THE LOVER TO HIS MISTRESS. BY MISS JEWSBURY. "Of all the roses grafted on her cheek, And thou upon thy bier of death Art shrouded for the tomb! Nor living pulse, nor human breath, Shall watch, and feel no fear. 'Till they seem of breathing mould;Yet fonder, holier, is my gaze, Than when in periods past, I saw that beauty's living blaze, For now I gaze my last. Those lips are musical no more, But their still sweet smile is there, The flashing of thine eye is o'er, But the calm-closed lid, how fair! Oh, I could bow to sorrow's storm, Nor sigh for days more bright, If ever thus, that hallowed form Might sleep within my sight! More joy to watch thee stirless there, To kiss that bloodless brow, Than gaze on crowds of living fair, Though fair as once wer't thou! My perished love! my soul's delight! Crush-crush that tolling bell! Vain wish-the light becomes more clear, Dekker. VAST as is the period, and singular as are the changes of European history since the Christian era, Judea still continues to be the most interesting portion of the world. Among other purposes, it may be for the purpose of fixing the general eye upon this extraordinary land, that it has been periodically visited by a more striking succession of great public calamities than perhaps any other region. With less to attract an invader than any other conspicuous land of the East, it has been constantly exposed to invasion.. Its ruin by the Romans in the first century did not prevent its being assailed by almost every barbarian, who, in turn, assumed the precarious sovereignty of the neighboring Asia. After ages of obscure misery, a new terror came in the Saracen invasion, which, under Amrou, on the conquest of Damascus, rolled on Palestine. A seige of four months, which we may well conceive to have abounded in horrors, gave Jerusalem into the hands of the Kaliph Omar. On the death of Omar, who died by the usual fate of Eastern princes-the dagger-the country was left to the still heavier misgovernment of the Moslem viceroys-a race of men essentially barbarian, and commuting for their crimes by their zeal in proselytism. The people, of course, were doubly tormented. A new scourge fell upon them in the invasion of the Crusaders, at the beginning of the twelfth century, followed by a long succession of bitter hostilities and public weakness. After almost a century of this wretchedness, another invasion from the Desert put Jerusalem into the hands of its old oppressor, the Saracen; and in 1187, the famous Saladin, expelling the last of the Christian sovereigns, took possession of Palestine. After another century of tumult and severe suffering, occasioned by the disputes of the Saracen princes, it was visited by a still more formidable evil in the shape of the Turks, then wholly uncivilized-a nation in all the rudeness and violence of mountaineer life, and spreading blood and fire through Western Asia. From this date (1317) it remained under the dominion of the Ottoman, until its conquest, a few years ago, by that most extraordinary of all Mussulmans, the Pacha of Egypta dreary period of 500 years, under the most desolating government of the world. It is equally impossible to read the Scriptural references to the future condition of Palestine, without discovering a crowd of the plainest and most powerful indications that it shall yet exhibit a totally different aspect from that of its present state. Enthusiasm, or even the natural interest which we feel in this memorable nation, may color the future to us too brightly; but unless language of the most solemn kind, uttered on the most solemn occasions, and by men divinely commissioned for its utterance, is wholly unmeaning, we must yet look to some powerful, unquestionable, and splendid display of Providence in favor of the people of Israel. The remarkable determination of European politics toward Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, within these few years; the not less unexpected change of manners and customs, which seemed to defy all change; and the new life infused into the stagnant governments of Asia, even by their being flung into the whirl of European interests, look not unlike signs of the times. It may be no dream, to imagine in these phenomena the proofs of some memorable change in the interior of things -some preparatives for that great providential restoration, of which Jerusalem will yet be the scene, if not the center; and the Israelite himself, the especial agent of those high transactions, which shall make Christianity the religion of all lands, restore the dismantled beauty of all earth, and make manwhat he was created to be-only a little lower than the angels.' The statistics of the Jewish population are among the most singular circumstances of this most singular of all people. Under all their calamities and dispersions, they seem to have remained at nearly the same amount as in the days of David and Solomon, never much more in