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how, in vast cycles, age after age, the human mind marches on-like the ocean, receding here, but there advancing. How from the speculations of the Greek sprang all true philosophy; how from the institutions of the Roman rose all durable systems of government; how from the robust follies of the North came the glory of chivalry, and the modern delicacies of honour, and the sweet harmonizing influences of woman. He tracked the ancestry of our Sidneys and Bayards from the Hengists, Genserics, and Attilas. Full of all curious and quaint anecdote-of original illustration-of those niceties of learning which spring from a taste cultivated to the last exquisite polish -the book amused, and allured, and

charmed; and erudition lost its pedantry now in the simplicity of Montaigne, now in the penetration of La Bruyère. He lived in each time of which he wrote, and the time lived again in him. Ah, what a writer of romances he would have been, if—if what? If he had had as sad an experience of men's passions, as he had the happy intuition into their humours. But he who would see the mirror of the shore, must look where it is cast on the river, not the ocean. The narrow stream reflects the gnarled tree, and the pausing herd, and the village spire, and the romance of the landscape. But the sea reflects only the vast outline of the headland, and the lights of the eternal heaven.

CHAPTER XI.

"It is Lombard Street to a China orange," quoth Uncle Jack.

"Are the odds in favour of fame against failure so great? You do not speak, I fear, from experence, brother Jack," answered my father, as he stooped down to tickle the duck under the left ear.

"But Jack Tibbets is not Augustine Caxton. Jack Tibbets is not a scholar, a genius, a wond—”

"Stop," cried my father.

"After all," said Mr. Squills, "though I am no flatterer, Mr. Tibbets is not so far out. That part of your book which compares the crania or skulls of the different races is superb. Lawrence or Dr. Pritchard could not have done the thing more neatly. Such a book must not be lost to the world; and I agree with Mr. Tibbets that you should publish as soon as possible."

"It is one thing to write and another to publish," said my father irresolutely." When one considers all the great men who have published; when one thinks one is going to intrude one's-self audaciously into the company of Aristotle and Bacon, of Locke, of Herder of all the grave philosophers who bend over nature with brows weighty with thoughtone may well pause, and-"

"Pooh!" interrupted Uncle Jack; "science is not a club, it is an ocean.

It is open to the cockboat as the frigate. One man carries across it a freightage of ingots, another may fish there for herrings. Who can exhaust the sea? who say to intellect, the deeps of philosophy are preoccupied ?"

"Admirable !" cried Squills.

"So it is really your advice, my friends," said my father, who seemed struck by uncle Jack's eloquent illustration, "that I should desert my household gods; remove to London, since my own library ceases to supply my wants; take lodgings near the British Museum, and finish off one volume, at least, incontinently."

"It is a duty you owe to your country," said Uncle Jack, solemnly.

"And to yourself," urged Squills. "One must attend to the natural evacuations of the brain. Ah! you may smile, sir; but I have observed that if a man has much in his head, he must give it vent or it oppresses him; the whole system goes wrong. From being abstracted, he grows stupified. The weight of the pressure affects the nerves. I would not even guarantee you from a stroke of paralysis."

"Oh, Austin!" cried my mother tenderly, and throwing her arms round my father's neck.

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Come, sir, you are conquered," said I.

"And what is to become of you, Sisty?" asked my father. "Do you

go with us, and unsettle your mind for the university?"

"My uncle has invited me to his castle; and in the meanwhile I will stay here, fag hard, and take care of the duck."

"All alone?" said my mother. 66 No. All alone! Why Uncle Jack will come here as often as ever, I hope."

Uncle Jack shook his head.

No, my boy-I must go to town with your father. You don't understand these things. I shall see the booksellers for him. I know how these gentlemen are to be dealt with. I shall prepare the literary circles for the appearance of the book. In short, it is a sacrifice of interest, I know. My Journal will suffer. But friendship and my country's good before all things!",

"Dear Jack!" said my mother affectionately.

"I cannot suffer it," cried my father. "You are making a good income. You are doing well where you are; and as to seeing the booksellers-why, when the work is ready, you can come to town for a week, and settle that affair."

"Poor dear Austin," said Uncle Jack, with an air of superiority and compassion. "A week! Sir, the advent of a book that is to succeed requires the preparation of months. Pshaw! I am no genius, but I am a practical man. I know what's what. Leave me alone."

