this!

"So it has," said I, "and a very pretty eclat it is, and one that, somehow, or another, preserves its attractions much longer than most surprises; but I do not see the scrape after all."

we

"I am coming to that," said he, glancing timidly around the room. "The affair occurred this wise: were at an evening party-a kind of dejeune, it was, on the Thames-Charlotte came with her aunt-a shrewish old damsel, that has no love for me; in fact, she very soon saw my game, and resolved to thwart it. Well, of course, I was obliged to be most circumspect, and did not venture to approach her, not even to ask her to dance, the whole evening. As it grew late, however, I either became more courageous or less cautious, and I did ask her for a waltz. The old lady bristled up at once, and asked for her shawl. Charlotte accepted my invitation, and said she would certainly not retire so early; and I, to cut the matter short, led her to the top of the room. We waltzed together, and then had a gallop,' and after that some champagne, and then another waltz; for Charlotte was resolved to give the old lady a lesson-she has spirit for any thing ! Well, it was growing late by this time, and we went in search of the aunt at last; but, by Jove! she was not to be found. We hunted every where for her, looked well in every corner of the supperroom, where it was most likely we should discover her; and at length, to our mutual horror and dismay, we learned, that she had ordered the carriage up a full hour before, and gone off, declaring that she would send Charlotte's father to fetch her home, as she herself possessed no influence over her. Here was a pretty businesssthe old gentleman being, as Charlotte often told me, the most choleric man in England. He had killed two brother officers in duels, and narrowly escaped being hanged at Maidstone, for shooting a waiter who delayed bringing him hot water to shave-a pleasant old boy

"He will certainly shoot me-he will shoot you-he will kill us both!' were the only words she could utter; and my blood actually froze at the prospect before us. You may smile if you like; but let me tell you, that an outraged father, with a pair of patent revolving pistols, is no laughing matter. There was nothing for it, then, but to bolt.' She saw that as soon as I did; and although she endeavoured to persuade me to suffer her to return home alone, that, you know, I never could think of; and so, after some little demurrings, some tears, and some resistance, we got to the Euston-square station, just as the train was going. You may easily think, that neither of us had much time for preparation. As for myself, I have come away with a ten-pound note in my purse, not a shilling more have I in my possession, and here we are now, half of that sum spent already, and how we are to get on to the north, I cannot, for the life of me, conceive.'

"Oh! that's it," said I, peering at him shrewdly from under my eyelids.

"Yes, that's it, don't you think it is bad enough;" and he spoke the words with a reckless frankness, that satisfied all my scruples. "I ought to tell you," said he, "that my name is Blunden; I am a lieutenant in the Buffs, on leave; and now that you know my secret, will you lend me twenty pounds? which, perhaps, may be enough to carry us forward-at least, it will do, until it will be safe for me to write for money."

"But, what would bring you to the north," said I; "why not put yourselves on board the mail-packet this evening, and come to Dublin? We will marry you there, just as cheaply; pursuit of you will be just as difficult; and, I'd venture to say, you might choose a worse land for the honeymoon."

"But I have no money," said he ; "you forgot that,"

"For the matter of money," said I, "make your mind easy. If the young lady is going away with her own co:sent-if, indeed, she is as anxious to get married as you are, make me the banker, and I'll give her away, be the bride's-maid, or any thing else you please."

"You are a trump,” said he, helping

66

himself to another glass of my sherry; and then filling out a third, which emptied the bottle, he slapped me on the shoulder, and said, Here's your health; now come up stairs." "Stop a moment," said I, "I must see her alone there must be no tampering with the evidence."

He hesitated for a second, and surveyed me from head to foot, and whether it was the number of my double chins, or the rotundity of my waistcoast, divested his mind of any jealous scruples; but he smiled coolly, and said, "So you shall, old buck-we will never quarrel about that."

Up stairs we went accordingly, and into a handsome drawing-room on the first floor, at one end of which, with her head buried in her hands, the young lady was sitting.

"Charlotte," said he, "this gentleman is kind enough to take an interest in our fortunes, but he desires a few words with you alone."

