swallowed up in the parliament-quakes of schedules A. and B. The provision created by the wisdom of our ancestors to secure the junior branches of the aristocracy from the evils of bill-paying and bill-drawing by the privilege of bringing in bills, had been wantonly annihilated by a few speculative philosophers, such as Danby and Mereworth, as eldest sons, most incompetent judges of the exigencies of the case; and the consequence was that, Rigmarole being lost to Lord Ormington, I was forced to lose myself, by an alliance with Tchindagore Park.

Few men form a juster estimate than I of their personal consequence; for self-depreciation would be as great a piece of affectation on my part, as for the divinity of a temple eternally crowded with worshippers, to declare itself a false idol. Through life. the first men of the day. have sought my acquaintance, the first women of the day, my smiles. Names are up for my friendship as for the Steaks; and it has never been denied that, to entitle a man to be seen on the arm of Cecil Danby, he must be, as for a fellowship at All-Souls, well-born, well-dressed, and tolerably accomplished. My heart, like the widow's cruise, has been always full; and at the time of which I am writing, I am convinced that, had I been appointed Viceroy of Nova Zembla, half the best fellows in town would have applied to get upon my staff.

Yet it was amazing how high those Crutchleys carried themselves towards me!- The old lady, with her bird of Paradise turban and an aigrette of uncut sapphires which her late husband, Sir Marmaduke, had torn from that of Tippoo-Saib, surmounting a visage as grim as the Inquisition, used to receive me as if she expected me to perform three salams before her Begumitish footstool. - As to Marcia, her influence over my self-possession was so tremendous, that when, after trôner-ing at White's as King of the Coxcombs, I came grovelling into her presence, I seemed like Garrick playing Abel Drugger in the afterpiece, after paralyzing the audience as King Richard.

And all because towards them I had placed myself in a pitiful position ! - Other people were privileged to treat me like a puppy, they to treat me like a dog. I know not whether they did despise me, but I fancied they did,

for I despised myself. And yet, though ashamed of myself, I dared not back out of the business. I had incurred all the shame of an act of vileness; and by cutting short the connection, should only be said to have been dismissed into the ragged regiment of Miss Crutchley's rejected

suitors.

I persevered, therefore, though I own it was pain and grief to me whenever I noticed the dovelike eyes of little Mary fixed compassionately on my face, as much as to say, "I may perhaps escape from my fetters; but you, dear and unfortunate Cecil! are about to make yourself a victim for life!"

She was a pretty little soul, that Mary, fair and colourless, like the flowers that grow in some shady place. Her voice was feeble, her step timid, her eyes moist, her hand tremulous. She had evidently never had a day of happiness. I know not whether she were clever, - I dare say she did not know herself, for she had not been allowed leisure or liberty to think : the relation having nothing in this world she could call her own, — not even an opinion. The thing she probably liked best in the world was Mumpsey, the pug, as the only beast that did Poor Mary! not snap at her. poor dear child! — It was melancholy enough to see so fair a rose alone upon a hedge of thorns!

poor

After all, one certainly cares less for women who are qualified to take their own part in the world. - Talleyrand was quite right when he decided to save the pretty feeble little woman, of the party who were to be jété à l'eau, and leave Madame de Staël to her fate, parcequ' elle savait si bien nager. - I cannot understand how a fellow is able to resist the timid look that appeals to him for aid and protection. It is delightful to be able to confer happiness, very generous people say that it is still more delightful to accept it. I suppose the obligations vouchsafed to me have been vouchsafed by those I did not love; at all events, I had not undergone six weeks of formal courtship in Bruton Street, without discovering that the gentle, anxious glance hazarded towards me by Mary, from the table at which she was writing notes in the corner of the room, was worth ten thousand patronizing smiles such as those with which her lofty kinswoman acknowledged my salutations.

VOL. II.- -3

I have no doubt that Marcia was very much in love. It was not likely she should be otherwise. But "tel vrai que soit l'amour, il s'y mêle toujours un peu d'alliage;" and I am afraid it was no small triumph to her to enjoy the privilege of setting her foot upon the neck of the universal conqueror.

She

Women were not organized by nature for independence; and the mere exercise of authority hardens many a female heart, which, if kept in becoming subjection, would remain as soft and soothing as pâte de guimauve. - Marcia was not only rendered obdurate by a long course of free agency, but evidently contemplated the retention of her iron sceptre in the married state. seemed resolved, since fated to purchase a husband, to buy a submissive one. - For the matrimonial chain, with its inevitable weight and solidity, must either be borne in equal portions by the just division of affection; or hang heavier on one party than the other; and in an interested marriage each party naturally tries to fling the burden on the other. But I was luckily sufficiently wide awake to perceive the fate in store for me, and consequently precipitated nothing. I have always been told that a long courtship is the most respectful, and I was consequently “Ohne very respectful indeed. "Ohne hast, ohne rast!" the device borne by the great Goethe on his seal ring, was my substitute for Ovid.

