discontent," was he known to simpereven in his sleeve!

Dumps had long been proud of gentility of appearance: a suit of black had been his working-day costume, nothing therefore could be more easy than for Dumps to turn gentleman. He did so; took a villa at Gravesend, chose for his own sitting room a chamber that looked against a dead wall, and whilst he was lying in state upon the squabs of his sofa, he thought seriously of the education of his son, and resolved that he should be instantly taught the dead languages.

Sighmon was superstitious; though his temper and disposition had neither been spirited nor sprightly, his dreams and his fears had been both: from the windows of Burying Ground Buildings he had daily witnessed grave proceedings; in the dusk of the evening he had often been startled by groans and moans, and sometimes he had thought that he beheld the new comers in the grounds beneath his chamber (by no means pleasure grounds), frisking in the congenial paleness of the moonlight.

He felt convinced that he had witnessed unearthly sports, sports on the turf, among beings who ought by rights to have been under it!

All this had made an impression on him, and Sighmon Dumps was decidedly a young man of a serious turn of mind. The metropolis had few attractions for him, he loved to linger near the monument; and if ever he thought of a continental excursion, the Catacombs and Père la Chaise were his seducers.

His father died; his old employer furnished him with a funeral; the mute was silenced, and the mourner mourned.

was

Sighmon Dumps became more serious than ever; he had a decided nervous malady, an abhorrence of society, and a sensitive shrinking when he felt that anybody was looking at him. He had heard of the invisible girl; he would have given worlds to have been an invisible young gentleman, and to have glided in and out of rooms, unheeded and unseen, like a draft through a key-hole. This, however, was not to be his lot; like a man cursed with creaking shoes, stepping lightly, and tiptoeing, availed not; a creak always betrayed him when he was most anxious to creep into a

corner.

At his father's death he found himself possessed of a competency and a villa: but he was unhappy; he was known in the neighbourhood, people called on him,

and he was expected to call on them, and these calls and recalls bored him. He never, in his life, could abide looking any one straight in the face; a pair of human eyes meeting his own, was actually painful to him. It was not to be endured. He sold his villa; and determined to go to some place where, being a total stranger, he might pass unnoticed and unknown, attracting no attention, no remarks.

He went to Cheltenham, and consulted Boisragon about his nerves; was recommended a course of the waters, and horse exercise.

The son of the weeper very naturally thought he had already "too much of water;" he, however, hired a nag, took a small surburban lodging, and as nobody spoke to him, nor seemed to care about him, he grew better, and felt sedately happy. This blest seclusion, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot," was not the predestined fate of Sighmon: odd circumstances always brought him into notice. The horse he had hired was a pieball, a sweet quiet animal, warranted a safe support for a timid invalid. On this pieball did Dumps jog through the green lanes in brown studies.

One day as he passed a cottage, a face peered at him through an open window; he heard an exclamation of delight, the door opened, and an elderly female ran after him, entreating him to stop; much against the grain he complied.

"'T was heaven sent you sir," said his pursuer, out of breath; "give me for the love of mercy the cure for the rhumatiz."

"The what?" said Dumps.

"The rhumatiz, sir; I've the pains and the aches in my back and in my bones—give me the dose that will cure

In vain Dumps declared his ignorance of the virtues of "medicinal gums." The more he protested, the more the old woman sued; when to his horror a reinforcement joined her from the cottage, and men, women, and children implored him to cure the good dame's malady. At length watching a favourable opportunity, he insinuated his heel into the side of the piebald, and trotted off, while entreaties mingled with words of anger were borne to him on the wind.

He determined to avoid that green lane in future, and rode out the next day in an opposite direction: as he trotted through a village, a girl ran after him shouting for a cure for the whooping

cough, a dame with a low curtsey solicited a remedy for the colic, and an old man asked him what was good for the palsy. These unforeseen, these unaccountable attacks, were fearful annoyances to so retiring a personage as Dumps. Day after day, go where he would, the same things happened. He was solicited to cure "all the ills that flesh is heir to." He was not aware (any more than the reader very possibly may be) that in some parts of England the country people have an idea that a quack doctor rides a pieball horse; why, I cannot explain, but so it is, and that poor Dumps felt to his cost. Life became a burthen to him; he was a marked man; he, whose only wish was to pass unnoticed, unheard, unseen; he, who of all the creeping things on the earth, pitied the glowworm most, because the spark in its tail attracted observation. He gave up his lodgings and his pieball, and went "in angry mood to Tewksbury.”

