TH] STANDARD NOVELS AND ROMANCES, PRICE THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE EACH With the view of placini? this prreat collection within the reach of all clrissses of readers, Mr. BENTLEY has determined to publish A NEW EDITION OF at a price w in^ Library from the pr The Pul that a very tlie increase Romances, will still b( Cheapest List t VOL 1 2 3 4 5 () 7) I FRANl^ TllK I CALEf THE S THADl ST. LE LAST • THE SI 10 \ G HOST (EDGAB { CONCL 11 HUNGi CANTE 14 THE P 15 SELF-C 16 DISCIP 17 THE PRAI I THE PAST 20 LIONEL L 21 LAWRIE 1 22 FLEETWO* 23 SENSE A^ , « .4' ai E) R.AR.Y OF THE UNIVLR5ITY or ILLINOIS L<2)9pa Itain- jsued ition jre of I AND Ige. IN. [TEE. R. Porter. R. N. luSTEN. Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 3B 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 4t] 47 48 49 5d 51 52 53 54 55 56 University of Illinois Library -REC'D JUL 19 FEB 28 MAY 0 7 OCT « V THJ STANDAIIT) NOVELS AND ROMANCES, PRICE THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE EACH With the view of placing this ^reat collection within the reach of all cUissses of readers, Mr. BENTLEY has determined to publish at a price u in^ Library from the pr The Pub that a very the increase Romances, will still b< Cheapest List 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 10 THE I CALEf THE S THADl ST. LE LAST < n THE S< \ GHOST f EDGAE { CONCI 11 HUNGi j CANTE 14 THE P 15 SELF-C 16 DISCIP 17 THE PRAI j THE PASI 20 LIONEL L 21 LAWRIE T 22 FLEETWO' 23 SENSE A^ A NEW EDITION OF a I B RAFLY OF THE UNIVERSITY Of ILLI NOI5 L^9pa IS3B jtain- (sued ption (re of I AND GE. ^ER. J R. ANE Porter. R. ;N. ^USTEN. standard Ncvck and Romances, PRICE THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE EACh rOL. AUTHOR. U CORINNE Madame df Stajl^. 25 EMMA. Miss AusTFic, 26 SIMPLE STORY AND NATURE AND ART. Mks Jnchbald. 27 MANSFIELD PARK Miss Austkn. 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 NORTHANGER ABBEY AND PER-\,,_ i SUASION i ^^^^^ THE SMUGGLER . PRIDE AND PREJUDICE STORIES OF WATERLOO THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME THE BORDERERS EUGENE ARAM. 5s MAXWELL WATER WITCH MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS. THE BRAVO THE HEIRESS OF BRUGES RED ROVER rVATHEK 41 \ CASTLE OF OTRANTO ( BRAVO OF VENICE 42 THE COUNTRY CURATE THE BETROTHED HAJJI BABA. HAJ3I BABA IN ENGLAND THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER PAUL CLIFFORD. 5s THE YOUNGER SON (•THE ALHAMBRA 49 \ THE LAST OF THE ABENCERAGES. (THE INVOLUNTARY PROPHET. ... 50 THE HEADSMAN ANASTASIUS; 53 DARNLEY 54 ZOHRAB 55 HEIDENMAUER 56 DE L'ORME 43 44 45 46 47 48 Austen. Bantm. Miss Austen. Maxwell. Victor Hugo. Cooper. BULWER. Theodore Hook. Cooper. Mrs. Gore. Cooker. G rattan. Cooper. Beckford. Horace Walpole. M. G. Lewis. Gleig. Manzoni. MORIER. Morier. Hook. BULWER. CaPT. TRELAWriEY. Washington Irving. Chaieaubriand. Horace Smith. Cooper. Hope. James. Morier. Cooper. James. PAUL CLIFFORD. BY THE AUTHOR OF « PELHAM,' EUGENE ARAM," « THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII,* &c. Many of your Lordships must recollect what used to take place on the high roads in the neighbourhood of this Metropolis some years ago. Scarcely a carriage could pass without being robbed, and frequently the passengers were obliged to fight with, and give battle to, the highwaymen who infested the roads. — Buke of Wellington's Speech on the Metropolis Police Bill, June 5th. Mirror of Parliament, 1829, p. 2050. Can any man doubt whether it is better to be a great statesman or a common thief ?— Jonathan Wild. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH j J. GUMMING, DUBLIN. 1838. //->/ DEDICATORY EPISTLE TO **** J^SQ^ SoMB years ago, my dear friend, when you and I had more of the poetry of life at our hearts than, I fear, is left to either of us now, I inscribed with your name a certain slender volume of Poems, printed but not published. Of the hundred copies of those boyish indis- cretions, which, full of all unimaginable errors of type and press, owed their origin to a French printer, I have not to this day given away more than two or three-and-twenty. I dedicated to you then a book only to be circulated among friends, on the tacit understanding that they were to be alike willing to forgive and eager to commend. I dedicate to you now a book which, the moment it passes from me, goes among readers of whom even the kindly are too lukewarm to praise, the hostile are pre-resolved to censure, and every individual, with a cruel justice, holds it right to expect merit in an author upon all points, and to extend him indulgence upon none. This is the natural and established bond of publication ; and of course, like all who pubhsh, I am prepared for its conditions. But ere I again appear before an audience not the less critical — scarcely the less unfamiliar, for my having, into her performances, braved its opinion, let me linger a few minutes behind the scenes, and encourage myself with a friendly conference with you. It gives me pain, my dear ***** *j to think that I may not grace my pages with A 3 vi DEDICATORY EPISTLE. your name ; for I well know, that when after-years shall open the fitting opportunity to your talents, that name will not be lightly held wherever honesty and truth — a capacity to devise what is good, and a courage to execute it, are considered qualities worthy of esteem. But in your present pursuits it can scarcely serve you to be praised by a novelist, and named in the dedication to a novel ; and your well-wishers would not be pleased to find you ostentatiously exhibiting a sanction to a book, which they would fain hope you may never obtain the leisure to read. Four years have passed since I dictated to you the Poems I refer to — they have not brought to either of us an inconsiderable change. We are no longer the rovers of the world, setting sail at our caprice, and finding enterprise at our will. We feel, though with a silent conviction, that life has roads harsher and more barren than we then imagined ; and we look on the ways through which we pass, not with the eager or the wandering glance of the tourist of pleasure, but with the saturnine and wary eye of the hackneyed trafficker of business. You are settled down to the labours — honourable, indeed, but somewhat sterile — of the bar ; and I, a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures," * am drawing from the bustle of the living world such quiet observation as, after it has lain a little while within my own mind, you perceive re- produced in the pages of certain idle and very indifferent novels. I cling, however, not the less fondly to my old faith, that experience is the only investment which never fails to repay us tenfold what it cost ; and that we cannot find better and surer guides through those mazes of life^ which we have not only to pass but to retrace^ than the error, or the prejudice, or the regret which, with every in- terval, we leave behind us_y as landmarks, on our way. When you receive these three volumes, printed, and labelled, and hoarded, in all the uncut coxcombry of the very last new novel, I know exactly the half frown, half smile, with which you will greet them, and the friendly petulance with which you will pish ! and think what a pity it is that " should still write nothing else but a * Burton. DEDICATORY EPISTLE. vii iiovel." — Is it, indeed, a pity, my dear friend ? Are you mre that in writing something else I should write some- ihing better ? For my part, I often ask myself that ques- tion ; and, if I could answer it satisfactorily, this work would never have been written. But let us view the matter fairly ; what else shall I write ? There is Poetry, in the first place ! — Will you — will any one read epic or sonnet — tale or satire — tragedy or epigram ? — What- ever be the variety, do you not except at once to the species ? — and would you not deem it a less fatigue and a greater profit to skim though three volumes, than to yawn over a single stanza ? — A tide of popular opinion has set against poetry ; and in the literary world, as in the natural, the tide and the hour can scarcely be neglected, even by the hardiest adventurer. Putting, then, poetry out of our consideration, — and I wish, for I have all the fondness and weakness of first love still clinging about me, that you would even attempt to convince me that I ought not to do so, — shall we turn to Philosophy ? shall I write on the mind, or speculate on the senses ? — Alas ! to what end ? we may judge of the demand for moral philosophy, when we reflect that Hobbes's works * are out of print, and that Mills's Analysis has not been reviewed. I will frankly confess to you, that writing is not with me its own reward ; and that, in order to write, I must first have the hope to be read. Politics, Essays, Travels, Biography, History ; — are these subjects on which one is more likely to obtain a decent, a tolerably durable reputation, than one is by the composition of novels ? I fear not. Let us look around ! What encouragement to any of these subjects is held out to us ? Are not writings of this sort far more the ephemerals of literature than writings of fiction ? t * In a collected shape. t Nor is this, as at the first glance it may appear, owing to the fault or the unimportance of the writings themselves. While " The Sketch Book" is found in every young lady's dressing-room; and " Bracebridge Hall" is still in high request, in every country book club ; " The Life of Columbus," inva- luable, if only from the subject so fehcitously chosen ; " The Wars of Grenada," scarcely less valuable from the subject so consummately adorned, and so stir- ringly painted ; are, the one slowly passing into forgetful ness, and the ottier slumbering, with uncut leaves, upon the shelf Compare the momentary sen- sation produced by the first appearance of Lord King's " Life of Locke," with the sensation, durable and int<^"<»*=, wuicn, replete as it is with the treasure of a-'wv-Kc-e raiiiinai tiiougnts, it would have produced twenty years ago ! God- A 4 viii DEDICATORY EPISTLE. Does the biography, or the essay, or the treatise, last even the year for which a novel endures ? And if it does not exceed the novel in durabihty, it can scarcely equal it, you will allow, in popularity. The literary idler who receives it from the library, sends it away and waits for the review in the Quarterly ; and the friend, the famihar, to whom you make it a present, shuns you during the rest of your life, lest you should inquire his opinion. You see, my dear * * ^ * * I have viewed the matter on a magnifi- cent scale. I might have checked the question at once ; — 1 might, instead of provoking discussion, by pointing out the unfitness of such attempts, have quieted it by a gentle allusion to the inability of the attempter ; — I might have exclaimed Poetry ! I am a poetaster, not a poet. Philosophy ! I am a student, not a discoverer. Essays ! I have wearied you already with Essays in ^ Devereux,' or the ^ Disowned.' Travels ! Where, oh ! where have I travelled } " But this is not the age in which men are so uninventive in motives as to confess to a want of genius, or a scantiness of knowledge ; and, consequently, 1 beg you to believe that I write novels, not because I cannot write any thing else, but because novels are the best possible things to be written. We live in a strange and ominous period for literature. In books, as in other manufactures, the great aim seems the abridgment of labour : the idlest work is the most charming. People will only expend their time for immediate returns of knowledge ; and the wholesome and fair profit, slow but permanent, they call tedious in letters, and spe- culative in politics. This eager yet slothful habit of mind, now so general, has brought into notice an emigrant and win's "* History of the Commonwealth," one of the most manly and impartial records ever written, lives less upon the memory than ** Almack's ;" and " Cyril Thornton," produced some four years since, is in more immediate vogue than the admirable history by the same author — pubUshed but the other day. True, that among a succeeding generation there may possibly be are-action — lethargic octavos be awakened from their untimely trance, and enlivened quartos " take up their beds and walk I" But now when people think as well as feel, and the present is to them that matter of reference and consideration which the r.ifi.m was with their more dreaming forefathers — the fame that is only ,)osthumous has become to c*u, w..* to unfits a verv friairi and impotent inducement. DEDICATORY EPISTLE. ix motley class of literature, formerly, in this country, little known and less honoured. We throw aside our profound researches, and feast upon popular abridgments ; we for- sake the old march through elaborate histories, for " a dip." into entertaining memoirs. In this, our immediate bias in literature, if any class of writing has benefited more than another in popularity and estimation, it is the Novel. Readers now look into fiction for facts ; as Voltaire, in his witty philosophy, looked among facts for fiction. I do not say that the novel has, in increased merit, deserved its increased reputation : on the contrary, I think, that though our style may be less prolix than it was in the last century, our thoughts are more languid, and our invention less racy.* However this be, the fashion in literature, of which I speak, has, among the wrecks of much that is great and noble, opened to second-rate ability and mediocre know- ledge paths that were shut to them before. And I, for one, if I have lost as a member of the public, have gained more than proportionately as an individual. I feel that I have just sufficient reading, or observation, or reflection, or talent of any sort, to make it possible that I may stumble in a light fiction upon some amusing, perhaps even some useful, truths ; while neither the reading, nor the observ- ation, nor the reflection, nor the talent, are in all proba- bility sufficient to entitle me to a momentary notice in any graver and more presuming composition. Then, too, 1 fancy at those post-prandial hours," w^hen a certain self- complacency diffuses its cheering caloric over the mind, — I fancy that I have also by accident stricken out a vein not so wholly hackneyed, as that any of my immediate co- temporaries share the possession with myself: for the philosophical novel is at present not only little cultivated in any shape, but those who do break up the unpromising soil are writers essentially grave and didactic. Such is the graceful and all-accomplished author of De Vere ; " or the fine creator of St. Leon" and Mandeville," to whose style may be applied the simile appUed somewhat * In whatever I say of the novel, I cannot, of course, be supposed to include the fictions of Sir Walter Scott. I must also make two exceptions among the novels of his countrymen; the quaint and nervous humour of " Lawrie Todd,'* and the impassioned boldness of " Adam Blair." X DEDICATORY EPISTLE. too flatteringly to that of Tertullian — that it is like ebony, at once dark and splendid. The novel^ blending chiefly the comic_, and occasionally the dramatic^ qualities with those of the reflective and analysing, is that which (except in Devereux'*) I have sought out as the province of my own attempts ; and, in avoiding a competition with the dis- tinguished writers I have just referred to, I aimed originally at prudence, and gained, perhaps, something of novelty. You will observe that I have laid a stress on the words immediate cotemporaries, for I do not deceive myself with the idea that I have done any thing the least original ; I have only endeavoured to revive what had passed a little into neglect ; and if my books have had any success, it is owing to the goodness of the school, and in spite of the faults of the disciple. The combination of the philosophic novel with the comic has indeed long since, in two great authors, been carried to a perfection, which, I confess, I think is not likely to be attained, longo intervallo^ by any succeeding writer. The first, and by far the greater of these (I speak of Fielding), seems a man, who, with an universal fame, has never met with a full appreciation. To me, he appears not only incomparable as a Novelist — but also one of the soundest thinkers, and most scientific moralists, that ever conferred honour on a country and instruction on man- kind. The second. Dr. Moore, has this remarkable merit ; he has made us forgive in him two sins that would have been beyond redemption in any other author, — viz. in style an odious affectation of Gallicisms, and in morals a furtive tendency to import the idea ready-made rather than to work out the raw material at home. To these two may be added Miss Edgeworth, the most faultless, if not the most brilliant, of all novelists, past and present. I do not class her among immediate cotemporaries, partly because she seems to have altogether retired from the field, and partly because the same settled and quiet judgment has been passed upon her charming and useful tales which is, in general, re- served for the decision of posterity. Though I can only, then, advance a claim to the merit of the renewer, not the cre- ator, — the furbisher of old pictures, not the artist of new, — I am yet very far from certain that I can reach even DEDICATORY EPISTLE. an equal merit in any other branch of literature ; and thus you perceive a fourth * novel from my pen^ where your un- reflecting friendship would have wished to see an attempt in political morals or history : — history ! after all, and despite of all discouragement, there is to every student every man of closet, or academic, recollections, a wonderful stimulus in that word ! and, perhaps, I may already, and in defiance of my own judgment, and the warnings around, have nursed within me some project in that most noble yet least ransacked department of intellectual research, which, in after years, I may disappoint you and embody. But this is not to be lightly begun, nor even immaturely con- ceived ; and how many casualties may arise to mar alto- gether the execution of such a project ! how many casualties, even at the best, may procrastinate it to the languor of age, and the energies slackened by long familiarity with the crosses and contests of life ! Often, when through youth and manhood we imagine we are cherishing our concluding triumph, we arc only nursing our latest disap- pointment. Meanwhile, at present, if I anticipate but little gain, I can meet with but a trifling loss : I do not set my heart on the success of efforts, which, I allow with my enemies (for to have enemies is the doom of literature, which even the most ordinary writer does not escape), are petty and unimportant ; I am not so elevated by the praise of this man, or so humbled by the blame of that, as to forfeit the level temperature of the mind," or trans- gress the small and charmed circle from which reason — a sorceress when she confines her efforts, an impostor when she enlarges them — banishes the intrusion of others. Nor do I myself believe that to any one who has formed the habit of application, is the production of books, whatever be their nature (so long as they are neither in poetry nor abstract science), attended with that utter and absorbing engrossment of time which is usually imagined. Life has hours enough for all but the idle ; and for my own part, if I were not in the common habit of turning to more im- * When I speak of my fourth novel, 1 omit '* Falkland " from the number, an early and crude attempt which I have never hitherto owned — beyond my own small circle of friends ; — and which I should not now speak of, were it not ge- nerally known to be mine at least among all who have ever heard of it! xii DEDICATORY EPISTLE. portant subjects as a study^ I should never have had the presumption to write even novels as a recreation. Do not conceive^ however^ from what I have said^ that I am going to write novels all the rest of my life ; — I am excusing what has been^ and is_, — not prefacing what is to be. I have now^ my dear friend^ said all that I wished to touch upon in excuse for the nature of my productions. I do not make you^ nor_, through you^ my readers^ an apology for my egotism or my prolixity. To all writers a dedication is unchallenged and licensed ground : to all readers is granted a liberty^ no less acknowledged — that of passing over it with whatever rapidity they please. I have been holding intercourse with you with as much frankness as if the letters I now write were not presently to be translated into the unfamiliar characters of the press; and if I have gone a little too largely into general or into individual topics^ I must make amends by touching as briefly as possible on the work now before you. For the original idea of Paul Clifford, I am indebted to a gentleman of considerable distinction in literature, and whose kindness to me is one of my most gratifying remem- brances. This idea, had the work been shorter, would have pervaded the whole ; as it is, it will be found em- bodied in those parts which, I believe, will be the most popular in the book. Such as the scene at Gentleman George's, the sketch of Bachelor Bill, &c. As example is more explanatory than detail, I refer to these passages for the illustration of my friend's suggestion, rather than at- tempt to unfold and enlarge on it here. In justice to my friend, I should add, first, that I feel I have given a very inadequate form to a conception that appears to me pecu- liarly felicitous ; and secondly, that as I have made use of his idea rather as an adjunct to my story, than as the principal groundwork of the story itself, all the faults of plot and deficiencies of invention that may be found in the progress and denouement of my tale, are solely and wholly to be laid to my charge.* It were to be wished that my • I should add, also, that I alone am accountable for the personality of any caricatures in the scenes referred to : all that my friend suggested, was the sa- tirical adaptation of living personages to fictitious characters in the station or DEDICATORY EPISTLE. xiii friend had found leisure himself, among labours more im- portant, to embody his own idea ; or that, in giving me the canvass, he could have given me also his skill to colour, and his talent to create. I can scarcely conceive what you, who are rather fas- tidious about the niceties of language, will think of the vulgar graces wherewith the greater part of my first vo- lume is adorned. I must own, that I have on this point steeled myself against censure ; for, independent of any latent application or irony in the dialect* I refer to, I am willing to risk an experiment, tried successfully in Scot- land and Ireland — though not in the present day attempted in England, — of giving descriptive and appropriate dia- logue to classes of society, far more capable of yielding interest or amusement to persons of any mental vigour, whatever be their rank, than trite copies of the languid inanities of a drawing-room, or lifeless portraits of originals, whose very boast it is to be scarcely alive, t profession of life which Old Bags and I/ong Ned adorn — for the choice of those personages he is by no means answerable. I mention this, because it is but fair that I should take the chances of offence on myself ; — though the broadness, and evident want of malice, in the caricatures referred to, will, I venture to foretel, make those caricatured the first — perhaps the only persons — to laugh at the exaggerated resemblance. * It must be remembered, too, that this dialect is not the corruption of un- coutk provincialisms. The language of the thieves, or the low Londoners, (a distinction, I fear, without a difference,) is perhaps one of the most expressive — nay, one of the most metaphysical in the world! What deep philosophy, for instance, is there in this phrase — " the oil of palms ! '* (meaning money.) + In some inimical, and rather personal but clever observations, made on me in a new periodical work, it is implied that people living in good society cannot write philosophically or, it would seem, even well I suppose of course the critic speaks of persons who live only in good society; and though the remark is not true, as it happens, singularly enough, that the best and most philoso- phical prose writers, in England especially, have been gentlemen, and lived for the most part, as a matter of course, among their equals, yet I shall content myself with saying,- that the remark, true or false, in this case by no means applies tome, who have seen quite as much of the lowest orders as of any other, and who scarcely ever go into what is termed * the world.' By the way, the Critic alluded to having been pleased in a very pointed manner to consider me the hero as well as author of my own book (Pelham), I am induced to say a few words on the subject. The year before Pelham appeared, I published '* Falk- land," in which the hero was essentially of the gloomy, romantic, cloud-like order; in short. Sir Reginald Glaviville out-Glanvilled, The matter-of-fact gentry, who say " We," and call themselves Critics, declared that " Falkland" was evidently a personation of the author : next year out came Pelham," — the moral antipodes of " Falkland," — and the same gentry said exactly the samething of " Pelham." Will they condescend to reconcile this contradic- tion ? The fact is, that the moment any prominency, any corporeal reality is given to a hero, and the hero (mark this) is not made ostentatiously good, — (nobody said I was like Mordaunt) — then the hero and the Author are the same person! This is one reason why heroes now-a-days are made such poor xiv DEDICATORY EPISTLE. For any occasional retaliation on critics, enemies, or Scotchmen — (with me, for the most part, they have been found three appellations for the same thing,) for many very hard words, and very smart hits against myself — I offer no excuse : — my retaliation is in the spirit of En glish warfare — blows at one moment, and good humour the next. — As for Scotchmen, I am not quite sure that they have been yet able to expel from my breast the lurk- ing kindness which it once bore towards them. — It is not an easy matter seriously to dislike, however ingeniously one may rail against, the country that has produced Burns, and Scott, and Campbell — a country too, by the way, with which you claim a connection, and of which the dis- tinguished friend I have mentioned in this epistle is a native. — I return, only, gently enough at present, the first blows with which they have assailed me ; I know what to expect in return, and shall scarcely be the one " Who first cries * Hold, enough I ' *• But, speaking dispassionately, our good fellow-subjects on the other side of the Tweed have one little unpleasant foible which makes them less charming than they otherwise might be — they lose their temper the moment an English- man gains a single advantage — they become preposterously angry if we get ever so small a name, nay, ever so small a fortune in our own country ; — they seem to imagine that God Almighty had made them a present of England to do exactly what they please with, and that the Englishman who interferes with their monopoly commits the very worst creatures. Authors, a quiet set of people, rarely like to be personally mixed up with their own creations. For my own part, tliough I might have an especial cause of complaint in this incorporation, since I have never even drawn two heroes alike, but made each, Falkland, Pelham, Mordaunt, and Devereux, es- sentially difrerent; yet I am perfectly willing, if it gives the good people the least pleasure, that my Critics should confound me with Pelham. Nay, if Pelham be at all what he was meant to be, viz. a practical satire on the exag- gerated and misanthropical romance of the day — a human being whose real good qualities put to shame the sickly sentimentalism of blue skies and bare throats, sombre coxcombries and interesting villanies ; if he be at all like this, I am extremely proud to be mistaken for him. For though he is certainly a man who bathes and " lives cleanly," (two especial charges preferred against him by Messrs. the Great Unwashed,) yet he is also brave, generous, just; a true friend, an active citizen — perfect in accomplishments — imshakeable in prin- ciples! — "What, is this my portrait — my fac-simile. Gentlemen? — Upon my word, I am extremely obliged to you. Pray go on I — I would not interrupt you for the world I DEDICATORY EPISTLE. XV species of blasphemy. — Whenever we nse the least little step in the world, we are^ it is true,, sure to be abused ; but I fancy we shall find^ on enquiry^ that^ nine times out of ten, the abuse has been uttered in broad Scotch ! It has been made an objection to this book, that the style of the first volume differs from the style of the second and third: this difference was an especial object with me in writing the work. Scenes in society_, essentially con- trasted;, appear to require language suitable to the contrast ; and I cannot but think that one of the great and ordinary faults in fiction is, the narrating all events^ and describing all varieties, with the same monotonous and unmodulating tone. The Hero of the story is an attempt to portray an in- dividual of a species of which the country is now happily rid, but which seem to me to have possessed as many of the real properties of romance, especially comic and natural romance, as the foreign Carbonari and exotic pirates whom it has pleased English writers, in search of captivating vil- lains, to import to their pages. For my part, I will back an English highwayman, masked, armed^ mounted, and trotting over Hounslow Heath, against the prettiest rascal the Continent ever produced. In conclusion^ let me add that I have endeavoured to take warning from the errors of my preceding works. Perhaps, it will be found that, in this the story is better conducted, and the interest more uniformly upheld, than in my other productions. I have outlived the Recluse's de- sire to be didascular, and have avoided alike essay- writing and digression ; — in a word, I have studied more than in my two last works to write a tolerably entertaining novel. I have admitted only one episode of importance — the History of Augustus Tomlinson ; and I have only admitted that exception, because the History is no episode in the moral and general design, though it is in the current of narration. And now, my dear friend, it is high time that 1 should end an Epistle already too long, even for your patience. Whatever be the fate of this book, or of those which have preceded it ; whether they have arisen like the insects xvi DEDICATORY EPISTLE. kindled from the Sicilian fountain^ — quickened with one moment, and perishing with the next, — or whether, in spite of a thousand faults which no one can detect easier than myself, something, Ijetokening, perhaps, no thought- less or irreverent inattention to the varieties of Nature, and no unkindly disposition towards her offspring, may detain them on the puhHc mind yet a little while beyond the brief season which gave them birth ; — one gratification I have at least secured! — I have associated this novel, which I incline to hope may not be considered my worst, and which possibly may be my last, wdth such remembrances as will survive defeat, or endear success Adieu, my dear *****. Wishing you all health and happiness. Believe me your very Affectionate Friend, E. L. B. Hertford Street, April, 1830. NOTE. One or two Notes on, or allusions to, Moore's Life of Byron, will be found in these pages. Since they were WTitten, the subject has grown a little hackneyed, and the remarks they embody have been in some measure fore-- stalled. At the time of composition, they were, however, new, and appeared to me called for. PAUL CLIFFORD CHAPTER I. Say, ye opprest by some fantastic woes, Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose, "Who press the downy couch while slaves advance With timid eye to read the distant glance ; Who with sad prayers the weary doctor teaze To name the nameless ever-new disease ; Who with mock patience dire complaints endure. Which real pain and that alone can cure : How would you bear in real pain to lie Despised, neglected, left alone to die ? How would ye bear to draw your latest breath Where all that 's wretched paves the way to death ? Crabbe, It was a dark and stormy night ; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals^ when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies)^ rattling along the house- tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. Through one of the obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the police, a man evidently of the lowest orders was wending his solitary way. He stopped twice or thrice at different shops and houses of a description correspondent with the appearance of the guar- tier in which they were situated, — and tended inquiry for some article or another which did not seem easily to be met with. All the answers he received were couched in the negative ; and as he turned from each door, he mut- tered to himself, in no very elegant phraseology, his dis- appointment and discontent. At length, at one house, the landlord, a sturdy butcher, after rendering the same reply the inquirer had hitherto received, added, — But if this vill do as veil, Dummie, it is quite at your sarvice Pausing reflectively for a moment, Dummie responded, B PAUL CLIFFORD. that he thought tne thing proffered might do as well ; and thrusting it into his ample pocket he strode away with as rapid a motion as the wind and the rain would allow. He soon came to a nest of low and dingy buildings^ at the entrance to which, in half- effaced characters, was written Thames Court." Halting at the most conspicuous of these buildings, an inn or alehouse, through the half- closed windows of which blazed out in ruddy comfort the beams of the hospitable hearth, he knocked hastily at the door. He was admitted by a lady of a certain age, and endowed with a comely rotundity of race and person. Hast got it, Dummie ? " said she quickly, as she closed the door on the guest. Noa, noa ! not exactly — but I thinks as ow " " Pish, you fool ! " cried the woman interrupting him, peevishly : Vy, it is no use desaving of me. You knows you has only stepped from my boosing ken to another, and you has not been arter the book at all. So, there's the poor cretur a-raving and a-dying, and you " '^^ Let I speak ! " interrupted Dummie in his turn. I tells you, I vent first to Mother Bussblone's, who, I knows, chops the whiners morning and evening to the young ladies, and I axes there for a Bible, and she says, says she, ^ I 'as only a Companion to the Walter but you'll get a bible, I thinks, at Master Talkins, — the cobbler — as preaches.' So I goes to Master Talkins, and he says, says he, ^ I 'as no call for the Bible, 'cause vy, I 'as a call vithout ; but mayhap you '11 be a-getting it at the butcher's hover the vay — cause vy } — the butcher '11 be damned ! ' So I goes hover the vay, and the butcher says, says he, ^ I 'as not a Bible ; but I 'as a book of plays bound for all the vorld just like 'un, and mayhap the poor cretur mayn't see the difference.' So I takes the plays, Mrs. Margery, and here they be surelt/ ! — And how's poor Judy ? " Fearsome ! she '11 not be over the night, I 'm a- thinking." Veil, I '11 track up the dancers !" So saying, Dummie ascended a doorless staircase, across the entrance of which a blanket, stretched angularly from the wall to the chimney, afforded a kind of screen ; and PAUL CLIFFORD. 