prosperity, never much less after ages of suffering. Nothing like this has occurred in the history of any other race; Europe in general having doubled its population within the last hundred years, and England nearly tripled hers within the last half century; the proportion of America being still more rapid, and the world crowding in a constantly increasing ratio. Yet the Jews seem to stand still in this vast and general movement. The population of Judea in its most palmy days, probably did not exceed, if it reached, four millions. The numbers who entered Palestine from the wilderness were evidently not much more than three; and their census, according to the German statists, who were gen erally considered to be exact, is now nearly the same as that of the people under Moses-about three millions. They are thus distributed: In Europe, 1,916,000, of which about 658,000 are in Po land and Russia, and 453,000 are in Austria. In Asia, 738,000, of which 300,000 are in Asiatic Turkey If we add to these about 15,000 Samaritans, the calculation in round numbers will be about 3,180,000. This was the report in 1825-the numbers probably remain the same. This extraordinary fixedness in the midst of almost universal increase, is doubtless not without a reason-if we are even to look for it among the mysterious operations which have preserved Israel a separate race through eighteen 254 Jerusalem-A Lesson in Dancing, and a Clerical Dancing Master. hundred years. May we not naturally conceive, that a peo ple thus preserved without advance or retrocession; dispersed, yet combined; broken, yet firm; without a country, yet dwellers in all; every where insulted, yet every where influential; without a nation, yet united as no nation ever was before or since has not been appointed to offer this extraordinary contradiction to the common laws of society, and even the common progress of nature, without a cause, and that cause one of final benevolence, universal good, and divine grandeur? "Twas eve on Jerusalem! Glorious its glow On the vine-cover'd plain, On the mount's marble brow, On the Temple's broad grandeur, Enthroned on its hight, Like a golden-domed isle In an ocean of light; And the voice of her multitudes Rose on the air, From the vale deep and dim, All the thousands are still- Where, like one from the tomb, "Thou'rt lovely, Jerusalem! Shall see thy last stone. On that tempest are roll'dTwin demons of havoc To ravage thy fold. "They rush through the land As through forests the fire; Woe, woe to the infant, Woe, woe to the sire; Rejoice for the warrior Who sinks to the grave; But weep for the livingA ransomless slave. "But, veil'd be mine eyeballs! The red torch is flung, And the last dying hymn Of the temple is sung! The altar is vanish'd, The glory is gone; The curse is fulfill'd, The last vengeance is done! "Again all is darkness: Year rolls upon year; I hear but the fetter, I see but the bier. But the lions are coming! "Like the swamp-gender'd hornets Mix'd with Israel's lament Of disdain and despair! I see the proud chiefs Of the West in their mail; And my soul loves the standard They spread to the gale. "Stay, vision of splendor! On Jordan's rich marge They rush to the battle, Earth shakes with their charge. Like lightning the blaze From their panoply springs; I see the gold helms And crown'd banners of kings. "Yet evil still smites thee, Thou daughter of tears! No trophy is thine In the strife of the spears. And Saracen lord, Of the chain or the sword. "Again all is silence! The long grass has grown Where the cross-bearer sleeps In his rich-sculptured stone; And the land trod by prophet And chanted by bard, Is left to the foot Of the wolf and the pard. "But who rides the whirlwind? The drinkers of blood!From the summit of Lebanon Rushes the flood. "Tis the Turcoman ravening Thou art now in the toil. As cold as our grave. All our freedom his will, Is couch'd in his lair. And Israel on earth Can but wander and weep. The redemption is nigh. Shot to heaven from the pyre. "Who comes in his glory, Pavilion'd in cloud? Judah, cast off thy shame! Israel, spring from thy shroud Thy King has avenged theeHe comes to his own, With earth for his empire, But Zion his THRONE! ANECDOTE OF PORPORA.