or three plainly hint that the nobleman, or M.P., had better not be too slow and dignified in the affair, but promptly consult his own interests and thank his stars that so shining a light as Candidatus offers to assist him. All this is famous beyond our young friend's hopes, and would put even the melancholy Jacques in cheerful spirits. Then, to display his ripe knowledge of a Private Secretary's duties, he joyously copies a round dozen of testimonials in a "gentlemanly" (not clerkly) handwriting, upon the most sumptuous paper that money will buy; and takes the book thus made, to the given address. He is so persevering and agreeable that the honest shopman there sympathises with him, shows a carpet-bagful of replies-that morning's only and says:

o

"Well, sir; you're the best of the lot that has called here, that I will say. Some reelly are that au-ful seedy. I'll send your letter down express, and 'll put in a good word if I can. I tell you, it's a first-rate thing-safe to lead to a government appointment."

,!,,

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Whereupon, uniting the influence of these good offices and the comforting assurance of the ineligibility of the many to the knowledge of the irresistible nature of his testimonials, Candidatus is so deliriously elated that he feels all is over but the shouting. At this juncture, a seedy creature enters, calls aside the shopman, and whispers to him. with a profusion of bows and abject civilities lamentable to behold,, The flesh will by this time have so gat a hold on our candidate that he feels contemptuous pity for that eager seedy creature (who is leaving in a state of bliss), well knowing he has cut him out. Yet, after a while, he gets a turned envelope-the sole reversion of all his lavish stationery -a torn and sordid scrap of paper, wherein is scrawled this simple, phrase "Thanks; not suitable.". Ha, sir! A twinge? Can it be pos sible, by a millionth chance, that you? Then Candidatus hopes it is a sharp one. Between ourselves, however, his only present regret about the matter is, not having the honour of knowing you by sight; so that if (as not unlikely) he be constrained to embrace the profession of hansom-driving, and ever descried you about to hail, he could trot away gaily, bow politely, and let fly at you as a Parthian-like dart "Thanks; not suitable."

I

T

THE adage, “You may know a man by the company he keeps," was never more thoroughly verified than in the case of Mr. Charles Tindal. He was the centre of a thriftless clique, who lived nobody knew how, but probably on their wits, to judge from their poverty-stricken appearance. A loafing idle crew, with the cant phrases of art upon their lips, but with little real respect for any thing ennobling, and no particular tastes beyond tobacco and alcohol. In Mr. Tindal's dismal lodging would these worthies meet and rail at fortune. Here was a would-be poet who lacked nothing but skill and industry; there was a painter who confined his studies to the bars of public-houses, and who scarcely ever touched a brush from one year's end to the other, and still wondered that his elbows should come through his coat, and that he should never have any money in his pocket except such as came from a pitying relative in the country. But these fellows considered they were monstrously ill-used, and inveighed bitterly against luck, which smiled so partially on certain people, whilst certain other people languished and pined in back attics and never got a chance. Then how these witless ignoramuses pulled to pieces the reputations of their more industrious and successful fellowlabourers! with what rapidity would they demolish a reputation which its possessor had built up by years of patient toil, of unwearied exertion! Watkins an essayist indeed! Popkins a poet! look at the chances they'd had; if they hadn't had the "chances," where would they have been? So argued these stringent critics, who preferred borrowing from the unwary to cudgelling their own poor brains...

Charley Tindal was tacitly admitted to be the master among this motley crew. He certainly beat them all at borrowing, which he had really elevated to a science, and which he practised with so much success, that his friends envied him the possession of the mysterious power. As his social shortcomings were tolerably well known, Charley Tindal was generally avoided by the great mass of working authors and artists; and as the drone is invariably expelled from the hive of that type of true labour, the bee, so was this vagabond turned out of the society of those who valued their self-respect, and no man who cared for his own reputation chose to be seen about with the notorious Mr. Tindal. It was an unlucky thing for Horace that his first introduction to what Tindal chose to call "literary society" should have been under the wing of so evil a bird. So ravenous a bird, too, might be said of him; for Tindal's

only object in taking up Horace was the ulterior one of feeding on that prolific and untiring youth; though the quondam medical student considered it to be a lucky thought which had taken him to Joe Pulling's counting-house, there to meet the genial Tindal, who was to make his fortune; for the very next day after the interview in the City, the lively Tindal appeared in Little Green Street, Soho, and, on finding Horace was in, jauntily entered the apartment and grasped him warmly by the hand.

