these face-makers seem to be out of love with themselves, and to hate their natural face."

Of the costume of the citizens at this period much has been written. Their ordinary dress was a broad velvet or felt hat, a slashed doublet and short cloak, a ruff, and sometimes a plain collar: the magisterial robes of the citizens have continued unchanged for some time," nor is it any reproach,” observes a modern historian," that they feel proud of them, as they are generally the reward of honest industry."

Bishop Earl, in his "Microcosmographia," satirically insinuates that the citizens were very economical of their robes. "The meer alderman," he says, "is venerable in his gown, more in his beard, wherewith he sets not forth so much his own, as the face of a city. He makes very much of his authority, but more of his satin doublet, which though of good years, bears its age very well, and looks fresh every Sunday; but his scarlet gown is a monument, and lasts from generation to generation."

W. S.

ELIZABETH HILL.

From the German.

LADY Elizabeth Hill, a young and wealthy widow, who formerly resided at R, in Suabia, was a perpetual source of perplexity to all the citizens, of whatever rank or age. Her character was an inexplicable enigma, and the more they endeavoured to solve it, the more they were involved in mystery, or entirely cast adrift by some new fantasy, which the lady exhibited. In short she was never what she appeared to be, but was incessantly changing both her manners and pursuits.*

So long as there remained in the city, a certain member of the aulic council, who was a man of taste and literature, she did nothing from morning till night, but read romances. When he died, a medical gentleman, who delighted in balls, plays and festivals of all sorts, became a conspicuous character, Lady Hill, throwing aside her books, was entirely occupied in dancing, dressing and visiting. Soon afterwards, the reigning prince appointed a very pious bishop over the city, which had never before been honoured by the superintendence of a dignitary of

*This character is described by our Congreve in few words; "Constant in nothing but inconstancy."

the church. The young widow forthwith discarded all gay dresses, and assumed a sober suit of ash-grey, nearly approaching to mourning.

These sudden and extraordinary alterations in Lady Hill became the universal topic of conversation, and gave rise to a variety of conflicting opinions. The literati and the professional gentlemen in the city took the lead in discussion, but were by no means unanimous in the reasons, which they assigned for her conduct. In the first place, the rector of the school, who was a genius, and the principal correspondent of a periodical publication, adopting the most favorable construction, maintained that Lady Hill had positively no character, and consequently was no subject to exercise the talents of the poet, the novelist or the dramatist.

The prelate and his spiritual brethren made it a matter for their most serious consideration, but poetry, romances and the theatre formed no part of their speculations. "Lady Hill," said they, "had no doubt been a worldly-minded woman, who had first waded in sin by privately reading ungodly books, and then plunged into the sea of perdition by devoting herself to the vanities of feasts and dances in situations, where she could not fail to be a public spectacle." But now, they congratulated themselves, she felt the influence of the spirit and was become a babe of grace.

The doctor gave himself no trouble about the metaphysical part of the question; but abandoning her mind to the critics, and her soul to the Theologians, he confined his deliberations to the state of her body. "The lady," said he, " has done herself no good in the first place by poring all day over frivolous books and in the next by spending her nights at routs and assemblies, by which her blood has been coagulated and the circulation retarded. A little bleeding, and a few glasses of Seltzer water will soon bring her to herself again."

It is evident that these gentlemen attached themselves each to a particular system; that is they each wore a pair of colored glasses, through which all looked in one kind of way, and saw nothing truly. The rest of the citizens, conscious of the weakness of their own organs of vision, reposed implicit confidence in the glasses of the professional gentlemen, and each embraced one or other of the preceding systems, accordingly, as he was more or less swayed by interested motives, or was otherwise supplied with an opinion of his own.

The bookseller, who derived a considerable profit from the shoals of godly folios and quartos, which he was continually

turning into Lady Hill's library, very readily adopted the interested hypothesis of the divines, and was heartily glad of her conversion, from which he sincerely hoped she would never relapse.

The milliner, who had been amassing a little fortune by the multitude and variety of superb dresses, with which he supplied Lady Hill, finding this source of wealth suddenly stopped, adhered to the harsh construction of the doctor, and elaborated a case of confirmed lunacy out of a slight attack of religious melancholy.

The shoemaker, on whose business Lady Hill's devotion had operated so as to diminish his profits, only to a moiety of their former amount, embraced the more favorable explication of the rector, and contented himself with the simple lamentation that so good a woman as Lady Hill should be so fickle and variable as never to know rightly her own mind.

There was only one man in the whole city, of the lower class, a dealer in linen, who did not spoil the natural good quality of his eyes by the use of glasses, and who, having no dealings with Lady Hill, for she wore no other linen than hollands, displayed more sagacity than the whole tribe of city philosophers, and ascribed the lady's inconsistencies to their proper cause.

