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A JOURNAL OF FICTION, POETRY, HISTORY, LITERATURE, AND THE FINE ARTS.

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THE SCRIVENER. (For the Parterre).

THE clock of St. Dunstan's had tolled the hour of six, one evening in the month of April, and the fishmongers had begun to close their stalls, when a young man, attired in sober and somewhat rustic costume, landed on the quay at Billingsgate, from the Gravesend passage-boat. Without heeding the crowd of idlers around him, and the throng of porters, who, doffing their hats, solicited the honour of carrying the small portmanteau he held in his hand, the stranger sauntered carelessly along Thames-street, towards Tower-hill. As he approached that spot so long celebrated in our history, his attention was arrested by a crowd of people who were listening to the discourse of a mountebank, who, with pillbox in hand, was enumerating the almost countless virtues of his medicines. Having mingled in the crowd, the young man watched with evident curiosity the strange grimaces and contortions of the speaker's countenance. The dress of the quack was antiquated, and had probably been fashioned in the time of the first Charles. A doublet of sad coloured

cloth, much stained and worn, descended as low as the hips. Slops, or breeches, of a capacious size, concealed the shape of the wearer's thighs, and shewed in relief his hose of black silk, upon which many a careful and timely darn were visible. At his feet sat a jester, or jack-pudding, who from time to time blew a discordant blast upon a cracked trumpet at the desire of his master, whose volubility and command of language were truly surprising, added to which was a sharpness of wit and repartee that plainly told him to be a man of infinitely superior intellect to most of those around him.

"Here is a liquor," said the quack, exhibiting a small phial, "that shall cure all pains of the joints in a few seconds-take but five drops of this precious balm in a toss of aqua vitæ. and it will make any of ye who are ailing as sound as a roach. Tell me not of Catholic miracles-whoreson cheats as they be-this goodly liquor will do more for ye than all the saints in the calendar. Your caryophilati (commended by my Lord Bacon) may be good, and so may your rosa moschata, and your nardi folium, but crucify me if this will not No. 1.

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set you right in the turning of a die. You all know Jonas Sands, the tanner, of Bermondsey-the poor soul racked in's joints, but one dose of my precious cordial drove his pains to the devil! Here is an unguent for tetters and pimples; what say you fair maiden, will you not drive away that unsightly object on your right cheek with a touch of this salve?-the price?-oh, a shilling-your quacksalvers would charge you four, for as much hog's-lard. Here is a powder for the complexion, compounded of simples. I learned this art when studying at the college of Parma, of the illustrious Signor Boccalini. What say you gentle mistress in the scarlet hood? Will you not try this precious packet on your comely skin? Trust me, wrinkles fly at its very touch, and a lovely bloom is suffused over the whole countenance. Here," exhibiting another phial," is an elixir for all scorbutic humours-it hath cured the king's evil, in a few days, without inconvenience to the patient

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Buy it, in God's name, good people," said a man in the crowd, who had hitherto remained unnoticed, "'t is a thing of price, and we ought to value it; the king's evil hath prevailed greatly of late." These words were said with an emphatic and significant tone, which could not be misunderstood, and all eyes were turned towards him who had uttered them. "Ha!" cried the quack, "have we puritans here? do you speak treason in broad day-light, you shameless villain: hast no value for thine ears, Isaachar ?" "We know each other, master mountebank," replied the man, lifting his broad hat so as to expose his countenance to full view; but both have not a friend at court! what if you try the elixir you boast of, trust me 't is a disease which must be rooted out long."

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"Do you deal in ambiguities, you villain?" cried the quack, who was evidently disconcerted; "away with thee, or I will utter that which shall whisk thee off to the Tower right quickly." "You dare not, master mountebank; but come, don't chafe it with me, we were once friends you know." This was uttered with such a careless air, that it vexed the mountebank to the quick. His countenance grew pale with deadly rage, and he cried out to two or three soldiers from the Tower, who were listening to the squabble with evident delight-" Yon villain is Jasper Arkinstall, the Papist, seize him on your

allegiance, he is encompassing the death of the king."

"Stand off!" cried he, who was thus denounced, to several who pressed around him, "stand off, I say, and let me reply to that old cheat, whom I will ere long pluck by the gills. He says he will sell you a salve or an elixir for the king's evil, surpassing all others; will it, I ask, be as efficacious as the famous Doctor Oliver's? This unequivocal allusion to the late protector, uttered in such a place and at such a time, absolutely froze with horror many of the bystanders, for several persons had already suffered on that very spot for less direct offences. Some of them, nevertheless, drew their swords, and advanced to seize the person of Arkinstall, who, however, proved a tartar, for in an instant his cloak was wound round his left arm, and a rapier of uncommon length bristled before their faces. Several pushed at him at once, and among the rest one of the soldiers before-mentioned, who stumbling forward, received the point of Arkinstall's rapier in his sword-arm, and instantly dropped his weapon. The check which this accident gave to the assailants, allowed their antagonist an opportunity of retreating, and he fled into a neighbouring house, the door of which had been left ajar, pursued by some thirty or forty persons.

But the fugitive was not to be taken; he had made his way through the house, threatening those whom he met with instant death if they opposed him, and leaping out of a back window into a court at the rear of the house, got clear off.

The scene filled our traveller with amazement; he at first supposed Arkinstall to be under the influence of liquor, but a moment's reflection assured him that it was a premeditated plan for annoying the mountebank, who seemed so disconcerted by the interruption, that he at once ceased to "ply his vocation," and retired from the place. In the meanwhile, the young countryman bent his steps across Tower-hill, and shortly arrived at Aldgate, when having engaged a bed at a neighbouring inn, he proceeded to the house of a scrivener, named Ralph Battencourt. Here he found the man of business at his desk, wrapped in a sort of old dressing-gown, and his head covered by a worn-out velvet cap, from under which his long, grey hair, descended on each side of his sallow and unprepossessing countenance. His small, dark, piercing eyes, were almost hidden

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