-A cardinal being desirous to obtain a good organist for his chapel, requested Porpora to attend the service for the purpose of giving his opinion upon the probationary performance of a candidate, who had been especially recommended to his eminence. In an attempt to extemporise at the opening of the service, Porpora readily discovered the organist's superficial knowledge of the science. The cardinal, after the mass, inquiring with much anxiety Porpora's opinion of a person so favorably introduced to his notice, received this reply: "He must needs be a man of unbounded charity." "Well, well, but I want to know your opinion of him as a musician." "I have already given it," said Porpora; "for he letteth not his left hand know what his right doeth." A LESSON IN DANCING, AND A CLERICAL DANCING MASTER. "HAVE you read Baruch?" was the question which La Fontaine was in the habit of propounding to every person he met. "Have you read Young?" we should take the liberty of asking, were not the inquiry a useless one. Who has not wandered, with the poet of the Night Thoughts,' under the gloomy cypress trees of the church-yards his imagination loved to depict? for, in spite of their dark and sombre coloring, his portraitures possess atraction which it is almost impossible to resist. Such is the constitution of the heart; in its alternations of reverie, the image of grief and suffering is not without a certain charm; and we all know, and must have felt, that there is a pleasure even in melancholy. And yet how much in Young is false and exaggerated! How little he possesses of that gentle and unaffected sadness which finds its way at once to the heart and twines around its strings while it softens and relaxes them; in fact, in his strained and pompous elegies, there is something labored and artificial, which checks the illusion, and compels us to think of the author instead of the sentiment. There are fine verses and fine images, but very little nature. True grief, the grief which consoles the heart as if with a hand of iron, does not so coquettishly and carefully arrange the crape folds of its mourn ing. The declamation of Young is constantly directed against solitude; hence we infer that reverie and contemplation were not habitual to him; yet the Parnassus of the poets is a solitary mountain. Be this as it may, it would have seemed at one time that the most emphatic of our elegiac poets was not predestined to sigh away his soul in lugubrious accents. In his youth, when the horizon of his future life was brilliant clouds, he was among the gayest and merriest, hurrying joyfully along the path of life, and gathering the smiling flowers that embroidered its walks. It was not until multiplied chagrins and bitter disappointments had shivered the prism which reflected so bright a tint on the objects of his hopes and fancy, that he gave utterance to those lamentations which conjure up so despairing an image of human nature. When Young left the University he was a Master of Arts, and brought away with him a vast stock of Greek and Latin. But the fire of a fine imagination was not extinguished under the heavier, acquisition of his scholastic pursuits; its vivida vis and enthusiasm had survived, and when he began the world, his heart was new and peculiarly susceptible to each impression. Thus constituted, a person will not go far without meeting Love on his road; and Young soon discovered it in the charming smile and piquant grace of Anna Bowley, to whom he offered a timid homage, which was accepted without hesitation. The society in which his fair one moved necessa rily became the centre of his universe, and the ladies that composed it possessed in him a most devoted and assiduous cavalier. One fine summer evening he escorted them to the river-side, not then so thickly built upon as now. It was in the middle of summer, and the hour was that delightful one when the wings of the breeze bring coolness with them to refresh all nature, which was languid and exhausted by the heat of one of those oppressive days which ever and anon give us a taste of the fervid hours of a torrid clime. Bustle and activity prevailed around; the river was instinct with life and motion, and a thousand boats, gallantly equipped and manned, fur rowed its broad bosom; a thousand confused sounds floated in the air; and the John Bull of the olden time seemed to be in the full enjoyment of his proverbial merriment that picturesque John Bull of the second quarter of the eighteenth cen A Lesson in Dancing, and Clericol Dancing Master-The Spectre of Tappington. tury, in cocked-hat, and laced cravat, embroidered and brightcolored coat, knee-breeches, and high-quartered shoes. Young enjoyed the scene with a poet's eye, and found ample materials for the indulgence of his satirical turn, when one of the ladies proposed that they should all go to Vauxhall, as it was a public night. The proposition was received with acclamation, and a wherry was soon freighted with the joyous company. By way of amusing his fair friends, Young drew from his pocket a flute, on which he excelled, and his notes were so perfect that a crowd of boats soon gathered around; among others was one filled with young officers, which pulled hastily up, and took a station alongside that of the musician. As Young only played for the gratification of his company and himself, he did not choose to be made a public spectacle; so he soon ceased, and returned his flute into its case. One of the officers took offence at this; and, thinking that his game was sure with a young man in a clergyman's dress, and whose aspect was any thing but martial, he ordered the player to produce