reports one sees in the Times of the proceedings of the Bankruptcy Court-Mottram's case in little ;-we wanted nothing but the name of Mr. Commissioner Fonblanque, or of his brother Williams, to complete the summary. So, dear L. E. L., I will not touch upon thy difficulties, in detail. I merely repeat "she was not rich." She had one vital, noble, absorbing object in view-the establishment and promotion of a brother, whose wants and whose means one may comprise in few words he had been an Oxonian, and became a curate. Can one say more? And to this tie was every fond thought given; yes, whilst the world taxed her with more than levity, impugned her of debasing attachments, and pursued her with slanders, to this tie were her time, her health, her hopes, her prayers bestowed.

But think not, ye who carelessly, or maliciously, or enviously repeated or invented calumnies of one of whom English women might well be proud-think not that your shafts fell powerless. They struck into her heart. Think not that the bravado, sometimes uttered, was not followed, in secret, by burning resentment, and bitter tears. Ye, who could convert the carelessness of an occupied and innocent mind into proofs of guilt, be satisfied of this-the arrow sped-the wound it made, was a festering and deadly wound, and was never, never healed. I know it-I could tell it by a thousand proofs, by the bitterness which characterised a nature as kind as ever woman owned-by the very endeavour to conceal the pang-by the pride which now burst forth from one as devoid of that quality heretofore, as she was of the envy which she encountered. I knew it, by the sudden and sharp, feverish illness, with no source but a harassed and over-wrought mind, a wounded spirit that disdained, on that one point, sympathy, and shrunk, on that one point, from confidence.

Her gaiety was now forced; and I noticed, for the first time, a sharpness in her replies. Her spirits, which heretofore had had the aroma and the sparkling of champagne, had become like the effervescence of a saline draught; but the wormwood never long preponderated in her disposition. She was still lauded and calumniated, flattered and betrayed, by half the world. What a picture of society! But depend on this, ye, whose eyes this retrospect may reach, that the venom of mankind is called forth by the celebrity of others, as,—to what shall I compare it?-to the guano, may be, which scorches up delicate plants, kills animals, converts the roots of dahlias into blackened corses-but brings forward fat cabbages, coarse turnips, ungainly potatoes, and unsightly bean-stalks, into a coarse luxuriance of growth. Some people escape wonderfully with all their imperfections on their heads, and deserving to be shunned, they manage to keep their ground. How well is this illustrated (I hate the common word, but can find no other) in the exquisite novel of "Violet." Poor Violet-(is it moral or not to pity her?)-humbled, repentant, crushed, creeps into her opera-box, a shawl thrown around the form which had once exhibited on the stage; she dares not raise her eyes to the high-born and well-established matrons about and around her. She looks straight forward, and sees her former associate, a woman of the world, a woman of intrigue, but married; she beholds her received, undaunted, her sins well-varnished over, her reputation secure. those who could dive into the recesses of thought, would find the breaking heart of Violet half ready for Heaven; that of the respectable friend filled with the deadliest and most culpable of passions.

Yet,

Well was it said by a lady whose course of life one blighting sin has defaced (and most justly)-"I am not so concerned and indignant at not being received by virtuous women; it is when I reflect by whom I am cut that my spirit rises to bitterness." If an

The gifted and the unprotected can do nothing unseen. elderly friend waited for L. E. L.'s manuscript while she scored it off in her little drawing-room, he was sure to be minuted by some one who could tell you the next day, with the precision of a witness in a court of justice, how long he had been there. Much was invented, much was amplified; much was believed by the distant and the unknown, nothing by those who were near and intimate with her whom her own sex chose to vilify, and whom some of mine-I feel a spasm in my right foot when I think of it, a sort of impulse that I will not specify -were low enough to tax their empty brains to talk about. But let us have done with this. She had many true and generous friends. Among these, one instance: a lady of the highest respectability, truly religious, the mother of grown-up daughters, long and intimately acquainted with L. E. L., upon her engagement with Mr. Maclean, saw the risk of further slander in that very engagement. She took the unprotected authoress to her own luxurious house, where propriety in its fairest forms-the respected mother, and her good and gentle daughters-guarded her whom her own sex should have shielded from reproach. And there she staid until she left for Cape Coast Castle. But I forget myself; this was after the time when her engagement to Mr. Maclean was renewed, and finally arranged. Let it pass; and now for a few words on that engagement. The common surmise is, that L. E. L. married the governor of Cape Coast to be married-to fly from the slander-to have a home and a sanction. No-these were not her reasons, for she was truly and ardently attached to one whom she declared was the only man she had ever loved. She confided in him, she pined in his absence, she sacrificed for him the friends, the country, the society, to which she had been accustomed. But she made one false step. Mr. Maclean had sought her hand in marriage; it was promised: and then, after a temporary separation, after a kindly farewell, after several letters, written in the approved style of persons so situated in respect to each other, behold! the correspondence on the gentleman's part suddenly ceased. No explanation-no regrets followed. Never shall I forget the anguish of my poor friend. I have often been touched to tears by that exquisite exclamation of Beatrice to Hero, "Would I were a man, dear coz, that I could avenge thee!" I am a man, but my hand was stayed, and I was compelled to see her suffer a long, long attack of feverishness, depression, and inertia, and to be silent!