I ought ere this to have described my hero. He was rather embonpoint; but fat was not with him, as it sometimes is, twin brother to fun; his fat was weighty, he was inclined to blubber. He wore a wig, and carried in his countenance an expression indicative of the seriousness of his turn of mind.

He alighted from the coach at the principal inn at Tewksbury; the landlady met him in the hall, started, smiled, and escorted him into a room with much civility. He took her aside, and briefly explained that retirement, quiet, and a back room to himself, were the accommodations he sought.

"I understand you, sir," replied the landlady, with a knowing wink, "a little quiet will be agreeable by way of change; I hope you'll find every thing here to your liking." She then curtsied, and

withdrew.

"Frank," said the hostess to the head waiter, "who do you think we've got in the blue parlour? you'll never guess! I knew him the minute I clapped eyes on him; dressed just as I saw him at the Haymarket theatre, the only night I ever was at a London stage play. The grey coat, and the striped trowsers, and the hessian boots over them, and the straw hat out of all shape, and the gingham umbrella!"

"Who is he, ma'am?" said Frank.

"Why the great comedy actor, Mr. Liston," replied the landlady, "come down for a holiday; he wants to be quiet, so we must not blab, or the whole town will be after him."

This brief dialogue will account for much disquietude which subsequently befell our ill fated Dumps. People met him, he could not imagine why, with a broad grin on their features. As they passed they whispered to each other, and the words "inimitable," "clever creature," " irresistibly comic," evidently applied to himself, reached his ears.

Dumps looked more serious than ever; but the greater his gravity, the more the people smiled, and one young lady actually laughed in his face as she said aloud, "Ö, that mock heroic tragedy look is so like him!”

Sighmon sighed for the seclusion of number three, Burying Ground Buildings, Paddington Road.

One morning his landlady announced, with a broader grin than usual, that a gentleman desired to speak with him; he grumbled, but submitted, and the gentleman was announced.

"My name, sir, is Opie," said the stranger; "I am quite delighted to see you here. You intend gratifying the good people of Tewksbury of course?"

"Gratifying! what can you mean?" "If your name is announced, there'll not be a box to be had."

"I always look after my own boxes, I can tell you," replied Dumps.

that he easily deciphered, "THE CELEBRATED MR. LISTON IN TRAGEDY. This evening THE STRANGER, the part of THE STRANGER BY MR. LISTON."

Dumps had never seen the inimitable Liston, indeed comedy was quite out of his way. But now that the star was to shine forth in tragedy, the announcement was congenial to the serious turn of his mind, and he resolved to go.

The

He eat an early dinner, went by times to the theatre, and established himself in a snug corner of the stage box. house filled, the hour of commencement arrived, the fiddlers paused and looked towards the curtain, but hearing no signal they fiddled another strain. The audience became impatient; they hissed, they hooted, and they called for the manager: another pause, another yell of disapprobation, and the manager pale and trembling appeared, and walked hat in hand to the front of the stage. To Dumps's great surprise, it was the very man who visited him in the morning. Mr. Opie cleared his throat, bowed repeatedly, moved his lips, but was inaudible amid the shouts of "hear him." At length silence was obtained, and he spoke as follows:

"Ladies and Gentlemen,

"I appear before you to entreat your kind and considerate forbearance; I lament as much, nay more than you, the absence of Mr. Liston; but, in the anguish of the moment, one thought supports me, the consciousness of having done my duty. (Applause.) I had an interview with your deservedly favourite performer this morning, and every necessary arrangement was made between us. I have sent to his hotel, and he is not to be found. (Disapprobation.) I have been informed that he dined early, and left the house, saying that he was going to the theatre; what accident can have prevented his arrival I am utterly unable

to

Mr. Opie now happened to glance towards the stage box-surprise! doubt! anger! certainty! were the alternate expressions of his pale face, and widely opened eyes; and at length pointing to Dumps, he exclaimed

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is my painful duty to inform you that Mr. Liston is now before you; there he sits at the back of the stage box, and I trust I may be permitted to call upon him for an explanation of his very singular conduct."

Every eye turned towards Dumps, every voice was uplifted against him; the man who could not endure the

scrutiny of one pair of eyes, now beheld a house full of them glaring at him with angry indignation. His head became confused, he had a slight consciousness of being elbowed through the lobby, of a riot in the crowded street, and of being protected by the civil authorities against the uncivil atacks of the populace. He was conveyed to bed, and awoke the next morning with a very considerable accession of nervous malady.

