The more immediate interest of the cards entirely absorbs the old woman. The door shuts out her nephew and his cares. Under his hat, he bears them into the street, and paces the dark town for a while.

"Good God!" he thinks, "what a miserable fellow I am, and what a spendthrift of my life I have been! I sit silent with George and his friends. I am not clever and witty as he is. I am only a burthen to him and if I would help him ever so much, don't know how. My dear Aunt Lambert's kindness never tires, but I begin to be ashamed of trying it. Why, even Hetty can't help turning on me; and when she tells me I am idle and should be doing something, ought I to be angry? The rest have left me. There's my cousins and uncle and my lady my aunt, they have showed me the cold shoulder this long time. They didn't even ask me to Norfolk when they went down to the country, and offer me so much as a day's partridge-shooting. I can't go to Castlewood-after what has happened: I should break that scoundrel William's bones; and, faith, am well out of the place altogether."

He laughs a fierce laugh as he recalls his adventures since he has been in Europe. Money, friends, pleasure, all have passed away, and he feels the past like a dream. He strolls into White's Chocolate House, where the waiters have scarce seen him for a year. The Parliament is up. Gentlemen are away; there is not even any play going on ;-not that he would join it, if there were. He has but a few pieces in his pocket; George's drawer is open, and he may take what money he likes thence; but very, very sparingly will he avail himself of his brother's repeated invitation. He sits and drinks his glass in moody silence. Two or three officers of the Guards enter from St. James's. He knew them in former days, and the young men, who have been already dining and drinking on guard, insist on more drink at the club. The other battalion of their regiment is at Winchester it is going on this great expedition, no one knows whither, which everybody is talking about. Cursed fate that they do not belong to the other battalion; and must stay and do duty in London and at Kensington! There is Webb, who was of their regiment he did well to exchange his company in the Coldstreams for the lieutenant-colonelcy of the thirty-second. He will be of the expedition. Why, everybody is going; and the young gentlemen mention a score of names of men of the first birth and fashion, who

have volunteered. "It ain't Hanoverians this time, commanded by the big Prince," says one young gentleman (whose relatives may have been Tories forty years ago)-"it's Englishmen, with the Guards at the head of 'em, and a Marlborough for a leader! Will the Frenchmen ever stand against them? No, by George, they are irresistible." And a fresh bowl is called, and loud toasts are drunk to the success of the expedition.

Mr. Warrington, who is a cup too low, the young Guardsmen say, walks away when they are not steady enough to be able to follow him, thinks over the matter on his way to his lodgings, and lies thinking of it all through the night.

"What is it, my boy?" asks George Warrington of his brother, when the latter enters his chamber very early on a blushing May morning.

"I want a little money out of the drawer," says Harry, looking at his brother. "I am sick and tired of London."

"Good heavens ! Can anybody be tired of London ?" George asks, who has reasons for thinking it the most delightful place in the world.

"I have for one. I am sick and ill," says Harry.

"You and Hetty have been quarrelling?"

"She don't care a penny-piece about me, nor I for her neither," says Harry, nodding his head. " But I am ill, and a little country air will do me good." And he mentions how he thinks of going to visit Mr. Webb in the Isle of Wight, and how a Portsmouth coach starts from Holborn.

"There's the till, Harry," says George, pointing from his bed. "Put your hand in, and take what you will. What a lovely morning, and how fresh the Bedford House garden looks."

"God bless you brother!" Harry says.

"Have a good time, Harry!" and down goes George's head on the pillow again, and he takes his pencil and note-book from under his bolster, and falls to polishing his verses, as Harry, with his cloak over his shoulder and a little valise in his hand, walks to the inn in Holborn whence the Portsmouth machine starts.

CHAPTER XV.

MELPOMENE.