Weeks passed away-weeks of that time when everyone is away from London, and the few humanized creatures in it draw closer together. I called every day to inquire in Berkeley Street," a little better-not so well-at last down stairs." I saw her. No news from Scotland? No: but a thousand surmises, a thousand hopes and conjectures, a certainty of anything but that he meant to withdraw, were hurriedly expressed; her cheek flushed as she spoke ;-I dropped the subject. A few weeks elapsed: I was a privileged person, and I called to take L. E. L. a drive in my cab. She came gaily out, but looked shattered, thin, and was careless in her attire. We drove round the inner circle of the Regent's Park; it was a soft and bright morning, and

There was

the air blew freshly on the delicate cheek beside me. upon her face, nevertheless, that peculiar look of suffering which I never saw on any other countenance; as if every nerve had the ticdoloureux-as if every moment were torture. She abandoned herself to dejection, and spoke not. At last, I took the privilege of a friend, and gently remonstrated with her. I pointed out to her that she was unreasonable to indulge in sorrow for a man who had evidently given up all thoughts of her; that it was inconsistent with the dignity due to herself-it was unworthy-unwise-distressing to her friends. She answered me-I did not dare to look at her face as she spoke-(we drove round and round) but I hear her voice now; it was very low, and inexpressibly plaintive, as she said, "But I have never loved any one else." This was her reasoning, poor child of song! and she proffered no other. I answered not-she sank into silence. We drove onthe air seemed to soothe her-when suddenly she declared that she was tired and faint, and begged me, somewhat hastily, to take her home. I did so and I saw her not again for some time. But I heard that she was constant to her (as she had then declared to me) first attachment, because she then refused an offer from a gentleman whom I knew by name.

The next time that I saw L. E. L., she was all joy; Mr. Maclean had returned to London; she had seen him; the engagement had been renewed. They were to be married in the spring. "And to go to Cape Coast?" I asked with a shiver. "Yes," she answered carelessly, as if that arrangement were of little moment; and indeed she all along spoke of her emigrating to that Land of Death in the same light fashion as if she were going to take a journey into Yorkshire. She was now

all excitement-I hardly dare to call it joy; it was, at any rate, such joy as one feels after being pulled up out of a wet ditch, and told that one has three miles to walk home: it was the joy of a person released from a pressing sorrow, but not restored to ultimate peace of mind. I do not mean to offer explanation here; I merely state what I saw, or fancied I saw. There was always to me a mystery in the sudden breaking off and the sudden renewal of that ill omened engagement; I did think its dissolution might have been caused by some kind friend repeating certain reports to Mr. Maclean; but I was mistaken. And to do Mr. Maclean justice, he showed a thorough contempt of those slanders; he treated them as a man would do, who knows the world well, and who understood the character of women better than one would have conjectured.

in

Well, they were engaged; and I must here declare, for the sake of my future emancipation from the jokes of saucy cousins, that I never my life said one word of love to L. E. L. on my own account. If I had, she would have answered me as she did to another friend, whom she did not wish to lose as a friend, but had rejected as a lover; the answer was very good, but on second thoughts, I will not put it down in this retrospect; it may have been a circular that she kept for her admirers, and I do not wish to give offence.

All was now fixed as fate; but I never could see L. E. L. I saw, once, the ghost-like form of him whom she named to me as her future lord, and he seemed to me like one who had buried all joy in Africa, or whose feelings had been frozen up during his last inauspicious visit to Scotland; but since mine is a retrospect of the departed, not a

Mr.

volley of shafts at the living, I will say little more of one who must ever bear about in his heart a mournful remembrance of the wife suddenly snatched from him, and who must associate with his own country her image when he took her from her English home. Maclean, I know, pointed out strongly the disadvantages and dangers of his colonial station, and he certainly warned the destined one of what she had to encounter; but she was resolute.

