vellers for our alacrity in dining on the road, but what stage-coach in the United States ever limited its dining-time to fifteen minutes, and what American dinner of roast, pastry, and cheese, was ever dispatched so briefly? Yet the travellers to Brighton are of the better class, and those who were my fellow passengers, the day I refer to, were particularly well-dressed and gentlemanly-yet all of them achieved a substantial dinner of beef, pudding, and cheese, paid their bills and drained their glass of porter within the quarter of an hour. John Bull's blindness to the beam in his own eye is perhaps owing to the fact that this hasty meal is sometimes called a "lunch!"

The two places beside our own in the inside were occupied by a lady and her maid, and two children—an interpretation of the number two to which I would not have agreed if I could have helped it. We cannot always tell, at first sight, what will be most amusing, however, and the child of two years, who sprawled over my rheumatic knees with her mother's permission, thereby occasioning on my part a most fixed look out of the window, furnished me after a while with a curious bit of observation. At one of the commons we passed, the children running out from a gipsy encampment flung bunches of heath-flowers into the coach, which the little girl appropriated, and commenced presenting rather graciously to her mother, the maid, and Mrs. W., all of whom received them with smiles and thanks. Having rather a sulky face of my own when not particularly called on to be pleased, the child omitted me for a long time in her distributions. At last after collecting and redistributing the flowers for about an hour, she grew suddenly grave laid the heath all out upon her lap, selected the largest and brightest flowers, and made them into a nosegay. My attention was attracted by the seriousness of the child's occupation, and I was watching her without thinking my notice observed, when she raised her eyes to me very timidly, turned her new bouquet over and over, and at last, with a blush, deeper than I ever saw before upon a child, placed the flowers in my hand and hid her face in her mother's bosom. My sulkiness gave way of course, and the little coquette's pleasure in her victory was excessive. For the remainder of the journey, those who had given her their smiles too readily were entirely neglected, and all her attentions were showered upon the only one she had found it difficult to please. Ithought it as pretty a specimen of the ruling_passion strong in babyhood as I ever saw. It was a piece of finished coquetry in a child not old enough to speak plain.

The coachman of "the Age" was a young man of perhaps thirty, who is understood to have run through a considerable fortune, and drives for a living-but he was not at all the sort of looking person you would fancy for a "swell whip." He was slender, graceful, and

rather pale, with a retiring and thoughtful expression of face, very distinguished in his dress and style, and on the modest side of gentlemanlike in his manners. He drove beautifully, and helped the passengers out and in, lifted their baggage, &c., very handily, but evidently shunned notice, and had no desire to chat with the "outsides." The excessive difficulty in England of finding any clean way of making a living after the initiatory age is passed (a difficulty which reduced gentlemen feel most keenly)—probably forced this person, as it has others, to take up a vocation for which the world fortunately finds an excuse in eccentricity. He touches his hat for the half crown or shilling, although probably if it were offered to him when the whip was out of his hand, he would knock the giver down for his impertinence. I may as well record here, by the way, for the benefit of those who may wish to know a comparison between the expense of travelling here and at home, that for two inside places for thirty miles, the coach fare was two pounds, and the coachman's fee five shillings, or half-a-crown each inside. To get from the post town to

-Park, (two miles,) cost me five and sixpence for a "fly," so that for thirty-two miles travel I paid £2 10s. 6d., somewhere rising of twelve dollars.

And speaking of vocations, it would be an useful lesson to some of our ambitious youths to try a beginning at getting a living in England. I was never at all aware of the difficulty of finding even bread and salt for a young man, till I had occasion lately to endeavour to better the condition of a servant of my own -a lad who has been with me four or five years, and whose singular intelligence, good principles, and high self improvement fitted him, I thought, for any confidential trust or place whatever. His own ideas, too, (I thought, not unreasonably,) had become somewhat sublimated in America, and he was unwilling to continue longer as a servant. He went home to his mother, a working-woman of London, and I did my utmost the month I was in town, enquiring among all classes of my friends, advertising, &c., to find him any possible livelihood above menial service. I was met everywhere with the same answer_" there are hundreds of gentlemen's sons wearing out their youth in looking for the same thing." I was told daily that it was quite in vain that apprenticeships were as much sought as clerkships, and that every avenue to the making of a sixpence was overcrammed and inaccessible. My boy and his mother at last came to their senses, and consenting to apply once more for a servant's place, he was fortunate enough to engage as valet to a bachelor, and is now gone with his new master on a tour to France. As Harding the painter said to me, when he returned after his foreign trip, England is a great place to take the nonsense out of people.'

THE BEGGAR OF FLORENCE.
By D. L. I. HILLHOUSE.

