buted to his former height some two inches. Ludlow was a man of small stature and proportions; but he was a giant to Myte, who was as diminutive as a man can be well supposed to be who is not deformed. His face was extremely fair, fresh, and plump, with a nose like a parrot's beak, and eyes of a similar, lateral, roguish gravity. A mouth like a little O, and a flight of chins leading down to his breast-bone, complete the picture.

'And so you've brought him with you,' he said, casting a sidelong ogle towards me.

'Yes, here he is, sir,' replied Ludlow.

'Getting towards sixteen, you said,' returned Myte. 'Tall of his age-up in the air-one of the sky-sweepers. Do you know, Jeremiah,' turning to Ludlow, whom he took by the coat, 'when I was his age, my grandmother thought I should have made a shoot upwards, and whenever the thought entered her head, (and, by the way, thoughts very seldom came there, and never stayed more than two minutes,) she made me march under her cane, which she placed horizontally against a line she had marked on the wainscot. I did it clean for three years, when the old lady lost heart, saying I should do for a Smithfield droll.' Ludlow forced a grim smile. She was mistaken,' said he. 'None of your jeers,' cried Myte. 'Come, what is your nephew's

name?'

Freeman,' said Ludlow; 'Richard Freeman.'

'Richard Freeman,-and a very good English name too.

Free man

-it has an old British sound with it. Eh? what? Just listen to this, Jeremiah Woful,' and with a theatrical air he repeated,

"I am as free as nature first made man,

Ere the base laws of servitude began,

When wild in woods the noble savage ran!'

That's John Dryden-one of his Almanzor flights; and I've heard Betterton roll and thunder it out-I have. You may laugh, young gentleman,' addressing me, 'but you had not laughed, had you heard Betterton. Why,' nudging me confidentially, 'I have lent Betterton money.'

'And he repaid you, I have no doubt,' said Ludlow.

'Repaid me!-ay, that he has, a thousand fold. I saw him in all his best parts.'

'He repaid you in money, I mean,' observed Ludlow. 'I have heard he was a man of honour.'

"The very soul of honour,' cried Myte. Who could think of that man's body? I have got his bond, Jeremiah, and I would not part with

his signature for, twenty times the sum he signed for. But, get you gone; Ricardo and I shall much better understand each other, and much sooner, without you.'

So saying, he pushed him out of the door.

'That uncle of yours, Ricardo,' he said, returning to me, 'is the most sad-looking person these eyes ever lighted upon.'

'A very grave man, indeed, sir,' I answered.

'Grave ?-grievous-a face as much as to say, "Whose dog's dead, that I may come and howl over it?" No cause, no cause; well to do, well to do. That is why I call him Jeremiah Woful.'

'Indeed, sir,' said I, somewhat amused by this original.

'Yes, indeed,' he replied. I have names for all my acquaintances. But you are looking for something to do. Do you like active employment ?'

'I have no doubt I shall, sir, when I become used to it.'

Myte only does justice to Betterton when he calls him the very soul of honour. A man more deservedly respected never trod the stage. It is to be hoped that the bond, of which the little man speaks, was a cancelled one, or for a small amount, for Betterton died without a farthing. Steele, at the conclusion of a Tatler he wrote in commemoration of the funeral of this great actor, after a high eulogy of his merit, says, 'The mention I have here made of Mr. Betterton, for whom I had, as long as I have known anything, a very great esteem and gratitude for the pleasure he gave me, can do him no good; but it may possibly be of service to the unhappy woman he has left behind him to have it known that this great tragedian was never in a scene half so moving as the circumstances of his affairs created at his departure. His wife, after an intercourse of forty years in the strictest amity, has long pined away with a sense of his decay, as well in his person as his little fortune, and in proportion to that, she has herself decayed both in health and reason. Her husband's death, added to her age and infirmities, would certainly have determined her life, but that the greatness of her distress has been a relief, by a present deprivation of her senses.

This wonderful performer was born in 1635, came upon the stage in 1656, and continued on it with the greatest reputation more than fifty years. He died April 28, 1710, a few days after he had played (at the age of 75!) the arduous part of Melantius, in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of The Maid's Tragedy.