He seized the opportunity of declaring his sentiments one Sunday evening when he fell in company with the tradesmen, who were enjoying themselves at a tavern, and the bookseller with a pious sigh, had just declared that the grace of God had effected a wonderful improvement in Lady Hill. The linen draper flatly denied to his face that grace had any concern in the matter. In like manner he contradicted the milliner who had asserted that she was stark-mad; and the shoemaker, who had concluded a jeremiad with the usual remark that she did not so much as know her own mind.

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The lady," said he, “knows well enough what she is about, and if you good people had not a cataract in your eyes, you would perceive her object as well as I do. Give me leave to ask a question. When the late aulic councellor resided here, whom did we consider to be the chief man in the city? The counsellor certainly. And when he died, and the doctor came hither, to whom did we take off our hats with the greatest reverence? Why certainly the doctor. And when the prince graciously condescended to appoint a bishop to reside in the city, who took precedence of the doctor, and reduced to insignificance the importance of all our former great men? Who else but the bishop? Now, good people, if you will only reflect

a little upon these circumstances, take my word for it, you will not be long in the dark."

The citizens laughed, and all agreed that the little linen dealer had more shrewdness than they had suspected. Their approbation highly delighted him, for nothing gave him so much satisfaction as the praise to which he believed himself entitled, Yes, yes!" said he giving the table a smart blow with his fist; "If it should please God to take the bishop to himself, I will wager my head and shoulders, that Lady Hill and the doctor will no longer be strangers to each other."

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This event did not take place; it fell out somewhat differently. The prince, being a very pious man, recalled the bishop to his court to direct the affairs of his conscience, and sent into the city a regiment of horse, under the command of the major, a fine, bold, military looking fellow. Ere a month had passed the major was dining at Lady Hill's, and Lady Hill with the major. Now the major's lady was greatly admired by the whole city for her fine person, beautiful features, and the elegant figure which she exhibited on horseback. Lady Hill, who was by no means unconscious of her own personal attractions, ordered out her horse, and shone forth en amazon in a riding habit of green and gold by the side of the major's lady.

"That lady has no character!" triumphantly exclaimed the rector as she rode past his school. "The woman hath fallen away from grace !" groaned a divine, who met her on his return from visiting a sick bed. "Lady Hill, I rejoice to see, has dieted herself and takes exercise;" said the doctor, who was standing at his door smoking his morning-pipe; "No doubt she will be all the better for it."

Thus all these three gentlemen found in each of their systems a loop hole through which they drew themselves out of the affair, and were confirmed in their notions by the very circumstances which militated against them. But the linen draper once more formed better conclusions, for when Lady Hill was riding past the gate of his bleaching ground, he shook his head, and said to himself, "Ah, see there! what will not vanity do?"

Laugh at my story as much as you please. It has this merit, however, that it is true; and if you pay attentive observation, you will often find occasions to apply it.

H.

THE CONFESSION OF AN INVALID.

BY M. L. B.

Author of "Quite Good Enough.”

"Poor, lost, mistaken thing!

I've flutter'd on the wing

Of reckless youth-through vanity :-to bow
At ev'ry idol shrine

Of Pleasure hath been mine,

But never on my SOUL to dream, till now!"

From a Poem by the Author.

BRING me pen and paper; to write the sorrows I have long experienced, when the expression of them by speech is forbidden me, may relieve my surcharged bosom: yet do not suppose that I have lost the use of my tongue;—thanks to my Creator, no; but it little avails to describe those griefs which, principally originating in my own private feelings, scarcely admit of a viva voce delineation, or would be listened to with impatience or derision. Bring me pen and paper; I am weary of lying here, -I am weary, soul and body, of my mortal life, and the causes of this weariness they shall read with pity, who would only hear them with ridicule from my own pale lips.

I am weary of lying here--and no wonder; on this sofa, and in this apartment have I laid during those nine years of my life which ought to have been, which are, with youth of my own sex, the brightest and the best!

Nine years, from beautiful eighteen to twenty-seven ;—what an eternity of deprivation, sorrow, and weariness!

Nine years, in the very spring-tide of existence! Think of this, ye young, gay females, who flit like birds, from place to place, upon untiring wing, and number your happiest hours by the changes only that they have brought of scene and of

amusement.

Nine years, I repeat, of youth have been passed by me on this sofa and in this room, my sole variation of place being my bed-chamber, from which I emerge at about ten o'clock every morning, and to which I retire at the same hour each night: for me there is but one removal-one change more; since, though they would in kindness conceal the fact from me, I know I am suffering from a spine complaint, which will only terminate with my existence.

I had just been introduced, was reckoned very beautiful, and, as an only daughter, the heiress presumptive of some property