BELMONTE had been born a beggar, and the recollection of his early life only carried him back to the time when he wandered through the streets of Florence, clad in tattered garments, and led by his mother, whose habiliments were akin to his own, and well corresponded with their condition. They slept in the open air; sometimes beneath the portico of the Pitti palace, and sometimes within the corridor of the Strozzi, and, not unfrequently, in the fishermen's sheds that lay scattered along the banks of the Arno below the storehouses of the Medici. One day while he was asleep on the steps of the cathedral his mother left him, and he never saw her more; whether some accident befel her or not he could never learn, and being tolerably well bred to the trade of beggary, it gave him very little uneasiness; henceforth he pursued the profession on his own responsibility, and met with that success which was commensurate with his merits. He had no relations, and consequently had no cares but such as were necessarily connected with his own personal comforts. Indeed, he sometimes doubted whether she were his mother who early initiated him

VOL. I.

into the mysteries of his calling; still he felt a sense of gratitude towards her for her kind protection, and would fain indulge the thought that she did not wilfully abandon him. But the idea of adding a portion to the wealth of society, or of enlarging the blessings of this life by personal industry or individual exertion, never entered his head; he supposed that all the riches of this world had been absorbed by one portion of society merely to deal out a part gratuitously to another. Yet he sometimes wondered why those who had the bounties of Providence in their special charge did not deal it out equally to all at once, and thus put an end to all importunity.

Although Belmonte felt tolerably well satisfied with his condition, as long as he could silence the cravings of hunger, still he was not quite philosopher enough to look upon the splendid domes of the affluent without envy; and although he had never seen the interior of any of those costly piles of commercial grandeur, yet he often suffered his fancy to rove among their classic beauties, and pictured to himself the gorgeous scenes within necessary to correspond with the courtly magnificence without. On some occasions he contrasted his own dirty robe with the gay

H

frocks and showy finery of the Florentine youth, and felt a disposition almost to repine; but then the ease with which his time-worn trappings clung to his person, from old habits and long acquaintance, soon reconciled him to his lot.

Belmonte had now arrived at the age of twenty years, when early one morning, as he was wending his way along the streets towards the great quay where lay the ships of the Medici, he was accosted by a brother mendicant, who belonged to the Lazzaroni, saying " Ah, Belmonte, have you heard the news? Glorious times now! Signior Lorenzo di Medici has taken charge of all the good people of Florence-he feeds all the poor, and they say he intends to give up his palace to them, as he is tired of living there." “So, so,” replied Belmonte, thoughtfully, and then cast his eyes down his sides as if to take a close survey of his personal appearance; then, with an air of doubt and hesitation, added" Will he leave his wardrobe and all his provisions there?-he'll find no independent Florentine to live there without."

66

Ay, to be sure he will," rejoined Fran

cisco; "but then what is one to do for villains, as them proud nobles call poor folks what work, as nobody will have to work now, nor beg, nor steal-I'll not live there; 'twou'dn't suit me."

"If one could marry a Pisani, now," said Belmonte, still musing on the extraordinary prospect before him, "it would be pleasant; but where will Signior Lorenzo live?"

O, we must vote for him to be chief of the republic, and then he'll live amongst us, I suppose; sometimes with you, Belmonte, if you take the palace."

"Well, that's fair. Signior Lorenzo is a great man, and we must kill all the nobles what don't vote for him-but what's that noise ?"

"It's the people; that is, the free citizens, as they call us now, going to the great church; Lorenzo has ordered bread and wine to be placed under the portico-ah, Belmonte, we shall see no more such days if we don't make him chief of the republic-come, come, let's follow on."

The crowd soon came up, and Francisco and Belmonte joined the throng, and mingled their shouts with the tumult in loud praises of the Medici. In every quarter of the city groups of men, women, and children were seen gathered around the storehouses of the Medici, clamorous with excess of joy. Belmonte and his companion wandered from place to place, their appetites growing by what they fed on; at length, as evening began to close in, a large concourse of these citizens passed the Strozzi palace followed by Belmonte and Francisco, locked together by the arms, and reeling beneath the bounty of the Medici, which they had taken from the

wine-cup. As they made a pause to gaze on the splendour of this noble pile, Belmonte caught a glimpse of a beautiful female in one of the windows of an upper chamber, the sight of whom seemed to overcome all his faculties. "Let's rest beneath the corridor," said he, and he broke from his companion and fell on the steps at the side of a marble lion, one of which adorned each side of the entrance.

