66

them home. The whole library has passed through his hands, his» long, lean, tremulous hands, and under his eager eyes. He has made illustrations to every one of those books, and been frightened at his own pictures of "Manfroni, or the One-handed Monk,” “ Abellino, the Terrific Bravo of Venice," and "Rinaldo Rinaldini, Captain of Robbers." How he has blistered "Thaddeus of Warsaw" with his tears, and drawn him in his Polish cap, and tights, and Hessians! “William Wallace, the Hero of Scotland," how nobly he has depicted him! With what whiskers and bushy ostrich plumes!-in a tight kilt, and with what magnificent calves to his legs, laying about him with his battle-axe, and bestriding the bodies of King Edward's prostrate cavaliers! At this time Mr. Honeyman comes to lodge in. Walpole Street, and brings a set of Scott's novels, for which he subscribed when at Oxford; and young John James, who at first waits upon him and does little odd jobs for the reverend gentleman, lights upon the volumes, and reads them with such a delight and passion of pleasure as all the delights of future days will scarce equal. A fool, is he?—an idle feller, out of whom no good will ever come, as his father says. There was a time when, in despair of any better chance for him, his parents thought of apprenticing him to a tailor, and John James was waked up from a dream of Rebecca, and informed of the cruelty meditated against him. I forbear to describe the tears and. terror, and frantic desperation in which the poor boy was plunged. Little Miss Cann rescued him from that awful board, and Honeyman likewise interceded for him, and Mr. Bagshot promised that, as soon as his party came in, he would ask the Minister for a tide-waitership for him; for everybody liked the solemn, soft-hearted, willing little lad, and no one knew him less than his pompous and stupid and respectable father.

Miss Cann painted flowers and card-screens elegantly, and "finished" pencil-drawings most elaborately for her pupils. She could copy prints, so that at a little distance you would scarcely know that the copy in stumped chalk was not a bad mezzotinto engraving... She even had a little old paint-box, and showed you one or two ivory miniatures out of the drawer. She gave John James what little knowledge of drawing she had, and handed him over her invaluable recipes for mixing water-colours-" for trees in foregrounds, burnt sienna and indigo' ”—“for very dark foliage, ivory black and gambouge”—“ for flesh-colour," &c. &c. John James went through her poor little course, but not so brilliantly as she expected. She was forced to own that several of her pupils' "pieces" were executed much more dexterously than Johnny Ridley's. Honeyman looked at the boy's drawings from time to time, and said, "H'm, ha!-very clever—a great deal of fancy, really." But Honeyman knew no more of the subject than a deaf and.

dumb man knows of music. He could talk the Art-cant very glibly, and had a set of Morghens and Madonnas as became a clergyman and a man of taste; but he saw not with eyes such as those wherewith Heaven had endowed the humble little butler's boy, to whom splendours of Nature were revealed to vulgar sights invisible, and beauties manifest in forms, colours, shadows of common objects, where most of the world saw only what was dull, and gross, and familiar. One reads in the magic story-books of a charm or a flower which the wizard gives, and which enables the bearer to see the fairies. O enchanting boon of Nature, which reveals to the possessor the hidden spirits of beauty round about him! spirits which the strongest and most gifted masters compel into painting or song. To others it is granted but to have fleeting glimpses of that fair Art-world; and tempted by ambition, or barred by faint-heartedness, or driven by necessity, to turn away thence to the vulgar life-track, and the light of common day.

The reader, who has passed through Walpole Street scores of times, knows the discomfortable architecture of all save the great houses built in Queen Anne's and George the First's time; and while some of the neighbouring streets, to wit, Great Craggs Street, Bolingbroke Street, and others, contain mansions fairly coped with stone, with little obelisks before the doors, and great extinguishers wherein the torches of the nobility's running footmen were put out a hundred and thirty or forty years ago;—houses which still remain abodes of the quality, and where you shall see a hundred carriages gather of a public night; -Walpole Street has quite faded away into lodgings, private hotels, doctors' houses, and the like; nor is No. 23 (Ridley's) by any means the best house in the street. The parlour, furnished and tenanted by Miss Cann as has been described; the first floor, Bagshot, Esq., M.P.; the second floor, Honeyman; what remains but the garrets, and the ample staircase and the kitchens? and the family being all put to bed, how can you imagine there is room for any more inhabitants?