He soon heard that the whole town vowed vengeance against the infamous and unprincipled imposter who had so impudently played off a practical joke on the public, and at dead of night did he escape from the town of Tewksbury, in a return mourning coach, with which he was accommodated by his tender hearted landlady.

Our persecuted hero next occupied private apartments at a boarding-house at Malvern. Privacy was refreshing, but alas! its duration was doomed to be short. A young officer who had witnessed the embarrassment of "the stranger" at Tewksbury, recognized the sufferer at Malvern, and knowing his nervous antipathy to being noticed, he wickedly resolved to make him the lion of the place.

He dined at the public table, spoke of the gentleman who occupied the private apartments, wondered that no one appeared to be aware who he was, and then in confidence informed the assembled party that the recluse was the celebrated author of the "Pleasures of Memory," now engaged in illustrating "HIS ITALY" with splendid embellishments from the pencils of Stothard and Turner.

Dumps again found himself an object of universal curiosity, every body became officiously attentive to him, he was waylaid in his walks, and intentionally intruded upon by accident in his private apartments; a travelling artist requested to be permitted to take his portrait for the exhibition, a lady requested him to peruse her manuscript romance and to give his unbiased opinion, and the master of the boarding-house waited upon him by desire of his guests to request that he would honour the public table with his company. Several ladies solicited his autograph for their albums, and several gentlemen called a meeting of the inhabitants, and resolved to give him a public dinner; a craniologist requested to be permitted to take a cast of his head, and as a climax to his misery, when he was sitting in his bed-chamber thinking himself at least secure for the

present, the door being bolted; he looked towards the Malvern Hills, which rise abruptly immediately at the back of the boarding-house, and there he discovered a party of ladies eagerly gazing at him with long telescopes through the open windows.

He left Malvern the next morning, and went to a secluded village on the Welsh coast, not far from Swansea.

The events of the last few weeks had rendered poor Sighmon Dumps more sensitively nervous than ever. His seclusion became perpetual, his blind was always down, and he took his solitary walks in the dusk of the evening. He

had been told that sea sickness was sometimes beneficial in cases resembling his own; he, therefore, bargained with some boatmen, who engaged to take him out into the channel, on a little experimental medicinal trip. At a very early hour in the morning he went down to the beach, and prepared to embark. He had observed two persons who appeared to be watching him, he felt certain they were dogging him, and just as he was stepping into the boat they seized him, saying, "Sir, we know you to be the great defaulter who has been so long concealed on this coast; we know you are trying to escape to America, but you must come with us,"

Sighmon's heart was broken. He felt it would be useless to endeavour to explain or to expostulate; he spoke not, but was passively hurried to a carriage in which he was borne to the metropolis as fast as four horses could carry him, without rest or refreshment. Of course, after a minute examination, he was declared innocent, and was released; but justice smiled too late, the bloom of Sighmon's happiness had been prematurely nipped.

He called in the aid of the first medical advice, grew a little better; and when the doctor left him he prescribed a medicine which he said he had no doubt would restore the patient to health. The medicine came, the bottle was shaken, the contents taken-Sighmon died!

ton Road. His funeral was conducted with almost as much decorum as if his late father the mute had been present, and he was left with

"At his head a green-grass turf,

And at his heels a stone."

But even there he could not rest! The next morning it was discovered that the body of Sighmon Dumps had been stolen by resurrection men ! It may be feared that a tale founded on circumstances of such deep tragical interest, may be deemed too sombre for the pages of a magazine. But I could not prevail upon myself to mingle any touch of levity with a narrative so serious.

HISTORIC GLEANINGS. (For the Parterre.)

B.

"History is philosophy teaching by example." Lord Bolinbroke.

TAXES OF THE ROMANS.

THE taxes of the Romans were most cruel and oppressive. Tacitus, in his life of Agricola, ascribes the revolt of the Britons to the excessive taxes of their invaders. "What they call governing," said the unhappy islanders, "is plunder and bloodshed; and when they have reduced a populous country to the condition of a frightful desert, they call it pacifying a province." According to Strabo, even uncultivated and desert islands were taxed; and that of Gyara, of small extent, had to pay a tribute of one hundred and fifty pounds a year. The miserable inhabitants at length sent a deputation to Augustus, praying for a remission of a third part of the tribute. The rapaciousness of the Roman governors was enormous. Marius, a governor of Africa, was accused and found guilty of cruel extortions, when he was compelled to disgorge the plunder, and condemned to banishment; but no portion of the spoil was returned to the suffering province. Juvenal lashes his countrymen for their unjust treatment of those princes who were tributary to the republic, and whom they fleeced "even to the marrow of their bones."

