room. I sat down close by the table, and

NING.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me, I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated doors to take his picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish. In thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood: he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time, nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice: his children-but here my heart began to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed. A little calendar of small sticks lay at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there. He had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down, shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. Í heard his chains upon his legs as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep sigh: I saw the iron enter into his soul. I burst into tears-I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had

drawn.

I started up from my chair, and calling La Fleur, I bid him bespeak me a remise, and have it ready at the door of the hotel by nine in the morning.

"I'll go directly," said I," myself to Monsieur the Duc de Choiseul."

La Fleur would have put me to bed; but, not willing that he should see anything upon my cheek which would cause the honest fellow a heart-ache, I told him I would go to bed by myself; and bid him go

do the same.

Laurence Sterne, in “Sentimental Journey."

FROM POPE'S LETTERS TO LADY WORTLEY

MONTAGU.

I have a mind to fill the rest of this paper with an accident that happened just under my eyes, and has made a great impression upon me. I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a common field, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers, as constant as ever were found in romance, beneath a spreading beech. The name of one-let it sound as it will-was John Hewet; of the other, Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man, about five-and-twenty; Sarah, a brown woman of eighteen. John had for several months borne the labour of the day in the same field with Sarah ; when she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to bring the cows to her pail. Their love was the talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood; for all they aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage. It was but this very morning that she had obtained her parents' consent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding clothes; and John was now matching several kinds of poppies and field flowers to her complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of July), a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened and out of breath, sank on a haycock; and John, who never separated from her, sat by her side, having raked two or three heaps together to secure her. Immediately there was heard so loud a crack as if heaven had bursted asunder. The labourers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another. Those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to the place where they lay; they first saw a little smoke, and after this the faithful pair-John with one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face, as if to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or disco.

louring on their bodies, only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave, where my Lord Harcourt, at my request, has erected a monument over them.

Upon the whole, I cannot think these people unhappy. The greatest happiness, next to living as they would have done, was to die as they did. The greatest honour people of this low degree could have, was to be remembered on a little monument.

ALEXANDER POPE.

MR. MUMFORD'S STORY. [Mr. T. W. ROBERTSON, author of "Ours," and "Soeiety," although he has made his chief success as a dramatist, has long been favourably known as a contributor to the light literature of the day.]

The name of Mephistopheles Mumford is too familiar to the British public to require introduction: not that my Christian name is Mephistopheles-but John. Mephistopheles is a "sobriquet " bestowed on me, after my great success in the year '28, at Tutbury, in the drama of the "Fate of Faustus; or, the Fourth of February and the Midnight Hour." My Mephistopheles was the rage in Tutbury. I played it at least six times during the season-an unprecedented run. I afterwards acted it, with similar results, at Eckington, Bunborough, Stickton-le-Clay, Fagthorpe, and Queerham, and was complimented by Lord Landstraddlin, on the occasion of the bespeak of the East Loamshire Yeomanry Cavalry, of which his lordship was Colonel-Commandant, at the T. R. Butterfurrow.

According to a custom, seldom departed from in the dramatic profession, I married young; and according to another equally. established theatrical precedent, the lady I married was possessed only of the treasures of youth, beauty, and amiability. I once scorned the idea of marriage for money, but my views upon that subject have considerably modified. My salary (my wife did not act) was small, but as a compensation, my family was large. Six precious but expensive pledges of affection were born to us in as many years, and I had to work hard to find the necessary boots and batter puddings. Rehearsal in the morning, study in the afternoon, the theatre at even, and often

study all the night, such is the laborious life which the enemies of our profession stigmatize as lazy.

Evil days fell upon us; fever swept away my children. I had toiled to maintain them; I had to toil to bury them. They died of a terrible epidemic that raged in the year that the "Brigand" was brought out at Drury Lane. I was studying Massaroni at the time. I'll not endeavour to say how we felt it. My wife kept all their little shoes she has them by her now.

Four months after the interment of our last darling, my wife was again confined. I had my little daughter christened Evadne. I had played Colonna the night before.

Evadne, I need hardly say, was edu. cated for the stage; that is, she was made to act as soon as she could toddle. Often as Rolla have I borne her on my shoulders across the bridge over the cataract, while the applause was thundered in my ears. Often have I wept over her, as I gently repudiated Mrs. Haller; and often, when I carried her home at night beneath my cloak, the darling would warm her little hands in my breast, and by the time I reached our lodgings have fallen fast asleep in my arms; in short, as my friend Tom Tearlungs (poor Tom was a tragedian at the east-end of London, and died of delirium tremens) said of her, "She was cradled in a helmet, nursed on rose-pink, and weaned on properties."

