Snap in the profession; they learn a fresh trick from every scoundrel, swindler, and thief, whose case they undertake."

"I thought that fraud and perjury were never to be presumed, Mr Runnington! Besides, had we not the advantage of most acute and experienced counsel? How could it escape them?" "I would only venture to remind you," said Mr Runnington, firmly but respectfully," of the observations of the Attorney-General, at our last consultation."

"I thought I was unanswered, Mr Runnington, though I did not feel at liberty to press the matter," replied Mr Aubrey with a melancholy smile. "Excuse me, but we must take the chance of a second trial," said Mr Runnington.

"I have decided upon the course I shall adopt," replied Mr Aubrey, calmly and determinedly-" I shall instruct you to write this day to the gentlemen upon the other side, and inform them that within three weeks I shall be prepared to deliver up possession of Yatton."

"My dear sir!-Do I hear aright? Deliver up possession of the estates? and within three weeks?"

"That was what I said, Mr Runnington," replied Mr Aubrey, rather peremptorily.

"I give you my honour, Mr Aubrey, that in the whole course of my practice I never heard of such a procedure."

"And I shall further request you to state that the last quarter's rents are in my banker's hands, and will be paid over to the order of Mr Titmouse."

"Good gracious, Mr Aubrey !" interrupted Mr Runnington, with an air of deep concern.

"I have well considered the position in which I am placed," said Mr Aubrey, with a serious air.

"It is very painful for me to mention the subject, Mr Aubrey; but have you adverted to the mesne profits?"

"I have. It is, indeed, a very fearful matter: and I frankly own that I see no way open before me, but to trust to the forbearance of"

"Forbearance!--The forbearance, of Messrs Quirk, Gammon, and Snap!! or of any one counselled by them!"

"Why, what can I do? I might as well undertake to pay off the national

debt, as this sum of sixty thousand pounds."

"That's just the very thing," replied Mr Runnington, with a dismayed air.

"Whatever honourable negotiation can effect, I leave it in your hands to do. With reference to the time that may be obtained for the liquidation of it," Mr Aubrey changed colour, but spoke with firmness-" I must own that this is a matter that has occasioned me inexpressible anxiety, Mr Runnington. I really do not see what length of time will enable me to discharge so fearful a sum of money, or even to make any sensible impression upon it. I am quite at their mercy." Here both maintained a silence of several minutes' duration.

"I am far from thinking it clear that equity would not interpose to relieve against mesne profits, in such a case as the present-a dormant claim set up."

"I cannot see, Mr Runnington, on what principle such an interference could be supported."

"No more do I, at present," replied Mr Runnington, "but I'll lose no time in having the best advice on the subject. Gracious me! when one thinks of it, it deprives one of”—at this moment a thundering appeal to the knocker of the door announced an arrival; and presently the servant entered and stated that Lord Chad called, and was waiting in the library. After repeating two or three directions to Mr Runnington, Mr Aubrey begged to be excused, and presently entered the library, where Lord C was waiting to receive him. Lord C was a middle-aged man, tall, of elegant person, a strikingly handsome countenance, and most winning address; he was a thorough politician, possessed of eloquence, immense practical knowledge, and a very commanding intellect. He was made for eminent office, and got through the most complicated and harassing business with singular ease and celerity. He had for several years entertained a sincere regard for Mr Aubrey, whom he considered to be a very rising man in the House of Commons, and who had, on several occasions, rendered him special service in debate. He was much shocked to hear of the sudden misfortune which had befallen Mr Aubrey; and had

now come to him with a sincere desire to be of service to him; and also, not without a faint hope of prevailing upon him to come down that evening and support them in a very close division. He was as kind-hearted a man as a keen politician could be.

