mory of the persecuted, the innocent Angelicanarinella !" What d'ye think of that?

B. Umph! a very warm picture certainly; however, it is natural. You know, a person of her consequence could never exist without a little toadyism.

A. I have a good many subterraneous soliloquies, which would have been lost for ever, if I did not bring them up.

B. That one you have just read is enough to make every body else bring up.

A. I rather plume myself upon it.

B. Yes, it is a feather in your cap, and will act as a feather in the throat of your readers.

A. Now I'll turn over the second volume, and read you another morceau, in which I assume the more playful vein. I have imitated one of our modern writers, who must be correct in her language, as she knows all about heroes and heroines. I must confess that I've cribbed a little.

B. Let's hear.

A. "The lovely Angelicanarinella pottered for some time about this fairy chamber, then wrote journal.' At last, she threw herself down on the floor, pulled out the miniature, gulped when she looked at it, and then cried herself to sleep.

B. Pottered and gulped! What language do you call that?

A. It's all right, my dear fellow. I understand that it is the refined slang of the modern boudoir, and only known to the initiated.

B. They had better keep it entirely to their boudoirs. I should advise you to leave it all out.

A. Well, I thought that one who was so very particular, must have been the standard of perfection herself.

B. That does not at all follow. Who has abused the Americans more than Mrs. Trollope, and yet-but I am charitable even to

those who have no charity for others.

A. But what I wish to read to you is the way in which I have managed that my secret shall never be divulged. It is known only to four.

B. A secret known to four people! You must be quick then.

A. So I am, as you shall hear; they all meet in a dark gallery, but do not expect to meet any one but the hero, whom they intend to murder, each one having, unknown to the others, made an appointment with him for that purpose, on the pretence of telling him the great secret. Altogether the scene is well described, but it is long, so I'll come at once to the dénouement.

B. Pray do.

A." Absenpresentini felt his way by the slimy wall, when the breath of another human being caught his ear: he paused, and held his own breath. No, no,' muttered the other, the secret of blood and gold shall remain with me alone. Let him come, and he shall find death.' In a second, the dagger of Absenpresentini was in the mutterer's bosom :-he fell without a groan. To me alone the secret of blood and gold, and with me it remains,' exclaimed Absenpresentini. It does remain with you,' cried Phosphorini, driving

his dagger into his back :-Absenpresentini fell without a groan, and Phosphorini, withdrawing his dagger, exclaimed, Who is now to tell the secret but me?' 'Not you,' cried Vortiskini, raising up his sword and striking at where the voice proceeded. The trusty steel cleft the head of the abandoned Phosphorini, who fell without a groan. • Now will I retain the secret of blood and gold,' said Vortiskini, as he sheathed his sword. Thou shalt,' exclaimed the wily Jesuit, as he struck his stiletto to the heart of the robber, who fell without a groan. With me only does the secret now rest, by which our order might be disgraced; with me it dies,' and the Jesuit raised his hand. Thus to the glory and the honour of his society does Manfredini sacrifice his life.' He struck the keen-pointed instrument into his heart, and died without a groan. Stop, cried our hero."

6

B. And I agree with your hero: stop, Ansard, or you'll kill me too -but not without a groan.

A. Don't you think it would act well?

B. Quite as well as it reads; pray is it all like this?

A. You shall judge for yourself. I have half killed myself with writing it, for I chew opium every night to obtain ideas. Now again

B. Spare me, Ansard, spare me; my nerves are rather delicate; for the remainder I will take your word.

A. I wish my duns would do the same, even if it were only my washerwoman; but there's no more tick for me here, except this old watch of my father's, which serves to remind me of what I cannot obtain from others-time; but, however, there is a time for all things, and when the time comes that my romance is ready, my creditors will obtain the ready.

B. Your only excuse, Ansard.

A. I beg your pardon. The public require strong writing now-adays. We have thousands who write well, and the public are nauseated with what is called good writing.

