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PRAY EMPLOY MAJOR NAMBY.

[William Wilkie Collins, born in London. January,

1824. Novelist. He was educated for the bar. His first work was a memoir of his father, William Collins, R. A., the celebrated painter, and it was followed by Antonina, or The Fall of Rome; Rambles beyond Railways; Basil; Mr. Wray's Cash-box; Hide and Seck; After Dark: Dead Secret; The Queen of Hearts; The Woman in White: No Name: My Miscellanis: ArmaThe New Magdalen, &c. He has written a number of plays chiefly founded upon his novels. He died in 1889.]

dale; The Moonstone; Man and Wije; Poor Miss Finch;

I am a single lady-single, you will please to understand, entirely because I have refused many excellent offers. Pray don't imagine from this that I am old. Some women's offers come at long intervals, and other women's offers come close together. Mine came remarkably close together-so, of course, I cannot possibly be old. Not that I presume to describe myself as absolutely young, either; so much depends on people's points of view. I have heard female children of the ages of eighteen or nineteen called young ladies. This seems to me to be ridiculous-and I have held that opinion, without once wavering from it, for more than ten years past. It is, after all, a question of feeling; and, shall I confess it? I feel so young!

I live in the suburbs, and I have bought my house. The major lives in the suburbs, next door to me, and he has bought his house. I don't object to this of course. I merely mention it to make things straight.

Major Namby has been twice married. His first wife-dear, dear! how can I express it? Shall I say, with vulgar abruptness, that his first wife had a family? And must I descend into particulars, and add that they are four in number, and that two of them are twins? Well, the words are written; and if they will do over again for the same purpose, I beg to repeat them in reference to the second Mrs. Namby (still alive), who has also had a family, and is no, I really cannot say, is likely to go on having one. There are certain limits in a case of this kind, and I think I have reached them. Permit me simply to state that the second Mrs. Namby has three children at present. These, with the first Mrs. Namby's four, make a total of seven. The seven are composed of five girls and two boys. And the first Mrs. Namby's family all have one particular kind of constitution, and the second Mrs. Namby's family all have another particular kind of constitution. Let me explain once

more that I merely mention these little matters, and I that don't object to them.

My complaint against Major Namby is, in plain terms, that he transacts the whole of his domestic business in his front garden. Whether it arises from natural weakness of memory, from total want of a sense of propriety, or from a condition of mind which is closely allied to madness of the eccentric sort, I cannot say, but the major certainly does sometimes partially, and sometimes entirely, forget his private family matters, and the necessary directions connected with them, while he is inside the house, and does habitually remember them, and repair all omissions, by bawling through his windows, at the top of his voice, as soon as he gets outside the house. It never seems to occur to him that he might advantageously return in-doors, and there mention what he has forgotten in a private and proper way. The instant the lost idea strikes him-which it invariably does, either in his front garden, or in the roadway outside his house-he roars for his wife, either from the gravel walk, or over the low wall-and (if I may use so strong an expression) empties his mind to her in public, without appearing to care whose ears he wearies, whose delicacy he shocks, or whose ridicule he invites. If the man is not mad, his own small family fusses have taken such complete possession of all his senses, that he is quite incapable of noticing anything else, and perfectly impenetrable to the opinions of his neighbours. Let me show that the grievance of which I complain is no slight one, by giving a few examples of the general persecution that I suffer, and the occasional shocks that are administered to my delicacy, at the coarse hands of Major Namby.

We will say it is a fine warm morning. I am sitting in my front room, with the window open, absorbed over a deeply interesting book. I hear the door of the next house bang; I look up, and see the major descending the steps into his front garden.

He walks-no, he marches-half way down the front garden path, with his head high in the air, and his chest stuck out, and his military cane fiercely flourished in his right hand. Suddenly he stops, stamps with one foot, knocks up the hinder part of the brim of his extremely curly hat with his left hand, and begins to scratch at that singularly disagreeable-looking roll of fat red flesh in the back of his neck (which scratching, I may observe, in parenthesis, is always a sure sign, in the case of this horrid man, that a lost domestic idea has suddenly come back to him). He waits a moment

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"Something particular for baby, sir." 'Drop it directly, whatever it is. Nurse!" "Yes, sir."

"Mind the crossings. Don't let the children sit down if they're hot. Don't let them speak to other children. Don't let them get playing with strange dogs. Don't let them mess their things. And above all, don't bring Master Jack back in a perspiration. Is there anything more before I go out?" "No, sir."

"Matilda! Is there anything more?"

"No, dear."

"Pamby! Is there anything more? "No, sir."