3 presently he stood 'within a chamber, which the dark and painful genius of Crabbe might have delighted to portray. The walls were white- washed, and at sundry places strange figures and grotesque characters had been traced by some mirthful inmate in such sable outline as the end of a smoked stick, or the edge of a piece of charcoal is wont to produce. The wan and flickering light afforded by a far- thing candle gave a sort of grimness and menace to these achievements of pictorial art, especially as they more than once received embellishment from portraits of Satan, such as he is accustomed to be drawn. A low fire burned gloomily in the sooty grate ; and on the hob hissed the still small voice*' of an iron kettle. On a round deal- table were two vials, a cracked cup, a broken spoon of some dull metal, and upon two or three mutilated chairs were scattered various articles of female attire. On another table, placed below a high, narrow, shutterless casement, (athwart which, instead of a curtain, a checked apron had been loosely hung, and now waved fitfully to and fro in the gusts of wind that made easy ingress through many a chink and cranny,) were a looking-glass, sundry appliances of the toilet, a box of coarse rouge, a few ornaments of more show than value ; and a watch, the regular and calm clink of which produced that inde- scribably painful feeling which, we fear, many of our readers who have heard the sound in a sick chamber can easily recall. A large tester- bed stood opposite to this table, and the looking-glass partially reflected curtains of a faded stripe, and ever and anon, (as the position of the sufferer followed the restless emotion of a disordered mind,) glimpses af the face of one on whom Death was rapidly hastening. Beside this bed now stood Dummie, a small, thin man, dressed in a tattered plush jerkin, from which the rain-drops slowly dripped, and with a thin, yellow, cunning physiognomy, grotesquely hideous in feature but not positively villainous in expression. On the other side ^. of the bed stood a little boy of about three years old, dressed as if belonging to the better classes, although the garb was somewhat tattered and discoloured. The poor child trembled violently, and evidently looked with a feei- B 2 4 PAUL CLIFFORD. ing of relief on the entrance of Dummie. And now there slowly^ and with many a phthisical sigh^ heaved tow^ards the foot of the hed the heavy frame of the woman who had accosted Dummie below^ and had followed him, haud passihus cequis, to the room of the sufferer ; she stood with a bottle of medicine in her hand, shaking its contents up and down^ and with a kindly yet timid compassion spread over a countenance crimsoned with habitual libations. This made the scene ; save that on a chair by the bed-side lay a profusion of long glossy golden ringlets, which had been cut from the head of the sufferer when the fever had begun to mount upwards ; but which, with a jealousy that portrayed the darling littleness of a vain heart, she had seized, and insisted on retaining near her ; and save that, by the fire, perfectly inattentive to the event about to take place within the chamber, and to which we of the biped race attach so awful an importance, lay a large grey cat curled in a ball, and dozing with half-shut eyes, and ears that now and then denoted, by a gentle inflection, the jar of a louder or nearer sound than usual upon her lethargic senses. The dying woman did not at first attend to the entrance either of Dummie or the female at the foot of the bed ; but she turned herself round towards the child, and grasping his arm fiercely, she drew him towards her, and gazed on his terrified features with a look in w^hich ex- haustion and an exceeding wanness of complexion were even horribly contrasted by the glare and energy of de- lirium. If you are like hirriy^ she muttered,, I will strangle you, — I will ! — ay — tremble ! you ought to tremble^ when your mother touches you, or when he is mentioned. You have his eyes, — you have ! Out with them, out ! — the devil sits laughing in them ! Oh ! you weep, do you, little one ! Well now, be still, my love, — be hushed ! I would not harm thee ! harm — O God, he is my child after all ! " — and at these words she clasped the boy pas- sionately to her breast, and burst into tears ! Coomnow, coom !" said Dummie soothingly. Take the stuff, Judith, and then ve'll talk hover the hurchin I" PAUL CLIFFORD. 5 The mother relaxed her grasp of the boy, and turning towards the speaker, gazed at him for some moments with a bewildered stare : at length she appeared slowly to re- member him, and said, as she raised herself on one hand, and pointed the other towards him with an inquiring ges- ture, — Thou hast brought the book ? " Dummie answered by lifting up the book he had brought from the honest butcher's. Clear the room, then ! " said the sufferer, with that air of mock command so common to the insane. We would be alone I " Dummie winked at the good woman at the foot of the bed ; and she (though generally no easy person to order or to persuade) left, without reluctance, the sick chamber. If sh2 be a-going to pray ! " murmured our landlady, (for that office did the good matron hold), I may indeed as well take myself off, for it's not werry comfortable like, to those who be old, to hear all that 'ere ! " With this pious reflection, the hostess of The IMug," so was the hostelry called, hea\dly descended the creaking stairs. ^'^ Now, man ! " said the sufferer sternly : ^' swear that you wall never reveal, — swear, I say ! and by the great God, whose angels are about this night, if ever you break the oath, I will come back and haunt you to your dying day ! " Dummie's face grew pale, for he was superstitiously affected by the vehemence and the language of the dying woman, and he answered as he kissed the pretended bible, — that he swore to keep the secret, as much as he knew of it, which, she must be sensible, he said, was very little. As he spoke, the wind swept with a loud and sudden gust down the chimney, and shook the roof above them so vio- lently as to loosen many of the crumbling tiles, which fell one after the other, with a crashing noise, on the pavement below. Dummie started in affright ; and perhaps his con- science smote him for the trick he had played with regard to the false bible. But the woman, whose excited and un- strung nerves led her astray from one subject to another B 3 6 PAUL CLIFFORD. with preternatural celerity^ said^ with an hysterical laugh, " See, Dummie, they come in state for me ; give me the cap — yonder ! and bring the looking-glass ! " Dummie obeyed, and the woman, as she in a low tone uttered something about the unbecoming colour of the rib- bons, adjusted the cap on her head ; and then saying in a regretful and petulant voice, Why should they have cut off my hair ? — such a disfigurement ! " bade Dummie desire Mrs. Margery once more to ascend to her. Left alone with her child, the face of the wretched mo- ther softened as she regarded him, and all the levities and all the vehemences, — if we may use the word, — which, in the turbulent commotion of her delirium, had been stirred upward to the surface of her mind, gradually now sunk, as death increased upon her, — and a mother's anx- iety rose to the natural level from which it had been dis- turbed and abased. She took the child to her bosom, and clasping him in her arms, which grew weaker with every instant, she soothed him with the sort of chant which nurses sing over their untoward infants ; but the voice was cracked and hollow, and as she felt it was so, the mother's eyes filled with tears. — Mrs. Margery now re-entered ; and, turning towards the hostess with an impressive calm- ness of manner which astonished and awed the person she addressed, the dying woman pointed to the child, and said, — You have been kind to me, very kind, and may God bless you for it ! I have found that those whom the world calls the worst, are often the most human. But I am not going to thank you as I ought to do, but to ask of you a last and exceeding favour. Protect my child till he grows up : you have often said you loved him, — you are childless yourself, — and a morsel of bread and a shelter for the night, which is all I ask of you to give him, will not impoverish more legitimate claimants ! " Poor Mrs. Margery, fairly sobbing, vowed she would be ai mother to the child, and that she would endeavour to rear him honestly, though a public-house was not, she con- fessed, the best place for good examples ! " Take him ! " cried tli'* mother hoarsely, as her voice. PAUL CLIFFORD. failing her strength^ rattled indistinctly^ and almost died within her. "^^^ Take him, — rear him as you will^ as you can ! — any example^ any roof better than — " Here the words were inaudible. And oh ! may it be a curse^ and a ! Give me the medicine^ I am dying." The hostess^ alarmed^ hastened to comply^ but before she returned to the bedside the sufferer was insensible^ — nor did she again recover speech or motion. A low and rare moan only testified continued life, and within two hours that ceased, and the spirit was gone. At that time our good hostess was herself beyond the things of this outer world_, having supported her spirits during the vigils of the night with so many little liquid excitations, that they finally ended in that torpor which generally succeeds excitement. Taking, perhaps, advantage of the opportu- nity the insensibility of the hostess afforded him, Dum- mie, by the expiring ray of the candle that burnt in the death chamber, hastily opened a huge box (which was ge- nerally concealed under the bed, and contained the ward- robe of the deceased), and turned with irreverent hand over the linens and the silks, until quite at the bottom of the trunk he discovered some packets of letters ; — these he seized, and buried in the conveniences of his dress. He then rising and replacing the box, cast a longing eye towards the watch on the toilet-table, which was of gold ; but he withdrew his gaze, and with a long, querulous sigh, observed to himself, The old blone kens o' that, od rat her ! but, howsomever, I '11 take this ; who knows but it may be of sarvice — tannics to-day may be smash to-mor- row!"* and he laid his coarse hand on the golden and silky tresses we have described, — T'is a rum business^ and puzzles I ! but mum's the word, for my own little colquarren." t With this brief soliloquy Dummie descended the stairs, and let himself out of the house. * Meaning, what is of no value now may be precious hereafter, f Colquarren — neck. B 4? 8 PAUL CLIFFORD. CHAPTER II. imagination fondly stoops to trace The parlour splendours of that festive place. Deserted Village. There is little to interest in a narrative of early child- hoodj unless indeed one were writing on education. We shall not therefore linger over the infancy of the motherless boy left to the protection of Mrs. Margery Lobkins, or, as she was sometimes familiaily called, P^ggy or Piggy Lob. The good dame, drawing a more than sufficient income from the profits of a house, which, if situated in an obscure locality, enjoyed very general and lucrative repute; and being a lone widow without kith or kin, had no temptation to break her word to the deceased, and she suffered the orphan to wax in strength and understanding until the age of twelve, a period at which we are now about to reintroduce him to our readers. The boy evinced great hardihood of temper, and no inconsiderable quickness of intellect. In whatever he at- tempted, his success was rapid, and a remarkable strength of limb and muscle seconded well the dictates of an ambi- tion turned, it must be confessed, rather to physical than mental exertion. It is not to be supposed, however, that liis boyish life passed in unbroken tranquillity. Although Mrs. Lobkins was a good woman on the whole, and greatly attached to her protege, she was violent and rude in temper, or, as she herself more flatteringly expressed it, *^'^her feelings w^ere un/dmmonly strong," and alternate quarrel and reconciliation constituted the chief occupations of the protege ^ domestic life. As previous to his becoming the ward of Mrs. Lobkins, he had never received any other appellation than the child," the duty of christening him devolved upon our hostess of The Mug and, after some dehberation, she blest him with the name of Paul, — it was a name of hap})y omen, for it had belonged to Mrs. Lobkins' grandfather, who had been three times PAUL CLIFFORD. 9 transported^ and twice hanged^ (at the first occurrence of the latter description^ he had been restored by the sur- geons, much to the chagrin of a young anatomist who was to have had the honour of cutting him up.) The boy did not seem hkely to merit the distinguished appel- lation he bore^ for he testified no remarkable predisposition to the property of other people. Nay, although he some- times emptied the pockets of any stray visiter to the coffee- room of Mrs. Lobkins, it appeared an act originating rather in a love of the frolic, than a desire of the profit ; for after the plundered person had been sufficiently tor- mented by the loss_, haply of such utilities as a tobacco-box or a handkerchief ; after he had, to the secret delight of Paul, searched every corner of the apartment, stamped, and fretted, and exposed himself by his petulance to the bitter objurgation of Mrs. Lobkins, our young friend would quietly and suddenly contrive, that the article missed should return of its own accord to the pocket from which it had disappeared. And thus, as our readers have doubtless experienced, when they have disturbed the peace of a whole household for the loss of some portable treasure which they themselves are afterwards discovered to have mislaid, the unfortunate victim of Paul's honest ingenuity^ exposed to the collected indignation of the spectators, and sinking from the accuser into the convicted, secretly cursed the unhappy lot which not only vexed him with the loss of his property, but made it still more annoying to recover it. Whether it was that, on discovering these pranks, Mrs. Lobkins frembled for the future bias of the address they displayed, or whether she thought that the folly of thieving without gain required speedy and permanent cor- rection, we cannot decide ; but the good lady became at last extremely anxious to secure for Paul the blessings of a liberal education. The key of knowledge (the art of reading) she had, indeed, two years prior to the present date, obtained for him, but this far from satisfied her conscience : nay, she felt that, if she could not also obtain for him the discretion to use it, it would have been wise even to have withheld a key, which the boy seemed per- 10 PAUL CLIFFORD. versely to apply to all locks but the right one. In a word, she was desirous that he should receive an education far superior to those whom he saw around him. And at- tributing^ like most ignorant persons, too great advantages to learnings she conceived that, in order to live as decorously as the parson of the parish, it was only necessary to know as much Latin. One evening in particular, as the dame sat by her cheer- ful fire, this source of anxiety was unusually active in her mind, and ever and anon she directed unquiet and restless glances towards Paul, who sat on a form at the opposite corner of the hearth, diligently employed in reading the life and adventures of the celebrated Richard Turpin. The form on which the boy sat was worn to a glassy smoothness, save only in certain places, where some in- genious idler or another had amused himself by carving sundry names, epithets, and epigrammatic niceties of lan- guage. It is said, that the organ of carving upon wood is prominently developed on all English skulls ; and the sagacious Mr. Combe has placed this organ at the back of the head, in juxtaposition to that of destructiveness, which is equally large among our countrymen, as is notably evinced upon all railings, seats, temples, and other things — belonging to other people. Opposite to the fire-place was a large deal table^ at which Dummie, surnamed Dunnaker, seated near the dame, was quietly ruminating over a glass of hoUands and water. Farther on, at another table in the corner of the room, a gentleman with a red wig, very rusty garments, and linen which seemed as if it had been boiled in saffron, smoked his pipe, apart, silent, and apparently plunged in meditation. This gentleman was no other than Mr. Peter Mac Grawler, the editor of a magnificent periodical, enti- tled the Asinaeum," which was written to prove, that whatever is popular is necessarily bad, — a valuable and recondite truth which the ^'^Asinieum" had satisfactorily demonstrated by ruining three printers, and demolishing a publisher. We need not add, that Mr. Mac Grawler was Scotch by birth, since we believe it is pretty well known that all the periodicals of this country have, from PAUL CLIFFORD. 11 time immemorial, been monopolised by the gentlemen of the land of cakes — we know not how it may be the fashion to eat the said cakes in Scotland; but here the good emigrators seem to like them carefully buttered on both sides. By the side of the editor stood a large pewter tankard, above him hung an engraving of the wonder- fully fat boar, formerly in the possession of Mr. Fattem, grazier." To his left rose the dingy form of a thin, upright clock in an oaken case ; beyond the clock, a spit and a musket were fastened in parallels to the wall. Below those twin emblems of war and cookery were four shelves, containing plates of pewter and delf, and termi- nating, centaur-like^ in a sort of dresser. At the other side of these domestic conveniences was a picture of Mrs. Lobkins, in a scarlet body, and a hat and plume. At the back of the fair hostess stretched the blanket we have before mentioned. As a relief to the monotonous surface of this simple screen, various l)allads and learned legends were pinned to the blanket. There might you read in verses, pathetic and unadorned^ how, *' Sally loved a sailor 1ad As fought with famous Shovell'* There might you learn, if of two facts so instructive you were before unconscious, that " Ben the toper loved his bottle — Charley only loved the lasses I TVTien of these, and various other poetical effusions, you were somewhat wearied, the literary fragments, in humbler prose, afforded you equal edification and delight. There might you fully enlighten yourself as to the Strange and Wonderful News from Kensington, being a most full and true relation, how a Maid there is supposed to have been carried away by an Evil Spirit, on Wednesday, 15th of April last, about Midnight.'' There too, no less interest- ing and no less veracious, was that uncommon anecdote, touching the chief of many-throned powers, entitled, " The Divell of Mascon ; or the true relation of the Chief Things which an Unclean Spirit did and said at Mascon, in Burgundy^ in the house of one Mr. Francis Pereaud, now 12 PAUL CLIFFORD. made English by One that hath a Particular Knowledge of the Truth of the Story/' Nor were these materials for Satanic history the only prosaic and faithful chronicles which the bibliothecal blanket afforded: equally wonderful^ and equally indis- putable^ was the account of a young lady_, the daughter of a duke^ with three legs^ and the face of a porcupine." Nor less so^ ^^The Awful Judgment of God upon Swearers^ as exemplified in the case of John Stiles^ who Dropped down Dead after swearing a Great Oath, and on stripping the unhappy man they found ^ Swear not at all' written on the Tail of his Shirt V Twice had Mrs. Lobkins heaved a long sigh, as her eyes turned from Paul to the tranquil countenance of Dummie Dunnaker, and now_, resettling herself in her chair, as a motherly anxiety gathered over her visage, — Paul, my ben cull," said she, what gibberish hast got there }'* Turpin, the great highw^ayman !" answered the young student, without lifting his eyes from the page, through which he was spelling his instructive way. Oh ! he he's a chip of the right block, dame !" said Mr. Dunnaker, as he applied his pipe to an illumined piece of paper. He'll ride a oss foaled by a hacorn yet, I varrants ! " To this prophecy the dame replied only with a look of indignation, and rocking herself to and fro in her huge chair, she remained for some moments in silent thought. At last she again wistfully eyed the hopeful boy, and calling him to her side, communicated some order, in a dejected whisper. Paul, on receiving it, disappeared behind the blanket, and presently returned with a bottle and a wine-glass. With an abstracted gesture, and an air that betokened continued meditation, the good dame took the inspiring cordial from the hand of her youthful cupbearer, " And ere a man liad power to say * Behold ! * The jaws of Lobkiii8 had devoured it up, So quick bright things come to confusion ! " The nectarean beverage seemed to operate cheerily on the PAUL CLIFFORD. 13 matron's system ; and placing her hand on the boy's curl- ing head, she said, (like Andromache, dakruon gelasasa, or, as Scott hath it, " With a smile in her cheek, but a tear in her eye;'^) — Paul, thy heart be good ! — thy heart be good ! — Thou didst not spill a drop of the tape I Tell me, my honey, why didst thou lick Tom Toby son ?" Because," answered Paul, he said as how you ought to have been hanged long ago ! " Tom Tobyson is a good-for-nought,'* returned the dame, and deserves to shove the tumbler* ; but, oh my child ! be not too venturesome in taking up the sticks for a bio wen. It has been the ruin of many a man afore you, and when two men goes to quarrel for a 'oman, they doesn't know the natur of the thing they quarrels about ; — mind thy latter end, Paul, and reverence the old, with- out axing what they has been before they passed into the wale of years ; — thou may 'st get me my pipe, Paul, — it is upstairs, under the pillow." While Paul was accomplishing this errand, the lady of the Mug, fixing her eyes upon Mr. Dunnaker, said, ^^Dummie, Dummie, if little Paul should come to be scragged ! " " Whish ! " muttered Dummie, glancing over his shoulder at Mac Grawler, — Mayhap that gemman,'* — here his voice became scarcely audible even to Mrs. Lob- kins; but his whisper seemed to imply an insinuation^ that the illustrious editor of the Asinaeum might be either an informer, or one of those heroes on whom an informer subsists. Mrs. Lobkins' answer, couched in the same key, ap- peared to satisfy Dunnaker, for, with a look of great con- tempt, he chucked up his head, and said, Oho ! that be all, be it!" Paul here reappeared with the pipe, and the dame, having filled the tube, leaned forward, and lighted the Virginian weed from the Uower of Mr. Dunnaker. As in this interesting occupation the heads of the hostess and the guest approached each other, the glowing light playing ♦ Be whipped at the cart's taiL 14 PAUL CLIFFORD. cheerily on the countenance of each^ there was an honest simpHcity in the picture that would have merited the racy and vigorous genius of a Cruikshank. As soon as the Promethean spark had been fully communicated to the lady's tube^ Mrs. Lobkins^ still possessed by the gloomy idea she had conjured up^ repeated, — Ah, Dummie, if little Paul should be scragged ! " Dummie, withdrawing the pipe from his mouth, heaved a sympathising pufF, but remained silent ; and Mrs. Lobkins, turning to Paul, who stood with mouth open and ears erect at this boding ejaculation, said, — Dost think, Paul, they'd have the heart to hang thee?" 1 think they'd have the rope, dame!" returned the youth. But you need not go for to run your neck into the noose ! " said the matron ; and then, inspired by the spirit of moralising, she turned round to the youth, and gazing upon his attentive countenance, accosted him with the following admonitions : — ^' Mind thy kittychism, child, and reverence old age. Never steal, 'specially when any one be in the way. Never go snacks with them as be older than you, — 'cause why ? the older a cove be, the more he cares for his self, and the less for his partner. At twenty, we diddles the public; at forty we diddles our cronies ! Be modest, Paul, and stick to your sitivation in life. Go not with fine tobymen, who burn out like a candle wot has a thief in it, — all flare and gone in a whiffy! Leave liquor to the aged, who can't do without it. Tape often proves a halter, and there he's no ruin like blue ruin ! Read your bible, and talk like a pious 'un. People goes more by your words than your actions. If you wants what is not your own, try and do without it ; and if you cannot do without it, take it away by insinivation, not bluster. They as swindles, does more and risks less than they as robs ; and if you cheats toppingly, you may laugh at the topping cheat * ; and now go play." Paul seized his hat, but lingered ; and the dame ♦ G&llowa. PAUL CLIFFORD. i5 guessing at the signification of the pause, drew forth, and placed in the boy's hand, the sum of five halfpence and one farthing. " There, boy," quoth she, and she stroked his head fondly when she spoke ; " you does right not to play for nothing, it's loss of time ! but play with those as be less than yourseP, and then you can go for to beat 'em, if they says you go for to cheat \" Paul vanished ; and the dame, laying her hand on Dummie's shoulder, said, — . There be nothing like a friend in need, Dummie ; and somehow or other, I thinks as how you knows more of the horrigin of that 'ere lad than any of us ! " Me, dame ! " exclaimed Dummie, with the broad gaze of astonishment. ^' Ah, you ! you knows as how the mother saw more of you just afore she died, than she did of 'ere one of us. Noar^ now — noar, now ! tell us all about 'un. Did she steal 'un, think ye } " Lauk, mother Margery ! dost think I knows ? Yot put such a crotchet in your ead ? Well ! " said the dame with a disappointed sigh, I always thought as how you were more knowing about it than you owns. Dear, dear, I shall never forgit the night when Judith brought the poor cretur here, — you knows she had been some months in my house afore ever I see'd the urchin, and when she brought it, she looked so pale and ghostly, that I had not the heart to say a word, so I stared at the brat, and it stretched out its wee little hands to me. And the mother frowned at it, and throwed it into my lap !" Ah ! she vas a hawful voman, that 'ere ! " said Dummie, shaking his head. " But howsomever, the hurchin fell into good hands ; for I he's sure you 'as been a better mother to 'un than the raal 'un ! " " I was always a fool about childer," rejoined Mrs. Lobkins, and I thinks as how little Paul was sent to be a comfort to my latter end ! — fill the glass, Dummie." I 'as heard as ow Judith was once blowen to a great lord ! " said Dummie. Like enough ! " returned Mrs. Lobkins — like 16 PAUL CLIFFORD. enough ! she was always a favourite of mine^ for she had a spuret (spirit) as big as my own ; and she paid her rint like a decent body^ for all she was out of her sinses, or nation Hke it." Kj, I knows as how you liked her^ — 'cause vy ? 