THE STORY-TELLER. THE OLD WHITE HAT-AND THE OLD from sinking into the Slough of Despond, by drawing materials from those two terminal mounds; making the past contribute its rich store of historic and poetical recollections, and extracting from the future those sweet and soothI COULD write a volume upon this old white hat, and ing assurances, of whose truth he found daily and delicious upon the eccentric but excellent being that once wore it.-confirmation in the beauty, accordance, and benevolent orPoor Frank Chilvers! thou wert my chosen one, in whom dinations of nature. Thus he lived on, often in great poI had much joy; my Lycidas, with whom at morn and verty, but never discontented with his lot, until nearly his dewy eve I have wandered over woodland, hill, and dale; sixtieth year, when the death of an old bachelor cousin and shalt thou go down into the darkness and corruption suddenly placed him in a state of actual independence, and of the great mother, without the "meed of one melodious comparative affluence. He immediately quitted London tear " and retired to C Row, a village about eleven miles disFrank Chilvers was a younger son of that respectable tant from the metropolis, where he purchased a beautiful family, which has for many ages been settled at Fordham, cottage, and where the writer of this memoir first had the in Nottinghamshire; and as he objected, upon those pecu- happiness of his acquaintance. liar and fastidious notions which formed his character, to A natural modesty, and the perfect content he found in the army, navy, and church, all of which had been submit- his own reflections and occupations, gave him a disposition ted to his adoption with reasonable prospects of advance- to segregate himself from that class of formal and heartless ment, his parents gave him his portion, which was not in-visitors, whose invasions of your house originate in curioconsiderable, and, at his own request, left him to select his sity, and are continued by ceremony; but as the world, own occupation and mode of life. His first speculation was however little disposed to liberality upon other occasions, is to establish a brewery in the country, upon the novel prin- seldom deficient in magnifying any sudden accession of forciple of consuming malt and hops, and excluding quassia, tune, and had exhibited its usual powers of multiplication coculus indicus," poppy, mandragora, and all the drowsy in the present instance, he found it somewhat difficult to syrups of the East" but the knowing rustics did not un-repress the eager advances of his neighbours, when they had derstand being defrauded of their full allowance. They regularly ascertained that Mr. Jackson, the rich city grohad been accustomed to clammy, warming, and soporific compound, and they did not comprehend why a gentleman's son should come into the place and introduce a new liquor, not half so comforting and drowsy as the old. He calmly assured them that it was no new liquor of his invention, but of the very same quality with that barley wine which Xenophon brewed and gave to his troops, in the memorable retreat of the ten thousand. But they shook their heads; tapping their foreheads to one another, to insinuate that his wits were not quite right; and as no one would venture upon a beverage brewed by a madman, he sold off his stock and his business, retiring from the concoction of Utopian beer, with about one-half the property he had embarked in the concern. He made a bad pun upon the occasion, which was one of his inveterate habits, and thought no more of his loss. cer, had sanctioned their visits, by first leaving his card. A blind, stupid, and crawling deference to wealth, if it be not peculiar to the English nation, certainly attains its maximum of intensity among those idolatrous worshippers of the golden calf; of which the reader may be convinced, if he will walk along Cheapside with any civic Croesus, and observe the sycophantic homage and cringing servility with which he will be saluted. Let him travel with such a man in any part of the island, and as he clatters into a country town with his outriders and gay equipage, contemplate the awe-struck look of the natives, and the fawning alacrity of host, hostlers, and waiters, and he will not be surprised that Mr. Jackson, with three stars at the India House, and the best portion of a plum in bank stock, should be deemed a little monarch in his own village. Nobody rode in such a gorgeous equipage; and when he went to church to abjure pomps and vanities, nobody's servant followed, with a gilt prayer-book, in a finer livery or more flaming shoulder knot: of course, nobody could be so proper to decide, whether the philosophic Chilvers was a visitable person or not. Miss Briggs, an elderly maiden relation, and an inmate in the family, decided this important question in his favour, when it was very near being negatived, by declaring, that his being undoubtedly a person of property was quite sufficient; that she dared to say, he was a very good sort of man, in spite of his little oddities; and that, in her opinion, he ought to be visited even in Virgil's well-known line, "O fortunate agricole," &c. determined his next