"I tell you what it is, you've got the makings of a first-rate writer in you; those things convince me you'll make a name in no time," said Tindal, placing the bundle of scribblings on the table and taking a chair. What could Horace do but ask him to stop to dinner after this? though when he did so, and Tindal very readily accepted the invitation, an expression passed over Priscilla's features which promised rather badly for the banquet. But Horace wouldn't hear of his going away, and he sternly commanded Mrs. Molloy to procure half a leg of mutton (0 cheerless, tasteless, unnatural joint! what visions of rapacious landladies and uncomfortable lodgings, with hard horse-hair sofas, and half-cold gravy dotted with tepid dabs of dripping, and wretched servant-maids with grimy hands and black caps, does its mere mention not arouse!) to mark his sense of the service his visitor had rendered him by giving him confidence in his own powers. Horace, like many egotistical and self opiniated people, imagined himself to be the most timid and self-depreciatory of literary tyros. He was actually bursting with self-conceit, and fancied all the while that he thought nothing of his own compositions. Still, when Priscilla suggested some trifling alteration in one of his sentences, he flushed so considerably, and was evidently so dreadfully annoyed, that she was quite uncomfortable, and was much relieved when he put down the manuscript, which he shortly did and in great dudgeon. But, as he thought to himself, Priscilla was only a woman, and what was her opinion worth? Of course he didn't object to her praising any thing he wrote that was quite proper; but it was too absurd that he should be criticised by a bit of a girl. Here was Mr. Charles Tindal now full of unalloyed praise, and he was a regular literary man. So Horace piled the pleasant visitor's plate, and talked very fast, and ate very little himself, for he felt strangely delighted at the prospect which was opening before him. This prospect was a weekly periodical, which Tindal and a few friends had often thought of starting, and which would, he was sure, be most delighted to receive the assistance of Bentley's fresh young pen. Horace was in ecstasies, and was with difficulty persuaded from leaving the dinner-table to commence an article on the spot. However, as the "few friends" had never possessed sufficient capital to start the paper on their own hook, and had not been able singly or collectively to induce any enterprising printer or publisher to take the risk, the matter was no nearer completion than when first the idea was broached.

"An idea," said Tindal, dallying over his cheese," an idea, Bentley,

which would prove an e-normous success if properly carried out. "I fancy satire is your forte, isn't it?”). sud" with a qg!I

Of course it was; if he had asked Horace if anthropology had been his forte, that excited youth would have replied in the affirmative.

"Political and social satire, dealt out with an unsparing hand, is the thing; pitch into popular people, that's the style!") to aid pampo -Social satire Horace felt himself quite equal to; as to politics, he knew that a Whig wasn't a Tory, and that was about the extent of his political knowledge; but he had no objection, he declared, to have a shy at the Government, and was prepared, at the shortest notice, to show up its foreign policy, or write a slasher on the state of things at the Homeoffice. In fact, there was nothing too abstruse for this modest youth to tackle; and although he winced at the personal nature of the composiition to which Tindal suggested his devoting his abilities, he was prepared to forego his sensitiveness; and, indeed, the state of his finances forbade any very great scruples in the matter. "); if not param

Mr. Tatlow, the small printer, who was at last induced to take up the periodical and bring it before the public, was an enterprising person, who was supposed by his typographical brethren never to have succeeded with any thing. Mentioning his name in connexion with any small literary undertaking was tantamount to announcing the certainty of its speedy collapse; and when it was reported in scribbling coteries that the new satirical journal The Catch 'em Alive Oh-was one of Tatlow's ventures, there was much dismal head-shaking and melancholy shouldershrugging, and universal were the prognostications of a short career. “I'll give it four numbers," said Smith "Three," said Jones.lt

"A couple," chimed in the saturnine Brown.