'tis not your vay, to let a room to a voman ! you says as how 'tis not respectable, and you only likes men to wisit the Mug!" And I doesn't hke all of them as comes here ! " answered the dame: 'specially for Paul's sake; but what can a lone 'oman do } Many's the gentlemen high- waymen wot comes here^ whose money is as good as the clerk's of the parish. And when a bob* is in my hand, what does it sinnify whose hand it was in afore ? " That 's what I call being sinsible and practical,'' said Dummie, approvingly. And arter all, though you 'as a mixture like, I does not know a halehouse where a cove is better entertained, nor meets of a Sunday more illegant company, than the Mug ! " Here the conversation_, which the reader must know had been sustained in a key inaudible to a third person, received a check from Mr. Peter Mac Grawler, who, having finished his reverie and his tankard, now rose to depart. First, however, approaching Mrs. Lobkins, he observed that he had gone on credit for some days, and demanded the amount of his bill. Glancing towards certain chalk hieroglyphics inscribed on the wall at the other side of the fireplace, the dame answered, that Mr. Mac Grawler was indebted to her for the sum of one shilhng and ninepence three farthings. After a short preparatory search in his waistcoat pockets, the critic hunted into one corner a solitary half-crown, and having caught it between his finger and thumb, he gave it to Mrs. Lobkins, and requested change. As soon as the matron felt her hand anointed with what has been called by some ingenious Johnson of St. Giles's the oil of palms," her countenance softened into a complacent smile; and when she gave the required ♦ Shilling. PAUL CLIFFORD. 17 change to Mr. Mac Grawler, she graciously hoped as how he would recommend the Mug to the public. ^' That you may be sure of," said the editor of the Asinaeum. There is not a place where I am so much at home." With that the learned Scotsman buttoned his coat and went his way. How spiteful the world be ! said Mrs. Lobkins after a pause^ ^' 'specially if a *oman keeps a fashionable sort of a public ! When Judith died^ Joe^ the dog's-meat man_, said I war all the better for it^ and that she left I a treasure to bring up the urchin. One would think a thumper makes a man richer, — 'cause why? every man thumps ! 1 got nothing more than a watch and ten guineas_, when Judy died^ and sure^ that scarce paid for the burrel (burial)." You forgits the two quids I giv' you for the hold box of rags, — much of a treasure I found there!" said Dummie, with sycophantic archness. Ay," cried the dame laughing, I fancies you war not pleased with the bargain. I thought you war too old a rag-merchant to be so free with the blunt : howsomever^, I supposes it war the tinsel petticoat as took you in ! " As it has mony a viser man than the like of I," re- joined Dummie, who to his various secret professions added the ostensible one of a rag-merchant and dealer in broken glass. The recollection of her good bargain in the box of rags opened our landlady's heart. Drink_, Dummie," said she good-humouredly, — drink, I scorns to score lush to a friend." Dummie expressed his gratitude, refilled his glass, and the hospitable matron knocking out from her pipe the dying ashes, thus proceeded : — *^ You sees, Dummie, though I often beats the boy, I loves him, as much as if I war his raal mother — I w^ants to make him an honour to his country and an ixciption to my family!" * Guineas 18 PAUL CLIFFORD, " Who all flashed their ivories at Surgeons Hall ! " added the metaphorical Dummie. '^Truel" said the lady, — they died game, and I hen't ashamed of 'em. But I owes a duty to Paul's mother, and I wants Paul to have a long life. I would send him to school, but you knows as how the boys only corrupt one another. And so, I should like to meet with some decent man as a tutor, to teach the lad Latin and vartue ! " *^ My eyes !" cried Dummie, aghast at the grandeur of this desire. The boy i« 'cute enough, and he loves reading/' con- tinued the dame. But I does not think the books he gets hold of will teach him the way to grow old." And ow came he to read any hows ? " Ranting Rob, the strolling player, taught him his letters, and said he ^d a deal of janius !" " And why should not Ranting Rob tache the boy Latin and vartue ? " ^Cause Ranting Rob, poor fellow, was lagged for doing apanny * answered the dame, despondently. There was a long silence : it was broken by Mr. Dummie : slapping his thigh with the gesticulatory ve- hemence of an Ugo Foscolo, that gentleman exclaimed, — " /'as it — I 'as thought of a tutor for leetle Paul !" Who 's that } you quite frightens me ; you 'as no marcy on my narves," said the dame fretfully. Vy it be the gemman vot writes," said Dummie, putting his finger to his nose, — the gemman vot payed you so flashly ! '" What ! the Scotch gemman ! " " The werry same ! " returned Dummie. The dame turned in her chair, and refilled her pipe. It "was evident from her manner that Mr. Dunnaker's sug- gestion had made an impression on her. But she re- cognised two doubts as to its feasibility, — one, whether the gentleman proposed would be adequate to the task, — the other, whether he would be willing to undertake it. In the midst of her meditations on this matter, the dame • Transported for burglary. PAUL CLIFFORD. 19 was interrupted by the entrance of certain claimants on her hospitality ; and Dummie soon after taking his leave^ the suspense of Mrs. Lobkins* mind touching the education of little Paul remained the whole of that day and night utterly unrelieved. CHAPTER III. T own that I am envious of the pleasure you will have in finding yourself more learned than other boys — even those who are older than yourself! What honour this will do you I "What distinctions, what applauses will follow where ever you go ! Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son. Example, my boy — example is worth a thousand precepts. Maximilian Solemn. Tarfeia was crushed beneath the weight of ornaments ! The language of the vulgar is a sort of Tarpeia ! We have therefore relieved it of as many gems as we were able ; and, in the foregoing scene, presented it to the gaze of our readers, simplex munditiis. Nevertheless, we could timidly imagine some gentler beings of the softer sex rather dis- pleased with the tone of the dialogue we have given, did we not recollect how delighted they are with the provincial barbarities of the sister kingdom, whenever they meet them poured over the pages of some Scottish story-teller. As, un- happily for mankind, broad Scotch is not yet the universal language of Europe, we suppose our countrywomen will not be much more unacquainted with the dialect of their own lower orders, than with that which breathes nasal melodies over the paradise of the North. It was the next day, at the hour of twilight, when Mrs. Margery Lobkins, after a satisfactory tete-a-tete with Mr. Mac Grawler, had the happiness of thinking that she had provided a tutor for little PauL The critic having re- cited to her a considerable portion of Propria quce Marihus^ the good lady had no longer a doubt of his capacities for c 2 20 PAUL CLIFFORD. teaching ; and^ on the other hand, when Mrs. Lobkins entered on the subject of remuneration^ the Scotsman pro- fessed himself perfectly willing to teach any and every thing that the most exacting guardian could require. It was finally settled that Paul should attend Mr. Mac Grawler two hours a-day ; that Mr. Mac Grawler should be entitled to such animal comforts of meat and drink, as the Mug afforded ; and^ moreover^ to the weekly stipend of two shillings and sixpence^ the shillings for instruction in the classics^ and the sixpence for all other humanities ; or^ as Mrs. Lobkins expressed it^ two bobs for the Latin^ and a sice for the vartue ! " Let not thy mind, gentle reader, censure us for a de- viation from probability, in making so excellent and learned a gentleman as Mr. Peter Mac Grawler the familiar guest of the lady of the Mug. First, thou must know that our story is cast in a period antecedent to the present, and one in which the old jokes against the circumstances of author and of critic had their foundation in truth ; se- condly, thou must know, that by some curious conca- tenation of circumstances, neither bailiff nor bailiff's man was ever seen within the four walls continent of Mrs. Margery Lobkins ; thirdly, the Mug was nearer than any other house of public resort to the abode of the critic ; fourthly, it afforded excellent porter; and fifthly, — O reader, thou dost Mrs. Margery Lobkins a grievous wrong, if thou supposest that her door was only open to those mercurial gentry who are afflicted with the morbid curi- osity to pry into the mysteries of their neighbours' pockets ; — other visiters of fair repute were not unoften partakers of the good matron's hospitality ; although it must be owned that they generally occupied the private room in preference to the public one. And sixthly, sweet reader (we grieve to be so prolix), we would just hint to thee, that Mr. Mac Grawler was one of those vast-minded sages who, occupied in contemplating morals in the great scale, do not fritter down their intellects by a base attention to minute details. So that, if a descendant of Langfanger did sometimes cross the venerable Scot in his visit to the Mug, the apparition did not revolt that benevolent moralist so much as, were it PAUL CLIFFORD. 21 not for the above hint^ thy ignorance might lead thee to imagine. It is said^ that Athenodorus the Stoic contributed greatly by his conversation to amend the faults of Augustus, and to effect the change visible in that fortunate man_, after his accession to the Roman empire. If this be true^ it may throw a new light on the character of Augustus_, and^ in- stead of being the hypocrite_, he was possibly the convert. Certain it is^ that there are few vices which cannot be con- quered by wisdom : and yet^ melancholy to relate^ the in- structions of Peter Mac Grawler produced but slender amelioration in the habits of the youthful Paul. That ingenious stripling had^ we have already seen^ under the tuition of Ranting Rob, mastered the art of reading ; nay, he could even construct and link together certain curious pot-hooks, which himself and Mrs. Lobkins were wont graciously to term writing.'' So far, then, the way of Mac Grawler was smoothed and prepared. But, unhappily, all experienced teachers allow that the main difficulty is not to learn, but to unlearn ; and the mind of Paul was already occupied by a vast number of heterogeneous miscellanies, which stoutly resisted the in- gress either of Latin or of virtue. Nothing could wean him from an ominous affection for the history of Richard Turpin : it was to him what, it has been said, the Greek authors should be to the Academician, — a study by day, and a dream by night. He was docile enough during lessons, and sometimes even too quick in conception for the stately march of Mr. Mac Grawler's intellect. But it not unfrequently happened, that when that gentleman attempted to rise, he found himself, like the lady in Comus, adhering to — " A venomed seat Smeared with gums of glutinous heat j " or his legs had been secretly united under the table, and the tie was not to be broken without overthrow to the su- perior powers ; these, and various other little sportive ma- chinations wherewith Paul was wont to relieve the monotony of literature, went far to disgust the learned critic with his undertaking. But the tape" and the treasury of Mrs. c 3 £2 PAUL CLIFFORD. LoBkins re-smoothed, as it were, the irritated bristles of his mind, and he continued his labours with this philosophical reflection : — ''Why fret myself ? — if a pupil turn out well, it is clearly to the credit of his master ; if not, to the dis- advantage of himself.'* Of course, a similar suggestion never forced itself into the mind of Dr. Keate. At Eton, the very soul of the honest head-master is consumed by his zeal for the welfare of little gentlemen in stiff cravats. But to Paul, who was predestined to enjoy a certain quantum of knowledge, circumstances happened, in the commencement of the second year of his pupilage, which prodigiously accelerated the progress of his scholastic career. At the apartment of Mac Grawler, Paul one morning encountered Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, a young man of great promise, who pursued the peaceful occupation of making for a leading newspaper, '' Horrid Murders," Enormous Melons," and '' Remarkable Circumstances." This gentleman, having the advantage of some years* seniority over Paul, was slow in unbending his dignity; but observing at last the eager and respectful attention with which the stripling listened to a most veracious detail of five men being inhumanly murdered in Canterbury Cathe- dral by the Reverend Zedekiah Fooks Barnacle, he was touched by the impression he had created, and shaking Paul graciously by the hand, he told him, there was a deal of natural shrewdness in his countenance; and that Mr. Augustus Tomhnson did not doubt but that he (Paul) might have the honour to be murdered himself one of these days. — '' You understand me ! " continued Mr. Augustus, — '' 1 mean murdered in effigy, — assassinated in type, — while you yourself, unconscious of the circumstance, are quietly enjoying what you imagine to be your existence. W e never kill common persons : to say truth, our chief spite is against the Church ; — we destroy bishops by wholesale. Sometimes, indeed, we knock off a leading barrister or so ; and express the anguish of the junior counsel at a loss so destructive to their interests. But that is only a stray hit ; and the slain barrister often lives to become attorney-general, renounce Whig principles, and PAUL CLIFFORD. 2.^ prosecute the very press that destroyed him. Bishops are our proper food : we send them to heaven on a sort of flying griffin, of which the hack is an apoplexy, and the wings are puffs. The Bishop of , whom we despatched in this manner the other day, heing rather a facetious per- sonage, wrote to remonstrate with us thereon ; observing, that though heaven was a very good translation for a bishop, yet that, in such cases, he preferred ' the original to the translation.' As we murder bishops, so is there another class of persons whom we only afflict with letiferous dis- eases. This latter tribe consists of his Majesty and his Majesty's ministers. Whenever we cannot abuse their measures, we always fall foul on their health. Does the King pass any popular law, — we immediately insinuate that his constitution is on its last legs. Does the minister act like a man of sense, — we instantly observe, with great regret, that his complexion is remarkably pale. There is one manifest advantage in diseasing people, instead of ab- solutely destroying them. The public may flatly contra- dict us in one case, but it never can in the other ; — it is easy to prove that a man is alive : but utterly impossible to prove that he is in health. What if some opposing news- paper take up the cudgels in his behalf, and assert that the victim of all Pandora's complaints, whom we send tottering to the grave, passes one half the day in knocking up a ^' distinguished company'* at a shooting-party, and the other half in outdoing the same distinguished company'* after dinner? What if the afflicted individual himself write us word that he never was better in his life, — we have only mysteriously to shake our heads and observe, that to contradict is not to prove, — that it is little likely that our authority should have been mistaken, and — (we are very fond of an historical comparison) — beg our readers to remember, that when Cardinal Richelieu was dying, nothing enraged him so much as hinting that he was ill. Jn short, if Horace is right, we are the very princes of poets ; for I dare say, Mr. Mac Grawler, that you, — and you, too, my little gentleman, perfectly remember the words of the wise old Roman^ — c 4 24 PAUL CLIFFORD. "Ille per extentum fuiiem mihi posse vidctur Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet.' " Having uttered this quotation with considerable self- complacency^ and thereby entirely completed his conquest over Paul_, Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, turning to Mac Grawler^ concluded his business with that gentleman_, which was of a literary nature^, namely ^ a joint composition against a man who, being under five-and-twenty, and too poor to give dinners^ had had the impudence to write a sacred poem. The critics were exceedingly bitter at this ; and having very little to say against the poem, the Court journ- als called the author a coxcomb," and the liberal ones the son of a pantaloon ! " There was an ease, — a spirit, — a life about Mr. Au- gustus Tomlinson, which captivated the senses of our young hero : then, too, he was exceedingly smartly attired ; wore red heels and a bag ; had what seemed to Paul quite the air of a *^ man of fashion;" and, above all, he spouted the Latin with a remarkable grace f Some days afterwards, Mac Grawler ^ent our hero to Mr. Tomlinson's lodgings, with his share of the joint abuse upon the poet. Doubly was Paul's reverence for Mr. Augustus Tom- linson increased by a sight of his abode. He found him settled in a polite part of the town, in a very spruce par- lour, the contents of which manifested the universal genius of the inhabitant. It hath been objected unto us by a most discerning critic, that we are addicted to the drawing of universal geniuses." We plead Not Guilty in former instances ; we allow the soft impeachment in the instance of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. Over his fireplace were ranged boxing gloves and fencing foils. On his table lay a cremona and a flageolet. On one side of the wall were shelves containing the Covent Garden Magazine, Burn's Justice, a pocket Horace, a Prayer-book, Excerpta ex Tacito, a volume of Plays, Philosophy made Easy, and a Key to all Knowledge. Furthermore, there were on another table a riding whip, and a driving whip, and a pair of spurs, and three guineas, with a little mountain of loose silver. Mr. Augustus was a tall, fair yoking man, with a freckled com- PAUL CLIFFORD. 25 plexion ; green eyes and red eyelashes , a smiling mouth, rather underjawed ; a sharp nose ; and a prodigiously large pair of ears. He was robed in a green damask dressing- gown ; and he received the tender Paul most graciously. There was something very engaging about our hero. He was not only good-looking, and frank in aspect, but he had that appearance of briskness and intellect which belong to an embryo rogue. Mr. Augustus Tomlinson professed the greatest regard for him, — asked him if he could box, — made him put on a pair of gloves, — and, very con- descendingly, knocked him down three times successively. Next he played him, both upon his flageolet and his cre- mona, some of the most modish airs. Moreover, he sang him a little song of his own composing. He then, taking up the driving-whip, flanked a fly from the opposite wall, and throwing himself (naturally fatigued with his numerous exertions,) on his sofa, he observed, in a careless tone, that he and his friend Lord Dunshunner were universally es- teemed the best whips in the metropolis. I," quoth Mr. Augustus, am the best on the road — but my Lord is a devil at turning a corner.'* Paul, who had hitherto lived too unsophisticated a life to be aware of the importance of which a lord would naturally be in the eyes of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, was not so much struck with the grandeur of the connexion as the murderer of the journals had expected. He merely observed, by way cf compliment, that Mr. Augustus and his companion seemed to be ^* rolling kiddies." A little displeased with this metaphorical remark, — for it may be observed that rolling kiddy" is, among the learned in such lore, the customary expression for a smart thief," — the universal Augustus took that liberty to which, by his age and station, so much superior to those of Paul, he imagined himself entitled, and gently reproved our hero for his indiscriminate use of flash phrases. A lad of your parts," said he, — for I see you are clever by your eye, — ought to be ashamed of using such vulgar expressions. Have a nobler spirit, — a loftier emu- lation, Paul, than that which distinguishes the little raga- muffins of the street. Know that, in this country^ genius 26 PAUL CLIFFORD. and learning carry every thing before them ; and if you behave yourself properly^ you may^ one day or another, be as high in the world as myself." At this speech Paul looked wistfully round the spruce parlour, and thought what a line thing it would be to be lord of such a domain, together with the appliances of flageolet and cremona, boxing-gloves, books_, fly-flanking flagellum, three guineas, with the little mountain of silver, and the reputation — shared only with Lord Dunshunner — of being the best whip in London. Yes ! " continued Tomlinson, with conscious pride, — I owe my rise to myself. Learning is better than house and land. ' Doctrina sed vim/ &c. — You know what old Horace says ? — Why, sir, you would not believe it ; but I was the man who killed his majesty the King of Sardinia, in our yesterday's paper. Nothing is too arduous for genius. Fag hard, my boy, and you may rival — for the thing, though difficult, may not be impossible — Augustus Tomlinson ! At the conclusion of this harangue, a knock at the door being heard, Paul took his departure, and met in the hall a fine-looking person dressed in the height of the fashion, and wearing a pair of prodigiously large buckles in his shoes. Paul looked, and his heart swelled. I may rival," thought he — those were his very words — I may rival, — for the thing, though difficult, is not im- possible — Augustus Tomlinson ! " Absorbed in medita- tion, he went silently home. The next day the memoirs of the great Turpin were committed to the flames, and it was noticeable that henceforth Paul observed a choicer propriety of words, — that he assumed a more refined ai- of dignity, and that he paid considerably more attention than heretofore to the lessons of Mr. Peter Mac Grawler. Although it must be allowed, that our young hero's pro- gress in the learned languages was not astonishing, yet an early passion for reading growing stronger and stronger by application, repaid him at last with a tolerable knowledge of the mother-tongue. We must, however, add, that his more favourite and cherished studies were scarcely of thai nature which a prudent preceptor would have greatly com- PAUL CLIFFORD. 27 mended. They lay chiefly among novels^ P^^ySj, and poetry, which last he affected to that degree that he became somewhat of a poet himself. Nevertheless^ these literary avocations^ profitless as they seemed^ gave a certain refine- ment to his tastes^ which they were not likely otherwise to have acquired at The Mug and while they aroused his ambition to see something of the gay life they depicted, they imparted to his temper a tone of enterprise and of thoughtless generosity, which perhaps contributed greatly to counteract those evil influences towards petty vice, to which the examples around him must have exposed his tender youth. But, alas ! a great disappointment to Paul's hope of assistance and companionship in his literary labours befel him. Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, one bright morning, disappeared, leaving word with his numerous friends, that he was going to accept a lucrative situation in the North of England. Notwithstanding the shock this occasioned to the affectionate heart and aspiring temper of our friend Paul, it abated not his ardour in that field of science, which it seemed that the distinguished absentee had so successfully cultivated. By little and little, he possessed himself (in addition to the literary stores we have alluded to) of all it was in the power of the wise and profound Peter Mac Grawler to impart unto him ; and at the age of sixteen he began (O the presumption ol youth ! ) to fancy himself more learned than his master. CHAPTER IV. He had now become a young man of extreme fashion, and as much repanda in society as the utmost and most exigent coveter of London celebrity could desire. He was, of course, a member of the clubs, &c. &c. kc. He was, in short, of that oft-described set before whom all minor beaux sink into iiisigniticance, or among whom they eventually obtain a subaltern grade, by a sacrifice of a due portion of their fortune. Almacks Revisited. By the soul of the great Malebranche, who made A Search after Truth,'* and discovered every thing beautiful except that which he searched for ; — by the soul of the^r^at 28 PAUL CLIFFORD. Malebranche^ whom Bishop Berkeley found suffering under an inflammation in the lungs, and very obligingly talked to death, — an instance of conversational powers worthy the envious emulation of all great metaphysicians and arguers ; — by the soul of that illustrious man^ it is amazing to us what a number of truths there are broken up into little fragments, and scattered here and there through the world. What a magnificent museum a man might make of the precious minerals, if he would but go out with his basket under his arm, and his eyes about him ! We, ourself, picked up, this very day, a certain small piece of truth, with which we propose to explain to thee^ fair reader, a sinister turn in the fortunes of Paul. Wherever," says a living sage, ^'^you see dignity, you may be sure there is expense requisite to support it.'' * So was it with Paul. A young gentleman who was heir-presumptive to the Mug, and who enjoyed a hand- some person with a cultivated mind, was necessarily of a certain station of society, and an object of respect in the eyes of the manoeuvring mamas in the vicinity of Thames Court. Many were the parties of pleasure to Deptford and Greenwich which Paul found himself compelled to attend ; and we need not refer our readers to novels upon fashionable life, to inform them, that, in good society, the gentlemen always pay for the ladies ! Nor was this all the expense to which his expectations exposed him. A gentle- man could scarcely attend these elegant festivities without devoting some little attention to his dress ; and a fashion- able tailor plays the deuce with one's yearly allowance ! We, who reside, be it known to you, reader, in Little Brittany, are not very well acquainted with the manners of the better classes in St. James's. But there was one great vice among the fine people about Thames Court, which we make no doubt does not exist anywhere else, viz. these fine people were always in an agony to seem finer than they were ; and the more airs a gentleman or a lady gave him or her — self, the more important they became. Joe, the dog's-meat man, had indeed got into society, entirely from a knack of saying impertinent things to every body ; and the smartest exclusives of the place, who • Popular Fallacies. PAUL CLIFFORJO. 29 seldom visited any one where there was not a silver teapot, used to think Joe had a great deal in him because he trundled his cart with his head in the air^ and one day- gave the very beadle of the parish the cut direct/' Now this desire to be so exceedingly fine not only made the society about Thames Court unpleasant, but expensive. Every one vied with his neighbour ; and as the spirit of rivalry is particularly strong in youthful bosoms^ we can scarcely wonder that it led Paul into many extravagancies. The evil of all circles that profess to be select is high play, — and the reason is obvious : persons who have the power to bestow on another an advantage he covets, would rather sell it than give it ; and Paul, gradually increasing in po- pularity and ton, found himself, despite of his classical education, no match for the finished, or, rather, finishing gentlemen with whom he began to associate. His first admittance into the select coterie of these men of the world was formed at the house of Bachelor Bill, a person of great notoriety among that person of the elite which emphatically entitles itself Flash !" However, as it is our rigid in- tention in this work to portray at length no episodical cha- racters whatsoever, we can afford our readers but a slight and rapid sketch of Bachelor Bill. This personage was of Devonshire extraction. His mother had kept the pleasantest public-house in town, and at her death Bill succeeded to her property and popularity. All the young ladies in the neighbourhood of Fidler's Row, where he resided, set their caps at him : all the most fashionable prigs, or tohymen, sought to get him into their set ; and the most crack hlowen in London would have given her ears at any time for a loving word from Bachelor Bill. But Bill was a long-headed, prudent fellow, and of a remarkably cautious temperament. He avoided marriage and friendship, viz. he was neither plundered nor cornuted. He was a tall, aristocratic cove, of a devilish neat address, and very gallant, in an honest way, to the hlowens. Like most single men, being very much the gentleman so far as money was concerned, he gave them plenty of feeds,'* and from time to time a very agreeable hop." His 30 PAUL CLIFFORD. bingo" * was unexceptionable ; and as for his stark- naked t/' it was voted the most brilliant thing in nature. In a very short time, by his blows-out and his bachelor- ship, — for single men always arrive at the apex of haut ton easier than married, — he became the very glass of fashion ; and many were the tight apprentices, even at the west end of the town, who used to turn back in admiration of Bachelor Bill, when, of a Sunday afternoon, he drove down his varment gig to his snug little box on the borders of Turnham Green. Bill's happiness was not, however, wholly without alloy. The ladies of pleasure are always so excessively angry when a man does not make love to them, that there is nothing they will not say against him ; and the fair matrons in the vicinity of Fidler*s Row spread \ all manner of unfounded reports against poor Bachelor Bill. By degrees, however, — for, as Tacitus has said, doubtless with a prophetic eye to Bachelor Bill, the truth gains by delay," — these reports began to die insensibly away ; and Bill, now waxing near to the confines of middle age, his friends comfortably settled for him, that he would be Ba- chelor Bill all his life. For the rest, he was an excellent fellow, — gave his broken victuals to the poor, — pro- fessed a liberal turn of thinking, — and in all the quarrels among the blowens, (your crack blowens are a quarrelsome set !) always took part with the weakest. Although Bill affected to be very select in his company, he was never forgetful of his old friends ; and Mrs, Margery Lobkins having been very good to him when he was a little boy in a skeleton jacket, he invariably sent her a card to his soirees. The good lady, however, had not of late years deserted her chimney corner. Indeed, the racket of fashionable life was too much for her nerves, and the invitation had become a customary form not expected to be acted upon, but not a whit the less regularly used for that reason. As Paul had now attained his sixteenth year, and was a fine, handsome lad, the dame thought he would make an excellent repre- sentative of the Mug's mistress ; and that, for her protege^ a ball at Bill's house would be no bad commencement of Life in London/' According! y^ she intimated to the » Brandy. f Gin. PAUL CLIFFORD. 