Cleaver's expedition was most prosperous. He terrified gipsy parties at

Netly, shocked the members of the Yacht Club, interrupted the sketches

of tourists, and kept High-street, above and below bar, in a state of

constant consternation, after having been refused admittance into half

of the hotels. The very parish beadles seemed to have an eye to his

nose. In short, the Strasburg burghers had not been more terrified with

the sneezer of Han Kenbergins's traveller, than were the good people of

Southampton with that of their visitor. Having thus brought his snout

into notoriety, he returned to town on a day when he had discovered

that Lord Doodly's butler was going up. The conversation naturally fell

upon noses, as the butler declared that he never in all his born days

had seen such a pair of nozzles as Cleaver's and his young master's.

Our adventurer then informed him that there was only _one doctor upon

earth_ who could cure such terrific diseases, and him he was going up to

consult. His fellow traveller of course observed, that if he could cure

_his_ scent-box he could cure anything; and Cleaver promised him, over

a tankard of ale, to let him hear from him if he was so fortunate as to

get rid of his distressing disorder.

Two months after, a loud ringing announced a stranger at the gate of

Doodly Hall. It was Cleaver, with his natural facial handle, asking

for the butler. Overjoyed at a discovery so acceptable to his master,

who, in return for his services, might be disposed to overlook his

spoliations with more indulgence, Cleaver was introduced by him to the

family, who all recollected his former frightful appearance. Lord Impy,

the heir of the title and estate, was forthwith sent to London to be

placed under Doall's care. Again he had the good fortune to relieve him,

and his fame had spread far and near, ere the nasal conflagration broke

out again with redoubled virulence.

Cleaver's services were soon requited by the hand of Emmelina, and

a partnership in _the board_. He gradually acquired a smattering of

medical knowledge; and, being well aware that affable manners bring on

conversation, and conversation tends to draw out ignorance, he very

wisely assumed a haughty, and at times a brutal manner; making it a rule

never to answer a question, and requesting his patients to hold their

tongues when they presumed to trespass on their ailments. His unmannerly

behaviour was called _frankness_, his silence _erudition_, and his

insolence _independence_. He thus became one of the wealthiest quacks in

London. His romantic Emmelina for some time rendered him most miserable;

but, fortunately for him, she one night set fire to the house while

performing "_The Devil to pay_" in her private theatricals, and was duly

consumed with the premises. With his usual good luck, they had been

insured for three times their value; and the doctor was enabled to move

to a more fashionable part of the West End, with the additional _puff of

a fire, a burnt wife, and a disconsolate husband_!

The librarian proceeded to relate the adventures of various other

medical men; and we then entered an adjoining room, hung round with

portraits of distinguished characters, amongst whom I was particularly

anxious to learn the history of the once popular patriot,

SIR RUBY RATBOROUGH.

PETER PLUMBAGO'S CORRESPONDENCE.

Dear Tom,--I'm aware you will need no apology

For a nice short epistle concerning geology;

The subject perhaps has been worn to a thread,--

But I can't drive _Philosophy_ out of my head!

Before the great meeting in Bristol, no doubt

It was harder to drive such a thing in than out;

But a one-pound subscription once placing it there,

It takes root in the brain, and sprouts faster than hair:

So that, though I get lectures at night from the wife of me,

I can't pluck Philosophy out for the life of me.

Well, Tom,--a prime fellow, brimfull of divinity,

Told jokes about chaos and bones to infinity;

And proved that the world (this he firmly believes)

Long before Adam's day had seen thousands of EVES!

Now, Tom, do you know in this earth that so great a

Proportion of hard rocks inclining in strata

Is caked with dead lizards and crocodiles' bone,

That a singular fact's incontestably shown--

Viz. ALL FLESH (WHICH IS GRASS) MUST IN TIME BECOME STONE!

Either limestone, or crystal, or mineral salt,

(Vide specim.) Lot's wife--crystallized "in a _fault_."

Fancy, Tom, that your skull may come under the chisel,

And turn out a filter for water to drizzle!

Or imagine the rubicund nose of our uncle,

In some fair lady's brooch, blazing forth a carbuncle!

Though learning is grand, and one labours to win it,

There perhaps lurks a something distressing, Tom, in it.

Thus, whate'er our good character while our life lasted,

When turned into rocks, may we not, Tom, be blasted?

However refined were our tastes and behaviour,

When slabs, to be thumped by the vulgarest pavior!

Who knows but that Newton's immortalised pate

May not some day become a dull schoolboy's old slate;

That head, which threw such astonishing light upon

The secrets of nature--a ninny to write upon!

Man's knowledge is ignorance, wisdom is folly;

The more philosophic, the more melancholy.

But, Tom, I've a theory,--my own, Tom,--my pet,

Though not quite mature to be published as yet,

Next year I expect 'twill be brought to perfection,

And be read at the great Geological Section.

The subject of FROGS having pleased the community,

(A subject on which none may gibe with impunity,)

It struck me the cold-blooded matter they own

Must be midway 'twixt animal substance and stone.

They have heads, so have we!--and no tails, so have rocks!--

They've no red blood, like pebbles! but two eyes, like cocks!

Then again,--unlike Christians, with warm, "vital spark,"--

They are cold, so are flints! a strong circumstance--mark!

An argument _some_ use--there is not much in 't,

That stones have no skins--Hah! then what's a _skin flint_?

Every day, Tom, I feel more secure my position,

_Frogs_ are ANIMAL ROCKS _in a state of transition_!

If I prove this,--and savans but act with propriety,--

I'm sure to preside at the Royal Society!

Then think, Tom, the glory of Bristol! a resident

Elected in London, to sit as the President!

Hark! I hear, Tom, my unphilosophic virago

Of a wife! I must finish--

Yours, PETER PLUMBAGO.

October 14th, 1836.

THE BLUE WONDER.[90]

A MARRIAGE ON CREDIT.

[90] This story has been adapted from the German of Zschokke.

Doctor Falcon looked one way, and pretty Susan looked another, as it

has been customary for young people to do, from the remotest antiquity.

The doctor was a very pretty fellow, had been to two universities, had

walked the hospitals of Vienna, Milan, and Pavia, and had learned so

much that there was not one of his craft better able than himself to

post his patients to a better world according to the most legitimate

principles of the most modern systems of the medical art. But science

such as this, is not to be acquired for nothing; it had cost our worthy

doctor nearly every penny of his modest patrimony. "Never mind!" thought

he to himself; "when I get home, I'll marry some rich girl or other, who

may take a fancy to become the doctor's lady; and so both our turns will

be served."

But what are the wisest resolutions against the eloquence of a pretty

face? Susan was as pretty as a lover could wish her; she felt the best

disposition in the world to become a doctor's lady, but then she had no

money.

"Never mind, my dear Susan!" said the doctor, as he impressed a kiss on

the lips of the weeping maid; "you see, a doctor must marry, else people

have no confidence in him. You will bring me _credit_, credit will bring

me _patients_, the patients money, and, if they should fail, we have

good expectations. Your aunt, Miss Sarah Bugle, is forty odd, not far

from fifty, and rich enough for the seventh part of her fortune to help

us out of all our trouble. We may venture something upon that!"

Heavens! what will a young girl not venture for her lover! Susan's

mother had nothing to object, nor her father either, for they were both

in heaven; and her guardian was well pleased to see his ward form a

respectable connexion. Her aunt, Sarah, was also well-pleased, though,

in general, she was little friendly to wedding of any kind: but, as long

as Susan remained unmarried, she saw very clearly that she would every

year be obliged to make some pecuniary advances to the worthy guardian;

and Miss Sarah Bugle was rather stingy, or, as she was herself wont to

say, "she had not a penny more than she wanted."

Well: Susan became Mrs. Falcon, and the doctor looked most industriously

out of his windows to see the customers pour into his house, on the

strength of his increased claims to credit. They came very sparingly;

but in their stead there appeared every year, a little merry face that

had never been seen in the house before, to augment the parental joys

of Doctor Falcon and his lady. Sometimes the doctor would pass his

finger, cogitatingly, behind his left ear; but what could that avail

him? There was no driving the little Falcons out of the nest. They could

not cut their bread into thinner slices, for the children must live;

but the doctress made her soups thinner. However, they all seemed to

thrive,--father, mother, and the four little ones. They sat on wooden

benches and straw chairs as comfortably as they could have done on

quilted cushions; they slept soundly on hard mattresses, and wore no

costly garments, being well contented if they could keep themselves

neatly and respectably clad. And this was an art in which Susan was a

perfect adept; everything in her house looked so pretty and neat, that

you would have sworn the doctor must have been extremely well off. "How

they manage to do it, I can't think!" Aunt Sarah would often exclaim.

"It's a blue wonder to me!"

Not that it was always sunshine: there were days when the exchequer was

quite exhausted; and sometimes whole weeks would elapse without a single

dollar finding its way into the house. But then it was always some

consolation to know that Aunt Sarah was rich, and sickly, and growing

old; and, the worse matters looked at home, the more hopeful they always

became at the maiden's mansion.

EXPECTING HEIRS.

The doctor and Susan reckoned rather too confidently on the inheritance

of the aunt; for, even supposing that the dear old lady had been so

near to her beatification as her loving friends imagined, still it was

matter of speculation whether her dear niece would or would not be her

heir. The sighing pair of wedded lovers stood indeed most in need of the

inheritance: but it so happened that there was another niece, married to

one Lawyer Tweezer; not to speak of two nephews, the Reverend Primarius

Bugle, and a certain doctor of philosophy of the same name. Their claims

were all as strong as those of Susan and her husband, and all looked

forward with equal longing to the ascension of the blessed virgin.

Bugle, the philosopher, had perhaps least cause of all. He was rich

enough; and, while enjoying the delicacies of his table, and smacking

his lips after his Burgundy, his philosophy was perfectly edifying to

his guests. We have a proof of his acuteness in a work of his, in five

volumes, now forgotten, but once immortal, entitled "_The Wise Man

surrounded by the Evils of Life_;" in which he proved that there was

no such thing as suffering in the world; that pain of every kind was

the mere creature of imagination; and that all a man had to do, was to

contemplate every object on the agreeable side.

Accordingly, he always contemplated his aunt on the _agreeable_, namely,

on her _money_ side. He visited her assiduously, often invited her

to dinner, sent her all sorts of tit-bits from his kitchen, and was

accordingly honoured with the appellation of her "own darling nephew."

He would have succeeded well enough with his philosophy, had not

his cousin, the Reverend Primarius Bugle, by means of his theology,

exercised great influence over the aunt. She was very pious and devout,

contemned the vanities of the world, visited the congregations of the

godly, in which the spiritual bugle at times was heard to utter a loud

strain, and was mightily comforted by the visits of her reverend nephew,

who joined her frequently in her devotions, and gave her pretty clearly

to understand, that, without his assistance, she would find it difficult

to prepare her soul for its future blissful abode. When, sighing and

with weeping eyes, she would come from the edifying discourses of her

godly nephew, she would call him the saviour of her soul, her greatest

of benefactors, and promise to think of him in her last hour. This was

music to the ears of the theologian. "I can scarcely fail to be the

sole legatee," he would think to himself; "or, as our pious aunt is wont

to say, it would be a blue wonder indeed."

Nor would his calculation have been a bad one, but for his cousin Lawyer

Tweezer; whose legal ability made him a man of great importance to the

aunt. The chaste Sarah did indeed despise the Mammon of unrighteousness,

and sincerely pitied the grovelling children of the world; but on that

very account she did her best to detach them from their Mammon, or at

least their Mammon from them, which is all the same. She lent money

on high interest and good security, and worked so diligently for the

salvation of those who borrowed from her, that they were always sure to

became poorer and poorer under her ministration. "Blessed are the poor!"

she would exclaim when they were paying her interest on interest; "if I

could have my way, I would have the whole town poor, that they might all

inherit the kingdom of heaven. The less people have in this world, the

more they will long for the world to come."

It would sometimes happen, however, that the pious maid was carried

too far by her virtuous zeal for the future welfare of her neighbours;

so that, what with her securities, and her compound interest, and the

wickedness of her debtors, she would occasionally find herself involved

in disputes and litigation. Without the aid of Lawyer Tweezer, who was

universally looked on as the most cunning pettifogger in the whole town,

she would frequently have seen interest and principal slipping through

her fingers. But, between her piety, and his cunning and obduracy, a

poor debtor was fain to bundle with bag and baggage out of his house,

rather than a single guilder she had lent out, should miss its way back

to her strong-box.

"I should be a poor, forsaken, lost woman, my dearest nephew," she would

often say to Tweezer, "if you were not there, to take my part. I may

thank you for nearly all I have; but the time may come when I shall be

able to repay you." This was music to the ears of the jurist. He hoped

one day to find himself sole heir, and fancied he should he able to

touch the right note when it came to the drawing out of the will.

THE PICTURE OF THE VIRGIN.

Miss Sarah Bugle, in her fits of devotion, talked much of death, and of

her longings after the heavenly Jerusalem and her spiritual bridegroom;

yet this did not prevent her from thinking, even more frequently still,

of an earthly bridegroom. Since her five-and-fortieth year she indeed

solemnly declared that she never would marry; nevertheless, she had

her fits of maiden weakness, particularly when some stately widower

would banter her, or some gay bachelor look up to her window as he went

by. "I dare say he has some designs," she would then say. "Well, time

will show; it's wrong to swear anything rashly! If it is to be,--well;

the Lord's will be done! I'm in my best years. My namesake in the Old

Testament was eighty when she christened her first child. It would be no

blue wonder if it did turn out so!"

