if they displease you. You have nothing to do but to bid me-leave you; and when he quits this apartment, Harry Vernon troubles you no more."

A silence ensued for the space of a few seconds. The gentleman was very pale; so was the lady. At length she said, in a very under tone, "This surprise, Sir-I was not insensible-I mean, I perceived-sure, Sir, it is not Mr. Vernon, the brother of my cousin's friend, to whom I am speaking?"

"The same, Madam."

"And why not at once, Sir-I mean-that is to say-Forgive me, Sir, if circumstances conspire to agitate me a little, and to throw me in doubt what I ought to say. I wish to say what is becoming, and to retain your respect;" and the lady trembled as she said it.

66

My respect, Madam, was never profounder than it is at this moment, even though I dare begin to hope that you will not think it disrespectful on my part to adore you. If I might but hope, that months or years of service-"

"Be seated, Sir, I beg; I am very forgetful. I am an orphan, Mr. Vernon, and you must make allowances as a gentleman" (here her voice became a little louder) "for any thing in which I may seem to forget, either what is due to you or to myself."

The gentleman had not taken a chair, but at the end of this speech he approached the lady, and led her to her own seat with an air full of reverence.

"Ah, Madam," said he, "if you could but fancy

you had known me these five years, you would at least give me credit for enough truth, and I hope enough tenderness and respectfulness of heart (for they all go together) to be certain of the feelings I entertain towards your sex in general; much more towards one whose nature strikes me with such a gravity of admiration at this moment, that praise even falters on my tongue. Could I dare hope that you meant to say anything more kind to me than a common expression of good wishes, I would dare to say, that the sweet truth of your nature not only warrants your doing so, but makes it a part of its humanity."

"Will you tell me, Mr. Vernon, what induced you to say so decidedly to my servant (for I heard it at the door) that you were sure I should never see you again."

"Yes, Madam, I will; and nevertheless I feel all the force of your enquiry. It was the last little instinctive stratagem that love induced me to play, even when I was going to put on the whole force of my character and my love of truth! for I did indeed believe that you would discard me, though I was not so sure of it as I pretended."

66

There, Sir," said Pomona, colouring in all the beauty of joy and love, "there is my hand. I give it to the lover of truth; but truth no less forces me to acknowledge, that my heart had not been unshaken by some former occurrences."

"Charming and adorable creature!" cried our hero, after he had recovered from the kiss which he

gave her. But here we leave them to themselves. Our heroine confessed, that from what she now knew of her feelings, she must have been inclined to look with compassion on him before; but added, that she never could have been sure she loved him, much less had the courage to tell him so, till she had known him in his own candid shape.

And this, and no other, is the true story of Vertumnus and Pomona.

IX.-ON THE GRACES AND ANXIETIES OF PIGDRIVING.

FROM the perusal of this article we beg leave to warn off vulgar readers of all denominations, whether of the "great vulgar or the small." Warn, did we say? We drive them off; for Horace tells us that they, as well as pigs, are to be so treated. Odi Odi profanum vulgus, says he, et arceo. But do thou lend

thine ear, gentle shade of Goldsmith, who didst make thy bear-leader denounce "every thing as is low;" and thou, Steele, who didst humanize upon publichouses and puppet-shows; and Fielding, thou, whom the great Richardson, less in that matter (and some others) than thyself, did accuse of vulgarity, because thou didst discern natural gentility in a footman, and yet wast not to be taken in by the airs of Pamela and my Lady G.

The title is a little startling; but "style and sentiment," as a lady said, "can do anything." Remember, then, gentle reader, that talents are not to be despised in the humblest walks of life; we will add, nor in the muddiest. The other day we happened to be among a set of spectators, who could not help stopping to admire the patience and address with which a pig-driver huddled and cherished onward his drove of unaccommodating éleves, down a street in the suburbs. He was a born genius for a manoeuvre. Had he originated in a higher sphere, he would have been a general, or a stage-manager, or, at least, the head of a set of monks. Conflicting interests were his forte ; pig-headed wills, and proceedings hopeless. To see the hand with which he did it! How hovering, yet firm; how encouraging, yet compelling; how indicative of the space on each side of him, and yet of the line before him; how general, how particular, how perfect! No barber's could quiver about a head with more lightness of apprehension; no cook's pat up and proportion the side of a pasty with a more final eye. The whales, quoth old Chapman, speaking of Neptune,

The whales exulted under him, and knew their mighty king.

The pigs did not exult, but they knew their king. Unwilling was their subjection, but "more in sorrow than in anger." They were too far gone for rage. Their case was hopeless. They did not see why they should proceed, but they felt themselves bound to do

so; forced, conglomerated, crowded onwards, irresistibly impelled by fate and Jenkins. Often would they have bolted under any other master. They squeaked and grunted as in ordinary; they sidled, they shuffled, they half stopped; they turned an eye to all the little outlets of escape; but in vain. There they stuck (for their very progress was a sort of sticking), charmed into the centre of his sphere of action, laying their heads together, but to no purpose; looking all as if they were shrugging their shoulders, and eschewing the tip-end of the whip of office. Much eye had they to their left leg; shrewd backward glances; not a little anticipative squeak, and sudden rush of avoidance. It was a superfluous clutter, and they felt it; but a pig finds it more difficult than any other animal to accommodate himself to circumstances. Being out of his pale, he is in the highest state of wonderment and inaptitude. He is sluggish, obstinate, opinionate, not very social; has no desire of seeing foreign parts. Think of him in a multitude, forced to travel, and wondering what the devil it is that drives him! Judge by this of the talents of his driver.

We beheld a man once, an inferior genius, inducting a pig into the other end of Long-lane, Smithfield. He had got him thus far towards the market. It was much. His air announced success in nine parts out of ten, and hope for the remainder. It had been a happy morning's work; he had only to look for the termination of it; and he looked (as a critic of an