our luggage, glared like a

disappointed fiend when Lankin, calling up the faithful Hutchison, his

clerk, who was in attendance, said to him, "Hutchison, you will pay this

man. My name is Serjeant Lankin, my chambers are in Pump Court. My clerk

will settle with you, sir." The cabman trembled; we stepped on board;

our lightsome luggage was speedily whisked away by the crew; our berths

had been secured by the previous agency of Hutchison; and a couple of

tickets, on which were written, "Mr. Serjeant Lankin," "Mr. Titmarsh,"

(Lankin's, by the way, incomparably the best and comfortablest sleeping

place,) were pinned on to two of the curtains of the beds in a side

cabin when we descended.

Who was on board? There were Jews, with Sunday papers and fruit; there

were couriers and servants straggling about; there were those bearded

foreign visitors of England, who always seem to decline to shave or

wash themselves on the day of a voyage, and, on the eve of quitting our

country, appear inclined to carry away as much as possible of its soil

on their hands and linen: there were parties already cozily established

on deck under the awning; and steady-going travellers for'ard, smoking

already the pleasant morning cigar, and watching the phenomena of

departure.

The bell rings: they leave off bawling, "Anybody else for the shore?"

The last grape and Bell's Life merchant has scuffled over the plank: the

Johns of the departing nobility and gentry line the brink of the quay,

and touch their hats: Hutchison touches his hat to me--to ME, heaven

bless him! I turn round inexpressibly affected and delighted, and whom

do I see but Captain Hicks!

"Hallo! YOU here?" says Hicks, in a tone which seems to mean, "Confound

you, you are everywhere."

Hicks is one of those young men who seem to be everywhere a great deal

too often.

How are they always getting leave from their regiments? If they are

not wanted in this country, (as wanted they cannot be, for you see them

sprawling over the railing in Rotten Row all day, and shaking their

heels at every ball in town,)--if they are not wanted in this country, I

say, why the deuce are they not sent off to India, or to Demerara, or to

Sierra Leone, by Jove?--the farther the better; and I should wish a good

unwholesome climate to try 'em, and make 'em hardy. Here is this Hicks,

then--Captain Launcelot Hicks, if you please--whose life is nothing but

breakfast, smoking, riding-school, billiards, mess, polking, billiards,

and smoking again, and da capo--pulling down his moustaches, and going

to take a tour after the immense labors of the season.

"How do you do, Captain Hicks?" I say. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, I am going to the Whine," says Hicks; "evewybody goes to the

Whine." The WHINE indeed! I dare say he can no more spell properly than

he can speak.

"Who is on board--anybody?" I ask, with the air of a man of fashion.

"To whom does that immense pile of luggage belong--under charge of the

lady's-maid, the courier, and the British footman? A large white K is

painted on all the boxes."

"How the deuce should I know?" says Hicks, looking, as I fancy, both red

and angry, and strutting off with his great cavalry lurch and swagger:

whilst my friend the Serjeant looks at him lost in admiration, and

surveys his shining little boots, his chains and breloques, his whiskers

and ambrosial moustaches, his gloves and other dandifications, with a

pleased wonder; as the ladies of the Sultan's harem surveyed the great

Lady from Park Lane who paid them a visit; or the simple subjects of

Montezuma looked at one of Cortes's heavy dragoons.

"That must be a marquis at least," whispers Lankin, who consults me

on points of society, and is pleased to have a great opinion of my

experience.

I burst out in a scornful laugh. "THAT!" I say; "he is a captain of

dragoons, and his father an attorney in Bedford Row. The whiskers of a

roturier, my good Lankin, grow as long as the beard of a Plantagenet. It

don't require much noble blood to learn the polka. If you were younger,

Lankin, we might go for a shilling a night, and dance every evening at

M. Laurent's Casino, and skip about in a little time as well as that

fellow. Only we despise the kind of thing you know,--only we're too

grave, and too steady."

"And too fat," whispers Lankin, with a laugh.

"Speak for yourself, you maypole," says I. "If you can't dance yourself,

people can dance round you--put a wreath of flowers upon your old poll,

stick you up in a village green, and so make use of you."

"I should gladly be turned into anything so pleasant," Lankin answers;

"and so, at least, get a chance of seeing a pretty girl now and then.

They don't show in Pump Court, or at the University Club, where I dine.

You are a lucky fellow, Titmarsh, and go about in the world. As for me,

I never--"

"And the judges' wives, you rogue?" I say. "Well, no man is satisfied;

and the only reason I have to be angry with the captain yonder is,

that, the other night, at Mrs. Perkins's, being in conversation with a

charming young creature--who knows all my favorite passages in Tennyson,

and takes a most delightful little line of opposition in the Church

controversy--just as we were in the very closest, dearest, pleasantest

part of the talk, comes up young Hotspur yonder, and whisks her away in

a polka. What have you and I to do with polkas, Lankin? He took her down

to supper--what have you and I to do with suppers?"

"Our duty is to leave them alone," said the philosophical Serjeant.

"And now about breakfast--shall we have some?" And as he spoke, a

savory little procession of stewards and stewards' boys, with drab tin

dish-covers, passed from the caboose, and descended the stairs to the

cabin. The vessel had passed Greenwich by this time, and had worked its

way out of the mast-forest which guards the approaches of our city.

The owners of those innumerable boxes, bags, oil-skins, guitar-cases,

whereon the letter K was engraven, appeared to be three ladies, with a

slim gentleman of two or three and thirty, who was probably the husband

of one of them. He had numberless shawls under his arm and guardianship.

He had a strap full of Murray's Handbooks and Continental Guides in

his keeping; and a little collection of parasols and umbrellas, bound

together, and to be carried in state before the chief of the party, like

the lictor's fasces before the consul.

The chief of the party was evidently the stout lady. One parasol being

left free, she waved it about, and commanded the luggage and the menials

to and fro. "Horace, we will sit there," she exclaimed, pointing to a

comfortable place on the deck. Horace went and placed the shawls and

the Guidebooks. "Hirsch, avy vou conty les bagages? tront sett morso ong

too?" The German courier said, "Oui, miladi," and bowed a rather sulky

assent. "Bowman, you will see that Finch is comfortable, and send her to

me." The gigantic Bowman, a gentleman in an undress uniform, with very

large and splendid armorial buttons, and with traces of the powder of

the season still lingering in his hair, bows, and speeds upon my lady's

errand.

I recognize Hirsch, a well-known face upon the European high-road, where

he has travelled with many acquaintances. With whom is he making the

tour now?--Mr. Hirsch is acting as courier to Mr. and Mrs. Horace

Milliken. They have not been married many months, and they are

travelling, Hirsch says, with a contraction of his bushy eyebrows, with

miladi, Mrs. Milliken's mamma. "And who is her ladyship?" Hirsch's brow

contracts into deeper furrows. "It is Miladi Gigglebury," he says, "Mr.

Didmarsh. Berhabs you know her." He scowls round at her, as she calls

out loudly, "Hirsch, Hirsch!" and obeys that summons.

It is the great Lady Kicklebury of Pocklington Square, about whom I

remember Mrs. Perkins made so much ado at her last ball; and whom old

Perkins conducted to supper. When Sir Thomas Kicklebury died (he was one

of the first tenants of the Square), who does not remember the scutcheon

with the coronet with two balls, that flamed over No. 36? Her son was at

Eton then, and has subsequently taken an honorary degree at Oxford, and

been an ornament of Platt's and the "Oswestry Club." He fled into St.

James's from the great house in Pocklington Square, and from St. James's

to Italy and the Mediterranean, where he has been for some time in a

wholesome exile. Her eldest daughter's marriage with Lord Roughhead was

talked about last year; but Lord Roughhead, it is known, married Miss

Brent; and Horace Milliken, very much to his surprise, found himself the

affianced husband of Miss Lavinia Kicklebury, after an agitating evening

at Lady Polkimore's, when Miss Lavinia, feeling herself faint, went out

on to the leads (the terrace, Lady Polkimore WILL call it), on the arm

of Mr. Milliken. They were married in January: it's not a bad match for

Miss K. Lady Kicklebury goes and stops for six months of the year at

Pigeoncot with her daughter and son-in-law; and now that they are come

abroad, she comes too. She must be with Lavinia, under the present

circumstances.

When I am arm-in-arm, I tell this story glibly off to Lankin, who is

astonished at my knowledge of the world, and says, "Why, Titmarsh, you

know everything."

"I DO know a few things, Lankin my boy," is my answer. "A man don't live

in society, and PRETTY GOOD society, let me tell you, for nothing."

The fact is, that all the above details are known to almost any man in

our neighborhood. Lady Kicklebury does not meet with US much, and has

greater folks than we can pretend to be at her parties. But we know

about THEM. She'll condescend to come to Perkins's, WITH WHOSE FIRM SHE

BANKS; and she MAY overdraw HER ACCOUNT: but of that, of course, I know

nothing.

When Lankin and I go down stairs to breakfast, we find, if not the best,

at least the most conspicuous places in occupation of Lady Kicklebury's

party, and the hulking London footman making a darkness in the cabin, as

he stoops through it bearing cups and plates to his employers.

[Why do they always put mud into coffee on board steamers? Why does the

tea generally taste of boiled boots? Why is the milk scarce and thin?

And why do they have those bleeding legs of boiled mutton for dinner?

I ask why? In the steamers of other nations you are well fed. Is it

impossible that Britannia, who confessedly rules the waves, should

attend to the victuals a little, and that meat should be well cooked

under a Union Jack? I just put in this question, this most interesting

question, in a momentous parenthesis, and resume the tale.]

When Lankin and I descend to the cabin, then, the tables are full of

gobbling people; and, though there DO seem to be a couple of places near

Lady Kicklebury, immediately she sees our eyes directed to the inviting

gap, she slides out, and with her ample robe covers even more than that

large space to which by art and nature she is entitled, and calling out,

"Horace, Horace!" and nodding, and winking, and pointing, she causes her

son-in-law to extend the wing on his side. We are cut of THAT chance

of a breakfast. We shall have the tea at its third water, and those two

damp black mutton-chops, which nobody else will take, will fall to our

cold share.