The marriage took place, to a certain extent, privately; and it was not acknowledged till a month afterwards why, I never could tell; and if Mrs. Maclean were satisfied, I had no right to be displeased. At last it appeared in the papers, and she prepared for her departure. I rarely saw her, for she was, to my surprise, as much involved in literary pursuits as ever; writing to the last moment, and making arrangements, on the eve of her departure, for new works, and she was, evidently, to be no more independent of exertion than if she had remained single. But her spirits had evidently revived; she appeared generally cheerful, as in earlier days; her mind never once misgave her, as to the climate or the mode of life which she was destined to encounter. One day I called on her; she was taking leave of a foreigner, a publisher, to whom she had been peculiarly kind. The poor man could scarcely utter his thanks, in his broken English. His expressions would have been ludicrous if they had not proceeded from the heart, and their truth attested by eyes swimming in tears. And it was for no common benefits that he thanked L. E. L. For years she had given him her aid gratuitously, for his publication. She assured him that she would still do so. "Ah! but you will not be here. I shall not have them from your hand." He retired, overcome. I, too, took my leave. I saw her no more except on one occasion.

The last Coronation took place the very day before the departure of L. E. L. She, who once had enjoyed all exciting amusements, had hoped to have left London before the event. But it was not so.

The night before that on which Victoria was crowned was, as everyone must acknowledge, one of general insanity: London one great, though free Bedlam-club-houses in commotion-hotels distractedpublic-houses run mad-waiters wanting strait-jackets-and milliners and mantua-makers raving lunatics. The lucid interval did not come till a week afterwards. That night, surely everyone must remember, how post-horses were hurrying in, and what cargoes of band-boxes were on every carriage, how omnibuses even ran as if they had right to share in the general delirium, and all the cabmen drove as if they were tipsy. I am persuaded there were not ten people in London that night, sound in their reason. Housemaids were making shakedowns for country cousins of their master's, in desperate haste-footboys were cleaning shoes over night. Everything but washing and eating was to be done six hours before the usual time. Ladies were dressing for the Abbey at twelve o'clock. The hair-dressers came, as ghosts do, at midnight. Well! I think I should have done the same if I had paid ten guineas for a peep at the ceremony-(and this, without Prince Albert-It was dear!)

To add to the general fatigue, and to prepare themselves better for the exploits of the next day, it was the fashion, that night, to give a party, this was a proof of the predominant insanity. Creatures who were to steal out before the cock crew should have gone to roost with

the fowls. Nature says so; there was, however, a good reason why a party should be given for L. E. L., once more to collect around her those whom she had often cheered, and whom she valued.

I am told it was an interesting evening. Several persons of rank, many of high talent, friends in the true sense, some of them, for their friendship has survived the grave, bade her adieu that evening; among the rest, the good and kind, and ill-fated Earl of Munster, who always manifested an interest in the talents of L. E. L., and who valued her merits. I was not present-I had a glimpse of her the next day.

She was overwhelmed with tickets for the déjeûnés of different clubs; and, for a short time, she looked on the unrivalled pageant from the window of St. James's Street. As the Lancers, in a style never to be forgotten, 'rode down the street, I, who had mingled with the crowd, caught a glimpse-my last glimpse of L. E. L. I saw her white veil thrown back as she rose quickly, and leant forward to look on those proud horsemen-the flower of the aristocracy. The next day she had departed.

Seven years have passed away, since on New Year's Day, 1838, I heard that she had died-that bright intellect was extinct-that noble heart had ceased to beat. All we know of her death is this: she was found, half an hour after taking from a black boy a cup of coffee, brought by her order, leaning against the door of her chamber, sitting as if she had sunk down in an effort to rush to the door for help. A bruise was on her cheek-a slight bruise on the hand, which was pressed upon the floor:-(these details were not in the inquest, but are true)-an empty phial (so said the maid who found her) in her hand. The same day witnessed her death-the coroner's inquest-the interment of her loved remains. This is all we know: how she died, whether by the fiat which calls many to their last account without a moment's warning; or, but I will not-I cannot pursue the speculation; she is gone! Some future day the dread mystery may, perhaps, be solved.

THE GAOL CHAPLAIN;

OR, A DARK PAGE FROM LIFE'S VOLUME.

CHAPTER LI.

A RIGHTEOUS TREASURER.

“When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast; and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood."

TILLOTSON.

"Business! business!" was the cry. The minutes would be inexpedient and unjust; the minutes of the preceding meeting were read; and the parties present were called upon, at once and formally, to confirm them. They were in the act of doing so, when a rough, bull-headed, resolute-looking man rose, and begged they "would give him breathing-time;" he "was old and slow;" and "could jump to no hasty conclusions." He "desired further information;" "wished to learn what Nurse Dangerfield had to say in her own behalf;" for "in his judgment she was now as much put upon her trial as Mr. Pennethorne."