31 Bachelor a wish to that effect^ and Paul received the fol- lowing invitation from Bill : — Mr. William Duke gives a hop and feed in a quiet way on Monday next^ and hops Mr. Paul Lobkins will be of the party. N.B. Gentlemen is expected to come in pumps." When Paul entered, he found Bachelor Bill leading off the ball, to the tune of Drops of Brandy/' with a young lady to whom, — because she had been a strolling player, — the Ladies Patronesses of Fidler's Row had thought proper to behave with a very cavalier civility. The good Bachelor had no notion, as he expressed it, of such tan- trums, and he caused it to be circulated among the finest of the bio wens, that he expected all who kicked their heels at his house would behave decent and polite to young Mrs. Dot." This intimation, conveyed to the ladies with all that insinuating polish for which Bachelor Bill was so remarkable, produced a notable effect ; and Mrs. Dot, "being now led off by the flash Bachelor, was overpowered with civilities the rest of the evening. When the dance was ended. Bill very politely shook hands with Paul, and took an early opportunity of intro- ducing him to some of the most noted characters" of the town. Among these was the smart Mr. AUfair — the in- sinuating Henry Finish — the merry Jack Hookey — the knowing Charles Try wit, and various others equally noted for their skill in living handsomely upon their own brains, and the personals of other people. To say truth, Paul, who at that time was an honest lad, was less charmed than he had anticipated by the conversation of these chevaliers of industry. He was more pleased with the clever, though self-sufficient remarks of a gentleman with a remarkably fine head of hair, and whom we would more impressively than the rest introduce to our reader, under the appellation of Mr. Edward Pepper, generally termed Long Ned, As this worthy was destined afterwards to be an intimate asso- ciate of Paul, our main reason for attending the hop at liachelor Bill's is to note, as the importance of the event 32 PAUL CLIFFORD. deserves^ the epoch of the commencement of their acquaint- ance Long Ned and Paul happened to sit next to each other at supper^ and they conversed together so amicably that Paul_, in the hospitaUty of his heart, expressed a hope that « he should see Mr. Pepper at the Mug ! " Mug — Mug/' — repeated Pepper^ half shutting his eyes with the air of a dandy about to be impertinent. Ah — the name of a chapel — is it not ! There 's a sect called the Muggletonians^ I think ? " As to that," said Paul, colouring at this insinuation against the Mug, Mrs. Lobkins has no more religion than her betters ; but the Mug is a very excellent house, and frequented by the best possible company." Don't doubt it !" said Ned. Remember now that I was once there, and saw one Dummie Dunnaker — is not that the name } I recollect some years ago, when I first came out, that Dummie and I had an adventure toge- ther ; — to tell you the truth, it was not the sort of thing I would do now. But, would you believe it, Mr. Paul ? this pitiful fellow was quite rude to me the only time I ever met him since ; — that is to say, the only time I ever entered the Mug. I have no notion of such airs in a merchant — a merchant of rags ! Those commercial fel- lows are getting quite insufferable !" You surprise me !" said Paul. Poor Dummie is the last man to be rude. He is as civil a creature as ever lived." Or sold a rag ! " said Ned. Possibly ! Don doubt his amiable qualities in the least. Pass the bingo, my good fellow. Stupid stuff, this dancing !*' Devilish stupid!" echoed Harry Finish, across the table. Suppose we adjourn to Fish Lane, and rattle the ivories ! What say you, Mr. Lobkins?" Afraid of the ton's stern laugh, which scarce the prou philosopher can scorn," and not being very partial to dan- cing, Paul assented to the proposition ; and a little party , consisting of Harry Finish, Allfair, Long Ned, and Mr . Hookey, adjourned to Fish Lane, where there was a club celebrated among men who live by their wits, at which PAUL CLIFFORD. 53 ^Mush" and baccy" were gratuitously sported in the most magnificent manner. Here the evening passed away very delightfully, and Paul went home without a brad" in his pocket. From that time, Paul's visits to Fish Lane became un- fortunately regular, and in a very short period, we grieve to say, Paul became that distinguished character — a gen- tleman of three outs — out of pocket, out of elbows, and out of credit." The only two persons whom he found willing to accommodate him with a slight loan, as the ad- vertisements signed X. Y. have it, were Mr. Dummie Dun- naker and Mr. Pepper, surnamed the Long. The latter, however, while he obliged the heir to the Mug, never con- descended to enter that noted place of resort ; and the former, whenever he good-naturedly opened his purse- strings, did it with a hearty caution to shun the acquaint- ance of Long Ned, A parson," said Dummie, of wery dangerous morals, and not by no manner of means a fit sociate for a young gemman of cracter, like leetle Paul ! " So earnest was this caution, and so especially pointed at Long Ned, — although the company of Mr. Allfair or Mr. Finish might be said to be no less prejudicial, — that it is probable that stately fastidiousness of manner, which Lord Normanby rightly observes, in one of his excellent novels, makes so many enemies in the world, and which sometimes characterised the behaviour of Long Ned, espe- cially towards the men of commerce, was a main reason why Dummie was so acutely and peculiarly alive to the immoralities of that lengthy gentleman. At the same time we must observe, that when Paul, remembering what Pepper had said respecting his early adventure with Mr. Dunnaker, repeated it to the merchant, Dummie could not conceal a certain confusion, though he merely remarked, with a sort of laugh, that it was not worth speaking about ; and it appeared evident to Paul that something unpleasant to the man of rags, which was not shared by the unconscious Pepper, lurked in the reminiscence of their past acquaint- ance. Howbeit, the circumstance glided from Paul's atten- tion the moment afterwards ; and he paid, we are concerned D 54 PAUL CLIFFORD. to say^ equally little heed to the cautions against Ned with which Dummie regaled him. Perhaps (for we must now direct a glance towards his domestic concerns) one great cause which drove Paul to Fish Lane was the uncorftfortable life he led at home. For though Mrs. Lobkins was extremely fond of her protege, yet she was possessed^ as her customers emphatically re- marked, of the devil's own temper ; and her native coarseness never having been softened by those pictures of gay society which had, in many a novel and comic farce, refined the temperament of the romantic Paul, her manner of venting her maternal reproaches was certainly not a little revolting to a lad of some delicacy of feeling. Indeed, it often occurred to him to leave her house altogether, and seek his fortunes alone, after the manner of the ingenious Gil Bias, or the enterprising Roderick Random ; and this idea, though conquered and reconquered, gradually swelled and increased at his heart, even as swelleth that hairy ball found in the stomach of some suffering heifer after its decease. Among these projects of enterprise, the reader will hereafter notice, that an early vision of the Green Forest cave, in which Turpin was accustomed, with a friend, a ham, and a wife, to conceal himself, flitted across his mind. At this time he did not, perhaps, incline to the mode of life practised by the hero of the roads ; but he certainly clung not the less fondly to the notion of the cave. The melancholy flow of our hero's life was now, however, about to be diverted by an unexpected turn, and the crude thoughts of boyhood, to burst, *nike Ghilan's Giant Palm," into the fruit of a manly resolution. Among the prominent features of Mrs. Lobkins' mind was a sovereign contempt for the unsuccessftd ; — the im- prudence and ill-luck of Paul occasioned her as much scorn as compassion. And when, for the third time within a week, he stood, with a rueful visage and with vacant pockets, by the dame's great chair, requesting an additional supply, the tides of her wrath swelled into overflow. Look you, my kinchin cove," said she, — and in or- der to give pecuhar dignity to her aspect, she put on PAUL CLIFFORD. 35 while she spoke^ a huge pair of tin spectacles^ — if so be as how you goes for to think as how I shall go for to sup- ply your wicious necessities, you will find yourself planted in Queer Street. Blow me tight, if I gives you another mag." But I owe Long Ned a guinea," said Paul, and Dummie Dunnaker lent me three crowns. It ill becomes your heir-apparent, my dear dame, to fight shy of his debts of honour." Taradididle, don't think for to wheedle me with your debts and your honour," said the dame in a passion. Long Ned is as long in the forks (fingers) as he is in the back : may Old Harry fly off with him ! and as for Dummie Dunnaker, I wonders how you, brought up such a swell, and blest with the wery best of hedications, can think of putting up with such wulgar sociates. I tells you what, Paul, you'll please to break with them, smack and at once, or devil a brad you'll ever get from Peg Lobkins ! " So saying, the old lady turned round in her chair, and helped herself to a pipe of tobacco. Paul walked twice up and down the apartment, and at last stopped opposite the dame's chair : he was a youth of high spirit, and though he was warm-hearted^ and had a love for Mrs. Lobkins, which her care and affection for him well deserved, yet he was rough in temper, and not constantly smooth in speech : it is true that his heart smote him afterwards, whenever he had said any thing to annoy Mrs. Lobkins ; and he was always the first to seek a re- conciliation ; but warm words produce cold respect, and sorrow for the past is not always efficacious in amending the future. Paul then, puffed up with the vanity of his genteel education, and the friendship of Long Ned, (who went to Ranelagh, and wore silver- clocked stockings,) stopped opposite to Mrs. Lobkins' chair, and said with great solemnity — " Mr. Pepper, madam, says very properly that I must have money to support myself like a gentleman ; and if you won't give it me, I am determined, with many thanks for your past favours, to throw myself on the world, and seek my fortune." 35 PAUL CLIFFORD. If Paul was of no oily and bland temper, dame Mar- garet Lobkins, it has been seen, had no advantage on that score : — we dare say the reader has observed, that nothing so enrages persons on whom one depends as any expressed determination of seeking independence. Gazing, therefore, for one moment at the open but resolute countenance of Paul, while all the blood of her veins seemed gathering in fire and scarlet to her enlarging cheeks. Dame Lobkins said — Ifeaks, Master Pride-in- duds ! seek your fortune yourself, will you ? This comes of my bringing you up, and letting you eat the bread of idleness and charity, you toad of a thousand ! Take that and be d d to you ! " and, suiting the action to the word, the tube which she had withdrawn from her mouth, in order to utter her gen- tle rebuke, whizzed through the air, grazed Paul's cheek, and finished its earthly career by coming in violent contact with the right eye of Dummie Dunnaker, who at that ex- act moment entered the room. Paul had winced for a moment to avoid the missive, — in the next he stood perfectly upright; his cheeks glowed, his chest swelled; and the entrance of Dummie Dunnaker, who was thus made the spectator of the affront he had re- ceived, stirred his blood into a deeper anger and a more bitter self-humiliation : — all his former resolutions of de- parture — all the hard words, the coarse allusions, the practical insults he had at any time received, rushed upon him at once. He merely cast one look at the old woman, whose rage was now half subsided, and turned slowly and in silence to the door. There is often something alarming in an occurrence, merely because it is that which we least expect : the astute Mrs. Lobkins, remembering the hardy temper and fiery passions of Paul, had expected some burst of rage, some vehement reply ; and when she caught with one wandering- eye his parting look, and saw him turn so passively and mutely to the door, her heart misgave her, she raised her- self from her chair, and made towards him. Unhappily for her chance of reconciliation, she had that day quaffed more copiously of the bowl than usual, and the signs of PAUL CLIFFORD. intoxication visible in her uncertain gait, her meaningless eye, her vacant leer, her ruby cheek, all inspired Paul with feelings which, at the moment, converted resentment into something very much like aversion. He sprang from her grasp to the threshold. Where be you going, you imp of the world?" cried the dame. Get in with you^ and say no more on the matter; be a bob-cull — drop the bulhes, and you shall have the blunt !" But Paul heeded not this invitation. ^'^ I will eat the bread of idleness and charity no longer,** said he sullenly. Good bye, — and if ever 1 can pay you what I have cost you, I will ! '* He turned away as he spoke ; and the dame, kindling with resentment at his unseemly return to her proffered kindnessj hallooed after him, and bade that dark-coloured gentleman who keeps the fire-office below, go along with him. Swelling with anger, pride, shame, and a half joyous feeling of emancipated independence, Paul walked on he knew not whither, with his head in the air, and his legs marshalling themselves into a military gait of defiance. He had not proceeded far, before he heard his name ut- tered behind him, — he turned_, and saw the rueful face of Dummie Dunnaker. Very inoffensively had that respectable person been em- ployed during the last part of the scene we have described^ in caressing his afflicted eye^ and muttering philosophical observations on the danger incurred by all those who are acquainted with ladies of a choleric temperament: when Mrs. Lobkins, turning round after Paul's departure, and seeing the pitiful person of that Dummie Dunnaker, whose name she remembered Paul had mentioned in his opening speech^ and whom, therefore, with an illogical confusion of ideas, she considered a party in the late dispute, ex- hausted upon him all that rage which it was necessary for her comfort that she should unburthen somewhere. She seized the little man by the collar — the tenderest of all places in gentlemen similarly circumstanced with re- gard to the ways of life, and giving him a blow, which i> 3 38 PAUL CLIFFORD. took effect on his other and hitherto undamaged eye, cried out^ ril teach you, you blood-sucker^, (i. e. parasite) to spunge upon those as has expectations. I'll teach you to cozen the heir of the ' Mug,' you snivelling, whey-faced ghost of a farthing rushlight. What ! you'll lend my Paul three crowns, will you? when you knows as how you told me you could not pay me a pitiful tizzy. Oh, you're a queer one, I warrants ; but you won't queer Mar- gery Lobkins. Out of my ken, you cur of the mange — out of my ken ; and if ever I claps my sees on you again, or if ever I knows as how you makes a flat of my Paul, blow me tight, but I'll weave you a hempen collar : Til hang you, you dog, I will. What ! you will answer me, will you ? — O you viper, budge, and begone ! " It was in vain that Dummie protested his innocence. A violent coup de pied broke off all further parlance. He made a clear house of the Mug;" and the landlady thereof, tottering back to her elbow chair, sought out an- other pipe, and, like all imaginative persons when the world goes wrong with them, consoled herself for the ab- sence of realities by the creations of smoke. Meanwhile, Dummie Dunnaker, muttering and mur- muring bitter fancies, overtook Paul, and accused that youth of having been the occasion of the injuries he had just undergone. Paul was not at that moment in the hu- mour best adapted for the patient bearing of accusations ; he answered Mr. Dunnaker very shortly ; and that respect- able individual, still smarting under his bruises, replied with equal tartness. Words grew high, and at length, Paul, desirous of concluding the conference, clenched his fist, and told the redoubted Dummie that he would knock him down." There is something peculiarly harsh and stunning in those three, hard — wirey — sturdy — stub- born monosyllables. Their very sound makes you double your fist — if you are a hero ; or your pace — if you are a peaceable man. They produced an instant effect upon Dummie Dunnaker, aided as they were by the effect of an athletic and youthful figure, already fast approaching to the height of six feet, — a flushed cheek, and an eye that be- spoke both passion and resolution. The rag-merchant*s PAUL CLIFFORD. 39 voice sunk at once, and with the countenance of a wronged Cassius, he whimpered forth, — Knock me down ! — O leetle Paul^ vot vicked vhids are those ! Vot ! Dummie Dunnaker as has dandled you on his knee mony's a time and oft : vy, the cove's art is as ard as junk, and as proud as a gardener's dog vith a nose- gay tied to his tail/' This pathetic remonstrance softened Paul's anger. Well^ Dummie_," said he^ laughing, I did not mean to hurt you, and there's an end of it ; and I am very sorry for the dame's ill conduct ; and so I wish you a good morning." Vy, vere be you trotting to, leetle Paul ? " said Dum- mie, grasping him by the tail of the coat. The deuce a bit I know," answered our hero ; but I think I shall drop a call on Long Ned." Avast there ! " said Dummie, speaking under his breath ; " if so be as you von't blab, I'll tell you a bit of a secret. I heered as ow Long Ned started for Hampshire this werry morning on a toby consarn ! " ^ Ha ! " said Paul, ^'^ then hang me if I know what to do!" As he uttered these words, a more thorough sense of his destitution (if he persevered in leaving the Mug) than he had hitherto felt rushed upon him ; for Paul had designed for a while to throw himself on the hospitality of his Patagonian friend, and now that he found that friend was absent from London, and on so dangerous an expe- dition, he was a little puzzled what to do with that treasure of intellect and wisdom which he carried about upon his legs. Already he had acquired sufficient penetration — (for Charles Try wit and Harry Finish were excellent mas- ters for initiating a man into the knowledge of the world) — to perceive^ that a person, however admirable may be his qualities, does not readily find a w^elcome without a penny in his pocket. In the neighbourhood of Thames Court he had, indeed, many acquaintances ; but the fine- ness of his language, acquired from his education, and the elegance of his air, in which he attempted to blend, in happy association, the gallant effrontery of Mr. Long Ned • Highway expedition. D 4 40 PAUL CLIFFORD. with the graceful negligence of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, had made him many enemies among those acquaintances ; and he was not willing, — so great was our hero's pride, — to throw himself on the chance of their welcome, or to publish, as it were, his exiled and crest-fallen state. As for those boon companions who had assisted him in making a wilderness of his pockets, he had already found, that that was the only species of assistance which they were willing to render him : in a word, he could not for the life of him conjecture in what quarter he should find the benefits of bed and board. While he stood with his fin- ger to his lip, undecided and musing, but fully resolved at least on one thing — not to return to the Mug, — little Dummie, who was a good-natured fellow at the bottom, peered up in his face, and said, Vy, Paul, my kid, you looks down in the chops : cheer up, — care killed a cat !" Observing that this appropriate and encouraging fact of natural history did not lessen the cloud upon Paul's brow, the acute Dummie Dunnaker proceeded at once to the grand panacea for all evils, in his own profound estim- ation. Paul, my ben-cull," said he, with a knowing wink, and nudging the young gentleman in the left side, vot do you say to a drop o' blue ruin ? or^ as you likes to be conish (genteel), I doesn't care if I sports you a glass of port ! " While Dunnaker was uttering this invitation, a sudden reminiscence flashed across Paul: he bethought him at once of Mac Grawler ; and he resolved forthwith to repair to the abode of that illustrious sage, and petition at least for accommodation for the approaching night. So soon as he had come to this determination, he shook off the grasp of the amiable Dummie, and refusing, with many thanks, his hospitable invitation, requested him to abstract from the dame's house, and lodge within his own, until called for, such articles of linen and clothing as belonged to Paul, and could easily be laid hold of, during one of the matron's evening siestas, by the shrewd Dunnaker. The merchant promised that the cornmis&ion should be speedily executed ; and I^iul, shaking hands vvith him, proceeded to the mansion of Mac Gi awler. PAUL CLIFFORD. 41 We must now go back somewhat in the natural course of our narrative, and observe, that among the minor causes which had conspired with the great one of gambling to bring our excellent Paul to his present situation^ was his intimacy with Mac Grawler; for when Paul's increasing years and roving habits had put an end to the sage's in- structions, there was thereby lopped ofF from the pre- ceptor's finances the weekly sum of two shillings and sixpence^ as well as the freedom of the dame's cellar and larder ; and as, in the reaction of feeling, and the perverse course of human affairs, people generally repent the most of those actions once the most ardently incurred ; so poor Mrs. Lobkins, imagining that Paul's irregularities were en- tirely owing to the knowledge he had acquired from Mac Crawler's instructions, grievously upbraided herself for her former folly, in seeking for a superior education for her protege ; nay, she even vented upon the sacred head of Mac Grawler himself her dissatisfaction at the results of his instructions. In like manner, when a man who can spell comes to be hanged^ the anti-educationists accuse the spelling-book of his murder. High words between the ad- mirer of ignorant innocence and the propagator of in- tellectual science ensued^ which ended in Mac Grawler's final expulsion from the Mug. There are some young gentlemen of the present day ad- dicted to the adoption of Lord Byron's poetry, with the alter- ation of new rhymes, who are pleased graciously to inform us, that they are born to be the ruin of all those who love them ; an interesting fact_, doubtless, but which they might as well keep to themselves. It would seem, by the con- tents of this chapter, as if the same misfortune were de- stined to Paul. The exile of Mac Grawler, — the insults offered to Dummie Dunnaker, — alike occasioned by him, appear to sanction that opinion. Unfortunately, though Paul was a poet, he was not much of a sentimentalist; and he has never given us the edifying ravings of his re- morse on those subjects. But Mac Grawler, like Dunnaker, was resolved that our hero should perceive the curse of his fatality ; and as he still retained some influence over the mind of his quondam pupil, his accusations against Paul, 42 PAUL CLIFFORD. as the origin of his banishment^ were attended with a greater success than were the complaints of Dummie Dun- naker on a similar calamity. Paul^ who^ like most people who are good for nothing, had an excellent hearty was ex- ceedingly grieved at Mac Crawler's banishment on his account ; and he endeavoured to atone for it by such pe- cuniary consolations as he was enabled to offer. These Mac Grawler (purely_, we may suppose, from a benevolent desire to lessen the boy's remorse,,) scrupled not to accept ; and thus, so similar often are the effects of virtue and of vice^ the exemplary Mac Grawler conspired with the un- principled Long Ned and the heartless Henry Finish, in producing that unenviable state of vacuity, which now saddened over the pockets of Paul. As our hero was slowly walking towards the sage's abode, depending on his gratitude and friendship for a temporary shelter, one of those lightning flashes of thought which often illumine the profoundest abyss of affliction, darted across his mind. Recalling the image of the critic, he re- membered that he had seen that ornament of the Asinaeum receive sundry sums for his critical lucubrations. Why," said Paul, seizing on that fact, and stopping short in the street, Why should I not turn critic myself?" The only person to whom one ever puts a question with a tolerable certainty of receiving a satisfactory answer is one's self. The moment Paul started this luminous sug- gestion, it appeared to him that he had discovered the mines of Potosi. Burning with impatience to discuss with the great Mac Grawler the feasibility of his project, he quickened his pace almost into a run, and in a very few minutes, having only overthrown one chimney-sweeper and two applewomen by the way, he arrived at the sage's door. PAUL CLIFFORD. 43 CHAPTER V. Ye realms yet unreveal'd to human sight ! Ye canes athwart the hapless hands that write ! Ye critic chiefs — permit me to relate The mystic wonders of your silent state ! Virgil, yE«. b. vi. Fortune had smiled upon Mr. Mac Grawler since he first undertook the tuition of Mrs. Lobkins' protege. He now inhabited a second-floor, and defied the sheriff and his evil spirits. It was at the dusk of evening that Paul found him at home and alone. Before the mighty man stood a pot of London porter ; a candle, v/ith an unregarded wick, shed its solitary light upon his labours ; and an infant cat played sportively at his learned feet, beguiling the weary moments with the remnants of the spiral cap wherewith, instead of laurel, the critic had hitherto nightly adorned his brows. So soon as Mac Grawler, piercing through the gloomy mist which hung about the chamber, perceived the person of the intruder, a frown settled upon his brow. Have I not told you, youngster ! ^' he growled, never to enter a gentleman's room without knocking ? I tell you, sir, that manners are no less essential to human happiness than virtue ; wherefore, never disturb a gentleman in his avocations, and sit vourself down without molesting the cat!'' Paul, who knew that his respected tutor disliked any one to trace the source of the wonderful spirit which he in- fused into his critical compositions, affected not to perceive the pewter Hippocrene, and with many apologies for his want of preparatory politeness, seated himself as directed. It was then that the following edifying conversation en- sued. The ancients," quoth Paul, were very great men, Mr. Mac Grawler." PAUL CLIFFORD. They were so, sir^" returned the critic ; we make it a rule in our profession to assert that fact ! *' But, sir/' said Paul_, they were wrong now and then.'' Never ! Ignoramus, never V* They praised poverty, Mr. Mac Grawler ! " said Paul with a sigh. *^ Hem!*' quoth the critic, a little staggered, but pre- sently recovering his characteristic acumen, he observed, — It is true, Paul ; but that was the poverty of other people.'* There was a slight pause. Criticism," renewed Paul, must be a most difficult art." A-hem ! and what art is there, sir, that is not dif- ficult ? — at least, to become master of." True," sighed Paul ; or else ^ Or else what, boy ? *^ repeated Mr. Mac Grawler, seeing that Paul hesitated, either from fear of his superior knowledge, as the critic's vanity suggested, or from (what was equally likely) want of a word to express his meaning. ^' Why, I was thinking, sir," said Paul, with that des- perate courage which gives a distinct and loud intonation to the voice of all who set, or think they set, their fate upon a cast : I was thinking that I should like to become a critic myself!" W — h — e — w!" whistled Mac Grawler, elevating his eye-brows; w — h — e — w! great ends have come of less beginnings ! " Encouraging as this assertion was, coming as it did from the lips of so great a man and so great a critic, at the very moment too when nothing short of an anathema against arrogance and presumption was expected to issue from those portals of wisdom : yet, such is the fallacy of all human hopes, that Paul's of a surety would have been a little less elated, had he, at the same time his ears drank in the balm of these gracious words, been able to have dived into the source whence they emanated. Know thyself!" was a precept the sage Mac Grawler had endeavoured to obey ; consequently the result of his obedience was, that even by himself he was better known PAUL CLIFFORD, 45 than trusted. Whatever he might appear to others, he had in reality no vain faith in the infalhbility of his own talents and resources ; as well might a butcher deem himself a perfect anatomist from the frequent amputation of legs of mutton, as the critic of the Asinaium have laid the flattering unction to his soul," that he was really skilled in the art of criticism, or even acquainted with one of its commonest rules, because he could with all speed cut up and disjoint any work from the smallest to the greatest, from the most superficial to the most superior ; and thus it was that he never had the want of candour to deceive himself as to his own talents. Paul's wish, therefore, was no sooner expressed, than a vague but golden scheme of future profit illumed the brain of Mac Grawler ; in a word, he resolved that Paul should henceforward share the labour of his cri- tiques ; and that he, Mac Grawler, should receive the whole profits, in return for the honour thereby conferred on his coadjutor. Looking, therefore, at our hero with a benignant air, Mr. Mac Grawler thus continued : — Yes, I repeat, — great ends have come from less be- ginnings ! — Rome was not built in a day, — and I, Paul, I myself was not always the editor of the Asinaeum : you say wisely, criticism is a great science — a very great science, and it may be divided into three branches ; viz. ' to tickle, to slash, and to plaster.