occasion here referred to, was, as has been already | either to explain the mysterious accident, or quiet mentioned, to make inquiry respecting the conduct of Sir John Charteris of Amisfield, of whose administration, as warden of that part of the Border, many complaints had reached the royal ear. As it was the king's intention to surprise Sir John, and pay him a solitary visit at his own residence, under his usual disguise, as Gudeman of Ballengeich, he marched privately, with a small retinue, to Duncow, distant little more than a mile from Amisfield. Here he remained for a short time, and passed the night in a house in Pauly's Close, near the Cheaplaw Hill, where a huge stone long marked the spot where the monarch slept, until it was thrown down by the march of improvement, about fifty years ago. Leaving his whole retinue in the village, he set out on foot to Amisfield, and with some difficulty procured an interview with the haughty baron (as he repeatedly refused to admit the Gudeman within his gate,) the result of which was a heavy fine, that imposed a burden on the estate from which it never recovered; and a few years ago the last remnant of it was sold, after having continued in the family of Charteris since the days of Wallace, who conferred it as a reward for his valiant services in Scotland's cause, on one of his warriors of French descent, named Longueville. The adventure we have now related will easily account for the sudden and unknown appearance of the king at the trial of Double-Ribbed Dick. As James was not only an excellent connoisseur in female beauty, but had a sort of intuitive art in finding it out, even though passing but a single night in the neighbourhood, it was scarcely possible that he could be in Duncow an hour or two without hearing of the pretty maid of the mill. It so happened that his gallantry had tempted him to pay a visit to Marion Corrie; and as fate would so have it, it was the very night when the baron's son had laid his plan for carrying her off. While proceeding with a single attendant along the footpath on the green margin of the burn, his attention was arrested by hearing the clash of swords; and on approaching the spot (for it was dark,) what was his astonishment on perceiving two men engaged in mortal combat, one of whom fell transfixed through the heart, and the other was taken into custody. Marion's fears; but he said he would inquire into The reader may guess Marion's surprise and joy when, on the Cheaplaw Hill, she identified her friendly visiter in the person of the king, whose presence had, so soon as recognised, instantly allayed the tumult. Mounting the abdicated chair, he commanded the baron and the prisoner to be brought before him; and discharged the jury, as wholly unnecessary and informal in a cause where no proof could be led on either side. "This trial, Sir Gilbert, concerns the murder of your son ?" inquired the king. "It does, my liege." "And the prisoner by your side, you say, is the murderer ?" "So he has been proved to be, please your majesty." "Proved! By whom?" "By a competent jury, lawfully summoned, and lawfully assembled." "Have you produced witnesses to the fact?" My liege, presumption is so clear, so strong, so convincing, that no one doubts of his guilt." "Doubts! presumption! sirrah; and would you hang a subject of my realm on presumption?" "My lord, your grace, I will produce twelve men to swear to his guilt." "Oaths are not proofs; much less can the oaths of vassals-for such, doubtless, your twelve men are-be held as unexceptionable testimony. Do you persist in the accusation of this man as the murderer of your son?" "I do, so please your grace." "Are you prepared to declare, upon your soul and conscience, and with your hand upon the Holy Book, that his crime has been proved, and his sentence just ?" "I will swear to it," said the baron. While the royal henchman conducted the murderer back to Duncow to headquarters, where he was to be detained in strict keeping until the particulars of the quarrel became known, James hur- "Then," replied the king, "thou wouldst swear ried his nocturnal visit to the mill, and there away thy salvation! Wretch that thou art! how learned, from the lips of the unsuspecting Marion, can justice be administered; how can life and the whole history of her attachment for the limb be secure; how can the poor be protected; reiver; the infamous purpose of the baron's son; how can oppression be redressed; how can innoher suspicions that a plot was laid against her cence or virtue be safe; how can public or private liberty, as well as her honour, to be carried into interests be expected to thrive, when I have within effect that very night; and, finally, her alarm my dominions such reckless and iniquitous ministhat the bloody rencontre of which the stranger ters of the law as thou? Alas for this poor distold, could be no other than the deadly combat be-tracted kingdom!