Here the domestic colloquy ends, for the time being. Will any sensitive personespecially a person of my own sex-please to imagine what I must suffer as a delicate single lady, at having all these family details obtruded on my attention, whether I like it or not, in the major's rasping martial voice, and in the shrill answering screams of the women inside? It is bad enough to be submitted to this sort of persecution when one is alone; but it is far worse to be also exposed to it as I am constantly in the presence of visitors, whose conversation is necessarily interrupted, whose ears are necessarily shocked, whose very stay in my house is necessarily shortened, by Major Namby's unendurably public way of managing his private concerns.

Only the other day, my old, dear, and most valued friend, Lady Malkinshaw, was sitting with me, and was entering at great length into the interesting story of her second daughter's unhappy marriage engagement, and of the dignified manner in which the family ultimately broke it off. For a quarter of an hour or so our interview continued to be delightfully uninterrupted. At the end of that time, however, just as Lady Malkinshaw, with the tears in her eyes, was beginning to describe the effect of her daughter's dreadful disappointment on the poor dear girl's mind and looks, I heard the door of the major's house bang as usual; and looking out of the window in despair, saw the major himself strut half way down the walk, stop, scratch violently at his roll of red flesh, wheel round so as to face the house, consider a little, pull his tablets out of his waistcoatpocket, shake his head over them, and then look up at the front windows, preparatory to bawling as usual at the degraded female members of his household. Lady Malkinshaw, quite ignorant of what was coming, happened, at the same moment, to be proceeding with her pathetic story, in these terms:

"I do assure you, my poor dear girl behaved throughout with the heroism of a martyr. When I had told her of the vile wretch's behaviour, breaking it to her as gently as I possibly could; and when she had a little recovered I said to her

("Matilda!")

The major's rasping voice sounded louder than ever, as he bawled out that dreadful name, just at the wrong moment. Lady Malkinshaw started as if she had been shot. I put down the window in despair; but the glass

most unexpected manner. Her ladyship's face became awfully red; her ladyship's head trembled excessively; her ladyship's eyes looked straight into mine with an indescribable fierce

ness.

"Why am I thus insulted?" inquired Lady Malkinshaw, with a slow and dignified sternness which froze the blood in my veins. "What do you mean by it?" continued her ladyship, with a sudden rapidity of utterance that quite took my breath away.

Before I could remonstrate with my friend for visiting her natural irritation on poor innocent me: before I could declare that I had seen the major actually open his garden gate to go away, the provoking brute's voice burst in on us again.

"Ha, yes?" we heard him growl to himself, in a kind of shameless domestic soliloquy. "Yes, yes, yes-Sophy was sick, to be sure. Curious. All Mrs. Namby's step-children have weak chests and strong stomachs. All Mrs. Namby's own children have weak stomachs and strong chests. I have a strong stomach and a strong chest. Pamby!"

"I consider this," continued Lady Malkinshaw, literally glaring at me, in the fulness of her indiscriminate exasperation "I consider this to be unwarrantable and unladylike. I beg to know

"Where's Bill?" burst in the major from below, before she could add another word. "Matilda! Nurse! Pamby! where's Bill? I didn't bid Bill good-bye-hold him up at the window, one of you?"

"My dear Lady Malkinshaw," I remonstrated, "Why blame me? What have I done?" "Done?" repeated her ladyship. "Done? -all that is most unfriendly, most unwarrantable, most unladylike, most

"Ha! ha! ha-a-a-a!" roared the major, shouting her ladyship down, and stamping about the garden in fits of fond paternal laugh

Lady Malkinshaw screamed and rushed to the door. I sank into a chair, and clasped my hands in despair.

"Ha! ha! ha-a-a-a! What calves the dog's got! Pamby! look at his calves. Aha! bless his heart, his legs are the model of his father's! The Namby build, Matilda: the Namby build, every inch of him. Kick again, Bill-kick out, like mad. I say, ma'am! I beg your pardon, ma'am!

"

Ma'am? I ran to the window. Was the major actually daring to address Lady Mal

kinshaw, as she passed indignantly, on her way out, down my front garden? He was! The odious monster was pointing out his-his, what shall I say?—his undraped offspring to the notice of my outraged visitor.

"Look at him, ma'am. If you're a judge of children, look at him. There's a two-yearolder for you! Ha! ha! ha-a-a-a! Show the lady your legs, Bill-kick out for the lady, you dog, kick out!"

COLIN'S COMPLAINT.

[Nicholas Rowe, born at Little Berkford, Bedfordshire, 1673; died in London, 6th December, 1718. Dramatist, and appointed poet-laureate in 1716, on the death of Nahum Tate. The Fair Penitent, The Biter, Ulysses,

Jane Shore, aud Lady Jane Gray are the titles of a few of his plays. His poems consist of odes, epistles, prologues and translations.]

Despairing beside a clear stream,

A shepherd forsaken was laid;
And while a false nymph was his theme,
A willow supported his head.
The wind that blew over the plain,

To his sighs with a sigh did reply;
And the brook, in return to his pain,
Ran mournfully murmuring by.