choice, which was the occupation of a farmer; almost the only one, he observed, in which a man can honourably and independently maintain himself by contributing to the support of others. The latter part of this opinion he exemplified more practically than the former; for as he was quite certain that his labourers could not exist upon the common wages, he instantly doubled them; and as, in many instances, he was aware that his customers could not afford to pay the regular price for his produce, he sold it under the market rate; both which modes of farming, co-operating with the bad times, eventu-spite of his old white hat. ally impoverished him, and procured him, from those who Chilvers was so elemental in his views, as generally to had benefited by his ruin, the title of the silly gentleman-overlook all conventional modes and forms; and thus, farmer. Various were the methods to which he now had without affectation of singularity, he often fell into somerecourse for his maintenance, for he disdained all applica- what grotesque peculiarities. One summer he purchased tion to friends or relations. At one time he was an usher; a white hat, and once ventured to tie it down under his at another, he supported himself, like Rousseau, by copying chin, on account of a face ache. The ridicule and laughter music, in which he was a proficient; now he translated for of the rustics first made him sensible that he had presumed the booksellers; and for some time he was in the situation to deviate from customary fashions; but as he felt benefit of a banker's clerk. It were useless to recapitulate the from that which he had adopted, and had a perfect conmanifold employments in which he was engaged, or the tempt for vulgar or polite raillery, he adhered to his hat as variform difficulties he had to encounter: but it is not use- religiously as a Quaker; and partly from habit, partly from less to record, that in all his trials he invariably preserved obstinacy, constantly wore it, even within doors. the same philosophical equanimity, nor ever suffered his giggling, sneers, and whispering of the visitors, when the eiterated disappointments to cool his philanthropic ardour, irruption formally broke in upon his quiet cottage, sugor diminish his favourable opinion of mankind. Many gested to him the idea of checking their unwelcome invitamen, of restless and inquiring minds, are perpetually run-tions, by going to their houses in his old white hat, and ning backwards and forwards, between the past and the fu- giving them to understand that he never took it off. Even ture, those two impassable boundaries of human knowledge; this expedient failed. A rich man without children, or and in their inability to escape from this narrow range, con-apparent relations, has too much to leave to be left alone, tent themselves, like the squirrel in his cage, with repeating and cards and visits rather increased than diminished, in the unprofitable rotations which afford exercise to their fa-spite of the old white hat. The culties without advancing their progress a single step. Chil- Accident, however, effected what this inseparable appenvers built up the level of his mind, and prevented himself dage could not accomplish. A female cousin of Chilvers, about thirty years of age, had been left a widow, with a little girl of five years old, in a state of utter destitution; and so soon as she learnt his accession of fortune, very naturally applied to him for assistance. Upon occasions of benevolence he was not in the habit of calculating appear. ances, or balancing surmises, so he tied down his old white hat, got into a glass coach, drove to his relation's, and in less than twelve hours from the receipt of her letter, had estab lished her, with her child, in his cottage, giving up his bed room for her use, " Because," as he said, "young women liked to be cheerful, and from the corner window she could see all the company on the great Romford road." When the dust allowed any object to be discerned at that distance, it is certain that a glimpse might occasionally be caught of a drove of oxen, or a cart laden with calves for Whitechapel market; but Chilvers had been told that his window commanded this great thoroughfare, and had never been at the pains to ascertain the nature of its command. Such as it was, there the widow had her habitation, her kinsman little dreaming that, in following the dictates of his kind heart, he had at last hit upon an expedient for effectually clearing his house of ceremonious, card-leaving, and card-playing annoyances. hearted woman did not hesitate in accepting his hand; the marriage took place, and Chilvers, who was before an old rogue, and an old sinner, was instantly converted, in the village vocabulary, into an old fool and an old dotard. This union, dictated solely by benevolence on one side, by gratitude and maternal solicitude on the other, without a particle of love on either, was, without exception, the hap piest and most undisturbed that has ever fallen within my observation. And yet there was no intellectual congruity between them; she was an uneducated simple woman; he was a profound, original, and elemental philosopher. But there was affinity