his flute and begin anew. Young shrugged his shoulders at this piece of impertinence, but took no further notice of it; it was followed by threats and curses, which had no greater effect upon the person against whom they were directed. The officer, who was very angry that his orders were disobeyed, and his menaces despised, directed his rowers to close with the boat of the refractory musician, and swore that he would fling him into the Thames unless he immediately began playing. The alarm of the ladies was intense, and seeing that the soldier was about putting his threat into execution, they entreated Young to yield to the exigency; but the indignant flutist still resisted. "Edward!" exclaimed a soft voice at his side; "will you do nothing to oblige me?" "Do you wish me, Anna, to submit to the degrading insolence of such a brute ?" "Yes, I do; I beg it, if you have any regard for me." Young drew out his flute without another word, and played several gay airs, whilst the triumphant soldier beat time with ostentation, applauded vehemently, and looked round as if to impress upon the auditors the idea of his irresistible import ance. The company soon after reached Vauxhall, where the parties separated. But although Young's exterior was calm, he felt a deep resentment for the insult to which he had been subjected in his mistress's presence. Her accents had soothed his wrath, but it could not extinguish the desire of vengeance, and of making his oppressor ridiculous in his turn; so he determined not to lose sight of the aggressor, and to take the first opportunity, when he was alone, of speaking to him. An occasion soon offered, when he coolly addressed him"Sir," said he, "you have got an awkward habit of speaking too loudly." "Ah!" rejoined the other, "that's because I make a point of being obeyed at the first word." "But that depends upon your hearers; and I have a different opinion." "Have you? and yet it seems that just now "Oh, but you must know why I submitted to your rudeness." "Well, what is your wish now, sir?" "To give you to understand that if I produced my flute it was not to gratify you, but solely to oblige the ladies under my escort, and who were frightened at your long sword and loud oaths; but they are not here now; so—" "You know this is a challenge, and your cloth " Why should it? You have affronted me, and owe me satisfaction." The soldier smiled disdainfully as he said-" As you please, sir; you shall be satisfied. When and in what place shall it be ?" "To-morrow, at day-break, in Battersea fields, without seconds, as the affair only concerns you and me, and my profession compels me to have some regard to the proprieties of society." "Be it so; what are your arms?" "The sword," replied the juvenile member of the church 255 "Perhaps; but that will depend upon yourself. Last night I played upon the flute; this morning it is your turn to dance." "I would die first; you have taken an unworthy advantage of this stratagem." As you did yesterday of the ladies' presence; but come, captain, you must begin your minuet." "I shall do nothing of the kind, sir: your conduct is most ungentlemanly." "No strong language here, captain; dance at once, or I will fire." These words, which were uttered with much earnestness, and accompanied with a corresponding gesture, produced the effect desired. The officer, finding himself in a retired place, and at the mercy of a man whom he had grievously offended, and who seemed determined to exact reparation after his own fashion, did as he was desired, and stepped through the figure of a minuet, while Young whistled a slow and appropriate measure. When it was finished, Young said-"Sir, you have danced remarkably well; much better, in its way, than my flute-playing. We are now even; so, if you wish, we will begin another dance, in which I will be your vis-a-vis." Saying which, he drew his sword. But the dancer very justly thought he had received a proper lesson, and more favorably appreciating the man he had so wantonly insulted, thought it would be better to have him for a friend than an enemy. He therefore held out his hand to Young, shook it cordially: and in perfect harmony, and armin-arm, they quitted the spot which might have been fatal to one of them, but had, fortunately, only served to give and take a lesson in dancing. P. THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON. BY THOMAS INGOLDSBY, ESQ: "It is very odd, though, what can have become of them ?" said Charles Seaforth, as he peeped under the valance of an oldfashioned bedstead, in an old-fashioned apartment of a still more old-fashioned manor-house; "'tis confoundedly odd, and I can't make it out at all. Why, Barney, where are they? and where the d-l are you?" No answer was returned to this appeal; and the lieutenant, who is in the main a reasonable person-at least as reasonable a person as any young gentleman of twenty-two, in the ser vice' can fairly be expected