At this minute a voice, clear and sweet, from a tall lady in a black

veil, says, "Mr. Titmarsh," and I start and murmur an ejaculation of

respectful surprise, as I recognize no less a person than the Right

Honorable the Countess of Knightsbridge, taking her tea, breaking

up little bits of toast with her slim fingers, and sitting between a

Belgian horse-dealer and a German violoncello-player who has a conge

after the opera--like any other mortal.

I whisper her ladyship's name to Lankin. The Serjeant looks towards her

with curiosity and awe. Even he, in his Pump Court solitudes, has heard

of that star of fashion--that admired amongst men, and even women--that

Diana severe yet simple, the accomplished Aurelia of Knightsbridge. Her

husband has but a small share of HER qualities. How should he? The

turf and the fox-chase are his delights--the smoking-room at the

"Travellers'"--nay, shall we say it?--the illuminated arcades

of "Vauxhall," and the gambols of the dishevelled Terpsichore.

Knightsbridge has his faults--ah! even the peerage of England is not

exempt from them. With Diana for his wife, he flies the halls where

she sits severe and serene, and is to be found (shrouded in smoke,

'tis true,) in those caves where the contrite chimney-sweep sings his

terrible death chant, or the Bacchanalian judge administers a satiric

law. Lord Knightsbridge has his faults, then; but he has the gout at

Rougetnoirbourg, near the Rhine, and thither his wife is hastening to

minister to him.

"I have done," says Lady Knightsbridge, with a gentle bow, as she rises;

"you may have this place, Mr. Titmarsh; and I am sorry my breakfast is

over: I should have prolonged it had I thought that YOU were coming to

sit by me. Thank you--my glove." (Such an absurd little glove, by the

way). "We shall meet on the deck when you have done."

And she moves away with an august curtsy. I can't tell how it is, or

what it is, in that lady; but she says, "How do you do?" as nobody else

knows how to say it. In all her actions, motions, thoughts, I would

wager there is the same calm grace and harmony. She is not very

handsome, being very thin, and rather sad-looking. She is not very

witty, being only up to the conversation, whatever it may be; and yet,

if she were in black serge, I think one could not help seeing that she

was a Princess, and Serene Highness; and if she were a hundred years

old, she could not be but beautiful. I saw her performing her devotions

in Antwerp Cathedral, and forgot to look at anything else there;--so

calm and pure, such a sainted figure hers seemed.

When this great lady did the present writer the honor to shake his hand

(I had the honor to teach writing and the rudiments of Latin to the

young and intelligent Lord Viscount Pimlico), there seemed to be a

commotion in the Kicklebury party--heads were nodded together, and

turned towards Lady Knightsbridge: in whose honor, when Lady Kicklebury

had sufficiently reconnoitred her with her eye-glass, the baronet's lady

rose and swept a reverential curtsy, backing until she fell up against

the cushions at the stern of the boat. Lady Knightsbridge did not see

this salute, for she did not acknowledge it, but walked away slimly (she

seems to glide in and out of the room), and disappeared up the stair to

the deck.

Lankin and I took our places, the horse-dealer making room for us; and

I could not help looking, with a little air of triumph, over to the

Kicklebury faction, as much as to say, "You fine folks, with your large

footman and supercilious airs, see what WE can do."

As I looked--smiling, and nodding, and laughing at me, in a knowing,

pretty way, and then leaning to mamma as if in explanation, what face

should I see but that of the young lady at Mrs. Perkins's, with whom

I had had that pleasant conversation which had been interrupted by the

demand of Captain Hicks for a dance? So, then, that was Miss Kicklebury,

about whom Miss Perkins, my young friend, has so often spoken to me: the

young ladies were in conversation when I had the happiness of joining

them; and Miss P. went away presently, to look to her guests--that is

Miss Fanny Kicklebury.

A sudden pang shot athwart my bosom--Lankin might have perceived it, but

the honest Serjeant was so awe-stricken by his late interview with the

Countess of Knightsbridge, that his mind was unfit to grapple with

other subjects--a pang of feeling (which I concealed under the grin and

graceful bow wherewith Miss Fanny's salutations were acknowledged) tore

my heart-strings--as I thought of--I need not say--of HICKS.

He had danced with her, he had supped with her--he was here, on board

the boat. Where was that dragoon? I looked round for him. In quite a

far corner,--but so that he could command the Kicklebury party, I

thought,--he was eating his breakfast, the great healthy oaf, and

consuming one broiled egg after another.

In the course of the afternoon, all parties, as it may be supposed,

emerged upon deck again, and Miss Fanny and her mamma began walking the

quarter-deck with a quick pace, like a couple of post-captains. When

Miss Fanny saw me, she stopped and smiled, and recognized the gentleman

who had amused her so at Mrs. Perkins's. What a dear sweet creature

Eliza Perkins was! They had been at school together. She was going to

write to Eliza everything that happened on the voyage.

"EVERYTHING?" I said, in my particularly sarcastic manner.

"Well, everything that was worth telling. There was a great number

of things that were very stupid, and of people that were very stupid.

Everything that YOU say, Mr. Titmarsh, I am sure I may put down. You

have seen Mr. Titmarsh's funny books, mamma?"

Mamma said she had heard--she had no doubt they were very amusing. "Was

not that--ahem--Lady Knightsbridge, to whom I saw you speaking, sir?"

"Yes; she is going to nurse Lord Knightsbridge, who has the gout at

Rougetnoirbourg."

"Indeed! how very fortunate! what an extraordinary coincidence! We are

going too," said Lady Kicklebury.

I remarked "that everybody was going to Rougetnoirbourg this year; and I

heard of two gentlemen--Count Carambole and Colonel Cannon--who had been

obliged to sleep there on a billiard-table for want of a bed."

"My son Kicklebury--are you acquainted with Sir Thomas Kicklebury?" her

ladyship said, with great stateliness--"is at Noirbourg, and will

take lodgings for us. The springs are particularly recommended for my

daughter, Mrs. Milliken and, at great personal sacrifice, I am going

thither myself: but what will not a mother do, Mr. Titmarsh? Did I

understand you to say that you have the--the entree at Knightsbridge

House? The parties are not what they used to be, I am told. Not that

I have any knowledge. I am but a poor country baronet's widow, Mr.

Titmarsh; though the Kickleburys date from Henry III., and MY family is

not of the most modern in the country. You have heard of General Guff,

my father, perhaps? aide-de-camp to the Duke of York, and wounded by his

Royal Highness's side at the bombardment of Valenciennes. WE move IN OUR

OWN SPHERE."

"Mrs. Perkins is a very kind creature," I said, "and it was a very

pleasant ball. Did you not think so, Miss Kicklebury?"

"I thought it odious," said Miss Fanny. "I mean, it WAS pleasant until

that--that stupid man--what was his name?--came and took me away to

dance with him."

"What! don't you care for a red coat and moustaches?" I asked.

"I adore genius, Mr. Titmarsh," said the young lady, with a most killing

look of her beautiful blue eyes, "and I have every one of your works by

heart--all, except the last, which I can't endure. I think it's wicked,

positively wicked--My darling Scott--how can you? And are you going to

make a Christmas-book this year?"

"Shall I tell you about it?"

"Oh, do tell us about it," said the lively, charming creature, clapping

her hands: and we began to talk, being near Lavinia (Mrs. Milliken)

and her husband, who was ceaselessly occupied in fetching and carrying

books, biscuits, pillows and cloaks, scent-bottles, the Italian

greyhound, and the thousand and one necessities of the pale and

interesting bride. Oh, how she did fidget! how she did grumble! how she

altered and twisted her position! and how she did make poor Milliken

trot!

After Miss Fanny and I had talked, and I had told her my plan, which she

pronounced to be delightful, she continued:--"I never was so provoked in

my life, Mr. Titmarsh, as when that odious man came and interrupted that

dear delightful conversation."

"On your word? The odious man is on board the boat: I see him smoking

just by the funnel yonder, look! and looking at us."

"He is very stupid," said Fanny; "and all that I adore is intellect,

dear Mr. Titmarsh."

"But why is he on board?" said I, with a fin sourire.

"Why is he on board? Why is everybody on board? How do we meet? (and oh,

how glad I am to meet you again!) You don't suppose that I know how the

horrid man came here?"

"Eh! he may be fascinated by a pair of blue eyes, Miss Fanny! Others

have been so," I said.

"Don't be cruel to a poor girl, you wicked, satirical creature," she

said. "I think Captain Hicks odious--there! and I was quite angry when I

saw him on the boat. Mamma does not know him, and she was so angry

with me for dancing with him that night: though there was nobody of any

particular mark at poor dear Mrs. Perkins's--that is, except YOU, Mr.

Titmarsh."

"And I am not a dancing man," I said, with a sigh.

"I hate dancing men; they can do nothing but dance."

"O yes, they can. Some of them can smoke, and some can ride, and some of

them can even spell very well."

"You wicked, satirical person. I'm quite afraid of you!"

"And some of them call the Rhine the 'Whine,'" I said, giving an

admirable imitation of poor Hicks's drawling manner.

Fanny looked hard at me, with a peculiar expression on her face. At last

she laughed. "Oh, you wicked, wicked man," she said, "what a capital

mimic you are, and so full of cleverness! Do bring up Captain

Hicks--isn't that his name?--and trot him out for us. Bring him up, and

introduce him to mamma: do now, go!"

Mamma, in the meanwhile, had waited her time, and was just going to step

down the cabin stairs as Lady Knightsbridge ascended from them. To draw

back, to make a most profound curtsy, to exclaim, "Lady Knightsbridge! I

have had the honor of seeing your ladyship at--hum--hum--hum" (this word

I could not catch)--"House,"--all these feats were performed by Lady

Kicklebury in one instant, and acknowledged with the usual calmness by

the younger lady.

"And may I hope," continues Lady Kicklebury, "that that most beautiful

of all children--a mother may say so--that Lord Pimlico has recovered

his hooping-cough? We were so anxious about him. Our medical attendant

is Mr. Topham, and he used to come from Knightsbridge House to

Pocklington Square, often and often. I am interested about the

hooping-cough. My own dear boy had it most severely; that dear girl, my

eldest daughter, whom you see stretched on the bench--she is in a very

delicate state, and only lately married--not such a match as I could

have wished: but Mr. Milliken is of a good family, distantly related

to your ladyship's. A Milliken, in George the Third's reign, married

a Boltimore, and the Boltimores, I think, are your first-cousins. They

married this year, and Lavinia is so fond of me, that she can't part

with me, and I have come abroad just to please her. We are going to

Noirbourg. I think I heard from my son that Lord Knightsbridge was at

Noirbourg."