* In each of these three, I believe, without vanity, I am a profound adept ! I will initiate you into all. Your labours shall begin this very evening. I have three works on my table, they must be despatched by to-morrow night ; I will take the most arduous, I abandon to you the others. The three consist of a romance, an epic in twelve books, and an inquiry into the human mind, in three volumes ; I, Paul, will tickle the romance, you this very evening shall plaster the epic, and slash the inquiry ! '* Heavens, Mr. Mac Grawler 1 " cried Paul in conster* nation, what do you mean ? I should never be able to read an epic in twelve books, and I should fall asleep in the first page of the inquiry. No, no, leave me the romance, and take the other two under your own protection ! " 46 PAUL CLIFFORD. Although great genius is always benevolent, Mr. Mac Grawler could not restrain a smile of ineffable contempt at the simplicity of his pupil. Know, young gentleman," said he solemnly, that the romance in question must be tickled ; it is not given to raw beginners to conquer that great mystery of our science.'* Before we proceed farther, explain the words of the art," said Paul, impatiently. Listen, then !" rejoined Mac Grawler, and as he spoke the candle cast an awful glimmering on his countenance. To slash, is, speaking grammatically, to employ the ac- cusative, or accusing case ; you must cut up your book right and left, top and bottom, root and branch. To plaster a book, is to employ the dative, or giving case, and you must bestow on the work all the superlatives in the lan- guage ; you must lay on your praise thick and thin, and not leave a crevice un troweled. But to tickle, sir, is a com- prehensive word, and it comprises all the infinite varieties that fill the interval between slashing and plastering. This is the nicety of the art, and you can only acquire it by practice ; a few examples will suffice to give you an idea of its delicacy. We will begin with the encouraging tickle. ^ Although this work is full of faults ; though the characters are un- natural, the plot utterly improbable, the thoughts hacknied, and the style ungrammatical, yet we would by no means discourage the author from proceeding ; and in the mean while we confidently recommend his work to the attention of the reading public' Take, now, the advising tickle. ^ There is a good deal of merit in these little volumes, although we must regret the evident haste in which they were written. The author might do better — we recom- mend him a study of the best writers,' — then conclude by a Latin quotation, which you may take from one of the mottos in the Spectator. Now, young gentleman, for a specimen of the meta- phorical tickle. ' We beg tbis poetical aspirant to remember the fate of Pyrenanis, who, attempting to pursue the Muses, forgot PAUL CLIFFORD. 47 that he had not the wings of the goddesses^ flung himself from the loftiest ascent he could reacli^ and perished/ This you see_, Paul^ is a loftier and more erudite sort of tickle_, and may be reserved for one of the Quarterly Reviews. Never throw away a simile unnecessarily. Now for a sample of the facetious tickle. ^ Mr. has obtained a considerable reputation ! Some fine ladies think him a great philosopher^ and he has been praised in our hearing by some Cambridge Fellows^ for his knowledge of fashionable society.' For this sort of tickle we generally use the dullest of our tribe^ and I have selected the foregoing example from the criticisms of a distinguished writer in the Asinaeum^ whom we call par excellence, the Ass. There is a variety of other tickles ; the familiar_, the vulgar, the polite, the good-natured, the bitter; but in general all tickles may be supposed to signify, however disguised, one or the other of these meanings : — ' This book would be exceedingly good if it were not exceedingly bad — or, ' This book would be exceedingly bad if it were not exceedingly good.' You have now, Paul, a general idea of the superior art required by the tickle?" Our hero signified his assent by a sort of hysterical sound between a laugh and a groan. Mac Grawler con- tinued : — There is another grand difficulty attendant on this class of criticism, — it is generally requisite to read a few pages of the work ; because we seldom tickle without ex- tracting, and it requires some judgment to make the con- text agree with the extract ; but it is not often necessary to extract when you slash or when you plaster ; when you slash, it is better in general to conclude with — ^ After what we have said, it is unnecessary to add, that we cannot offend the taste of our readers by any quotation from this execrable trash/ And when you plaster:, you may wind up with, MVe regret that our limits will not allow us to give any extracts from this wonderful and unrivalled work. We must refer our readers to the book itself/ 48 PAUL CLIFFORD. And noWj sir, I think I have given you a sufficient outline of the noble science of Scaliger and Mac Grawler. Doubtless you are reconciled to the task I have allotted you ; and while I tickle the Romance,, you will slash the Inquiry and plaster the Epic ! I will do my best, sir ! " said Paul, with that modest yet noble simplicity which becomes the virtuously ambi- tious : — and Mac Grawler forthwith gave him pen and paper, and set him down to his undertaking. He had the good fortune to please Mac Grawler, who, after having made a few corrections in style, declared he evinced a peculiar genius in that branch of composition. And then it was that Paul, made conceited by praise, said, looking contemptuously in the face of his preceptor, and swinging his legs to and fro, — And what, sir, shall I receive for the plastered Epic and the slashed Inquiry ! " As the face of the schoolboy who, when guessing, as he thinks rightly, at the meaning of some mysterious word in Cornelius Nepos, receiveth not the sugared epithet of praise, but a sudden stroke across the os humerosve^ even so, blank, puzzled, and thunder-stricken, waxed the face of Mr. Mac Grawler, at the abrupt and astounding audacity of Paul. Receive !" he repeated, receive ! — Why, you im- pudent, ungrateful puppy : would you steal the bread from your old master ? If I can obtain for your crude articles an admission into the illustrious pages of the Asinseum, will you not be sufficiently paid, sir, by the honour } Answer me that. Another man, young gentle- man, would have charged you a premium for his instruc- tions ; — and here have I, in one lesson, imparted to you all the mysteries of the science, and for nothing. And you talk to me of ^receive!' — ^receive!' Young gentleman, in the words of the immortal bard, ' I would as lief you had talked to me of ratsbane ! ' " In fine, then, Mr. Mac Grawler, I shall get nothing for my trouble/' said Paul. To be sure not, sir ; the very best writer in the Asina^um only gets three shillings an article ! '* Almost more PAUL CLirFORI). 49 tlian he deserves, the critic might have added ; for he who writes for nobody, should receive nothing ! Then, sir," quoth the mercenary Paul profanely, and rising, he kicked with one kick, the cat, the epic, and the inquiry, to the other end of the room, — Then, sir, you may all go to the devil ! " We do not, O gentle reader, seek to excuse this hasty anathema: — the habits of childhood will sometimes break forth, despite of the after-blessings of education. And we set not up Paul for thine imitation as that model of virtue and of wisdom, which we design thee to discover in Mac Grawier. When that great critic perceived Paul had risen, and was retreating in high dudgeon towards the door, he rose also, and repeating Paul's last words, said — "^^Go to the devil ! ' Not so quick, young gentleman, — festina lentey — all in good time. What though I did, astonished at your premature request, say that you should receive nothing ; yet my great love for you may induce me to bestir myself on your behalf. The Asinaeum, it is true, only gives three shillings an article in general ; but I am its editor, and will intercede with the proprietors on your behalf. Yes — yes. I will see what is to be done. Stop a bit, my boy." Paul, though very irascible, was easily pacified : he re- seated himself, and, taking Mac Grawler's hand, said, — Forgive me for my petulance, my dear sir, — but, to tell you the honest truth, I am very low in the world just at present, and must get money in some w^ay or another ; in short, I must either pick pockets or write (not gratuitously) for the Asinaeum.'* And, without farther preliminary, Paul related his pre- sent circumstances to the critic ; declared his determination not to return to the Mug; and requested, at least, from the friendship of his old preceptor, the accommodation of shelter for that night. Mac Grawier was exceedingly disconcerted at hearing so bad an account of his pupil's finances, as w^ell as prospects; for he had secretly intended to regale himself that evening with a bowl of punch, for which he purposed that Paul £ 50 PAUL CLIFFORD. should pay ; but as he knew the quickness of parts possessed by the young gentleman, as also the great affec- tion entertained for him by Mrs. Lobkins^, who^ in all pro- bability^ would solicit his return the next day, he thought it not unlikely that Paul would enjoy the same good fortune as that presiding over his feline companion, which, though it had just been kicked to the other end of the apartment, was now resuming its former occupation, unhurt, and no less merrily than before. He therefore thought it would be imprudent to discard his quondam pupil, despite of his pre- sent poverty; and moreover, although the first happy project of pocketing all the profits derivable from Paul's industry was now abandoned, he still perceived great facility in pocketing a part of the same receipts. He therefore answered Paul very warmly, that he fully sympathised with him in his present melancholy situation ^ that, so far as he was concerned, he would share his last shilling with his beloved pupil ; but, that he regretted at that moment he had only eleven-pence halfpenny in his pocket ; that he would, however, exert himself to the utmost in procuring an opening for Paul's literary genius ; and that, if Paul liked to take the slashing and plastering part of the business on himself, he would willingly surrender it to him, and give him all the profits, whatever they might be. En attendant, hd regretted that a violent rheumatism pre- vented his giving up his own bed to his pupil, but that he might, with all the pleasure imaginable, sleep upon the rug before the fire. Paul was so affected by this kindness in the worthy man, that, though not much addicted to the melt- ing mood, he shed tears of gratitude : he insisted, however, on not receiving the whole reward of his labours ; and at length it was settled, though with a noble reluctance on the part of Mac Grawler, that it should be equally shared between the critic and the critic's protege ; the half profits being reasonably awarded to Mac Grawler for his instruc- tions and his recommendation. PAUL CLIFFORD. CHAPTER VI. Bad events peep out o' the tail of good purposes, Bartholomew Fair. It was not long before there was a visible improvement in the pages of the Asinseum : the slashing part of that in- comparable journal was suddenly conceived and carried on with a vigour and spirit which astonished the hallowed few who contributed to its circulation. It was not difficult to see that a new soldier had been enlisted in the service ; there was something so fresh and hearty about the abuse, that it could never have proceeded from the worn-out acerbity of an old slasher. To be sure, a little ignorance of ordinary facts, and an innovating method of applying words to meanings which they never were meant to denote, were now and then distinguishable in the criticisms of the new Achilles : nevertheless, it was easy to attribute these peculiarities to an original turn of thinking ; and the rise of the paper, upon the appearance of a series of articles upon Cotemporary Authors, written by this *^ eminent hand," was so remarkable, that fifty copies, — a number per- fectly unprecedented in the annals of the Asinseum, — were absolutely sold in one week : indeed, remembering the principle on which it was founded, one sturdy old writer declared, that the journal would soon do for itself, and be- come popular. There was a remarkable peculiarity about the literary debutant, who signed himself Nobilitas/' He not only put old worlds to a new sense, but he used words which had never, among the general run of writers, been used before. This was especially remarkable in the application of hard names to authors. Once, in censuring a popular writer for pleasing the public, and thereby grow- ing rich, the eminent hand " ended with — He who surreptitiously accumulates hustle * is, in fact, nothing better than a buzz gloak ! " f • iloncy. f Pickpocket 52 PAUL CLIFFORD. These enigmatical words and recondite phrases imparted a great air of learning to the style of the new critic ; and^ from the unintelligible subHmity of his diction^ it seemed doubtful whether he was a poet from Highgate^ or a phi- losopher from Koningsburgh. At all events_, the reviewer preserved his incognito, and_, while his praises were rung at 110 less than three tea-tables, even glory appeared to him less delicious than disguise. In this incognito. Reader^ thou hast already discovered Paul ; and now, we have to delight thee with a piece of unexampled morality in the excellent Mac Grawler. That worthy Mentor, perceiving that there was an inherent turn for dissipation and extravagance in our hero, resolved magnanimously rather to bring upon himself the sins of treachery and mal-appropriation, than suffer his friend and former pupil to incur those of wastefulness and profusion. Contrary, therefore^ to the agreement made with Paul^ in- stead of giving that youth the half of those profits conse- quent on his brilliant lucubrations, he imparted to him only one fourth, and, with the utmost tenderness for Paul's salvation, applied the other three portions of the same to his own necessities. The best actions are, alas ! often misconstrued in this world; and we are now about to record a remarkable instance of that melancholy truth. One evening, Mac Grawler having moistened his virtue'' in the same manner that the great Cato is said to have done ; in the confusion which such a process some- times occasions in the best regulated heads, gave Paul what appeared to him the outline of a certain article, which he wished to be slashingly filled up, but what in reality was the following note from the editor of a monthly periodical : Sir, Understanding that my friend, Mr. , proprietor of the Asinaium, allows the very distinguished writer whom you have introduced to the literary world, and who signs himself * Nobilitas,' only five shillings an article, I beg, through you, to tender him double that sum : the article required will be of an ordinary length. I am. Sir, &c. rt smiled, Or blest bis noonday walk — she was his only child. Gertrude of Wyoming O TIME, thou hast played strange tricks with us ! and we bless the stars that made us a novelist, and permit us now li> retaliate. Leaving Paul to the instructions of Augustus PAUL CLIFFORD. 115 Tomlinson, and the festivities of the Jolly Angler, and suffering him, by slow but sure degrees, to acquire the graces and the reputation of the accomplished and perfect appropriator of other men's possessions, we shall pass over the lapse of years with the same heedless rapidity with which they have glided over us, and summon our reader to a very different scene from those which would be likely to greet his eyes, were he following the adventures of our new Telemachus. Nor wilt thou, dear reader, whom we make the umpire between ourself and those who never read — the critics; — thou who hast, in the true spirit of gentle breed- ing, gone with us among places where the novelty of the scene has, we fear, scarcely atoned for the coarseness, not giving thyself the airs of a dainty Abigail, — not prating, lackey-like, on the low company thou hast met; — nor wilt thou, dear and friendly reader, have cause to dread that we shall weary thy patience by a damnable iteration " of the same localities. Pausing for a moment to glance over the divisions of our story, which lies before us like a map, we feel that we may promise in future to conduct thee among aspects of society more familiar to thy habits ; — where the unquessed events flow to their allotted gulf through land- scapes of more pleasing variety, and among tribes of a more luxurious civilisation. Upon the banks of one of fair England's fairest rivers, and about fifty miles distant from London, still stands an old-fashioned abode, which we shall here term '\7arlock Manor-house. It is a building of brick, varied by stone copings, and covered in great part with ivy and jasmine. Around it lie the ruins of the elder part of the fabric, and these are sufficiently numerous in extent, and im- portant in appearance, to testify that the mansion was once not without pretensions to the magnificent. These remains of power, some of which bear date as far back as the reign of Henry the Third, are sanctioned by the cha- racter of the country immediately in the vicinity of the old manor-house. A vast track of waste land, interspersed with groves of antique pollards, and here and there irregular and sinuous ridges of green mound, betoken to the experienced eye the evidence of a dismantled chase or park, which must 1 2 116 PAUL CLIFFOKD. originally have been of no common dimensions. On one side of the house^ the lawn slopes towards the river^ divided from a terrace^ which forms the most important embellish- ment of the pleasure grounds, by that fence to which has been given the ingenious and significant name of ^'^ ha-ha A few scattered trees of giant growth are the sole ob- stacles that break the view of the river^ which has often seemed to us, at that particular passage of its course, to glide with unusual calmness and serenity. On the opposite side of the stream, there is a range of steep hills, celebrated for nothing more romantic than their property of imparting to the flocks that browse upon their short and seemingly stinted herbage, a flavour peculiarly grateful to the lovers of that pastoral animal which changes its name into mutton after its decease. Upon these hills the vestige of human habitation is not visible; and at times, when no boat defaces the lonely smoothness of the river, and the evening has stilled, as it were^ the sounds of labour and of life, we know few scenes so utterly tranquil, so steeped in quiet, as that which is presented by the old_, quaint-fashioned house and its antique grounds, — the smooth lawn, the silent, and (to speak truly^ though disparagingly) the somewhat sluggish river_, together with the large hills (to which we know, from simple, though metaphysical causes, how entire an idea of quiet, and even immovability, peculiarly attaches itself), and the white herds, — those most peaceful of God's creatures, — that stud in white and fleecy clusters the ascent. In Warlock House, at the time we refer to, lived a gen- tleman of the name of Brandon. He was a widower, and had attained his fiftieth year, without casting much regret on the past, or feeling much anxiety for the future. In a word, Joseph Brandon was one of those careless, quiescent, indifferent men, by whom a thought upon any subject is never recurred to without a very urgent necessity. He was good-natured, inoffensive, and weak ; and if he was not a?"* incomparable citizen, he was, at least, an excellent vegetable. He was of a family of high antiquity, and formerly of consi- derable note. For the last four or five generations, however, the proprietors of Warlock House, gradually losing some- thing alike from their acres and their consequence, had left to their descendant no higher rank than that of a small country PAUL CLIFFORD. 117 squire. One had been a Jacobite^ and bad drunk out half a dozen farms in honour of Charley over the water ; — Charley over the water was no very dangerous person^ but Charley over the wine was rather more ruinous; — the next Brandon had been a fox-hunter^ and fox-hunters live as largely as patriotic politicians. Pausanias tells us_, that the same people who were the most notorious for their love of wine^ were also the most notorious for their negligence of affairs. Times are not much altered since Pausanias wrote> and the remark holds as good with the English as it did with the Phigalei. After this Brandon^ came one who though he did not scorn the sportsman^ rather assumed the fine gentleman. He married an heiress,, who^ of course, assisted to ruin him : wishing no assistance in so pleasing an occupation, he overturned her (^perhaps not on purpose), in a new sort of carriage which he w^as learning to drive, and the good lady was killed on the spot. She left the fine gentleman two sons, Joseph Brandon, the present thane, and a brother, some years younger. The elder, being of a fitting age, was sent to school, and somewhat escaped the contagion of the paternal mansion. But the younger Brandon, having only reached his fifth year at the time of his mother's decease, was retained at home. Whether he was handsome, or clever, or impertinent, or like his father about the eyes (that greatest of all merits), we know not ; but the widower became so fond of him, that it was at a late period, and with great reluctance, that he finally en- trusted him to the providence of a school. Among harlots, and gamblers, and lords, and sharpers, and gentlemen of the guards, together with their frequent accompaniments — guards of the gentlemen — viz. bailiffs, William Brandon passed the first stage of his boyhood. He was about thirteen when he was sent to school ; and being a boy of remarkable talents, he recovered lost time so well, that when, at the age of nineteen, he adjourned to the uni- versity, he had scarcely resided there a single term before he had borne off two of the highest prizes awarded to academical merit. From the university he departed on the *^ grand tour," at that time thought so necessary to complete the gentleman : he went in company with a young noble- I 3 118 PAUL CLIFFOP^D. man^ whose friendship he had won at the university^ stayed abroad more than two years_, and on his return he settled down to the profession of the law. Meanwhile his father died, and his fortune, as a younger brother, being literally next to nothing, and the family estate (for his brother was not unwilling to assist him) being terribly involved, it was believed that he struggled for some years with very embarrassed and penurious circumstances. During this interval of his life_, however, he was absent from London^ and by his brother supposed to have returned to the Continent : at length_, it seems, he profited by a re- newal of his friendship with the young nobleman who had accompanied him abroad, reappeared in town, and obtained, through his noble friend, one or two legal appointments of reputable emolument : soon afterwards he got a brief on some cause where a major had been raising a corps to his brother officer^ with the better consent of the brother of- ficer's wife than of the brother officer himself. Brandon's abilities here, for the first time in his profession^ found an adequate vent ; his reputation seemed made at once, he rose rapidly in his profession, and, at the time we now speak of, he was sailing down the full tide of fame and wealth, the envy and the oracle of all young Templars and barristers_, who_, having been starved themselves for ten years, began now to calculate on the possibility of starving their clients. At the very first commencement of his career he had, through the good offices of the nobleman we have mentioned, obtained a seat in the House of Commons ; and though his eloquence was of an order much better suited to the bar than the senate, he had nevertheless acquired a very con- siderable reputation in the latter, and was looked upon by many as likely to win to the same brilliant fortunes as the courtly Mansfield — a great man, whose political principles and urbane address Brandon was supposed especially to af- fect as his own model. Of unblemished integrity in pub- lic life — for, as he supported all things that exist with the most unbending rigidity, he could not be accused of incon- sistency — William Brandon was (as we have said in a former place of unhappy memory to our hero) esteemed in private life the most honourable, the most moral, even the most austere of men ; and his grave and stern repute on PAUL CLIFFORD. 119 this score, joined to the dazzle of his eloquence and fo- rensic powers, had baffled in great measure the rancour of party hostility, and obtained for him a character for virtues almost as high and as enviable as that which he had ac- quired for abilities. While William was thus treading a noted and an hon- ourable career, his elder brother, who had married into a clergyman's family, and soon lost his consort, had, v^th his only child, a daughter named Lucy, resided in his paternal mansion in undisturbed obscurity. The discreditable character and habits of the preceding lords of Warlock, which had sunk their respectability in the county, as well as curtailed their property, had rendered the surrounding gentry httle anxious to cultivate the intimacy of the present proprietor; and the heavy mind and retired manners of Joseph Brandon were not calculated to counterbalance the faults of his forefathers, or to reinstate the name of Bran- don in its ancient popularity and esteem. Though dull and little cultivated, the squire was not without his proper pride;" he attempted not to intrude himself where he was unwelcome, avoided county meetings and county balls, smoked his pipe with the parson, and not unoften with the surgeon and the solicitor, and suffered his daughter Lucy to educate herself, with the help of the parson's wife, and to ripen (for Nature was more favourable to her than Art) into the very prettiest girl that the whole county — we long to say the whole country — at that time could boast of. Never did glass give back a more lovely image than that of Lucy Brandon at the age of nineteen. Her auburn hair fell in the richest luxuriance over a brow never ruffled, and a cheek where the blood never slept ; with every instant the colour varied, and at every variation that smooth, pure, virgin cheek seemed still more lovely than before. She had the most beautiful laugh that one who loved music could imagine, — silvery, low, and yet so full of joy ! all her movements, as the old parson said, seemed to keep i\me to that laugh ; for mirth made a great part of her innocent and childish temper ; and yet the mirth was feminine, never loud, nor like that of young ladies who have received the last finish at Highgate seminaries. Every thing joy- I 4 J20 PAUL CLIFFORD ous affected her, and at once ; — air, — flowers, — sun- shine, — butterflies. Unlike heroines in general, she very seldom cried, and she saw nothing charming in having the vapours. But she never looked so beautiful as in sleep I and as the light breath came from her parted lips, and the ivory lids closed over those eyes which only in sleep were silent — and her attitude in her sleep took that ineffable grace belonging solely to childhood, or the fresh youth into which childhood merges, — she was just what you might imagine a sleeping Margaret, before that most simple and gentle of all a poet's visions of womanhood had met with Faust, and ruffled her slumbers with a dream of love. We cannot say much for Lucy's intellectual acquire- ments ; she could, thanks to the parson's wife, spell indif- ferently well, and write a tolerable hand ; she made pre- serves and sometimes riddles — it was more difficult to question the excellence of the former than to answer the queries of the latter. She worked to the admiration of all who knew her, and we beg leave to say that we deem that an excellent thing in woman," She made caps for her- self and gowns for the poor, and now and then she accom- plished the more literary labour of a stray novel that had wandered down to the Manor House, or an abridgement of ancient history, in which was omitted every thing but the proper names. To these attainments she added a certain modicum of skill upon the spinet, and the power of singing old songs with the richest and sweetest voice that ever made one's eyes moisten, or one's heart beat. Her moral qualities were more fully developed than her mental. She was the kindest of human beings ; the very dog that had never seen her before, knew that truth at the first glance, and lost no time in making her acquaintance. The goodness of her heart reposed upon her face like sun- shine, and the old wife at the lodge said poetically and truly of the effect it produced, that one felt warm when one looked on her." If we could abstract from the de- scription a certain chilling transparency, the following exquisite verses of a forgotten poet * might express the purity and lustre of her countenance: — ♦ Suckling. PAUL CLIFFORD. 121 ** Her face was like the milky way i' the sky, A meeting of gentle lights without a name." She was surrounded by pets of all kinds^ ugly and hand- some^ from Ralph the raven^ to Beauty the pheasant^ and from Bob, the sheep-dog without a tail, to Beau, the Blen- heim with blue ribands round his neck ; all things loved her_, and she loved all things. It seemed doubtful at that time whether she would ever have sufficient steadiness and strength of character. Her beauty and her character ap- peared alike so essentially sexual^ — soft, yet lively, buoyant, yet caressing, — that you could scarcely place in her that moral dependence, that you might in a character less amiable, but less yieldingly feminine. Time, however, and circumstance, which alter and harden, were to decide whether the inward nature did not possess some latent, and yet undiscovered properties. Such was Lucy Brandon in the year , and in that year, on a beautiful autumn-^l evening, we first introduce her personally to our readers. She was sitting on a garden-seat by the river side, with her father, who was deliberately conning the evening paper of a former week, and gravely seasoning the ancient news with the inspirations of that weed which so bitterly excited the royal indignation of our British Solomon. It happens, unfortunately for us, — for outward peculiarities are scarcely worthy the dignity to which comedy, whether in the drama or the narrative, aspires, — that squire Brandon possessed so few distinguishing traits of mind, that he leaves his delineator little whereby to designate him, save a confused and parenthetical habit of speech, by which he very often appeared to those who did not profit by long experience, or close observation, to say exactly, and somewhat ludicrously, that which he did not mean to convey. " I say, Lucy," observed Mr. Brandon, but without lifting his eyes from the paper ; I say, corn has fallen — think of that girl, think of that. These times, in my opinion, (ay, and in the opinion of wiser heads than mine, though I do not mean to say that I have not some expe- rience in these matters, which is more than can be said of all our neighbours are very curious, and even dangerous J' Indeed, papa!" answered Lucy. V22 PAUL CLIFFORD. And I say^ Lncy, dear/' resumed the squire after a short pause^ there has been (and very strange it is^ too^ when one considers the crowded neighbourhood — Bless me ! what times these are !) a shocking murder committed vpon (the tohacco-stopper — there it is) — think_, you know, girl — just by Epping ! — an old gentleman ! " Dear, how shocking ! by whom ? " Ay, that's the question ! The coroner's inquest has (what a blessing it is to live in a civilised country, where a man does not die without knowing the why and the wherefore !) sat on the body, and declared (it is very strange, but they don't seem to have made much discovery ; for why ? we knew as much before,) that the body was found (it was found on the floor, Lucy,) murdered ; murderer or murderer's (in thebureau, which was broken open, they found the money left quite untouched,) — unknown !" Here there v/as again a slight pause, and passing to another side of the paper, Mr. Brandon resumed in a quicker tone, — '^^ Ha ! well, now this is odd ! but he 's a deuced clever fellow, Lucy ! (that brother of mine has, and in a very honourable manner too, which I am sure is highly credit- able to the family, though he has not taken too much notice of me lately ; — a circumstance which, considering I am his elder brother, I am a little angry at ;) — distin- guished himself in a speech, remarkable, the paper says — for its great legal — (I wonder, by the by, whether William could get me that agistment-money ! 