to be-cooled when he reflected that his servant could scarcely reply extempore to a summons which it was impossible he should hear. An application to the bell was the considerate result; and the footsteps of as tight a lad as ever put pipe clay to belt sounded along the gallery. "Come in!" said his master. An ineffectual attempt upon the door reminded Mr. Seaforth that he had locked himself in. "By heaven! this is the oddest thing of all," said he, as he turned the key and admitted Mr. Maguire into his dormitory. "Barney, where are my pantaloons?" "Is it the breeches ?" asked the valet, easting an inquiring eye round the apartment; "is it the breeches, sir?" "Yes; what have you done with them?" "Sure then, your honer had them on when you went to bed, and it's hereabout they 'll be, I'll be bail;" and Barney lifted a fashionable tunic from a cane-backed arm-chair, proceeding in his examination. But the search was vain: there was the tunic aforesaid-there was a smart-looking kerseymere waistcoat; but the most important article in a gentleman's wardrobe was still wanting. . "Where can they be?" asked the master, with a strong accent on the auxiliary verb. "Sorrow a know I knows," said the man. "It must have been the devil, then, after all, who has been here and carried them off!" cried Seaforth, staring full into Barney's face. Mr. Maguire was not devoid of the superstition of his countrymen, but he looked as if he did not subscribe to the sequitur. His master read incredulity in his countenance. "Why, I tell you, Barney, I put them there, on that arm-chair, when I got into bed; and, by heaven! I distinctly saw the ghost of the old fellow they told me of, come in at midnight, put on my pantaloons, and walk away with them. "May be so," was the cautious reply. and the Oaken Chumber' was rarely tenanted, save on occa sions of extraordinary festivity, or when the Yule Log drew an unusually large accession of guests around the Christmas "I thought, of course, it was a dream; but then-where hearth. the devil are the breeches?" The question was more easily asked than answered. Barney renewed his search, while the Lieutenant folded his arms, and, leaning against the toilet, sunk into a revery. "After all, it must be some trick of my laughter-loving cousin," said Seaforth. Ah! then, the ladies!" chimed in Mr. Maguire, though the observation was not addressed to him; “and will it be Miss Caroline or Miss Fanny that 's stole your honor's things?" "I hardly know what to think of it," pursued the bereaved Lieutenant, still speaking in soliloquy, with his eye resting dubiously on the chamber door. "I locked myself in, that's certain; and-but there must be some other entrance to the room-pooh! I remember-the private staircase; how could I be such a fool?" and he crossed the chamber to where a low oaken doorease was dimly visible in a distant corner. He paused before it. Nothing was now interpoesd to screen it from observation; but it bore tokens of having been at some earlier period concealed by tapestry, remains of which yet clothed the walls on either side the portal. "This way they must have come," said Seaforth; "I wish with all my heart I had caught them!" "Och! the kittens!" sighed Mr. Barney Maguire. But the mystery was yet as far from being solved as before. True, there was the other door;' but then that, too, on examination, was even more firmly secured than the one which opened on the gallery-two heavy bolts on the inside effectually prevented any coup de main on the Lieutenant's bivouac from that quarter. He was more puzzled than ever; nor did the minutest inspection of the walls and floor throw any light upon the subject: one thing only was clear-the breeches were gone! "It is very singular," said the Lieutenant. On this eventful night it was prepared for the unknown visiter, who sought his couch heated and inflamed from his midnight orgies, and in the morning was found in his bed a swollen and blackened corpse. No marks of violence appeared upon the body; but the livid hue of the lips, and the certain darkcolored spots visible on the skin, aroused suspicions which those who entertained them were too timid to express. Apoplexy, induced by the excesses of the preceding night, Sir Giles's confidential leech pronounced to be the cause of his sudden dissolution. The body was buried in peace; and though some shook their heads as they witnessed the haste with which the funeral rites were hurried on, none ventured to murmur. Other events arose to distract the attention of the retainers: men's minds became occupied by the stirring politics of the day, while the near approach of that formidable armada, so vainly arrogating to itself a title which the very elements joined with human valor to disprove, soon interfered to weaken, if not obliterate, all remembrance of the nameless stranger who had died within the walls of Tapton Everard. Years rolled on: the Bad Sir Giles' had himself long since gone to his account, the last, as it was believed, of his immediate line; though a few of the older tenants were sometimes heard to speak of an older brother, who had disappeared in early life, and never inherited the estate. Rumors, too, of his having left a son in foreign lands were at one time rife; but they died away, nothing occurring to support them: the property passed unchallenged to a collateral branch of the family, and the secret, if secret there were, was buried in Denton churchyard, in the lonely grave of the mysterious stranger.