"I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing Sir Thomas Kicklebury

at Knightsbridge House," Lady Knightsbridge said, with something of

sadness.

"Indeed!" and Kicklebury had never told her! He laughed at her when she

talked about great people: he told her all sorts of ridiculous stories

when upon this theme. But, at any rate, the acquaintance was made: Lady

Kicklebury would not leave Lady Knightsbridge; and, even in the throes

of sea-sickness, and the secret recesses of the cabin, WOULD talk to

her about the world, Lord Pimlico, and her father, General Guff, late

aide-de-camp to the Duke of York.

That those throes of sickness ensued, I need not say. A short time after

passing Ramsgate, Serjeant Lankin, who had been exceedingly gay and

satirical--(in his calm way; he quotes Horace, my favorite bits as

an author, to myself, and has a quiet snigger, and, so to speak,

amontillado flavor, exceedingly pleasant)--Lankin, with a rueful and

livid countenance, descended into his berth, in the which that six foot

of serjeant packed himself I don't know how.

When Lady Knightsbridge went down, down went Kicklebury. Milliken and

his wife stayed, and were ill together on deck. A palm of glory ought to

be awarded to that man for his angelic patience, energy, and suffering.

It was he who went for Mrs. Milliken's maid, who wouldn't come to

her mistress; it was he, the shyest of men, who stormed the ladies'

cabin--that maritime harem--in order to get her mother's bottle of

salts; it was he who went for the brandy-and-water, and begged,

and prayed, and besought his adored Lavinia to taste a leetle drop.

Lavinia's reply was, "Don't--go away--don't tease, Horace," and so

forth. And, when not wanted, the gentle creature subsided on the bench,

by his wife's feet, and was sick in silence.

[Mem--In married life, it seems to me, that it is almost always Milliken

and wife, or just the contrary. The angels minister to the tyrants; or

the gentle, hen-pecked husband cowers before the superior partlet. If

ever I marry, I know the sort of woman I will choose; and I won't try

her temper by over-indulgence, and destroy her fine qualities by a

ruinous subserviency to her wishes.]

Little Miss Fanny stayed on deck, as well as her sister, and looked at

the stars of heaven, as they began to shine there, and at the Foreland

lights as we passed them. I would have talked with her; I would

have suggested images of poesy, and thoughts of beauty; I would have

whispered the word of sentiment--the delicate allusion--the breathing

of the soul that longs to find a congenial heart--the sorrows and

aspirations of the wounded spirit, stricken and sad, yet not QUITE

despairing; still knowing that the hope-plant lurked in its crushed

ruins--still able to gaze on the stars and the ocean, and love their

blazing sheen, their boundless azure. I would, I say, have taken the

opportunity of that stilly night to lay bare to her the treasures of a

heart that, I am happy to say, is young still; but circumstances forbade

the frank outpouring of my poet soul: in a word, I was obliged to go and

lie down on the flat of my back, and endeavor to control OTHER emotions

which struggled in my breast.

Once, in the night-watches, I arose, and came on deck; the vessel was

not, methought, pitching much; and yet--and yet Neptune was inexorable.

The placid stars looked down, but they gave me no peace. Lavinia

Milliken seemed asleep, and her Horace, in a death-like torpor, was

huddled at her feet. Miss Fanny had quitted the larboard side of

the ship, and had gone to starboard; and I thought that there was a

gentleman beside her; but I could not see very clearly, and returned

to the horrid crib, where Lankin was asleep, and the German fiddler

underneath him was snoring like his own violoncello.

In the morning we were all as brisk as bees. We were in the smooth

waters of the lazy Scheldt. The stewards began preparing breakfast with

that matutinal eagerness which they always show. The sleepers in the

cabin were roused from their horse-hair couches by the stewards' boys

nudging, and pushing, and flapping table-cloths over them. I shaved and

made a neat toilette, and came upon deck just as we lay off that little

Dutch fort, which is, I dare say, described in "Murray's Guide-book,"

and about which I had some rare banter with poor Hicks and Lady

Kicklebury, whose sense of humor is certainly not very keen. He had,

somehow, joined her ladyship's party, and they were looking at the

fort, and its tri-colored flag--that floats familiar in Vandevelde's

pictures--and at the lazy shipping, and the tall roofs, and dumpy church

towers, and flat pastures, lying before us in a Cuyplike haze.

I am sorry to say, I told them the most awful fibs about that fort. How

it had been defended by the Dutch patriot, Van Swammerdam, against the

united forces of the Duke of Alva and Marshal Turenne, whose leg was

shot off as he was leading the last unsuccessful assault, and who turned

round to his aide-de-camp and said, "Allez dire an Premier Consul, que

je meurs avec regret de ne pas avoir assez fait pour la France!" which

gave Lady Kicklebury an opportunity to placer her story of the Duke of

York, and the bombardment of Valenciennes; and caused young Hicks

to look at me in a puzzled and appealing manner and hint that I was

"chaffing."

"Chaffing indeed!" says I, with a particularly arch eye-twinkle at

Miss Fanny. "I wouldn't make fun of you, Captain Hicks! If you doubt my

historical accuracy, look at the 'Biographie Universelle.' I say--look

at the 'Biographie Universelle.'"

He said, "O--ah--the 'Biogwaphie Universelle' may be all vewy well, and

that; but I never can make out whether you are joking or not, somehow;

and I always fancy you are going to CAWICKACHAW me. Ha, ha!" And he

laughed, the good-natured dragoon laughed, and fancied he had made a

joke.

I entreated him not to be so severe upon me; and again he said, "Haw

haw!" and told me, "I mustn't expect to have it all MY OWN WAY, and if

I gave a hit, I must expect a Punch in return. Haw haw!" Oh, you honest

young Hicks!

Everybody, indeed, was in high spirits. The fog cleared off, the sun

shone, the ladies chatted and laughed, even Mrs. Milliken was in good

humor ("My wife is all intellect," Milliken says, looking at her with

admiration), and talked with us freely and gayly. She was kind enough

to say that it was a great pleasure to meet with a literary and

well-informed person--that one often lived with people that did not

comprehend one. She asked if my companion, that tall gentleman--Mr.

Serjeant Lankin, was he?--was literary. And when I said that Lankin knew

more Greek, and more Latin, and more law, and more history, and more

everything, than all the passengers put together, she vouchsafed to

look at him with interest, and enter into a conversation with my modest

friend the Serjeant. Then it was that her adoring husband said "his

Lavinia was all intellect;"--Lady Kicklebury saying that SHE was not a

literary woman: that in HER day few acquirements were requisite for the

British female; but that she knew THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE, and her DUTY AS

A MOTHER, and that "Lavinia and Fanny had had the best masters and

the best education which money and constant maternal solicitude could

impart." If our matrons are virtuous, as they are, and it is Britain's

boast, permit me to say that they certainly know it.

The conversation growing powerfully intellectual under Mrs. Milliken,

poor Hicks naturally became uneasy, and put an end to literature by

admiring the ladies' head-dresses. "Cab-heads, hoods, what do you call

'em?" he asked of Miss Kicklebury. Indeed, she and her sister wore a

couple of those blue silk over-bonnets, which have lately become the

fashion, and which I never should have mentioned but for the young

lady's reply.

"Those hoods!" she said--"WE CALL THOSE HOODS UGLIES! Captain Hicks."

Oh, how pretty she looked as she said it! The blue eyes looked up under

the blue hood, so archly and gayly; ever so many dimples began playing

about her face; her little voice rang so fresh and sweet, that a heart

which has never loved a tree or flower but the vegetable in question

was sure to perish--a heart worn down and sickened by repeated

disappointment, mockery, faithlessness--a heart whereof despair is an

accustomed tenant, and in whose desolate and lonely depths dwells an

abiding gloom, began to throb once more--began to beckon Hope from the

window--began to admit sunshine--began to--O Folly, Folly! O Fanny!

O Miss K., how lovely you looked as you said, "We call those hoods

Uglies!" Ugly indeed!

This is a chronicle of feelings and characters, not of events and

places, so much. All this time our vessel was making rapid way up the

river, and we saw before us the slim towers of the noble cathedral of

Antwerp soaring in the rosy sunshine. Lankin and I had agreed to go to

the "Grand Laboureur," or the Place de Meir. They give you a particular

kind of jam-tarts there--called Nun's tarts, I think--that I remember,

these twenty years, as the very best tarts--as good as the tarts

which we ate when we were boys. The "Laboureur" is a dear old quiet

comfortable hotel; and there is no man in England who likes a good

dinner better than Lankin.

"What hotel do you go to?" I asked of Lady Kicklebury.

"We go to the 'Saint Antoine' of course. Everybody goes to the 'Saint

Antoine,'" her ladyship said. "We propose to rest here; to do the

Rubens's; and to proceed to Cologne to-morrow. Horace, call Finch and

Bowman; and your courier, if he will have the condescension to wait upon

ME, will perhaps look to the baggage."

"I think, Lankin," said I, "as everybody seems going to the 'Saint

Antoine,' we may as well go, and not spoil the party."

"I think I'll go too," says Hicks; as if HE belonged to the party.

And oh, it was a great sight when we landed, and at every place at which

we paused afterwards, to see Hirsch over the Kicklebury baggage, and

hear his polyglot maledictions at the porters! If a man sometimes feels

sad and lonely at his bachelor condition, if SOME feelings of envy

pervade his heart, at seeing beauty on another's arm, and kind eyes

directed towards a happier mug than his own--at least there are some

consolations in travelling, when a fellow has but one little portmanteau

or bag which he can easily shoulder, and thinks of the innumerable bags

and trunks which the married man and the father drags after him. The

married Briton on a tour is but a luggage overseer: his luggage is his

morning thought, and his nightly terror. When he floats along the Rhine

he has one eye on a ruin, and the other on his luggage. When he is in

the railroad he is always thinking, or ordered by his wife to think, "is

the luggage safe?" It clings round him. It never leaves him (except

when it DOES leave him, as a trunk or two will, and make him doubly

miserable). His carpet-bags lie on his chest at night, and his wife's

forgotten bandbox haunts his turbid dreams.

