"Can these stars look so serenely upon such infamy ?" he said. "Can such a woman look upon these stars and still carry that unwrinkled brow? Psha! I am accusing her upon the gossip of a scandal-loving page; accusing her of a crime the most infamous, the most improbable-and on the recital of a page! I'll not believe it; not, at least, till I have better authority for suspicions."

At this moment the Duke de Gurk and his private secretary Schrabb approached the spot where St. Julien lay stretched. They were walking in the footpath, so that every thing they said was overheard by him, though he was hidden from the sight.

"Well," said Schrabb, 66 now you know the princess, I suppose our mission here is ended ?"

"I might despair like you," said the duke, "if I only interested myself in the princess's projects; but I have here another ambition."

"I understand-the princess herself!"

"Exactly."

"But suppose she is only playing with you as with Steinach ?"

"Why, Schrabb, there is always one last resource-an unfailing one!" "Unfailing with Quintilia? Remember how absolute she is."

"Yes; but she will not face a corpse! If she refuses me I will demand the presence of Max!"

DEAR MR. YORKE, -I have often thought that in one of your winter evenings you might give us a charming essay upon the things you have lost. I make no allusion to any surviving sorrows of your own for lockets and legacies, but to those losses for which, as one of the chief representatives of literature, you are naturally called to mourn. For example, when sailing in the last autumn between Cività Vecchia and Leghorn, did you not recall to mind that folio book of Dante, so constantly studied by Michael Angelo, and the broad margin of which was alive with the crowding groups of his pencil? As the bright foam of those

clear waters hissed round the keel, you wondered what watery bookworm had wound himself into the treasures of the poet and the painter, thus buried in one common shipwreck. Or, at other times, when, with that good-humoured gravity which was deemed to have expired with Addison's country Knight, you admonish your assembled household from some chapter of Taylor's Holy Living, does not your heart heave a sigh for that vanished narrative in which the good bishop had set down the incidents and troubles of his many-coloured life? God, he said, placed a watery cloud in the eye, that when the light of heaven shines

in it it may produce a rainbow, to be a sacrament and a memorial that God and the sons of God do not love to see a man perish. What a commentary upon his beautiful image must his biographical experience have supplied! So many troubles, and so many blessings; so elevated, and so depressed; so poor, and yet having all things. Then who is more accomplished than Mr. Yorke in the history and economy, as well as in the wisdom and eloquence of the Church? Surely, when you put on your armour of controversy, a browner shade gathers over the hills of Oscott. You read Hooker as other men read Scott, -not, indeed, in the smooth octavo of Heber, but in one of the grim, black editions of the early press in St. Paul's Churchyard. Have you succeeded in obtaining the small, clear folio which came out under Hooker's own inspection? There it is lying open, with a splendid blue riband (an anonymous gift) parting the leaves. In such a parlour-window, doubtless, Cowley found the Faëry Queene. But you cannot take up that venerable book without lamenting the things you have lost. You linger before the beautiful gate of the temple, and wander among its courts, but where are the others? For this mutilated architecture of genius we are indebted to that miserable woman, who, having nursed Hooker into a promise of marriage, embittered his life by the fulfilment of it, and completed her claim to the execration of posterity by suffering his MSS. to be destroyed, or irretrievably scattered after his death. Frequently, dear Mr. Yorke, under the old cloistral solitude of Trinity, when a May storm has driven Whewell, Sophs, umbrellas, and Gyps into the shade, have you poured out your wrath upon the theological widow, summoned before the council, and, after much prevarication, admitting that many of her husband's papers had been burnt and torn by a person who seems to have been her son-inlaw! The ground which Hooker had cleared and marked out for the site of his splendid palace of wisdom and truth is thus only partly covered over. What hand shall now ever plant it into a garden, or sow it with good seed? All is barren and desolate :

"Intereunt segetes, subit aspera sylva, Lappæque, tribulique; interque nitentia culta

Infelix lolium et steriles dominantur

avenæ.