and sympathy in their kind and generous hearts; he had found an object for the overflowings of his benevolent bosom, and she looked up to her benefactor with a mixture of filial and conjugal affection. This case may have been an exception to the general rule, but it certainly affords a proof that disproportion of age is not necessarily incompatible with married happiness. Theirs was unbroken except by death; and he, alas unlike Miss Briggs, came but too soon to visit the cottage, in spite of the inputed mistress, and even of the old white hat. in the very natural supposition that from his indolent and sequestrated habits he would appoint a deputy, for which office several applicants accordingly presented themselves; but he detected the motive of his nomination, determined to punish his annoyers, and to the amazement of the whole village declared his intention of acting. His first step, was to abolish the quarterly dinners, and other indulgences and perquisites, which his coadjutors had been in the long established habit of enjoying ;-his second was to compel them to the performance of those duties which for an equally lengthened period they had been accustomed to neglect; and the result was precisely what he wished--they never troubled him in future. Upon only one other occasion was he moved to enter into the parochial arena, and as it occurred but shortly before his death, of which indeed it was the ultimate cause, and was productive of a little scene of which I was an eyewitness, I shall proceed to relate it.. Chilvers had a mortal antipathy to all interference in parochial affairs, deeming them the infallible foes of neighHowever liberal the world may be in measuring a man's bourly concord, and the bitter springs of jealousy, bicker.. fortune, they seldom extend the same generous estimate to ing, and ill will. During the war, when the militia papers his actions and morals, but are exceedingly prone to de- were left at his house, he regularly inserted in the column duct from his honour and honesty, at least as much as they of exemptions-" old, lame, and a coward," and returned have added to his wealth. So it fared with Chilvers. They it to the proper officer, generally within an hour of his have were willing to overlook his whims and caprices, and evening seen it. Once he was appointed overseer for the poor, tolerate his old white hat, but there was really no shutting their eyes to the improper nature of the connexion with this pretended widow, this Mrs. Hall, or Ball, or whatever he called her; and, indeed, it was obviously an old affair, for the brat of a child was the very picture of him. He might, at least, have concealed the creature, and not have Drought her into his own house, and under the very noses of such universally allowed-to-be-respectable people as the inhabitants of C Row. Miss Briggs again took the lead on this momentous abomination; and although, but a very few days before, she had been heard to pronounce him remarkably good-looking for a middle-aged man, she now, with a toss of ineffable anger and disdain, most energetically termed him a good-for-nothing nasty old fellow; and the obsequious village re-echoed the assertion. Footmen, boys, and maids, no longer lifted his latch with cards and invitations; and the females of the place were suddenly seized with an unaccountable obliquity of vision, when they saw him approaching with the unconscious author of this revolution leaning upon his arm. The outrageous puritans instantly crossed over the road, regardless of mud or puddle; some looked steadily at a sigupost, on the opposite side of the way; others gazed upon the heavens, or contemplated the earth; while a few summoned a whole Pandemonium of outraged chastity into their countenances, and passed him with a fling of ineffable scorn; but he was too absent and heedless to be even conscious of the cut, direct and insolent, still less of the cut oblique and embarrassed. He was too happy in the quiet repossession of his house, and resumption of his studies, to be solicitous about the cause; and as to the poor widow, her time and thoughts were so exclusively occupied with little Fanny, her daughter, that she required not the attentions of her neighbours. About half way down Loughton Lane, a footpath strikes off across a large field, and coming out opposite the free school considerably shortens the way to church, I say considerably in a relative sense, as to those who principally availed themselves of it-the lame, and the feeble, and the crutch-supported old men and women who toddled, out of the alms-houses in the lane, and were duly seen on a Sun. day morning creeping across it, as if they could never complete their journey, though they were always sure to be in their places before the bell had done tolling. In point of fact, the distance saved was not above two hundred yards; but a footpath had existed, not only in Farmer Blunt's day, who had owned the field for the last forty years, but time out of mind before him. Farmer Blunt's time, however, was up; he was deposited in the churchyard; and the property having been sold at his death, fell into the hands of Nothing could exceed the amazement of Chilvers