mised himself much renown in publishing the result for the benefit of the world.

Arthur Hogarth was, as we have seen, fair and good-looking, in addition to which he had the recommendation (a much greater one in many mammas' eyes) of being heir to £10,000 a-year, and a large estate in Sussex. The young man's mother, judging other young men's mothers by herself, had one great dread, viz., | that some designing lady should get hold of her amiable son, and marry him, irrespective of her wishes, to some penniless daughter. To avoid such a catastrophe Mrs. Hogarth effected that her son should be betrothed to a niece of her own and she took care that the future mistress of Whatsey Lodge should possess money as well as good looks. Her name was Constance Shirley. She was an only daughter, as Arthur Hogarth was an only son. What better arrangement could there be, therefore? Besides, the estates joined, Cedar Court (the abode of Mr. and Mrs. Shirley) and Whatsey Lodge being properties neighbouring one to the other, of about the same extent, and together commanded the principal influence of the county in which they were situated. There was something noble, therefore, as well as prudent, in the idea of making these two possessions one: and what should hinder the bringing this about by the union of Arthur Hogarth and Constance Shirley? They were children together; why should they not grow up in the knowledge that they must be man and wife? So argued Mrs. Hogarth, and, calling her carriage, she drove over to Cedar Court, and propounded the idea. It was received with favour, and eventually carried into effect, so far as the seniors were concerned. Of the junior parties to the contract we shall have more to say

anon.

The engagement, then, such as it was, was made when the two principally concerned in the event were much too young to know their own minds, or to understand the nature of the promise which they were making. However, the contract was made.

At the time of the opening of our story it was thought to be high time that matters should be brought to a crisis; and therefore Mrs. Hogarth and Mrs. Shirley (the latter lady was quite as great a schemer as her neighbour) planned that the young couple should meet abroad, and be thrown as much together as possible in order to give a little more natural colouring to the proceeding. The wedding was intended to take place in the following winter. Therefore Mrs. Hogarth despatched her son with a confidential tutor to travel, and meet his fiancée in Germany; while Mrs. Shirley committed Constance to the meek Mrs. Somers with the same intention.

The young people in the meanwhile, never having thought seriously of the matter, had started on their respective journeys. One of them (the gentleman) had, however, been so undutiful and unfortunate as to fall in love with a dark-haired, dark-eyed Italian; while the

lady-well, the lady had not fallen in love perhaps, but if she had examined herself carefully on the subject, it would have been found that dangerous ground had been trodden on. But to examine herself on the subject was not a thing which Constance particularly cared to do just then. She was engaged, she knew, to a most respectable eligible young man: of course she could fall in love with no one else. The courier had been very obliging and very useful (had he not saved her dog?); but then he was a courier; so that matter need cause no anxiety. She was travelling on gaily, to meet the man to whom she was betrothed, and had given the future but little thought; but now as the time drew near, and the probability of meeting had become certain, it was another affair. Coblentz was the rendezvous agreed upon by the mammas, and Coblentz was now within a day's journey of the fair "promesa." I should not like to say decidedly, but I have a very great idea that Miss Constance was wishing now that Coblentz had been rather farther off, or at any rate that the "friends" whom she had told Horace that she would meet there had arranged to remain away.

In the mean time, young Hogarth and his tutor had travelled post-haste across the Alps, to be in time at the rendezvous, the pupil being by no means a pleasant companion during the forced march. Perhaps this was hardly to be wondered at. His hopes, thoughts, and heart were at Venice; his future bride in Germany. His wishes remained on one side the Alps, his body was being transported to the other. It was scarcely surprising therefore that Master Arthur expressed little sympathy at the discovery of a new species of gnat by the indefatigable Jacobson, and that the rev. gentleman's delight was a good deal damped by his companion's crossness on the occasion. Of course the bridegroom-elect was very miserable; yet so strongly had he been imbued with the spirit of obedience, that he did not break out into open rebellion, but allowed himself to be conducted to the altar of sacrifice, as though under a decree of fate.

CHAP. VIII.

ANOTHER MEETING.