But my father continued obstinate, and Uncle Jack at last ceased to urge the matter. The journey to fame and London was now settled; but my father would not hear of my staying behind.

No; Pisistratus must needs go also to town and see the world; the duck would take care of itself.

CHAPTER XII.

We had taken the precaution to send, the day before, to secure our due complement of places-four in all (inluding one for Mrs. Primmins) in, or upon, the fast family coach called the Sun, which had lately been set up for the special convenience of the neighbourhood.

This luminary, rising in a town about seven miles distant from us, described at first a very erratic orbit amidst the contiguous villages before it finally struck into the high road of enlightenment, and thence performed its journey, in the full eyes of man, at the majestic pace of six miles and a half an hour. My father, with his pockets full of books, and a quarto of "Gebelin on the Primitive World" for light reading under his arm; my mother, with a little basket, containing sandwiches and biscuits of her own baking; Mrs. Primmins, with a new umbrella, purchased for the occasion, and a bird-cage containing a canary, endeared to her not more by song than age, and a severe pip through which she had successfully nursed itand I myself waited at the gates to welcome the celestial visitor. The gardener, with a wheel-barrow full of boxes and portmanteaus, stood a little

in the van; and the footman, who was to follow when lodgings had been found, had gone to a rising eminence to watch the dawning of the expected planet, and apprise us of its approach by the concerted signal of a handkerchief fixed to a stick.

The quaint old house looked at us mournfully from all its deserted windows. The litter before its threshold, and in its open hall; wisps of straw or hay that had been used for packing; baskets and boxes that had been examined and rejected; others, corded and piled, reserved to follow with the footman: and the two heated and hurried serving women left behind standing half-way between house and garden-gate, whispering to each other, and looking as if they had not slept for weeks-gave to a scene, usually so trim and orderly, an aspect of pathetic abandonment and desolation." genius of the place seemed to reproach us. I felt the omens were against us, and turned my earnest gaze from the haunts behind with a sigh, as the coach now drew up in all its grandeur. An important personage, who, despite the heat of the day, was enveloped in a vast superfluity of belcher, in the midst of which galloped a gilt fox, and

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who rejoiced in the name of "guard," descended to inform us politely, that only three places, two inside and one out, were at our disposal, the rest having been pre-engaged a fortnight before our orders were received.

Now, as I knew that Mrs. Primmins was indispensable to the comforts of my honoured parents (the more so, as she had once lived in London, and knew all its ways), I suggested that she should take the outside seat, and that I should perform the journey on foot-a primitive mode of transport which has its charms to a young man with stout limbs and gay spirits. The guard's outstretched arm left my mother little time to oppose this proposition, to which my father assented with a silent squeeze of the hand. And, having promised to join them at a family hotel near the Strand, to which Mr. Squills had recommended them as peculiarly genteel and quiet, and waved my last farewell to my poor mother, who continued to stretch her meek face out of the window till the coach was whirled off in a cloud like one of the Homeric heroes, I turned within, to put up a few necessary articles in a small knapsack, which I remembered to have seen in the lumber-room, and which had appertained to my maternal grandfather; and with that on my shoulder, and a strong staff in my hand, I set off towards the great city at as brisk a pace as if I were only bound to the next village. Accordingly, about noon, I was both tired and hungry; and seeing by the wayside one of those pretty inns yet peculiar to England, but which, thanks to the railways, will soon be amongst the things before the Flood, I sate down at a table under some clipped limes, unbuckled my knapsack, and ordered my simple fare, with the dignity of one who, for the first time in his life, bespeaks his own dinner, and pays for it out of his own pocket.

While engaged on a rasher of bacon and a tankard of what the landlord called "No mistake," two pedestrians, passing the same road which I had traversed, paused, cast a simultaneous look at my occupation, and, induced no doubt by its allurements, seated themselves under the same lime-trees, though at the further end of the table.

I surveyed the new-comers with the curiosity natural to my years.