Thus she would soliloquize, particularly when some single man had been

looking kindly at her; and, as this seemed to her to be frequently the

case, she at last came to suspect every man in the place, of "evil

designs," as she called it, on her chaste person. At length,--for her

imagination had been wanton with her for more than twenty years,--she

came to look upon every single man as her silent adorer, and every

married man as her faithless one.

It may easily be conceived with what inveteracy she declaimed against

weddings of every kind, and how bitterly she abused the whole godless,

light-minded male sex, (for her quarrel was with the whole sex,) and

with what transcendent venom she inveighed against the coquettish minxes

who had the impudence to think of a man before they were out of their

leading-strings; though these same minxes in leading-strings were all

the while walking about in shoes such as are generally manufactured for

damsels about to bid adieu to their teens.

Some elderly maidens, pure and pious like herself, assisted her in the

laudable occupation of prying into the domestic occurrences of the town,

and moralising over them while sipping their coffee. In this conclave,

every new gown, every wedding, every christening, was conscientiously

discussed; and no time was lost in dispersing the result of their

amiable confabulations through every corner of the town. A saucy

sign-painter being once called on to paint a picture of the goddess

of Fame, armed her with a bugle instead of a trumpet; and, when some

pre-eminent piece of scandal became current, it was customary to say

"the bugle has been sounded,"--by which it was intended to indicate the

quarter where the report originated.

If to these amiable qualities we add the extreme godliness of the chaste

Sarah, and her invincible partiality for compound interest, it is not

difficult to understand why, with the exception of the said ancient

maidens and the four expecting nephews, every creature was careful to

remain at a most respectful distance from her.

THE CARES OF LIFE.

She had not the least inclination to die. She was, therefore, by no

means displeased with the competition of the four faculties, for her

inheritance. Nobody gained by it more than herself. It brought her the

dainties of philosophy, the consolations of religion, the protection

of the law, and moderate doctor's bills. Doctor Falcon was as dear to

her as the others, but not a bit more so: only when some transitory

indisposition seemed to hint at the instability of everything human,

the doctor never failed to become, for the time, the dearest of all her

nephews.

"Quick doctor! Pray come immediately! Miss Sarah is dying!" exclaimed

one morning, the antiquated maid-servant of the aunt, as she popped her

head in at the door. "My lady has been looking most wretchedly for some

days."

Falcon was sitting, when this news came, upon his unpretending sofa;

and, with his arm round her waist, was endeavouring to console his

weeping Susan. He knew that Miss Sarah was not likely to be very serious

in her intentions of dying: so he promised the maid he would come

immediately, but remained nevertheless with his wife, to console her.

But he had little success this time in his attempts at consolation. Poor

Susan wept more bitterly than ever; and the poor doctor sat beside her,

unconscious of the cause of her tears.

"Come, be open-hearted to your husband, my dearest love," he said; "you

torture me,--you kill me,--to see you thus, while you conceal from me

the cause."

"Well, then listen to me. Oh!"

"What further, my dear Susan? you said that before."

"We have four children."

"Ay, and the finest in the town, if I am not mistaken! They are all so

gentle, so amiable, so----"

"Oh! they are little angels."

"You are right; they _are_ angels, all of them. You do not, I hope,

grieve over the presence of the little angelic circle?"

"No, my dear husband; but what is to become of the future?"

"Oh, thou unbelieving Susan! Let us rely on Providence."

"It is difficult for us to bring them up decently. The older they grow,

the more they want."

"They have been growing older all this while, and they have wanted for

nothing as yet."

"Ay; but, if----"

"What then?"

"Alas!" she sighed, and sobbed more bitterly than before.

"What then?" exclaimed the doctor, with undissembled anxiety.

She concealed her face in his bosom, clung to him with both her arms,

and, in a scarcely audible whisper, said: "I am to be a mother for the

fifth time."

The papa was half inclined to cry himself at this unhoped-for

announcement; however, he concealed his consternation as well as he

could. "Nay, sweetheart, is that all?" he exclaimed. "Come, Susan, we

shall have five little angels instead of four. We cannot fail to be

happy!"

"But, my dear husband, we are so very, very poor!"

"The little angels will bring a blessing upon us. He who feeds the young

ravens will also show me where to find a crumb for my little ones. Come,

tranquillise yourself."

Susan had had her cry out, and so became more tranquil, as a matter of

course; but the doctor had found no such vent for his uneasiness. He

walked up and down the room, looked out of the window; nothing could

divert his thoughts.

"Every year more children and less bread! Every year bigger boarders and

thinner slices!" sighed he to himself. He would have forgotten the dying

Miss Bugle, had not Susan reminded him that it was time to hasten to her

death-bed.

THE BLUE WONDER.

He took up his hat, but he did not run. The little domestic dialogue

still weighed on his spirits. He thought only of the small number of

his patients, and the exhausted state of his exchequer. He drew his

hat over his brow, and looked straight before him like a rhymester: on

his way he saluted neither right nor left, and had nearly run down the

superintendent-general,--a man looked upon by most people as one of the

brightest shining lights in the church.

When he arrived at his dearly-beloved aunt's, he did not, indeed, find

her on her death-bed; but she had mounted her spectacles, and was seated

before a large book, from which she had opened at Reflections on Death,

and from which she was devoutly reading sundry Prayers for the Dying.

She looked wretchedly; but it would have been difficult to say when her

face looked anything else. Round her head she had tied one handkerchief;

and another, which passed over her head, was fastened under her chin.

"What is the matter with you?" asked the learned Doctor Falcon, as he

laid his hat and stick aside.

"The Lord knows," sighed Miss Bugle in a soft and plaintive tone; "I

have suffered much for several days. I feel as if my hour were come; and

that would be terrible."

The doctor thoughtfully felt her pulse, and said unconsciously, half to

himself, "It fills, with a vengeance!" All the good man's thoughts were

at home with Susan.

"I thought as much," sighed the terrified virgin. "Do you think there is

danger, my dear Falcon?"

"Not at your years," replied the doctor, scarcely knowing what he said.

"Well, that is some consolation," replied the lady in a more cheerful

tone; "in fact, I am in my best years; my strength unbroken. My

constitution must bring me through. Don't you think so, dear Falcon?

Only, no expensive medicines, if they can be done without. Since bark,

rhubarb, and mixtures have been turned into colonial produce, there's no

enduring them. The Lord be merciful to us! but really, my dear Falcon, I

am not at all well."

Our worthy aunt now gave the reins to her tongue; spoke, as she was wont

to do, of a thousand different things, none of them in any way connected

with her indisposition. The doctor, meanwhile, hummed a tune, and beat

the devil's tattoo upon the table, without listening to a word of what

the good lady was saying. At length he was beginning to lose patience.

"What then _is_ the matter with you?" he exclaimed.

"Oh, my appetite! I have not relished a spoonful of soup these two days.

And then my head aches as if it would burst."

"Something you have eaten has, perhaps, disagreed with you, aunt; some

philosophical _pâté de foie gras_ may be in fault."

"Gracious Heaven! no, Falcon, the stomach cannot be in fault. I live

so simply, so frugally. Seriously, I don't think I have for several

weeks eaten anything likely to disagree with me. But sometimes I have a

tooth-ache, sometimes qualmishness, heartburn, vomitings--Good Heavens!

do look at me, Falcon, and don't keep drumming upon the table so; look

how pale I am,--how my eyes are sunk in my head: oh dear! I am certainly

very unwell."

"Well, what do I care?" said the doctor in a peevish tone: his mind

entirely occupied by the condition of his Susan: "you're in the family

way, that's all."

"Merciful Heaven!" screamed the chaste virgin, in a voice that might

have been heard three streets off. Merciful Heaven! that would be a blue

wonder indeed!"

A cold sweat came over the doctor as he heard these animated tones

from the maiden lips of Miss Sarah Bugle. He immediately recollected

that, what with ill-humour, and what with absence of mind, he had

been betrayed into a superlatively foolish speech, and one that no

chaste virgin was ever likely to forgive; particularly a maid who had

triumphantly preserved her painful dignity unimpaired to her fiftieth

year; one who never pardoned in another damsel even a gentle pressure

of the hand; one who was neither more nor less than an immaculate

personification of purity and sanctity; one who was, in short, that

virgin of virgins, Miss Sarah Bugle!

"I will let the storm vent itself, and seek safety in flight, before

the neighbours come pouring in, to see what's the matter," thought the

terrified doctor, as he opened the door and rushed into the street.

ANOTHER BLUE WONDER.

The other three faculties had by this time, by their jealousy, rapacity,

and endless misrepresentations concerning each other, utterly ruined

themselves in the good opinion of the virgin. Doctor Falcon was the

only one who at all bore up against the sudden storm. He could not,

for the soul of him, help laughing at his own blunder. Susan, however,

on the following day began to reprove her husband's levity, though she

had at first joined in the laugh at his thoughtlessness. He caught her

in his arms, stopped her mouth with his kisses, and said, "You are

right: I ought not to have so rudely assaulted the maiden purity of the

heaven-devoted vestal. But, faith! when I left you yesterday, I scarcely

knew myself which way my head was turned."

"I would not say another word, my dear, if I were not convinced that you

have offended my aunt for ever. Such affront can never be forgiven by

so pious a maiden lady. It is ill for us, and particularly now. We have

a long winter before us. I heat the stove so sparingly that the windows

scarcely thaw the whole day, and yet our stock of wood is going fast,

as you know yourself. And for our exchequer, look here!" So saying, she

jingled a few small pieces of silver in a large purse close to his ears.

A slight tap at the door, and Sarah's aged attendant entered with a

sealed note, and an urgent request from his aunt that the doctor would

without fail, immediately after dinner, precisely at one o'clock, favour

her with a visit.

"I shall be sure to come," said Falcon; he took the note, and dismissed

the maid.

He weighed the note in his hand, and turned jestingly to his wife.

"Feel, Susan; it is as heavy as lead." He opened it, and, lo! in a Queen

of Hearts sundry delicate incisions had been made, into which had been

slipped ten new full-weighted Dutch ducats. He looked at the envelope;

it was addressed to Dr. Falcon: there could be no mistake. Such

unheard-of liberality on the part of the immaculate Sarah justly excited

the amazement of the wedded pair.

"Well, this is the bluest of all my aunt's blue wonders!" exclaimed

Falcon. "Come, my pretty one; how long is it since we had such a

treasure as this, in our house? Look! Providence watches over us and our

children. The winter is provided for; so we'll have no more croaking.

What! are you crying still?"

"Oh!" sobbed Susan, as she threw her arms round his neck; "it's for

joy I am crying now. But," added she in a lower tone, "I was praying

fervently, nearly the whole night, for it was little I could sleep."

Falcon clasped his wife in his arms. He said not another word for

several minutes, but he wept inwardly; for he was unwilling that she

should see how deeply he was affected.

BLUER AND BLUER.

As the clock struck one, he stood by the bedside of the aunt. With real

emotion, with sincere gratitude, he approached her; and--he had vowed to

Susan he would do it--impressed a fervent kiss on the benevolent hand

that had just diffused so much joy through his little family circle.

"Best of aunts!" he said, "your present of to-day has made Susan and me

very happy."

"Dear nephew," said the sick lady, in the gentlest tone of which her

voice was capable, for it was long since her hand had been kissed so

warmly, "I have long, very long, been your debtor."

"And forgive me my rudeness of yesterday," continued the doctor.

Aunt Sarah modestly covered her face with her handkerchief. After a

while she said, but without looking at him, "Nephew, I am about to

repose unlimited confidence in you:--my life depends on you. Can you be

secret? Will you?"

Falcon was ready to promise everything. Still the lady was not

satisfied; she promised him her whole fortune if he would be faithful to

her. He made the most solemn oath.

"I know," said she, "that you young people are often badly enough off.

Well, I will come and board with you; for my old maid, who has served

me so long and so faithfully,"--here she sobbed bitterly,--"I must turn

her away. But as long as you keep my secret, I will give you a thousand

guilders every year for my board; and, when I die, you shall have all I

leave behind me."

The doctor fell on his knee by her bedside, and renewed his oath with

increased solemnity.

"But you must live outside the town; for I will not remain here. I will

make you a free gift of my large house outside the gate, with the garden

and all the grounds belonging to it. You know my house close to the

large inn--the Battle of Aboukir; the house was left me six months ago,

by my mother's brother, the Director of Excise."

The doctor vowed with extended hand he would move into it the very next

day, in spite of wind, frost, and snow.

"As long as you keep my secret, nephew, I will pay you my board

half-yearly in advance; and for the little expenses you will be at, in

arranging your house for your own family and for me, you will find four

rouleaux of dollars in the little cupboard yonder behind the door."

The doctor swore all his vows of secrecy over again. She must imagine

the day of judgment or the millennium at hand, he thought. Nothing less

can possibly account for so sudden and miraculous a conversion.

But, with all this, Sarah came no nearer than before to the confession

of the great secret. As often as she attempted to begin, the words died

upon her lips, and she covered her face and sobbed. These beginnings,

and breakings off, and lamentations endured for a long time. The doctor

rose, seated himself by the side of the bed, wiped his knees with the

sleeve of his coat, took a pinch of snuff, and said to himself, "We may

pump a well dry in time!; it would be hard if the lachrymal glands of an

afflicted virgin could boast of an inexhaustible store of water."