Colley Cibber says,- Betterton was an actor, as Shakspeare was an authorboth without competitors; formed for the mutual assistance and illustration of each other's genius. How Shakspeare wrote, all men who have a taste for Nature may read and know; but with what higher rapture would he still be read, could they conceive how Betterton played him. Could how Betterton spoke be

as easily known as what he spoke, then might you see the Muse of Shakspeare in her triumph, with all her beauties in her best array, rising into real life, and charming all beholders. But, alas! since all this is out of the reach of description, how shall I show you Betterton? Should I tell you that all the Othellos, Hamlets, Hotspurs, Macbeths, Brutuses, whom you may have seen since his time, have fallen short of him, this still would give you no idea of his particular excellence.' Booth, himself no common actor, who knew him only in his decline, used to say that he never saw him on or off the stage but he learned something from him; and frequently observed that Betterton was no actor; that he put on his part with his clothes, and was the very man he undertook to be, and nothing more. So exact was he in following nature, that the look of surprise and horror he assumed in the character of Hamlet astonished Booth (when he first personated the ghost) to such a degree that he was unable to proceed with his part for some moments.

Pope, in answer to a question, said, 'Yes, I really think Betterton the best actor I ever saw; but I ought to tell you at the same time that, in Betterton's days, the older sort of people talked of Harte's being his superior, just as we do of Betterton's being superior to those now.'

There is a portrait of Betterton (said to be a fine one) by Pope, in the possession of the Earl of Mansfield

'That won't be while you're here,' returned Myte. Look you, my ingenuous young friend, I sell houses when I have houses to sell, to certain persons when I can find them; and I buy houses when there are houses to be bought from certain persons who may wish to sell them. But at present I have neither houses to be sold nor persons to purchase, nor do I wish to have. All my business, therefore, is to do nothing, and look as though I had plenty to do; and all yours will be to look as though you had plenty to do, and do nothing.' 'An easy life, sir,' I said, laughing.

'So so, for that,' replied Myte. 'I've found yawning hard work before now. But you can carry a letter, and bring an answer, and draw a bill, and say I'm out when I wish I were not in, and all that?' 'Oh, yes.'

'And all these things you solemnly promise to perform?'

'I do.'

'And you faithfully engage to talk no more than your tongue will let you, and as little good sense as you can; not "two and two make four-two and two make four," in the moral or maxim way, for all that I hate; besides, I know, in morals, two and two often make five.' 'I promise all this, sir.'

'Good lad, very good lad,' said Myte. 'Kiss that book,' handing me a volume of the Tatler. 'But come,' said he, 'let's go up stairs, and see "Heaven's last best gift," as the poet has it—the fair creation -three samples of which I have up stairs. Why, I've a wife and two daughters.'

'Indeed,' said I.

Why indeed? you should have said, "Joy be with you, Colbrand," for that's my name. Mind that stair. That's been two summersets, seven sprained ankles, and bruised hips out of number. I've been thinking of having it mended these twelve years. When it comes to a broken leg, I'll have the leg and it set to rights together.'

'Here,' said he, handing me forward, and presenting me to his wife and daughters. 'Good people, I've brought you a young friend, whom I commend to your especial good offices. This, Ricardo, is Mrs. Myte, known in this house (but only so addressed by me) by the style and title of Flusterina. My love!' with assumed surprise, 'I once told you, many years ago, that I loved the very ground you trod upon, and you're always reminding me of it by carrying some upon your face.'

Mrs. Myte appealed to her daughters. 'Is my face dirty, my loves?' The young ladies smiled, and shook their heads. A slight tap with the fan upon the small skull of Myte was the gentle punishment meted out to the delinquent.

'And here,' continued Myte, are Madam Margaret and Mistress

Martha,* commonly called my Goth and Vandal: they will permit you to salute their cheeks.'

The girls blushed, while I promptly availed myself of the privilege. 'And now,' said Myte, since you will have plenty of leisure to cultivate the esteem of these ladies, let me show you your dormitory. You must know,' he resumed, as we ascended the stairs, that I slept in that room for ten years, before I was married, and I used to call itthat's Signor Tomaso,'-in parenthesis, pointing to a large cat which had been asleep on the landing, but which now came forward, and placing its fore-paws upon Myte's knee-pan, stretched itself leisurelyI used to call it Paradise,' he proceeded, it was such a snug room, till the fire broke out, and I had to jump out of the window into a large blanket.'