"I am really shocked beyond expression to hear all this," said he, after Aubrey had, at his earnest request, explained the position in which he was placed; the dreadful loss he had sustained, the still more dreadful liabilities to which he was subject." Really who can be safe? It might have happened to me to any of us! Forgive me, my dear Aubrey," continued Lord C earnestly, "if I venture to express a hope that at all events Mrs Aubrey and your family are provided for, and your very lovely sister; she, I trust, is out of the reach of inconvenience?" Mr Aubrey's lip quivered, and he remained silent.

"Allow me a friend's freedom, Aubrey, and let me repeat my question; are your family provided for?”

"I will be frank, Lord C-," replied Mr Aubrey, with a strong effort to preserve his composure. "The little provision that was made for them goes with Yatton: but for them -my wife, my children, my sister-I would have submitted to this misfortune with unshrinking fortitude; but they are, alas, involved in my ruin! My wife had nothing when I married her; and of course the settlements I made on her were out of the Yatton property; as also was the little income left my sister by my father. With Yatton all is gone-that is the plain fact; and there is no disguising it.” Lord C seemed much moved. "The Duke of I, and two

or three other of your friends, were talking about these matters last night; we wish we could serve you. What is the sort of foreign service you would prefer, Aubrey?"

"Foreign service," echoed Mr Aubrey significantly.

"Yes; an entire change of scene would be highly serviceable in diverting your thoughts from the distressing subjects which here occupy them, and must continue to occupy them for some time to come.".

"It is very kindly meant, Lord C-; but do you really think I can for a single moment entertain the idea

of quitting the country to escape from pecuniary liability ?"

"That's the point exactly; I decidedly think you ought to do so; that you must," replied Lord C, in a matter-of-fact manner.

"Nothing upon earth shall induce me to do so," replied Mr Aubrey firmly. "The bare idea shocks me. It would be the meanest, most unprincipled conduct-it would reflect disgrace on the King's service."

"Poh-this is mere eccentricityknight-errantry; I'm sure that when you are in a calmer mood you will think differently. Upon my honour, I never heard of such a thing in my life. Are you to stay at home, to have your hands tied behind your back, and be thrust into prison-to court destruction for yourself and your family?" Mr Aubrey turned aside his head, and remained silent.

"I must plead in favour of Mrs Aubrey-your children-your sweet lovely sister;-good God! it's quite shocking to think of what you are bringing them to."

"You torture my feelings, Lord C," said Mr Aubrey, tremulously and very pale; "but you do not convince my judgment. Every dictate of conscience and honour combines to assure me that I should not listen to your proposal."

"Good God! what an outrage on common sense!-But has any thing been yet said on the subject of these liabilities-these mesne profits, as I suppose they are called ?"

Nothing; but they follow as a matter of course."

"How is it that you owe only sixty thousand pounds, Aubrey?" "Only sixty thousand!"

"At the rate of ten thousand a◄ year, you must have had at least a hundred thousand pounds."

"The statute of limitations prevents more than six years' arrears being recoverable."

"But do you intend, Aubrey, to avail yourself of such a protection against the just claims of this poor, unfortunate, ill-used gentleman? Are not the remaining forty thousand pounds justly due-money of his which you have been making away with? Will you let a mere technical rule of law outweigh the dictates of honour and conscience?"

"I do not exactly understand your drift, Lord C.'

"Your sovereign has a right to command your services; and by obeying him and serving your country, you are enabled to prevent a malignant opponent from ruining you and your family, by extorting a vast sum of money not equitably due: I protest I see no difference in principle, Aubrey, between availing yourself of the statute of limitations, and of the call of the king to foreign service ;-but we must talk of this again. By the way, what is the name of your worthy opponent? Tittlemouse, or some such strange name?"

"Titmouse!-By the way, you lose a seat for Yatton," said Aubrey, with a faint smile. Lord C pricked up his ears.

"Ay, ay! how's that?"

"The gentleman you have named professes, I understand, Liberal principles; probably he will sit for the borough himself; at all events, he will return the member."

"He's a poor ignorant creature, isn't he? What has made him take up with Liberal principles? By taking a little notice of him early, one might -eh? influence him;-but you don't intend to vacate this session ?"