'tis a heavy thing to lose ; but going to law, as my poor father used to say, is like fishing for gudgeons [not a bad little fish, we can have some for supper, 1 with guineas^ — knowledge, as well as its splendid and overpowering — (I do love Will for keeping up the family honour ; I am sure it is more than I liave done — heigh-ho !) — eloquence ! " And on what subject has he been speaking, papa ? '^ Oh, a very fine subject ; what you call a — (it is as- tonishing that in this country there should be such a wish for taking away people's characters, which, for my part, I doi/t see is a bit more entertaining than what you are always doing — playing with those stupid birds) — hbel!" PAUL CLIFFORD. 123 *^ But is not my uncle William coming down to see us? He promised to do so^ and it made you quite happy^ papa, for two days. I hope he will not disappoint you ; and I am sure that it is not his fault if he ever seems to neglect you. He spoke of you to me^ when I saw him, in the kindest and most affectionate manner. I do think, my dear father, that he loves you very much." Ahem ! " said the squire, evidently flattered, and yet not convinced. ^' My brother Will is a very acute fellow, and I make no — my dear little girl — question, but that — (when you have seen as much of the world as 1 have, you will grow suspicious,) — he thought that any good word said of me to my daughter, would — (you see, Lucy, I am as clear-sighted as my neighbours, though I don't give myself all their airs ; which I very well might do^ considering my great great great grandfather Hugo Brandon had a hand in detecting the Gunpowder plot,) — be told to me again ! " Nay, but I am quite sure my uncle never spoke cf you to me with that intention." Possibly, my dear child ; but when (the evenings are much shorter than they w^ere ! ) did you talk with your uncle about me ? " Oh, when staying with Mrs. Warner, in London ; to be sure, it is six years ago; but I remember it perfectly. I recollect, in particular, that he spoke of you very hand- somely to Lord Mauleverer, who dined vrith him one evening when I was there, and when my uncle was so kind as to take me to the play. I was afterwards quite sorry that he was so good-natured, as he lost — (you remember I told you the story) — a very valuable watch.** Ay, ay, I remember all about that, and so, — how long friendship lasts with some people ! — Lord Mauleverer dined with William. What a fine thins; it is for a man — (it is what I never did, indeed, I like being what they call ' Cock of the Walk' — let me see, now I think of it, Pillum comes to-night to play a hit at backgammon) — to make friends with a great man early in (yet Will did not do it very early, poor fellow ! he struggled first with a great deal of sorrow hardship that is ) hfe ! It is 124 PAUL CLIFFORD. many years now^ since Will has been hand-and-glove with my ('tis a bit of a puppy) Lord Mauleverer, — what did you think of his lordship ? Of Lord Mauleverer ? Indeed I scarcely observed him^ but he seemed a handsome man_, and was very polite. Mrs. Warner said he had been a very wicked person when he was youngs but he seems good-natured enough now, papa." By the by," said the squire, his lordship has just been made — (this new ministry seems very unlike the old, which rather puzzles me ; for I think it my duty, d'ye see, Lucy, always to vote for his Majesty's government ; espe- cially seeing that old Hugo Brandon had a hand in de- tecting the Gunpowder plot ; and it is a little odd, at least, at first, to think that good now, which one has always before been thinking abominable) Lord Lieutenant of the county." Lord Mauleverer our Lord Lieutenant ? " Yes, child ; and since his lordship is such a friend of my brother's, I should think, considering especially what an old family in the county we are, — not that I wish to intrude myself where I am not thought as fine as the rest, — that he would be more attentive to us than Lord was : but that, my dear Lucy, puts me in mind of Pillum, and so, perhaps, you would like to walk to the parson's, as it is a fine evening. John shall come for you at nine o'clock with {the moon is not up then) the lantern." Leaning on his daughter's willing arm, the good old man then rose and walked homeward ; and so soon as she had wheeled round his easy chair, placed the backgammon- board on the table, and wished the old gentleman an easy victory over his expected antagonist the apothecary, Lucy tied down her bonnet, and took her way to the rectory. When she arrived at the clerical mansion, and entered the drawing-room, she was surprised to find the parson's wife, a good, homely, lethargic old lady, run up to her, seemingly in a state of great nervous agitation, and crying. Oh, my dear Miss Brandon ! which way did you come ? Did you meet nobody by the road ? Oh, I am so frightened ! Such an accident to poor dear Dr. Slopperton. Stopped in PArj CLIFFOlin. I the king's highway, robbed of some tithe-money he had just received from farmer Slowforth : if it had not been for that dear angel, good, young man, God only knows whether I might not have been a disconsolate widow by this time.'* While the affectionate matron was thus running on, Lucy's eye glancing round the room, discovered in an arm- chair the round and oily little person of Dr. Slopperton, with a countenance from which all the carnation hues, save in one circular excrescence on the nasal member, that was left, like the last rose of summer, blooming alone, were faded into an aspect of miserable pallor: the little man tried to conjure up a smile while his wife was narrating his misfortune, and to mutter forth some syllable of unconcern ; but he looked, for all his bravado, so exceedingly scared, that Lucy would, despite of herself, have laughed outright, had not her eye rested upon the figure of a young man who had been seated beside the reverend gentleman, but who had lisen at Lucy's entrance, and who now stood gazing upon her intently, but with an air of great respect. Blushing deeply, and involuntarily, she turned her eyes hastily away_, and approaching the good Doctor, made her inquiries into the present state of his nerves, in a graver tone than she had a minute before imagined it possible that she should have been enabled to command. Ah ! my good young lady,'* said the Doctor, squeezing her hand, 1 — nay, I may say the church — for am I not its minister — was in imminent danger; — but this excellent gentleman prevented the sacrilege, at least in great measure. I only lost some of my dues — my rightful dues — for which I console myself with thinking that the infamous and abandoned villain will suffer hereafter." There cannot be the least doubt of that," said the young man : had he only robbed the mail coach, or broken into A gentleman's house, the offence might have been expiable ; but to rob a clergyman, and a rector, too ! — Oh^ the sacri- legious dog !" Your warmth does you honour, sir," said the Doctor, beginning now to recover ; and I am very proud to have made the acquaintance of a gentleman of such truly re- ligious opinions !" 126 PAUL CLIFFORD. ^* Ah!" cried the stranger^ my foible^ sir — if I may so speak — is a sort of enthusiastic fervour for the Protestant Estabhshment. Nay^ sir, I never come across the very nave of the church, without feeling an indescrib- able emotion — a kind of sympathy^ as it were^ — with — with — you understand me, sir — I fear I express my- self ill/' Not at all, not at all ! " exclaimed the Doctor : such sentiments are uncommon in one so young." Sir, I learned them early in life from a friend and pre- ceptor of mine, Mr. Mac Grawler, and I trust they may continue with me to my dying day.*' Here the Doctor's servant entered with (we borrow a phrase from the novel of * * * *) ^' the tea-equipage,' and Mrs. Slopperton betaking herself to its superintendence, inquired, with more composure than hitherto had belonged to her demeanour, what sort of a looking creature the ruffian was ? I will tell you, my dear, I will tell you. Miss Lucy, all about it. I was walking home from Mr. Slowforth's, with his money in my pocket, thinking, my love, of buying you that topaz cross you wished to have." Dear good man ! " cried Mrs. Slopperton ; ^' what a fiend it must have been to rob so excellent a creature ! *' And," resumed the Doctor, it also occurred to me, that the Madeira was nearly out — the Madeira, I mean, with the red seal ; and I was thinking it might not be amiss to devote part of the money to buy six dozen more ; and the remainder, my love, which would be about one pound eighteen, I thought I would divide, — ' for he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord!' — among the thirty poor families on the common ; that is, if they be- haved well, and the apples in the back garden were not feloniously abstracted!" Excellent, charitable man !" ejaculated Mrs. Slop- perton. ^'^ While I was thus meditating, I lifted my eyes, and saw before me two men ; one of prodigious height, and with a great profusion of hair about his shoulders ; the other was smaller, and wore his hat slouched over his face : PAUL CLIFFORD. 127 it was a very large hat. My attention was arrested by the singularity of the tall person's hair^ and while I was smiling at its luxuriance_, I heard him say to his companion^ — ^ W el], Augustus^ as you are such a moral dog^ he is in your line^ not mine^ so I leave him to you.' — Little did I think those words related to me. No sooner were they uttered, than the tall rascal leaped over a gate and dis- appeared ; the other fellow then marching up to me^ very smoothly asked m.e the way to the church, and while I was explaining to him to turn first to the right and then to the left, and so on — for the best way is^ you know^ exceed- ingly crooked — the hypocritical scoundrel seized me by the collar^ and cried out — ^ Your money^ or your life !' — I do assure you, that I never trembled so much ; not, my dear Miss Lucy, so much for my own sake, as for the sake of the thirty poor families on the common_, whose wants it had been my intention to relieve. I gave up the money, finding my prayers and expostulations were in vain ; and the dog then, brandishing over my head an enormous bludgeon, said — what abominable language ! — 'I think. Doctor, I shall put an end to an existence derogatory to yourself and useless to others.' At that moment the young gentleman beside me sprang over the very gate by which the tall ruffian had disappeared, and cried, ' Hold, villain ! ' On seeing my deliverer, the coward started back, and plunged into a neighbouring wood. The good young gentle- man pursued him for a few minutes, but then returning to my aid, conducted me home ; and, as we used to say at school. — ' " • Te rediisse incolumem gaudeo.' Which being interpreted, means, — (sir, excuse a pun, I am sure so great a friend to the church understands Latin,) — that I am very glad to get back safe to my tea. He ! he ! And now. Miss Lucy, you must thank that young gentleman for having saved the life of your pastoral teacher, which act will no doubt be remembered at the Great Day ! ' As Lucy, looking towards the stranger, said something in compliment, she observed a vague, and, as it were, covert smile upon his countenance, which immediately, and as if 1^28 PAUL CLIFFORD. by sympathy, conjured one to her own. The hero of the adventure,, however, in a very grave tone, replied to her compliment, at the same time bowing profoundly, — Mention it not, madam ! I were unworthy of the name of a Briton, and a man, could I pass the highway without relieving the distresses, or lightening the burthen, of a fellow- creature. And,'' continued the stranger, after a momentary pause, colouring while he spoke, and con- cluding in the high-flown gallantry of the day, me- thinks it were sufficient reward, had I saved the whole church, instead of one of its most valuable members, to re- ceive the thanks of a lady, wbom I might reasonably take for one of those celestial beings, to whom we have been piously taught that the church is especially the care ! " Though there might have been something really ridiculous in this overstrained compliment, coupled as it was with the preservation of Dr. Slopperton, yet, coming from the mouth of one whom Lucy thought the very handsomest person she had ever seen, it appeared to her any thing but absurd ; and, for a very long time afterwards, her heart thrilled with pleasure when she remembered that the cheek of the speaker had glowed, and his voice had trembled, as he spoke it. The conversation now, turning from robbers in particular, dwelt upon robberies in general. It was edifying to hear the honest indignation with which the stranger spoke of the lawless depredators with whom the country^ in that day of Macheaths, was infested. A pack of infamous rascals!" said he, in a glow; who attempt to justify their misdeeds by the example of honest men ; and who say, that they do no more than is done by lawyers and doctors, soldiers, clergymen, and ministers of state. Pitiful delusion, or rather, shameless hypocrisy I *' It all comes of educating the poor," said the Doctor. The moment they pretend to judge the conduct of their betters — there's an end of all order ! They see nothing sacred in the laws, though we hang the dogs ever so fast ; and the very peers of the land, spiritual and tejnporal, cease to be venerable in their eyes.'* Talking of peers," said Mrs. Slopperton, 1 hear that Lord Mauleverer is to pass by this road to-night, on his PAUL CLIFFORD. way to Mauleverer Park. Do you know his lordship^ Miss Lucy ? he is very intimate with your uncle.'' *^ I have only seen him once/' answered Lucy. ^* Are you sure that his lordship will come this road ? " asked the stranger^ carelessly : ^' I heard something of it this morning, but did not know it was settled.'* Oh, quite so!" rejoined Mrs. Siopperton. His lordship's gentleman wrote for post-horses to meet his lord- ship at Wyburn, about three miles on the other side of the village, at ten o'clock to-night. His lordship is very im- patient of delay." ^' Pray," said the Doctor, who had not much heeded this turn in the conversation, and was now ^ on hospitable cares intent — Pray, sir, if not impertinent, are you visiting, or lodging in the neighbourhood ; or, will you take a bed with us ? " You are extremely kind, my dear sir, but I fear I must soon wish you good evening. I have to look after a little property 1 have some miles hence, — which, indeed, brought me down into this part of the world." Property — in what direction, sir, if I may ask ? " quoth the Doctor ; 1 know the country for miles." ^' Do you, indeed ? — where's my property, you say ? Why, it is rather difficult to describe it, and it is, after all, a mere trifle ; it is only some common-land near the high- road, and I came down to try the experiment of hedging and draining," 'Tis a good plan, if one has capital, and does not re- quire a speedy return." Yes ; but one likes a good interest for the loss of prin- ciple, and a speedy return is always desirable; although, alas ! it is often attended with risk ! " I hope, sir," said the Doctor, if you must leave us so soon, that your property will often bring you into our neighbourhood." You overpower me with so much unexpected good- ness," answered the stranger. To tell you the truth, no- thing can give me greater pleasure than to meet those again who have once obliged me." Whom you have obhged, rather!" cried Mrs. Slop- K 130 PAUL CLIFFORD. perton^ and then added^ in a loud whisper to Lucy — How modest ! but it is always so with true courage !" I assure you^ madam/' returned the benevolent stranger^ that I never think twice of the little favours I render my fellow men — my only hope is, that they may be as for- getful as myself/' Charmed with so much unaffected goodness of dispo- sition, the Dr. and Mrs. Slopperton now set up a sort of duet in praise of their guest : after enduring their com- mendations and compliments for some minutes with much grimace of disavowal and diffidence, the stranger's modesty seemed at last to take pain at the excess of their gratitude ; and, accordingly, pointing to the clock, which was within a few minutes of nine, he said — I fear, my respected host, and my admired hostess, that I must now leave you ; I have far to go." But are you yourself not afraid of the highwaymen ?" cried Mrs. Slopperton, interrupting him. The highwaymen ! " said the stranger, smiling : No ! I do not fear them ; besides, I have little about me worth robbing.'' Do you superintend your property yourself .f* " said the Doctor ; who farmed his own glebe, and who, unwilling to part with so charming a guest, seized him now by the button. Superintend it myself ! — why, not exactly. There is a bailiff, whose views of things don't agree with mine, and who now and then gives me a good deal of trouble ! " Then why don't you discharge him altogether." " Ah ! I wish I could : but 't is a necessary evil. W e landed proprietors, my dear sir, must always be plagued with something of the sort. For my part, I have found those cursed baiHfFs would take away, if they could, all the little property one has been trying to accumulate. But," abruptly changing his manner into one of great softness, could I not proffer my services and my companionship to this young lady ? Would she allow me to conduct her home, and, indeed, stamp this day upon my memory, as one of the few delightful ones I have ever known ? " Thank you, dear sir," said Mrs. Slopperton answer- PAUL CLIFFORD. 131 ing at once for Lucy ; it is very considerate of you ; and I am sure, my love, I could not think of letting you go home alone with old John, after such an adventure to the poor dear Doctor. Lucy began an excuse which the good lady would not hear. But as the servant whom Mr. Brandon was to send with a lantern to attend his daughter home had not ar- rived, and as Mrs. Slopperton, despite her prepossessions in favour of her husband's deliverer, did not for a moment contemplate his accompanying, without any other attend- ance, her young friend across the fields at that unseason- able hour, the stranger was forced, for the present, to re-assume his seat ; an open harpsichord at one end of the room, gave him an opportunity to make some remark upon music, and this introducing an eulogium on Lucy's voice from Mrs. Slopperton, necessarily ended in a request to Miss Brandon to indulge the stranger with a song. Never had Lucy, who was not a shy girl — she was too innocent to be bashful — felt nervous hitherto in singing before a stranger ; but now, she hesitated and faltered, and went through a whole series of little natural affectations . before she complied with the request. She chose a song com- posed somewhat after the old English school, which at that time was reviving into fashion. The song, though conveying a sort of conceit, was not, perhaps, altogether without tenderness; — it was a favourite with Lucy, she scarcely knew why, and ran thus : — Lucy's song. Why sleep, ye flowers, ah, why, • When the sweet eve is falUng, And the stars drink the tender sigh Of winds to the fairies calling? Calling with 'plaining note, Most like a ringdove chiding, Or a flute from some distant boat O'er the glass of a still sea gliding. Why sleep, ye flowers, ah ! why. What time we most must miss you Like a bride, see, the loving sky, From your churlish sleep would kiss you. K 2 132 PAUL CLIFFORD, Soft things, the dew, tlie breeze. All soft things, are about you ; Awake, fair flowers, for scarcely these Fill the yearning sense without you ! Wake ye not yet ? Alas I The silver time is fleeing I — Fond idler, cease ! those flowers but glass The doom'of thy changeless being. Yea, ever when the hourg As now thou seem divinest. Thou callest, I know, on some sleeping flowers, And finding no answer — pinesti When Lucy ended, the stranger's praise was less loud than either the Doctor's or his lady's ; but how far more sweet it was ; and for the first time in her Hfe Lucy made the discovery, that eyes can praise as well as lips. For our part, we have often thought that that discovery is an epoch in life. It was now that Mrs. Slopperton declared her thorough conviction that the stranger himself could sing — " He had that about him/' she said, which made her sure of it." Indeed, dear madam," said he, with his usual unde- finable half-frank, half-latent smile, my voice is but so so, and my memory so indifferent, that, even in the easiest passages, I soon come to a stand. My best notes are in the falsetto, and as for my eocecutmi — but we won't talk of that" Nay, nay ; you are so modest," said Mrs. Slopperton ; I am sure you could oblige us if you would." Your command," said the stranger, moving to the harpsichord, " is all-sufficient ; and since you, madam" (turning to Lucy), have chosen a song after the old school, may I find pardon if I do the same ? My selection is, to be sure, from a lawless song-book, and is supposed to be a ballad by Robin Hood, or, at least, one of his merry men ; a very different sort of outlaws from the knaves who attacked you, sir ! " With this preface, the stranger sung to a wild yet jovial air, with a tolerable voice, the following effusion : — PAUL CLIFFORD. 133 THE LOVE OF OUR PROFESSION ; OR^ THE ROBBEr's LIFE. On the stream of the World, the Robber's life Is borne on the blithest wave ; Now it bounds into light in a gladsome strife. Now it laughs in its hiding cave. At his maiden's lattice he stays the rein. How still is his courser proud! (But still as a wind when it hangs o'er the main In the breast of the boding cloud) — With the champed bit and the arched crest. And the eye of a listening deer. And the spirit of fire that pines at its rest. And the limbs that laugh at fear. Fit slave to a Lord whom all else refuse To save at his desperate need ; By my troth ! I think one whom the world pursues, Hath a right to a gallant steed. ** Away, my beloved, I hear their feet ! " " I blow thee a kiss, my fair. And I promise to bring thee, when next we meet, A braid for thy bonny hair. *• Hurra ! for the booty ! — my steed, hurra ! Thorough bush, thorough brake go we ; And the coy Moon smiles on our merry way. Like my own love — timidly." The Parson he rides with a jingling pouch. How it blabs of the rifled poor! The Ceurtier he lolls in his gilded coach. How it smacks of a sinecure I The Lawyer revolves in his whirling chaise Sweet thoughts of a mischief done ; And the Lady that knoweth the card she plays Is counting her guineas won ! " Ho, Lady ! — What, hollo, ye sinless men! My claim ye can scarce refuse ; For when honest folk live on their neighbours, then They encroach on the Robber's dues I *' The Lady changed cheek like a bashful maid The Lawyer talk'd wondrous fair. The Parson blasphemed, and the Courtier pray'd, And the Robber bore off his share. " Hurrah! for the revel ! my steed, hurra; Thorough bush, thorough brake go we ! It is ever a virtue when others pay To ruffle it merrily ! " K 3 134* PAUL CLIFFORD. Oh ! there'never was life like the Robber's — so Jolly, and bold, and free ; And its end — why, a cheer from the crowd below, And a leap from a leafless tree ' This very moral lay being ended^ Mrs. Slopperton de- clared it was excellent ; though she confessed she thought the sentiments rather loose. Perhaps the gentleman might be induced to favour them with a song of a more refined and modern turn — something sentimental, in short. Glancing towards Lucy_, the stranger answered, that he only knew one song of the kind Mrs. Slopperton specified, and it was so short, that he should scarcely weary her pa- tience by granting her request. At this moment, the river, which was easily descried from the windows of the room, glimmered in the starlight, and directing his looks towards the water, as if the scene had suggested to him the verses he sung, he gave the fol- lowing stanzas in a very low, sweet tone, and with a far purer taste than, perhaps, would have suited the preceding and ruder song, THE WISH. Asslesps the dreamuig Eve below. Its holiest star keeps ward above. And yonder wave begins to glow. Like Friendship bright'ning into Love! Ah ! would thy bosom were that stream. Ne'er woo'd save by the virgin air ! Ah I would that I were that star, whose beam Looks down and finds its image there ! Scarcely Avas the song ended, before the arrival of Miss Brandon's servant was announced, and her destined escort starting up, gallantly assisted her with her cloak and her hood, happy, no doubt, to escape, in some measure, the overwhelming compliments of his entertainers. But," said the Doctor, as he shook hands with his deliverer, by what name shall I remember and" — (lift- ing his reverend eyes) — " pray for the gentleman to whom I am so much indebted ? " You are very kind," said the stranger ; my name is Clifford. Madam" (turning to Lucy), may I offer my hand down the stairs?" PAUL CLIFFORD. 135 Lucy accepted the courtesy, and the stranger was half- way down the staircase^ when the Doctor, stretching out his httle neck^ exclaimed, — Good evening, sir ! I do hope we shall meet again." Fear not," said Mr. Clifford, laughing gaily, I am too great a traveller to make that hope a matter of im- possibility. Take care, madam — one ste}) more." The night was calm and tolerably clear, though the moon had not yet risen, as Lucy and her companion passed through the fields, with the servant preceding them at a little distance with the lantern. After a pause of some length, Chfford said, with a little hesitation, ^' Is Miss Brandon related to the celebrated barrister of her name ? " He is my uncle," said Lucy ; do you know him ? " Only your uncle ? " said Clifford, with vivacity, and evading Lucy's question — I feared — hem ! hem ! — that is, I thought he might have been a nearer relation/' There was another, but a shorter pause, when Clifford re- sumed, in a low voice, Will Miss Brandon think me very presumptuous if I say, that a countenance like her's, once seen, can never be forgotten ; and I believe, some years since, I had the honour to see her in London, at the theatre. It was but a momentary and distant glance that I was then enabled to gain ; and yet," he added, sig- nificantly, it sufficed ! " I was only once at the theatre while in London, some years ago," said'Lucy, a little embarrassed; and, indeed, an unpleasant occurrence which happened to my uncle, with whom I was, is sufficient to make me remember it." Ha ! — and what was it ? '* Why, in going out of the playhouse, his watch was stolen by some dexterous pickpocket." Was the rogue caught ? " asked the stranger. " Yes ; and was sent the next day to Bridewell. My uncle said he was extremely young, and yet quite hardened. I remember that I was foolish enough, when I heard of his sentence, to beg very hard that my uncle would inter- cede for him ; but in vain.'* K 4 136 PAUL CLIFFORD. Did you, indeed, intercede for him ? " said the stranger, in so earnest a tone that Lucy coloured for the twentieth time that night, without seeing any necessity for the blush. Clifford continued in a gayer tone, Well, it is surprising how rogues hang together. I should not be greatly surprised if the person who despoiled your uncle, were one of the same gang as the rascal who so terrified your worthy friend the Doctor. But is this handsome old place your home ? This is my home," answered Lucy ; but it is an old-fashioned, strange place : and few people, to whom it was not endeared by associations, would think it hand- some.'' Pardon me ! " said Lucy's companion, stopping, and surveying, with a look of great interest, the quaint and Elizabethan pile, which now stood close before them ; its dark bricks, gable- ends, and ivyed walls, tinged by the starry light of the skies, and contrasted by the river, which rolled in silence below. The shutters to the large oriel window of the room, in which the Squire usually sat, were still unclosed, and the steady and warm light of the apartment shone forth, casting a glow, even to the smooth waters of the river : at the same moment, too, the friendly bark of the house-dog was heard, as in welcome ; and was followed by the note of the great bell, announcing the hour for the last meal of the old-fashioned and hospitable family. There is a pleasure in this ! " said the stranger, un- consciously, and with a half-sigh : I wish I had a home ! " And have you not a home ? '* said Lucy, with na'ivete* As much as a bachelor can have, perhaps," answered Clifford, recovering without an effort his gaiety and self- possession. But you know we wanderers are not allowed the same boast as the more fortunate Benedicts ; we send our hearts in search of a home, and we lose the one with- out gaining the other. But I keep you in the cold, and we are now at your door." " You will come in, of course ! " said Miss Brandon, ^^and partake of our evenin;.^ cheer.'' PAUL CLIFFORD. 