THE BLUEST OF ALL.

He was in the right: when she could cry no longer, she believed she was

recovering her Christian resolution, and said with a trembling voice,

"Nephew, when you left me yesterday after that dreadful expression----"

The doctor was about to fall once more on his knees: "Pardon the

expression, my angelic aunt! It was----"

"No, nephew; perhaps you were right."

"It was an unpardonable stupidity on my part."

"No, nephew; I believe you are not wrong."

"Impossible, my angelic aunt!"

"Alas! only too true, nephew."

"Impossible, aunt! And even if--even supposing--no, aunt, you are

certainly----"

"Nephew, you are right. I ought to have been wiser at my time of life,

you mean. You are right; but now you know all. The misfortune has

happened. I was married,--secretly, very secretly indeed,--but all in an

honourable way, all quite orderly. Now who'll believe me? There he lies

dead in the Tyrol, killed by a bullet;--here are letters and vouchers.

He is dead, and----"

"Who, aunt?" exclaimed Falcon in utter amazement.

"Alas! the trumpeter of the French regiment of hussars, that was

quartered here during the summer and autumn,--God be merciful to his

soul! He was no common trumpeter, but trumpeter to the regiment; his

father and grandfather beat the kettledrums for many years with great

applause. But, gracious Heaven! I could not bear to be called a hussar's

wife; and, before he could buy his discharge, the regiment was ordered

to march. Here I am now, a young widow, not a soul knows it, not a soul

would believe it. It will kill me if it become known: it would be a blue

wonder to the town. I care little for the trumpeter; but my good name is

all in all to me."

The doctor shook his head; he could scarcely recover from his surprise.

The trumpeter had indeed been frequently seen in Miss Bugle's

apartments; but Falcon, who had always laughed at Goethe's idea of a

chemical elective affinity, had never dreamt of such a powerful elective

affinity between a trumpeter and a Bugle. As to the immediate uneasiness

of the disconsolate maid, for such the widow chose to be still called,

he considered it groundless; but she returned such strange replies to

his questions as to her sensations, that he began himself to have some

suspicions. He had no difficulty now in accounting for the munificence

of the anxious lady, who would rather have lost her life than that the

whole town should have known that the brightest mirror of all maiden

virtue had been dimmed and breathed upon.

He now pledged his word of honour that he would keep her secret, and

conceal her from all the world till she was able to appear again with

safety. Till then it was to be reported that she was ill; and, under

the plea of receiving more careful attendance, she was to live at the

doctor's house, and break off every other intercourse.

The gift of the country-house near the large hotel of the Battle of

Aboukir was duly and legally executed; the country-house was entered

upon in the middle of winter; the maiden matron became invisible there;

and no one was allowed to wait on her, but Susan, whom she had herself

initiated into her mystery.

GOOD RESULTS.

"Well, to be sure," she would say to Susan in her cheerful hours,--for

it was impossible to be always in despair; and, as her niece anticipated

all her wishes, she had never felt herself half so comfortable as in the

bosom of this happy family,--"Well, to be sure, it is a blue wonder,

indeed, to think that I should come to this! Who would have thought it!

Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. I

believed myself too secure, and now I am chastened for my pride. Oh,

trumpeter! trumpeter!"

The event, meanwhile, had exercised a very salutary influence on the

maiden lady. Through very fear of betraying herself to the curious

eyes of her former companions and gossips, she weaned herself from all

intercourse with them, and acquired a taste for more refined pleasures

in the circle of Dr. Falcon's family. She continued, indeed, rather too

fond of all the tittle-tattle of the town; but then she thought of her

own weakness, and judged more charitably that of others. She became

so indulgent, so modest, nay, so humble, that the doctor and his wife

were completely amazed. The change of circumstances and society,--the

heroic resolution by which she had divested herself of a part of her

property,--the assurance of the doctor that she was still rich enough

to live at her ease,--all this had effected so singular a change in

her character, that she seemed to live quite in a new world. She even

abandoned all her usurious dealings, which, to be sure, she would have

found it difficult to continue in her present seclusion.

The three faculties, meanwhile, were vomiting fire and flame. The two

Bugles were apparently reconciled, but only that they might unite more

vigorously in their hostility against the pettifogger, who watched

their every step for a plausible ground of action against them. The

philosopher wrote an excellent book against the human passions; and the

worthy ecclesiastic delivered every Sunday most edifying discourses

on the abomination of ingratitude, calumny, envy, evil-speaking, and

malignity. Both did much good by their arguments, but their own gall

became more and more bitter, every day.

THE PIOUS FRAUD.

The winter passed away, and was succeeded by spring. The warm days

of summer were approaching. Dr. Falcon had very soon obtained the

conviction that his aunt had little cause for her uneasiness. He

had told her so, and had explained to her the real nature of her

indisposition. In vain: the erring vestal would on no account be

undeceived. Susan and her husband were at length obliged to desist from

every attempt to dispel the ridiculous illusion of Aunt Sarah, who

threatened that she should begin to doubt the doctor's friendship. She

seldom left her bed.

"She makes me uneasy," said Susan to her husband; "at times I almost

fancy her cracked."

"And she is so, in every sense of the word," said the doctor. "It is

hypochondria,--a fixed idea. My physic is of no avail against the

extravagancies of her imagination. I know of nothing I can do, unless it

be to drive away one fancy by substituting another. Suppose we pass our

child off upon her for her own."

"But will she believe it?"

"If she does not, it is of little consequence."

After a few weeks Susan appeared no longer in Sarah's room--it had been

so arranged by the doctor; and our aunt was informed that Susan had had

a misfortune.

"Is the child dead?" inquired Sarah.

"Alas!" replied the doctor.

"Alas!" rejoined the aunt.

One day before daybreak, Aunt Sarah was awakened in an unusual manner.

Her face was sprinkled with water, and strong scents were held to her

nose, till it seemed they were going to send her out of the world by the

very means apparently employed to bring her to life again.

She opened her eyes, and saw the doctor busy with her nose.

"Righteous Heaven! I am dying!--You are killing me! Nephew, nephew, what

are you doing to my nose?"

"Hush, aunt!--don't speak a word!" said the doctor with a mysterious

look; "only tell me how you feel yourself."

"Tolerably well, nephew."

"You have been insensible for four hours, aunt. I was uneasy for your

life; but it's all right now,--you are saved. A lovely child--"

"How!" exclaimed Sarah, almost rubbing her nose from her face.

"A sweet little boy. Do you wish to see the pretty fellow? If you will

keep yourself tranquil, and not stir a limb, why----"

"But nephew----"

"I have passed it off upon every one in the house for my wife's child."

"Oh, nephew! your prudence, your assistance, your counsel! Oh, you are

an angel!"

Falcon went away. Aunt Sarah trembled all over with terror and joy. She

looked round her:--on the table were burning lights and countless phials

of medicine were strewn around. A woman brought in the baby: it was in

a gentle sleep. Sarah spoke not a word, but looked at it long, wept

bitterly, kissed the little creature again and again; and, when it had

been carried away, she said to the doctor, "It is the living picture of

the trumpeter to the French regiment--God be merciful to him! It is his

living picture--I say, his living picture!"

CONSEQUENCES.

After the prescribed number of weeks had been punctually expended in the

consumption of gruels and broths, the chaste Sarah perfectly recovered

her spirits, and tripped about the house more cheerful and active than

she had been for many years before. She dandled the baby, would scarcely

allow it out of her sight, and evidently doted on it with unbounded

tenderness. She had been successfully cured of one ridiculous illusion,

by one yet more ridiculous. Overflowing with gratitude, her first visit

out of the house was to the church, and thence she proceeded to a

lawyer to execute a deed of gift of her whole fortune to Dr. Falcon;

renewing for herself only a large annuity by way of pocket-money.

Between herself and the doctor, to be sure, a secret article was drawn

up, by which he bound himself in due time to transfer half of her bounty

to the little living picture of the regimental trumpeter.

In this way, the blue wonders of Miss Sarah Bugle suddenly converted

our Dr. Falcon into a rich man. The triumph of the medical faculty

was irrevocably confirmed; the more furiously did law, theology, and

philosophy rage against each other. They could not forgive one another

the loss of the expected legacy. Dr. Falcon was readily excused, for

he was innocent. With him, all parties were ready to renew a friendly

intercourse, for he was now one of the wealthiest men in the town;

and a wealthy man, or rather his money, may at times be useful to the

philosopher as well as to the jurist: and to the theologian as much as

to either.

THE YOUTH'S NEW VADE-MECUM.

TO THE EDITOR OF BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.

Sir,--In submitting for your inspection, the poem which I now do myself

the honour of forwarding to you, permit me to intimate to you the origin

of its composition, and to indulge in one or two remarks.

The author is a particular friend of my own; a gentleman who, marrying

at a rather advanced stage in the journey of life, was unexpectedly

and agreeably presented with a small earnest of posterity in the

shape of a son. Parental feelings, like many other good things, are

better late than never; and it has often struck me that such feelings

are much stronger, considerably more fervent, and, indeed, a great

deal better when they do come late. Methinks the love of grandfather,

grandmother, uncle, great-aunt, and a whole _kit_ of cousins, is blended

in the sexagenarian sire. It will be perceived, from the affecting

apostrophe or invocation, that my friend commenced his poem with

praiseworthy promptitude; and I do hope that its success will be more

than commensurate with his expectations. The youth is now half-past six,

in the morning of existence. I have, once only, had the pleasure of

meeting him. He entered his father's study somewhat abruptly, mounted

on a timber steed, which, I am advised, he is already perfectly able

to manage; and, immediately he opened his mouth, with a raspberry-jam

border to it, I perceived that he would, at no distant day, become not

only a worthy member, but an undoubted ornament, of society. But this is

from my present purpose.

Your Miscellany, sir, professes to furnish materials for the amusement

and delight of the community; and hitherto you have acted up to your

professions. But were it not as well, allow me to suggest, that you

should combine instruction with amusement,--that you should clear the

heart as well as purify the liver--that you should attend to the mind

at the same time that you tickle the midriff? You must confess, when

I remind you of it, that the rising generation has strong claims upon

you, which I am sure you will be anxious, and indeed most happy, to

allow. The Youth's New Vade-Mecum, then, is a compendious manual of

instruction, which cannot fail of becoming permanently serviceable and

efficient. Similar although I allow it to be, in many respects, to

certain "Guides to Youth" and "Young Man's Best Companions" which have

been published, yet I cannot but think that the precision with which the

precepts are laid down in it, and the judicious manner in which they are

conveyed, must cause it very shortly to supersede all other works of the

same nature.

I enclose for your gratification the real name of the author, and I

grant you the discretionary power of whispering it to any grateful

parent (there may be many such) who would fain make the acquaintance and

cultivate the friendship of their benefactor: and I have the honour to

be, sir, Your obedient, humble servant,

CHARLES WHITEHEAD.

THE YOUTH'S NEW VADE-MECUM.

My son, whose infant head I now survey,

Guiltless of hair, whilst mine, alas! is grey,--

Whose feeble wailings through my bosom thrill,

And cause my heart to shake my very frill,--

Incline thine ear, quick summon all thy thought,

And take this wisdom which my love has brought:

Perpend these precepts; sift, compare, combine;

And be my brain's results transferr'd to thine.

Soon as thy judgment shall grow ripe and strong,

Learn to distinguish between right and wrong:

Yet ponder with deliberation slow,

Whether thy judgment be yet ripe or no;

For wrong, when look'd at in a different light,

Behold! is oft discovered to be right,

And _vice versâ_--(such the schoolmen's phrase)--

Right becomes wrong, so devious Reason's maze!

Take only the best authors' mental food,

For too much reading is by no means good;

And, since opinions are not all correct,

Thy books thyself must for thyself select.

Accumulate ideas: yet despise

Reputed wisdom,--folly oft is wise;

And wisdom, if the mass be not kept cool,

Mothers, and is the father of, a fool.

Be virtuous and be happy: good! but, stop,--

They sow the seed who never reap the crop;

For virtue oft, which men so much exact,

Like ancient china, is more precious crack'd;

And happiness, forsooth, not over-nice,

Sometimes enjoys a pot and pipe with vice.

Get rich; 'tis well for mind and body's health:

But never, never be the slave of wealth.

The gain of riches is the spirit's loss;

And, oh! my son, remember gold is dross.

Be honest,--not as fools or bigots rave;

Your honest man is often half a knave.

Let Justice guide you; but still bear in mind

The goddess may mislead,--for she is blind.

Hygeia's dictates let me now declare,

For health must be your most especial care.

Rise early, but beware the matin chill;

'Tis fresh, but fatal,--healthy, but may kill:

Nor leave thy couch, nor break the bonds of sleep,

Till morning's beams from out the ocean leap;

Lest, crawling, groping, stumbling on the stair,

Your head descend, your heels aspire in air;

As down the flight your body swiftly steals,

Useless to know your head has sav'd your heels,

Prone on your face with dislocated neck,

You find that slumber which you sought to check.

Early to bed, but not till nature call.

Be moderate at meals, nor drink at all,

Save when with friends you toast the faithful lass,

And raise the sparkling, oft-repeated glass;

Then, graver cares and worthless scruples sunk,

Drink with the best, my son,--but ne'er get drunk.

Bathe in cold water: cautious, and yet bold,

Dive,--but the water must not be _too_ cold:

And still take care lest, as you gaily swim,

Cramp should distort and dislocate each limb.

