PORTFOLIO.

(Continued from page 197.)

tral inn at Carlisle in a wet day, must remember how vainly the traveller looks from the windows for amusement, unless he understands horses ficiently well to admire the various kinds which bring two or three dozen west-country graziers and as many shrewd northern drovers into the stable-yard from a Whit-on-tryste. It

was more amusement to me to remark the gradations between the well-filled grey coat and oil-skin cap which distinguished the plump Englishman, and the weather-beaten plaid of his competitors. One of the latter, a lean, sinewy, russet-faced man, whose attire promised more acquaintance with catthe than books, began one with me by lamenting that the rain would not allow him to walk on the castle walls or the race ground, as the inn did not afford a Nagle volume, not even Burns or the "Tales of my Landlord."-Such an evidence of good taste induced me to cast my eyes on his portmanteau, whereon I saw the name of Ben. Johnso inscribed, with a sentiment of respect which a second glance at his ho best countenance confirmed. Even an Annandale-farmer must retain, I supposed, something of the literary in spiration attached to that name, and we began a long discourse on the merits of the Ayrshire ploughman and Ettrick shepherd, which ended in my new friend Benjamin's renewed regrets that we had neither Guy Mannering nor Rob Roy." Sir," continued he, "I know very well who he means by Dandie Dinmont, though some people say it is I-and I know Rob Roy too, for I lived many a year with his second consin's aunt's grandsons, and he was the only one of the family that deserved to be hanged. Lord! how true it is what he says there of Skipton is Craven! Bot the worst is, though I know all those stories by heart, and could tell them just as he tells 'em, I always want to be reading them again, and feel just as if I did not know how they would end."

You have supplied the reason," was my answer: your bistorian paints from truth, and truth has the same advantage over fable which your strong plaid has over my black silk gown. Europ. Mag. Vol. LXXIII. April 1818.

fore both respectable and touching.' My auditor filled his glass, laid his mull aside, and lighted his indispensable pipe, while I opened the first sheet of the old pamphlet I had found behind the shining grate of the best inn-parlour, dated 1710.

"The beginning of the Princess's kindness for me had an early date ;— we used to play together when she was a child, and she even then expressed a particular fondness for me. On her marriage with Prince at her own earnest request, I was added to her household, possibly because the first lady of the bedchamber was a person whose discourse and manner (though the Princess thought they agreed very well together) could not recommend her to so young a mistress. For she looked like a madwoman and talked like a scholar. Favour with a princess engaged me to her by a sentiment which I chuse to call honour rather than gratitude or duty; because, while it implies all the justice and affection of both, it seems to express a more disinterested principle of action than either.

"Every body knows that the coldness between the Princess and Queen arose from the former desiring an independent settlement, which, as she was told, ought to have been taken in any way her superiors pleased. But she answered, "that she could not think herself wrong in desiring a security for what was to support ber."-The Queen replied, with an imperious air- What friends have you but the King and me?'-and the next day the Princess received this letter.

66 6

Having something to say to you, which I know will not be very pleasing, I chuse rather to write it first, being unwilling to surprize you, though I think what I am going to tell you should not, if you give yourself time to think that never any body was suffered to live at court in my Lord M's circumstances.-I hope you do me the justice to believe, it is much against my will that I now tell you, it is very unfit Lady M should stay with you, since that gives her husband so just a pretence of being where he ought not to be. I think I might have expected you should have spoke to me of it. But now PP

"The sunshine day came, however; my patroness prevailed over all her enemies, and her levees were thronged with visitors, amongst whom my Lord Carnarvon merrily said, I hope, madam, you will remember that I came to wait upon you, when none of this company did! She consulted me on all Occasions, and would have loaded me with favours; but I only begged her to advance one of my aunt's poor daughters from the station of rocker to that of bed-chamber-woman, and her brother (a ragged tall boy, whom the bottle men afterwards called honest John Hill) was made my lord's aid-decamp, though he thought him goodfor-nothing. Not long after this, I went to pay my respects to my mistress in the Christmas-holidays, and plainly perceived she was uneasy. She stood all the while I was with her: and when I stooped to kiss her hand, raised ine with a very cold embrace, and, without speaking one word, let me go. Now I remembered, that having gone very privately, on a day before, by a secret passage, from my lodgings to the bed-chamber, on a sudden my cousin, not knowing I was there, came in with the boldest and gayest air possible; but seeing me, stopped, and changing her manner into a most solemn courtesy, enquired if my mistress rung, and went out again. It was plain there existed some secret between them; but, as bonest Howell wisely saith, A secret is too much for ae, enough for two, but too little for three-And much more wisely he also saith, From them whom I trust may God defend me, but from those I do not trust I will defend myself.'-After mach thought on the woman I had raised from the dust, and on her I had served so long with promises of unalterable affection, I wrote to the latter, on the 27th of December, these

post she is in. And if she pleases to chuse one of these ways, or any others, I promise to follow it if possible, and on all occasions to shew that had a more faithful servant.'

few words:" 'If will be so just as to reflect and examine her last reception different from what it has you cannot wonder at my reMy temper is plain

-bow very

been!