137 The stranger hesitated for an instant,, and then said in a quick tone, — " No ! many — many thanks ; it is already late. Will Miss Brandon accept my gratitude for her condescension, in permitting the attendance of one unknown to her ? " As he thus spoke, Clifford bowed profoundly over the hand of his beautiful charge ; and Lucy, wishing him good' night, hastened, with a light step, to her father's side. Meanwhile, Clifford, after lingering a minute, when the door was closed on him, turned abruptly away ; and, muttering to himself, repaired with rapid steps to what- ever object he had then in view. CHAPTER XIL Up rouse ye then My merry, raerry men I Joanna Baillie. When the moon rose that night, there was one spot upon which she palely broke, about ten miles distant from War- lock, which the forewarned traveller would not have been eager to pass, but which might not have afforded a bad study to such artists as have caught from the savage painter of the Apennines a love for the wild and the adventurous. Dark trees, scattered far and wide over a broken^ but verdant sward, made the back ground ; the moon shimmered through the boughs as she came slowly forth from her pavilion of cloud, and poured a broader beam on two figures just advanced beyond the trees. More plainly brought into light by her rays than his com- panion, here a horseman, clad in a short cloak that barely covered the crupper of the steed, was looking to the prim- ing of a large pistol which he had just taken from his holster. A slouched hat, and a mask of black crape, con- spired with the action to throw a natural suspicion on the 138 PAUL CLIFFORD^ intentions of the rider. His horse, a beautiful dark grey, stood quite motionless^ with arched neck_, and its short ears quickly moving to and fro^ demonstrative of that sagacious and anticipative attention which characterises the noblest of all tamed animals : you would not have perceived the impatience of the steed, hut for the white foam that gathered round the bit, and for an occasional and un- frequent toss of the head. Behind this horseman, and partially thrown into the dark shadow of the trees, another man^ similarly clad, was busied in tightening the girths of a horse, of great strength and size. As he did so, he hummed, with no unmusical murmur, the air of a popular drinking song. ^^'Sdeath, Ned," said his comrade, who had for some time been plunged in a silent reverie, — " 'Sdeath ! why can you not stifle your love for the fine arts, at a moment like this ? That hum of thine grows louder every moment, at last I expect it will burst out into a full roar ; recol- lect we are not at Gentleman George's now !" The more 's the pity, Augustus," answered Ned. Soho, Little John ; woaho, sir ! a nice long night like this is made on purpose for drinking — Will you, sir ? keep still then ! " Man never is, but always to be blest," said the moral- ising Tomlinson ; you see you sigh for other scenes even when you have a fine night and the chance of a God-send before you.*' Ay, the night is fine enough," said Ned, who was rather a grumbler, as, having finished his groomlike ope- ration, he now slowly mounted. ^^Damn it, Oliver * looks out as broadly as if he were going to blab. For my part, I love a dark night, with a star here and there wink- ing at us^ as much as to say, ^ I see you, my boys, but I won't say a word about it,' and a small, pattering, drizzling, mizzling rain that prevents Little John's hoofs being heard, and covers one's retreat, as it were. Besides, when one is a little wet, it is always necessary to d>rink the more, to keep the cold from one's stomach when one gets home." * The moon. I PAUL CLIFFORD. 139 ^^Or in other words/' said Augustus^ who loved a maxim from his very heart,, " light wet cherishes heavy wet ! " Good ! " said Ned, yawning ; hang it^ I wish the captain would come. Do you know what o'clock it is ? — Not far short of eleven, I suppose ? " About that ! — hist, is that a carriage ? — -no — it is only a sudden rise in the wind." Very self-sufficient in Mr. Wind to allow himself to be raised without our help ! " said Ned : by the way, we are of course to go back to the Red Cave." So Captain Lovett says Tell me, Ned, what do you think of the new tenant Lovett has put into the cave ?" Oh, I have strange doubts there,'' answered Ned, shaking the hairy honours of his head ; I don't half like it ; consider, the cave is our strong hold, and ought only to be known " To men of tried virtue," interrupted Tomlinson. ^'^ I agree with you ; I must try and get Lovett to discard his singular protege, as the French say." 'Gad, Augustus, how came you by so much learning ? you know all the poets by heart, to say nothing of Latin and French." " Oh, hang it, I was brought up, like the captain, to a literary way of life.''^ That's what makes you so thick with him, I suppose. He writes (and sings too) a tolerable song, and is certainly a deuced clever fellow. What a rise in the world he has made ! Do you recollect what a poor sort of way he was in when you introduced him at Gentleman George's ? and now he's the Captain Crank of the gang." The gang ! the company you mean. Gang indeed ! One would think you were speaking of a knot of pick- pockets. Yes, Lovett is a clever fellow ; and, thanks to me, a very decent philosopher ! " It is impossible to con- vey to our reader the grave air of importance with which Tomlinson made his concluding laudation. Yes/' said he, after a pause, he has a bold, plain way of viewing things, and, like Voltaire, he becomes a philosopher, by 140 PAUL CLIFFORD. being a Man of Sense ! Hist ! see my horse's ears ! some one is comings though I don't hear him ! keep watch ! '* The robbers became silent^, the sound of distant hoofs was indistinctly heard, and^ as it came nearer^ there was a crash of boughs^ as if a hedge had been ridden through ; presently the moon gleamed picturesquely on the figure of a horseman^ approaching through the copse in the rear of the robbers. Now he was half seen among the sinuosities of his forest-path; now in full sight, now altogether hid; then his horse neighed impatiently ; now he again came in sight^ and in a moment more^ he had joined the pair ! The new comer was of a tall and sinewy frame, and in the first bloom of manhood. A frock of dark green^ edged with a narrow silver lace, and buttoned from the throat to the middle, gave due effect to an upright mien, a broad chest, and a slender, but rounded waist, that stood in no need of the compression of the tailor. A short riding- cloak clasped across the throat with a silver buckle, hung picturesquely over one shoulder, while his lower limbs were cased in military boots, which, though they rose above the knee, were evidently neither heavy nor embar- rassing to the vigorous sinews of the horseman. The caparisons of the steed — the bit, the bridle, the saddle, the holster — were according to the most approved fashion of the day ; and the steed itself was in the highest condi- tion, and of remarkable beauty. The horseman's air was erect and bold ; a small but coal-black mustachio height- ened the resolute expression of his short, curved lip ; and, from beneath the large hat which overhung his brow, his long locks escaped, and waved darkly in the keen night air. Altogether, horseman and horse exhibited a gallant, and even a chivalrous appearance, which the hour and the scene heightened to a dramatic and romantic effect. Ila ! Lovett.'* Mow are you, my merry men } " were the salutations exchanged. MOiat nev/s ? " said Ned. Jirave news ! look to it. My lord and his carriage will be by in ten minutes at most." PAUL CLIFFORD. 141 " Have you got any thing more out of the parson I frightened so gloriously ? " asked Augustus. No ; more of that hereafter. Now for our new prey ! " *' Are you sure our noble friend will be so soon at hand ? " said Tomlinson_, patting his steed^ that now pawed in excited hilarity. Sure ! I saw him change horses ; I was in the stable- yard at the time ; he got out for half an hour^ to eat, I fancy ; — be sure that I played him a trick in the mean while." What force } " asked Ned. Self and servant." The post-boys ? " Ay, I forget them. Never mind, you must frighten them.'' ^' Forwards ! " cried Ned, and his horse sprang from his armed heel. One moment/' said Lovett ; I must put on my mask — soho — Robin, soho ! Now for it — forwards ! " As the trees rapidly disappeared behind them, the riders entered, at a hand gallop, on a broad track of waste land interspersed with dykes and occasionally fences of hurdles, over which their horses bounded like quadrupeds well accustomed to such exploits. Certainly at that moment, what with the fresh air, the fitful moonlight now breaking broadly out, now lost in a rolling cloud, the exciting exercise, and that racy and dancing stir of the blood, which all action, whether evil or noble in its nature, raises in our veins; what with all this, we cannot but allow the fascination of that lawless life ; — a fascination so great, that one of the most noted gentlemen highwaymen of the day, one too who had received an ex- cellent education, and mixed in no inferior society, is re- ported to have said when the rope was about his neck, and the good Ordinary was exhorting him to repent of his ill- spent life, ///-spent, you dog ! — God ! (smacking his lips), it was delicious ! " Fie ! fie ! Mr. , raise your thoughts to Heaven ! " But a canter across a common — oh! " muttered the criminal ; and his soul cantered off to eternity. 142 PAUL CLIFFORD. So briskly leaped the heart of the leader of the three^ that^ as they now came in view of the main road^ and the distant wheel of a carriage whirred on the ear, he threw up his right hand with a joyous gesture, and burst into a boyish exclamation of hilarity and delight. Whist, captain ! " said Ned, checking his own spirits with a mock air of gravity, let us conduct ourselves like gentlemen ; it is only your low fellows who get into such confoundedly high spirits ; men of the world like us, should do every thing as if their hearts were broken." Melancholy * ever cronies with sublimity, and courage * A maxim which would have pleased Madame de Stael, who thought that philosophy consisted in fine sentiments. In the Life of Lord Byron, just pub- lished by Mr. Moore, the distinguished biographer makes a similar assertion to that of the sage Augustus : *' When did ever a sublime thought spring up in the soul that Melancholy was not to be found, however latent, in its neigh, bourhood?" Now, with due deference to Mr. Moore, this is a very sickly .)iece of nonsense, that has not even an atom of truth to stand on. " God said. Let there be light, and there was light!" we should like to know where lies the melancholy of that sublime sentence. " Truth," says Plato, " is the body of God, and Light is his shadow." In the name of common sense, in what pos- sible corner, in the vicinity of that lofty Image, lurks the jaundiced face of this eternal bite noire of Mr. Moore's? Again, in that sublimest passage in the sublimest of the Latin poets (Lucretius), which bursts forth in honour of Epi- curus a, is there any thing redolent of sadness ? On the contrary, in the three passages we have referred to, especially in the two first quoted, there is some- thing splendidly luminous and cheering. Joy is often a great source of the sublime ; the suddenness of its ventings would alone suffice to make it so. What can be more sublime than the triumphant Psalms of David, intoxicated as they are with an almost delirium of transport? Even in the gloomiest passages of the poets, where we recognise sublimity, we do not often find melancholy. We are stricken by terror, appalled by awe, but seldom softened into sadness. In fact. Melancholy rather belongs to another class of feelings than those excited by a eublime passage or those which engender its composi- tion. On one hand, in the loftiest flights of Homer, Milton, and Shakspeare, we will challenge a critic to discover this " green sickness" which Mr. Moore would convert into the magnificence of the plague. On the other hand, where is the evidence that Melancholy made the habitual temperaments of those divine men ? Of Homer we know nothing ; of Shakspeare and Milton, we have reason to believe the ordinary temperament was constitutionally cheerful. The latter boasts of it. A thousand instances, in contradiction to an assertion it were not worth while to contradict, were it not so generally popular, so highly sanctioned, and so eminently pernicious to every thing that is manly and noble in literature, rush to our memory. But we think we have already quoted cnou^'h to (iisi)rove the sentence, which the illustrious biographer has himself disproved in more than twenty passages which, ij he is pleased to forget, we thank Heaven, posterity never will. Now we are on the subject of this Life, so excellent in many respects, we cannot but observe that we think the whole scope of its philosophy utterly unworthy of the accomplished mnid of the writer ; » *• Primus Gralus homo mortalcis tollerc,"contra, fit.'* To these instances wc might eBpecially add the odes of Pindar, Horace, and CampbelL PAUL CLIFFORD. 143 is sublime^" said Augustus^ with the pomp of a maxim- maker. ^^Now for the hedge !" cried Lovett. unheeding his com- rades, and his horse sprang into the road. The three men now were drawn up quite still and mo- tionless by the side of the hedge. The broad road lay before them, curving out of sight on either side ; the ground was hardening under an early tendency to frost, and the clear ring of approaching hoofs sounded on the ear of the robbers, ominous, haply, of the chinks of more attractive metal,*' about, if Hope told no flattering tale, to be their own. Presently the long-expected vehicle made its appearance at the turn of the road, and it rolled rapidly on behind four fleet post-horses. You, Ned, with your large steed, stop the horses ; you, Au.^justus, bully the post-boys ; leave me to do the rest/' said the Captain. As agreed," returned Ned, laconically. Now, look at me !" and the horse of the vain highwayman sprang from its shelter. So instantaneous were the operations of these experienced tacticians, that Lovett's orders "were almost executed in a briefer time than it had cost him to give them. The carriage being stopped, and the post-boys white and trembling, with two pistols (levelled by Augustus and Pep- per) cocked at their heads, Lovett dismounting, threw open the door of the carriage, and in a very civil tone, and with a very bland address, accosted the inmate. the philnsot)hy consists of an nnpardonablc- distorting of general truths, to suit the peculiarities of an individual, noble indeed, but proverbially morbid and eccentric. A striking instance of this occurs in the laboured assertion that poets make but sorry domestic characters. What! because Lord Byron is said to have been a bad husband, was \to go no farther back for examples), was Walter Scott a bad husband ? or was Campbell ? or is Mr. ^loore himself Why, in the name of justice, should it be insinuated that Milton was a bad husband, when, as far as any one can judge of the matter, it was Mrs. Milton who was the bad wife y And why. oh I why should we be told bv Mr. Moore, a man who, to judge by Captain Rock and the Epicurean, wants neither learn- ing nor diligence— why are we to be told, with peculiar emphasis, that Lord Bacon never married, when Lord Bacon not only married, but his marriage was so advantageous as to be an absolute epoch in his career ? Really, really, one begins to believe tliat there is not such a thing as a fact in the world! 144 PA.UL CLIFFORD. Do not be alarmed_, my lord^ you are perfectly safe ; we only require your watch and purse." Really/' answered a voice still softer than that of the robber^ while a marked and somewhat French countenance, crowned with a fur cap, peered forth at the arrester, — really, sir, your request is so modest that I were worse than cruel to refuse you. My purse is not very full, and you may as well have it as one of my rascally duns — but my watch I have a love for — and — " I understand you, my lord," interrupted the high- wayman. What do you value your watch at } " Humph — to you it may be worth some twenty guineas." Allow me to see it ! " Your curiosity is extremely gratifying," returned the nobleman, as with great reluctance he drew forth a gold r epeater, set, as was sometimes the fashion of that day, in precious stones. The highwayman looked slightly at the bauble. Your lordship," said he with great gravity, was too modest in your calculation — your taste reflects greater cre- dit on you : allow me to assure you, that your watch is worth fifty guineas to us at the least. To show you that I think so most sincerely, I will either keep it, and we will say no more on the matter ; or I will return it to you upon your word of honour, that you will give me a cheque for fifty guineas payable by your real bankers to ' bearer for self/ Take your choice ; it is quite immaterial to me ! " Upon my honour, sir," said the traveller, with some surprise struggling to his features, your coolness and self-possession are quite admirable. I see you know the world." Your lordship flatters me ! " returned Lovett, bowing. How do you decide ?" Why, is it possible to write drafts without ink, pen or paper } " ' Lovett drew back, and while he was searching in his pockets for writing implements, which he always carried about him, the traveller seized the opportunity, and, sud- denly snatching a pistol from the pocket of the carriage, PAUL CLIFFORD. 145 levelled it full at the head of the robber. The traveller was an excellent and practised shot — he was almost within arm's length of his intended victim — his pistols were the envy of all bis Irish friends. He pulled the trigger — the powder flashed in the pan^ and the highwayman^ not even changing countenance, drew forth a small ink-bottle^ and placing a steel pen in it^ handed it to the nobleman^ saying, with incomparable sang froid, Would you like^, my lord, to try the other pistol ? if so, oblige me by a quick aim, as you must see the necessity of despatch. If not, here is the back of a letter, on which you can write the draft." The traveller was not a man apt to become embarrassed in any thing — save his circumstances; but he certainly felt a little discomposed and confused, as he took the paper, and, uttering some broken words, wrote the cheque. The highwayman glanced over it, saw it was writ according to form, and then with a bow of cool respect, returned the watch, and shut the door of the carriage. Meanwhile the servant had been shivering in front — boxed up in that solitary convenience termed, not eupho- niously, a dickey. Him the robber now briefly accosted. What have you got about you belonging to your master ? " Only his pills^ your honour ! which I forG;ot to put in the " Pills ! — throw them down to me ! " The valet tremblingly extracted from his side_pocket a little box^ which he threw down, and Lovett caught in his hand. He opened the box, counted the pills — One, — two, — four, — twelve, — Aha ! '* He iz- opened the carriage door. Are these your pills, my lord ? The wondering peer^ who had begun to resettle himself in the corner of his carriage, answered, ^ that they were !' My lord, I see you are in a high state of fever ; you were a little delirious just now when you snapped a pistol in your friend's face. Permit me to recommend you a prescription — swallow oft' all these pills ! My God!'' cried the traveller, startled into earnest- L PAUL CLIFFORD, ness : What do you mean ? — twelve of those pills would kill a man." Hear him V* said the robber, appealing to his comrades, who roared with laughter, What, my lord, would you rebel against your doctor ? — Fie, fie ! be persuaded." And with a soothing gesture he stretched the pill-box towards the recoiling nose of the traveller. But, though a man who could as well as any one make the best of a bad condition, the traveller was especially careful of his health, and so obstinate was he where that was concerned, that he would rather have submitted to the effectual operation of a bullet, than incurred the chance operation of an extra pill. He, therefore, with great indignation, as the box was still extended towards him, snatched it from the hand of the robber, and,, flinging it across the road, said, with dignity Do your worst, rascals ! But, if you leave me alive, you shall repent the outrage you have offered to one of his Majesty's household ! Then, as if becoming sensible of the ridicule of affecting too much in his present situation, he added in an altered tone : And now, for God's sake, shut the door ! and if you must kill somebody, there's my servant on the box — he's paid for it." This speech made the robbers laugh more than ever ; and Lovett, who liked a joke even better than a purse, im- mediately closed the carriage-door, saying, — Adieu ! my lord ; and let me give you a piece of advice : whenever you get out at a country inn, and stay half-an-hour while your horses are changing, take your pistols with you, or you may chance to have the charge drawn." With this admonition the robber withdrew ; and seeing that the valet held out to him a long green purse, he said, gently shaking his head, — ilogues should not prey on each other, my good fellow. You rob your master — so do we — let each keep what he has got." Long Ned and Tomlinson then backing their horses, the carriage was freed ; and away started the post-boys at a PAUL CLIFFORD. 147 pace which seemed to show less regard for life than the robbers themselves had evinced. Meanwhile the captain remounted his steed^ and the three confederates, bounding in gallant style over the hedge through which they had previously gained the road^ gal- loped off in the same direction they had come ; the moon ever and anon^ bringing into light their flying figures^ and the sound of many a joyous peal of laughter, ringing through the distance along the frosty air. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. r, 2 148 PAUL CLIFFORi>. VOLUJME THE SECOND. CHAPTER I. What is here ? — Gold? .... Thus much of this will make black white— foul fair, Timon of Athens. Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly drest. Fresh as a bridegroom. Henry the Fourth. I do not know the man I should avoid So soon as that spare Cassius ? He reads much. He is a great observer : and he looks Quite through the deeds of men. Often he smiles ; but smiles in such a sort, As if he mocked himself or scorned his spirit, That could be moved to smile at any thing. Julius CcBsar. The next day^ late at noon^ as Lucy was sitting with her father^ not as usual engaged either in work or m read- ing, but seemingly quite idle, with her pretty foot upon the Squire's gouty stool^ and her eyes fixed on the carpet, while her hands (never were hands so soft and so small as Lucy's, though they may have been eclipsed in white- ness) were lightly clasped together and reposed listlessly on her knees, — the surgeon of the village abruptly en- tered with a face full of news and horror. Old Squire Brandon was one of those persons who always hear news, whatever it may be, later than any of their neigh- bours; and it was not till all the gossips of the neigh- bourhood had picked the bone of the matter quite bare, that he was now informed, through the medium of Mr. Pillum, that Lord Mauleverer had on the preceding night been stopped by three highwaymen in his road to his country sear, and robbed to a considerable amount. PAUL CLIFFORD. 149 The fame of the worthy Doctor Slopperton's mal-ad- venture having, long ere this, been spread far and wide, the whole neighbourhood was naturally thrown into great consternation. Magistrates were sent to, large dogs bor- rowed, blunderbusses cleaned, and a subscription made throughout the parish for the raising of a patrol. There seemed little doubt but that the offenders, in either case, were members of the same horde ; and Mr. Pillum in his own mind was perfectly convinced, that they meant to encroach upon his trade, and destroy all the surrounding householders who were worth the trouble. The next week passed in the most diligent endeavours, on the part of the neighbouring magistrates and yeomanry, to detect and seize the robbers, but their labours were utterly fruitless ; and one justice of peace, who had been particularly active, was himself entirely " cleaned out" by an old gentleman, who, under the name of Mr. Bagshct — rather an ominous cognomen — offered to conduct the unsuspicious magistrate to the very spot where the mis- creants might be seized. No sooner, however, had he drawn the poor justice away from his comrades into a lonely part of the road, than he stripped him to his shirt. He did not even leave his worship his flannel drawers, though the weather was as bitter as the dog days of eighteen hundred and twenty-nine. 'Tis not my way," said the hoary ruffian, when the justice petitioned at least for the latter article of attire ; " *tis not my way — I he's slow about my work, but I does it thoroughly — so off with your rags, old 'un." This was, however, the only additional instance of aggression in the vicinity of Warlock Manor-house ; and by degrees, as the autumn declined, and no farther enor- mities were perpetrated, people began to look out for a new topic of conversation. This was afforded them by a piece of unexpected good fortune to Lucy Brandon. Mrs. Warner, an old lady to whom she was slightly related, and with whom she had been residing during her brief and only visit to London, died suddenly, and in her will declared Lucy to be her sole heiress. The property, which was in the funds, and which amounted to sixty- L 3 150 PAUL CLIFFORD. thousand pounds^ was to be enjoyed by Miss Brandon immediately on her attaining her twenty-first year ; meanwhile the executors to the will were to pay to the young heiress the annual sum of six hundred pounds. The joy which this news created in Warlock Manor-house may easily be conceived. The Squire projected improvements here_, and repairs there ; and Lucy^ poor girl^ who had no idea of money for herself^ beyond the purchase of a new pony^ or a gown from London^ seconded with affec- tionate pleasure all her father's suggestions, and dehghted herself with the reflection,, that those fine plans, which were to make the Brandons greater than the Brandons ever were before^ were to be realised by her own^ — own money ! It was at this identical time that the surrounding gentry made a simultaneous and grand discovery — viz. of the astonishing merits and great good sense of Mr. Joseph Brandon. It was a pity, they observed, that he was of so reserved and shy a turn — it was not becoming in a gentle- man of so ancient a family. But why should they not endeavour to draw him from his retirement into those more public scenes which he was doubtless well calculated to adorn ? Acccordingly, as soon as the first month of mourning had expired, several coaches, chariots, chaises, and horses, which had never been seen at Warlock Manor-house be- fore, arrived there one after the tether in the most friendly manner imaginable. Their owners admired every thing — the house was such a fine relic of old times ! — for their parts they liked an oak-staircase ! — and those nice old windows! — and what a beautiful peacock! — and, God save the mark ! that magnificent chestnut-tree was worth a forest! — Mr. Brandon was requested to make one of the county hunt, not that he any longer hunted himself^ but that his name would give such consequence to the thing! — Miss Lucy must come to pass a week with her dear friends the Honourable Misses Sansterre ! — Augustus, their brother^ bad such a sweet lady's horse! — In short, tlie customary change which takes place in people's charac- ters after the acquisition of a fortune, took place in the characters of Mr. and Miss Brandon ; and when people PAUL CLIFFORD. 151 become suddenly amiable, it is no wonder that they should suddenly gain a vast accession of friends. But Lucy^ though she had seen so little of the world, was not quite blind; and the Squire, though rather obtuse, was not quite a fool. If they were not rude to their new visitors, they were by no means overpowered with grati- tude at their condescension. Mr. Brandon declined sub- scribing to the hunt, and Miss Lucy laughed in the face of the Honourable Augustus Sansterre. Among their new guests, however, was one who to great knowledge of the world joined an extreme and even brilliant polish of man- ners, which at least prevented deceit from being disagree- able, if not wholly from being unseen — this was the new Lieutenant of the county. Lord Mauleverer. Though possessed of an immense property in that dis- trict. Lord Mauleverer had hitherto resided but little on his estates. He was one of those gay lords who are now somewhat uncommon in this country after mature man- hood is attained, who live an easy and rakish life, rather among their parasites than their equals, and who yet, by aid of an agreeable manner, natural talents, and a certain graceful and light cultivation of mind (not the less plea- sant for its being universally coloured with worldliness, and an amusing rather than offensive regard for self), never lose their legitimate station in society ; who are oracles in dress, equipages, cookery, and beauty, and, having no character of their own, are able to fix by a single word a character upon any one else. Thus, while ]\Iauleverer rather lived the dissolute life of a young nobleman, who prefers the company of agreeable demireps to that of weari- some duchesses, than maintained the decorous state befit- ting a mature age, and an immense interest in the country, — he was quite as popular at court, where he held a situ- ation in the household, as he w^as in the green-room, where he enchanted every actress on the right side of forty. A word from him in the legitimate quarters of power went farther than an harangue from another ; and even the prudes, — at least, all those who had daughters, — confessed " that his lordship was a very interesting character.*' Like Brandon, his familiar friend, he had risen in the world L 4 152 PAUL CLIFFORD. (from the Irish baron to the English earl) without havirg ever changed his politics, which were ultra-tory ; and we need not observe that he was deemed_, like Brandon, a model of public integrity. He was possessed of two places under government^ six votes in the House of Commons, and eight livings in the church ; and we must add, in justice to his loyal and religious principles, that there was not in the three kingdoms a firmer friend to the existing establish- ment. Whenever a nobleman does not marry, people try to take away his character. Lord Mauleverer had never mar- ried ; the whigs had been very bitter on the subject ; they even alluded to it in the House of Commons, that chaste assembly, where the never-failing subject of reproach against Mr. Pitt was the not being of an amorous tempera- ment ; but they had not hitherto prevailed against the stout earl's celibacy. It is true, that if he was devoid of a wife, he had secured to himself plenty of substitutes ; his pro- fession was that of a man of gallantry ; and though he avoided the daughters, it was only to make love to the mothers. But his lordship had now attained a certain age, and it was at last circulated among his friends that he intended to look out for a Lady Mauleverer. Spare your caresses,*' said his toad-in- chief, to a cer- tain duchess who had three portionless daughters ; " Maule- verer has sworn that he will not choose among your order : you know his high politics, and you will not wonder at his declaring himself averse in matrimony as in morals to a community of goods.'