When such the case, howe'er thy fancy urge,

Postpone the bracing pastime, and emerge.

Dangers on land as well as water teem,

But now the bank is safer than the stream.

Say you should chance be ill (for, after all,

Men are but men on this terrestrial ball);

Should sickness with her frightful train invade,

Lose not a moment, but apply for aid.--

Yet fancy oft, imagined symptoms sees,

And nervous megrim simulates disease.--

Lo! at our call--the cry of coward fear--

A chemist and a cane-sucker appear:

The one, tough roots from earth's intestines dug,

Pounds with strong arm, dissolves the nauseous drug;

The other, gazing with a portentous air,

Surveys the foolish tongue that call'd him there;

To dulcet tones that breath deceptive calm,

Your cash expires in his diurnal palm,

And, sick of physic you were forced to swill,

Long-labell'd phials indicate the bill.

As learning's bridge progresses arch by arch,

So men, by gradual intellectual march,

From savages to citizens advance.--

Then gentlemen are taught to fence and dance;

Whilst gay professors, with imposing show,

Present the violin, and hand the bow.

Dance gracefully, and move with perfect ease,

Nor bend, nor keep inflexible, the knees;

Crawl not, nor with your head the ceiling touch--

That were to move too little; this too much.

When first to Music's study you would come,

In, and like charity, begin at home:

For links of harmony you weave in vain,

Whene'er you outrage ears you should enchain.

Some have I known, with their vile sharps and flats,

Whose fatal cat-gut wrought the death of cats;

Yea, a swift doom the very strings provide,

Their disembowell'd feline sires supplied!

Fencing's a noble exercise; but thence

Flow dangers, may be told without offence.

Still scrutinize, at your gymnastic toil,

The button of your adversary's foil,

Lest you strike off, at active _carte_ and _tierce_,

That useful stay to tools which else will pierce;

And all too late you feel, consign'd to Styx,

Your life not worth the button you unfix.

Swift let me call you to the sylvan grove,

Where nightingales and blackbirds sing of love.

Should love assail you, as it will, no doubt,

Nor rudely fan the flame, nor blow it out:

Sometimes, when smother'd, it the stronger grows;

And sometimes, when you stir it, out it goes.

Close in your breast a heart for beauty keep,

Yet ne'er imagine beauty but skin-deep:

Beauty is oft--a fact we must deplore--

As deep as Garrick, and a great deal more.

Let not your choice too short or tall appear,

No hole her mouth, or slit from ear to ear;

And, though 'tis well in daily life to greet

The man who struggles to make both ends meet,

Yet sure the task can no great triumph win,

Accomplish'd by a lady's nose and chin.

Yet I, perchance, my pen and paper waste;

These the exactions of an erring taste.

But let your wife be modest, and yet free;

Coy, but not bashful; active as the bee;

And yet unlike that bee of busy wing,

That "proffers honey, and yet bears a sting;"

Not sad, but thoughtful; pensive, but not glum;

Grave without gloom; and silent, but not dumb;

Merry when mirth's in season, and yet sad

When nought akin to pleasure's to be had.

In all that you possess still let her share,

Yet wear no vestments you yourself should wear.

And for yourself,--since now must I conclude,--

Be courteous, yet close; and plain, not rude;

Open, but strict; and though reserv'd, yet frank;

Treat all alike, yet pay respect to rank;

Be dubious, e'en when reason would entice,

And ne'er take unsolicited advice.

So may my precepts sink into thy mind,

And make the wisdom which thou canst not find;

Until at length, so vast thy mental height,

The world, beholding thee, shall take a sight;

And men, in want of words to set thee higher,

Shall with one voice cry "Walker!" and retire.

A VISIT TO THE MADRIGAL SOCIETY.

Everybody has heard of madrigals, and almost everybody has heard of the

Madrigal Society; but everybody does not know what madrigals are, and

almost everybody has _not_ dined with the Madrigal Society. Not that

that ancient and respectable body is an exclusive one,--keeping its

good dinners for its own private eating, and its good music for its own

private hearing: its freemasonry is extemporaneous, and a visitor is as

welcome to the whole fraternity as to the individual who may introduce

him.

The Madrigal Society is the very Royal Exchange of musical enthusiasm

and good-fellowship, and certainly bears the palm away from its

"_fratelli rivali_." Its component parts are better amalgamated, and the

individuals composing them, appear to derive more thorough enjoyment

from their attendance, than in any other unions we have seen of the same

genus.

For example, at one (which shall be nameless) there is a line of

demarcation between the professional and non-professional members;

another is so numerous, that it is broken into fifty coteries, as in the

boxes of a chop-house; and another enthusiastic little knot of vocal

harmonists is so strongly impressed with the sense of one another's

capabilities, that the speechifying, and toasting, and returning thanks

take up a vast deal more time then the music.

Which of the thousand and one suggested _derivations_ of the _name_

madrigal is the right one, is a question upon which we most humbly

beg to decline entering. Whether it owe its origin to some particular

feature in the words to which all secular _part music_ was set at an

early period; or whether, as some impertinent commentator has suggested,

it be a compound of two English words, "_mad_" and "wriggle,"--the one

having reference to the ecstatic state into which the listeners were

thrown by their first performance, the other to ----. But we dismiss

this as unworthy our consideration, and cut the question altogether.

A madrigal may, we think, be best defined as a composition in general

set to a quaint little poem on some amatory or pastoral subject, with

parts for a number of voices; the majority being for four or five.

An unceasing flow of these parts, a kind of "push-on-keep-moving"

principle, appears one of its strongest characteristics; one voice

taking up the strain ere another lays it down,--seldom moving in

_masses_ or "_plain-song_" and with perhaps only one or two "_closes_"

(sometimes none) until the end. In the conduct of all this, a very

peculiar style of harmony is used. They are one and all imbued with

a quaintness, which all who have heard madrigals must have felt, and

could at once recognise; but which it is quite impossible to define in

anything less than a treatise, six volumes quarto at the least,--a task

upon which at present we have not the smallest intention of setting to

work.

So much for a definition: now for a test. The best confirmation of the

genuineness of a madrigal is, the fact of its _bearing the weight of

a great body of voices_; that is to say, instead of its producing its

proper effect, each part being sung (as in a glee) by one voice, the

number of singers may be increased to any extent. And this, after all,

is the true touchstone of first-rate choral writing. The "Creation" of

Haydn, and "The Last Judgment" of Spohr, unquestionably produce their

best effect in an orchestra of moderate proportions; but to a chorus of

Handel, or a madrigal of Gibbons, perfect justice could only be done by

a body of singers that would fill St. Paul's, or cover Salisbury Plain.

We have dined. The cloth vanishes,--there is a pause,--the party

simultaneously rise from their chairs,--the waiters at last (thanks

to a long course of training, mental and bodily,) show signs of

standing still for the next five minutes,--perfect silence pervades the

room,--when lo! a gentle murmur of high voices steals upon the ear,--the

strain is quickly imitated a few notes lower,--the basses massively

close up the harmonious phalanx, and we recognise the imperishable "Non

nobis, Domine."

Sobered, not saddened, by the noblest of canons,--the most melodious

of those ingenious complexities,--a movement takes place among the

party. Do not suppose that the _singers_ are going to the bottom of the

table, for in that case _nobody_ would be left at the top; or, _vice

versâ_, to the top, for then the bottom would be deserted. You find your

neighbour to the right, has migrated to the other end of the room, and

your _vis-à-vis_ has established himself in his place. After being duly

puzzled by so unexpected a move, it appears that, unlike other convivial

assemblages, the order of precedency is observed here _after_, instead

of _before_ dinner; and that you must shift your position according to

your register, not of birth or baptism, but voice. "Order is Heaven's

first law," and the high and low characters around you, class themselves

accordingly, into altos, tenors, and basses.

This little preparatory bustle over, and everybody again seated, there

is a brief pause, which we devote to speculations,--not on the character

of our new right-hand man (above mentioned),--not on the contents of

the minute-book which the president spreads open before him,--nor on

the pile of tomes which almost exclude the bodily presence of the

vice,--nor on the gentleman who is going to propose a new member,--but

on the "_dints_" in the table before us. The tops of all tables at

all taverns are, and have been from time immemorial, remarkable for

an infinite number of indentations varying in size and conformation.

This peculiarity is not indigenous to the aforesaid tables; they are

supposed, at some distant period of their existence, to have had faces

as unruffled as others of their kind; but the eternal succession of

thumps from glasses, plates, knives and forks, approbatory of speech,

sentiment, or song, furrows their physiognomy with deep, ineffaceable

lines,--albeit neither of study, thought, nor sorrow.

The time has gone by for the autobiography of guineas, lap-dogs, sofas,

and sedan-chairs; birds and beasts no longer sport their apophthegms to

human ears; even the pot and kettle have done calling one another names;

"The Confessions of a Dinner-table, written by himself," would stand no

chance now; a second edition of the life of Mendoza would be as little

likely to take the town. Dinner-tables, like boxers, must count their

bruises in silence. Yon deeply-indented furrow, over which our wine is

absolutely tottering, is evidently a _memento_ of the days when the

feet were regularly knocked off the wine-glasses, and they, like their

holders later in the evening, lost their power of standing alone; when

_daylight_ unendurable and _heel-taps_ impossible. No hand lacking the

zeal of political excitement could have inflicted so uncompromising a

gash as the one near it. Bees'-wax and turpentine have somewhat softened

the sharpness of its outline; but its existence is identified with that

of the table itself. And that succession of little "_dibbs_," evidently

by the same hand,--what are they, but an unceasing monument to some

by-gone beau, who thus tattooed his approval of the best of all possible

toasts,--"The Ladies!"

But our speculations are leading us astray; more especially as the

music-desks are before us, the books upon them, and "the boys" arrived.

And hark! the pitch-pipe--none of your whipper-snapper German Æolians or

waistcoat-pocket tuning-forks, but the veritable pitch-pipe which has

been in use since the year 1740--sounds the note of preparation, and the

order of the day begins in real earnest.

The Madrigal Society does not, as its name would seem to imply, confine

itself exclusively to compositions which come under the designation of

madrigal. The motett and the ballet, which are variations of the some

genus, come in for a share of its notice.

On referring to the book before us, for the number just given out by the

conductor, we find--a motett, Dr. Christopher Tye. The baton falls, and

we launch into the unexplored ocean of song before us. What breadth in

the harmonies! What stateliness in the progression of the parts!--and

what a depth of feeling under the incrustation of these crabbed old

modulations!

And now for a madrigal. Will it be "Lady, thine eye," or "Cynthia, thy

song," or "Sweet honey-sucking bees?"--No: as we live, it is "Die not,

fond man!"--the noblest of them all.

And now, another motett; and now--but stay! here is something unusual.

The vice looks to the chair--the chair looks to the vice. The vice, like

the sun over a mountain, shows his head above the wall of books before

him, and prepares to make a speech. "Gentlemen, I beg to call your

attention--" But we have forgotten the form, so we'll give the substance

of his observations, which go to prove that he has received a madrigal,

according to the rules of the society,--that is, anonymously,--which

he has looked over, and deems worthy of a trial. The parts, which are

of course not in the book, are distributed, and much good-natured

speculation is afloat; for the madrigalians, though conservatives, are

not exclusives. We begin:--there is a stoppage at the onset,--something

was wrong in the parts,--it is corrected, and we start once more;--the

precipice is passed in safety. Still it does not "go." There is no

good reason why it should not; and so it is tried again; is better

understood, and "goes" accordingly. A sealed paper is delivered to the

chairman, who opens it with much solemnity, and announces the name of

the composer, casting a most significant glance on an individual at one

corner of the table, who, for the last quarter of an hour, has been

engaged in the most unpleasing of all sedentary pursuits,--sitting upon

thorns. We drink his health; the individual rises, and for upwards of a

minute and some seconds, is supposed to occupy himself in making some

observations germane to the present subject, but which, from his state

of nervous trepidation, are quite inaudible.

The books are again in requisition. We draw on firms of centuries'

standing, and our checks are duly honoured. The stately motett,

the graceful madrigal, and the sprightly ballet alternate in rapid

succession. What a contrast does this enthusiastic coterie present

to the listless audience of the concert-room or opera! No mob of

apathetical time-killers is here; but true and constant lovers of the

divine art, joining "with heart and voice" in strains to them as fresh

and beautiful as they were two hundred years ago!

Oh! how we might gossip about and speculate upon the old fellows who

treasured up for us this legacy of fine things. Talk of love for their

art!----think of Luca Marenjio, who wrote a thousand madrigals; and Dr.

Tye, who set to music the whole of "The Acts of the Apostles!"

The human voice is the noblest of all instruments. In the madrigal it

finds an exercise worthy of its powers. Music, as developed through

the medium of the voice, assumes a far more elevated and poetical

form than it ever presents through instrumental performance even of

the very highest character. Music is less essentially _music_, coming

through throats of flesh and blood than throats of wood or metal; but

it is something infinitely finer,--the unchecked emanation of the human

heart,--the current fresh from the well-springs of all that is good and

beautiful in man's nature.

The changeableness of fashion, the perishability of all instrumental

music, is of itself sufficient evidence of this. Five-and-twenty years

ago, the works of Pleyel were the delight of every musical coterie

in Europe; now, there is not one amateur in fifty who ever heard

a bar of his music. And as for the cart-loads of sonatas, gigues,

pasacailles, serenatas, follias, fugues, concertantes, and "jewells" of

Dr. Bull, Paradies, Scarlatti, Geminiani,--yes, even Handel and Mozart

themselves!--they are regarded in about the same light as an Egyptian

papyrus, or a loaf of bread from Herculaneum.