"I intend this day to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds ; and this evening, if you like, a new writ may be moved for the borough of Yatton."

"You must come down to night, my dear Aubrey, you really must," said Lord C, with undisguised anxiety- with more than he had shown during the interview. "The numbers will run very close; they are stirring heaven and earth;-good Heavens! my dear Aubrey, a vote's invaluable to night;-Gad, you shan't

have the Chiltern Hundreds; you mustn't really apply for it at all events, not till to-morrow."

"I shall sit no more in the House of Commons," said Mr Aubrey, with a sad, determined air;-" besides, I leave for Yatton by to-night's mail. There are those waiting for me whom you would not have me disappoint, Lord C-!"

"Not for worlds, my dear Aubrey," replied Lord C, half absently; he was intensely disappointed at not obtaining Mr Aubrey's vote that evening; and rose to go.

"Then I direct to Yatton, when I have occasion to write to you?" said he.

"For the next three weeks only. My movements after that period are not yet fixed."

"Adieu, Aubrey; and I entreat of you to remember me most sincerely to Mrs Aubrey and your sister; and when you look at them, rememberremember our conversation of to-day." With this, Lord C took his departure, and left poor Aubrey much depressed. He quickly, however, roused himself, and occupied the principal part of the day in making the necessary and melancholy arrangements for breaking up his establishment in Grosvenor Street, and also disposing of his wines, books, and furniture at Yatton. He also instructed a house-agent to look out for two or three respectable but small houses in the outskirts of town, out of which they might choose the one which should appear most suitable to himself and Mrs Aubrey, on their arrival in London. About eight o'clock he got into the York mail, and his heart was heavy within him.

THE Germans are wont to complain that they have been long overlooked, and are, even when recognised, much misapprehended and misrepresented by foreigners-especially by the vain Frenchman and the proud and prejudiced Briton. There is some reason certainly for the complaint. The Briton is isolated by the sea, and the Frenchman by self-conceit. Had these walls of partition been wanting, a much nearer approach to mutual appreciation might by this time have been effected. But if the Germans will only seriously consider the matter, they are honest enough to cons fess, that they have themselves principally to blame. Among nations, as among individuals, a man is what he gives himself out for. When Henry the Fowler, amid the sands and mosses of Brandenburg, laid the foundation of those strong fortresses that were destined to expand with the progress of years into the flourishing cities of a Prussian monarchy-when Otho the Great, beneath the walls of Augsburg, gave chase to the fleet hordes of the Huns, and checked the barbarians of the East in their devastating inroads on European civilisation-when Barbarossa held the stirrup, not to the Pope, but to Peter, (as his pious pride expressed it,)-when Frederick II. crusaded more successfully with his wit than with his sword, not at the bidding of Innocent III., but in despite of him when the monk of Wittenberg dared to speak naked truth in the face of pompous lies and decorated dignities, and with one word, in which there was no mystery but honesty, made the whole of Europe electric: in those days, Europe respected Germany, and willingly acknowledged that thing to be mighty, whose might she experienced. It is ever thus. Modest genius is sometimes overlooked certainly. A Spinoza may choose to sit in his solitary study, feeding spiders and weaving cobwebs-and,