-too long has it been cursed tween her lover and her intending seducer. The with corruption, and cruelty, and avarice, and king, who was, of course, entirely ignorant as to misrule such as thine. But, touching the guilt of the persons he had so unexpectedly found engaged the prisoner, as thou hast no witnesses, I shall in mortal strife, could give no information tending I undertake to produce one. While passing along the footpath, on the night of this murder, I chanced | innocence; and wilfully undertook, in abetting myself to be a spectator of the act, and so can bear the plot, to shed the blood of a fellow-creature. It my testimony as to the innocence of the crime laid is decreed by a higher authority than that of any to his charge; though, had thy son fallen beneath human tribunal, that whosoever sheddeth man's his weapon, it had been scarcely more than just blood, by man shall his blood be shed;' and so it retribution—as the heartless ruffian had not only can be deemed neither unjust nor cruel to proconspired the ruin of an innocent maiden, but nounce sentence according to the Divine law. As proposed to add to the crime of seduction, the still for you, Sir Gilbert, it has happened, luckily for deeper offence of violently carrying off from her your own head, that my accidental presence here father's house, perhaps of secretly putting to death, has prevented you from committing a crime of the the hapless victim of his diabolical revenge. But, deepest dye, that of perverting the law-which sirrah, I am not the only witness in the case; ought to be pure and spotless as innocence itself→→ there is another, whose evidence is yet more con- into an engine of private vengeance; and attemptclusive than mine, that of the murderer himself; ing to cover this atrocious conspiracy, against the and he shall be forthcoming. My attendant ap- life of a guiltless man, with the sacred forms of prehended him in the act; he has since been in justice. So far be grateful that thy carcass does strict custody. He shall now confront thee at thy not blacken on thine own gallows. But, wretched own bar, and put down thy vile falsehoods by the man, thou hast an arrear of guilt for thy innuconfession of his guilt." merable offences and misdemeanours as a corrupt judge and an unworthy magistrate, that cannot possibly be overlooked or passed unpunished. Know, then, that, in penalty for thy notorious misdeeds, I deprive thee of one-third part of thy barony, to be given as retribution to those whom thy injustice hath wronged; and I further burden thy estate with the liability to quarter two hundred men whenever I may undertake an expedition into Nithsdale. A blast of the bugle summoned the mysterious culprit to the hill, between two soldiers of the guard; and, to the unspeakable horror and surprise of the baron, he discovered the murderer to be no other than one of his son's confidential retainers, called, from his Irish extraction, Paddy Wull. "Now, caitiff," said the king, "what hast thou to say to thy proofs and thy presumptions-thy juries and thy oaths? Yet this unfortunate indi- "And now, Sir Reiver," addressing himself to vidual is not so deeply stained with infamy as thou the prisoner, and commanding his irons to be remayest suppose. The weapon that slew his mas-moved, "it is thy turn to receive sentence. I do ter was intended to have been dyed in the heart's blood of another-of the man whom, but for this accidental discovery, as I may term it, thou wouldst have put to an ignominious death, upon the unjust sentence of a packed jury. A watchful Providence had so ordered it, that the innocent and injured lover had taken a different path than usual, from the humane motive of eschewing the serpent in his way, and thus avoiding the commission of that very crime for which thy savage malignity had doomed him to suffer. The craven seducer was thus snared in his own toil. The servant, who acted the accomplice, mistook, in the dark, his master for the intended victim; and at this hour he is yet ignorant that any other perished by his hand than the object for which the fatal blow was originally intended." At this intelligence, the assassin was hardly less horrified and amazed than the baron. He confessed to the whole adventure of the night; to the foul conspiracy against Marion; to his master's murder, of which he had been the unconscious instrument; and, lastly, to his being surprised and detected in the