It is difficult indeed to conceive "The Jupiter Symphony," or the

"Sonate Pathétique," food for the virtuoso; but assuredly "Dove sono,"

"The Hallelujah Chorus," and "St. Patrick's Day," are as imperishable as

expression, grandeur, and sunshine themselves.

Sounds are the _body_ of music, to which the voice gives immortality and

a _soul_. To put the voice on the same level as an instrument, is to pit

matter against mind,--"man against cat-gut."

There is a sense of personal enjoyment connected, too, with pure vocal

music performed in this manner, which it is quite impossible to find

in the theatre or concert-room. Our thoughts there, are perpetually

brought back to some technical matter, and our imagination curbed by the

audience, some individual association with the singers, or the "mise

de théâtre;" but here, sitting at our ease around the table, with our

"_part_" before us, joining in the harmony or not, as we please,--our

only care that the madrigal shall _go_ well, our only interruption a

glance now and then at the enthusiastic faces around us,--we feel truly

"the power of sound," and that our pleasure is without alloy.

Hold! there is a slight drawback on our pleasure,--perfection is not

to be found even in the Madrigal Society. Where are the ladies? Oh,

Madrigalians! with what countenance can ye, month after month, and year

after year, continue singing Fair Oriana's praise, and bewailing the

cruelty of your Phillises, and Cynthias, and "Nymph of Diana," when you

thus close up the fountain of all your inspirations? Is your by-law,

forbidding all speechifying, a tacit confession of fear lest some

gallant visitor, fired with your own sweet songs, should spring on his

legs and propose "The Ladies"? Is this the reason why ye only drink "The

King," "The Queen," and--your noble selves? Shame on ye!--where are the

ladies?

The truth must be spoken at all times. Old as the world is, it is

not yet quite steady enough to "chaperon" the fair sex to meetings

like those of the Madrigal Society. True; we have pretty well got rid

of the six-bottle men, and gentlemen have ceased to return home in

wheel-barrows: still something more must be done ere the most courteous

of chairmen can with propriety propose a new member with a soprano

voice, or the most zealous of secretaries second him.

To do our friends justice, they have made a step in this matter. At the

annual festival, where the madrigals put on all their splendour, the

ladies _are_ admitted; but, alas! they are perched up in a gallery "all

by themselves." And even this bird's-eye view of gentlemen eating and

drinking, comes, like "the grotto," only once a-year.

But these knotty points should be agitated before dinner. Let us turn to

our books once again,--sing "The Waits,"--"One fa la more,"--and then

"Good-night!"

LOVE AND POVERTY.

Little Cupid, one day, being wearied with play,

Or weary of nothing to do,

Exclaimed with a sigh, "Now why should not I

Go shoot for a minute or two?"

Then snatching his bow, tho' Venus cried "No,"

(Oh! Love is a mischievous boy!)

He set up a mark, in the midst of a park,

And began his nice sport to enjoy.

Each arrow he shot--I cannot tell what

Was the reason--fell short by a yard,

Save one with gold head, which far better sped,

And pierced thro' the heart of the card.

MORAL.

My story discovers this lesson to lovers:

They will meet a reception but cold,

And endeavour in vain Beauty's smiles to obtain,

Unless Love tip his arrows with gold.

REFLECTIONS IN A HORSE-POND.

TIME--NIGHT.

Let me consider a little where I am! My senses are beginning to clear at

present, albeit my body is sticking in the mud, and seems to think of

nothing less. This plunge, disagreeable as it is, has been of service to

me: we should be thankful for everything, for they say "everything is

for the best;" and, upon this principle, a tumble into a horse-pond may

be a good. I shall, however, ascertain this better to-morrow (that is, if

I ever get out of the mud,--of which I am doubtful). In the mean time

I will, by way of passing the time, acknowledge my obligation. I am a

regenerated creature! Thanks be to Heaven! I can see: before my tumble

into these revivifying waters, my thoughts were wandering, and my sight

was dazzled; now they are fixed, immoveably fixed,--to this horse-pond;

and I only behold one moon instead of two.

I do not exactly know how I came hither. I spent last evening with Tom

Rattlebrain, Ned Flighty, and Will Scamper; we had a famous supper,

and resolved to make a night of it. The weather was hot, stormy, and

goblinish; it led us to tell ghost-stories, which we did till our marrow

froze, and our parched throats cried out, like the horse-leech's two

daughters, "Give! give!" Purely to raise our courage and moisten our

palates, we had a couple of bottles additionally. I recollect that

after this we told some stories partaking more of the flesh than the

spirit, and that at two o'clock in the morning I agreed to ride home on

Daylight, hand in hand, like the fire-office insignia, with Scamper,

who was mounted on Wildfire. I remember something of trying to force

Daylight to cross that which I took to be a ferry. I recollect something

of our dispute upon this subject, but faintly; I can only guess how the

matter ended by the result,--for he is gone, and I am _here_!

I suppose I must have struggled, flopped, and floundered about a good

deal before I could have been so firmly wedged in the mud as I am at

this moment. The water all around me is up to my chin, and the mud

beneath me is up to my knees; I have sunk considerably above my calves.

I really cut a very ridiculous figure!

The first thing I remember distinctly was seeing my lighted cigar

floating, fizzing, and spitting peevishly upon the water. Poor thing!

it did not relish regeneration. I put out my hand to catch it; but it

fizzed angrily, and floated away from me. This "was the unkindest cut of

all;" and when I saw its light go out, I felt as if abandoned by all the

world.

It just occurs to me that I have another cause of thanksgiving: since

one must sometimes fall into a horse-pond, I am grateful that it is an

English one. In some countries, now, those devils of the air--the birds

of prey--would keep wheeling, whirling, and shrieking above my head,

complimenting each other upon the good supper prepared for them, and

then coolly peck out my two eyes before my face!

This idea is suggested by a somewhat uncomfortable circumstance, which,

notwithstanding my patience, I cannot but be sensible of. Something--I

conjecture either an eel or a rat--is gnawing at the boot on my right

leg; no other animals venture so deeply into the mud. I wish I could

raise my foot.

If it be a rat, he will content himself with the leather, and gnaw away

till it be gone; but the eel prefers a bit of meat, and in that case he

is only busying himself to open his "pantry-door." Pray Heavens it be a

rat!

I am a most enduring man. I remember suffering infinite misery a whole

season at the house of a particular friend; I was lodged in the best

bedroom, and a superb apartment it was. The bed was a magnificent one;

but, to my cost, there was a flea in it,--"the last flea of summer!"

Never shall I forget what I suffered from that single tormentor. I

should have known it was only one, from the peculiar pungency of his

bite, even if the invariable character of the mark had not also been

a witness. The room had been for a long period unoccupied, save by

this flea, the survivor of all his family and friends, who had died of

starvation in the course of the summer. I bore it patiently enough for

several nights, thinking that it was a tax to flea-manity which must be

paid; but when, night after night, week after week, the same torture

continued, I began to grow nervous and irritable. I sought after him

diligently in the morning, but never found anything save his trail.

Like Destiny, he was always to be felt, but never seen. In the night,

scarcely had I torn the skin off my shoulder, ere I was imperiously

called upon to apply the same remedy to my leg. I felt him hop across my

hand as I raised it up; and so rapid were his movements, that he seemed

to be jumping in every part of my body at once: like the Indian Apollo,

he appeared to have the power of multiplying his person, and of being

in fifty places at the same time. He was a single fiend "whose name was

Legion." I started in anguish; shook my sheets and my shirt; called

upon God, upon the devil; apostrophised the mistress of the house, and

mentally sent the housemaid to the hottest place I could think of. It

was all to no purpose; he seemed to have some extraordinary power of

disgorging his prey and clearing his stomach, which, like Time, was

always devouring,--never full. So rapidly did his constant consecutive

meals of breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, and supper tread upon each

other's heels, that I seemed to live twenty days in one tortured night.

I longed to complain to the master of the house; but how tell him there

was a flea in his best bed,--that bed in which he took such pride, and

beheld with so much admiration? At length I met the housemaid on the

stairs. She was as ugly as Repentance, crabbed as Chastity, and old as

Mother Shipton: nevertheless I addressed her as "My dear little girl!"

gave her a kiss and a piece of money, and entreated her to kill the

fleas in my bed. The next day I met her, and she said, "There bean't

no fleas in your bed as now, sir." Alas! I knew that,--there was but

one; and he was a flea of Fate, beyond her power to destroy. Still

the torture went on; still did I lie, night after night, miserable,

feverish, sleepless, pinched, torn, and tortured in every part of my

burning skin. At length, considering the enormous power possessed by

my tormentor, his divisibility, his invisibility, his infallibility, I

came at last to the conclusion, that it was no living flea that thus

distracted and disturbed me, but the ghost of some starved tenant of

former times, who was allowed this recreation to make amends for past

sufferings. This idea once established, I knew that I had no hope; I

had nothing for it but to fly: so I went to my friend, declared (to

his astonishment) my intention, and, when hard pressed for my reason,

painfully and reluctantly gave it. "A flea!" shouted he in a voice

between displeasure and mirth, "a flea--and in that bed!--_then you

must have brought it_!" Now was not this too much? I thought my heart

would have broken. I, who had endured so much--I, who had suffered

torture in silence for six long weeks, to be accused of having brought

that alderman of fleas with me! It was beyond human nature to bear. I

burst from his presence, packed up my clothes, and, though I am a very

good-tempered man, have not seen that friend since. I can never forgive

his accusation--I can never forget what I suffered! As I call to mind

that burning sorrow, I take comfort in the knowledge that I am standing

up to my neck in a horse-pond!

Thank you, gentle lady moon! I am grateful for any kind of attention,

even though it should be of no use to me; but yours is. I wish I was

a poet now!--I could make something of this scenery. I have read a

good deal about "moonlight on the waters;" but I never was so near its

dancing beams before. The devil take this rat--how he nibbles! My boots

are new--a hole in them at least! There's a villanous odour that comes

over me from some part of the horse-pond, "at which my nose is in great

indignation." It strikes me also, from something uncomfortable in my

stomach, that in my plunge I must have swallowed a good allowance of

Mark Anthony's liquor. (_See_ SHAKSPEARE'S _Anthony and Cleopatra_, Act

1, scene 4.) The bare idea is enough to make me faint;--only who would

be fool enough to faint in a horse-pond?

I have been in my life several times taken in, besides to-night, by

these waters.

Thank you again, dear gracious moon! She's very bright just now. There

is a large tract of blue in the heavens over which, for at least the

next twenty minutes, she may travel without being "capped by a cloud;"

so I shall have time to look around me. I am nearly in the centre of

the pond; the water is perfectly tranquil, except when it bobs against

my chin, disturbed by the movement of my head. Lord help me! suppose I

should die here!--as, if nobody come to my assistance, I certainly shall.

On my first ascertaining the character of my position, recollecting

that horse-ponds are generally in the neighbourhood of towns or farms,

I hallooed so lustily that I found my voice grow husky; so I determined

to reserve it for a better occasion--I mean in case any persons should

approach--Heaven send them! This would be a comfortless bed to die in!

A huge frog has just discovered me; and he sits amongst the weeds below

the opposite bank, croaking out his speculations as to what I can be.

He stares earnestly; so do I. He takes my eye for a challenge--he is a

frog of courage, however, for he plunges into the water, swims towards

me, and plants himself directly opposite to my face. He croaks; I answer

very naturally, for the water has qualified my voice. The frog stares

again: "The voice is the voice of Esau, but the form is Jacob's." Now

he very gravely swims entirely round my head, and then again plants

himself in front. I laugh aloud; he backs a little. I open my eyes very

wide at him; he returns the compliment. My chin splashes the water about

him; he takes fright and disappears.

Hark! there are certainly footsteps in the neighbourhood.

Halloo!--ough!--ah!--mercy upon me! my voice is quite gone, and I shall

be compelled to live in this horse-pond the remainder of my days. Who

will feed me, I wonder: the rat will not be so civil to me as the

ravens were to Elijah; and I have affronted the frog. Ha! the footsteps

come nearer--and nearer. 'Tis a man--I see him--a groom--I'll call.

Hallook!--ouk!--cro-ak!

"D--n your croaking soul!" quoth the vagabond; and he flings a huge

stone at my head.

Despair and distraction! what shall I do? Die! No, that's cowardly:

I'll live bravely; that is, if I can. The fellow is gone, and "I am

all alone!" Alone! What do I hear? Voices--yes; they come--most sweet

voices. A gentleman and the rascally groom aforesaid.

"You have not dragged this pond to-night," says the master.

"Indeed, sir, we did,--from one end of it to the other," replies the

fellow: "see how the weeds are disturbed."

"You lie, you rascal! you did not, or you would have found me there,"

said I.

"Heighday!" cried the master; "what have we here?"

"A gentleman in distress."

"I should think so: but how came you in this pond?"

"I'll tell you when I am out."

"Help, all of you, fellows!" says the gentleman. "Now, sir, hold fast: I

was in search of a drunken uncle who has escaped from his servants. Pull

away, boys!--I expected to find him in this horse-pond, and I discover a

sober gentleman in his place."

N.B. I did not think it necessary to rectify this latter mistake.