Having taken me into every room in the house, commenting upon each, and inquiring at intervals whether I thought I could be comfortable under his roof, he brought me back again to the drawing-room.

'Go in there,' said he, 'and make interest for a dish of chocolate. I am going to meet a gentleman at White's.'t

The ladies vied in their attentions towards me; and I soon began to feel, that if I were not as happy as I could wish with Myte and his family, it would be entirely my own fault. When Myte returned in the afternoon, he amused me with his innocent freaks and fooleries. In the evening he played upon the fiddle, and made his wife sing and his daughters dance, and tried to sing himself; and, finally, would have accomplished a dance, but that the potency of a sneaker of punch of which he had partaken had so impaired the stability of his small legs, that his family judged it inexpedient that he should hazard the feat. I myself confess to having seen two candles in my hand when I retired to bed; and had Myte's disastrous stair been upon the flight I had occasion to ascend, I think it very likely I might have added to the list of casualties in his possession.

girls not yet in their When there were two

At this time, the appellation of Miss was only given to teens, or to indiscreet and inconsiderate young women. sisters, as in the case of Myte's daughters, the elder was called Madam, the younger Mistress.

↑ Who that has read Addison and Steele (and who has not ?) but is familiar with the names of White's Chocolate House, the St. James's Coffeehouse, Will's Coffeehouse, and the Grecian? White's Chocolate House was on the left-hand side of St. James's Street, from Piccadilly; but afterwards it was on the other side, and lower down the street.

A PARLIAMENT IN THE OLDEN TIME.

FEW who stand at Charing Cross, and see the legislators, who in lordly equipage, or easy cab, on horseback or on foot, wend their way in crowds, at the hour of four or five, to declaim and divide upon the political measures which agitate the day, trouble themselves to picture the mighty difference between the past and the present, the Parliamentary doings of to-day, and the Parliaments and Parliamentarians of an elder time. It is worth while to evoke a shadowy semblance of things that were from amid the chaotic fragments of their antiquity.

Standing on the same spot five hundred years gone by, a pilgrim on his way to the shrine of the Confessor might have noted a like concourse of the noble and lowly crowding to the palace of Westminster, where the King held his solemn Parliament, to which his lieges were summoned to aid and advise him. But instead of its being long past mid-day, the morning-sun is scattering the dew from the green fields and hedges which stretch far away to the north and west of the little village of Charing, and our pilgrim may have just reached the Cross by the way across the fields, which ended at the high road to Windsor and Reading, hard by the umbrageous manor of Hyde, beneath whose ancient oaks the hogs of the Abbot of Westminster fatten on choice pannage. It is the hour of eight in the morning! The lordly baron prances to Westminster, surrounded by armed followers, and armed himself. Sleek bishops, and mitred abbots, or their monkish proxies, amble thither on sure hackneys, and knights of the shire, stout burgesses, and their servitors swell the train. Of all the men, perchance, your burgher, except he were a turbulent Londoner, looked upon this going to Parliament as an unmitigated nuisance; it drew him from his stall, or shop, his wonted markets and stated fairs, to mingle with the mighty of the land, with whom he had few views in common; and to what end? to give a reluctant assent to grants of subsidies, and in return to pray remedies of grievances seldom permanently redressed.

In the early days of popular representation, when the people were not to say indifferent to, but at least ignorant of, the value of the privilege they enjoyed, your borough member or knight of the shire, was caught by the sheriff with as much difficulty as a restive sheep in a timid flock. It was not until the wars of the roses, that it became a matter of import to the crown and nobility to pack the Commons for their own ends. About that time it is that we find the Duchess of Norfolk writing to her well-beloved John Paston that her lord thinks it meet to have the county represented by his own menial servants,' and commanding him to raise his voice for the return of two such characters, Sir John Howard, the first peer of his name, being one of her nominees. At this same period, too, when electors found their votes were of moment, arose the time-honoured practice of treating: when Sir John Howard and Master Thomas Brewis were chosen knights of the shire for Suffolk, Howard regaled his electors at an expense of some forty pounds. We will not enumerate the oxen, sheep, and calves consumed, nor even the capons, pigeons, and rabbits; nor the 'barells of dobylle and syngel bere,' besides wine at the 'gentelmen's lodgings:' it is enough to mark the dawn. of treating. That intimidation came to the aid of candidates, who will