But these things, which you have lost, naturally make you more thankful for every thing you recover. Now and then the tide brings into the shore some fragment of costly shipwreck, some specimen of the rich freight which Genius was bearing onward to immortality. I have not picked up any relic of this description; yet, though not itself a fragment of genius, the book I mention to you is intimately related to that kingly prerogative. You will remember I think you had been favoured with a perusal-that an unpublished correspondence between the poet Gray and a clergyman, Mr. Nichols, of Blundeston, has for some time existed among the literary treasures of Mr. Dawson Turner of Yarmouth. There it might have continued to slumber in the embalming fragrance of solitude and sandal, if the interposition of Mr. Samuel Rogers had not procured the permission of their possessor to entrust it to the care of Mr. Mitford. By him the letters have been presented to the public. I agree with him in considering them to be a valuable addition to our previous collection; possessing not only the same merits of composition, the same ease, humour, and gracefulness of expression, but contributing something to the history of the poet. You will remember that this correspondence had been previously submitted to the inspection of Mason, while engaged in writing the life of his friend. His treatment of the MS. deserves the severest condemnation. The valuable Wharton MSS. some of the gems of his memoir-he remorselessly mutilated, by cutting out the names of several persons mentioned in them, and in that defaced condition the papers remain. Upon the letters entrusted to him by Nichols, he laid a more merciful hand. He seems, however, to have been insensible to their charm. He selected only six, which he abridged, altered, and transposed, as suited the capricious inclination of the minute. Mr. Mitford has not, however, drawn attention to the deep turpitude of

Mason's conduct in this transaction. The note in which he returns the correspondence to Nichols is one of the most ingenious specimens of craft that ever gained a niche in the annals of imposture. It deserves to be quoted at length:

"Curzon Street, January 31, 1775. "Mr. Mason returns many thanks to Mr. Nichols for the use he has permitted him to make of these letters. He will find that much liberty has been taken in transposing parts of them, &c. for the press, and will see the reason for it. It were, however, to be wished that the originals might be so disposed of, as not to impeach the editor's fidelity; but this he leaves to Mr. Nichols' discretion, for people of common sense will think the liberty he has used very venial."

The lines which we have distinguished by italics present an inimitable improvement upon Machiavelli. Mr. Mason's affectionate solicitude to send this small packet after Michael Angelo's Dante, and Taylor's Autobiography, and Hooker's completion of the Polity, is sufficiently apparent. Nichols, however, disposed of his correspondence in a different manner, and, by so doing, has furnished me with an opportunity of enjoying a conversation with you in your own immortal Magazine. Coleridge calls him a buckram man; but a word rather shorter, and more familiar, will henceforth designate his character. Gray accounted for the general languor of Mason's poetry by the haste with which he wrote it. He thought him a bad prose writer, and said that his reading was quite unequal to the extent of his compositions. We learn from Nichols that the last four lines of Mason's epitaph on his wife were contributed by Gray.

In addition to the letters of Nichols, supplied by Mr. Dawson Turner, we owe to Lady Smith, of Norwich, some pleasant communications to Mr. Barret, of Lee Priory. One difficulty, however, in transferring these letters to type remained to be overcome. The names of persons were indicated only by the initial letters, and seventy years have effaced the information that might, at an earlier period, have been easily produced. The late Master of Pembroke, Dr. Turner, was the last survivor of Gray's

Cambridge friends. The difficulty has, however, vanished before industrious research; and the assistance of Professor Smyth and Mr. Stevenson has discovered the necessary key.

Mr. Nichols, the poet's friend, died Nov. 22, 1809. You have formerly read the letter, in which Mr. Mathias communicated his decease. Educated at Eton, he removed to Trinity Hall, at the time when Gray had fixed his residence in Cambridge. He was not more than nineteen years old, when a friend procured for him an introduction to the poet. A short time elapsed before they met at a party, and Gray invited him to his rooms, and cultivated his acquaintance. There is something graphic in the incident as related by Mathias. The conversation having taken a classical turn, Nichols ventured to offer a remark, and to illustrate it by a quotation from Dante. "At the name of Dante, Mr. Gray suddenly turned round to him, and said, 'Right; but have you read Dante, sir ?' 'I have endeavoured to understand him,' was the apt reply of Nichols." We hope there is nothing apocryphal in the anecdote, but one strongly resembling it in spirit is related of Dryden, and is familiar to every person. The great poet was one day seated in his arm-chair at Wills, indulging in some commendation of his recently published Mac Flecknoe, and he added that he valued himself the more upon it, because it was the first piece of ridicule written in heroics. There happened to be listening in a corner of the room, an odd-looking boy, with short, rough hair, who mustered up sufficient hardihood to mutter that the poem was a very good one, but that he had not supposed it to I have been the first ever written in that manner. Dryden, turning briskly on his critic, with a smile, said, "Pray, sir, what is it that you did imagine to have been writ before?" "Boileau's Lutrin, and Tessaur's Secchia Rapita," was the answer. Dryden acknowledged the truth of the correction, and desired the censor to call upon him the next day. The boy with the rough hair was Lockier, afterwards Dean of Peterborough, and who continued to enjoy the poet's acquaintance until his death. The