And yet there is one lodger more, and one who, like almost all the other personages mentioned up to the present time (and some of whom you have no idea yet), will play a definite part in the ensuing history. At night, when Honeyman comes in, he finds on the hall table three wax bedroom candles-his own, Bagshot's, and another. As for Miss Cann, she is locked into the parlour in bed long ago, her stout little walking shoes being on the mat at the door. At 12 o'clock at noon, sometimes at 1, nay at 2 and 3-long after Bagshot is gone to his committees, and little Cann to her pupils-a voice issues from the very topmost floor, from a room where there is no bell; a voice of thunder calling out Slavey! Julia! Julia my love, Mrs. Ridley!"

And this summons not being obeyed, it will not unfrequently happen that a pair of trousers enclosing a pair of boots with iron heels, and known by the name of the celebrated Prussian General who came up to help the other christener of boots at Waterloo, will be flung down from the topmost story, even to the marble floor of the resounding hall. Then the boy Thomas, otherwise called Slavey, may say, "There he goes again;" or Mrs. Ridley's own back-parlour bell rings vehemently, and Julia the cook will exclaim, "Lor', it's Mr. Frederick."

If the breeches and boots are not understood, the owner himself appears in great wrath dancing on the upper story; dancing down to the lower floor; and loosely enveloped in a ragged and flowing robe de chambre. In this costume and condition he will dance into Honeyman's apartment, where that meek divine may be sitting with a headache, or over a novel or a newspaper; dance up to the fire flapping his robe-tails, poke it, and warm himself there; dance up to the cupboard where his reverence keeps his sherry, and help himself to a glass.

“Salve, spes fidei, lumen ecclesiæ," he will say; "here's towards you, my buck. I knows the tap. Sherrick's Marsala bottled three months after date, at two hundred and forty-six shillings the dozen.”

Indeed, indeed it's not" (and now we are coming to an idea of the skeleton in poor Honeyman's closet-not that this huge, handsome, jolly Fred Bayham is the skeleton, far from it. Mr. Frederick weighs fourteen stone). "Indeed, indeed, it isn't, Fred, I'm sure,” sighs the other. “You exaggerate, indeed you do. dear, not by any means so expensive as you say."

The wine is not

"How much a glass, think you?" says Fred, filling another bumper. "A half-crown, think ye?-a half-crown, Honeyman? By cock and pye, it is not worth a bender." He says this in the manner of the most celebrated tragedian of the day. He can imitate any actor, tragic or comic; any known Parliamentary orator or clergyman, any saw, cock, cloop of a cork wrenched from a bottle and guggling of wine into the decanter afterwards, bee buzzing, little boy up a chimney, &c. He imitates people being ill on board a steam-packet so well that he makes you die of laughing: his uncle the Bishop could not resist this comic exhibition, and gave Fred a cheque for a comfortable sum of money; and Fred, getting cash for the cheque at the "Cave of Harmony," imitated his uncle the Bishop and his Chaplain, winding up with his Lordship and Chaplain being unwell at sea-the Chaplain and Bishop quite natural and distinct.

"How much does a glass of this sack cost thee, Charley?" resumes Fred, after this parenthesis. “You say it is not dear. Charles Honeyman, you had, even from your youth up, a villanous habit. And

I perfectly well remember, sir, in boyhood's breezy hour, when I was the delight of his school, that you used to tell lies to your venerable father. You did, Charles. Excuse the frankness of an early friend, it's my belief you'd rather lie than not." H'm-he looks at the cards in the chimney-glass :-" Invitations to dinner, proffers of muffins. Do lend me your sermon. Oh, you old impostor! you hoary old Ananias! I say, Charley, why haven't you picked out some nice girl for yours truly? One with lands and beeves, with rents and consols, mark you? I have no money, 'tis true, but then I don't owe as much as you. I am a handsomer man than you are. Look at this chest" (he slaps it)," these limbs; they are manly, sir, manly."