MAX.

INSCRIPTION FOR A CEMETERY.

The grave must be the resting-place

Of all who come of Adam's race.

What matters it, if few or more

The years which our frail nature bore?

If we upon the roll of Fame

Left an imperishable name;

Or, safe within some calm retreat,

Escaped the turmoil and the heat,

The stir, the struggle, and the strife,

That make the sum of human life?

Of all the family of man,

Since first yon rolling spheres began

Amid the boundless realms of space

Their silent, dread, eternal race,

There's little to be said beside,

But that they lived, and that they died.

Sooner or later, 'tis the doom }

Of all, within the quiet tomb }

To find a refuge, and a home. }

NIGHTS AT SEA:

_Or, Sketches of Naval Life during the War._

BY THE OLD SAILOR.

No. II.

THE WHITE SQUALL.

I was born in a cloud of sulphureous hue--

Darkness my mother, and Flame my sire;

The earth shook in terror, as forth to its view

I sprang from my throne like a monarch of fire!

My brother, bold Thunder, hurraed as I sped!

My subjects laugh'd wild, till the rain from their eyes

Roll'd fast, as though torrents were dash'd overhead,

Or an ocean had burst through the bounds of the skies!

CHARLES SWAIN.

My last, left the gallant Spankaway with her three topmasts over

the side; and a very natural question arises, "How did it happen?"

Her commander was as smart an officer as ever lived; an excellent

disciplinarian when on duty, a thoroughly brave man, but not much of a

seaman;--he was of a happy turn of mind himself, and nothing afforded

him greater pleasure than to see everybody else, happy around him. On

service no one could be more strict; but he loved to see his officers

surround his mahogany; and not one amongst them was more jovial than

Lord Eustace Dash.

On the evening in question, Old Parallel had glanced at the glowing

clouds in the west; but the invitation to the captain's cabin had driven

the circumstances from his remembrance, and, whilst clinging to _port_,

he thought but little of a storm at sea. Mr. Sinnitt was the lieutenant

of the watch; but on such occasions, when there was no apprehension of

danger, the mate was allowed to assume the command of the deck, and his

superior joined his messmates over the flowing bowl.

The evening was delightfully serene, and groups of seamen clustered

together; spinning yarns, conversing on things in general, or singing

songs in a low tone, so as not to disturb the sacred character of the

quarter-deck; where, however, the young gentleman left in charge was

drawing round him a little knot of favourite youngsters, eager to

take advantage of the relaxation of discipline. Some were attentively

listening to the hilarity going on in the captain's cabin,--for the heat

had rendered it necessary to open the skylights; others were paying

equal attention to the vocal talents of honest Jack, who, if he did

not possess quite so much grace or talent as his superiors, made ample

atonement for the deficiency by his peculiar and characteristic humour.

Here and there, the treasured grog was served out with scrupulous

exactness, exciting many a longing and envious eye. As in communities on

shore, every ship had its choice spirits,--its particular and especial

jokers, songsters, and tale-tellers--and, not unfrequently, that pest

to society, the plausible pettifogger, whose head, like that of a

Philadelphy lawyer, was constantly filled with proclamations.

[Illustration: Jack detected sailing under false Colors]

The moon shone with a crystalline clearness, and the gentle motion of

the frigate threw the shadows of the people in corresponding movements

on the deck, resembling the _ombres Chinois_ that delighted us so much

in boyhood. The look-outs were posted at their appointed stations; some

with a shipmate to bear them company--others alone, and thinking upon

merry England.

"I say, Bill!" uttered the captain of the forecastle, addressing one of

the men, as he was looking to windward from the cat-head--or, as it was

more generally termed, 'Old Savage's picture-gallery,'--"I say, Bill!

somehow or another I don't much like the looks o' the sky thereaway; to

my thinking it's some'at fiery-eyed."

"Gammon!" returned the man without moving from his position, "I'd ha'

thought you would have known better, Jem! Well, I'm blowed if we mayn't

live and larn as long as there's a flurry o' breath in the windsel! Why,

that's ounly the pride o' the sun, to show his glory to the last; would

you have him go out like a purser's dip,--a spark and away?"

"No, Bill, I loves to see a good sunset," rejoined the other; "and I

never see'd finer then what I've see'd in these here seas. It's some'at

strange to my thinking, though, messmate, that God A'mighty should have

made this part o' the world so beautiful, and yet have put such d----

lousy, beggarly rascals to live in it! Look at them there Italians, with

no more pluck about 'em than this here cat-head!"

"Nay, shipmates," said the serjeant of marines, who had just joined

them, "you do yourselves injustice. I hope there is some pluck

_about_ the cat-head, though there may be none in it. But you say

right--perfectly right, as it regards those lazy-roany; they are a d----

set, to be sure! But, their women, Jem--their women! Oh! they're dear,

delicious, lovely creaturs!"

"Mayhap they may be to your thinking," responded the captain of

the forecastle rather contemptuously: "but give me a good, hearty,

right-arnest, full-plump, flesh-and-blood Englishwoman; and none o' your

skinny, half-starved, sliding-gunter-legged, spindle-shank sinoreas for

me!"

"You manifest a shocking want of taste, shipmate," returned the

serjeant, proudly, and bringing himself to a perpendicular. "The Italian

women are considered the most lovely women in the world."

"Tell that to the marines, ould chap!" chimed in a boatswain's mate, who

now made a fourth in the party. "The most lovely women in the world, eh?

Why, Lord love your foolish heart! I wouldn't give my Mrs. Sheavehole

for all that Italy could stow, take it from stem to starn."

"She's your wife, Jack, and the mother of your children," argued the

serjeant; "but that cannot make her a bit the more of a beauty."

"Can't it, though!" exclaimed the boatswain's mate, sharply, and at the

same time giving the mountain of tobacco in his cheek a thorough twist.

"If it don't, then I'm d----! and, setting a case, it's just this here:

when we first came within hail of each other, she was as handsome a

craft as ever had God A'mighty for a builder; every timber in her hull

was fashioned in Natur's own mould-loft, and she was so pinned and

bolted together that each plank did its own proper duty."

"But she's declining in years, you know, Jack," urged the serjeant,

provokingly; "and though she might have been once handsome, yet age is a

sad defacer of beauty."

"And suppose it is a _facer_ of beauty, it can't change the fashion of

the heart!" uttered the boatswain's mate. "But, that's just like you

jollies!--all for paint and pipe-clay. Now, Suke's as handsome to me as

ever she was; and when I sees her like an ould hen clucking over the

young uns, I'm blessed if I don't love her more than when she saved me

from having my back scratched by the tails o' the cat! I know, when

a craft is obliged to be unrigged and laid up in ordinary, she don't

look not by no manner o' means so well as when she was all a-taunto,

and painted as fine as a fiddle: but still, shipmates, she's the same

craft; and as for beauty, why, setting a case, it's just this here:

there's ould beauty, as well as young beauty; and it a'nt so much in

the figure-head, or the plank-shear, as having done your duty once, and

ready to do it again."

"All that _may_ be very true, Jack," persevered the serjeant; "but then,

you must allow there is as great a difference in the appearance of some

women when compared to others, as there is in the build or rig of a

vessel."

"Hearken to that, now!" responded the boatswain's mate. "Do you think

Jack Sheavehole wants to be told that a billy-boy arn't a ninety-eight,

or a Dutch schuyt a dashing frigate? But, look at this here craft that

now rolls us so sweetly over the ocean: arn't she as lovely now as when

she first buttered her bottom on the slips, and made a bed for herself

in the water? and won't she be the same beauty when she's put out of

commission, and mayhap be moored in Rotten-row? Well, she's stood

under us in many a heavy gale, and never yet showed her starn to an

enemy,--that's why I love her; not for what she may do, but for what she

has done."

"But, I say, Jack! it's just the time for a yarn," said the captain of

the forecastle. "Tell us how Suke saved you from the gangway."

"I wull, messmate--I wull," returned the other; "and then this lubberly

jolly shall see if I arn't got a good right to call her a beauty. I

belonged to the Tapsickoree, two-and-thirty; and, though I says it

myself, there warn't many more sich tight-looking, clean-going lads as

ould Jack Sheavehole--though I warn't _ould_ Jack then, but a reg'lar

smart, active, young blowhard of a maintopman. Well, we'd just come home

from foreign, and got three years' pay and a power o' prize-money; and

so most o' the boys goes ashore on liberty, and carries on till all's

blue. This was at Plymouth, shipmates; but, as we wur expecting to go

round to Spithead, I saves my cash--'cause why? I'd an ould father and

mother, from whom I'd parted company when a boy, and I thought, if I

could get long leave--thinks I, mayhap I can heave alongside of 'em,

with a cargo o' shiners, and it'll cheer the cockles o' their ould

hearts to see their son Jack togg'd off like a jolly tar, and captain

of a frigate's maintop; and, setting a case, why it's just this here: I

didn't want anything on 'em, but meant to give 'em better ground-tackle

to hould on to life by."

"That was very kind of you, shipmate," said the serjeant.

"Well," continued the boatswain's mate, without heeding the serjeant's

observation, "I has a bit of a spree ashore at Dock, in course;

but soon arter we goes round to Portsmouth. I axes for long leave;

and, as I'd al'ays done my duty to Muster Gilmour's--he was first

leeftenant--to Muster Gilmour's satisfaction, I gets my fortnight and my

liberty-ticket, and the large cutter lands me at Sallyport; so I hauls

my wind for the Blue Postes on the Pint, and enters myself on the books

of a snug-looking craft, as was bound through my native village.--Well,

shipmates, in regard o' my being on liberty, why, I was a gemman at

large; so I buys a few duds for ould dad, and a suit of new sails, and

some head-gear for the ould woman: for, thinks I to myself, mayhap we

shall cruise about a bit among the neighbours, and I'll let 'em see

we arn't been sarving the king or hammering the French for nothin'.

And, mayhap, thinks I, they arn't never got too much to grub; so I

gets a bag, and shoves in a couple of legs o' mutton and a whole shole

of turnips, a full bladder of rum, and, as I knew the old uns loved

cat-lap, there was a stowage of sugar and tea, with a bottle o' milk;

and, having plenty of the ready, I buys a little of everything useful in

the small way, that the ould chap at the shop showed me: and, my eyes!

but there was thousands of packages twisted and twined in true-blue

paper;--there was 'bacca, mustard, snuff, salt, soft tommy, pepper,

lickerice, matches, gingerbread, herrings, soap, pease, butter, candles,

cheese,--in short, something of everything, not forgetting a Welsh

wig and a mousetrap; and I'm blowed if I warn't regularly fitted out

for a three months' cruise! Well, by the time I'd got all my consarns

ship-shape, I twigs the signal for sailing, and so I gets aboard; and in

course, in regard o' my station in the maintop, I goes aloft, as high

as possible upon the upper-deck, and claps myself upon the luggage; but

when the governor as had charge comes to take the twiddling-lines, he

axes me to berth myself on the fokstle, and so, not to be outdone in

civility, or to make 'em think I'd let slip my edication, I comes down,

and goes forud, and stows myself away just abaft the pilot; when we made

sail, there was a party o' liberty boys from the ould Hibernia gives me

three cheers, and I waves my bit o' tarpaulin, sports a fresh morsel o'

'bacca, and wondered what made the houses and everything run past us so

quick; but I soon found out it was the craft--for I remembered the comb

of the sea did just the same when the frigate was walking along at a

spanking rate. So, for the first hour, I sits quiet and alone, keeping a

sharp look-out on the pilot, to see how he handled the braces, rounding

'em in to starboard, or to port--for, thinks I to myself, it's best to

larn everything--'cause why? who can tell but Jack Sheavehole mayn't

some day or another command just sich a consarn of his own! and how

foolish he'll look not to know which way to shape his course, or how

to steer his craft! But, I'm blowed! shipmates, if the horses didn't

seem to savvy the thing just as well as the man at the helm; for the

moment he tauten'd the gear, the hanemals slued round o' themselves all

ship-shape, and Bristor-fashion."

"Why, it was the _reins_ that guided them," said the serjeant, laughing.

"Then I'm blessed if it was!" returned old Jack; "for there warn't a

drop o' _rain_ fell that arternoon--it was a bright, sun-shiny day."

"What you call twiddling-lines, they call reins," explained the

serjeant; "and the horses are steered by them."

"Mayhap so, brother,--mayhap so," responded the boatswain's mate; "for I

arn't much skilled in them matters--'cause why? I never sail'd in one on

'em afore, and ounly once since;--the first was a happy trip, the last

was melancholy; and Jack sighed like an eddy wind in the galley funnel.

"But, to heave a-head--"

"A good look-out before, there!" shouted the mate of the watch, from

the quarter-deck, where he was showing his authority by thrashing the

youngsters.

"Ay, ay, sir!" responded the man at the cat-head; and then added, in a

lower tone, "They're having a jolly sheave-o in the cabin!"

"It's a sad heart as never rejoices!" said the captain of the

forecastle. "But, I say, Jack! I don't like the look o' that sky to

windard."

"It's one of two things--a parting blush o' the sun, or a gathering

squall o' the night," returned the boatswain's mate; "but we've no

reason to care about it--'cause, why? we're all as snug as possible.