act by two strangers. "Now," continued the king, "having cleared up this mysterious affair, and fixed the guilty deed on the proper criminal-I trust, to the satisfaction of all present-I shall proceed to give judgment, not doubting that my award will be approved by every impartial court in Scotland. As for the assassin, I doom him to grace the gibbet; for it does not lessen his guilt or extenuate his crime, that he merely mistook, in the darkness of the night, one object for another. He was a consenting party to the base stratagem against maiden not justify the raids and forays, the plunderings and outrages against property, in which fame reports thee to have been an active and daring leader. All these lawless doings I am resolved to put down by the strong arm of force; and shall not cease to wage war against all marauders and freebooters, until the flocks of the Borders shall graze as securely in their pastures as my own sheep do in the parks of Stirling and Falkland. It shall go hard with the barons and wardens of these marches, if I do not make the rush-bush keep the cow. But, sirrah, thy offences have this alleviation, that they are the fault of the times, the natural fruit of the disorderly state of society. The laws have been so long silent and disregarded, that the perpetrators of these outrages are hardly conscious of doing anything that merits severe usage at the king's hands. Let, then, thy past misdemeanours be forgotten and forgiven, on this condition, that there be an instant and complete amendment in thy habits of life hereafter. And as thou art a brave fellow, and hast in thy arm what will strike thieves and plunderers with terror, I intrust to thee the keeping of the peace from the gates of Lochmaben to the march of Dalswinton. So long as I am King of Scotland, thou shalt be King of Kirkmahoe. "But where is pretty Marion of the mill? Has she no boon to crave? no rogueries to confess? Unless I am much misinformed, she has sins against the eighth commandment that require to be shriven; for she confided to me the secret, that she had stolen away the heart of a young gallant." Marion, who had retired abashed at the discovery of her unknown visiter, lingered for some time in | Then must I be the interpreter of thy blushes, ay, the outskirts of the crowd, afraid lest she might have been compromised by some of her unguarded disclosures; but so soon as the king had decided what was to be the fate of her lover, she sprung forward, half frantic between joy and fear, and threw herself into Richard's arms, almost suffocated with convulsive sobs. "I know it all," said James, beckoning the bewildered couple to approach him; "but come hither, my sweet little penitent thief. Nobly hast thou won thy prize; and it were an unprincely act not to make thee a just reward. Come hither, come hither." and the judge, and the priest, and the executioner of the law, too? I decree, then, that thy chains be the links of love's golden fetters; and there can be no dishonour in surrendering thy liberty to the man whom nobody but thyself could ever conquer. Take her hand-kneel down." Then, drawing his sword, and laying it gently on the bridegroom's shoulder, "Rise, Sir Richard; and now, fair lady, I claim, as the priest's fee, the pleasure of dancing at the bridal; and, by the mass, the baron shall pay the piper, for he shall give and bequeath to you and your heirs that pendicle of the barony beyond the mill, stretching from the Marten Yett to the march of Closeburn." Graceful, but grave, her brow he kissed, And bade her terrors be dismissed; Then gently dried the falling tear, And gently whispered hope and cheer, As to her lover's arms she clung, With beating heart and bosom wrung. "Say, my pretty maiden, dost not thou deserve chains and slavery for so nearly bringing a brave man's neck to the gallows, eh? What, not a word? | out, in his usual disguise, for Amisfield. A shout of applause followed the winding up of this strange yet interesting scene. Meg M Whutterick's best parlour was decked out for the oceasion, and a merrier night was never spent within the bounds of Duncow. The king honoured the happy festivities with his presence; and, in the morning, leaving his retinue in the village, he set MEMOIRS OF THE LATE JAMES SMITH, Esq.