The elder of the two might have attained the age of thirty, though sundry deep lines, and hues formerly florid and now faded, speaking of fatigue, care, or dissipation, might have made him look somewhat older than he was. There was nothing very prepossessing in his appearance. He was dressed with a pretension ill suited to the costume appropriate to a foot-traveller. His coat was pinched and padded; two enormous pins, connected by a chain, decorated a very stiff stock of blue satin, dotted with yellow stars; his hands were cased in very dingy gloves which had once been straw-coloured, and the said hands played with a whalebone cane surmounted by a formidable knob, which gave it the appearance of a "lifepreserver." As he took off a white napless hat, which he wiped with great

care and affection with the sleeve of his right arm, a profusion of stiff curls instantly betrayed the art of man. Like my landlord's ale, in that wig there was "no mistake:" it was brought--(in the fashion of the wigs we see in the popular effigies of George IV., in his youth)-low over his forehead and raised at the top, The wig had been oiled, and the oil had imbibed no small quantity of dust; oil and dust had alike left their impression on the forehead and cheeks of the wig's proprietor. For the rest, the expression of his face was somewhat impudent and reckless, but not without a certain drollery in the corners of his eyes.

The younger man was apparently about my own age, a year or two older perhaps judging rather from his set and sinewy frame, than his boyish countenance. And this last, boyish as it was, could not fail to demand the attention even of the most careless observer. It had not only the darkness but the character of the gipsy face, with large brilliant eyes, raven hair, long and wavy, but not curling; the features were aquiline but delicate, and when he spoke he showed teeth dazzling as pearls. It was impossible not to admire the singular beauty of the countenance; and yet, it had that expression at once stealthy and fierce, which war with society

"To London, when I can get there!" "Oh !" said the traveller while his young companion lifted his eyes; and I was again struck with their remarkable penetration and brilliancy.

has stamped upon the lineaments of recommends-swan of Avon, sir! the race of which it reminded me. No? Well then, I charge you with But, withal, there was somewhat of this cup of sack.' Are you going far, the air of a gentleman in this young if I may take the liberty to ask?" wayfarer. His dress consisted of a black velveteen shooting-jacket, or rather short frock, with a broad leathern strap at the waist, loose white trousers, and a foraging cap, which he threw carelessly on the table as he wiped his brow. Turning round impatiently and with some haughtiness from his companion, he surveyed me with a quick observant flash of his piercing eyes, and then stretched himself at length on the bench, and appeared either to doze or muse, till, in obedience to his companion's orders, the board was spread with all the cold meats the larder could supply.

"Beef!" said his companion, screwing a pinchbeck glass into his right eye. "Beef;-mottled, cowey humph. Lamb;--oldish-rawishmuttony, humph. Pie;--stalish, veal? -no, pork. Ah! what will you have?"

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"London is the best place in the world for a lad of spirit. See life there; glass of fashion and mould of form.' Fond of the play, sir?” "I never saw one!"

"Possible!" cried the gentleman, dropping the handle of his knife, and bringing up the point horizontally: "then, young man," he added solemnly, "you have, but I won't say what you have to see, I won't say no, not if you could cover this table with golden guineas, and exclaim with the generous ardour so engaging in youth, Mr. Peacock, these are yours, if you will only say what I have to see!'"

I laughed outright-may I be forgiven for the boast, but I had the reputation at school of a pleasant laugh. The young man's face grew dark at the sound: he pushed back his plate and sighed.

"Why," continued the friend, "my companion here, who I suppose is about your own age, he could tell you what a play is! he could tell you what life is. He has viewed the manners of the town--' perused the traders,' as the swan poetically remarks. Have you not, my lad, eh?"

Thus directly appealed to, the boy looked up with a smile of scorn on his lips. "Yes, I know what life is, and I say that life, like poverty, has strange bedfellows. Ask me what life is now, and I say a melodrama: ask me what it is twenty years hence, and I shall say—”

"Wrong!" said his companion, drawing the bottle to himself, and mixing the alcohol in careful proportions with water. "Wrong! coats of stomach soon wear out, with that kind of clothes' brush. Better stick to the yeasty foam,' as sweet Will says. That young gentleman sets you a good example," and therewith the speaker nodded at me familiarly. Inexperienced as I was, I surmised at once that it was his intention to make acquaintance with the neighbour thus And how is that?" I asked, intersaluted. I was not deceived. "Any-ested and somewhat surprised at the thing to tempt you, sir?" asked this tone of my contemporary. social personage after a short pause, and describing a semicircle with the point of his knife.