One morning, I was fairly driven out of the drawing room in Bruton Street by the tone in which my future mother-in-law, whom I regarded much as Henry IV. may have affectioned Catherine de Medicis, kept hectoring that poor trembling child about having neglected a cage of averdivats she had been ordered to cover over in Miss Crutchley's dressing room, the evening before; - and as I well remembered that Mary's looks and mine had been curiously dovetailed at the moment the command was issued, I could not help fancying I might be the innocent cause of her forgetfulness.

Did my Public ever happen to observe the soft spaniellike expression of eye engendered by a life of early dependence? - Towards her protectresses, the looks of Mary were never uplifted; but when by chance she glanced towards some merciful stranger whose compas

66

sion seemed enlisted in her desolate fortunes, it was with the sweetness of those pale fragile looking flowers, insignificant and overlooked in the sunshine, which acquire from the dews of evening a grateful fragrance beyond all praise. I dare say the poor girl was unconscious of the exquisite charm of her eyes; but I swear I have sat and watched one of, those mild deprecating looks till they smote me with tenderness and remorse, as that of the poor monk of the order of St. Francis" melted the susceptible heart of Lawrence Sterne; the heart, by the way, which ought to have been entombed in some tranquil retreat, like Rousseau's in the isle of poplars at Ermenonville, instead of the crowded corner of a plebeian burying ground in the Edgeware Road. It was bad enough to die in Bond Street! Is Bond Street a place to die in excellent for selling bear's grease or publishing CECIL, but to roll its carriages beside the deathbed of him who described the death-bed of Le Fevre!

But I am wandering from Mary, with whom, all things considered, it is far more agreeable to abide.

I had quitted Bruton Street, as I was saying, in an exceeding bad humour; and my cab not being at the door, I set off to walk to the Travellers, as was not my custom of an afternoon. I hate walking. I hate the streets. They always seem as much surprised as myself to find me in them; and I accordingly sauntered through the Square and up Berkeley Street towards Piccadilly, in about as amiable a mood as its Black Bear or White might exhibit, if forced upon the pavement. — When lo! as I reached the overshadowing, though alas! now stag-horned, elms of Devonshire House, a voice saluted me with "Halloo, Cecil!"-a salutation implying considerable audacity on the part of a voice unknown. Scarcely three years my senior, yet old, cold, and withered, with chinchilla whiskers, and a coat manufactured - but I could not posI suppose it knew where sibly conjecture-Lord Harris came wheezing after me! -I can only say that if my outward man retained as few

visible tokens of the Cecil of Ch. Ch. as he of Jack Harris, I would as soon be lying in St. George's burying ground side by side with Lawrence Sterne!

It is amazing the influence exercised by a total change

of diet and climate on certain systems. At Carlton House and Windsor, Harris had been what Napoleon said he did not choose to be at Versailles, "un animal à l'engrais, aux frais de la nation ;" pampered to the utmost, and Lucullusizing upon peacock's tongues, till every fibre of his frame was distended by plethora; and the sudden transition from this luxurious mode of living to the "tough and scorched mutton" of private life, had withered him as a December frost withers an Imperial plum. — His skin was flaccid, his muscles relaxed. Every limb and feature seemed still in deep mourning for the finest gentleman in Europe, whose cuisine

that is from its omelette aux huitres to its compôte d'ananas, was super-Apician.

From Court, Harris had been driven into honourable exile as an Excellency - I forget where:- by the look of him, some petty German court, consisting of a palace, an opera house and two dozen hovels, whereof the eating and drinking, that is the drinking and starving, had converted him, from one of the fat kine of Pharaoh into one of the lean ones; and it was curious to perceive how utterly the insolence of the man had evaporated with his inflation.

the

It must be a vastly disagreeable thing to return to London after half a dozen years' absence, and find oneself fallen in public admiration, as from the top of the Monument to its base. The hard, bold, dashing Jack Harris, to whom no man dared show his face unless its whiskers were properly groomed and appointed, a supple-Jack kept by his betters to lay upon the shoulders of their inferiors, shrewd Sir John, the man of orders and influence, whose every breath was a trade wind, whose frown a frost, to whom the Common Council wrote confidential notes and with whom ministers condescended to portocolize, to whom Addresses to the throne were privately submitted and from whom re-dresses publicly implored, the Mayor of the palace at Carlton House, the Petronius of Roman punch, the Walpole of the wardrobe,the Chesterfield of pages in waiting, en un mot, the mushroom to which the venerable oaks of the forest had