-

did like it

has

66

never

My patroness hardly noticed this appeal; and my husband, then in the height of a glory he might have made perpetual, was treated as if his successes in her cause were injuries to her self-love. He wrote to me as usual in cypher from the camp, professing his zeal for 88 and his distrust of 91, by which he meant our lady and her new advisers. Her change was more distinctly complained of in another letter, which I sent to her enclosed in one from myself

proaches, and sincere, and for many years. And if any remains of the tenderness she once professed for her faithful friend, I would beg she might be treated one of these two ways: Either with the openness and confidence of a friend, as she has been for twenty years; or ekte in the manner necessary for the

"I cannot help sending this to shew how exactly my lord agrees in my opi nion, that he has now no interest with you.-Yet I think he will be surprised to hear, that when I had taken so much pains to put your jewels in a way I thought you would like, my cousin made you refuse to wear them in so unkind a manner. I will make no reflections, only that you chose a very wrong day to mortify me, when you were just going to return thanks for a victory obtained by my husband!'

"On the sixth of April I entreated an audience, and the page who announced me staid longer than usual: long enough, it is to be supposed, to deliberate whe ther the favour of admission should be granted, and to settle the measures of behaviour. When I entered, and began to speak, she interrupted me, by repeating, Whatever you have to say may be put in writing.' Though her face was turned away, I continued to speak, begging to know the offence laid to my charge, but not the names of the authors or relators. She replied, 'You desired. no answer, and shall have none.' These words she repeated constantly, as was her custom when she had been provided with a phrase to shield her against all argument. When she came to the door, streams of tears flowed against my will, and the most disrespectful words I ever uttered escaped me- I have despised interest to serve faithfully and rightly -I have done enough to move com-> passion, even where all love was absent; -but this inhumanity will not be unpunished '-She replied, 'that will be to myself:'-and thus ended our last conversation, after a friendship of twenty-seven years, After such high power and envied distinctions, my lord

and myself sunk into retirement, happy enough that, like the great and good Lord Bacon, we were not obliged to beg a cup of wine from courtiers, and to carry a wallet after bearing the sword of state."

Here ended this singular memoir; and my honest auditor, sending a long column of smoke from his pipe, added, "Truly, if it had not begun about a prince and princess, I should have thought it had been a tale of Lady Julias and Lady Rosas, such as my daughter reads at school-but I dozed a little, I doubt, at t'other end."

"No wonder, my good friend," I replied, "for this memoir gives us truth, not wit or good-sense. Yet, as I said before, it is respectable, because it relates to the most distinguished persons of a past age: and touching, as it proves how little the noblest stations are exempt from the petty passions of human nature, and how deeply those passions influence the great events of an empire. These letters, with frivolous and sentimental mystery enough in them to decorate a novel, are written by the invincible Duke of Marlborough's wife, and her heroines are Queen Mary and Queen Anne!"

My lowland Ben Johnson took a large pinch from his horn mull, and replied, There's no great difference in the folly, mayhap; yet I'd as lief be a Kingfool as a common one. An' ye're a gownsman, sir, ye may chance to have a liking to thae kind of cattle, and I can tell ye as strange a tale of the Clanroy M'Greggors, and this very inn, as a justice-clerk need put on paper. Its' like ye may have heard a jeer in Carlisle about a West-riding man who took too many good-will cups with a highland knave, and woke in a sack next morn-but I'll no believe it, for what says the old song?

"Its a wearifu' task to swim by night Safe over Tweed or Tyne,

But a harder to deal wi' a Yorkshire wight,

And gi' him his fill of wine."

THE GLEANER. No. VIII.

"His temper, therefore, must be well observed."

HENRY IVth, Part II. Act 4. Sc. 2. "Her nature was too noble for the world." CORIOLANUS, Act 3. Sc. 1.

