THE ROMANCE WILL BE CONTINUED IN SUCCEEDING NUMBERS UNTIL ITS COMPLETION IN THE MAGAZINE. CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND. NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. GAINS LOST AND LOSSES GAINED. BY HORACE SMITH, ESQ. WISE is the Millionaire, who, while Distrusts so false and blind a guide, Still wiser he, who, losing all, Can philosophically fall, And resolutely nerve his Mind to meet his alter'd fate, Dining off delf with zest as great, The storm-toss'd mariner, who flings With pity views the laden barque, Still doom'd, amid the tempest dark, Thus may the ruined Merchant, moored Of him, still floating, all aghast, Who struggles, but must yield at last, Our fears of ill by far exceed The ill we fear, for croakers feed On miseries ideal, Suspense removed, the mind re-acts, And men, who quailed at fancied facts, Jan.-VOL. LXXXII. NO. CCCXXV. B The merchant who succumbs to fate, In this o'erwhelming crisis, More honoured from his overthrow, Which, as it falls, still rises. Happy! who, losing all his pelf, Who, taught that Fortune's chalice Once poorly rich, now richly poor, From thine own mind thou reapest, For all that gives our life its zest, Experience-taught, from rashness free, Thy course thou wouldst renew in, Thus, their past errors all atoned, And England's self, in trial's hour, Her giant limbs still plastic, Yes-spite of all external foes, That fiercely have o'erswept her, Her world-compelling sceptre. LA CAMICIA RAPITA. I. O mercy, God! what masking stuff is here? Taming of the Shrew. "Ir is a very extraordinary thing, Susan, that the laundress never will send home my things right. Every week there is sure to be some mistake." "I'm sure I'm very sorry, mem! I always desires her to be so particular." "She seems to pay no attention then to what you say to her. Last week she lost one of my best cambric handkerchiefs; the week before she could not account for that pretty fichu, and now there's another article missing." "Indeed, mem! Why I counted the linen over when it came home, and it quite agreed with the bill. I'm sure the number was all right." "The number-yes-perhaps so ;-but what do you call this? This thing certainly can't be mine. It looks as if it belonged to a man!" "Good gracious me, mem, and so it does! Well, I never! As sure as I live, it's a gentleman's-what's-his-name. How could it have got there ?" Look at it, Susan, and "Through the woman's carelessness, of course. see if there's any name or mark upon it that you may discover whose it is." "Oh dear me, mem, I should not like to touch it. I knows nothing about gentlemen's wearing apparel." "You know my things from other people's, I hope. Stuff and nonsense, do as I tell you. I dare say it belongs to the person's husband." "Oh no, mem, that it can't. They're very poor people, mem. He couldn't afford to wear any thing half so good as this. Look at the fineness of the linning, mem, and then the frill is real Bristles lace!" "Indeed!-it's marked, I suppose." “Oh, yes, mem, here in the corner. Gracious goodness, if it ain't a crownet most beautifully worked, and the letter N under it. To think of that !" "A coronet indeed! and the letter N! Do you know who she washes for?" "Oh dear me, no, mem,-I never asked such a question." "Well, make a point of asking now. Take the thing away and be sure you desire Mrs. Jones-if that's her name-to take it back directly, and send home my proper garment. It's perfectly ridiculous." The above colloquy took place one morning in the dressing-room of Mrs. Trevelyan, a very pretty young widow who occupied the first and second floors of 53, Harley-street. In early life-when barely eighteenshe had made a mariage de convenance, or rather it had been made for her, for she had no voice in the matter, an uncle, upon whom she depended being the sole arbiter of her fate. The gentleman who espoused her, in spite of his sixty years and disparities not less remarkable than age, looked forward to a long life of happiness with the beautiful Ethe linde Maltravers, and such was the charm of her disposition, and the natural sweetness of her temper, that he might not perhaps have been deceived, but for one of those accidents to which flesh is unfortunately heir to, and which grow thicker round our path as it draws nearer to the goal: the fact is, he died one day of influenza, after a brief union of little more than a year. That he was sincerely attached to Ethelinde, the manner in which he disposed of his property made sufficiently clear. He left her sole executrix, and the succession consisted of a fine landed estate in Devonshire, and the sum of twenty thousand pounds in the Three Per Cents. But Mrs. Trevelyan did not come into the property without opposition; the will was disputed by the nearest male relative, and a law-suit was the consequence. This was the cause of her being in a temporary residence in London at the time when the preceding conversation occurred, for had she consulted her own inclination her footsteps would never have wandered in the month of June from her beautiful groves and gardens at Torcombe, in spite of the attractions of the London season. In London, however, she was; and much of her time was taken up in interviews with lawyers and men of business, so that except a late drive in the park, or an occasional party to dinner, or at the opera, Mrs. Trevelyan saw little of the gay life in which she was so well qualified, both by nature and accomplishments, to shine. Of the claimant to her late husband's estates, she knew nothing more than that he was a young man of rank who, like many of his class, was in want of money to meet expenses and relieve incumbrances, and she believed he was abroad, though probably hastening homeward as the period drew near for bringing the law-suit, in which he had embarked by the advice of friends, to a close. Though naturally unwilling to forego all the advantages of her position, which she had gained by her own exemplary conduct, and conscious at the same time that her retention of Mr. Trevelyan's bequest was no ruinous deprivation of the rights of the next heir, Ethelinde would willingly have agreed to an amicable compromise, by the advance of any reasonable sum of money to meet the alleged necessities of the young nobleman her antagonist. But the affair was so entirely in the hands of the lawyers that no opportunity offered of proposing terms to the principal, and, moreover, Mrs. Trevelyan was so uncertain of his "whereabouts" that she could find no direct means of communicating with him. Matters were, therefore, left to take their course. II. Why, what, o' devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this ?—Taming of the Shrew. HALF-PAST seven was striking by the clock of St. James's Church, as Lord Norham dismounted at the foot of the steps leading into the Albany in Piccadilly. After glancing admiringly at the beautiful thoroughbred bay which he had ridden, and examining, with some care, one of the animal's shoulders, which seemed less glossy than the rest of his coat, Lord Norham patted the " poor fellow" on the neck, and with a word of instruction consigned him to his groom, and went in to dress for dinner. "This," he said, as he walked towards letter D., where he was housed in a friend's chambers; "this is one of the great discomforts of civilised |