coincidence is worth noticing. Nichols helped, perhaps, to fill in his bosom the void left vacant by his beloved friend West. After travelling in Switzerland and Italy, Nichols retired to a Suffolk living, Blundeston, near Yarmouth. He found it an uncultivated solitude, which he improved so, that the eye of Mathias rested on it as 66 one of the most finished scenes of cultivated sylvan delight which this island can offer to view." He polished away all its uncouth savageness, and raised into loveliness those walks and recesses in which Gray said, in his sublime conciseness, that a man who could think might think. But fifteen years have changed the aspect of the place; the house has been rebuilt by Mr. Bacon, who purchased it. There is an engraved view of the seat and grounds. The accomplishments of Nichols embraced all the branches of elegant knowledge, music, painting, and languages. Graceful, sensitive, and refined, he deserved to be loved, and recorded as the poet's friend! I wish to draw your attention to the pleasant style of his correspondence. Do you not catch an echo of Gray in the following miscellany upon botany, travelling, history, and other things?

NICHOLS TO GRAY.

"I know you think that I have entirely neglected botany, or you would have had twenty troublesome letters before now; but this is not entirely the case, as my journal will witness for me when you see it. I have, indeed, met with severe rebuffs, and discouragements, and difficulties, that almost reduced me to despair; but I believe it is because I ventured beyond my strength, and expected to make out readily every wild flower I found, instead of condescending to take my garden for a master, and learn gradually the botanical characters from flowers I know, which seems more reasonable than endeavouring to discover the others by characters I have not yet learnt. I have not writ to ask questions, because there would be no end of it, and I am sure I should never make you understand me except I enclosed the plant. But I have had innumerable to ask if you had been at my elbow. Having nothing to say myself, I waited for some time, rather in expectation of hearing some news of the Ode, which I long most impatiently to see. Oh! whilst I remember it (to set my conscience at

ease), I must tell you that some time ago I received a letter from Woodyer, the bookseller (to acknowledge the receipt of some money I sent him), in which there was a postscript, longer than the letter itself, to say how much obliged, &c. he should be if, by my interposition, he (Woodyer) might be admitted to a share in the sale of the Ode, said to be yours, if it should be printed, for that it would sell prodigiously. Unto which, his most humble request, I have so far graciously condescended as (not answering his letter, because that would divulge the secret which is already public) to make it known to you. Thus much I have done, because, as he did me the honour of preferring me, I was not certain whether, in justice, I could suppress it entirely; how just or reasonable the request itself may be I know not, and so I wash my hands of him, and ask pardon.

"Why will you mention Skiddaw, or any such insolent mountain, to me, who live within two miles of the sea, and cannot see it till I come within two yards of it? Think of me when you listen to the sound of Lawdoor waterfall, or wander among the rocks of Borrowdale, and send an eagle to fetch me from Dorsetshire, and deliver me from the naked downs. Alas! alas! when shall we live among the Grisons, visit the Bishop of Coire, or pass a summer at Chiavenna?

"I have been very idle (that you will not be surprised to hear), except in my garden, and there very diligent, very much amused, very much interested, and perfectly dirty, with planting, transplanting, &c., and with tolerable success. Besides, I have now free access, and an open, firm descent to my lake, and a very shady little walk that winds a little way close on its bank, and have planted weeping willows, and poplars, and alders, and sallows; and shall expect you next summer to come and find fault, and sit in the shade.