I waved my hand to him to prevent his making any further explanation and as a signal to withdraw he took the hint and left the room.

Now, thought I, this is the second act of the drama-what the deuce am I to do here. In the first place, some might deem it my duty to admonish the young damsel on the impropriety of the step, to draw an afflicting picture of her family, to make her weep bitter tears, and end by persuading her to take a first-class ticket in the up-train. This would be the grand parento-moral line, and I shame to confess it, it was never my forte. Secondly, I might pursue the inquiry suggested by myself, and ascertain her real sentiments. This might be called the amico-auxiliary line. Or, lastly, I might try a little what might be done on my own score, and not see £30,000 and £1,700 a-year squandered by a cigarsmoking lieutenant in the Buffs.

As

there may be different opinions about this line, I shall not give it a name. Suffice it to say, that, notwithstanding a sly peep at as pretty a throat, and as well-rounded an instep as ever tempted a "government Mercury," I was true to my trust, and opened the negociation on the honest footing.

"Do you love him, my little darling," said I; for somehow consolation always struck me as own-brother to love-making. It is like endorsing

a bill for a friend, which, though he tells you he'll meet, you always feel responsible for the money.

She turned upon me an arch look. By St. Patrick, I half regretted I had not tried number three, as, in the sweetest imaginable voice, she said"Do you doubt it?"

I wish I could, thought I to myself. No matter, it was too late for regrets, and so I ascertained, in a very few minutes, that she corroborated every portion of the statement, and was as deeply interested in the success of the adventure as himself.

"That will do," said I. lucky fellow I always heard the Buffs were;" and with that I descended to the coffee-room, where the young man awaited me with the greatest anxiety.

"Are you satisfied?" cried he, as I entered the room.

66

Perfectly," was my answer. "And now let us lose no more time; it wants but a quarter to seven, and we must be on board in ten minutes."

As I have already remarked, my fellow-travellers were not burdened with luggage, so there was little difficulty in expediting their departure; and in half an hour from that time we were gliding down the Mersey, and gazing on the spangled lamps which glittered over that great city of soap, sugar, and sassafras, train-oil, timber, and tallow. The young lady soon went below, as the night was chilly; but Blunden and myself walked the deck until near twelve o'clock, chatting over whatever came uppermost, and giving me an opportunity to perceive that, without possessing any remarkable ability or cleverness, he was one of those off-hand, candid, clearheaded, young fellows, who, when trained in the admirable discipline of the mess, become the excellent specimens of well-conducted, well-mannered gentlemen our army abounds with.

We arrived in due course in Dublin. I took my friends up to Morrisson's, drove with them after breakfast to a fashionable milliner's, where the young lady, with an admirable taste, selected such articles of dress as she cared for, and I then saw them duly married. I do not mean to say that the ceremony was performed by a bishop, or that a royal duke gave her away; neither can I state that the train of

carriages comprised the equipages of the leading nobility. I only vouch for the fact that a little man, with a black eye and a sinister countenance, read a ceremony of his own composing, and made them write their names in a great book, and pay thirty shillings for his services; after which I put a fiftypound note into Blunden's hand, saluted the bride, and, wishing them every health and happiness, took my leave.

They started at once with four posters for the north, intending to cross over to Scotland. My engagements induced me to leave town for Cork, and in less than a fortnight I found at my club, a letter from Blunden, inclosing the fifty pounds, with a thousand thanks for my prompt kindness, and innumerable affectionate reminiscences from Madame. They were as happy as

-confound it, every one

is happy for a week or a fortnight, so I crushed the letter-pitched it into the fire-was rather pleased with myself for what I had done, and thought no more of the whole transaction.

Here then my tale should have an end, and the moral is obvious. Indeed I am not certain but some may prefer it, to that which the succeeding portion conveys, thinking that the codicil revokes the body of the testament. However that may be, here goes for it.

It was about a year after this adventure, that I made one of a party of six, travelling up to London by the "Grand Junction." The company were chatty, pleasant folk, and the conversation, as often happens among utter strangers, became anecdotic; many good stories were told in turn, and many pleasant comments made on them, when at length it occurred to me to mention the somewhat-singular rencontre I have already narrated, as having happened to myself.