when a Mr. Martindale, who had lately returned from Calcutta, I explained to him the meaning of this estrangement. “Why, so saturated with gold, that it had completely tinged his she is not thirty," he exclaimed," and I am sixty; what dis- face, and converted half his liver into bile. Visiting his proportion will secure a man from scandal?". With his new purchase with a worthy successor of „Capability usual philanthropy, however, he soon began to find excuses Browne, it was pointed out to him that Farmer Blunt's for the world, and as he was highly sensitive to any impu- house, though uninhabitable at present, offered singular tations thrown upon his relative, though utterly callous to advantages for the construction of a mansion worthy of its them in his own person, he consulted me as to what con- new proprietor. A very little rebuilding and alteration duct he could adopt, so as to silence calumny, and yet would convert it into an admirable wing, and there would afford the shelter of his roof to this destitute widow. "None," then be nothing in the world to do, but to run up a centre I replied, “but by marrying her.""With all my heart," he and another wing in order to complete the edifice while rejoined, "if Mrs. Ball will give her consent." Already deep- the fields, naturally picturesque, by simply grubbing up ly impressed with gratitude and esteem, weary with strug-the hedges, and planting a few trees, would spontaneously gling with misfortune, and anxious to secure a protector for assume a parkish appearance. Such palpable facilities her little portionless daughter, this simple-minded and kind- were not to be neglected; the old farm-house was tor tured and transmogrified to qualify it for acting the part of a wing; a park paling speedily encircled the field, and a board at each extremity of the abolished footpath informed the world, that " trespassers would be punished with the utmost severity of the law." After church, on the following Sunday, the aforesaid old alms-women of both sexes assembled in a body, under this obnoxious notice, where they spent an hour or two in debating how long they had respectively remembered the thoroughfare; complained bitterly of the alteration;* and though they were all comfortably maintained upon charity, unanimously agreed that nobody cared for the poor now-a-days. The rest of the parishioners, who were either uninterested in the question, or had not the remotest idea of quarreling with a rich man, took no notice of the occurrence, although two or three, who had left cards at the nabob's temporary residence, and not had their visits returned, were heard to declare it was a scandalous proceeding-quite contrary to law, and, for their parts, they wondered the matter was not taken up by somebody. Although every body wishes to be thought somebody, nobody seemed desirous of assuming the character upon the present occasion. My friend having been prevented going to church by illness, his wife staid at home to nurse him for two successive Sundays, and though she was present on the third, and passed the board with the usual conclave of superannuated malcontents under it, she was just then so busy in calculating the cost of Mrs. Palmer's new puce velvet pelisse with fur trimmings, which she was sure she could not afford, and had no right to wear, that she saw nothing on her way home but the shameful sum of nine pounds fifteen shillings, "without reckoning the lining;” which latter words she repeated to herself in a graduated tone of increasing amazement as she recapitulated her calculation, and arrived at the same startling conclusion. Owing thus to his own sickness, and Mrs Palmer's new velvet pelisse, nearly a month elapsed before the nabob's innovation came to the knowledge of the owner of the old white hat. With his usual scepticism he would not trust to the reports of others, but in spite of a recent sickness, and the expostulations of his wife, tied his old hat under his chin, sallied into Loughton Lane, and not content with reading the placard in that direction, skirted the new paling, till he came in front of the free school, where he perused the duplicate, notwithstanding the mud with which some indignant urchins had bespattered it. His resolution was instantly formed. "How can we expect the poor," said he, "who so fearfully outnumber us, to leave us in quiet possession of our fortunes and luxuries, if we are to look coldly on and see them deprived of their humble rights. Reciprocal forbearance and protection are the upholding principles of the social compact, and the best security for the continuance of the former is the scrupulous exercise of the latter." "They may take the law,” said a neighbour to whom he thus expressed himself. They may take Okehamhall," said Chilvers, "for it has been to let these three years, but how are they to pay for it? I wouldn't have gone to law for myself if he had blocked up my hall door, and compelled me get in at the top of my house, like Robinson Crusoe ; but though I might compromise my own rights, I do not feel at liberty to sicrifice those of the poor, so I'll just step on and call upon Mr. Clinch.” Mr. Clinch was a brisk little lawyer, who, by a smirking