— One circumstance alone occurred, after a long-intervening period, to revive the memory of these transactions. Some workmen employed in grubbing an old plantation for the purpose of raising on its site a modern shrubbery, dug up, in the seemed to have been once a garment. On more minute inspection enough remained of silken slashes and a coarse em broidery to identify the relics as having once formed part of a pair of trunk hose; while a few papers which fell from them, altogether illegible from damp and age, were by the unlearned rustics conveyed to the then owner of the estate. Tappington (generally called Tapton) Everard, is an anti-execution of their task, the mildewed remnants of what quated but commodious manor-house in the eastern division of the county of Kent. A former proprietor had been HighSheriff in the days of Elizabeth, and many a dark and dismal tradition was yet extant of the licentiousness of his life, and the enormity of his offences. The Glen, which the keeper's daughter was seen to enter, but never known to quit, still frowns darkly as of yore; while an ineradicable bloodstain on Whether the squire was more successful in deciphering the oaken stair yet bids defiance to the united energies of soap them was never known; he certainly never alluded to their and sand. But it is with one particular apartment that a deed contents; and little would have been thought of the matter of more especial atrocity is said to be connected. A stranger but for the inconvenient memory of one old woman, who deguest so runs the legend-arrived unexpectedly at the man-clared she heard her grandfather say that when the 'stran sion of the Bad Sir Giles.' They met in apparent friendship; but the ill-concealed scowl on their master's brow told the domestics that the visit was not a welcome one. The banquet, however, was not spared; the wine-cup circulated freelytoo freely, perhaps for sounds of discord at length reached the ears of even the excluded serving-men as they were doing their best to imitate their betters in the lower hall. Alarmed, some of them ventured to approach the parlor. One, an old and favored retainer of the house, went so far as to break in upon his master's privacy. Sir Giles, already high in oath, fiercely enjoined his absence, and he retired; not, however, before he had distinctly heard from the stranger's lips a menace that "There was that within his pocket which could disprove the knight's right to issue that or any other command within the walls of Tapton." The intrusion, though momentary, seemed to have produced a beneficial effect; the voices of the disputants fell, and the conversation was carried on thenceforth in a more subdued tone, till, as evening closed in, the domestics, when summoned to attend with lights, found not only cordiality restored, but that a still deeper carouse was meditated. Fresh stoups, and from the choicest bins, were produced; nor was it till at a late, or rather early hour, that the revelers sought their cham bers. The one allotted to the stranger occupied the first floor of the eastern angle of the building, and had once been the favorite apartment of Sir Giles himself. Scandal ascribed this preference to the facility which a private staircase, communicating with the grounds, had afforded him, in the old knight's time, of following his wicked courses unchecked by parental observation—a consideration which ceased to be of weight when the death of his father left him uncontrolled master of his estate and actions. From that period Sir Giles had established himself in what were called the 'State Apartments;' ger guest' was poisoned, though all the rest of his clothes were there, his breeches, the supposed repository of the sup posed documents, could never be found. The master of Tap ton Everard smiled when he heard Dame Jones's hint of deeds which might impeach the validity of his own title in favor of some unknown descendant of some unknown heir; and the story was rarely alluded to, save by one or two miracle-mongers, who had heard that others had seen the ghost of old Sir Giles, in his night-cap, issue from the postern, enter the adjoining copse, and wring his shadowy hands in agony, as he seemed to search vainly for something hidden among the evergreens. The stranger's death room had, of course, been occa sionally haunted from the time of his decease; but the periods of