CHAPTER XVII.

There's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream,
And the nightingale sings round it all the day long :
In the time of my childhood, 'twas like a sweet dream
To sit in the roses and hear the birds' song.

That bower and its roses I never forget;

But oft, when alone in the bloom of the year,

I think is the nightingale singing there yet?

Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer?

MOORE.

YOUTH, like an evergreen, flourishes on the grateful soil of memory to the last; and the recollections of our younger days, like those of the first and fairest season of the year, cheer the wintry time of old age when the summer and autumnal tints are forgotten. There are few who live so entirely for the present, or are so indifferent to the past, as to obliterate com

pletely the recollections of their boyhood, when the freshness of the heart extracted delight from every thing around. A favourite dog or bird, a graceful shrub, or a sequestered tree, a myrtle, or the stump of an old oak-objects animate or inanimate, often haunt the imagination through life; and the notes of a nursery song sometimes extract a tear from eyes that never wept amidst the bloody and distressing scenes of war.

Morland had the happiness to meet his brother George in London, and they spent many pleasing days together in the revival of the scenes of their youth, occasionally intermixed with melancholy reflections on the incidents which had occurred in their family. George was still the same gay fellow, looking forward to be united in a few months to his Julia, who, far from breaking off the engagement on account of his debts, had liberally offered to pay them out of her fortune, which was ample. This generosity had worked a great change for the better in the disposition of her lover, and he

set off for the country to arrange matters, full of the most prudential resolutions.

On George's departure, Morland became a member of one of those Clubs which have all the merit of keeping bachelors from taverns, and married men of small incomes from their wives and families,--and where good society, a long bill of fare, and economical entertainment, are to be met with in elegant and well-arranged saloons, frequented alike by the valiant, the gay, the hippish, the bilious, the idle and ingenious, officers and gentlemen, " stirred up by weather and wants," who are in best humour about seven in the evening.

A professional man seldom enters one of these convenient rendezvous without meeting friends, messmates, or acquaintance.

Soldiers and sailors are to be heard relating incidents of their martial lives; and travellers, anecdotes of their perambulations.

Such recollections were frequently observed to draw the cork of the best champagne, to

open the miser's purse, unbend the philosopher's gravity, and move the lawyer to a smile. The sleek merchant, under such influence, ceases to remember his goods, and the doctor the good he is to do; then smile not, gentle reader, that the soldier should forget his wounds-the sailor, storms—and that, in such enthusiastic meetings, they should seem for the moment contented and happy.

The brilliant and voluptuous scenes of fashion, to which Morland's family connexions gave him the entrée, might have proved somewhat seductive to minds that gladly escape from duty to pleasure; but to the reflecting and sound at heart, as well as to the satiated voluptuary, there are times when,

"Of all dull things, the dullest is festivity,

With change of dance, chalked floors, and chandeliers,
Tormenting with tyrannical activity

Your unprotected eyes and passive ears."

It was with such occasional feelings that our hero enjoyed the first, relished the second, and

tolerated the last part of the spring in London, and was at one of those hot, crowded parties, where the blossoms of English nobility were giving the finishing touch to the beauty which had withered with the season.

Some succeeded in their efforts to be lively; but by far the greater number yawned, gaped, and lounged about with irksome feelings and manners, in vain endeavouring to rouse themselves from apathy, by swallowing cold and refreshing things; but their spirits, instead of being invigorated, lay buried in melted ice.

Tired of the party, Morland gladly accepted the invitation of a lady, with whom he was acquainted, to accompany her to the Opera, along with her son, a youth of seventeen, and her niece, a pretty girl somewhat older, and moreover an heiress.

Here, instead of noise and hot rooms, they had quietness and a private box, and enjoyed music mixed with enough trash to set off some of the most touching passages that ever harmony and melody produced.