I think it was after she found that Lady Kicklebury proposed to go to

the "Grand Saint Antoine" that Lady Knightsbridge put herself with

her maid into a carriage and went to the other inn. We saw her at the

cathedral, where she kept aloof from our party. Milliken went up the

tower, and so did Miss Fanny. I am too old a traveller to mount up those

immeasurable stairs, for the purpose of making myself dizzy by gazing

upon a vast map of low countries stretched beneath me, and waited with

Mrs. Milliken and her mother below.

When the tower-climbers descended, we asked Miss Fanny and her brother

what they had seen.

"We saw Captain Hicks up there," remarked Milliken. "And I am very glad

you didn't come, Lavinia my love. The excitement would have been too

much for you, quite too much."

All this while Lady Kicklebury was looking at Fanny, and Fanny was

holding her eyes down; and I knew that between her and this poor Hicks

there could be nothing serious, for she had laughed at him and mimicked

him to me half a dozen times in the course of the day.

We "do the Rubens's," as Lady Kicklebury says; we trudge from cathedral

to picture-gallery, from church to church. We see the calm old city,

with its towers and gables, the bourse, and the vast town-hall; and

I have the honor to give Lady Kicklebury my arm during these

peregrinations, and to hear a hundred particulars regarding her

ladyship's life and family. How Milliken has been recently building

at Pigeoncot; how he will have two thousand a year more when his uncle

dies; how she had peremptorily to put a stop to the assiduities of that

unprincipled young man, Lord Roughhead, whom Lavinia always detested,

and who married Miss Brent out of sheer pique. It was a great escape for

her darling Lavinia. Roughhead is a most wild and dissipated young man,

one of Kicklebury's Christchurch friends, of whom her son has too many,

alas! and she enters into many particulars respecting the conduct

of Kicklebury--the unhappy boy's smoking, his love of billiards, his

fondness for the turf: she fears he has already injured his income, she

fears he is even now playing at Noirbourg; she is going thither to wean

him, if possible, from his companions and his gayeties--what may not a

mother effect? She only wrote to him the day before they left London

to announce that she was marching on him with her family. He is in many

respects like his poor father--the same openness and frankness, the same

easy disposition: alas! the same love of pleasure. But she had reformed

the father, and will do her utmost to call back her dear misguided boy.

She had an advantageous match for him in view--a lady not beautiful in

person, it is true, but possessed of every good principle, and a very,

very handsome fortune. It was under pretence of flying from this lady

that Kicklebury left town. But she knew better.

I say young men will be young men, and sow their wild oats; and think

to myself that the invasion of his mamma will be perhaps more surprising

than pleasant to young Sir Thomas Kicklebury, and that she possibly

talks about herself and her family, and her virtues and her daughters,

a little too much: but she WILL make a confidant of me, and all the time

we are doing the Rubens's she is talking of the pictures at Kicklebury,

of her portrait by Lawrence, pronounced to be his finest work, of

Lavinia's talent for drawing, and the expense of Fanny's music-masters;

of her house in town (where she hopes to see me); of her parties which

were stopped by the illness of her butler. She talks Kicklebury until I

am sick. And oh, Miss Fanny, all of this I endure, like an old fool, for

an occasional sight of your bright eyes and rosy face!

[Another parenthesis.--"We hope to see you in town, Mr. Titmarsh."

Foolish mockery! If all the people whom one has met abroad, and who

have said, "We hope to meet you often in town," had but made any the

slightest efforts to realize their hopes by sending a simple line of

invitation through the penny post, what an enormous dinner acquaintance

one would have had! But I mistrust people who say, "We hope to see you

in town."]

Lankin comes in at the end of the day, just before dinnertime. He has

paced the whole town by himself--church, tower, and fortifications,

and Rubens, and all. He is full of Egmont and Alva. He is up to all the

history of the siege, when Chassee defended, and the French attacked the

place. After dinner we stroll along the quays; and over the quiet

cigar in the hotel court, Monsieur Lankin discourses about the Rubens

pictures, in a way which shows that the learned Serjeant has an eye

for pictorial beauty as well as other beauties in this world, and can

rightly admire the vast energy, the prodigal genius, the royal splendor

of the King of Antwerp. In the most modest way in the world he has

remarked a student making clever sketches at the Museum, and has ordered

a couple of copies from him of the famous Vandyke and the wondrous

adoration of the Magi, "a greater picture," says he, "than even the

cathedral picture; in which opinion those may agree who like." He says

he thinks Miss Kicklebury is a pretty little thing; that all my swans

are geese; and that as for that old woman, with her airs and graces, she

is the most intolerable old nuisance in the world. There is much good

judgment, but there is too much sardonic humor about Lankin. He cannot

appreciate women properly. He is spoiled by being an old bachelor, and

living in that dingy old Pump Court; where, by the way, he has a cellar

fit for a Pontiff. We go to rest; they have given us humble lodgings

high up in the building, which we accept like philosophers who travel

with but a portmanteau apiece. The Kickleburys have the grand suite, as

becomes their dignity. Which, which of those twinkling lights illumines

the chamber of Miss Fanny?

Hicks is sitting in the court too, smoking his cigar. He and Lankin met

in the fortifications. Lankin says he is a sensible fellow, and seems

to know his profession. "Every man can talk well about something," the

Serjeant says. "And one man can about everything," says I; at which

Lankin blushes; and we take our flaring tallow candles and go to bed. He

has us up an hour before the starting time, and we have that period to

admire Herr Oberkellner, who swaggers as becomes the Oberkellner of a

house frequented by ambassadors; who contradicts us to our faces, and

whose own countenance is ornamented with yesterday's beard, of which, or

of any part of his clothing, the graceful youth does not appear to have

divested himself since last we left him. We recognize, somewhat dingy

and faded, the elaborate shirt-front which appeared at yesterday's

banquet. Farewell, Herr Oberkellner! May we never see your handsome

countenance, washed or unwashed, shaven or unshorn, again!

Here come the ladies: "Good morning, Miss Fanny. I hope you slept

well, Lady Kicklebury?" "A tremendous bill?" "No wonder; how can you

expect otherwise, when you have such a bad dinner?" Hearken to Hirsch's

comminations over the luggage! Look at the honest Belgian soldiers, and

that fat Freyschutz on guard, his rifle in one hand, and the other hand

in his pocket. Captain Hicks bursts into a laugh at the sight of the fat

Freyschutz, and says, "By Jove, Titmarsh, you must cawickachaw him."

And we take our seats at length and at leisure, and the railway trumpets

blow, and (save for a brief halt) we never stop till night, trumpeting

by green flats and pastures, by broad canals and old towns, through

Liege and Verviers, through Aix and Cologne, till we are landed at Bonn

at nightfall.

We all have supper, or tea--we have become pretty intimate--we look at

the strangers' book, as a matter of course, in the great room of the

"Star Hotel." Why, everybody is on the Rhine! Here are the names of half

one's acquaintance.

"I see Lord and Lady Exborough are gone on," says Lady Kicklebury,

whose eye fastens naturally on her kindred aristocracy. "Lord and Lady

Wyebridge and suite, Lady Zedland and her family."

"Hallo! here's Cutler of the Onety-oneth, and MacMull of the Greens, en

route to Noirbourg," says Hicks, confidentially. "Know MacMull? Devilish

good fellow--such a fellow to smoke."

Lankin, too, reads and grins. "Why, are they going the Rhenish circuit?"

he says, and reads:

Sir Thomas Minos, Lady Minos, nebst Begleitung, aus England.

Sir John AEacus, mit Familie und Dienerschaft, aus England.

Sir Roger Raadamanthus.

Thomas Smith, Serjeant.

Serjeant Brown and Mrs. Brown, aus England.

Serjeant Tomkins, Anglais. Madame Tomkins, Mesdemoiselles Tomkins.

Monsieur Kewsy, Conseiller de S. M. la Reine d'Angleterre. Mrs. Kewsy,

three Miss Kewsys.

And to this list Lankin, laughing, had put down his own name, and that

of the reader's obedient servant, under the august autograph of Lady

Kicklebury, who signed for herself, her son-in-law, and her suite.

Yes, we all flock the one after the other, we faithful English folks. We

can buy Harvey Sauce, and Cayenne Pepper, and Morison's Pills, in every

city in the world. We carry our nation everywhere with us; and are in

our island, wherever we go. Toto divisos orbe--always separated from the

people in the midst of whom we are.

When we came to the steamer next morning, "the castled crag of

Drachenfels" rose up in the sunrise before, and looked as pink as the

cheeks of Master Jacky, when they have been just washed in the morning.

How that rosy light, too, did become Miss Fanny's pretty dimples, to be

sure! How good a cigar is at the early dawn! I maintain that it has a

flavor which it does not possess at later hours, and that it partakes of

the freshness of all Nature. And wine, too: wine is never so good as at

breakfast; only one can't drink it, for tipsiness's sake.

See! there is a young fellow drinking soda-water and brandy already. He

puts down his glass with a gasp of satisfaction. It is evident that he

had need of that fortifier and refresher. He puts down the beaker and

says, "How are you, Titmarsh? I was SO cut last night. My eyes, wasn't

I! Not in the least: that's all."

It is the youthful descendant and heir of an ancient line: the noble

Earl of Grimsby's son, Viscount Talboys. He is travelling with the Rev.

