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amidst their rags, a mirth and merriment, which carelessness of all future evils alone can give; and while I sing the famous beggar's ballad of Frank Davison, made in the merry days of Charles the Second, I cannot help agreeing with his view of this singular class."

"Can you give a specimen of it?"

"Yes:

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'Bright shines the sun, play, beggars, play,
Here's scraps enough to serve to-day.
What noise of viols is so sweet,

As when our merry clappers ring?

What mirth doth want when beggars meet?
A beggar's life is for a king.

Eat, drink, and play, sleep when we list,
Go where we will-so-stocks be miss'd.
Bright shines the day, play, beggars, play,
Here's scraps enough to serve to-day.'"

"Careless enough," observed I.

"There is a great deal more of it, all to the same tune, and it had its effect upon me, I assure you: but what chiefly influenced me to be a knight of the pack, was Autolycus, in Shakspeare. O! he was a first-rate fellow!"

"If you mean the pedlar in the Winter's Tale," replied I," he was a first-rate scoundrel."

I said this sternly, for I really now began to eye my new acquaintance with something very like suspicion. Perhaps he perceived it, for he instantly returned,

"O! I am aware of that; but, as in the other instances I mentioned, I could separate the bad from the good. I hope you do not suspect me of follow

ing the evil parts of his character. Why, he was a downright thief, and picks a pocket on the stage: God preserve me from such wickedness! It was only the agreeable parts of Autolycus that I felt disposed to admire."

“Pray, what are they?" said I, drily; to which he answered,

"His extraordinary ascendency over men's imaginations and credulity, which must have been a neverfailing scource of amusement, and even of study-the study of human nature. I wish I could remember the passage, but I have got the play in my pack; I am seldom without it." So saying, he unlocked his bag, and producing the play, turned to what he seemed to read with unction:

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Ha, ha! what a fool honesty is, and trust his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery. Not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tye, or horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting: they throng, who shall buy first; as if my trinkets had been hallowed, and brought a benediction to the buyer.'

"He must have had a rare trade of it, that Autolycus, and this I own was what chiefly made me turn pedlar; for if men will be gulls, I have no business to prevent them."

"Excellent morality," said I.

"But then he sung so well," continued Handcock, "that everybody must have been fascinated, and that alone would make people buy.

And so on.

'Lawn as white as driven snow;

Cyprus, black as e'er was crow :

Gloves, as sweet as damask roses;
Masks for faces, and for noses.'

"Well, I never came to a farm-house, but by singing I was asked in, sold my wares, set people atalking, and got at their secrets. O! with your curiosity, the life would suit you to a T. Perhaps I may yet see you one of us. At any rate, you see it is a pleasant life, and you cannot wonder that I shirked the tailor."

I own I now did not know what to make of Mr.

Autolycus Handcock. That he might by possibility be honest, I would not deny; that, by more than possibility, he was a rogue, was I thought clear; and I began to consider how I might shake him off. Other suspicions came into my head. It was equally clear that his attentions to the fair girl of the house boded no good to the latter; she evidently looked up to him as a superior being, and though he was above forty years old, had a copper nose, the effect of drink, a furrowed cheek, and a pimpled skin, tanned almost black with travelling in the sun, she was evidently so pleased with his ready talk, his apparent openness, his merriment, his songs, and his tales, and above all, with his unceasing compliments to herself, that all disparity, whether of age or person, seemed long to have ceased in her mind, and if they did not marry, it was evidently not her fault. Her mother, a decent woman, had now joined us, and I would have given

much to have known how to warn her of her daughter's danger; but, stranger as I was to both, I could not manage it ;-and I not only felt that any thing I could say to the pedlar himself would be laughed at, but he now declared his intention of staying where he was all night, a thing which I found he had not unfrequently done before.

In the end, what he did by choice, I was compelled to do against my will, for I too was forced to remain, by what there is no answering for-the elements.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE UNLOOKED-FOR CATASTROPHE OF THE PEDLAR. MY OWN UNEASINESS THEREON, AND MY FARTHER PROGRESS IN MY TOUR.

Who's there besides foul weather?

One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

Let the great Gods,

That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,

Unwhipt of justice!-SHAKSPEARE.-King Lear.

We had loitered so long over our tea and ale, not to mention our discourse, that it was now near eight o'clock, and I had full six miles more to accomplish to get to Reading.

This would have been nothing in a summer evening, had it been even farther advanced; and the beanflower, which perfumed the whole country, would have only made the journey a sweeter Midsummernight's dream. But the sultry day began suddenly to produce what it generally does when the clouds have sufficiently conglomerated—a storm; and this one came on with peculiar force. It first began with a rushing

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