"Strange enough," said I, "the last time I journied along this line, nearly this time last year, a very remarkable occurrence took place. I happened to fall in with a young officer of the Buffs, eloping with an exceedingly pretty girl; she had a large fortune, and was in every respect a great catch;' he ran away with her from an evening party, and never remembered until he arrived at Liverpool, that he had no money for the journey. In this dilemma, the young fellow, rather spooney about the whole

thing, I think would have gone quietly back by the next train, but, by Jove, I couldn't satisfy my conscience that so lovely a girl should be treated in such a manner. I rallied his courage; took him over to Ireland in the packet, and got them married next morning."

"Have I caught you at last, you old, meddling scoundrel," cried a voice, hoarse and discordant with passion, from the opposite side, and at the same instant a short, thick-set, old man, with shoulders like a Hercules, sprung at me; with one hand he clutched me by the throat, and with the other he pummelled my head against the panel of the conveyance, and with such violence, that many people in the next carriage averred that they thought we had run into the down train. So sudden was the old wretch's attack, and so infuriate withal, it took the united force of the other passengers to detach him from my neck; and even then, as they drew him off, he kicked at me like a demon. Never has it been my lot to witness such an outbreak of wrath; and, indeed, were I to judge from the symptoms it occasioned, the old fellow had better not repeat it, or assuredly apoplexy would follow.

"That villain-that old ruffian,” said he, glaring at me with flashing eyeballs, while he menaced me with his closed fist, "that cursed, meddling scoundrel is the cause of the greatest calamity of my life."

"Are you her father, then," articulated I faintly, for a misgiving came over me that my boasted benevolence might prove a mistake. "Are you

her father?" The words were not out, when he dashed at me once more, and were it not for the watchfulness of the others, inevitably had finished me.

“I've heard of you, my old buck,” said I, affecting a degree of ease and security, my heart sadly belied, "I've heard of your dreadful temper already

I know you can't control yourself. I know all about the waiter at Maidstone. By Jove, they did not wrong you, and I am not surprised at your poor daughter leaving you"-but he would not suffer me to conclude, and once more his wrath boiled over, and all the efforts of the others were barely sufficient to calm him into a semblance of reason.

There would be an end to my nar

rative if I endeavoured to convey to my reader the scene which followed, or recount the various outbreaks of passion, which ever and anon interrupted the old man, and induced him to diverge into sundry little by-ways of lamentation over his misfortune, and curses upon my meddling interference. Indeed his whole narrative was conducted more in the staccato style of an Italian opera father, than in the homely wrath of an English parent. The wind-up of these dissertations being always, to the one purpose, as with a look of scowling passion, directed towards me, he said, "Only wait 'till we reach the station, and see if I won't do for you."

His tale, in few words, amounted to this. He was the Squire Blundenthe father of the lieutenant in the "Buffs." The youth had formed an attachment to a lady, whom he had accidentally met in a Margate steamer. The circumstances of her family and fortune were communicated to him in confidence by herself, and although she expressed her conviction of the utter impossibility of obtaining her father's consent to an untitled match, she as resolutely refused to elope with him. The result, however, was as we have seen; she did elope-was married they made a wedding tour in

the Highlands, and returned to Blunden-Hall two months after, where the old gentleman welcomed them with affection and forgiveness. About a fortnight after their return, it was deemed necessary to make inquiry as to the circumstances of her estate and funded property, when the young lady fell upon her knees-wept bitterly said she had not a sixpence that the whole thing was a "ruse;" that she had paid five pounds for a choleric father, three, ten, for an aunt, warranted to wear "satin;" in fact, that she had been twice married before, and had heavy misgivings that the husbands were still living.

There was nothing left for it but compromise. "I gave her," said he, "five hundred pounds to go to the devil, and I registered, the same day, a solemn oath, that if I ever met this same Tramp, he should carry the impress of my knuckles on his face to the day of his death."