Baring Leader, his tutor; who, having a great natural turn and liking

towards the aristocracy, and having inspected Lady Kicklebury's cards

on her trunks, has introduced himself to her ladyship already, and has

inquired after Sir Thomas Kicklebury, whom he remembers perfectly,

and whom he had often the happiness of meeting when Sir Thomas was an

undergraduate at Oxford. There are few characters more amiable, and

delightful to watch and contemplate, than some of those middle-aged

Oxford bucks who hang about the university and live with the young

tufts. Leader can talk racing and boating with the fastest young

Christchurch gentleman. Leader occasionally rides to cover with Lord

Talboys; is a good shot, and seldom walks out without a setter or

a spaniel at his heels. Leader knows the "Peerage" and the "Racing

Calendar" as well as the Oxford cram-books. Leader comes up to town and

dines with Lord Grimsby. Leader goes to Court every two years. He is

the greatest swell in his common-room. He drinks claret, and can't stand

port-wine any longer; and the old fellows of his college admire him, and

pet him, and get all their knowledge of the world and the aristocracy

from him. I admire those kind old dons when they appear affable and

jaunty, men of the world, members of the "Camford and Oxbridge Club,"

upon the London pavement. I like to see them over the Morning Post in

the common-room; with a "Ha, I see Lady Rackstraw has another daughter."

"Poppleton there has been at another party at X---- House, and YOU

weren't asked, my boy."--"Lord Coverdale has got a large party staying

at Coverdale. Did you know him at Christchurch? He was a very handsome

man before he broke his nose fighting the bargeman at Iffly: a light

weight, but a beautiful sparrer," &c. Let me add that Leader, although

he does love a tuft, has a kind heart: as his mother and sisters in

Yorkshire know; as all the village knows too--which is proud of his

position in the great world, and welcomes him very kindly when he comes

down and takes the duty at Christmas, and preaches to them one or two

of "the very sermons which Lord Grimsby was good enough to like, when I

delivered them at Talboys."

"You are not acquainted with Lord Talboys?" Leader asks, with a degage

air. "I shall have much pleasure in introducing you to him. Talboys, let

me introduce you to Lady Kicklebury. Sir Thomas Kicklebury was not at

Christchurch in your time; but you have heard of him, I dare say. Your

son has left a reputation at Oxford."

"I should think I have, too. He walked a hundred miles in a hundred

hours. They said he bet that he'd drink a hundred pints of beer in a

hundred hours: but I don't think he could do it--not strong beer; don't

think any man could. The beer here isn't worth a--"

"My dear Talboys," says Leader, with a winning smile, "I suppose Lady

Kicklebury is not a judge of beer--and what an unromantic subject of

conversation here, under the castled crag immortalized by Byron."

"What the deuce does it mean about peasant-girls with dark blue eyes,

and hands that offer corn and wine?" asks Talboys. "I'VE never seen any

peasant-girls, except the--ugliest set of women I ever looked at."

"The poet's license. I see, Miliken, you are making a charming sketch.

You used to draw when you were at Brasenose, Milliken; and play--yes,

you played the violoncello."

Mr. Milliken still possessed these accomplishments. He was taken up

that very evening by a soldier at Coblentz, for making a sketch of

Ehrenbreitstein. Mrs. Milliken sketches immensely too, and writes

poetry: such dreary pictures, such dreary poems! but professional people

are proverbially jealous; and I doubt whether our fellow-passenger, the

German, would even allow that Milliken could play the violoncello.

Lady Kicklebury gives Miss Fanny a nudge when Lord Talboys appears, and

orders her to exert all her fascinations. How the old lady coaxes, and

she wheedles! She pours out the Talboys' pedigree upon him; and asks

after his aunt, and his mother's family. Is he going to Noirbourg? How

delightful! There is nothing like British spirits; and to see an English

matron well set upon a young man of large fortune and high rank, is a

great and curious sight.

And yet, somehow, the British doggedness does not always answer. "Do

you know that old woman in the drab jacket, Titmarsh?" my hereditary

legislator asks of me. "What the devil is she bothering ME for, about

my aunts, and setting her daughter at me? I ain't such a fool as that.

I ain't clever, Titmarsh; I never said I was. I never pretend to be

clever, and that--but why does that old fool bother ME, hay? Heigho!

I'm devilish thirsty. I was devilish cut last night. I think I must have

another go-off. Hallo you! Kellner! Garsong! Ody soda, Oter petty vare

do dyvee de Conac. That's your sort; isn't it, Leader?"

"You will speak French well enough, if you practise," says Leader with

a tender voice; "practice is everything. Shall we dine at the

table-d'hote? Waiter! put down the name of Viscount Talboys and Mr.

Leader, if you please."

The boat is full of all sorts and conditions of men. For'ard, there are

peasants and soldiers: stumpy, placid-looking little warriors for the

most part, smoking feeble cigars and looking quite harmless under their

enormous helmets. A poor stunted dull-looking boy of sixteen, staggering

before a black-striped sentry-box, with an enormous musket on his

shoulder, does not seem to me a martial or awe-inspiring object. Has it

not been said that we carry our prejudices everywhere, and only admire

what we are accustomed to admire in our own country?

Yonder walks a handsome young soldier who has just been marrying a wife.

How happy they seem! and how pleased that everybody should remark their

happiness. It is a fact that in the full sunshine, and before a couple

of hundred people on board the Joseph Miller steamer, the soldier

absolutely kissed Mrs. Soldier; at which the sweet Fanny Kicklebury was

made to blush.

We were standing together looking at the various groups: the pretty

peasant-woman (really pretty for once,) with the red head-dress and

fluttering ribbons, and the child in her arms; the jolly fat old

gentleman, who was drinking Rhine-wine before noon, and turning his back

upon all the castles, towers, and ruins, which reflected their crumbling

peaks in the water; upon the handsome young students who came with

us from Bonn, with their national colors in their caps, with their

picturesque looks, their yellow ringlets, their budding moustaches, and

with cuts upon almost every one of their noses, obtained in duels at the

university: most picturesque are these young fellows, indeed--but ah,

why need they have such black hands?

Near us is a type, too: a man who adorns his own tale, and points his

own moral. "Yonder, in his carriage, sits the Count de Reineck, who

won't travel without that dismal old chariot, though it is shabby,

costly, and clumsy, and though the wicked red republicans come and smoke

under his very nose. Yes, Miss Fanny, it is the lusty young Germany,

pulling the nose of the worn-out old world."

"Law, what DO you mean, Mr. Titmarsh?" cries the dear Fanny.

"And here comes Mademoiselle de Reineck, with her companion. You see she

is wearing out one of the faded silk gowns which she has spoiled at the

Residenz during the season: for the Reinecks are economical, though they

are proud; and forced, like many other insolvent grandees, to do and to

wear shabby things.

"It is very kind of the young countess to call her companion 'Louise,'

and to let Louise call her 'Laure;' but if faces may be trusted,--and we

can read in one countenance conceit and tyranny; deceit and slyness in

another,--dear Louise has to suffer some hard raps from dear Laure: and,

to judge from her dress, I don't think poor Louise has her salary paid

very regularly.

"What a comfort it is to live in a country where there is neither

insolence nor bankruptcy among the great folks, nor cringing, nor

flattery among the small. Isn't it, Miss Fanny?"

Miss Fanny says, that she can't understand whether I am joking

or serious; and her mamma calls her away to look at the ruins of

Wigginstein. Everybody looks at Wigginstein. You are told in Murray to

look at Wigginstein.

Lankin, who has been standing by, with a grin every now and then upon

his sardonic countenance, comes up and says, "Titmarsh, how can you be

so impertinent?"

"Impertinent! as how?"

"The girl must understand what you mean; and you shouldn't laugh at her

own mother to her. Did you ever see anything like the way in which that

horrible woman is following the young lord about?"

"See! You see it every day, my dear fellow; only the trick is better

done, and Lady Kicklebury is rather a clumsy practitioner. See! why

nobody is better aware of the springes which are set to catch him than

that young fellow himself, who is as knowing as any veteran in May Fair.

And you don't suppose that Lady Kicklebury fancies that she is doing

anything mean, or anything wrong? Heaven bless you! she never did

anything wrong in her life. She has no idea but that everything she

says, and thinks, and does is right. And no doubt she never did rob a

church: and was a faithful wife to Sir Thomas, and pays her tradesmen.

Confound her virtue! It is that which makes her so wonderful--that brass

armor in which she walks impenetrable--not knowing what pity is, or

charity; crying sometimes when she is vexed, or thwarted, but laughing

never; cringing, and domineering by the same natural instinct--never

doubting about herself above all. Let us rise, and revolt against those

people, Lankin. Let us war with them, and smite them utterly. It is to

use against these, especially, that Scorn and Satire were invented."

"And the animal you attack," says Lankin, "is provided with a hide to

defend him--it is a common ordinance of nature."

And so we pass by tower and town, and float up the Rhine. We don't

describe the river. Who does not know it? How you see people asleep in

the cabins at the most picturesque parts, and angry to be awakened when

they fire off those stupid guns for the echoes! It is as familiar to

numbers of people as Greenwich; and we know the merits of the inns along

the road as if they were the "Trafalgar" or the "Star and Garter." How

stale everything grows! If we were to live in a garden of Eden, now, and

the gate were open, we should go out, and tramp forward, and push on,

and get up early in the morning, and push on again--anything to keep

moving, anything to get a change: anything but quiet for the restless

children of Cain.

So many thousands of English folks have been at Rougetnoirbourg in this

and last seasons, that it is scarcely needful to alter the name of that

pretty little gay, wicked place. There were so many British barristers

there this year that they called the "Hotel des Quatre Saisons"

the "Hotel of Quarter Sessions." There were judges and their wives,

serjeants and their ladies, Queen's counsel learned in the law, the

Northern circuit and the Western circuit: there were officers of

half-pay and full-pay, military officers, naval officers, and sheriffs'

officers. There were people of high fashion and rank, and people of

no rank at all; there were men and women of reputation, and of the two

kinds of reputation; there were English boys playing cricket; English

pointers putting up the German partridges, and English guns knocking

them down; there were women whose husbands, and men whose wives were at

home; there were High Church and Low Church--England turned out for a

holiday, in a word. How much farther shall we extend our holiday ground,

and where shall we camp next? A winter at Cairo is nothing now. Perhaps

ere long we shall be going to Saratoga Springs, and the Americans coming

to Margate for the summer.

Apartments befitting her dignity and the number of her family had been

secured for Lady Kicklebury by her dutiful son, in the same house in

which one of Lankin's friends had secured for us much humbler lodgings.

Kicklebury received his mother's advent with a great deal of good humor;

and a wonderful figure the good-natured little baronet was when he

presented himself to his astonished friends, scarcely recognizable by

his own parent and sisters, and the staring retainers of their house.