visitation had latterly become very rare-even Mrs. Betherby, the housekeeper, being forced to admit that, during her long sojourn at the manor, she had never "met with any thing worse than herself;" though, as the old lady afterward added upon more mature reflection, "I must say I think 1 saw the devil once." Such was the legend attached to Tapton Everard, and such the story which the lively Caroline Ingoldsby detailed to her equally mercurial cousin Charles Seaforth, lieutenant in the Hon. East India Company's second regiment of Bombay Fencibles, as arm-in-arm they promenaded a gallery decked with some dozen grim looking ancestral portraits, and, among others, with that of the redoubted Sir Giles himself. The gal lant commander had that very morning paid his first visit to the house of his maternal uncle, after an absence of several years passed with his regiment on the arid plains of Hindos tan, whence he was now retnrned on a three years' furlough. He had gone out a boy,-he returned a man; but the impression made upon his youthful faney by his favorite cousin remained uuimpaired, and to Tapton he directed his steps, even before he sought the home of his widowed mother. comforting himself in this breach of filial decorum by the reflection that, as the manor was so little out of his way, it would be unkind to pass, as it were, the door of his relatives without just looking in for a few hours. But he found his uncle as hospitable and his cousin more charming than ever; and the looks of one, and the requests of the other, soon precluded the possibility of refusing to lengthen the 'few hours' into a few days, though the house was at the moment full of visiters. The Peterses were there from Ramsgate; and Mr. Mrs. and the two Miss Simpkinsons, from Bath, had come to spend a month with the family; and Tom Ingoldsby had brought down his college friend the Honorable Augustus Sucklethumbkin, with his groom and pointers, to take a fortnight's shoot ing. And then there was Mrs. Ogleton, the rich young widow, with her large black eyes, who, people did say, was setting her cap at the young squire, though Mrs. Botherby did not believe it; and, above all, there was Mademoiselle Pauline, her femme de chambre, who 'mon-Dieu'd' every thing and every body, and cried Quel horreur!' at Mrs. Botherby's cap. In short, to use the last named and much respected lady's own expression, the house was 'choke full' to the very attics-all, save theoaken chamber,' which, as the Lieutenant expressed a most magnanimous disregard of ghosts, was forthwith priated to his particular accommodation. Mr. Maguire meanwhile was fain to share the apartment of Oliver Dobbs, the Squire's own man; a jocular proposal of joint occupancy having been first indignantly rejected by Mademoiselle,' though preferred with the 'laste taste in life' of Mr. Barney's most insinuating brogue. appro "Come, Charles, the urn is absolutely getting cold; your breakfast will be quite spoiled: what can have made you so idle?" Such was the morning salutation of Miss Ingoldsby to the militaire as he entered the breakfast-room half an hour after the latest of the party. "A pretty gentleman, truly, to make an appointment with," chimed in Miss Frances. "What is become of our ramble to the rocks before breakfast?" "Oh! the young men never think of keeping promises now," said Mrs. Peters, a little ferret-faced woman with underdone eyes. "When I was a young man," said Mr. Peters, "I remember I always made a point of "Pray, how long ago was that?" asked Mr. Simpkinson from Bath. "Why, sir, when I married Mrs. Peters, I was-let me see-I was- 91 "Do pray hold your tongue, P., and eat your breakfast!" interrupted his better half, who had a mortal horror of chronological references; "it's very rude to tease people with your family affairs." The lieutenant had by this time taken his seat in silencea good-humored nod, and a glance, half smiling, half inquisitive, being the extent of his salutation. Smitten as he was, and in the immediate presence of her who had made so large a hole in his heart, his manner was evidently distrait, which the fair Caroline in her secret soul attributed to his being solely occupied by her agremens-how would she have bridled had she known that they only shared his meditations with a pair of breeches! Charles drank his coffee and spiked some half-dozen eggs, darting occasionally a penetrating glance at the ladies, in hope of detecting the supposed waggery by the evidence of some furtive smile or conscious look. But in vain; not a dimple moved indicative of roguery, nor did the slightest elevation of eyebrow rise confirmative of his suspicions. Hints and insinuations passed unheeded-more particular inquiries were out of the question: the subject was unapproachable. In the mean time, 'patent cords' were just the thing for a morning's ride, and, breakfast ended, away cantered the party over the downs, till, every faculty absorbed