* The announcement of the earl's matrimonial design, and the circulation of this anecdote, set all the clergymen's daughters in England on a blaze of expectation ; and when Mauleverer came to shire, upon obtaining the ho- nour of the lieutenancy, to visit his estates and court the friendship of his neighbours, there was not an old young lady of forty, who worked in broad-stitch and had never been to London above a week at a time, who did not deem herself exactly the sort of person sure to fascinate his lord- ship. It was late in the afternoon when the travelUng chariot PAUL CLIFFORD. 153 of this distinguished person, precedetl by two outriders in the earl's undress livery of dark green, stopped at the hail door of Warlock-house. The Squire was at home, actually and metaphorically ; for he never dreamt of denying himself to any one, gentle or simple. The door of the carriage being opened, there descended a small slight man, richly dressed (for lace and silk vestments were not then quite discarded^ though gradually growing less the mode), and of an air prepossessing, and distinguished, rather than dig- nified. His years, — for his countenance, though hand- some, was deeply marked, and evinced the tokens of dis- sipation, — seemed more numerous than they really were ; and, though not actually past middle age. Lord Mauleverer might fairly have received the un pleasing epithet of elderly. However, his step was firm, his gait upright, and his figure was considerably more youthful than his physiognomy. The first compliments of the day having passed, and Lord Mauleverer having expressed his concern that his long and frequent absence from the county had hitherto prevented his making the acquaintance of Mr. Brandon, the brother of one of his oldest and most esteemed friends^ conversation became on both sides rather an effort. Mr. Brandon first introduced the subject of the weather, and the turnips — inquired whether his lordship was not very fond — (for his part he used to be_, but lately the rheumatism had disabled him, he hoped his lordship was not subject to that com^ plaint^ — of shooting ! '* Catching only the last words, — for besides the awful complexity of the Squire's sentences, Mauleverer was slightly afflicted by the aristocratic complaint of deafness, — the Earl answered with a smile, — The complaint of shooting ! — very good indeed, Mr. Brandon ; it is seldom that I have heard so witty a phrase. No, I am not in the least troubled with that epidemic. It is a disorder very prevalent in this county.'* My lord said the Squire, rather puzzled — and then observing that Mauleverer did not continue, he thought it expedient to start another subject. I was exceedingly grieved to hear that your lord:>hip, in travelling to Mauleverer Park — (that is a very ugly 154} PAUL CLIFFORD. road across the waste land ; the roads in this county are in general pretty good — for my own part_, when I was a magistrate I was very strict in that respect) — was robbed. You have not yet^ I believe^ detected — ^(for my part, though I do not profess to be much of a poHtician^ I do think that in affairs of robbery there is a great deal of remissness in the minister's) — the villains ! Our friend is disaffected ! " thought the lord lieu- tenant^ imagining that the last opprobrious term was applied to the respectable personages specified in the parenthesis. Bowing with a polished smile to the Squire^ Mauleverer replied aloud^ that he was extremely sorry that their con- duct (meaning the ministers) did not meet with Mr. Bran- don's approbation. ''^ Well," thought the Squire, that is playing the courtier with a vengeance !" Meet with my approbation ! " said he, warmly : how could your lordship think me - — (for though I am none of your saints, I am, I hope, a good Christian ; an excellent one judging from your words, your lordship must he /) so partial to crime ! I partial to crime ! '* returned Mauleverer, thinking he had stumbled unawares on some outrageous democrat, yet, smiling as softly as usual ; you judge me harshly, Mr. Brandon, you must do me more justice, and you can only do that by knowing me better." Whatever unlucky answer the Squire might otherwise have made, was cut off by the entrance of Lucy ; and the Earl, secretly delighted at the interruption, rose to render her his homage, and to remind her of the introduction he had formerly been so happy as to obtain to her through the friendship of Mr. William Brandon, — a friendship,*' said the gallant nobleman, to which I have often before been indebted, but which was never more agreeably excited on my behalf." Upon this Lucy, who, though she had been so painfully bashful during her meeting with Mr. Clifford, felt no over- powering diffidence in the presence of so much greater a person, replied laughingly, and the Earl rejoined by a second compliment. Conversation was now no longer an effort ; and Mauleverer, the most consummate of epicures, whom PAUL CLIFFORD. 155 even royalty trembled to ask without preparation, on being invited by the unconscious Squire to partake of the family dinner, eagerly accepted the invitation. It was long since the knightly walls of Warlock had been honoured by the presence of a guest so courtly. The good Squire heaped his plate with a profusion of boiled beef ; and while the poor Earl was contemplating in dismay the alps upon alps which he was expected to devour, the grey-headed butler, anxious to serve him with alacrity, whipped away the over- loaded plate, and presently returned it, yet more astound- ingly surcharged with an additional world of a composition of stony colour and sudorific aspect, which, after examin- ing in mute attention for some moments, and carefully re- moving as well as he was able, to the extreme edge of his plate, the Earl discovered to be suet pudding. You eat nothing, my lord," cried the Squire ; let me give you (this is more underdone holding between blade and fork in middle air a horrent fragment of scarlet, shaking its gory locks, — ''^ another slice."' Swift at the word dropped upon Mauleverer's plate the harpy finger and ruthless thumb of the grey-headed butler. Not a morsel more," cried the Earl, struggling with the murtherous domestic. My dear sir, excuse me ; I assure you I have never eat such a dinner before — never !" "Nay now!" quoth the Squire, expostulating, "you really — (and this air is so keen that your lordship should indulge your appetite, if you follow the physician'' s advice^) eat nothing Again Mauleverer was at fault. The physicians are right, Mr. Brandon," said he, very right, and I am forced to live abstemiously ; in- deed I do not know whether, if I were to exceed at your hospitable table, and attack all that you would bestow upon me, I should ever recover it. You w^ould have to seek a new lieutenant for your charming county, and on the tomb of the last Mauleverer the hypocritical and unrelated heir would inscribe, ^ Died of the visitation of beef, John, Earl, &c." Plain as the meaning of this speech might have seemed to others, the Squire only laughed at the effeminate appe- 15b PAUL CLIFFORD. tite of the speaker, and inclined to think him an excellent fellow for jesting so good-humouredly on his own physical infirmity. But Lucy had the tact of her sex, and, taking pity on the Earl's calamitous situation, though she certainly never guessed at its extent, entered with so much grace and ease into the conversation which he sought to establish between them, that Mauleverer's gentleman, who had hitherto been pushed aside by the zeal of the grey-headed butler, found an opportunity, when the Squire was laugh- ing and the butler staring, to steal away the overburthened plate unsuspected and unseen. Despite, however, of these evils of board and lodgment, Mauleverer was exceedingly well pleased with his visit, nor did he terminate it till the shades of night had begun to close, and the distance from his own residence conspired with experience to remind him that it was possible for a highwayman's audacity to attack the equipage even of Lord Mauleverer. He then reluctantly re-entered his carriage, and, bidding the postilion drive as fast as possible, wrapped himself in his roquelaire, and divided his thoughts be- tween Lucy Brandon, and the Homard au gratin with which he purposed to console himself immediately on his return home. However, Fate, which mocks our most cherished hopes, ordained that on arriving at Mauleverer Park the owner should be suddenly afflicted with a loss of appetite, a coldness in the limbs, a pain in the chest, and various other ungracious symptoms of portending malady. Lord Mauleverer went straight to bed ; he remained there for some days, and when he recovered his physicians ordered him to Bath. The AVhig Methodists, who hated him, ascribed his illness to Providence ; and his Lordship was firmly of opinion that it should be ascribed to the beef and pudding. However this be, there was an end, for the pre- sent, to the hopes of young ladies of forty, and to the in- tended festivities at Mauleverer Park. Good God !" said the Earl, as his carriage wheels turned from his gates, *^ what a loss to country tradesmen may be occasioned by a piece of underdone beef, especially if it be boiled !" About a fortnight had elapsed since Mauleverer's mete- PAUL CLIFFORD, 157 oric visit to Warlock House^ when the Squire received from his brother the following epistle : — My dear Joseph, You know my numerous avocations, and, amid the press of business which surrounds me, will, I am sure, for- give me for being a very negligent and remiss correspondent. Nevertheless, I assure you, no one can more sincerely sym- pathise in that good fortune which has befallen my charm- ing niece, and of which your last letter informed me, than I do. Pray give my best love to her, and tell her how complacently I look forward to the brilliant sensation she will create, when her beauty is enthroned upon that rank which, I am quite sure, it will one day or other command. You are not aware, perhaps, my dear Joseph, that I have for some time been in a very weak and declining state of health. The old nervous complaint in my face has of late attacked me grievously, and the anguish Ifs sometimes so great that I am scarcely able to bear it. I believe the great demand which my profession makes upon a frame of body never strong, and now beginning prema- turely to feel the infirmities of time, is the real cause of my maladies. At last, however, I must absolutely punish my pocket, and indulge my inclinations by a short respite from toil. The doctors — sworn friends, you know, to the lawyers — since they make common cause against mankind, have peremptorily ordered me to lie byj and to try a short course of air, exercise, social amusements, and the waters of Bath. Fortunately this is vacation time, and I can afford to lose a few weeks of emolument, in order, perhaps, to secure many years of life. I purpose, then, early next week, repairing to that melancholy reservoir of the gay, where persons dance out of life,, and are fiddled across the Styx. In a word, I shall make one of the adventurers after health, who seek the goddess at King Bladud's pump-room. Will you and dear Lucy join me there ? I ask it of your ; friendship, and I am quite sure that neither of you will shrink , aghast at the proposal of solacing your invalid relation. At the same time that I am recovering health, my pretty niece will be avenging Pluto, by consigning to his domi- 158 PAUL CLIFFORD. iiions many a better and younger hero in my stead. And it will be a double pleasure to me to see all the hearts, &c. — 1 break ofF^ for what can I say on that subject which the little coquette does not anticipate ? It is high time that Lucy should see the world ; and though there are many at Bath, above all places, to whom the heiress will be an object of interested attentions, yet there are also many in that crowded city by no means undeserving her notice. What say you, dear Joseph .^^ but I know already ; you will not refuse to keep company with me in my little holi- day, and Lucy's eyes are already sparkling at the idea of new bonnets^ Milsom Street, a thousand adorers, and the Pump-room. ^'^Ever, dear Joseph, Yours affectionately, W iLLiAM Brandon. P.S. I find that my friend Lord Mauleverer is at Bath ; I own that is an additional reason to take me thither ; by a letter from him, received the other day, I see that he has paid you a visit, and he now raves about his host and the heiress. Ah, Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy ! are you going to conquer him whom all London has, for years more than I care to tell, (yet not many, for Mauleverer is still young,) assailed in vain ? Answer me ! This letter created a considerable excitement in Warlock House. The old Squire was extremely fond of his brother, and grieved to the heart to find that he spoke so discou^ ragingly of his health. Nor did the Squire for a moment hesitate at accepting the proposal to join his distinguished relative at Bath. Lucy also, — who had for her uncle, possibly from his profuse yet not indelicate flattery, a very great regard and interest, though she had seen but little of him, — urged the Squire to lose no time in arranging mat- ters for their departure, so as to precede the barrister, and prepare every thing for his arrival. The father and daughter being thus agreed, there was little occasion for delay ; an answer to the invalid's letter was sent by return of post, and on the fourth day from tlieir receipt of the said epistle, the good old Squire, his dangliter, a country cirl, by way of abigail — the grey-headed butler, and two PAUL CLIFFORD. 169 or three live pets^ of the size and habits most convenient for traveUing, were impelled along in the huge womb of the family coach^ on their way to that city which at that time was gayer^ at least^ if somewhat less splendid^, than the metropolis. On the second day of their arrival at Bath^ Brandon (as in future^ to avoid confusion^ we shall call the younger brother_, giving to the elder his patriarchal title of Squire) joined them. He was a man seemingly rather fond of parade^ though at heart he disrelished and despised it. He came to their lodging^ which had not been selected in the very best part of the town^ in a carriage and six^ but attended only by one favourite servant. They found him in better looks and better spirits than they had anticipated ; few persons^ when he liked it, could be more agreeable than William Brandon ; but at times there mixed with his conversation a bitter sarcasm, pro- bably a habit acquired in his profession, or an occasional tinge of morose and haughty sadness, possibly the conse- quence of his ill-health. Yet his disorder, which was somewhat approaching to that painful affliction the tic do- lor eujc, though of fits more rare in occurrence than those of that complaint ordinarily are, never seemed even for an instant to operate upon his mood, whatever that might be. That disease worked unseen ; not a muscle of his face ap- peared to quiver ; the smile never vanished from his mouth, the blandness of his voice never grew faint as with pain, and, in the midst of intense torture, his resolute and stern mind conquered every external indication, nor could the most observant stranger have noted the moment when the fit attacked or released him. There was something in- scrutable about the man. You felt that you took his character upon trust, and not on your own knowledge. The acquaintance of years would have left you equally dark as to his vices or his virtues. He varied often, yet in each variation he was equally un discoverable. Was he performing a series of parts, or was it the ordinary changes of a man's true temperament that you beheld in him ? Commonly smooth, quiet, attentive, flattering in social in- IbO PAUL CLIFFORD. rercourse ; he was known in the senate and courts of law for a cold asperity, and a caustic venom_, — scarcely rivalled even in those areas of contention. It seemed as if the bit- terer feelings he checked in private life^ he delighted to indulge in public. Yet_, even there, he gave not way to momentary petulance or gushing passion ; all seemed with him systematic sarcasm, or habitual sternness. He out- raged no form of ceremonial, or of society. He stung^ without appearing conscious of the sting; and his antagonist writhed not more beneath the torture of his satire, than the crushing contempt of his self-command. Cool, ready, armed and defended on all points, sound in knowledge_, un- failing in observation, equally consummate in sophistry when needed by himself, and instantaneous in detecting sophistry in another ; scorning no art, however painful, — begrudging no labour, however weighty, — minute in detail, yet not the less comprehending the whole subject in a grasp ; such was the legal and public character William Brandon had established, and such was the fame he joined to the un- sullied purity of his moral reputation. But to his friends he seemed only the agreeable, clever, lively, and, if we may use the phrase innocently, the worldly man, — never affect- ing a superior sanctity, or an over-anxiety to forms, except upon great occasions ; and rendering his austerity of man- ners the more admired, because he made it seem so unac- companied by hypocrisy. Well,*' said Brandon, as he sat after dinner alone with his relations, and had seen the eyes of his brother close in diurnal slumber, — tell me. Miss Lucy, what you think of Lord Mauleverer ; do you find him agreeable } " Very ; too much so, indeed ! " ^' Too much so ! that is an uncommon fault, Lucy ; un less you mean to insinuate that you find him too agreeable for your peace of mind." Oh, no ! there is little fear of that ; all that I meant to express was, that he seems to make it the sole business of his life to be agreeable ; and that one imagines he had gained that end by the loss of certain qualities which one would have liked better." Uniph ! and what arc they PAUL CLIFFORD. I6l Truth, sincerity, independence, and honesty of mind." My dear Lucy, it has been the professional study of my life to discover a man's character, especially so far as truth is concerned, in as short a time as possible ; but you excel me by intuition, if you can tell whether there be sin- cerity in a courtier's character at the first interview you have with him." '^Nevertheless, I am sure of my opinion," said Lucy^ laughing; **^and I will tell you one instance I observed among a hundred. Lord Mauleverer is rather deaf, and he imagined, in conversation, that my father said one thing — it was upon a very trifling subject — the speech of some member of parliament (the lawyer smiled), — when in reality he meant to say another. Lord Mauleverer, in the warmest manner in the world, chimed in with him, ap- peared thoroughly of his opinion, applauded his sentiments^ and wished the whole country of his mind. Suddenly my father spoke. Lord Mauleverer bent down his ear, and found that the sentiments he had so lauded were exactly those my father the least favoured. No sooner did he make this discovery, than he wheeled round again, dex- terously and gracefully, 1 allow ; condemned all that he had before extolled^ and extolled all that he had before abused ! " And is that all, Lucy ? said Brandon, with a keener sneer on his lip than the occasion warranted. Why, that is what every one does ; only some more gravely than others. Mauleverer in society ; I, at the bar ; the minis- ter in Parliament ; friend to friend ; lover to mistress ; mistress to lover ; half of us are employed in saying white is black, and the other half in swearing that black is white. There is only one difference, my pretty niece, between the clever man and the fool ; the fool says what is false while the colours stare in his face and give him the he ; but the clever man takes, as it were, a brush, and literally turns the black into white, and the white into black, before he makes the assertion, which is then true. The fool changes, and is a liar ; the clever man makes the colours change, and is a genius. But this is not for > your young years yet, Lucy." 162 PAUL CLIFFORD. ^' Yet, I can see the necessity of seeming to agree with people/' said Lucy^ simply ; surely they would be just as well pleased if you differed from them civilly,, and with respect." No, Lucy/' said Brandon, still sneering ; to be liked;, it is not necessary to be any thing but compliant ; lie, cheat;, make every word a snare, and every act a forgery — but never contradict. Agree with people, and they make a couch for you in their hearts. You know the story of Dante and the buffoon. Both were entertained at the court of the vain pedant, who called himself Prince Scaliger ; the former poorly, the latter sumptuously. — ^ How comes it,' said the buffoon to the poet, ^ that I am so rich and you so poor?' — shall be as rich as you,' was the stinging and true reply — ^ whenever I can find a patron as like myself as Prince Scaliger is like you!'" Yet my birds/* said Lucy, caressing the goldfinch, which nestled to her bosom, are not like me, and I love them. Nay, I often think I could love those better who differ from me the most. I feel it so in books ; — when, for instance, I read a novel or a play ; and you, uncle, 1 like almost in proportion to my perceiving in myself no- thing in common with you." Yes/' said Brandon, you have in common with me a love for old stories of Sir Hugo, and Sir Rupert, and all the other ' Sirs' of our mouldered and by-gone race. So you shall sing me the ballad about Sir John de Brandon, and the dragon he slew in the Holy Land. We will ad- journ to the drawing-room, not to disturb your father." Lucy agreed, took her uncle's arm, repaired to the drawing-room, and, seating herself at the harpsichord, sang to an inspiriting, yet somewhat rude air, the family ballad lier uncle had demanded. It would have been amusing to note, in the rigid face of the hardened and habitual man of peace and parchments, a certain enthusiasm which ever and anon crossed his cheek, as the verses of the ballad rested on some allusion to the knightly House of Brandon, and its old renown. It was an early prejudice, breaking out despite of himself — a flash of character, stricken from the hard fossil in which it was PAUL CLIFFORD. 163 imbedded. One would have supposed that the silliest of all prides^ (for the pride of money, though meaner, is less senseless,) family pride — was the last weakness which at that time the callous and astute lawyer would have con- fessed, even to himself. Lucy," said Brandon, as the song ceased, and he gazed on his beautiful niece with a certain pride in his aspect, — I long to witness your first appearance in the world. This lodging, my dear, is not fit but par- don me ! what I was about to say is this ; your father and yourself are here at my invitation, and in my house you must dwell ; you are my guests, not mine host and hos- tess. I have, therefore, already directed my servant to secure me a house, and provide the necessary establish- ment ; and I make no doubt, as he is a quick fellow, that within three days all will be ready : — you must then be the magnet of my abode, Lucy; and, meanwhile, you must explain this to my brother, and, for you know his jealous hospitality, obtain his acquiescence." But," began Lucy. But me no huts," said Brandon, quickly, but with an affectionate tone of wilfulness; and now, as I feel very much fatigued with my journey^ you must allow me to seek my own room.'* I will conduct you to it myself," said Lucy, for she was anxious to show her father's brother the care and fore- thought which she had lavished on her arrangements for his comfort. Brandon followed her into an apartment, which his eye knew at a glance had been subjected to that female superintendence, which makes such uses from what men reject as insignificant ; and he thanked her Avith more than his usual amenity, for the grace which had presided over, and the kindness which had dictated, her prepara- tions. As soon as he was left alone, he wheeled his arm- chair near the clear bright fire, and resting his face upon his hand, in the attitude of a man who prepares himself, iS it were, for the indulgence of meditation, he muttered : — Yes ! these women are, first, what Nature makes them, and that is good : next, Avhat we make them, and M 2 164 PAUL CLIFFORD. that is evil ! Now_, could I persuade myself^ that we ought to be nice as to the use we put these poor puppets to^ I should shrink from enforcing the destiny which I have marked for this girl. But that is a pitiful consideration, and he is but a silly player ^vho loses his money for the sake of preserving his counters. So_, the young lady must go as another score to the fortunes of William Brandon. After all, who suffers ? not she. She will have wealth, rank, honour : / shall suffer, to yield so pretty and pure a gem to the coronet of — faugh! How I despise that dog ! but how I could hate, crush, mangle him, could I believe that he despised me ! Could he do so } Umph ! No, I have resolved myself, that is impossible. Well, let me hope, that matrimonial point will be settled ; and now, let me consider what next step I shall take for myself — — myself ! — ay — only myself ! — with me perishes the last male of Brandon. But the light shall not go out under a bushel." As he said this, the soliloquist sunk into a more ab- sorbed, and a silent reverie, from which he was disturbed by the entrance of his servant. Brandon, who was never a dreamer, save when alone, broke at once from his reflec- tions. You have obeyed my orders. Barlow said he. Yes, sir," answered the domestic, I have taken the best house yet unoccupied, and when Mrs. Roberts (Bran- don's housekeeper) arrives from London, every thing will, I trust, be exactly to your wishes." Good ! And you gave my note to Lord Mauleverer ?" With my own hands, sir ; his lordship will await you at home all to-morrow." Very well ! and now. Barlow, see that your room is within call — (bells, though known, were not common at that day) and give out that I am gone to bed, and must not be disturbed. What 's the hour ?" Just on the stroke of ten, sir." Place on that table my letter-case, and the inkstand. Look in, to help me to undress, at half-past one ; I shall go to bed at that hour. And — stay — be sure. Barlow, that PAUL CLIFFORD. my brother believes me retired for the nigiit. He does not know my habits^ and will vex himself if he thinks 1 sit up so late in my present state of health." Drawing the table with its writing appurtenances near to his master, the servant left Brandon once more to his thoughts or his occupations. CHAPTER II. Servant. Get away, I say, wid dat nasty belli Punch. Do you call this a bell ?— (patting it.)— It is an organ ! Servant. I say it is a bell — a nasty bell ! Punch. I say it is an organ, (striking him with it,' — what do ycu say it now ? Servant. An organ, Mr. Punch. The Tragical Comedy of Punch and Judy. The next morning, before Lucy and her father had left their apartments, Brandon, who was a remarkably early riser, had disturbed the luxurious Mauleverer in his first slumber. Although the courtier possessed a villa some miles from Bath, he preferred a lodging in the town, both as being warmer than a rarely inhabited country-house, and as being, to an indolent man, more immediately conve- nient for the gaieties and the waters of the medicinal city. As soon as the Earl had rubbed his eyes, stretched him- self, and prepared for the untimeous colloquy, Brandon poured forth his excuses for the hour he had chosen for a < visit. *^ Mention it not, my dear Brandon," said the good- natured nobleman with a sigh ; '^'^ I am glad at any hour to see you, and I am very sure that what you have to commu- nicate is always worth listening to." It was only upon public business, though of rather a more important description than usual, that I ventured to disturb you," answered Brandon, seating himself on a chair by the bedside. This morning — an hour ago — I re- ceived by private express a letter from London, stating that a new arrangement Avill positively be made in the Ca- M 3 166 TAVL CLIFFORD. binet — nay, naming the very promotions and changes; 1 confess, that as my name occurred, as also your own, in these nominations, I was anxious to have the benefit of your necessarily accurate knowledge on the subject^ as well as of your advice." Really, Brandon," said Mauleverer, with a half-peevish smile, any other hour in the day would have done for ^ the business of the nation,' as the newspapers call that troublesome farce we go through ; and 1 had imagined you would not have broken my nightly slumbers, except for something of real importance — the discovery of a new beauty, or the invention of a new dish.'' Neither the one nor the other could you have expected from me, my dear lord," rejoined Brandon ; you know the dry trifles in which a lawyer's life wastes itself away, and beauties and dishes have no attraction for us, except the former be damsels deserted, and the latter patents invaded. But my news, after all, is worth hearing, unless you have heard it before." Not I ! but I suppose I shall hear it in the course of the day ; pray heaven I be not sent for to attend some plague of a council. Begin !" In the first place. Lord Duberly resolves to resign, unless this negotiation for peace be made a cabinet ques- tion !" Pshaw ! let him resign: I have opposed the peace so long, that it is out of the question. Of course. Lord Wan- stead will not think of it, and he may count on my bo- roughs. A peace ! shameful, disgraceful, dastardly propo- sition '^But, my dear lord, my letter says, that this unex- pected firmness on the part of Lord Duberly has produced so great a sensation, that, seeing the impossibility of form- ing a durable cabinet without him, the King has consented to the negotiation, and Duberly stays in !" " The devil ! — what next ?" Raffden and Sternhold go out in favour of Baldwin and Cliarlton ; and in the hope that you will lend your aid to I !" said Lord Mauleverer, very angrily ; I ! lend PAUL CLIFFORD. mj aid to Baldwin, the Jacobin, and Charlton, the son of a brewer !" Very true !" continued Brandon ; but in the hope that you might be persuaded to regard the new arrange- ments with an indulgent eye, you are talked of instead of the Duke of for the vacant garter and the office of Chamberlain." You don't mean it !" cried Mauleverer, starting from his bed. A few other (but, I hear, chiefly legal) promotions are to be made. Among the rest, my learned brother, the democrat Sarsden, is to have a silk gown ; Cromwell is to be attorney-general, and, between ourselves, they have offered me a judgeship." But the garter !" said Mauleverer, scarcely hearing the rest of the lawyer's news — the whole object, aim, and ambition of my life. How truly kind in the King ! After all/' continued the Earl, laughing, and throwing himself back, opinions are variable — truth is not uniform — the times change, not we — and we must have peace instead of war i'' Your maxims are indisputable, and the conclusion you come to is excellent,'* said Brandon.