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smile, said, 'G, dear, let us have a very nice dinner to-day.''Yes, my love,' replied the Jew. Well, then, go to the restaurateur's, and order some of their nicest things, you know. Perhaps Mr. Barnes would walk with you; and then he will tell you what he likes best. And, dear,' (here they both winked again,)' be sure to go to Monsieur Malasteque's, the wine-merchant, and let us have some good wine.' So harlequin patted me on the shoulder, accompanying that friendly action with the satisfactory words, Never mind, Jemmy, my boy! everything shall be all right to-night. I will take care of that.You take care of that,' said my landlady. Impossible! my dear. You have got to go round to all our tradespeople. Perhaps Mr. Barnes, as I said before, will go with you. It will be a nice little walk for him. So, go you and see after the wine and the brandy, (and here she laid particular emphasis,) and, depend upon it, when you are at Mr. Malasteque's, and give our ORDER' (another wink, and I winked too, I suppose by sympathy,) 'you will both be sure to have a glass of good wine or brandy.'

"Now was I placed in the hands of these two instruments. I found one to be a harpy, and the other a liar (I'm afraid I have not spelt these words correctly); but they both knew that I had an engagemen of eight pounds a week, and they meant to suck four out of it. But the proof of the pudding came in the eating. Breakfast was bad enough. Now I will recapitulate the dinner-ahem!

Tried

"The cloth was laid. I began to hum a little air, for I did not like the look of it. I am much mistaken if it was not one of the sheets that some of us had slept in (not mine; that I could verify by the corpses of the punaises). I thought of Columbine's mamma! However, said I to myself, "Barnes, cut your coat according to your cloth!" the iron blades of the knives; there was not one that would carve a crumpet. Presently there was placed on the table a piece of lean, boiled-to-death meat, which they dignified with the name of beef; but which looked to me more like the flesh of a Tothill-fields donkey! This was accompanied by a large mess of mashed onions. The beef pulled into strips-for the knives would not go through it; and it having previously done its best to enrich soup for somebody else, it was about as nourishing as a boiled worsted-stocking would be. Then came what they called a fricandeau de veau, aux épinards; but which resembled the upper part of a man's arm, with a hundred drawn teeth stuck in it, and laid in a hod of dark-green slime: when I was informed that it was veal larded with bacon, and spinach, I thought that the veal had spoiled the bacon, and the bacon had ruined the veal, and both had gammoned the spinach. They then brought something, which I imagined to be soap, but they said it was cheese; and it would have puzzled any literary savan to have exactly defined its quality. Then came the drinkables-vin ordinaire. I always before had thought the words were, vin au diner. It was sorry, rot-gut stuff; four glasses would make you melancholy; eight would sour you for a week. The best part of the meal was some strawberries; but I never touch them.

I began to compare myself to a ship in war-time, and thought that I was boarded by the enemy; at any rate I had complaints to make against the victualling department. Went out after this splendid fare, with grumbling gizzards. In the Tuileries Gardens accidentally met Mr. Mudpole, with his washing-book in his hand. He had been all

over Paris, as he told me, studying zoology, ophiology, ichthyology, ornithology, entomology, geology, conchology, mineralogy, although his favourite pursuit was the-ology. He had been inspecting the gobelins till he was as pale as a ghost. He had also inspected Versailles, and declared that, though he had been delighted with the allegorical, mythological, and historical statues, the perplexing labyrinths, the foaming cascades, and the disporting, leapingly, frolicsome gold and silver fish, yet his mind was irresistibly directed to contemplate awhile the Nebuchadnezzar-like spirit which must have prompted Louis the Fourteenth in the erection of a palace so voluptuous, and who, under the ambitious influence of a vanity analogous to that of the Eastern monarch, whenever he surveyed the greatness and extent of so mighty a project in the completion of so splendid and gorgeous a structure, with vaunting arrogance, in effect, would soliloquize, 'Is not this great Babylon which I have built, for the house of my kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?' Mudpole soon talked me off to Wood's; previously to which he asked me to take the trouble to read a part of the preface to his journal, which he had merely sketched. I begged that he would allow me to take the paper home, as I could not read in the open air without my spectacles.