"I am just reading Mémoires de Sully, which please me extremely, more than almost any thing, and particularly what I read a few minutes ago, the surprise of the fortress of Fescamp by Bois Rosé. You remember the fifty men hanging by a rope midway of a perpendicular rock 600 feet high, and the sea at bottom rising till it set the boats that brought them adrift, and prevented the possibility of their returning. Fear seizing the foremost man, and Bois Rosé (who was last of the train) climbing over the backs of the fifty to lead them on. It is told, with all its circumstances, more like the surprise of Platea, or other such descriptions in Thucydides, than a French writer.

"Dr. Marriott has not writ, and is, I

hear, to have his house full of foreign ambassadors; so our Cambridge journey is at an end. We shall set out from hence about the middle of July for the west; but I beseech you let me hear first from you, and.... from Kiswick.... it would really be cruel to refuse me a line, though you will not write from .... or Cambridge.

"I should be extremely obliged to you if you would once more lend me your book of Wilton, if you could send it by the fly, to be left at Payne's at the Meuse Gate for me till I call; and add necessary instructions for the country about Southampton, for that must be my Keswick this year.

"Adieu! I really want to hear a little oftener from you; if I thought writing about nothing, on my part, would have any effect, that should not stand in the way. I am most faithfully and affectionately yours.

N. N.

"Blundeston, June, 14, 1769.- My mother's compliments."

It was in reference to this letter that Gray wrote so happily, in his reply preserved by Mason, of the pleasure of walking in one's own garden, and sitting on a bench in the open air with a fountain, and a leaden statue, and a rolling-stone, and an arbour; while declaring of himself, "Why I have no such thing, you monster; nor ever shall be either dirty or amused, as long as I live! My gardens are in the window, like those of a lodger up three pair of stairs in Petticoat Lane or Camomile Street, and they go to bed regularly under the same roof that I do." His compliance with the request about the book was equally characteristic. “I I will send the Wilton book directed to Payne for you, though I know it will be lost, and then you will say it was not worth above a shilling, which is a great comfort to me." The next letter is in a still livelier vein of description; it was written by Nichols from Paris in the summer of 1771, and, like the former one, is now printed for the first time in this interesting volume: *—

"Here have I been since Wednesday last!-not a word yet from you! Are you worse? I hope not! Better?-why will you not let me know? It was Friday last that I set out; that night I lay at Sittingbourne, the next day reached Dover by dinner-time; after dinner I

walked, shivering with the east wind, to Shakspeare's Cliff, which is certainly dreadful enough to be improved by an imagination like his to what he has made it. I trembled, thought of you, collected a few plants, and returned to examine them. Sunday morning at six we embarked, and arrived at Calais at nine; from thence after haggling for a chaise, waiting for horses, &c. I set out in the afternoon in company with two Englishmen with whom I passed the sea. The total change of things in passing twenty miles struck me with astonishment the moment I set my foot on shore at Calais. We lay that night at Boulogne; the country, as you know, is not very agree. able, exactly like Cambridgeshire, uninclosed corn-fields, with a few hills with a tree or two on them. Towards Montreuil it mends; some pleasant valleys for this country wind among the cornland; several woods appear, and Montreuil itself, seated on a rising ground, is a good object. I'm going post; there is not much time for observation.

"The west front of the church of Ab. beville struck me, however, as of the best and most beautiful Gothic. At Amiens we arrived about three o'clock on Monday morning, at six we rose again and went to the cathedral, which was then full of people; a thousand different sorts of devotion going forward at the same time at different altars and in different chapels, little bells of different tones perpetually tingling for the elevation of the host; in short, the Boulevards since have put me very much in mind of it. The church is very handsome in itself, and adorned with a magnificence that pretends at least a zeal for religion, if it does not imply it. But all this was done in such haste, and so much between sleeping and waking, that I reckon myself to have seen nothing in my journey. Tuesday we slept at Chantilly; there is a stateliness in the castle and its apartments, and their furniture, very new to an Englishman. It was the finest evening possible, which added not a little to the spectacle; the castle seemed to come forward in relief from the purple and gold of a most glorious setting sun, which glowed in the water as well as in the sky; to this succeeded clear moonlight, without a drop of dew. From Chantilly we reached Paris by noon next day, Wednesday, just giving a peep at St. Denis, but not at the Treasury, for it was a wrong hour. Every thing that I have seen hitherto has been with the disadvantage of companions who see because they think they ought to see. In this manner I have run over Le Palais