industry, and technical knowledge of legal quibbles and subtleties, had bustled himself into a thriving business, though he knew no more of the leading principles upon which the noble palladium of the law was built, or of its great expositors, than the rat which is conversant with all the holes, flaws, and hiding places under St. Paul's, knows of architecture and Sir Christopher Wren. He had lately settled in the neighbourhood, having bought a small brick house at the confluence of three roads, on the top of which he had built a fantastical wooden tower, where he occasionally took his wine and the dust; and upon the strength of this castellated superstructure, and two little brass cannons on the lawn, which were always fired when he set off for London at the commencement of term, he gave his residence the very consistent name of Castle-cottage. The rustics called it the Lawyer's Folly;-Chilvers denominated the tower, Mr. Clinch's Coke upon Littleton, and the guns his Term Reports.'' At this interview hostilities were resolved on, and the man of law having learnt, in the course of his inquiries, that old Adam Wright remembered when there was not even a stile at the thoroughfare in question, and had rode through it scores of times on horseback, wrote to my friend, requesting he would order the fellow to step up to C Row, and he would come over, take his bit of mutton with him, and examine the rustic after dinner. Old Adam Wright was a pensioner of Squire Tilson, in whose lodge he resided; and as Chilvers knew him to be infirm, as well as old, his method of ordering the fellow to step up was to send over a chaise-cart for him, with a civil message requesting an interview. I was in the parlour when he arrived, and could not help smiling at his rueful looks, when he saw Mr. Clinch at table with paper before him and pen in hand. Standing close to the door as if fearful of advancing, he cast a most suspicious glance from his little grey eyes, which, from the bend of his body, he was obliged to turn upwards, while a sudden blush reddened his wrinkled forehead, and even tinged his bald head. "Sit down, Mr. Wright," said my friend, at the same time pouring him out a bumper of wine, which the old man tossed off at one gulp with a dexterity worthy of his younger days. The lawyer stared; Adam Wright sate timidly down-drew up his breath, and again gazed round him suspiciously, but upon learning the object of his examination, presently recovered his composure. "I understand, good man," said Mr. Clinch," that you have rode through this field when it was open, scores of times?"_" Never but once," was the reply. "Only once! why then did you say you had ?"—" I never did say so."-" Hem!" said Clinch, a shy bird."" Behold the exaggeration of village gossips," said Chilvers; "but yon did once ride through it, Mr. Wright; will you have the goodness to relate to us what you recollect of the circumstances ?”—“ I recollect them all," replied Adam, "as well as if it happened yesterday, though I was only nine years old at the time. Mayhap, sir, you might know strait-haired Jack, as they called him, that drove the Cambridge ?" Chilvers regretted that he never had that honour. "Well, sir, I was then apprenticed to his own father, old Harrison, that kept the farrier's shop at the lower common."-"How was it bounded on the north ?" interrupted Clinch. "The Lord knows how," resumed Adam. "That must be ascertained, however," quoth Clinch, laying down his pen." It can't be done no how," said Adam, "for the great stack of chimneys has fallen in, right where I used to stand and blow the bellows. God preserve us! Thank heaven there's only a low chimney to our lodge."-" See how an old man clings to life," whispered Chilvers; " he never troubled his head about chimneys when he was young."—" Well, sir,” said Wright, in continuation, "old Harrison (I called him master then) had been trumpeter or horse-doctor in the Greys”- "Which was he?" again interrupted Clinch "he must have been one or the other."-"No, sir, he wasn't, for I believe he was both.""Ay, that will do-go on."“Well, he served in the Greys, I don't know how many years, and when he was discharged superannuated, they allowed him to buy his grey mare that he always rode; and how old she was, God knows, for the mark was out of her mouth afore ever she came to him, and he rode her twelve years in the army. Upon this mare he used to go about for orders, attending the gentlemen's hunters round the country, and what not; but never suffered any body to mount her without it was himself. He had only to call out Polly, and she would come running up to him directly, and would follow him up and down town, just like a dog without ever a bridle, no nor so much as a halter.