Horace's party set out from Cologne, as had been arranged, and duly arrived at their destination. Our hero had succeeded in making great friends with the Doctor, who, despite his gruffness, was a good-natured man in the main, and took an especial fancy to the courier. Greyson accompanied them, though it can hardly be said that his society was desired, as everyone avoided him. But he appeared perfectly callous to the hints which the Doctor threw out in abundance, that his society could be dispensed with, without any hearts being broken; and so he remained steadily by Mrs, Somers. The

"I know I might. You have always been so good and kind to me, I know full well I might have confided my difficulties to you; but it was not altogether for that, it was partly for the fun of the thing."

While Miss Shirley is thus engaged let us see who those new friends of Horace's were. Their names were Edward and Celine Courcy-Mr. and Mrs. Courcy. As they are old acquaintances a very few words will suffice to introduce them. Edward Courcy had now been for nearly two years director of the Bank at Sairmouth. The world had gone well with him, and he had become a well-to-do personage in his native town. He was now taking a short rest from his bank duties, and making a tour with his wife in the Rhenish Provinces. Horace had nearly tumbled over them as he was extricating the luggage of his party on their arrival at Coblentz. Here no deception could be practised. Edward Courcy had known our hero for many a long year-from the time, indeed, that he first remembered to have come down to Sairmouth Castle, on a visit to his uncle; and, in truth, Horace had spent as much of his time in the director's house as he did at the castle itself. He was considerably more at home at the former than at the latter; therefore he was recognized directly.

"Why, Horace, what in the world brings you here, and what kind of a costume have you adopted for travelling this time?" asked Mrs. Courcy, as she held out her hand to the courier. Horace begged them, hurriedly, to take no further notice of him then, but promised to meet them on the quay later, and explain every thing; accordingly, after the table d'hôte hour was past he had met them by the Rhine, and had put them in possession of his rather eccentric story.

But what would your uncle say?" asked the lady, "if he heard of the future lord of the manor doing the dirty work for a set of queer English people abroad? for really, Horace, your patrons are strange, and I should say objectionable, except that the party is redeemed by that sweet-looking girl they have with them. Who is she?-one of them?"

"My uncle," said Horace, disregarding the question last put-"My uncle must not know. You are aware of his strange and strong ideas on some subjects-ideas which amount to monomania with him. He would cut me off with a penny if he heard of this freak."

66 "And for devotion to a pair of blue eyes partly," added Mrs. Courcy.

Horace winced a very little. "You will keep my secret?"

"What? about the blue eyes?"

"No, no; about my identity. I am in danger enough as it is, as the Junior Dean of St. Bride's has chosen to tack himself on to the party."

Well, we will try, won't we, Edward?" answered the lady with a smile; but you must be careful of yourself, and don't get into any further scrapes; above all, “gare aux yeux.”

"Yes, I'll be careful; but tell me about Sairmouth. I never got down there after term ended. Is my uncle much the same as ever?"

"Yes in excellent spirits, and trots about the grounds on the white pony, as eagerly as ever. He was at the magistrate's meeting once or twice, and had the pleasure of sending a poacher to the county sessions. You know how that would delight them."

"That do I. Was it an old offender that he sent to gaol?”

"Yes; a well-known character. Did you hear of Lord Leven being in London ?" "My uncle in London? No, indeed I had not."

"Yes, he went up for a fortnight. How much further he went I cannot say. He posted the whole way, of course. There was a carriageand-four and outriders, creating a sensation on the road, as you may imagine.”

"Have you any idea why he went?" asked Horace, earnestly.

"Not the slightest. You think he may have been up to look after you, perhaps."

"I don't think that. Still the old gentleman is wide awake, as we have lately had proof in some business transactions."

"Well," returned Horace, "I must go now. Do you stay long at Coblentz ?"

"It is quite uncertain: we must be guided by circumstances; but when you can, do come up and see us; we shall be so glad."

"Yes, do," added Mrs. Courcy to her husband's request; "I am so curious to hear about the contents of your party; they seem oddly mixed. But we must not keep you now. daresay you will have to put that old gentleman to bed: do be careful of him.

Horace laughed, and went.