* MR. HORACE SMITH, in the memoir prefixed to these Comic Miscellanies, or James Smith himself, we forget which, mentions that a lady once remarked that he was, in manners and mind, like a Frenchman. There must be something in it, as wE, before seeing this, had been struck with precisely the same idea. He was, in fact, in his habits and tastes, as like a native of Paris as it is well possible for a native of London to be: lively, quick, somewhat superficial, an egotist; fond of pleasure, but discreet in his pleasures; and able to turn the talents he possessed to the best account, both as regarded his own reputation and the amusement of " the town." Posterity might have been neither much better nor much worse had James Smith never lived; but his contemporaries would certainly have lost a great deal of harmless enjoyment, which, in this dull and care-worn world, should go for something. He might not do much to help his race to surmount the many evils of their social condition, or to render them either wiser or better; but he made some of them laugh and forget their cares. What sort of man James Smith might have been if bred in the country, or in a small town where there were no theatres and operas, it is impossible and needless to conjecture: he could not have been the same creature; nor probably, though less frivolous, half so good-natured. Lady Blessington once remarked, "acutely," that "if James Smith had not been a witty man he must have been a great man!" Had the honeyed speech been, "a great man of business”—a thriving merchant, like his grandfather, or an eminent solicitor, like his father before himwe might heartily subscribe to its "acuteness;" for he was a sensible, self-centred man, of fair parts, active mind, orderly and temperate. But he chose to set up for a regular town-bred wit-a man of figure in "society;" and, as far as his professional duties permitted-for he succeeded his father as Solicitor to the Ordnance-his ambition was completely successful; and in a then novel line, which combined pleasure, literature, and business, he achieved a considerable reputation, of which this collection of his jeux d'esprits is, in all probability, the last sparkling bubble. That very clever, and more lucky, hit, the "Rejected Addresses," at once brought James Smith into general notice, and conferred upon him the highest fame that can be expected to attend such effusions. The public has now, all save a few antiquarian readers, forgotten "The Bath Guide ;" and yawns over "Sir Hanbury Williams;" and since the "Rejected Addresses" were received with obstreperous theatrical applause, audiences have grown much more serious, thoughtful, and reverential,—their passions have become more vehement, and their sensibilities deeper. They require a different species of excitement than farce and drollery. A vigorous and more healthful appetite craves more generous diet and powerful potations, than the brisk ginger-pop and whipt trifle on which the Town then banqueted, and lauded the bestower. The Memoir of James Smith, written by his brother, and his few Letters, written to Mrs. Torre Holme, (a lady who writes very elegant verses for the Fashionable Annuals,) in the last years of his life, are the most interesting portion of the contents of the volumes,partly because they are fresh, but chiefly because they tell something of a clever, pleasant man, whose name has been buzzing in the public ear for two generations. The Messrs. Smith were the sons of "an eminent legal practitioner of London, who, for many years, held the office of Solicitor to the Ordnance;" he was, moreover, a worthy and intelligent man; who educated his sons with care, and endeavoured to protect their youth "Comic Miscellanies in Prose and Verse," by the and inexperience from the sin of idle dalliance with the late James Smith, Esq., one of the Authors of the Re-Muses. In due time, James became, first the apprenjected Addresses," &c. &c. Edited by his Brother, Horace tice, and next the partner, of his father-secretly mainSmith, Esq. 2 vols, London; Colburn, taining a flirtation with Thalia, and yet not wholly ne glecting Themis; and, in short, uniting the man of wit | quainted-a fact to which the present writer has great and pleasure with the man of business. A kind of half-pleasure in referring, in the hope that so laudable a dramatic, half-political or satirical newspaper, called custom may be revived! the "Pic-Nic," was started by Colonel Greville, to which the Smiths, when very young men, were invited to become gratuitous contributors; and they had for associates, Cumberland the dramatist, Sir James Bland Burgess, Mr. Croker, and others; Mr. Combe, an able and eccentric literary fag of those days, being the editor, and the only paid writer. The "Pic-Nic" had the fate which might have been anticipated; but it served to initiate James Smith into the mysteries of periodical writing, and he never again wholly laid aside his unofficial pen. His first attempts, like his most successful work, were parodies and imitations. He next contributed to a "London Review," in