-Well, master never breakfasted at home;-the first thing in the morning, he used to put some soft gingerbread into his pocket, for his teeth were knocked out at some great battle, and go down to the King's Head, and there, if you passed the bow window, you would be sure to see him in his cocked hat sitting behind a half pint of purl. On the morning I was telling you of” carcase to feed the hounds. But old Harrison was an odd one. Ah! we've got a mort of regular doctors in the pa rish now, besides the poticary, and I dare say they may do well enough for Christians, and such like, but I reckon there's ne'er a one of 'em could stop the glanders in a horse. like. Mr. Harrison." Adam having finished his narrative, Clinch proceeded to question him again upon the more recent occurrences of his life, and finding his recollection much impaired upon these points, he very unceremoniously gave him his dis missal, but not before Chilvers had slipped something inte his hand. "Here's a pretty rascal," said the man of law; "he has heard that we wanted evidence, and has trumped up this circumstantial tale in the hope of a reward; but did you observe how neatly I detected the old rogue when I began to cross-question him? Will any one believe that he could so minutely detail an occurrence of sixty or seventy years ago, in which, by his own account, he was no way interested, when he cannot recollect much more recent and important particulars of his own life?"" The importance of these matters," said Chilvers," is not to be considered abstractedly but relatively; at the time of poor Polly's death, Adam had never witnessed any exhibition more solemn and affecting; probably had never been present at the death of a large animal. You seem to forget that the tablet of the memory, like certain stones, though sufficiently soft at first to receive deep and distinct impressions, hardens with age; and that this very induration fixes and indelibly preserves the characters first engraved, while it prevents any future incisions, unless of a very superficial and evanescent nature. You may scratch or write upon it, and this answers the temporary wants of age, you can no longer chisel or stamp any durable impress upon its stubboru substance. This seeming inconsistency is, in my opinion, a forcible confirmation of old Adam's veracity."" A jury won't think so," retorted Clinch," and that's the only thing to look to." "You have told us of no morning yet," cried Clinch. "ISquire's gamekeeper would have given a fair price for the mean the morning when I rode through the field in the afternoon :-on that morning I took Polly down to the King's Head, according to orders, as master was going over to Romford to look at Squire Preston's hunter that was took ill; but it seems that just as he got to Woodly-end, down came Polly, and a terrible fall by all accounts it was However, master wasn't much hurt, but we saw something had happened by his coming home without Polly, though he never said a word, but desired us all, for he kept three men besides me, to leave off work, take spades and dig a great hole in the yard, while he broke up the ground for us with a pickaxe. To work we went, and in three hours we had made a rare pit, all wondering what it could mean. Adam,' said he to me, when we had done, go to the paddock at the upper common where you will find Polly; bring her here, but don't offer to get upon her back, and don't go faster than a walk.'-So I took a halter". "Was it leather or rope?" inquired Clinch. Adam could not tell, so he proceeded. "When I got to the paddock, there was Polly, sure enough, with her knees all bloody; but as I saw she wasn't lame at all, and seemed in good spirits, I put the halter in her mouth, and going back a little, so as to get a short run, I put my hand upon her shoulder, and jumped upon her back.". "Jumped upon her back!" echoed Clinch, looking incredulously at the decrepit object before him. "Lord love you,” continued | Adam, "I was then as nimble as a squirrel, and as lissome as a withy. So I rode her across this here field, for there wasn't even a stile then, nor any sign of one, and got off when we reached the high road for fear of being seen, and led her into our yard, where master was sitting in his cocked hat, and the men all whispering together up in a corner. As soon as I came in, he called out to our big foreman, Sam,' says he, step up into my room, and bring me down the horse-pistols that I took from the French officer at the battle of I forget what place he said, but I know it ended with a quet, or a narde, or some such sound; so, I can't be much out. They glittered as he took them out of their cases, for he always cleaned them every Sunday morning, and as I stared first at master, as he proceeded to load them, putting two bullets in each-then at the great hole in the ground, then at the men all looking solemn-like, and then at poor Polly, gazing in master's face, while her knees and legs were covered with blood, I felt my heart beat, and was all over in a fluster. When he had finished loading the pistols, he went and stood in front of the mare. Polly," said he, I have rode thee these sixteen years over road and river, through town and country, by night and by day, through storm and sunshine, and thou never made a bolt or boggle with me till now. Thou hast carried me over five thousand dead bodies before breakfast, and twice saved my life; once when the allies left us in the lurch, and we were obliged to scamper for it; once when our company fell into an ambush, and only thirty men escaped. We must both die soon, and should I go first, which I may quickly do if you give