"For Heaven's sake, Bayham," cries Mr. Honeyman, white with terror; "if anybody were to come

"What did I say anon, sir? that I was manly, ay, manly. Let any ruffian, save a bailiff, come and meet the doughty arm of Frederick Bayham."

Oh, Lord, Lord, here's somebody coming into the room!" cries Charles, sinking back on the sofa, as the door opens.

"Ha! dost thou come with murderous intent?" and he now advances in an approved offensive attitude. "Caitiff, come on, come on!” and he walks off with a tragic laugh, crying, “ Ha, ha, ha, 'tis but the slavey!"

The slavey has Mr. Frederick's hot water, and a bottle of soda. water on the same tray. He has been instructed to bring soda whenever he hears the word slavey pronounced from above. The bottle explodes, and Frederick drinks, and hisses after his drink as though he had been all hot within.

Let me see, I

"What's o'clock now, slavey-half-past three? breakfasted exactly ten hours ago, in the rosy morning, off a modest cup of coffee in Covent Garden Market. Coffee, a penny; bread, a simple halfpenny. What has Mrs. Ridley for dinner?”

Please, sir, roast pork."

"Get me some. Bring it into my room, unless, Honeyman, you insist upon my having it here, kind fellow!"

At the moment a smart knock comes to the door, and Fred says, "Well, Charles, it may be a friend or a lady come to confess, and I'm off; I knew you'd be sorry I was going. Tom, bring up my things, brush 'em gently, you scoundrel, and don't take the nap off. Bring up the roast pork, and plenty of apple-sauce, tell Mrs. Ridley, with my love; and one of Mr. Honeyman's shirts, and one of his razors, Adieu, Charles! Amend! remember me." And he vanishes into the upper chambers.

CHAPTER XII.

IN WHICH EVERYBODY IS ASKED TO DINNER.

OHN JAMES had opened the door, hastening to welcome a friend

and patron, the sight of whom always gladdened the youth's eyes; no other than Clive Newcome-in young Ridley's opinion, the most splendid, fortunate, beautiful, high-born, and gifted youth this island contained. What generous boy in his time has not worshipped somebody? Before the female enslaver makes her appearance, every lad has a friend of friends, a crony of cronies, to whom he writes immense letters in vacation, whom he cherishes in his heart of hearts; whose sister he proposes to marry in after life; whose purse he shares; for whom he will take a thrashing if need be: who is his hero. Clive was John James's youthful divinity: when he wanted to draw Thaddeus of Warsaw, a Prince, Ivanhoe, or some one splendid and egregious, it was Clive he took for a model. His heart leapt when he saw the young fellow. He would walk cheerfully to Grey Friars, with a letter or message for Clive, on the chance of seeing him, and getting a kind word from him, or a shake of the hand. An ex-butler of Lord Todmorden was a pensioner in the Grey Friars Hospital, (it has been said that at that ancient establishment is a college for old men as well as for boys,) and this old man would come sometimes to his successor's Sunday dinner, and grumble from the hour of that meal until nine o'clock, when he was forced to depart, so as to be within Grey Friars' gates before ten; grumble about his dinner-grumble about his beer -grumble about the number of chapels he had to attend, about the gown he wore, about the Master's treatment of him, about the want of plums in the pudding, as old men and schoolboys grumble. It was wonderful what a liking John James took to this odious, querulous, graceless, stupid, and snuffy old man, and how he would find pretexts for visiting him at his lodging in the old hospital. He actually took that journey that he might have a chance of seeing Clive. He sent Clive notes and packets of drawings; thanked him for books lent, asked advice about future reading-anything, so that he might have a sight of his pride, his patron, his paragon.

I am afraid Clive Newcome employed him to smuggle rum-shrub and cigars into the premises; giving him appointments in the school