The train reached Harrow as the old gentleman spoke. I waited until it was again in motion, and flinging wide the door, I sprang out, and from that day to this, have strictly avoided forming acquaintance with a white lace bonnet, even at a distance, or ever befriending a lieutenant in the Buffs.

THE appearance of this volume has not surprised us; nor have we been disappointed by its contents. It offers the version given by an ambitious and enterprizing party, of certain passages in the struggle which was carried on in Ireland, in the past century, between the adherents and champions of legiti mate government and its adversaries. It offers the version given by a party, who, very naturally, account that struggle glorious-and who regard those who

fell in it, on their side, patriots and martyrs exulting in the thought, that the principle for which they suffered has eventually triumphed-and giving vent to their feelings in language of eulogium, warm as might be looked for, upon the memories they respect, and of equally unmeasured reprobation upon the acts and names of those whom they regard as, not merely personal opponents, but also implacable and unscrupulous ene

as

mies to a cause, which they assume to be that of reason, and justice, and liberty.

We ought not to be surprized to find such ideas entertained by persons who have seen the claims, which had no prospect of success in past days, except in the enterprizes of treason, acknowledged now as rights, and conceded in such a form, and under such circumstances, as not to conciliate one prejudice of the party which has extorted them. It is not wonderful that those who have seen "universal emancipation," parliamentary and municipal reform, wrung from the Protestant peerage and democracy of England— shall hold in high esteem the memory of the brave men who contended for these great objects, at a time when the contest seemed calamitous and hopeless-and that they shall pour opprobrium on the memories of those who could so sternly and so cruelly resist demands, which are now acknowledged to have been reasonable and just-or, at least, have been conceded, as if they

were so.

There are two considerations, however, by which persuasions such as these ought to be modified. The triumphs achieved by, or in favour of, the Roman Catholic party in Ireland, have been won under circumstances different from those under which they were aimed at in the last century; and the agencies through which they have been attained had an air of legiti macy about them. Concessions to the democratical principle, and to the Roman Catholic church, which are only

66

trebly hazardous" now, might have been ruinous before the act of Union: the conspiracies through which the attainted patriots of 1798 contemplated the attainment of their ends, were not precisely of the same description with the movements which have been, more recently, successful: it does not therefore, necessarily follow that the conspirators of the last century were right in their purposes, and in their prosecution of them-or that the government of that day was wrong in resisting demands which it would have been pernicious to grant, urged forward, as they were, in a manner, and through an instrumentality which the

An orga

law denominated treason. nized party, or faction, openly put forward a claim for what were styled equality and reform, while, under the cover of this demand, they sought to separate Ireland from Great Britain, and to render it an independant republic; the government and legislature resisted the open demand, and put down the more dangerous conspiracy. It does not follow that, because late or present governments have adopted a policy of concession, it was culpable in former governments to resist nor is the success, which has favoured Mr. O'Connell's system of agitation, a proof that the condemned conspirators of the last century were unfairly tried, or that they suffered unjustly.

Mr. M.Nevin is not of our opinion respecting the case of these daring men. He thinks they have been foully misrepresented.

"The Report," he writes, "of the Commons Committee of Secresy in 1798 has given a version of the foundation and original objects of the United Irishmen. There are few state papers which, assuming a line of philosophic candour, contains more misrepresentation and direct falsehood than this Report. Speaking of the institution of the society, it says: The Society under the name of United Irishmen, it appears, was instituted in 1791; its founders held forth what they termed Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform, as the ostensible objects of their union; but it clearly appeared, from the letter of Theobald Wolfe Tone accompanying their original constitution, as transmitted to Belfast for adoption, that, from its commencement the real purpose of those who were at the head of the institution was to separate Ireland from Great Britain, and to subvert the established constitution of this kingdom; in corroboration of which, your committee have annexed to this Report several of their early publications, particularly a prospectus of the society which appeared in 1791, as also the plan of reform which they recommended to the people.' Tone was, from the commencement of his career, a republican. He conceived that parliamentary reform was unattainable as long as a connection with England existed; and from the earliest period of his political career, he struggled, either