me such another tumble, it will be a bad day's work for thee. Thou wouldst not wish to be starved, and mauled, and worked to death, and thy carcase given over to the nackers, wouldst thou?' Polly put down her head, and rubbed it against him, and while she was doing so, he tied a handkerchief over her eyes, and kissing her first on one side of the face and then on the other, he said: Polly, God bless thee;' and instantly fired one of his pistols right into her ear. She fell down, gave one kick, and never moved nor moaned afterwards; but I remember the tears gushed out of my eyes just as if a Christian had been shot, and even big Sam looked ready to cry as he stood over her, and said Poor Polly! We buried her in the hole, and master told us we had worked enough for one day, and might spend the afternoon where we liked, and he was just going to fire his other pistol in the air, when he saw a crow on the top of the weathercock; and, sure enough he brought her down, for he was a rare shot. After all, it was a cruel thing to use a poor dumb beast in that way only for tumbling with him; and no one could tell why he buried her in the yard, when the I have given this dialogue, and old Adam Wright's examination, circumstantially, because every particular is deeply fixed in my own recollection, by the fatal results of which the affair was speedily productive. Chilvers, as I have mentioned, had been ill when he sallied forth to read the placard announcing the shutting up of the footpath. Upon that occasion he got wet he sat some time at Mr. Clinch's: his complaint, which was the gout, was driven into his stomach, and in spite of immediate medical advice, and the unremitted self-devotion of his wife, who never quitted his side, he expired in ten days. Death-bed descriptions are productive of no good to counteract their painful details; they prove nothing; for whatever may be gained in the sincerity of the dying person, is balanced by the diseased state which the mind generally participates with the body. A man's opinions are worth nothing nuless they emanate from a vigorous intellect and sound frame, uninfluenced by immediate hopes or fears Suffice it to say, that Chilvers died as he lived a philanthropist and a philosopher. After the melancholy ceremonies of the funeral, which I took upon myself to direct, I accompanied my wife to the cottage, where we meant to reside for some little time, to offer our consolations to his relict, now a second time a widow. I have never been more forcibly impressed with the vanity of human learning, and the vain glory of philosophy, than in the instance of this uneducated female, who, from an innate principle, or instinct of religion, although utterly ignorant of all theological points, possessed a mas tery over her mind, and a consolation under afflictions, which the most profound adept in the schools of worldly wisdom would in vain attempt to rival. Conscious that the death of her husband was a dispensation of Providence, under which it was perhaps guilty to repine, she set reso lutely about the suppressing of her grief, beginning by cart fully docking up and concealing all those articles of his dress and daily use, which, by recalling him suddenly and forcibly to her recollection, might upset her pious resolutions; so that upon our arrival, we found her in a frame mind, as well as her mistress's. Poor widowed sufferer! of mind much more calm and resigned than we had antici- ever, who had no eyes except for her poor master, whom pated. Though Chilvers never killed a bird, or caught a she was never to see more, returned grumbling to the rug. fish in his life, he had a favourite spaniel, called Juno, al- Exactly the same eager excitement and surly disappointmost as inseparablel al companion as his old white hat; ment occurred, when the maid returned with the toast; but the partaker of his morning rambles, and the invariable the dog, instead of contenting herself with the rug upon residuary of his crusts at tea-time. This faithful animal this occasion, stood before her mistress, looked wistfully his widow could not resolve to dismiss; but with this ex-in her face and whined, as if inquiring for her master. I ception she intagined she tad so disposed of every personal exchanged "glances with my wife, and saw at once that memorial, as to be secure from too frequent a renewal of | we" mutually understood what was passing in Juno's har griefs by the sight of external objects. She was, howerer, mistaken. We were all seated in the parlour, myself and my wife endeavouring to divert the widow's thoughts from the past, by directing them to the future management of her little girl, and flattering ourselves that we had infused into her mind a more than usual serenity, when our attention was aroused by a barking and laughing without, the door was thrown open, and in scampered Juno with the old white hat tied upon her head, while little Fanny followed, shouting behind, delighted with the success of her frolic! O, Fanny! Fanny !" cried the agonised mother; why did they suffer"- - she could not utter a word more; but, overcome by her feelings, rushed out of the room, and locked herself into her own chamber. The child, it