"Ossa vides Regum vacuis exhausta medullis."-Sat. 8.

E. M. A.

JAMES THE FIRST.

was found with a heart bold enough to attempt the destruction of Henry VIII., whose cruelties had rendered him odious. James the First was too mean an object even for the dagger of an assassin. He did not murder his subjects, but he was unmoved when he heard of any calamity that had befallen them. When the news of the massacre of the English merchants at Amboyna by the Dutch, arrived in this country, James merely sent message to the Dutch ambassador, that he had never heard or read of a more cruel and impious act; adding, that he forgave the murderers, and hoped God would. "My son's son," said he, "shall revenge the blood, and punish the authors of the massacre.' It was left, however, for Cromwell to obtain satisfaction for this horrible outrage.

E. M. A.

AVARICE OF THE ROMANS.

a

WELL might Juvenal exclaim against the "auri sacra fames," since avarice was the ruling passion among his countrymen, from the prince to the peasant. Julius Cæsar employed one of his freedmen as treasurer in Gaul. This man was soon accused of embezzlement, and, to avoid the consequences of his duplicity, he adopted the following plan to save himself. Taking Augustus to his house, he exhibited to that artful prince the heaps of gold and silver which he had obtained by violence and plunder. The astonishment of Augustus was changed into joy when he heard that the treasure had been collected for him. The wary villain thus saved himself; and the man who should have been his judge, became his accomplice! Plutarch, in his life of Marius, says that the candidates for any post in the government carried gold and silver by bushels into the Campas Martius, and openly purchased the votes of the electors; while from Suetonius we learn, that Julius Cæsar exhausted his fortune by purchasing interest to raise himself to the honours of the republic. E. M. A.

EUROPEAN SAVAGES.

A passenger by the Glenalbyn steamer, which recently made the tour of the Hebrides, has published an account of the voyage in the Scottish Guardian. The description he has given of the behaviour and habits of the natives of St. Kilda is not a little curious. It reminds us strongly of the adventures of the early navigators among the rude and uncivilized inhabitants of the countries they

discovered. The following is an extract: :-"About midnight she arrived off St. Kilda. About 4 a. m., the

steamer fired off two of her cannon, the report of which aroused the natives, who issued from their dwellings like flocks of bees. As the Glenalbyn was the first steamer that ever touched at St. Kilda, its unwonted appearance, and the noise of the escaping steam combined, led the natives simultaneously to flee to the steepest crags. In a short time, however, one of the party, more courageous than the others, slowly returned, and approached the minister's house, when, after remaining for some little time, he again went back, and headed them to the beach. Many of those who landed had previously provided themselves with quantities of tobacco, cotton handkerchiefs of gay patterns, &c.; the former of which they distributed liberally amongst the men, and the latter among the matrons and maids, some of whom, upon discovering themselves to be so unexpectedly adorned, actually shed tears of exultation. The population consists of twenty-one families, or ninety-three individuals, who have never increased for the last century. Many of them marry very young, and, of course, with near relations, which may partly account for the apparent deterioration of the race. The clergyman's duties appear to be strictly confined to religious matters. The magisterial duties devolve upon the only individual in the island (with the exception of the minister) who speaks the English language, and is employed by the proprietor as groundofficer, to collect the feathers, &c. which are given by the natives in lieu of rent, and who terms himself "baron bailie." There is neither surgeon nor midwife in the island; when children are born, they are fed for the first five days upon butter dissolved in milk; and should they hap pen to survive that period, they are then suckled, but otherwise they of course die. It is ascertained that only one out of ten passes the age of infancy. natural transition leads us to proceed from the birth to the death; and on the occasion of a funeral the whole population follow the body in a direct line to the place of interment; but should the death be untimely (more especially by a fall from the cliffs), then what may be termed a Roman, or perhaps an Irish howl takes place, and the natives abstain from every occupation for a period of three days. Their houses are in general built of loose stones, about five feet in height, and composed of great masses,

A