B. And so they want something bad, eh? Well, Ansard, you certainly can supply them.

A. My dear Barnstable, you must not disparage this style of writing it is not bad-there is a great art in it. It may be termed writing intellectual and etherial. You observe, that it never allows probabilities or even possibilities to stand in its way. The dross of humanity is rejected: all the common wants and grosser feelings of our natures are disallowed. It is a novel which is all mind and passion. Corporeal attributes and necessities are thrown on one side, as they would destroy the charm of perfectability. Nothing can soil, or defile, or destroy my heroine; suffering adds lustre to her beauty, as pure gold is tried by fire: nothing can kill her, because she is all mind. As for my men, you will observe when you read my work

B. When I do!

A. Which, of course, you will-that they also have their appetites in abeyance; they never want to eat, or drink, or sleep-are always at hand when required, without regard to time or space. Now there is a great beauty in this description of writing. The women adore it because they find their sex divested of those human necessities with

out which they would indeed be angels: the mirror is held up to them, and they find themselves perfect-no wonder they are pleased. The other sex are also very glad to dwell upon female perfectability, which they can only find in a romance, although they have often dwelt upon it in their younger days.

B. There is some truth in these remarks. Every milliner's girl, who devours your pages in bed by the half-hour's light of tallow stolen for the purpose, imagines a strong similarity between herself and your Angelicanarinella, and every shopboy measuring tape or weighing yellow soap will find out attributes common to himself and to your hero.

A. Exactly. As long as you draw perfection in both sexes, you are certain to be read, because by so doing you flatter human nature and self-love, and transfer it to the individual who reads. Now a picture of real life

B. Is like some of Wouvermans' best pictures, which will not be purchased by many, because his dogs in the fore-ground are doing exactly what all dogs will naturally do when they first are let out of their kennels.

A. Wouvermans should have known better, and made his dogs better mannered if he expected his pictures to be hung up in the parlour of refinement.

B. Very true.

A. Perhaps you would like to have another passage or two.

B. Excuse me: I will imagine it all. I only hope, Ansard, this employment will not interfere with your legal practice.

A. My dear Barnstable, it certainly will not, because my legal practice cannot be interfered with. I have been called to the bar, but find no employment in my calling. I have been sitting in my gown and wig for one year, and may probably sit a dozen more, before I have to rise to address their lordships. I have not yet had a guinea brief. My only chance is, to be sent out as judge to Sierra Leone, or perhaps to be made a Whig commissioner.

B. A Whig commissioner! You are indeed humble in your aspirations. I recollect the time, Ansard, when you dreamt of golden fame and aspired to the woolsack-when your ambition prompted you to midnight labour, and you showed an energy

Ansard, (putting his hands up to his forehead, with his elbows on the table.)" What can I do, Barnstable? If I trust to briefs, my existence will be but brief-we all must live.

B. Live then, Ansard, as a novel, a romance writer, even as a writer of puffs to Warren's blacking but do not condescend to do the work which has been done. Look at the report of the commissioners of the Municipal Corporation Bill, and compare it with the evidence before the House of Lords. No, no, write anything, but do not become a Whig commissioner. If H. B. wants a subject, let him represent the ex-chancellor as the Sin of Milton, and his multitudinous commissioners as the foul progeny which he has engendered.

THE LIFE, OPINIONS, AND PENSILE ADVENTURES OF JOHN KETCH1

WITH RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES DURING THE LAST THREE REIGNS.

EDITED BY THE AUTHOR OF "OLD BAILEY EXPERIENCE."

My greatest fault, it will be seen, is running into what my guide in writing this book, (viz. the young surgeon,) calls episodes, which he says is mixing one story up with another, and occasions me to make a new chapter for the conclusion of the account of the sick malefactor, to which I now proceed.

After I carried him into the ward again, he was very weak, and much affected about his woman; I therefore did all I could to comfort him, and in a little time, he fell again to sleep: just, however, before the watch was set upon the top of the prison, and the lights called "out," that is, the word given for all the prisoners in the different wards to retire to rest, and extinguish the lights, which happens every night at ten o'clock, the ordinary came again to see him, being unwilling to leave one so near death in his state of mind. He insisted on my waking him: when I had done so, he went up and seated himself beside the sick man, saying, “I am come once more to see how you are, and with a hope that you are in a better frame of mind to receive consolation than when I was last with you. Why will you not read those pages I have turned down for you in these books?" pointing to some which were lying on a bench; "you tell me you can, and have read many books in your time. Pray may I inquire what kind of works used to engage your attention ?"