which (with the usual success) an attempt was made to write without the protection of the solemn, mysterious, and really modest, potential wE; every author affixing his name to his critique. This could never do. The "Review" dropt when Mr. Smith had contributed just one article. They must either be "little lower than the angels," or very arrogant and impudent persons indeed, who can, as periodical critics, face the public, and deliver opinions approximating in any reasonable degree, to candour and honesty, without the graceful veil of the time-tried, sacred wE. Mr. Horace Smith alleges, that his brother's kindliness and good-humour disqualified him for this species of writing; and, at that time, pertness, frothy impertinence, banter, or sarcasm and downright abuse-of which the leading Reviews were the great exemplarswere too often the favourite weapons of the critic; and that was admired as happy wit, which could not now be tolerated. The Monthly Mirror was next favoured by the contributions of the brothers, who published in it those poetical imitations entitled "Horace in London." And in 1812 appeared the "Rejected Addresses," of which no fewer than eighteen editions have since appeared. To James Smith belong the imitations of Crabbe, Cobbett, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the Editor of the Morning Post-in brief, the rarer portion of the entire contents. Next to those, his various contributions to Mathers' Entertainments, which were altogether congenial to his taste and powers, were his most celebrated and successful compositions; though many of his Magazine papers, as the Bachelor's Thermometer, My Wife's Mother, parts of Grimm's Ghost, &c., are choice in their own kind. The "Nonsense for Mathews" were, at least, the best paying productions. Smith, that actor said, was the only man who could write clever nonsense well; and clever nonsense was just what Mathews most wanted ; and so he paid him a thousand pounds for it. "A thousand pounds for nonsense !" the receiver would say, shrugging his shoulders; and probably not insensible to the value of the nonsense whether in money or celebrity. It is worthy of record, as a literary curiosity, that Mr. James Smith once received three thousand pounds as a legacy, for two complimentary stanzas addressed to old Strachan, the king's printer; with which the good man was so flattered that an immediate codicil was made to his will, thus munificently rewarding the wit of his poetical friend. For the general good of the craft we copy the following remarks :— In ancient times, as we know from some of the classical letters, the rich frequently left handsome legacies to favourite authors with whom they were personally unac Smith's talents and tact early gave him that prominent place in London society which appears to have been the limit of his ambition. As a wit and joker, he appears to have been somewhat dry and mechanical; but he was gifted with an excellent memory; and, with a rich assortment of anecdotes, possessed a happy knack of telling them. He could also dress up an old Joe to look almost as good as new, and he attempted the impromptu à loisir. He sung comic songs with taste and humour; and from boyhood had been a frequenter of the theatre, and a welcome visiter in the green-room, a regular diner-out, and a hearty laugher. There might be nothing very useful or dignified in all this, but it comprehended the great requisites for maintaining that place in society, which he desired to hold. He had never been needy, and latterly he was affluent in his circumstances; and throughout life he was a well-tempered, obliging, and a very handsome man; always most carefully dressed and appointed; and too prudent, or too indifferent, easily either to give or take offence. Smith was, besides, a confirmed metropolitan, thinking "London the best place in summer, but the only place in winter;" tolerating no ruralities more substantial than those to be found in the scenes of Covent-Garden or Drury-Lane; a Tory, and a determined bachelor. "It will," his brother remarks, Be hardly necessary to state that he was a bachelor; and to those who knew him, it will be equally needless to add, that his celibacy proceeded rather from too discursive than too limited an admiration of the sex. To the latest hour of his life, he exhibited a marked predilection for their society, giving a natural preference to the young, the intelligent, and the musical; and never concealing his dislike of a dinner-party composed exclusively of males. It will be seen that even in the many hours of solitude and sickness that threw a shade over the closing scenes of his life, he does not appear ever