"Mercy, Kicklebury! have you become a red republican?" his mother asked.

"I can't find a place to kiss you," said Miss Fanny, laughing to her

brother; and he gave her pretty cheek such a scrub with his red beard,

as made some folks think it would be very pleasant to be Miss Fanny's

brother.

In the course of his travels, one of Sir Thomas Kicklebury's chief

amusements and cares had been to cultivate this bushy auburn ornament.

He said that no man could pronounce German properly without a beard to

his jaws; but he did not appear to have got much beyond this preliminary

step to learning; and, in spite of his beard, his honest English accent

came out, as his jolly English face looked forth from behind that fierce

and bristly decoration, perfectly good-humored and unmistakable. We try

our best to look like foreigners, but we can't. Every Italian mendicant

or Pont Neuf beggar knows his Englishman in spite of blouse, and beard,

and slouched hat. "There is a peculiar high-bred grace about us," I

whisper to Lady Kicklebury, "an aristocratic je ne scais quoi, which is

not to be found in any but Englishmen; and it is that which makes us so

immensely liked and admired all over the Continent." Well, this may

be truth or joke--this may be a sneer or a simple assertion: our

vulgarities and our insolences may, perhaps, make us as remarkable

as that high breeding which we assume to possess. It may be that the

Continental society ridicules and detests us, as we walk domineering

over Europe; but, after all, which of us would denationalize himself?

who wouldn't be an Englishman? Come, sir, cosmopolite as you are,

passing all your winters at Rome or at Paris; exiled by choice, or

poverty, from your own country; preferring easier manners, cheaper

pleasures, a simpler life: are you not still proud of your British

citizenship? and would you like to be a Frenchman?

Kicklebury has a great acquaintance at Noirbourg, and as he walks into

the great concert-room at night, introducing his mother and sisters

there, he seemed to look about with a little anxiety, lest all of his

acquaintance should recognize him. There are some in that most strange

and motley company with whom he had rather not exchange salutations,

under present circumstances. Pleasure-seekers from every nation in the

world are here, sharpers of both sexes, wearers of the stars and cordons

of every court in Europe; Russian princesses, Spanish grandees, Belgian,

French, and English nobles, every degree of Briton, from the ambassador,

who has his conge, to the London apprentice who has come out for his

fortnight's lark. Kicklebury knows them all, and has a good-natured nod

for each.

"Who is that lady with the three daughters who saluted you, Kicklebury?"

asks his mother.

"That is our Ambassadress at X., ma'am. I saw her yesterday buying a

penny toy for one of her little children in Frankfort Fair."

Lady Kicklebury looks towards Lady X.: she makes her excellency an

undeveloped curtsy, as it were; she waves her plumed head (Lady K. is

got up in great style, in a rich dejeuner toilette, perfectly regardless

of expense); she salutes the ambassadress with a sweeping gesture from

her chair, and backs before her as before royalty, and turns to her

daughters large eyes full of meaning, and spreads out her silks in

state.

"And who is that distinguished-looking man who just passed, and who gave

you a reserved nod?" asks her ladyship. "Is that Lord X.?"

Kicklebury burst out laughing. "That, ma'am, is Mr. Higmore, of Conduit

Street, tailor, draper, and habit-maker: and I owe him a hundred pound."

"The insolence of that sort of people is really intolerable," says Lady

Kicklebury. "There MUST be some distinction of classes. They ought not

to be allowed to go everywhere. And who is yonder, that lady with the

two boys and the--the very high complexion?" Lady Kicklebury asks.

"That is a Russian princess: and one of those little boys, the one who

is sucking a piece of barley-sugar, plays, and wins five hundred louis

in a night."

"Kicklebury, you do not play? Promise your mother you do not! Swear

to me at this moment you do not! Where are the horrid gambling-rooms?

There, at that door where the crowd is? Of course, I shall never enter

them!"

"Of course not, ma'am," says the affectionate son on duty. "And if you

come to the balls here, please don't let Fanny dance with anybody, until

you ask me first: you understand. Fanny, you will take care."

"Yes, Tom," says Fanny.

"What, Hicks, how are you, old fellow? How is Platts? Who would have

thought of you being here? When did you come?"

"I had the pleasure of travelling with Lady Kicklebury and her daughters

in the London boat to Antwerp," says Captain Hicks, making the ladies

a bow. Kicklebury introduces Hicks to his mother as his most particular

friend--and he whispers Fanny that "he's as good a fellow as ever lived,

Hicks is." Fanny says, "He seems very kind and good-natured: and--and

Captain Hicks waltzes very well," says Miss Fanny with a blush, "and I

hope I may have him for one of my partners."

What a Babel of tongues it is in this splendid hall with gleaming marble

pillars: a ceaseless rushing whisper as if the band were playing its

music by a waterfall! The British lawyers are all got together, and

my friend Lankin, on his arrival, has been carried off by his brother

serjeants, and becomes once more a lawyer. "Well, brother Lankin," says

old Sir Thomas Minos, with his venerable kind face, "you have got your

rule, I see." And they fall into talk about their law matters, as

they always do, wherever they are--at a club, in a ball-room, at a

dinner-table, at the top of Chimborazo. Some of the young barristers

appear as bucks with uncommon splendor, and dance and hang about the

ladies. But they have not the easy languid deuce-may-care air of the

young bucks of the Hicks and Kicklebury school--they can't put on

their clothes with that happy negligence; their neck-cloths sit quite

differently on them, somehow: they become very hot when they dance, and

yet do not spin round near so quickly as those London youths, who have

acquired experience in corpore vili, and learned to dance easily by the

practice of a thousand casinos.

Above the Babel tongues and the clang of the music, as you listen in the

great saloon, you hear from a neighboring room a certain sharp

ringing clatter, and a hard clear voice cries out, "Zero rouge," or

"Trente-cinq noir. Impair et passe." And then there is a pause of a

couple of minutes, and then the voice says, "Faites le jeu, Messieurs.

Le jeu est fait, rien ne va plus"--and the sharp ringing clatter

recommences. You know what that room is? That is Hades. That is where

the spirited proprietor of the establishment takes his toll, and thither

the people go who pay the money which supports the spirited proprietor

of this fine palace and gardens. Let us enter Hades, and see what is

going on there.

Hades is not an unpleasant place. Most of the people look rather

cheerful. You don't see any frantic gamblers gnashing their teeth or

dashing down their last stakes. The winners have the most anxious faces;

or the poor shabby fellows who have got systems, and are pricking down

the alternations of red and black on cards, and don't seem to be playing

at all. On fete days the country people come in, men and women, to

gamble; and THEY seem to be excited as they put down their hard-earned

florins with trembling rough hands, and watch the turn of the wheel. But

what you call the good company is very quiet and easy. A man loses his

mass of gold, and gets up and walks off, without any particular mark of

despair. The only gentleman whom I saw at Noirbourg who seemed really

affected was a certain Count de Mustacheff, a Russian of enormous

wealth, who clenched his fists, beat his breast, cursed his stars, and

absolutely cried with grief: not for losing money, but for neglecting to

win and play upon a coup de vingt, a series in which the red was turned

up twenty times running: which series, had he but played, it is

clear that he might have broken M. Lenoir's bank, and shut up the

gambling-house, and doubled his own fortune--when he would have been no

happier, and all the balls and music, all the newspaper-rooms and parks,

all the feasting and pleasure of this delightful Rougetnoirbourg would

have been at an end.

For though he is a wicked gambling prince, Lenoir, he is beloved in

all these regions; his establishment gives life to the town, to the

lodging-house and hotel-keepers, to the milliners and hackney-coachmen,

to the letters of horse-flesh, to the huntsmen and gardes-de-chasse; to

all these honest fiddlers and trumpeters who play so delectably. Were

Lenoir's bank to break, the whole little city would shut up; and all the

Noirbourgers wish him prosperity, and benefit by his good fortune.

Three years since the Noirbourgers underwent a mighty panic. There

came, at a time when the chief Lenoir was at Paris, and the reins

of government were in the hands of his younger brother, a company of

adventurers from Belgium, with a capital of three hundred thousand

francs, and an infallible system for playing rouge et noir, and they

boldly challenged the bank of Lenoir, and sat down before his croupiers,

and defied him. They called themselves in their pride the Contrebanque

de Noirbourg: they had their croupiers and punters, even as Lenoir

had his: they had their rouleaux of Napoleons, stamped with their

Contrebanquish seal:--and they began to play.

As when two mighty giants step out of a host and engage, the armies

stand still in expectation, and the puny privates and commonalty remain

quiet to witness the combat of the tremendous champions of the war: so

it is said that when the Contrebanque arrived, and ranged itself before

the officers of Lenoir--rouleau to rouleau, bank-note to bank-note, war

for war, controlment for controlment--all the minor punters and gamblers

ceased their peddling play, and looked on in silence, round the verdant

plain where the great combat was to be decided.

Not used to the vast operations of war, like his elder brother, Lenoir

junior, the lieutenant, telegraphed to his absent chief the news of the

mighty enemy who had come down upon him, asked for instructions, and in

the meanwhile met the foe-man like a man. The Contrebanque of Noirbourg

gallantly opened its campaign.

The Lenoir bank was defeated day after day, in numerous savage

encounters. The tactics of the Contrebanquist generals were

irresistible: their infernal system bore down everything before it, and

they marched onwards terrible and victorious as the Macedonian phalanx.

Tuesday, a loss of eighteen thousand florins; Wednesday, a loss of

twelve thousand florins; Thursday, a loss of forty thousand florins:

night after night, the young Lenoir had to chronicle these disasters

in melancholy despatches to his chief. What was to be done? Night after

night, the Noirbourgers retired home doubtful and disconsolate; the

horrid Contrebanquists gathered up their spoils and retired to a

victorious supper. How was it to end?

Far away at Paris, the elder Lenoir answered these appeals of his

brother by sending reinforcements of money. Chests of gold arrived for

the bank. The Prince of Noirbourg bade his beleaguered lieutenant not to

lose heart: he himself never for a moment blenched in this trying hour

of danger.