"When I opened it, it ran thus:- In the presentation of the subsequent journal, the writer humbly and deferentially craves indulgence for that deficiency which he may exhibit of grammatical correctness or syntactical propriety and precision. He is readily inclined to believe that his delineations will appear much after the same infelicitous condition with those of the unaided effusions of an uninspired and uninitiated scribbler, whose thoughts had never been impregnated by a draught from the sacred stream that laves the fabled mount of Helicon, or favoured with the requisite afflatus or impulses of the august and venerated Nine, and whom genius in fiction has ever been wont to invoke as the dispensers of wisdom, and as the beneficent and befriending patronesses of all who in this manner beseech their auspicious favour.'

"I read this over once or twice; but I confess it recalled to my recollection the spinach! Went home to my lodging sulkily, merely to see what sort of society I was likely to expect. Found Columbine and her mamma, Mr. and Mrs. Harlequin, and a personage I had not been introduced to before, a large white poodle dog as big as a sheep, who looked as if he took a great deal of Scotch snuff in both his eyes. He had been asleep all day, which accounted for my not seeing him. Well, home I went, in the hopes of passing an agreeable evening; but, somehow or other, there was not any conversation going on. I tried to start it once, but in vain; so I sat twiddling my thumbs. Presently the poodle, who rested his nose on the table, opened wide his jaws, and gaped awfully. This the animal did a second and third time. It became infectious; for Columbine's mamma extended her mouth almost as wide, which was sympathetically followed by her dutiful daughter. This made Mrs. Jew Frenchnian gape also, which caused Harlequin to stretch his jaws and legs at the same time. This they all repeated. I became uneasy, and determined not to be guilty of the same rudeness; but, Lord! the d-d poodle looked at me wistfully in the face, and yawned again so wide, that off I went, and the whole party, dog and all, continued gaping for two hours. Now, this was what I call a pleasant evening. I tried this several other times; but

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it was always the same, and the family circle yawned everlastingly. It so broke in upon my domestic comforts, that I was compelled to take regularly to Mr. Wood's fuddley for society.

"Soon our pantomime was ready at the theatre, and with great note of preparation out it came, Rôle de Pantaloon, par Monsieur Barnes, premiere artist des Theatres Royales de Londres;' and I am proud to say that we were attractive; for the manager was not a bankrupt until after we had returned to England. The audience received us with profound attention; none of that noise and whistling, and Hey-ho! Billy Burroughs,'-'Throw him over,' and ' Order, order,' that salute your ears from the gentlefolks who visit our upper galleries, where the person who calls out Silence!' makes more noise than all the rest, and empty ginger-beer bottles are flung at the bald heads in the pit. No; the people are better behaved to both actors and authors; and if a person happens to be pertinaciously troublesome in any way, he is invited out of the theatre by a gensd'arme, in an uniform somewhat like that worn by the Oxford Blues, in Dighton's time.

**

Excitement of acting during the remainder of the month; took too much brandy and water. Ill; bilious; could not eat; but compelled to tumble about. Mr. Mudpole discovered that I was a stage-player, and cut me in abomination; got drunk out of spite. He was moved by one spirit, I by another!

Did not continue my journal for many days; hand unsteady; never at any time any great shakes as a writer. Brandy don't agree with me. Resolve to try rum for a few days.

"Friday.-Oh! my head! It splits!

"Monday, July 26.-Everybody in a pucker, because King Charles the Tenth, Prince Polignac, and Peyronnet have taken it into their heads to stop the liberty of the press. I saw the populace go and break

the windows at the Treasury, and at Polignac's house. Barnes, my boy, here will be a row. Observe what is going on, but keep your head out of mischief. Report that the troops are ordered into Paris. No writing below twenty printed pages shall appear, except with the authority of the minister, Secretary of State for the Interior of Paris. Writings published without authority shall be immediately seized, the presses and types used in printing them shall be placed in a public depôt, and under seals, or rendered unfit for use.'' Ha! ha! ha !— here, in 1830, to issue such an order! What could Polignac and Peyronnet be thinking about? As for Charles the Tenth, the priests had driven his poor soul up into a corner.