Well, shipmates, to get on with my yarn:--when we'd run a league or

two, out of Portsmouth, we hove to at a victualling port, and I spied

a signal for good cheer hanging out aloft; and so, without any bother,

I boards 'em for a reg'lar stiff Nor'-wester, more nor half-and-half,

and says I to the pilot, 'Yo-hoy, shipmate!' says I, 'come, and set up

the standing backstays o' your heart a bit; and here, ould chap, is

someut to render the laneard;' and so I gives him a share out o' the

grog-tub, that set his eyes a-twinkling like the Lizard lights on a

frosty night. Well, just as we were going to trip the anchor again, a

pretty, smart-looking young woman rounds to under our starn and ranges

up alongside; and she says to the pilot, says she, 'Coachman, what'll

you charge to take me to ----?' and I'm blessed if she didn't name the

very port I was bound to!"

"Why, 'tis quite romantic, Jack!" said the serjeant; "we shall, no

doubt, have a love-story presently: but, I'll wager you my grog

to-morrow, I can tell you who the female was."

"Then, I'm blowed if you can!" retorted the boatswain's mate. "Now, who

was she, pray?"

"Is it a fair bet?" inquired the serjeant with a look of conceited

knowledge.

"No, she warn't a fair Bet, nor a fair Moll either," returned old Jack

surlily. "I thought you'd know nothing whatsomever about it! for that's

always the case when a jolly tries to shove his oar into a seaman's

rullock--'cause why? he don't savvy the loom from the blade."

The serjeant laughed. "I meant a fair wager--that is, my allowance

against yours to-morrow that I name the female."

"Done!" exclaimed the boatswain's mate; "and, shipmates, I call you all

to witness that everything's square and above-board."

"Why, it was your Sukey, to be sure--Mrs. Sheavehole--anybody could tell

that," replied the serjeant.

"There--you're out in your chrissening, ould chap, as you'll find

presently," asserted the veteran; "and so you've lost your grog. But,

d--it! I'd scorn to take a marine's allowance from him, though you

richly desarves it."

"Come, heave ahead, Jack!" said the captain of the forecastle; "make a

clear run of it, and don't be backing and filling this fashion."

"Ay, ay, Jem, I wull, I wull," answered old Jack. "But, I say, shipmate!

just clap a stopper on the marine's chattering-gear whilst I overhaul

my log.--Oh, now I have it! Up comes the young woman, and 'Coachman,

what'll you charge no take me to ----?'--'Seven shillings, ma'am,' says

he.--'Carn't you take me for less?' axes she; 'I've ounly got five, and

I am very tired with walking.'--'Not a ha'penny less, ma'am,' says he,

just as cool as an iceberg in Hudson's Bay; 'carn't do it, ma'am.'--'Oh,

do try!' says she, and I could see sorrow was pumping the tears into her

eyes; 'I would give you more if I had it,' says she.--'Carn't help it,

ma'am,' says ould surly-chops, 'carn't help it; grub for the hanemals

is very dear.'--'Oh, what shall I do!' says she so piteously; 'night is

coming on, and it's a long way to travel on foot; I shall sink under

it: do take the money!'--'Werry sorry, my dear,' says he, shaking his

blubber head like a booby, perched on a ratlin, 'werry sorry, but never

takes under price. You must use your trotters if you arn't never got

seven bob.'--'Then I'm d--if she does!' says I, 'for you shall carry

her.'--'Gammon!' says he, as spiteful as a pet monkey; 'who's to tip

the _fare_?'--So I ups and tells him a piece o' my mind, and axes

him if he ever know'd anything _unfair_ by Jack Sheavehole, or if he

thought I wanted to bilk him out o' the passage-money.--'Will you stand

the two odd bob?' axes he.--'And d' ye think I won't stand as much as

Bob or Dick, or any one else?' says I in a bit of a passion. 'Avast,

ould chap!' says I; 'humanity arn't cast off the mooring lashings from

my heart yet awhile, and I hopes never will;' and so I gives him a

seven-shilling bit without any more palaver, and 'Come, my precious,'

says I, houlding out my fin, 'mount areevo;' but I'm blessed if she

didn't hang back till the pilot rung out for us to come aboard! And

'Lord love you!' says I, 'you arn't afeard of a man-o'-war's-man, are

you?'--Oh no,' says she, brightening up for all the world like the

sun coming out of a fog-bank,--'Oh no; you have been my friend this

night, and God reward you for it!' So we soon clapped one another

alongside upon the break of the fokstle, and got to overhauling a little

smattering o' larning, by way of being civil, seeing as we'd ounly just

joined company. 'I'm thinking that's a pretty village you're bound to,'

says I in a dubersome way; 'I was there once,' says I, 'when I was

a boy about the height of a tin pannikin;' for, shipmates, I didn't

like to overhaul how I'd run away from home. 'Pray, is ould Martin

Joyce alive?' says I.--'He was when I left yesterday morning,' says

she; 'but he is confined to his bed through illness.'--'And the ould

woman.' says I, 'does she still hould on?'--'Yes,' says my companion;

'but she's lame, and almost blind! Well, I'm blow'd, shipmates, if I

didn't feel my daylights a-smarting with pain with the briny water that

overflowed the scuppers--'cause why? them there wur my own father and

mother, in the regard of my having been entered on the muster-books in

a purser's name, my reg'lar right-arnest one being Jack Joyce. 'And

what makes you cruising so far away from port?' says I, all kindly and

messmate-like.--'It's rather a long story,' says she; 'but as you have

been so good to me, why, I must tell you, that you mayn't think ill of

me. You shall have it as short as possible.'--'The shorter the sweeter,

my precious,' says I, seeing as I oughtn't to be silent. Well, she

begins--'Sister Susan and I are orphans; and when our parents died, ould

Martin and his dame, having no children, took us under their roof.'--'No

children!' says I. 'Why, I thought they had a young scamp of a son.' I

said this, shipmates, just to hear what she would log again me.--'Oh

yes,' says she; 'but he ran away to sea when a boy, and they never

heard from him for many years, till the other day they received a letter

from Plymouth to say he was in the Tapsickoree frigate, and expected to

be round at Spithead before long. So, the day before yesterday, a sailor

passing through the village told us she had arrived; and so his parents

getting poorer and poorer, with his father sick and his mother lame, I

thought it would be best to go to him and tell him of their situation,

that if he pleased he might come and see them once more before they

died.'--I was going to say, 'God A'mighty bless you for it!' but I

couldn't, shipmates; she spoke it so plaintively, that I felt sumeut

rise in my throat as if I was choking, and I gulped and gulped to keep

it down till I was almost strangled, and she went on:--'So yesterday I

walked all the way to Portsmouth, and went aboard the frigate; but the

officer tould me there was no man of the name of Joyce borne upon the

the books.'--'It was a d--lubberly thing!' says I, 'and now I remembers

it.'--'What,' says she, 'what do you mean?'--'Oh, nothing, my precious,'

says I, 'nothing in the world;' for I thought the time warn't come for

me to own who I was, and it fell slap across my mind that the doctor's

boy who writ the letter for me, had signalised my right-arnest name

at the bottom, without saying one word about the purser's consarn of

Sheavehole. 'And so you've had your voyage for nothing,' says I, 'and

now you're homeward-bound; and that's the long and the short on it.

Well, my precious, I'm on liberty; and as ould Martin did me a kindness

when I was a boy, why, I'll bring up for a few hours at his cottage,

and have a bit of a confab consarning ould times.' And the young woman

seemed mightily pleased about it; so that by the time we got to ----,

I'm blessed if, in all due civility, we warn't as thick as two Jews

on a payday. Well, we landed from the craft, and away we made sail in

consort for ould dad's cottage; and I'm blessed if everything didn't

look as familiar to me as when I was a young scamp of a boy! but I never

said not nothing; and so she knocks at the door, and my heart went

thump, thump,--by the hookey! shipmates, but it was just as I've seen a

bird try to burst out of its cage. Presently a voice sings out, 'Who's

there?'--and such a voice!--I never heard a fiddle more sweeterer in

the whole course of my life--'Who's there?' says the voice, in regard

of its being night, about four bells in the first watch.--'It's Maria,'

says my convoy,--'And Jack Sheavehole,' says I. 'Heave ahead, my cherub!

give us a clear gangway and no favour.'--'Oh, Maria, have you brought

him with you?' said a young woman, opening the door; and by the light

she carried in her hand, she showed a face as beautiful--I'm d--if

ever they carried such a figure-head as that, in any dock-yard in the

world!--'Have you brought him with you?' says she, looking at me, and

smiling so sweetly, that it took me all aback, with a bobble of a sea

running on my mind that made my ideas heave and set like Dutch fisherman

on the Dogger-bank.--'No,' says Maria, with a mournful sough, just as

the wind dies away arter a gale--'No; there was no such person on board

the frigate, and I have had my journey for nothing.'--'Nonsense!' says

the other; 'you want to play us some trick. I know this is he;' and she

pointed to me.--'Lord love your heart!' says I, plucking up courage,

for I'd flattened in forud, and fallen off so as to fill again,--'Lord

love your heart! I'd be anything or anybody to please you,' says I;

'but my name, d' ye mind, is Jack Sheavehole, at your sarvice in all due

civility. But let us come to an anchor, and then we can overhaul the

consarn according to Hamilton Moore.' So we goes in; and there sat my

poor ould mother by the remains of a fire, moored in the same arm-chair

I had seen her in ten years afore, and by her side was an ould wheezing

cat that I had left a kitten; and, though the cabin-gear warn't any

very great shakes, everything was as clean as if they'd just washed the

decks. 'Yo-hoy, dame!' says I, 'how do you weather the breeze?'--'Is

that my John?' says she, shipping her barnacles on her nose, like the

jaws of a spanker-boom on the saddle; and then Maria brings up alongside

of her, and spins the yarn about her passage to Portsmouth, boarding

the frigate, finding that she was out in her reckoning, and her return

with me; and ould dad, who was in his hammock in the next berth, would

have the door open to hear it all. And I felt so happy, and they looked

so downcast and sorrowful, that I'm blessed if I could stand it any

longer: so I seizes Susan round the neck, and I pays out a kiss as long

as the main-t'-bowline, till she hadn't breath to say 'Don't;' and then

I grapples 'em all round, sarving out hugs and kisses to all hands,

even to the ould cat; and I danced round the chairs and tables so,

that some o' the neighbours came running in; and 'Blow me tight!' says

I, 'side out for a bend; here I am again, all square by the lifts and

braces!'--and then I sings,

'Here I am, poor Jack,

Just come home from sea,

With shiners in my sack'--

and I whips out a handful of guineas from my jacket pocket, and shows

'em,--

'Pray what do you think of me?'

'What! mother,' says I, 'don't you know me? Why, I'm your true and

lawful son Jack Joyce; though, arter I run away, the purser made

twice-laid of it, and chrissened me Sheavehole, in regard of his

Majesty liking to name his own children. Never say die, ould woman!

there's plenty o' shot in the locker. And come, lasses,' says I to the

young uns, 'one on you stand cook o' the mess;' and I empties my bag

on the floor, and away rolled the combustibles, matches, and mutton,

and mousetraps, and all, scampering about like liberty boys arter a

six months' cruise; and I picks up the bladder o' rum, and squeezes

a good drain into a tea-cup, and hands it to the ould woman, topping

up her lame leg while she drinks. And, my eyes! there was a precious

shindy that night: the ould uns were almost dying with joy, and the

young uns had a fit o' the doldrums with pleasure. So I gets the big

pot under weigh, and shoves in both legs o' mutton and a full allowance

o' turnips, and I sarves out the grog between the squalls; and ould dad

blowed a whiff o' 'bacca, and mother payed away at the snuff; and nobody

warn't never happy if we warn't happy that night. Well, we'd a glorious

tuck-out o' mutton, wi' plenty o' capers; and arter that I stows the

ould woman in alongside o' dad, kisses the girls in course, and then

takes possession o' the arm-chair, where I slept as sound as a jolly on

sentry."

"That's libellous!" exclaimed the serjeant somewhat roughly, as if

offended; "it is an unjust reflection, and is clearly libellous."

"It's all the same to ould Jack whose _bellows_ it is," returned the

boatswain's mate carelessly; "it's no lie, howsomever, for none sleeps

so soundly as a marine on duty. But I arn't got time to overhaul that

consarn now; I know I laid in a stock of 'hard-and-fast' enough to

last for a three weeks' cruise. Well, shipmates, we keeps the game

alive all hot and warm, and we sported our best duds, and I makes

love to Susan, and we'd a regular new fit-out at the cottage, and I

leaves fifty pounds in the hands of the parson o' the parish for the

ould folks, and everything went on, in prime style, when one day the

landlord of the public comes in, and says he, 'Jack, the lobsters

are arter you.'--'Gammon!' says I; 'what can them fellows want with

me?'--'Arn't your liberty out?' says he.--'I never give it a thought,'

says I.--'Where's your ticket?' says he. So I showed him the chit; and

I'm blessed, shipmates, but it had been out two days! Well, there I was

in a pretty perdiklement; and the landlord, says he, 'Jack,' says he,

'I respect you for your goodness to the ould uns; though I suspects

they arn't altogether the cause of your losing your memory:' and he

looks and smiles at Suke. 'Howsomever, the lobsters are at my house

axing about you; and I thought I'd slip out and let you know, so that

you might have time to stow away.'--'Thanky, my hearty,' says I; 'but

I'm blessed, shipmates, if I warn't dead flabbergasted where to find a

stow-hole, till at last I hits upon a scheme to which Susan consented!