Alas, silly swain that I was!

Thus sadly complaining, he cry'd, When first I beheld that fair face,

"Twere better by far I had dy'd. She talk'd, and I bless'd the dear tongue; When she smil'd, 'twas a pleasure too great. I listen'd, and cry'd, when she sung, Was nightingale ever so sweet?

How foolish was I to believe

She could doat on so lowly a clown,
Or that her fond heart would not grieve,
To forsake the fine folk of the town?
To think that a beauty so gay,

So kind and so constant would prove;
Or go clad like our maidens in gray,
Or live in a cottage on love?

What though I have skill to complain,

Though the muses my temples have crown'd; What though, when they hear my soft strain, The virgins sit weeping around. Ah, Colin, thy hopes are in vain;

Thy pipe and thy laurel resign; Thy false one inclines to a swain

Whose music is sweeter than thine.

And you, my companions so dear, Who sorrow to see me betray'd, Whatever I suffer, forbear,

Forbear to accuse the false maid.

"Tis in vain from my fortune to fly; "Twas hers to be false and to change, "Tis mine to be constant and die.

If while my hard fate I sustain,

In her breast any pity is found, Let her come with the nymphs of the plain, And see me laid low in the ground. The last humble boon that I crave,

Is to shade me with cypress and yew; And when she looks down on my grave, Let her own that her shepherd was true.

Then to her new love let her go,

And deck her in golden array, Be finest at every fine show,

And frolic it all the long day; While Colin, forgotten and gone,

No more shall be talked of, or seen, Unless when beneath the pale moon, His ghost shall glide over the green.

NOVEL-WRITERS.

[Henry Fielding, born at Sharpham Park, Somersetshire, 22d April, 1707; died at Lisbon, 8th October,

1754. "The father of the English novel." Magistrate,

dramatist, and novelist. He wrote twenty-five farces and comedies for the stage; but it was in satirizing the novels of Richardson that he discovered his true vocation. Joseph Andrews, Amelia, and Tom Jones (one of the introductory chapters of which we quote), notwithstanding much that is regarded as coarse in the present day, remain classic works of English fiction. "Of all the works of imagination to which English genius has given origin, the writings of Henry Fielding are, per haps, most decidedly and exclusively her own. Like many other men of talent, Fielding was unfortunatehis life was a life of imprudence and uncertainty; but it was while passing from the high society to which he was born to that of the lowest and most miscellaneous kind to which his fortune condemned him, that he acquired the extended familiarity with the English character, in every rank and aspect, which has made his name immortal as a painter of national manners."-Sir Walter Scott.]

Among other good uses for which I have thought proper to institute these several introductory chapters, I have considered them as a kind of mark or stamp which may hereafter enable a very indifferent reader to distinguish what is true and genuine in this historic kind of writing, from what is false and counterfeit. Indeed it seems likely that some such mark may shortly become necessary, since the favourable reception which two or three authors have lately procured for their works of this nature from the public, will probably serve as an

the like. Thus a swarm of foolish novels and monstrous romances will be produced, either to the great impoverishing of booksellers, or to the great loss of time and depravation of morals in the reader; nay, often to the spreading of scandal and calumny, and to the prejudice of the characters of many worthy and honest people.

I question not but the ingenious author of the Spectator was principally induced to prefix Greek and Latin mottoes to every paper, from the same consideration of guarding against the pursuit of those scribblers, who, having no talents of a writer but what is taught by the writing-master, and yet nowise afraid nor ashamed to assume the same titles with the greatest genius, than their good brother in the fable was of braying in the lion's skin.

By the device, therefore, of his motto, it became impracticable for any man to presume to imitate the Spectators, without understanding at least one sentence in the learned languages. In the same manner I have now secured myself from the imitation of those who are utterly incapable of any degree of reflection, and whose learning is not equal to

any essay.

that the greatest merit of such historical proI would not be here understood to insinuate ductions can ever lie in these introductory chapters; but, in fact, those parts which contain mere narrative only, afford much more encouragement to the pen of an imitator than those which are composed of observation and reflection. Here I mean such imitators as Rowe was of Shakspeare, or as Horace hints some of the Romans were of Cato, by bare feet and four faces.

To invent good stories, and to tell them well, are possibly very rare talents, and yet I have observed few persons who have scrupled to aim at both; and if we examine the romances and novels with which the world abounds. I think we may fairly conclude that most of the authors would not have attempted to show their teeth (if the expression may be allowed me) in any other way of writing; nor could indeed have strung together a dozen sentences on any other subject whatever. Scribimus indocti doctique passim,1 may be more truly said of the historian and biographer than of any other species of writing; for all the arts and sciences (even criticism itself) require some little degree of learning and knowledge. Poetry,