"Tuesday, 27th July.-The National and the Temps, two principal newspapers, appeared as usual, without any license, and they had printed about five times as many as was usual. People reading them mounted on chairs in all directions. Cannon fired at Vincennes to alarm the populace early in the morning,-some said they were shooting the reporters. Soldiers were marching into Paris all day. The tradesmen began to shut their shops; and if Polignac and Peyronnet had shut up theirs then, much bloodshed would have been spared. Columbine's mamma asked me my opinion, whether we should be kept prisoners of war? I told her I did not think it likely that any one would keep her. There must have been between four and five thousand people in the Palais Royal. These were cleared out by the troops. Saw Mr. WW—, a London gentleman, I used to know at the Sans Pareil theatre, a friend of old Scott. He had a speculation with the diligences in Paris. He was in a terrible stew. The mob had taken three of his coaches to barricade the street. He had no resource; and when the soldiers and populace began to fight in earnest, be had the pleasure to see the balls whizzing through the panels and glasses of each of his dillys. But, Lord! they took sofas, tables, rolling-stones, wheel-barrows, anything to block up the way; they unpaved the Rue St. Honoré; they put the lamps out. The soldiers fired on the people, and killed several. Police officers went to the two newspaper offices, broke the doors open, and brought away the types and presses-several devils (printers') seized. Much firing of guns in the night. Put my bed on the floor, or I should not have had a wink of sleep. Heard a monstrous noise, peeped out of the window, and saw labourers carrying about the dead bodies of the men that had been shot. Turned sick, and wished myself at the Crown and Cushion, Little Russell Street, Covent Garden. Theatres closed. Brought home a bottle of brandy with me from Wood's, thank God! or I don't really know what would have become of me.

"Early in the morning the walls were all covered with bills and placards, put up by the press; agents of police pulling them down again. Seymour came up in a funk, and said the mob were carrying about tripe-coloured flags in all directions. The drums beat to arms, and I could scarcely stand on my legs, I was so nervous.

"How could the ministers have made themselves such stupid asses? When the row began, Prince Polignac said, This is nothing. In two hours all will be quiet.' Alack-a-day! it was quiet enough with soldiers and populace too-many hundreds of them. The students of the Polytechnic School marched to the Post Office in military order, and mounted guard there. I admired the young gentlemen's respect for letters.

"The battle raged in many quarters of the city. I was witness to a conflict that took place at the Pont Neuf, on the Quai des Augustins. The people drove a party of soldiers into the Marché à la Volaille,— chick-a-biddy market (dictionary),—and continued firing upon them; the soldiers defended themselves. Lord! to hear the shrieks of the old women, the cackling of the live cocks and hens, and the quacking of the ducks, and the gobbling of the turkeys, and, oh! the smashing of the crates of eggs, as the bullets went through them. Many a poor old fat poultry wife fell with her face in her own giblets; and several baskets of liberated pigeons were dashing about in all directions. And when, at the climax, the populace obtained a victory over the troops, one hearty cock gave a prodigious crow, which was responded to by fifty others in different parts of the market. I was pleased with the Gallic cocks! Napoleon's eagles could not have behaved better. 'Vive la Liberte! Vive la Patrie!

"His Majesty Charles the Tenth, perceiving the state of affairs, cut his stick, and went off with his staff to Versailles, the good folks of which hoisted the tripe-coloured flag in compliment to him, which he took as a hint. The Parisians entered the Royal Palace, and made free with the eatables and drinkables they found in it, also of two thousand muskets. The King bolted with his crown-jewels, and was soon back at his head-quarters, Holyrood House, Auld Reekie,'-also, like Old Barnes, more frightened than hurt.

"Conclusion of the Journal.

"JAMES BARNES, scripsit."

CONTRASTS IN THE LIFE OF A POET.

ONE cold afternoon in December, about the middle term of Elizabeth's reign, a young cavalier rode across the long narrow bridge, which then all but blockaded the Thames, a little below the spot where the splendid structure of Rennie now spans its width, pierced into five arches of most magnificent sweep, and high architectural beauty. He was about thirty years of age, of fine figure, and good birth, judging from the Montero cap hanging with an appearance of studied neglect over his lofty and polished forehead, partly concealing his brows, and partly adding relief to the soft expression of a young and manly countenance, in which were easily traceable all the noble feelings of his period of life, and sentiments of the still-remaining chivalrousness of the time; for a Queen was then, as now, regnant, and the age of these glorious and ennobling sentiments, the daughters of chivalry, had not yet quite passed away.

Sighing while his rapid glance caught the towers that frowned above the bark-covered waters to his left, with a sentiment not unlike that apparently causeless feeling which we have all sometime or other experienced under similar circumstances that fore-shadowing of the future which tells of coming evil, he pursued his leisurely course across the traject of old London Bridge; and, when he had reached its southern extremity, turning up the Bankside, spurred the rowels into the noble barb on which he was riding, directing his head towards the Globe theatre.

He galloped rapidly by the bordellos for it was still somewhat of day -slouching his cap rather more closely than before, lest he should be seen by any of their inmates, and hailed thus early in the afternoon by his name

VOL. VIII.

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