And what do you think it was, shipmates?--but you'd never guess! Why,

Suke slips on a pair o' my canvass trousers and comes to an anchor

in the arm-chair with a blanket round her, below, and I stows myself

under her duds, coiling away my lower stanchions tailor-fashion; and

the doctor coming in to see the ould folks, they puts him up to the

trick, and so he brings up alongside of her, and they whitens her face,

to make her look pale, as if she was nigh-hand kicking the bucket: and

there I lay, as snug as a cockroach in a chafing-mat, and in all due

decency, seeing as Suke had bent my lower casings hind part afore,

and there warn't a crack nor a brack in 'em. Presently in marches the

swaddies, and 'Pray whose cottage is this?' axed the serjeant as stiff

as a crutch.--'It is Martin Joyce's,' said Maria.--'Ay, I thought as

much,' says he: 'pray where is his son, Jack Joyce, or Jack Sheavehole?'

says he.--'He left us three days ago,' answered Maria, 'to join his

ship: I hope nothing has happened to him?'--'Indeed!' says the serjeant.

'Now, pretty as you are, I know that you are telling me what I should

call a very considerable ----' Suke shrieked out, and stopped what he

was going to say: for, shipmates, she sat so quiet, that, thinks I to

myself, they'll find out that she's shamming; so I gives her a smart

pinch in an inexpressible part, that made her sing out. Well, the long

and the short on it, is, that the party, who were looking out sharp for

'straggling money,' had a grand overhaul; but the doctor would not let

them interfere with Susan, who, he declared, was near her cushionmong;

and at last, being unable to find me, they hauls their wind for another

port.--Well, shipmates, as soon as possible arter they were gone,

why, Suke got rid of her trouble, and forth I came, as full-grown and

handsome a babby as ever cut a tooth. But I warnt safe yet; and so I

claps a suit of Suke's duds over my own gear, and, being but a little

chap, with some slutching, and letting out a reef or two here and there,

I got my sails all snugly bent, and clapped a cap with a thousand little

frills round my face, and a straw hurricane-house of a bonnet as big

as a Guineaman's caboose over all, with a black wail hanging in the

brails down afore, and my shoes scandaled up my legs, that I made a

good-looking wench. Well, I bid all hands good-bye. Suke piped her eye

a bit; but, Lord love you! we'd made our calculations o' matrimony,

and got the right bearings and distance, (else, mayhap, I should never

have got stowed away under her hatches,) and she was to join me at

Portsmouth, and we were to make a long splice of it off-hand; but then,

poor thing! she thought, mayhap, I might get grabbed and punished.

Up comes the coach; but the fellow wouldn't heave to directly, and

'Yo-hoy!' says I, giving him a hail.--'Going to Portsmouth, ma'am?' says

he, throwing all aback, and coming ashore from his craft.--'To be sure

I am,' says I. 'What made you carry on in that fashion, and be d--to

you!--is that all the regard you have for the sex?' says I.--'Would you

like to go inside, ma'am?' says he, opening the gangway port.--'Not

a bit of it,' says I: 'stow your damaged slops below, but give me a

berth 'pon deck.'--'Werry good, ma'am,' says he, shutting the gangway

port again; 'will you allow me to assist you up?'--'Not by no manner o'

means,' says I. 'Why, what the devil do you take me for! to think the

captain of a frigate's maintop can't find his way aloft!'--'You mean the

captain of the maintop's wife,' says Susan, paying me back the pinch

I gave her.--'Ay, ay, my precious,' says I; 'so I do, to be sure. God

bless you! good-b'ye! Here I go like seven bells half struck!--carry on,

my boy, and I'm blessed if it shan't be a shiner in your way!' And so

we takes our berths, and away we made sail, happy-go-lucky, heaving-to

now and then just to take in a sea-stock; and the governor had two eyes

in his head, and so he finds out the latitude of the thing, but he

says nothing; and we got safe through the barrier and into Portsmouth,

and I lands in the street afore they reached the inn,--for, thinks I

to myself, I'd better get berthed for the night and go aboard in the

morning. Well, shipmates, I parts company with the craft, and shapes my

course for Pint,--'cause I knew a snug corner in Capstan-square, and I

was determined to cut with all skylarks, in regard o' Suke. Well, just

as I was getting to steer with a small helm, up ranges a tall man who

had seen me come ashore from the coach, and 'My dear,' says he, 'what!

just fresh from the country?' But I houlds my tongue, shipmates, and he

pulls up alongside and grabs my arm. 'Come, don't be cross,' says he;

'let me take you in tow; I want to talk with you, my love.' I knew the

voice well; and though he had a pea jacket over his uniform-coat, and,

take him 'half way up a hatchway,' he was a d-- good-looking fellow, yet

nobody as ever had seen him could forget them 'trap-stick legs;' and

so, thinks I to myself, Jack, you'd better shove your boat off without

delay: for, d'ye see, shipmates, I'd sailed with him when I was a

mizen-top-mun in the ould Stag, and I well remembered Sir Joseph Y--ke.

But I'm blessed if he didn't stretch out arter me, and sailed two foot

to my one; and 'Come, come, my darling,' says he, 'take an honest tar

for your sweetheart. Let's look at that beautiful face;' and he catches

hould o' the wail and hauls it up chock ablock; but I pulls down my

bonnet so as he couldn't see my figure-head, and I carries on a taut

press to part company. But, Lord love yer hearts! it warn't no manner

o' use whatsomever--he more than held his own; and 'A pretty innocent

country wench indeed!' says he. 'What! have you lost your tongue?'--'No,

I'm d-- if I have!' says I: for I forgot myself, shipmates, through

vexation at not being able to get away. 'Hallo!' says he, gripping me

tight by the shoulder; 'who have we here?' I'm blessed, shipmates, if,

what with his pulling at my shawl, and my struggling to sheer off,

my spanker boom didn't at that very moment get adrift, and he caught

sight of it in a jiffy. 'Hallo!' says he, catching tight hold of the

pig-tail, and slueing me right round by it. 'Hallo!' says he, 'I never

see an innocent country wench dress her hair in this way afore;--rather

a masc'line sort o' female,' he says. 'Who the devil are you?' 'It's

Jack Sheavehole, your honour,' says I, bringing up all standing; and,

knowing his generous heart, thinks I, Now's your time, Jack; overhaul

the whole consarn to him, and ten to one but he pulls you through the

scrape somehow or other. So I ups and tells him the long and the short

on it, and he laughs one minute, and d--ns me for a desarting willun

the next; and 'Come along!' says he 'I must see what Captain B--n will

think of all this.' So he takes me in tow, and we went into one of the

grand houses in High-street; and 'Follow me,' says he, as he walked up

stairs into a large room all lighted up for a sheave-o; and there wur

ladies all togged out in white, and silver and gold, and feathers, and

navy officers and sodger officers,--a grand dinner-party. 'B--n,' hails

Sir Joseph, 'here's a lady wants you;' and he takes me by the hand, all

complimentary like, and the captain of the frigate comes towards us,

and I'm blessed if every soul fore and aft didn't fix their eyes on

me like a marine looking out for a squall. 'I've not the pleasure of

knowing the lady,' says the skipper; 'I fear, Sir Joseph, you're coming

York over me. Pray, ma'am, may I be allowed the happiness of seeing

your countenance and hearing your name?'--'I'm Jack Sheavehole, yer

honour,' says I, 'captain o' the Tapsickorees maintop, as yer honour

well knows.'--'I do, my man,' says he with a gravedigger's grin on his

countenance: 'and so you want to desert?'--'Never, yer honour,' says

I, 'in the regard o' my liking my ship and my captain too well.'--'No,

no, B--n,' says Sir Joseph, 'I must do him justice. It appears that

he had long leave, and onknowingly overstayed his time; so he rigged

himself out in angel's gear to cheat them devils of sodgers. I'll vouch

for the fact, B--n,' says he, 'for I saw him myself get down from the

coach--.'--'All fresh from the country, yer honour,' says I.--'Ay, all

fresh from the country,' chimes in Sir Joseph. 'He's an ould shipmate

o' mine, B--n, and I want you, as a personal favour to myself to back

his liberty-ticket for to-morrow. Such a lad as this, would never desart

the sarvice.'--'If I would, then I'm d--! saving yer honour's presence,'

says I. Well, shipmates, there I stood in the broad light, and all the

ladies and gemmen staring at me like fun; and 'Come, B--n,' says Sir

Joseph, 'extend his liberty till to-morrow'--'Where's your ticket?' axes

the skipper: and so, in regard of its being in my trousers pocket, I

hauls up my petticoats to get at it; and, my eyes! but the women set up

a screeching, and the officers burst out in a broadside o' laughing, and

you never heard such a bobbery as they kicked up,--it was a downright

reg'lar squall."

"Ay, squall indeed," said the captain of the forecastle: "here it comes

with a vengeance!" he bellowed out with stentorian lungs. "Hard up

with the helm--hard a-weather." In an instant the sea was one sheet of

foam; the wind came whistling like the rustling of ten thousand arrows

in their swiftest flight; a report like the discharge of a heavy piece

of artillery was heard forward, and away flew the jib like a fleecy

cloud to leeward. The frigate heeled over, carrying everybody and

everything into the lee scuppers; the lightning hissed and cracked as

it exploded between the masts, making everything tremble from the keel

to the truck; broad sheets of water were lifted up and dashed over the

decks fore and aft: indeed, it seemed as if the gale were striving to

raise the ponderous vessel from the ocean for the purpose of plunging

it into the dark abyss; a thick mist-like shroud hung round her, alow

and aloft, as she struggled to lift herself against the tempest. The

topsail halliards were let go; but the nearly horizontal position of the

masts prevented the sails from running down. Inevitable destruction for

the moment threatened to engulph them all, when "crack, crack, crack!"

away went the topmasts over the side; the spanker sheet had been cut

away, and off bounced the spanker after the jib. The frigate partially

righted, and Lord Eustace and his officers rushed to the deck. But the

squall had passed: the moon again shone beautifully clear; the deceitful

sky and still more deceitful ocean were all smiles, as if nothing had

happened,--though the evidences of their wrath were but too apparent

in the dismantled state of his Majesty's ship. But we must again leave

them, as we did before, to

"Call all hands to clear the wreck."

THE USEFUL YOUNG MAN.

A SECOND SERIES. BY WILLIAM COLLIER.

"There's one of us in every family."

To make ourselves useful's a duty we owe

To mankind and ourselves in our sojourn below;

To return good for evil, and always "to do

Unto others as you'd have them do unto you:"

So I bear all with patience, resolved, if I can,

To act well my part as a Useful Young Man!

But, alas! _entre nous_, 'tis a difficult task,

As seldom I'm left in life's sunshine to bask;

For I'm hurried, and worried, imposed on by all,

Who think I should run at their beck or their call:

"So obliging," folks say, "is their favourite Sam,

That he well earns the name of the Useful Young Man!"

Each morning at breakfast I'm doomed to peruse

"The Herald," and "Post," for "the family news,"

While the toast, eggs, and coffee, which fall to my lot,

Get a pretty considerable distance from hot:

Yes, such are the COMFORTS--deny it who can?--

That fall to the share of each Useful Young Man!

If Jane, or Maria, for work should agree,

The dear creatures invariably send down for me

To make myself useful, and read while they knit,

Paint, draw, or do anything they may think fit.

Thus, Sam--poor pill-garlic!--they safely trepan:

Alack! what a life leads a Useful Young Man!

If the day's rather wet, and they can't gad about,

They think nothing whatever, of sending me out:--

"Now, Sam, my good fellow, just pop on your hat;

Run to _Howell's_ for this thing, and _Holmes's_ for that;

You'll make yourself pleasant we know, if you can,--

What a comfort to have such a Useful Young Man!"

When John, our fat butler, or Bridget, the cook,

Have leisure for reading "some novelty book,"

They ne'er think of asking my leave to peruse,

But help themselves freely to just what they choose:

Making free with my novels is no novel plan,

For THEY own Master Sam's such a useful Young Man!

Once Thomas, the footman, kissed Anne on the stairs,

Who loudly squalled out, just to give herself airs;

When my father ran down, in great anger, to see

What the cause of the squeaking and squalling could be.

Tom had bolted; but not till they'd settled a plan

To throw all the blame on _the Useful_ Young Man!

When the Opera we visit, I'm kept in the rear

Of our box, and can scarce get a glimpse, I declare,

Of the stage, or the audience;--so only remain,

To trot up to _Dubourg_ for _punch à la Romaine_,

To run out for a book, or to pick up a fan:--

Alas! what a drudge is a Useful Young Man!

But sad is my fate when I go to a rout.

If a toothless old maid sits a partner without,

The beaux are looked o'er, but they always agree

To fix the _agreeable_ task upon me;

For to dance with all _bores_, 'tis the province of Sam,

'Deed the file of each victimised Useful Young Man!

If we're late at the dance, and no coach to be had,

There's Sam! the dear fellow! the exquisite lad!

He'll search all the stands in the town, but he'll gain

A coach for his friends--though it's pelting with rain

Oh! such are the _pleasures_--deny it who can--

That fall to the lot of a Useful Young Man!

To be nice about trifles is not over wise;

Where's the churl that finds favour in woman's bright eyes?

To be nice about trifles, is trifling with folly,

For the right end of life is but left to be jolly;

So I'll make up my mind just to stick to this plan,

And PAG _out_ my _terms_ as a Useful Young Man.

REMAINS OF HAJJI BABA.