seems, had seized the old white hat in the first confusion of her father's death, and concealed it in a closet of the nursery, whence she had now withdrawn it to fasten upon Juno's head, quite unconscious of the distress she was preparing. Young as she was, I endeavoured to impress upon her mind the loss of her papa, for so she always called him, and the necessity of refraining from all mention of his name, or allusion to his death, in the presence of her mother. She appeared to understand, and promised to obey my directions. Fortified and composed by the consolations she never failed to draw, from her solitary religious exercises, the widow shortly returned to the parlour, and a tranquillity, though somewhat embarrassed, was again established in our little circle; when Fanny, ready to burst with the possession of what she considered a mystery, kept hovering about her mother; and at last, taking her hand, and looking up in her face with an affectionate importance, she lisped out hesitatingly, “I know something. Papa's dead, but I mustn't tell you, because it's a great secret, and you'll be angry if I do." The poor widow hid her face in her handkerchief with one hand, and with the other covered the child's mouth, as if to silence her; but as the little urchin seemed disposed to expostulate, I took her by the hand, led her out of the room, and directed the maid to put her to bed. On re-entering the parlour, I once more found the mother in a state of comparative serenity, and calculated on passing the evening without further outrage to her feelings. The child was asleep, the old white hat was locked up, and it was settled that after tea I was to read a sermon, which I had selected for the purpose, as the best adapted to pour balm and peace into her wounded bosom. The equipage was already set out, and I recalled that simple but exquisite picture of fire-side enjoyment, which Chilvers was so fond of quoting: The hearth was swept-the fire was bright, when my attention was called to Juno, who, instead of Gentle reader, forgive me; my heart and my eyes are both too full; I cannot write a word more. SAILORS AND MARINES. BEAUTIES OF FLOGGING. THE words marine and mariner differ by one small letter only; but no two races of men, I had well said no two animals, the "Johnnies." The marines, as I have before mentioned, are differ from one another more completely than the "Jollies" and enlisted for life, or for long periods, as in the regular army, and when not employed afloat, are kept in barracks, in such constant training, under the direction of their officers, that they are never released for one moment of their lives from the influence of strict discipline and habitual obedience. The sailors, on the contrary, when their ship is paid off, are turned adrift, and, so completely scattered abroad, that they generally lose, in the riotous dissipation of a few weeks, or it may be days, all they have learned of good order during the previous three or four years. Even when both parties are placed on board of ship, and the general discipline maintained in its fullest operation, the influence of regular order and exact subordination is at least twice as great over the marines as it ever can be over the sailors. Many, I may say most of their duties are entirely different. It is true, both the marines and the seamen pull and haul at certain ropes leading along the quarter-deck; both assist in scrubbing and washing the decks; both eat salt junk, drink grog, sleep in hammocks, and keep watch at night; but in almost every other thing they differ. As far as the marines are concerned, the sails would never be let fall, or reefed, or rolled their being made to go aloft; and, accordingly, a marine in the There is even a positive Admiralty order against up. rigging is about as ridiculous and helpless an object, as a sailor would prove if thrust into a tight, well pipe-clayed pair of pantaloons, and barrel round the throat with a stiff stock." In short, without going further, it may be said, that the colour of their clothing, and the manner in which it is put on, do not differ more from one another than the duties and habits of the marines and sailors. Jack wears a blue jacket, and Johnny wears a red one. Jack would sooner take a round dozen than marine, if deprived of his suspensors, would speedily be left be seen with a pair of braces across his shoulders; while the sans culotte. A thorough-going, barrack bred, regular-built marine in a ship of which the sergeant-major truly loves his art has, without any exaggerated metaphor, been compared to a man who has swallowed a set of fire-irons; the tongs representing the legs, the pocker the backbone, and the shovel the neck and head. While, on the other hand, your sailor-man is to be likened to nothing, except one of those delicious figures in the fantoccini show-boxes, where the legs, arms, and head are lung loosely about to the right and left, no one bone apparently having the slightest organic connexion with any other; the whole being an affair of strings, and universal joints! The marines live, day and night, in the after part of the ship, close to the apartments of the officers; their arms-chest is |