"Don't believe it'll ever have a second number," was the cheerful prophecy of Robinson.mod dette star bataye

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But The Catch 'em Alive Oh had a second number and a third; and chiefly in consequence of the grossest personality and abuse on the part of the general staff, who woke up to work stimulated by the congenial nature of their task, and several really smart and clever articles by Horace, the periodical almost paid its expenses, and Tatlow started a chaise for Mrs. Tatlow on the strength of a weekly loss of only three pounds. It was fine practice for Horace, and procured him a certain reputation, though he felt heartily ashamed of his own boldness, and blushed many a time as he rounded a stinging sentence upon the shameful conduct of some respected public functionary, or poured the most withering invective upon the honoured head of some worthy statesman. “It must be advanced in his favour that he was seldom much in earnest, and played with the dangerous toy as a child plays with gunpowder or a box of lucifers. His principal attraction in Mr. Tatlow's eyes was his marvellous fecundity. He never tired or stopped to rest, and would cover reams of paper whilst the remainder of the staff

were stimulating their brains with artificial inspiration and with no particular results. The Catch 'em Alive Oh-began at last to be talked about, and people asked who was the author of certain rhymed articles which were remarkably happy; and the end of the matter was, that a very respectable-looking gentleman called upon Horace one day and offered him an engagement on a superior periodical, with a better salary. Horace's first flush of literary excitement had toned down con-siderably since his professional début, and the continual grumbling of Mr. Tatlow, who thought it most injudicious to appear satisfied with any thing, had somewhat put him out of conceit with his work... The staff too did not improve upon closer acquaintance, and was given to calling in Little Green Street at unholy hours, and expressing desires for cold meat and pickles, and other delicacies, much to the indignation of Priscilla. Indeed, that young wife's opinion of the literary profession was by no means an elevated. one; and Mrs. Pinto, happening to call one morning when Mr. Charley Tindal was present, received such a shock to her romantic notions of her son-in-law's craft, that Horace smuggled him off with rapidity, greatly to the annoyance of Tindal, who had come for the day. The interview between Tatlow and Horace, when the latter Itold him of his new engagement, and the necessity of an immediate termination of the present one, was alternately stormy and lachrymose. Tatlow commenced by raving at the ingratitude of authors; then appealed tearfully to his contributor's better nature; again relapsed into the tempestuous phase; and, finally, shed real tears at Horace's demands for a pecuniary settlement. The split in the camp was fatal to The Catch 'em Alive Oh, which dragged on a miserable existence for a few weeks, and eventually went to swell the mighty list of literary failures. which had preceded it. The more liberal treatment Horace received from the respectable proprietor, who had tempted him from the demoralising slough of despond into which he might have settled for life, enabled the young couple to make a better show in the world, and Mrs. Molloy soon found her first-floor lodger more "stuck-up" than ever. If misfortunes seldom come singly, it is no less fact that slices of luck frequently follow each other in rapid succession. Horace had written a sort of farcical skit on a subject of universal temporary interest, and had sent it to the manager of the Criterion Theatre. As the piece was very short, very legibly written, and possessed a catchy title, the magnificent person who ruled over the Criterion condescended to look into it; and finding that there was a good part for Giggley the popular comedian, and that it could be played without a new scene being painted, actually so far forgot his dignity as to drop a short note to Horace, appointing a meeting, sending the farce to be copied meanwhile to avert the possibility of the notion being seized on by the Elysium, which was the opposition house, the manager of which the Criterion director declared to be "capable of any thing." Horace was thrown into a state of the wildest excitement on receiving the managerial missive, and it is needless to add