to have regretted his bachelorship. The following paragraph in a letter to his accomplished friend, Mrs. Holme, written after he had seen his grand climacteric, is as characteristic as any thing in the "Bachelor's Thermometer": the club. Horrid dream last night, viz. that I was enBetter still this morning,-am thinking of dining at gaged to be married-some politic arrangement. Introduced to my bride, a simpering young woman with flaxen hair, in white gloves. Just going to declare off (coute qui coute,) when, to my inexpressible relief, I awoke. His table-talk, as it is served up here, is somewhat scanty, and not remarkably piquant; but the reader may judge: "Mr. Smith, you look like a Conservative," said a young man across the table, thinking to pay him a compliment. "Certainly, sir," was the prompt reply; "my crutches remind me that I am no member of the movement party." and he bore his sufferings with fortitude. If he had no Mr. Smith, in his latter years, was a martyr to gout; sympathy to bestow on the sufferings of others, neither did he exact or accept sympathy for himself. In his latter years, physical infirmity had nearly estranged him day"-the kindness of a few old friends-the attenfrom gay society; but visits to his Club-" Magazine tions of his faithful housekeeper of twenty-five years -and every comfort which his own London could afford, made his latter days pass away in tranquil enjoyment. And his death, like his life, was easy. Among his personal friends, or familiars, were the late Earl of Mulgrave, Mr. Croker of the Admiralty, Lord Abinger, and many other distinguished persons. His acquaintance with authors, actors, and artists, was nearly universal; for he was a fixture the year round in London, and he went everywhere there. His letters, it strikes us, are written in an easier and more delicate vein than his published sketches; yet they are equally studied compositions. We regret they are so few; and shall select a few morsels from those we consider the most attractive, from what they record-if not, also, the best in style. Count d'Orsay set me down in Craven Street. "What was all that Madame Guiccioli was saying to you just now?" he inquired. "She was telling me her apartFrench capital, she hoped I would not forget her adments are in the Rue de Rivoli, and that, if I visited the dress." "What! it took her all that time to say that! Ah, Smeeth, you old humbug! that won't do." The count was one of his particular friends, and, in some sort, a kindred spirit-for whom he had the highest regard. He adduced D'Orsay "as a specimen of a perfect gentleman ;" and gave him the higher praise of delightfully uniting gaiety and good sense, in an unrivalled degree. We make no doubt that Mr. Smith considered the count a very superior person to any one member of either of the Houses of Parliament, since Sheridan had disappeared. This is in his ordinary vein Charles Kean, they tell me at the Garrick, is a clever, but not a great actor; but you don't care about theatricals. The Opera Buffa, they tell me, is so-so; but you don't care about music. Well, then, as you do care about me, I have the satisfaction to tell you that I am Asmodeus, but lacking a considerable portion of his convalescing apace. I move upon two crutch-canes like agility. Neither, like him, can I unroof the houses to see what is passing within; neither would I if I could. Curiosity about other people's affairs is not one of my staple commodities. I dined yesterday at House, where the Countess Guiccioli is on a visit; she is much improved in her English. When we rejoined the ladies in the drawingroom, coffee was introduced, and several little tottering daddy-long-legs tables were set out, whereon to deposit our cups. I and Madam G. had a table between us. I then ventured to touch upon Lord Byron. The subject evidently interested her. I repeated several passages from his "Childe Harold," with which she seemed quite familiar. She then asked me to give her some of my imitations of him from the "Rejected Addresses." These she did not seem quite so well to comprehend. I told her all I knew of him before he went abroad, to which, like Desdemona, "she did seriously incline." Bysshe Shelley she denominates a good man. Leigh Hunt's name she pronounced Leg Honte. With tears in her eyes, she then descanted upon the merits and failings of the departed. When any sudden pause took place in the conversation at the other tables, she, evidently not wishing to be overheard, said, " Bai an bai," (by-and-forte by,) and when the general buzz recommenced, she resumed the thread of her narration. Shelley "disliked his Don Juan," said I," and begged him to leave it off, calling it a Grub Street poem.' "A what?