by the beauties, animate and inanimate, which surrounded him, Lieutenant Seaforth of the Bombay Fencibles bestowed no more thought upon his breeches than if he had been born on the top of Ben Lomond. * * * Another night had passed away; the sun rose brilliantly, forming with his level beams a splendid rainbow in the far-off west, whither the heavy cloud, which for the last two hours had been pouring its waters on the earth, was now flying before him. "Ah! then, and it 's little good it 'll be the claning of ye," apostrophised Mr. Barney Maguire, as he deposited, in front of his master's toilet, a pair of 'bran-new' jockey boots, one of Hoby's primest fits, which the Lieutenant had purchased in his way through town. On that very morning had they come for the first time under the valet's depuriating hand, so little soiled, indeed, from the turfy ride of the preceding day, that a less scrupulous domestic might, perhaps, have considered the application of Warren's Matchless,' or oxalic acid, altogether superfluous. Not so Barney: with the nicest care had he removed the slightest impurity from each polished surface, and there they stood rejoicing in their sable radiance. No wonder a pang shot across Mr. Maguire's breast, as he thought on the work now cut out for them, so different from the light labors of the day before; no wonder he murmured with a sigh, as the scarce dried window-panes disclosed a road now inchdeep in mud. "Ah! then, it's little good the cleaning of ye!" for well had he learned in the hall below that eight miles of a stiff clay soil lay between the manor and Bolsover Abbey, whose picturesque ruins, "Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay," the party had determined to explore. The master had already commenced dressing, and the man was fitting straps upon a light pair of crane-necked spurs, when his hand was arrested by the old question-"Barney, where are the breeches ?" They were no where to be found! Mr. Seaforth descended that morning, whip in hand, and equipped in a handsome green riding-frock, but no 'breeches and boots to match' were there loose jean trousers, surmounting a pair of diminutive Wellingtons, embraced, somewhat incongruously, his nether man, vice the 'patent cords,' returned, like yesterday's pantaloons, absent without leave. The 'top-boots' had a holiday. "A fine morning after the rain," said Mr. Simpkinson from Bath. "Just the thing for the 'ops," said Mr. Peters. “I remember when I was a boy-" "Do hold your tongue, P.," said Mrs. Peters-advice which that exemplary matron was in the constant habit of administering to "her P.," as she called him, whenever he prepared to vent his reminiscences. Her precise reason for this it would be difficult to determine, unless, indeed, the story be true which a little bird had whispered into Mrs. Botherby's ear-Mr. Peters, though now a wealthy man, had received a liberal education at a charity-school, and was apt to recur to the days of his muffin-cap and leathers. As usual, he took his wife's hint in good part, and 'paused in his reply.' "A glorious day for the ruins!" said young Ingoldsby. "But, Charles, what the deuce are you about?-you don't mean to ride through our lanes in such toggery as that?" Lassy me!" said Miss Julia Simpkinson, "won't you be very wet?" 66 You had better take Tom's cab," quoth the squire. But this proposition was at once overruled; Mrs. Ogleton had already nailed the cab, a vehicle of all others the best adapted for a snug flirtation. "Or drive Miss Julia in the phaeton?" No; that was the post of Mr. Peters, who, indifferent as an equestrian, had acquired some fame as a whip while traveling through the midland counties for the firm of Bagshaw, Snivelby, and Grimes. "Thank you, I shall ride with my cousins," said Charles, with as much nonchalance as he could assume—and he did so; Mr. Ingoldsby, Mrs. Peters, Mr. Simpkinson from Bath, and his eldest daughter with her album, following in the family coach. The gentleman commoner "voted the affair d-d slow," and declined the party altogether in favor of the game-keeper and a cigar. "There was 'no fun' in looking at old houses!" Mrs. Simpkinson preferred a short sejour in the still-room with Mrs. Botherby, who had promised to initiate her in that grand arcanum, the transmutation of gooseberry jam into Guava jelly. "Did you ever see an old abbey before, Mr. Peters?" "Yes, miss, a French one; we have got one at Ramsgate; he teaches the Miss Joneses to parley-voo, and is turned of sixty." Miss Simpkinson closed her album with an air of ineffable disdain. # * * * * Mr. Simpkinson from Bath, was a professed antiquary, and one of the first water; he was master of Gwillim's Heraldry, and Milles's History of the Crusades; knew every plate in the Monasticon; had written an essay on the origin and dignity of the office of overseer, and settled the date of a Queen Anne's farthing. An influential member of the Antiquarian |