EORGE WARRINGTON by no means allowed his legal studies to obstruct his comfort and pleasures, or interfere with his precious health. Madam Esmond had pointed out to him in her letters that though he wore a student's gown, and sat down with a crowd of nameless people to hall-commons, he had himself a name, and a very ancient one, to support, and could take rank with the first persons at home or in his own

country; and desired that he would study as a gentleman, not a mere professional drudge. With this injunction the young man complied obediently enough: so that he may be said not to have belonged to the rank and file of the law, but may be considered to have been a volunteer in her service, like some young gentlemen of whom we have just heard. Though not so exacting as she since has becomethough she allowed her disciples much more leisure, much more pleasure, much more punch, much more frequenting of coffee-houses and holiday-making, than she admits now-a-days, when she scarce gives her votaries time for amusement, recreation, instruction, sleep,

or dinner-the law a hundred years ago was still a jealous mistress, and demanded a pretty exclusive attention. Murray, we are told, might have been an Ovid, but he preferred to be Lord Chief Justice, and to wear ermine instead of bays. Perhaps Mr. Warrington might have risen to a peerage and the woolsack, had he studied very long and assiduously,-had he been a dexterous courtier, and a favourite of attorneys: had he been other than he was, in a word. He behaved to Themis with a very decent respect and attention; but he loved letters more than law always; and the black letter of Chaucer was infinitely more agreeable to him than the Gothic pages of Hale and Coke.

Letters were loved indeed in those quaint times, and authors were actually authorities. Gentlemen appealed to Virgil or Lucan in the Courts or the House of Commons. What said Statius, Juvenal-let alone Tully or Tacitus-on such and such a point? Their reign is over now, the good old Heathens: the worship of Jupiter and Juno is not more out of mode than the cultivation of Pagan poetry or ethics. The age of economists and calculators has succeeded, and Tooke's Pantheon is deserted and ridiculous. Now and then, perhaps, a Stanley kills a kid, a Gladstone hangs up a wreath, a Lytton burns incense, in honour of the Olympians. But what do they care at Lambeth, Birmingham, the Tower Hamlets, for the ancient rites, divinities, worship? Who the plague are the Muses, and what is the use of all that Greek and Latin rubbish? What is Elicon, and who cares? Who was Thalia, pray, and what is the length of her i? Is Melpomene's name in three syllables or four? And do you know from whose design I stole that figure of Tragedy which adorns the initial G of this chapter?

Now, it has been said how Mr. George in his youth, and in the long leisure which he enjoyed at home, and during his imprisonment in the French fort on the banks of Monongahela, had whiled away his idleness by paying court to Melpomene; and the result of their union was a tragedy, which has been omitted in "Bell's Theatre," though I dare say it is no worse than some of the pieces printed there. Most young men pay their respects to the Tragic Muse first, as they fall in love with women who are a great deal older than themselves. Let the candid reader own, if ever he had a literary turn, that his ambition was of the very highest,

and that however in his riper age he might come down in his pretensions, and think that to translate an ode of Horace, or to turn a song of Waller or Prior into decent alcaics or sapphics, was about the utmost of his capability, tragedy and epic only did his green unknowing youth engage, and no prize but the highest was fit for him.

George Warrington, then, on coming to London, attended the theatrical performances at both houses, frequented the theatrical coffee-houses, and heard the opinions of the critics, and might be seen at the "Bedford" between the plays, or supping at the "Cecil" along with the wits and actors when the performances were over. Here he gradually became acquainted with the players and such of the writers and poets as were known to the public. The tough old Macklin, the frolicsome Foote, the vivacious Hippisley, the sprightly Mr. Garrick himself, might occasionally be seen at these houses of entertainment; and our gentleman, by his wit and modesty, as well, perhaps, as for the high character for wealth which he possessed, came to be very much liked in the coffeehouse circles, and found that the actors would drink a bowl of punch with him, and the critics sup at his expense with great affability. To be on terms of intimacy with an author or an actor has been an object of delight to many a young man; actually to hob and nob with Bobadil or Henry the Fifth or Alexander the Great, to accept a pinch out of Aristarchus's own box, to put Juliet into her coach, or hand Monimia to her chair, are privileges which would delight most young men of a poetic turn; and no wonder George Warrington loved the theatre. Then he had the satisfaction of thinking that his mother only half approved of plays and playhouses, and of feasting on fruit forbidden at home. He gave more than one elegant entertainment to the players, and it was even said that one or two distinguished geniuses had condescended to borrow money of him.

And as he polished and added new beauties to his masterpiece, we may be sure that he took advice of certain friends of his, and that they gave him applause and counsel. Mr. Spencer, his new acquaintance of the Temple, gave a breakfast at his chambers in Fig Tree Court, when Mr. Warrington read part of his play, and the gentlemen present pronounced that it had uncommon merit. Even the learned Mr. Johnson, who was invited, was good enough to say that the