--what do you mean by Grub Street?" I then explained to her the locality of that venerable haunt of the Muses, in the days of Pope and Swift, by a quotation from myself: "A spot near Cripplegate extends, Grub street 'tis called, the modern Pindus, Where (but that bards are never friends) pleasant, although not in good health. was music, and that he was no poet apart from that sensation. He talked of the different manner in and Dublin, contrasting the dignity of the former with which George the Fourth was received in Edinburgh the servility of the latter; and he said, “The contrast makes me blush for my countrymen." After all, the two modes of reception are merely constitutional. The Scotch are naturally sedate, and the Irish extravagant: Lockhart says the last are all mad, more or less. You will see in the Examiner an extract from a speech delivered by my brother Horace, at a meeting at Brighton, in favour of vote by ballot. He had better abstain from politics altogether: it is his business as an author to please all parties. spends his Sundays in London, in 1841, here is the picture which, though sketched in 1839, still holds good: Bards might shake hands from adverse windows." "When he dined with me," the countess continued, "he ate no meat. Still haunted by a dread of growing fat, he very much injured his own health; yet his figure, If any one desires to know how a rich, self-engrossed, notwithstanding, grew larger. Oh! he was very hand-old bachelor, of refined habits, and literary tastes, some! Beautiful eyes and eyelashes!-and such a spiritual expression of countenance ! I had occasion to go to Ravenna upon some family business. We settled that he should not accompany me. At that time several It is to me literally a day of rest. Let me enlighten people were plaguing him to go to Greece. Ah, he said, you as to my general disposal of it. I breakfast at in a sportive manner, Let fourteen captains come and nine. With a mind undisturbed by matters of business, ask me to go, and go I will.' Well, fourteen captains I then write to you or to some editor, and then read came to him, and said, ' Here we are, will you now go?' till three o'clock. I then walk to the Union Club, He was ashamed to say he had only been joking, (you read the journals, hear Lord John Russell deified or diaknow how fond he was of saying things in that light, bolized, (that word is not a bad coinage,) do the same joking sort of way,) so it ended in his undertaking to go. with Sir Robert Peel or the Duke of Wellington, and He said to me,' While you are at Ravenna, I will go to then join a knot of conversationists by the fire till six Greece, and we shall meet again when we both return.' o'clock, consisting of merchants, lawyers, members of God, however, he dispose of it otherwise. He was not parliament, and gentlemen at large. We then and there well when he set out. In Greece they wanted to bleed discuss the three per cent. consols (some of us preferring him; he would not be bled, and so he die !" The countess Dutch two and a half per cents.,) and speculate upon the paused, evidently much affected. I said nothing for a probable size, shape, and cost of the intended New Royal moment or two, and then observed, that I had read and Exchange. If Lady Harrington happen to drive past heard much upon the subject she had been discussing, our bow window, we compare her equipage to the Albut that I did not know how she and Lord Byron first gerine ambassador; and when politics happen to be disbecame acquainted. She looked at me a moment as if cussed, rally Whigs, Radicals, and Conservatives, alterwondering at my audacity, and then said, with a good-nately, but never seriously; such subjects having a humoured smile," Well, I will tell you. I was one day" —But here the drawing-room door opened, and some Frenchman with a foreign order was announced. The lady repeated her "Bai and bai" sotto voice, but, unfortunately, that bai and bai never arrived. The foreigner, unluckily, knew the countess; he, therefore, planted himself in a chair behind her, and held her ever and anon in a commonplace kind of conversation during the remainder of the evening. tendency to create acrimony. At six o'clock the room begins to be deserted, wherefore I adjourn to the diningroom, and gravely looking over the bill of fare, exclaim to the waiter, "Haunch of mutton, and apple tart!" Those viands despatched with no accompanying liquid save water, I mount upward to the library; take a book and my seat in the arm-chair, and read till nine; then call for a cup of coffee and a biscuit, resume my book till eleven, afterwards return home to bed. If I have |