being a philosopher, find his reward in the solitude he seeks. But this sort of retiring genius has no right to complain of being overlooked by the great world. The great world is too urgently pressed by the necessities of the moment to enter with every erudite Faustus into the chamber of metaphysics, to cite devils: your microscope may be a wonderful discovery; but when I am digging wells and drawing water, I do not care to enquire how many leviathans may be swarming in this or that globule. So it was with the German mind: for two centuries after Luther, Europe heard nothing of Germany. Politically, the empire was null. In that "confusion divinely preserved," it would have required the eye of a god to read the germs of future organization. Religion was ossified into school-theology; and the thirty years' war was the price paid in blood and burning for the life of Martin Luther, who (according to Romish faith) should have been sacrificed at Worms, as John Huss was at Constance. What we call literature, or the light sportings and joyous careerings of thought, amid such universal devastation there could be none. Like a wounded snake, the German soul crept into a dark corner, and was forgotten by Europe. Meanwhile, Louis XIV. arose; and, like every other energetic thing that plants itself boldly on the foreground of human action, and surrounds itself for the moment with loud explo sions and coruscations-were it but of brilliant pyrotechny,-Louis XIV. was seen of men, and bewondered both in Germany and England. Surely the Germans have no reason to complain of this. They themselves were the first to bow in slavish submission before the new idol, and the price they put upon themselves by their famous era of Frenchification, that price was put upon them by others.† England worshipped Louis XIV. and Voltaire

:

always moderately, and was ready to acknowledge German gods also; so soon as these gods should make themselves known. But here lay the difficulty. The Germans themselves allow that their genius is not calculated for display they had no fuochi artificiali to exhibit, no holiday splendour to dazzle; they were not born dramatists like the French; and they experienced the neglect that the learned Benedictine does, whose commentary on the Bible is less read than the last new novel. England is not to blame in this matter. What was England to think of German literature, when the greatest philosopher that Deutschland produced during the early part of the last century -Leibnitz-wrote not German, but Latin and French? and Mosheim also, the erudite, the elegant Mosheim, walked through the schools of Europe, not as a German, but as a modern Roman? Here was a nation giving the lie publicly to its own individuality, and forswearing its mother tongue. Could England respect a people so wofully destitute of selfrespect as Germany was in those days? England was, in the first place, not to blame for not storming the intellect of Germany, retired, as it was, behind huge fortifications of lumbering erudition and thorny metaphysics; and, in the next place, when Germany did come forward to show herself to the public, could England recognise the sons of Herrman and Barbarossa, in men who mouthed the periods of Cicero, or minced the smooth pretti ́nesses of Versailles?

The German people, by their own selfdisowning character, established a presumption against themselves that they were nothing. If they afterwards found it somewhat hard to overturn this presumption, and prove, to the conviction of universal Europe, that they were "something in the world," and that not a small thing, they only experienced the difficulty which every professional buffoon must encounter when he sets himself seriously before men to-establish a character for wisdom.

Madame de Staël published her Allemagne in 1813-it is now the year

1840. In these seven-and-twenty years, a vast deal has been done in England, in France, and by the Germans themselves, to establish themselves strong in public opinion; and we even see them aspiring here and there to wield the literary sceptre with as lordly a sway as ever graced the dynasty of Voltaire. No one who is even superficially acquainted with the floating literature of the day, can fail to have observed how flauntingly long-despised Germanism spreads its phylacteries on every side. Thomas Carlyle, the great apostle of the Teutonic gospel, can now afford to leave the serving of tables to deacons, and expound leisurely to admiring assemblies the mysteries of cosmopolitan hero-worship from Odin to Mirabeau. In England, at least, the Germans can no longer reasonably complain that their literature is underrated. Wherever they will let us see with our own eyes, and do not hold up a sieve before us, (as the Spanish proverb has it,) we are willing to see what is to be seen in German regions, and give an honest report of what we have seen. As little are the Germans underrated in France-witness Cousin. And we think it right here to put our German friends in re-. membrance of the vast obligations they lie under to the French-and specially to Madame de Staël. From the publication of this lady's workcontemporary as it strangely enough was with the famous liberation war which re-established their political reputation-we have to date the great European reaction in their favour, and the re-establishment of their literary reputation. It is not without sorrow, therefore, that we find the Germans generally speaking in terms of somewhat stinted praise of this remarkable work. The Conversations Lexicon, a sort of oracle in Germany, pronounces, "Rich as this work undoubtedly is in acute and clear thoughts, and admirable as is the fervour with which the authoress recommends German manners and German art to the attention of her countrymen, many oblique views and false sentiments have been justly censured; and