Twhich the reigning propensities and particular tastes of men may be discovered: and some of these are not amongst those to which the greater part of their observers would look for this purpose. The avenues to the secrets of the heart are not in general laid open in the ordinary intercourse of life; nor is that veil which hides its inmost recesses drawn aside in the daily occurrences of business There are so many motives which lead to an hypocrisy, which sometimes seems almost too innocent to deserve so harsh an appellation; and so many inducements to make us appear different from what we really are, in order to obtain from our associates the admiration which is not justly our due; that it is very far from being an easy task for those whose opportunities of observation are confined to our public behaviour, to pronounce upon the influential principles which govern our conduct, and regulate our lives. The crafty knave may appear to the casual observer to possess the strictest integrity; and the most dishonest may assume such an openness of manners, and apparently transact his affairs with such a conscientious probity, as to deceive the unwary, and impose upon the credulity of the unsuspecting. The man who receives the applause of his fellow creatures for his conduct in the ordinary transactions of life, may be the very last on whom it should be he stowed; and if the penetration of his admirers could reach bis secret motives, the tongue which is lavish in his praise would be oftener employed in his

THERE is a variety of methods by

censure.

It is a remark which has been often made, and the justice of which is ob vious, that the domestic circle affords the best opportunity of viewing the real characters of those who compose it. The motives which influence whilst exposed to public view, there cease to operate; the desire of approbation, and the fear of censure, are in a great mea sure removed. But this is a criterion of

they are the last who ought to commu

nicate to others the observations which their peculiar situation enables them to make. In precisely the same proportion as the privacy of home leads to the adisguised display of character, should the particular causes which produce such an effect operate on a well-regulated mind, to induce it to conceal the failag, and palliate the faults of those who are thus exposed to the scrutiny of closer investigation. There is a certain hallowed sanctity about the retirement of family intercourse, which ought not to be profaned: its occurrences are such as originate amongst its own memhers, and they ought to be confined to those who alone are interested in them: its pleasures are pure in proportion to their innocence, but much of their value arises from causes, which can only appear important to those who are the partakers of them: and the occasional unpleasant circumstances that even here too forcibly remind us that happiness and terrestrial pursuits are irreconcile able, are such as those who move with out the sphere of their operations are Bot to be made acquainted with. The very hope of privacy which there prevails, is the feeling which, of all others, produces the most amiable expressions of tender affection and genuine sentiment; and the most effectual method of destroying the characteristic sympathies of home, is, by laying them open to the gaze of those, who, if they do not ridicule their tenderness, are not able to

appreciate their value.

form our

It is the relinquishment of the mask which experience had dictated as forming a suitable disguise in the masquerade of life. It is the putting off those parts of the vesture which checked the natural circulation of the humours and passions, and gave a form and an aspect as painful to be preserved, as they were irksome to be produced. And it is at such a time that we can discover peculiar traits of character, and become acquainted with principles of action, which before had escaped our notice, or had been hid from our view.

The motives which operate on the mind, and influence the conduct, during the hours of business and professional engagement, are widely different from those which predominate during the time which is devoted to recreation and amusement. The stimulus of self-interest is to a certain degree removed. The camelion-like versatility of moral complexion, which had varied with the different colours of the objects with which it had come in contact, is exchanged for the proper, hue which distinguishes a particular species of mental character. Tired of the constant exertions which the business of the day has required, and wearied under the weight of the artificial armour which has been used; it is gladly thrown aside by its fatigued wearer, and willingly relinquished for an undress that requires no trouble to put on, nor any strength to sustain. The same act which affords relief to himself, exposes his character more distinctly to view; and that which to him is the rest from his toils, becomes to others the touchstone of his sincerity.

But it is very possible for a man to be o situated, that we may safely judge of his ruling passions and prevailing dispositions, without being brought under the necessity of prying into the recesses of faraily intercourse. There are very few more correct criteria by which we may judgment of character, than those which the favourite recreations of any individual afford. It has been observed of nations, that the characteristics of a people are to be diseerned in their amusements; and the same observation will apply, with a necessarily equal propriety, to each particular member of the community. Indeed, the very design of recreation seems to involve in it such a consequence. It is the unbending of the d. It is the throwing aside those habiliments which are considered as the clothing which is requisite for public use. It is the laying aside the general costume which assimilates man to man.

The man of business, who, after having spent a day of bustle, and care, and anxiety, can return to his family circle with emotions of pleasure, heightened by placing its delightful harmony in contrast with the jarring interests and opposing schemes of the sons of toil; whose countenance glows with an instiuctive rapture at the heartfelt expression of connubial affection; who listens with mingled emotions of love and tenderness to the artless language of the infant prattlers who are contending for their proudest distinction, the seat of honour on the parent's knee; and who regards the home of the evening as the haven from the diurmal storms of active life; the man who seeks for his most valued pleasures from such sources as these, proves, that,