I have remarked that, generally, the fathers of actresses are absurdly prejudiced in favour of their daughters. They think no other girls can be so handsome, fascinating, or talented. I remember reading a very humorous description, in a work written by a gentleman who, in my poor opinion, would have done more service to his country had he constructed a tragedy rather than a mere novel. It was of one Captain Costigan, the father of Miss Fotheringay, and I laughed heartily at his ridiculous doting. I need not say that I am superior to that sort of weakness, and that in asserting that my Evadne was the loveliest girl ever seen, and the finest actress in certain parts that ever graced the stage, I am not influenced by partiality, but uttering a simple fact that would be endorsed by every check-taker in front of the house. should have seen the box-plan on her be nefits; you should have heard her receptions; you should have read the verses in the Poet Corner of the Flamtattleton

You

Free Press and the Slocum Advertiser and you should have seen the child herself. My dear old friend Jack Madigag, who played the low-comedy in the Cwymrymwym wygeiddon circuit, used to say, "Vad" (he always called her Vad) "has the sort of eyes that go right through a man like a gimlet, and come out at the back of his coat in the shape of brass buttons!" We worshipped her, Mistress Mephistopheles and I. We had lost six, we had to love her for seven!

When Evadne was nearly nineteen years of age, we were acting in a small town in Ireland. I had played Virginius that night, the child, of course, playing Virginia. We were walking home together, when a young man, an officer of the barracks (I recognized him from having seen him in the boxes), came up to us, and asked Evadne if he should have the pleasure of seeing her

home?

I saw that he had been drinking, and I told him positively but politely, that I was my daughter's escort.

"Never mind, old fellow," said he, "you can walk behind, you know."

He advanced towards the child. I held out my disengaged arm, which carried a short Roman sword, wrapped in a guncase. The young man ran his nose on to the hilt, which peeped out of the case, and I dare say hurt himself very much; he swore an awful oath and cried

"You infernal old vagabond, I'll wring your neck off!"

Evadne threw herself between us, just as the heroines do in dramas; and I believe the drunken ruffian would have attacked me, but for the arrival of another young officer, in uniform.

"Hallo! what's the row?" asked the

new comer.

The tipsy fellow swore. I explained: and Evadne trembled violently.

"Look here, Hops," said he in uniform; "you've frightened the young lady. You'd better go to barracks."

The tipsy officer was the son of an eminent English brewer (if eminence can be obtained by brewing beer, which I doubt), and in the regiment was called "Hops."

To cut short a long story, Hops was with difficulty prevailed upon to leave us, and the stranger asked my permission to accompany us as far as our door.

The young man, whom I found to be a perfect gentleman, but lamentably ignorant

of theatricals, walked by Evadne's side, and when we parted we both expressed our sense of obligation.

"Don't mention it," was the reply. "With your permission, I will call to-morrow, and bring the man who left us to apologize."

"Oh! don't bring him again," said the child. "I couldn't bear the sight of him!"

"Then I must hope to bring his written apology."

"At all times, sir, I shall be most happy to see YOU!"

We went in, told our adventure to Mistress Mephistopheles, and were so excited by the event that we could eat no supper.

The next day Lieutenant Lysart, for that was the name of our escort, brought an apologetic note from "Hops," and stayed with us to tea. After that he called upon us every day, and watched Evadne from his box every night, to such an extent that Miss Panker, who had a pretty wit, and played the chambermaids, began to tease Evadne, and to call Lieutenant Lysart Romeo.

My wife and I soon saw that they loved each other. The child lost her appetite and her spirits, but as a sort of compensation, acted with frantic enthusiasm. The exercise of her art was a safety-valve for overcharged and excited sentiment. spoke to her upon the subject; so did her mother, but she only answered us with tears, and we could not bear to see her weep.

I

For the young man, his conduct was respectful and becoming. I showed him by my manner that I thought his visits too frequent, but he called as usual. I discovered that, though an only son, he was poor, for the estate had borne the burthen of a long lawsuit, arising out of a disputed inheritance.

It was the last week of the season. After I had played in the first piece the "Warlock of the Glen "-I went home to supper. Mistress Mephistopheles had prepared some tripe. I ate heartily, and, after a pipe, returned to the theatre to fetch Evadne, who acted in the interlude. She was not in her dressing-room. I knocked at the door, and was told by Miss Panker that she had dressed herself hurriedly and gone. I thought it odd that she should not have waited for me, and walked home again hastily, hoping to catch her. Her mother told me she had not seen her. I ran back to the theatre; the curtain had not fallen on the last piece. Evadne was