THE NEW SILVER COINAGE.

THE New Silver Coinage goes on

great

;

press produces per minute 60 pieces; that is, 3600 per hour. The hours of work are ten daily, making the whole number of pieces from each press 36,000. There are eight presses at work, and of course the whole number daily finished is 288,000. The amount to be issued is to the value of 2,500,000l. in shillings and sixpences, in the proportion of seven of the former to five of the latter.

MEMOIRS OF A RECLUSE. (Continued from page 208.) IR PERTINAX TOWNLY, our

third brother, began his narrative with a graceful application to a superb gold snuff-box. "Science and philosophy," said he, are not the only sources of human vanity; for mine, I confess, was never influenced by either. I am the disciple and the martyr of fashion.

"You have heard me mentioned, gentlemen, as the youngest of three Brothers who lived unmarried under a tacit compact that the last survivor should inherit the whole family-estate. In his fifty-fifth year, my second brother gave the honours of his name to an adventuress with two hundred penniless cousins, and announced an heir. "What intolerable folly!" exclaimed the eldest of my two seniors, and immediately signed a deed giving forty thousand pounds to his Cinderella's uneducated daughters. I saw the loss of my reversionary hopes with fewer pangs than usual, as my fashionable celebrity and unfaded age promised some compensation in marriage. "Never depend upon your children, Pertinax!"-said my eldest brother, as he sat bending with paralytic infirmity at his desolate fire-side, forsaken by those who thought their father's errors an excuse for their ingratitude. He expired a few moments after, leaving me nothing but the task of settling the incessant and furious disputes of my nieces and nephews. They were set tled at last, but not till the will of my eldest, and the marriage of my second brother had been annulled, and their whole estates devoured by litigation. Thus benefited at least by their experience, I determined to avoid a disproportioned marriage, or the reproach of a nameless progeny. As my brothers had been deluded by women without honour, and robbed by children from

whom they had withheld a right to venerate them, I thought myself happy in my escape from all ties of a kind so precarious. Horses. dogs, and fashionable friends, employed my time and purse; but at the close of rather more than forty years, I saw my life passing like a meteor, without any regular or useful light, and without leav ing a single trace of its path. I began to feel that fear of utter death which is unknown to those who hope to live in the remembrance of posterity. The infatuation of my brothers, ruinous as it had proved, seemned less wretched than mine. I felt the insufficiency of transient ties, without daring to form others more permanent.

"I wish you were married and settled in the country!" said Lord Boling broke to his large dog when it trod on his gouty foot. This wish, though very malevolently spoken, was soon the highest and most constant of mine. But difficulties began to rise. My reputation and fortune had passed their grand climacteric, and both were faling into decay. Several peers flou rished a curricle whip with newer grace. and two Yorkshire peasants walked thirty miles in less time than myself. Thus my celebrity was tarnished, and bets to redeem it sunk my fortune: but an unexpected event restored both. You will deem it, gentlemen, à proof of the good which always in some respects results from evil. Lord Aircastle, whose eccentricities have been related by our Brother Peregrine Philo whim, about this period dismissed his daughter in the rage excited by her elopement I was his nephew and presumptive heir, and he invited me most graciously to his Hall of Experiments. Never had fantastical chimeras a fitter herald! Cuvier, his favorite naturalist, would have been perplexed in what class to place him, for he appeared to have neither nerves nor brains, except in the same proportion as a shark's, which are, as he told me, only the two thousandth part of its substance. His eyes glared like two ill-managed gas-lights; and his person would have resembled an oblate sphere placed on two parallel poles, if an unlucky curve in the shoulder had not given it more similitude to the handle of his own air-pump Yet this man had flatterers! Plato says there are only four ways of flattering; but a woman would have taught him a thousand. Three

Memoirs of a Recluse,

Ingenious ladies, aware of his daughter's irretrievable offence and his enor mous freeholds, chose to offer consolation. Miss Rodelinda Delphine Stormont, a damsel with 500 unpublished sonnets, two philological essays in folio, and a novel still in MS. besieged Lord Aircastle's citadel in the open and regular style of modern war. The Hon. Mrs. Artemisia Bustleton, an accomplished widow, in possession of full Vouchers from her physicians and undertaker that the defunct husband had been dismissed with due decorum and despatch, was the next assailant: but Olivia Gossamer, the ward of Lord Aircastle, seemed most dangerous to his philosophy. Only in her eighteenth year, with all the graces of education though of unknown origin, this fair syren resided in his neighbourhood under the tutelage of Mrs. Bustleton, who always officiously seized the advantageous of. fice of chaperoning youth and beauty. This office, so wisely instituted by modern dowagers, was her passport to Lord Aircastle's society and to mine; though, as the younger branch of a ruined family, I did not deserve her notice. She concluded that my long visit to my relative was an expedient to escape my creditors; and I encouraged a report which preserved me from any tions among ladies. But Lord Air castle one day astonished me by suddenly saying Pertinax, if your indolence is not greater than your vanity, here are three hearts at your disposal. Widow Bustleton's is a strong earthen jar, hermetically sealed: Rodelinda's seems an empty tin cannister, fit for & puppy's plaything: but Olivia's resembles a clear glass decanter: one may see all the contents, and it ought not to be broken."

cobweb sensa

Seeing my grave dismay, he added "You have persuaded yourself, I perceive, that Olivia's beauty would induce me to eat a hemlock-sallad like Maglia bechi of Tuscany, or to avoid the force of love by living in a church-steeple, according to Professor Scougall's example; but, my good cousin, those powers of beauty are past. The fumes of my crucible have not yet reached my brain, whatever the world may say; and I give you frank permission to become my rival with all the force of your accomplishments. That you will not be my heir is a secret which I ho nestly whisper in your ear; but to be reputed such will be of equal service." Europ. Mag. Vol. LXX. Oct. 1816.