I

HOW VERY TRUE.-When a woman has ceased to

C

Human nature is impatient of mysteries. The occurrence of an event out of the line of common causation, the advent of a person not plastic to the common moulds of society, causes a great commotion in this little ant-hill of ours. There is perplexity, bewilderment, a running hither and thither, until the foreign substance is assigned a place in the ranks; and if there be no rank to which it can be ascertained to belong, a new rank shall be created to receive it, rather than that it shall be left to roam up and down, baffling, defiant, and alone. Indeed, so great is our abhorrence of outlying, unclassified facts, that we are often ready to accept classification for explanation; and having given our mystery a niche and a name, we cease any longer to look upon it as mysterious. The village-school-master, who displayed his superior knowledge to the rustics gazing at an eclipse of the sun by assuring them that it was "only a phenomenon," was but one of a great host of wiseacres who stand ready with brush and paint-pot to label every new development, and fancy that in so doing they have abundantly answered every reasonable inquiry concerning cause, character, and consequence.

When William Blake flashed across the path of English polite society, society was confounded. It had never had to do with such an apparition before, and was at its wits' end. But some Daniel was found wise enough to come to judgment, and pronounce the poetpainter mad; whereupon society at once composed itself, and went on its way rejoicing.

There are a few persons, however, who are not disposed to let this verdict stand unchallenged. Mr. Arthur Gilchrist, late a barrister of the Middle Temple-a man, therefore, who must have been accustomed to weigh evidence, and who would not have been likely to decide upon insufficient grounds-wrote a life of Mr. Blake, in which he strenuously and ably opposed the theory of insanity. From this book, chiefly, we propose to lay before our readers a slight sketch of the life of a man who, whether sane or insane, was one of the most remarkable productions of his own or of any age.

One word in the beginning, regarding the book before us. The death of its author, while as yet but seven chapters of his work had been printed, would preclude severe criticism, even if the spirit and purpose with which he entered upon his undertaking, and which he sustained to its close, did not dispose us to look leniently upon imperfections of detail. Possessing that first requisite of a biographer, thorough sympathy with his subject, he did not fall into the opposite error of indiscriminate panegyric. Looking at life from the standpoint of the "madman," he saw how fancies could not only appear, but be, facts; and then, crossing over,

he looked at the madman from the world's standpoint, and saw how these soul-born facts could seem not merely fancies, but the wild vagaries of a crazed brain. For the warmth with which he espoused an unpopular caues, for the skill with which he set facts in their true light, for the ability which he brought to the defence of a man whom the world had agreed to condemn, for the noble persistence with which he forced attention to genius that had hitherto received little but neglect, we cannot too earnestly express our gratitude. But the greater our admiration of material excellence, the greater is our regret for superficial defects. The continued oversight of the author would doubtless have removed many infelicities of style; yet we marvel that one with so clear an insight should ever, even in the first glow of composition, have involved himself in sentences so complicated and so obscure. The worst faults of Miss Sheppard's worst style are reproduced here, joined to an unthriftiness in which she had no part nor lot. Not unfrequently a sentence is a conglomerate in which the ideas to be conveyed are heaped together with no apparent attempt at arrangement, unity, or completeness. Surely, it need be no presumptuous, but only a tender and reverent hand, that should have organized these chaotic periods, completing the work which death left unfinished, and sending it forth to the world in a garb not unworthy the labour of love so untiringly bestowed upon it by the lamented author.

To show that our strictures are not undeserved, we transcribe a few sentences, taken at random from the memoir :

"Which decadence it was led this Pars to go into the juvenile Art-Academy line, vice Shipley retired."

"The unusual notes struck by William Blake, in any case appealing but to one class and a small one, were fated to remain unheard, even by the Student of Poetry, until the process of regeneration had run its course, and, we may say, the Poetic Revival gone to seed againseeing that the virtues of simplicity and direct: ness the new poets began by bringing once more into the foreground, are those least practised now."

"In after-years of estrangement from Stothard, Blake used to complain of this mechanical employment as engraver to a fellow-designer, who (he asserted) first borrowed from one that, in his servile capacity, had then to copy that comrade's version of his own inventions--as to motive and composition his own, that is."

"And this imposing scroll of fervid truisms and hap-hazard generalities, as often disputable as not, if often acute and striking, always ingenuous and pleasant, was, like all his other writings, warmly welcomed in this country."