Ay, I have read; but to tell you the truth," he replied, "I think I lost my time, for I could never see the use of books."

"No!" said the parson, "do they not inform and instruct the mind?” "Instruct and inform!" reiterating the words. "What do you mean

by that? Pray tell me, sir, what all the books are about?"

"That," answered the ordinary, "would be a difficult task to do in the time you have for hearing it; only ten hours-reflect on that; but I may answer your question, by stating generally, that all the books published treat either of the things and affairs of this world, or regard the state of man's existence in the other; a subject which cannot but interest you, who are just about to set off upon a journey thither."

"Books, indeed!" exclaimed he: " let me tell you, sir, if a man be industrious, and wishes to make haste and see as much as he can in this world, he will find no time for reading books, it's that very thing which makes so many ignoramuses; they will not read the great bookthe world itself—from which you say all the little ones are made. If, sir, a man wants real downright knowledge, he must not hinder his time with your books; it's a short life that the oldest has, and he never saw a

1 Continued from p. 335.

thousandth part of the schemes of man. I am younger than you, but I know more than you do, with all your wisdom. And about the world to come, as you was never there, all your's must be guesswork, like mine, and every other man's, say or think what we may. I have read the world

itself here, not second-hand on paper, and now I shall see the other if people say true, and that will give me more information than the books you carry about to preach with. No, sir, I thank you, but your books, unless there's a reprieve in them, can be of no use to me.'

"You are under a delusion," replied the ordinary; "how could you get it into your head that books are of no use?"

"Oh!" answered his opponent, "I do not say books are of no usethey are very well to amuse fools-those who are too idle or stupid to look into the real thing itself-the world."

The ordinary, finding that all his arguments were thrown away upon one brought up in so different a school from his own, gave him over as lost, and went home. "That's a decent old chap enough in his way," said the sick malefactor, as he left the ward; "there's not so much gammon on board of him as some of his cloth; but I like to give them all a turn when I gets across them." I said I was very glad to find that he did not tip the old gentleman any of his flash. "O!" cried he, “ I know when to cheese that; God bless you, it's too rich to throw away upon yokels, though I suppose the old beak is down to a move or two, he must have picked something up here; however, I am glad he is gone." So saying, he turned on his pillow, and very shortly fell asleep, which was the effect, I have no doubt, of debility and fatigue, for he did not awake until five o'clock, when he heard the hammering occasioned by the erection of the scaffold upon which he was to suffer. It may be necessary to remark, that this hammering is not heard in the cells where the condemned generally are confined. "Bless me, how I have slept," said he; "is it so late as that?" leaning his ear to catch the sound of the hammer. "I shall never be able to walk there, and I suppose if I am carried, they will all say I went off with a white feather in my tail, though I never showed one yet. Jack, I shall depend upon you. I dare say they will let you go with me. Now can you fill me a pipe of tobacco, and I will have a whiff before any body comes?" I then filled him a pipe, which he smoked with much composure sitting up in bed. At half-past six an order came for his removal into the press-yard, where the yeomen and sheriffs attend; the one to demand, and the other to deliver up, the body for execution. I got him out of bed and dressed him, all which time he puffed away with his pipe; he then tried to walk a few yards, and was delighted to think that there was at least a chance of his being enabled to stand while the operation was preparing for his end. At seven I carried him into the condemned ward, and placed him upon a seat, where we both sate down to wait for the persons who generally attend to form the procession through the passages upon these occasions. "I dare say, Jack," with a steady tone of speech, he said, "that you think me very careless about this topping-rig, but you see how it is with me; I should never get well again if they were to turn me up this minute, and I am sure I should never be fit for anything again, but be a burden upon Sall; so to tell you the real truth, I am glad it has turned out as it is." Then looking at his clothes, he continued, "they can't say I go off a needy-mizzler, thanks to Sall for this flesh-bag and toggery; she said she would get them, and she's proved herself no wrinkler. I should like for you to look to her, though I don't want you to be nutty upon her, or to dorse it." I answered, "No fear of that, I am already engaged." As it approached the hour of eight, the men, with the sheriff and a party of friends, came into the ward, bound his arms and wrists, and asked him if he had any thing to say, or a wish to ex