The good old peer laughed, leaving me astonished at the vanity which induced him to suppose his beautiful ward capable of bestowing a thought upon him. But his last intimation was most forcible. If no inheritance was designed me, the necessity of seeking and securing fortune became urgent! I balanced the chances of advantage, and began to feel myself, like the famous shepherd, perplexed by three beauties. Rodelinda's wealth was merely mental, but perhaps my distinguished name, if bestowed upon her, might affix ton to her talents and-a price Mrs. Bustleton ap on her works. peared to possess a more worldly go nius; but as it embraced every art, not excepting that of sustaining a polite establishment with only 600 per an num, I saw temptations to blend my fate with hers. Still, gentlenen, there are moments when, notwithstanding the due sense we all feel of our own value, and the importance of a certain compen. sation for the risques of marriage, we yield to the charm of disinterested af fection. Olivia's partiality seemed so involuntary, so excusable, and so deeply rooted, that my hesitation would have ceased if her origin had been less obscure. But to confer my title on a person born perhaps (pardon me) in a repository of consolidated curds, was a hazard not endurable; and I determined on another expedient. Fortunes, it is notorious, have been gained by adver tisement, and this path to an eligible match seemed much less tedious than the old fashioned ceremonies of introduc tion and courtship; though modera damsels no longer require us to offer civilities or to sneeze and sigh by moon. 1 an light among damp myrtles. nounced my pretensions accordingly in the usual terms, through the medium of three celebrated newspapers, and on the following day received this reply:

"If X. Y. Z. can bring vouchers of his fortune, family, and reputation, he may expect a lady in the prime of life at the white gate of B. church-yard, between 7 and 8 to-morrow evening."

As my uncle seemed disposed to give me only a perspective view of his for tune, I thought myself entitled to bor row his semblance whenever it suited my present convenience. The leisure hours of my youth were often devoted to dra matic amusements, and I have been considered no indifferent mimic. The

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Memoirs of a Recluse.

self-lovers require a siege longer than trived to expose my imposture to my uncle; but I found some consolation

-the Iliad."

No doubt my gestures were outrage-in remembering, that her disappointous while I perused this od ous frag- ment had been as deep and ridiculous Your hospitality, gentleas my own. ment: but they were suddenly intermen, afforded me refuge in this emrupted by a tall vigorous man, who Persons less beneseized my arm, while the church-yard- barrassing crisis. gate was opened by three others in Lord volent have viewed my disaster with more derision than pity, and ascribed Aircastle's livery, followed by his carwhat they call the insignificance of my riage. My consternation was extreme; and before I could determine how to age to the frivolous expenditure of escape from the peril in which my dis- my youth. But I have many companions in my present state; and can. guise had placed me, my conductor exclaimed, We have him safe now- proudly prove that all my errors have he shall waste no more of his heir's been fashionable." estate in foololgy and matthewmadtricks. Drive gently, and he may breakfast with Dr. Willis to-morrow morning.". The coachman fixed his eyes, on me, and started back- Sure enough he has had au analeptic fit at last! how strangely his nose is awry! -he is struck dunib too, but so much the better. All this comes of calvinism and lecturefrying.” Silence indeed seemed my best resource, as resistance would have been vain; and my four attendants having placed me in the chariot, it was driven rapidly towards a repository for lunatics. When it stopped at an obscure inn on the road, I profited by my supposed infirmity, and suffered myself to be lodged in a bedchamber, where, by gestures and gri. maces, I indicated my speechless state, and had the pleasure of hearing my guards descant on the flagellations and Decataplasins usual in such cases. luded by my apparent helplessness, they left me on a couch in the custody only of a nurse, twin sister to Sycorax, who soon resigned herself to aniseed and sleep. Perceiving the auspicious opportunity, 1 exchanged my uncle's apparel for her large cloak, cap, and bonnet, and, climbing through the window to the roof, descended a neighbouring chimney, at the hazard of my life and reputation. Whether she escaped from the discipline intended for Lord Aircastle, or whether she was thought his best representative, I never ventured to enquire; but after this perilous adventure, I could not presume to revisit his house, as the attempt to secure him in a fitter habitation had been prompted by my self, though an unlucky combination of circumstances rendered me the victim. The fair widow Artemisia, whom 1 most devoutly wished in the mausolen

Counsellor Lumiere took the speak er's chair wish a smile at his predecessor. "You have given us," said he, "a farcical epilogue to our second brother's tragedy; yet they both ex-hibit that certain, though sometimes slow, retribution which is called poetical justice, not because it is uncommon, but because it is natural and beautiful. How pleasing such justice is to all men,, may be inferred from the general similitude of all moral codes in every age and nation. Casuists may insist on the force of hereditary prejudice, custom, and example; but I conceive the force of laws established by conquerors. or devised by imitators would have been insufficient to gain and preserve their long sway, if an instinctive love of order and justice had not seconded. them. My professional studies have shewn me, that the earliest customs of our ancestors expressed a distinct and prevailing sense of right: and perhaps their absurd and barbarous customs were, like their language, a confused effort to convey ideas obscurely Among the relibut nobly formed. gious and social institutions of ancient Romans, Jews, and Britons; I there is a might add even among the remotest and the rudest nations; resemblance too striking to be explained, without admitting that a reverence for truth, for the decencies of conjugal life, for the authority of age and the memory of the dead, is natural in men.

of her namesake's husband, con

Their institutions are as various as the shape of their features; but those features have the same purLove of justice is the pose in all. noblest instinct allotted to man as the noblest creature; and its prevailing force may be traced among a thousand instances, to which I presume to add the events of my life."

(To be continued.)

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