"I thank you, sir, but I have dined." "What then? Break out into a second course of mischief,' as the swan

"A farce?" put in his comrade. "No, a tragedy-or comedy as Congreve wrote it."

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"Where the play ends in the triumph of the wittiest rogue. My friend here has no chance!"

“Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley,' hem-yes-Ha! Peacock may be witty, but he is no rogue."

"That was not exactly my meaning," said the boy dryly.

"A fico for your meaning," as the swan says. "Hallo, you sir! Bully Host, clear the table, fresh tumblershot water-sugar-lemon, and the bottle's out! Smoke, sir?" and Mr. Peacock offered me a cigar.

Upon my refusal, he carefully twirled round a very uninviting specimen of some fabulous havannahmoistened it all over, as a boa-constrictor may do the ox he prepares for deglutition; bit off one end, and lighting the other from a little machine for that purpose which he drew from his pocket, he was soon absorbed in a vigorous effort (which the damp inherent in the weed long resisted) to poison the surrounding atmosphere. Therewith, the young gentleman, either from emulation or in self-defence, extracted from his own pouch a cigar-case of notable elegance, being of velvet, embroidered apparently by some fair hand, for " From Juliet" was very legibly worked thereonselected a cigar of better appearance than that in favour with his comrade, and seemed quite as familiar with the tobacco as he had been with the brandy.

“Fast, sir-fast lad that!" quoth Mr. Peacock, in the short gasps which his resolute struggle with his uninviting victim alone permitted-"nothing but-(puff-puff)-your true (suck-suck), syl-syl-sylva-does for him. Out, by the Lord! the jaws of darkness have devoured it up ;"" and again Mr. Peacock applied to his phosphoric machine. This time patience and perseverance succeeded, and the heart of the cigar responded by a dull red spark (leaving the sides wholly untouched) to the indefatigable ardour of its wooer.

This feat accomplished, Mr. Peacock exclaimed triumphantly, "And now what say you, my lads, to a game at cards?three of us-whist and a dummy?-nothing better-eh?" As he spoke, he produced from his coatpocket a red silk handkerchief, a bunch of keys, a nightcap, a toothbrush, a piece of shaving soap, four lumps of sugar, the remains of a bun, a razor, and a pack of cards. Selecting the last, and returning its motley accompaniments to the abyss whence

they had emerged, he turned up, with a jerk of his thumb and finger, the knave of clubs, and placing it on the top of the rest, slapped the cards emphatically on the table.

"You are very good, but I don't know whist," said I.

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Not know whist-not been to a play! not smoke! Then pray tell me, young man" (said he majestically, and with a frown), "what on earth you de know!"

Much consternated by this direct appeal, and greatly ashamed of my ignorance of the cardinal points of erudition in Mr. Peacock's estimation, I hung my head, and looked down.

“That is right,” renewed Mr. Peacock, more benignly; "you have the ingenuous shame of youth. It is promising, sir-lowliness is young ambition's ladder,' as the swan says. Mount the first step, and learn whist -sixpenny points to begin with."

Notwithstanding my newness in actual life, I had had the good fortune to learn a little of the way before me, by those much-slandered guides called novels-works which are often to the inner world what maps are to the outer; and sundry recollections of "Gil Blas" and the "Vicar of Wakefield" came athwart me. I had no wish to emulate the worthy Moses, and felt that I might not have even the shagreen spectacles to boast of, in my negotiations with this new Mr. Jenkinson. Accordingly, shaking my head, I called for bill. my As I took out my purse-knit by my motherwith one gold piece in one corner, and sundry silver ones in the other, I saw that the eyes of Mr. Peacock twinkled.

"Poor spirit, sir! poor spirit, young man! This avarice sticks deep,' as the swan beautifully observes. Nothing venture, nothing have."" "Nothing have, nothing venture," I returned, plucking up spirit.

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"Nothing have!-Young sir, do you doubt my solidity-my capitalmy golden joys?'"

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"Sir, I spoke of myself. I am not rich enough to gamble."

"Gamble!" exclaimed Mr. Peacock, in virtuous indignation-"Gamble! what do you mean, sir? You insult me!" and he rose threateningly, and slapped his white hat on his wig.

"Pshaw! let him alone, Hal,"

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