Francisco looked on him for a moment, and as he began to snore right lustily, exclaimed-" Well, the beast may take care of you to-night," and left him to his fate. Soon soft music came floating on the breeze, like the voice of some lone bird in the wilderness, anon the symphony began to swell, and grew louder and louder, until a wild harmonious strain burst forth on Belmonte's enraptured soul, and made him start from his flinty couch with wonder and amazement. It seemed as if he had been transported to the gates of paradise, and that they were thrown open to his bewildered eyes. At the door of the palace, a few feet from the entrance, stood the lovely being that first arrested his attention from the window; she was clad in white, with a full flowing robe that trailed behind her some two or three feet, the thin texture of which, added to its graceful disposition, seemed like the rich shading of the most exquisite form. Her veil was partly thrown aside, and discovered a cheek of the softest bloom, and a countenance expressive of the most endearing gentleness. She beckoned Belmonte to advance, who instantly obeyed, and as he gained the entrance, at the summit of the steps, she flew to meet him, and seizing one of his hands and clasping it with her delicate palms, she exclaimed "Dear Belmonte, how rejoiced I am to see you; this is indeed a condescension I could not have hoped for, but for the known benevolence of your disposition; come let me show the Pitti, the Medici, and the Caponi how much I am indebted to you for this kindness."

So saying, she led him through a long hall, the pavement of which was adorned with the richest mosaic, formed of various coloured marbles, inlaid with the most exquisite taste and workmanship. The walls exhibited some of the most splendid scenes, painted in fresco by the most eminent Italian masters; here and there the most finished statuary of a Leonardo and an Angelo graced the brilliant spectacle, and stood out in bold relief with such perfect harmony of form and feature, as if the daring hand that guided the chisel had contended with the Creator for the palm, whilst the more softened beauties of the pencil seemed like the calm and bright creations of a sinless world.

This scene, so new to Belmonte, filled him with the most ravishing delight; alternately he stopped to gaze upon the miniature world

Belmonte

around him, then with wild amazement on his fair conductress, and could hardly believe such a transcendent vision real; at length he paused before a Venus of Leonardo, veiled in light pink drapery, so transparent that it served only to throw a glowing lustre over the features of the goddess rich as the hues of life. Behind lay stretched far away the groves of Elysium, from the pencil of Raphael, in which the most lovely nymphs lay reclining in the shade, veiled only with the soft blush of innocence, while others sported on the banks of a silver lake and seemed to glisten from a submersion in the cooling waters as the crystal drops stood like beads on their rosy forms, or like pearly gems rolled from their fair bodies to the earth. began to suspect that it was all enchantment, and in the midst of his amazement and ecstasy once he essayed to speak; he turned to look upon the fair being who held his hand in her delicate grasp and led him through these ravishing scenes, when the witching smile of her countenance, blended with the soft and lustrous expression of her large, dark eyes, seemed to stifle every effort, and without breathing a whisper, he passively followed on. Soon they passed through a long train of attendants and came to a spacious archway, closed with folding doors. They had no sooner arrived at this spot, than the doors flew open and discovered such a blaze of light as caused Belmonte to start back with affright, which circumstance produced a loud laugh from his companion, accompanied with a more tightened grasp of the hand.

When the first shock of surprise had subsided he again permitted himself to be led forward, and as he passed the splendid portals he saw himself and his companion reflected in a large mirror on the opposite side of the apartment, and was astounded to find himself clad in the richest robes of the Florentine nobility. How this change had been effected he knew not, but ere he had time to recover from this new surprise, he was led forward and introduced to the females of the Medici, the Pitti, the Caponi, and the Pazzi, as the most distinguished guest of the Strozzi, to all of whom he addressed himself with becoming courtesy, and even wondered at his own selfpossession and ease in a scene so entirely new. He found himself the lion of the pa

lace; all the ladies were eager to receive his attentions, and hung with rapture on his discourse, whilst all the gentlemen seemed anxious to obtain his opinion on matters of

state.

Finally, Lorenzo de Medici led him through a long train of nobility, up to the farther end of the chamber and seated him on a temporary throne, saying " Signior Belmonte, be chief of this great Republic; govern with wisdom and with justice; you have been chosen by the nobility to represent the state, and all the

people have ratified the choice; in order to strengthen your administration, it is necessary that a bond be formed between the nobility and the citizens, and to effect this, I would suggest a matrimonial alliance with the Strozzi, as the most agreeable; she who conducted you before this august assembly is alone worthy of your hand. We wait your answer ere we conduct you before the great council of the state; the Signorina has already met to receive you with all those honours due to the chief magistrate of the Florentine republic."