The Contrebanquists still went on victorious. Rouleau after rouleau fell

into their possession. At last the news came: The Emperor has joined

the Grand Army. Lenoir himself had arrived from Paris, and was once more

among his children, his people. The daily combats continued: and

still, still, though Napoleon was with the Eagles, the abominable

Contrebanquists fought and conquered. And far greater than Napoleon, as

great as Ney himself under disaster, the bold Lenoir never lost courage,

never lost good-humor, was affable, was gentle, was careful of his

subjects' pleasures and comforts, and met an adverse fortune with a

dauntless smile.

With a devilish forbearance and coolness, the atrocious

Contrebanque--like Polyphemus, who only took one of his prisoners out

of the cave at a time, and so ate them off at leisure--the horrid

Contrebanquists, I say, contented themselves with winning so much before

dinner, and so much before supper--say five thousand florins for each

meal. They played and won at noon: they played and won at eventide. They

of Noirbourg went home sadly every night: the invader was carrying all

before him. What must have been the feelings of the great Lenoir? What

were those of Washington before Trenton, when it seemed all up with the

cause of American Independence; what those of the virgin Elizabeth,

when the Armada was signalled; what those of Miltiades, when the

multitudinous Persian bore down on Marathon? The people looked on at

the combat, and saw their chieftain stricken, bleeding, fallen, fighting

still.

At last there came one day when the Contrebanquists had won their

allotted sum, and were about to leave the tables which they had swept

so often. But pride and lust of gold had seized upon the heart of one of

their vainglorious chieftains; and he said, "Do not let us go yet--let

us win a thousand florins more!" So they stayed and set the bank yet

a thousand florins. The Noirbourgers looked on, and trembled for their

prince.

Some three hours afterwards--a shout, a mighty shout was heard around

the windows of that palace: the town, the gardens, the hills, the

fountains took up and echoed the jubilant acclaim. Hip, hip, hip,

hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! People rushed into each other's arms; men,

women, and children cried and kissed each other. Croupiers, who never

feel, who never tremble, who never care whether black wins or red loses,

took snuff from each other's boxes, and laughed for joy; and Lenoir the

dauntless, the INVINCIBLE Lenoir, wiped the drops of perspiration from

his calm forehead, as he drew the enemy's last rouleau into his till. He

had conquered. The Persians were beaten, horse and foot--the Armada had

gone down. Since Wellington shut up his telescope at Waterloo, when the

Prussians came charging on to the field, and the Guard broke and fled,

there had been no such heroic endurance, such utter defeat, such signal

and crowning victory. Vive Lenoir! I am a Lenoirite. I have read his

newspapers, strolled in his gardens, listened to his music, and rejoice

in his victory: I am glad he beat those Contrebanquists. Dissipati sunt.

The game is up with them.

The instances of this man's magnanimity are numerous, and worthy of

Alexander the Great, or Harry the Fifth, or Robin Hood. Most gentle is

he, and thoughtful to the poor, and merciful to the vanquished.

When Jeremy Diddler, who had lost twenty pounds at his table, lay in

inglorious pawn at his inn--when O'Toole could not leave Noirbourg until

he had received his remittances from Ireland--the noble Lenoir

paid Diddler's inn bill, advanced O'Toole money upon his well-known

signature, franked both of them back to their native country again; and

has never, wonderful to state, been paid from that day to this. If you

will go play at his table, you may; but nobody forces you. If you lose,

pay with a cheerful heart. Dulce est desipere in loco. This is not a

treatise of morals. Friar Tuck was not an exemplary ecclesiastic, nor

Robin Hood a model man; but he was a jolly outlaw; and I dare say the

Sheriff of Nottingham, whose money he took, rather relished his feast at

Robin's green table.

And if you lose, worthy friend, as possibly you will, at Lenoir's pretty

games, console yourself by thinking that it is much better for you in

the end that you should lose, than that you should win. Let me, for my

part, make a clean breast of it, and own that your humble servant did,

on one occasion, win a score of Napoleons; and beginning with a sum of

no less than five shillings. But until I had lost them again I was so

feverish, excited, and uneasy, that I had neither delectation in

reading the most exciting French novels, nor pleasure in seeing pretty

landscapes, nor appetite for dinner. The moment, however, that graceless

money was gone, equanimity was restored: Paul Feval and Eugene Sue began

to be terrifically interesting again; and the dinners at Noirbourg,

though by no means good culinary specimens, were perfectly sufficient

for my easy and tranquil mind. Lankin, who played only a lawyer's rubber

at whist, marked the salutary change in his friend's condition; and,

for my part, I hope and pray that every honest reader of this volume

who plays at M. Lenoir's table will lose every shilling of his winnings

before he goes away. Where are the gamblers whom we have read of? Where

are the card-players whom we can remember in our early days? At one

time almost every gentleman played, and there were whist-tables in every

lady's drawing-room. But trumps are going out along with numbers of

old-world institutions; and, before very long, a blackleg will be as

rare an animal as a knight in armor.

There was a little dwarfish, abortive, counter bank set up at Noirbourg

this year: but the gentlemen soon disagreed among themselves; and, let

us hope, were cut off in detail by the great Lenoir. And there was a

Frenchman at our inn who had won two Napoleons per day for the last six

weeks, and who had an infallible system, whereof he kindly offered to

communicate the secret for the consideration of a hundred louis; but

there came one fatal night when the poor Frenchman's system could

not make head against fortune, and her wheel went over him, and he

disappeared utterly.

With the early morning everybody rises and makes his or her appearance

at the Springs, where they partake of water with a wonderful energy and

perseverance. They say that people get to be fond of this water at last;

as to what tastes cannot men accustom themselves? I drank a couple of

glasses of an abominable sort of feeble salts in a state of very gentle

effervescence; but, though there was a very pretty girl who served it,

the drink was abominable, and it was a marvel to see the various topers,

who tossed off glass after glass, which the fair-haired little Hebe

delivered sparkling from the well.

Seeing my wry faces, old Captain Carver expostulated, with a jolly

twinkle of his eye, as he absorbed the contents of a sparkling crystal

beaker. "Pooh! take another glass, sir: you'll like it better and better

every day. It refreshes you, sir: it fortifies you: and as for liking

it--gad! I remember the time when I didn't like claret. Times are

altered now, ha! ha! Mrs. Fantail, madam, I wish you a very good

morning. How is Fantail? He don't come to drink the water: so much the

worse for him."

To see Mrs. Fantail of an evening is to behold a magnificent sight.

She ought to be shown in a room by herself; and, indeed, would occupy

a moderate-sized one with her person and adornments. Marie Antoinette's

hoop is not bigger than Mrs. Fantail's flounces. Twenty men taking hands

(and, indeed, she likes to have at least that number about her) would

scarcely encompass her. Her chestnut ringlets spread out in a halo

round her face: she must want two or three coiffeurs to arrange that

prodigious head-dress; and then, when it is done, how can she endure

that extraordinary gown? Her travelling bandboxes must be as large as

omnibuses.

But see Mrs. Fantail in the morning, having taken in all sail: the

chestnut curls have disappeared, and two limp bands of brown hair border

her lean, sallow face; you see before you an ascetic, a nun, a woman

worn by mortifications, of a sad yellow aspect, drinking salts at the

well: a vision quite different from that rapturous one of the previous

night's ball-room. No wonder Fantail does not come out of a morning; he

had rather not see such a Rebecca at the well.

Lady Kicklebury came for some mornings pretty regularly, and was very

civil to Mr. Leader, and made Miss Fanny drink when his lordship took a

cup, and asked Lord Talboys and his tutor to dinner. But the tutor came,

and, blushing, brought an excuse from Talboys; and poor Milliken had not

a very pleasant evening after Mr. Baring Leader rose to go away.

But though the water was not good the sun was bright, the music cheery,

the landscape fresh and pleasant, and it was always amusing to see the

vast varieties of our human species that congregated at the Springs, and

trudged up and down the green allees. One of the gambling conspirators

of the roulette-table it was good to see here, in his private character,

drinking down pints of salts like any other sinner, having a homely

wife on his arm, and between them a poodle on which they lavished their

tenderest affection. You see these people care for other things besides

trumps; and are not always thinking about black and red:--as even ogres

are represented, in their histories, as of cruel natures, and licentious

appetites, and, to be sure, fond of eating men and women; but yet it

appears that their wives often respected them, and they had a sincere

liking for their own hideous children. And, besides the card-players,

there are band-players: every now and then a fiddle from the neighboring

orchestra, or a disorganized bassoon, will step down and drink a glass

of the water, and jump back into his rank again.

Then come the burly troops of English, the honest lawyers, merchants,

and gentlemen, with their wives and buxom daughters, and stout sons,

that, almost grown to the height of manhood, are boys still, with rough

wide-awake hats and shooting-jackets, full of lark and laughter. A

French boy of sixteen has had des passions ere that time, very likely,

and is already particular in his dress, an ogler of the women, and

preparing to kill. Adolphe says to Alphonse--"La voila cette charmante

Miss Fanni, la belle Kickleburi! je te donne ma parole, elle est fraiche

comme une rose! la crois-tu riche, Alphonse?" "Je me range, mon ami,

vois-tu? La vie de garcon me pese. Ma parole d'honneur! je me range."

And he gives Miss Fanny a killing bow, and a glance which seems to say,

"Sweet Anglaise, I know that I have won your heart."

Then besides the young French buck, whom we will willingly suppose

harmless, you see specimens of the French raff, who goes aux eaux:

gambler, speculator, sentimentalist, duellist, travelling with madame

his wife, at whom other raffs nod and wink familiarly. This rogue is

much more picturesque and civilized than the similar person in our own

country: whose manners betray the stable; who never reads anything but

Bell's Life; and who is much more at ease in conversing with a groom

than with his employer. Here come Mr. Boucher and Mr. Fowler: better to

gamble for a score of nights with honest Monsieur Lenoir, than to sit

down in private once with those gentlemen. But we have said that their

profession is going down, and the number of Greeks daily diminishes.

They are travelling with Mr. Bloundell, who was a gentleman once, and

still retains about him some faint odor of that time of bloom; and

Bloundell has put himself on young Lord Talboys, and is trying to get

some money out of that young nobleman. But the English youth of the

present day is a wide-awake youth, and male or female artifices are

expended pretty much in vain on our young travelling companion.

Who come yonder? Those two fellows whom we met at the table-d'hote at

the "Hotel de Russie" the other day: gentlemen of splendid costume, and

yet questionable appearances, the eldest of whom called for the list of

wines, and cried out loud enough for all the company to hear, "Lafite,

six florins. 'Arry, shall we have some Lafite? You don't mind? No more

do I then. I say, waiter, let's 'ave a pint of ordinaire." Truth is

stranger than fiction. You good fellow, wherever you are, why did

you ask 'Arry to 'ave that pint of ordinaire in the presence of your

obedient servant? How could he do otherwise than chronicle the speech?

And see: here is a lady who is doubly desirous to be put into print, who

encourages it and invites it. It appears that on Lankin's first arrival

at Noirbourg with his travelling companion, a certain sensation was

created in the little society by the rumor that an emissary of the

famous Mr. Punch had arrived in the place; and, as we were smoking the

cigar of peace on the lawn after dinner, looking on at the benevolent,

pretty scene, Mrs. Hopkins, Miss Hopkins, and the excellent head of the

family, walked many times up and down before us; eyed us severely face

to face, and then walking away, shot back fierce glances at us in the

Parthian manner; and at length, at the third or fourth turn, and when

we could not but overhear so fine a voice, Mrs. Hopkins looks at us

steadily, and says, "I'm sure he may put ME in if he likes: I don't

mind."

Oh, ma'am! Oh, Mrs. Hopkins! how should a gentleman, who had never seen

your face or heard of you before, want to put YOU in? What interest can

the British public have in you? But as you wish it, and court publicity,

here you are. Good luck go with you, madam. I have forgotten your real

name, and should not know you again if I saw you. But why could not you

leave a man to take his coffee and smoke his pipe in quiet?

We could never have time to make a catalogue of all the portraits that

figure in this motley gallery. Among the travellers in Europe, who are

daily multiplying in numbers and increasing in splendor, the United

States' dandies must not be omitted. They seem as rich as the Milor of

old days; they crowd in European capitals; they have elbowed out people

of the old country from many hotels which we used to frequent; they

adopt the French fashion of dressing rather than ours, and they grow

handsomer beards than English beards: as some plants are found to

flourish and shoot up prodigiously when introduced into a new soil. The

ladies seem to be as well dressed as Parisians, and as handsome; though

somewhat more delicate, perhaps, than the native English roses. They

drive the finest carriages, they keep the grandest houses, they frequent

the grandest company--and, in a word, the Broadway Swell has now taken

his station and asserted his dignity amongst the grandees of Europe.

He is fond of asking Count Reineck to dinner, and Grafinn Laura will

condescend to look kindly upon a gentleman who has millions of dollars.

Here comes a pair of New Yorkers. Behold their elegant curling

beards, their velvet coats, their delicate primrose gloves and cambric

handkerchiefs, and the aristocratic beauty of their boots. Why, if you

had sixteen quarterings, you could not have smaller feet than those; and

if you were descended from a line of kings you could not smoke better or

bigger cigars.

Lady Kicklebury deigns to think very well of these young men, since she

has seen them in the company of grandees and heard how rich they are.

"Who is that very stylish-looking woman, to whom Mr. Washington Walker

spoke just now?" she asks of Kicklebury.

Kicklebury gives a twinkle of his eye. "Oh, that, mother! that is Madame

La Princesse de Mogador--it's a French title."

"She danced last night, and danced exceedingly well; I remarked her.

There's a very high-bred grace about the princess."

"Yes, exceedingly. We'd better come on," says Kicklebury, blushing

rather as he returns the princess's nod.

It is wonderful how large Kicklebury's acquaintance is. He has a word

and a joke, in the best German he can muster, for everybody--for the

high well-born lady, as for the German peasant maiden, or the pretty

little washerwoman, who comes full sail down the streets, a basket on

her head and one of Mrs. Fantail's wonderful gowns swelling on each arm.

As we were going to the Schloss-Garten I caught a sight of the rogue's

grinning face yesterday, close at little Gretel's ear under her basket;

but spying out his mother advancing, he dashed down a bystreet, and when

we came up with her, Gretel was alone.

One but seldom sees the English and the holiday visitors in the ancient

parts of Noirbourg; they keep to the streets of new buildings and garden

villas, which have sprung up under the magic influence of M. Lenoir,

under the white towers and gables of the old German town. The Prince

of Trente et Quarante has quite overcome the old serene sovereign of

Noirbourg, whom one cannot help fancying a prince like a prince in a

Christmas pantomime--a burlesque prince with twopence-halfpenny for a

revenue, jolly and irascible, a prime-minister-kicking prince, fed upon

fabulous plum-puddings and enormous pasteboard joints, by cooks and

valets with large heads which never alter their grin. Not that this

portrait is from the life. Perhaps he has no life. Perhaps there is no

prince in the great white tower, that we see for miles before we enter

the little town. Perhaps he has been mediatized, and sold his kingdom

to Monsieur Lenoir. Before the palace of Lenoir there is a grove of

orange-trees in tubs, which Lenoir bought from another German prince;

who went straightway and lost the money, which he had been paid for his

wonderful orange-trees, over Lenoir's green tables, at his roulette and

trente-et-quarante. A great prince is Lenoir in his way; a generous and

magnanimous prince. You may come to his feast and pay nothing, unless

you please. You may walk in his gardens, sit in his palace, and read

his thousand newspapers. You may go and play at whist in his small

drawing-rooms, or dance and hear concerts in his grand saloon--and there

is not a penny to pay. His fiddlers and trumpeters begin trumpeting and

fiddling for you at the early dawn--they twang and blow for you in the

afternoon, they pipe for you at night that you may dance--and there is

nothing to pay--Lenoir pays for all. Give him but the chances of the

table, and he will do all this and more. It is better to live under

Prince Lenoir than a fabulous old German Durchlaucht whose cavalry ride

wicker horses with petticoats, and whose prime minister has a great

pasteboard head. Vive le Prince Lenoir!

There is a grotesque old carved gate to the palace of the Durchlaucht,

from which you could expect none but a pantomime procession to pass.

The place looks asleep; the courts are grass-grown and deserted. Is

the Sleeping Beauty lying yonder, in the great white tower? What is the

little army about? It seems a sham army: a sort of grotesque military.

The only charge of infantry was this: one day when passing through the

old town, looking for sketches. Perhaps they become croupiers at night.

What can such a fabulous prince want with anything but a sham army?

My favorite walk was in the ancient quarter of the town--the dear old

fabulous quarter, away from the noisy actualities of life and Prince

Lenoir's new palace--out of eye and earshot of the dandies and the

ladies in their grand best clothes at the promenades--and the rattling

whirl of the roulette wheel--and I liked to wander in the glum old

gardens under the palace wall, and imagine the Sleeping Beauty within

there.

Some one persuaded us one day to break the charm, and see the interior

of the palace. I am sorry we did. There was no Sleeping Beauty in any

chamber that we saw; nor any fairies, good or malevolent. There was a

shabby set of clean old rooms, which looked as if they had belonged to

a prince hard put to it for money, and whose tin crown jewels would not

fetch more than King Stephen's pantaloons. A fugitive prince, a brave

prince struggling with the storms of fate, a prince in exile may

be poor; but a prince looking out of his own palace windows with a

dressing-gown out at elbows, and dunned by his subject washerwoman--I

say this is a painful object. When they get shabby they ought not to be

seen. "Don't you think so, Lady Kicklebury?" Lady Kicklebury evidently

had calculated the price of the carpets and hangings, and set them

justly down at a low figure. "These German princes," she said, "are not

to be put on a level with English noblemen." "Indeed," we answer, "there

is nothing so perfect as England: nothing so good as our aristocracy;

nothing so perfect as our institutions." "Nothing! NOTHING!" says Lady

K.

An English princess was once brought to reign here; and almost the whole

of the little court was kept upon her dowry. The people still regard

her name fondly; and they show, at the Schloss, the rooms which she

inhabited. Her old books are still there--her old furniture brought from

home; the presents and keepsakes sent by her family are as they were in

the princess's lifetime: the very clock has the name of a Windsor maker

on its face; and portraits of all her numerous race decorate the homely

walls of the now empty chambers. There is the benighted old king, his

beard hanging down to the star on his breast; and the first gentleman

of Europe--so lavish of his portrait everywhere, and so chary of showing

his royal person--all the stalwart brothers of the now all but extinct

generation are there; their quarrels and their pleasures, their glories

and disgraces, enemies, flatterers, detractors, admirers--all now

buried. Is it not curious to think that the King of Trumps now virtually

reigns in this place, and has deposed the other dynasty?

Very early one morning, wishing to have a sketch of the White Tower

in which our English princess had been imprisoned, I repaired to the

gardens, and set about a work, which, when completed, will no doubt

have the honor of a place on the line at the Exhibition; and, returning

homewards to breakfast, musing upon the strange fortunes and inhabitants

of the queer, fantastic, melancholy place, behold, I came suddenly upon

a couple of persons, a male and a female; the latter of whom wore a blue

hood or "ugly," and blushed very much on seeing me. The man began to

laugh behind his moustaches, the which cachinnation was checked by an

appealing look from the young lady; and he held out his hand and said,

"How d'ye do, Titmarsh? Been out making some cawickachaws, hay?"

I need not say that the youth before me was the heavy dragoon, and that

the maiden was Miss Fanny Kicklebury. Or need I repeat that, in the

course of my blighted being, I never loved a young gazelle to glad

me with its dark blue eye, but when it came to, &c., the usual

disappointment, was sure to ensue? There is no necessity why I should

allude to my feelings at this most manifest and outrageous case. I gave

a withering glance of scorn at the pair, and, with a stately salutation,

passed on.

Miss Fanny came tripping after me. She held out her little hand with

such a pretty look of deprecation, that I could not but take it; and

she said, "Mr. Titmarsh, if you please, I want to speak to you, if you

please;" and, choking with emotion, I bade her speak on.

"My brother knows all about it, and, highly approves of Captain Hicks,"

she said, with her head hanging down; "and oh, he's very good and kind:

and I know him MUCH better now, than I did when we were on board the

steamer."