When this salutation had ended, Belmonte's surprise had increased to the last degree of wonder and astonishment. He cast a hasty glance over that brilliant assembly, gathered together in the most splendid apartment of the Strozzi palace to do him honour, and felt that fortune, though tardy in administering justice, had at length paid him back her long arrears with more than interest. Still he distrusted his powers to serve the state as effectually as he could wish, and rose from his seat with that modesty so peculiar to conscious virtue and integrity, when suddenly drawn from retirement and thrust before an

admiring world, to express his gratitude for this distinguished mark of approbation. But before he had uttered a sentence, he discovered the crowd simultaneously to part in front of his seat, and an open space to extend in a direct line down to the brazen doors, which were thrown open; a man then hastily advanced up this avenue and was within ten feet of the chair of state when Belmonte recognized the intruder as Francisco. The sight of his old associate, so unlooked for, called up for a moment a thousand recollections of his former life, and produced a confusion in his manners and appearance which it was impossible to conceal. He turned first on one side, then on the other in his seat, and seemed utterly at a loss how to proceed. At length he resolved to appeal to the nobility and command them to respect his elevation, which he owed to their generosity, so far as to rid him of the presence of the impertinent intruder.

"It is our sovereign will and pleasure,' said Belmonte, "that the commencement of our administration be distinguished by a strict regard to the welfare of the state; that we swerve not from the most rigid examples of justice, therefore we banish all paupers and idlers from the Tuscan territory.' Scarcely had he uttered these words when he felt a strange and chilling sensation creeping over his whole frame, accompanied with something like an electric shock in the right foot. The lights seemed gradually to fade before his eyes the assembly became mute; he attempted to go on, but only vented his anguish in a hollow groan, and awoke on the cold steps beneath the marble lion to find that the day had already dawned, and that Francisco was dragging him by the heel.

"Wake wake up, Belmonte," said he ; up, "Medici's wine has made you sleep like a beast all night under the lion."

FASHIONABLE NOVELS.

A MODERN novel must be in three volumes. It matters not whether the author's story is long or short-his plot intricate or simplehis incidents crowded or scarce-his characters few or many-in all cases his novel must be in three volumes. It is the publisher's fiat. If Richardson had lived in these days, he would have had to cut down Clarissa Harlow, Pamela, and Sir Charles Grandison to three volumes each, and Goldsmith would have had to expand his charming little Vicar of Wakefield to the same dimensions. A tale in one or two volumes is deemed trivial, and in four or upwards cumbersome, and therefore no novel-writer, unless he be an established favorite, dares depart from the beaten track of three octavos or duodecimos. gives rise to a systematic process of elaboration which is a very great bore. Indeed there is no end to the affectation and flimsiness of which it is productive; and an author is frequently obliged to wire-draw his scenes and thoughts in a way which is very afflicting.

This

The interrogation and exclamation are much in request and special favourites with those who practise the art of spinning. Sometimes there is a good deal of ingenuity manifested in this department, and sometimes there is no ingenuity at all. The design is frequently too apparent too barefaced; neither wit nor humour is employed to conceal the fraud. A gentleman's inquiries about little or nothing are numerous in the extreme, and his surprise about little or nothing prolonged to a painful extent. For instance

"Were you at Sanderson's last night, Tom?"

"Yes." "Crowded?"

SKETCH OF BRIGHTON, BY A VISITOR. BRIGHTON is like a great city, built entire, and at one job, to order. It is fresh and modern all over. It looks finished, too, for there is no sign of building, and in that it is unlike an American city. The cliffs are broad streets, beautifully Macadamised, with rows of Palaces on one side, and the surf of the sea on the other. I think the two cliffs, which form a crescent with the Queen's Pavilion and the chain pier in the centre, are something more than three miles long. The most magnificent feature in this long terrace, is a succession of squares, receding from the beach, and with one side open to the seathe houses are of a very highly ornamented style of building, and surmounted with balconies, low windows and belvideres, so as to command from every room and chamber a prospect of the sea. These three-sided squares are all large, with an enclosed park in the centre, and in such a windy place as Brighton, form very snug and sheltered promenades to the slender-legged invalid, and the sail-carrying dame. Kemp Town, as it is called, forms the eastern extremity of the horn, and the

feet above the beach, has subterranean passages running under the street, and connecting every house with baths on the sea. This is the finest bit of Brighton in point of architecture, and in one of its plainest houses lives the Duke of Devonshire.

The other features of the cliffs are small phaetons to let for children, drawn each by a pair of goats, well groomed and appointed; hand carriages for invalids; all sorts of pony chaises sputtering about with fat ladies, and furnished invariably with the smallest conceivable boy behind; any quantity of lumber"double flys ing or two-horse coaches, drawn by one wretched skeleton of an animal, and occupied usually by a fat cit and his numerous family; great numbers of remarkably