sibility would have been sobered into fact. Every plaintiff, in his showing, would have been wronged irreparably; every defendant would have been as unsullied as snow. His would have been the most irreproachable of declarations, his the most impregnable of pleas. The reporters might have tittered, the bar might have smiled, the bench might have shaken its heads; nothing would have persuaded him that he was beaten. He would have thought the battle won, when his lines were forced on all points; he would have deemed the house secure, when the timbers were cracking under his feet. It would have been delicious, when his strongest objection had been overruled, when his clearest argument had been stopped, when his stoutest witness had broken down, to see him adjusting his gown with a self-satisfied air, and concluding with all the emphasis of anticipated triumph, "that is my case, my lord."

Or if he had coveted senatorial fame, what a space would he have filled in the political hemisphere! If he had introduced a turnpike bill, the house would have forgotten Emancipation for a time; if he had moved the committal of a printer, Europe would have gazed as upon the arrest of a peer of the realm. The minister he supported would have been the most virtuous of statesmen, when both houses had voted his impeachment; the gentlemen he represented would have been the most conscientious of constituents, when they had sold him their voices at five per cent. over the market price.

Destiny ordered it otherwise. One day, in that sultry season of the year, when fevers and flirtations come to their crisis, and matrimony and hydrophobia scare you at every corner, I happened to call at his rooms in Regent-Street, at about that time in the afternoon which the fashionable world calls daybreak. He was sitting with his chocolate before him, habited only in his robe-de-chambre; but the folds of that gorgeous drapery seemed to me composed in a more studied negligence

than was their wont; and the dark curls upon his fine forehead were arranged in a more scrupulous disorder. I saw at a glance that some revolution was breaking out in the state of my poor friend's mind; and when I found a broken fan on the mantel-piece, and a withered rosebud on the sofa, Walker's Lexicon open on the writing-table, and an unfinished stanza reposing in the toast-rack, I was no longer in doubt as to its nature-The Honorable Ernest Adolphus Volant was seriously in love.

It was not to be wondered at that his mistress was the loveliest being of her sex, nor that he told me so fourteen times in the following week. Her father was a German prince, the proprietor of seven leagues of vineyard, five ruined castles, and three hundred flocks of sheep. She had light hair, blue eyes, and a profound knowledge of metaphysics; she sang like a syren, and her name was Adelinda.

I spent a few months abroad. When I returned, he was married to the loveliest being of her sex, and had sent me fifty notes to inform me of the fact, and beseech me to visit him at Volant Hall with the requisite quantity of sympathy and congratulation. I went, and was introduced in form. Her father was a country clergyman; the proprietor of seven acres of glebe, five broken arm-chairs, and three hundred manuscript discourses; she had dark hair, black eyes, and a fond love of poetry: she danced like a woodnymph, and her name was Mary.

He has lived since his marriage a very quiet life, rarely visiting the metropolis, and devoting his exertions most indefatigably to the comfort of his tenantry, and the improvement of his estate. Volant Hall is deliciously situated in the best county in England. If you go thither, you must go prepared with the tone, or at least with the countenance, of approbation and wonder. He gives you of course, mutton, such as no other pasture fattens, and ale, such as no other cellar brews. The stream that runs through his park

supplies him with trout of unprecedented beauty and delicacy; and he could detect a partridge that had feasted in his woods, amidst the bewildering confusion of a Lord Mayor's banquet. You must look at his conservatory no other was ever constructed on the same principle. You must handle his plough he himself has obtained a patent for the invention. Everything, within doors and without, has wherewithal to attract and astonish,-the melon and the magnolia, the stable and the dairy, the mounting of his mother's spectacles, and the music of his wife's piano. He has few pictures; but they are the masterpieces of the best masters. He has only one statue; but he assures you it is Canova's chef-d'œuvre. The last

time I was with him he had a theme to descant upon which made his eloquence more than usually impassioned. An heir was just born to the Volant acres. An ox was roasted and a barrel pierced in every meadow: the noise of fiddles was incessant for a week, and the expenditure of powder would have lasted a Lord High Admiral for a twelvemonth. It was allowed by all the county that there never was so sweet a child as little Adolphus.

Among his acquaintance, who have little toleration for any foibles but their own, Volant is pretty generally voted a bore.

"Of course, our pinery is not like Mr. Volant's," says Lady Framboise; "he is prating from morning to night of his fires and his flues. We have taken some pains; and we pay a ruinous sum to our gardener.-But we never talk about it."

"The deuce take that fellow Volant," says Mr. Crayon ; "does he fancy no one has a Correggio but himself? I have one that cost me two thousand guineas; and I would not part with it for double the sum.But I never talk about it.”

"That boy, Volant," says old Sir Andrew Chalkstone, "is so delighted to find himself the father of another boy, that, by Jove, he can speak of nothing else. Now I have a little thing in a cradle too: a fine boy they tell me, and vastly like his father.But I never talk about it."

Well, well! Let a man be obliging to his neighbors, and merciful to his tenants; an upright citizen, and an affectionate friend;-and there is one Judge who will not condemn him for having "the best bat in the school!"

"WILL you never hold your little, yelping tongues to-night?" said Beaty Lawson to the nursery brood, whom she had presided over ever since their 'birth, and whom she had just tucked into the various sized cribs which surrounded an ample nursery. "Your elder brothers are all quiet in the next room, and so is your sister; I'll warrant they dinna get leave to cheep a word at school, after they are in their beds; and they will be weel sleepit and up before any of you bairns, to wish their mamma a good Hansel Monday."

"Well but, Beaty, just answer me this one question," said a pertinacious little rogue, raising a curly bullet of a head from a well-tumbled pillow;"I'll go to sleep this instant if you will only tell me. Was that a guinea mamma sent out to get silver for ?-I wonder how much we'll get to our hansels ?"

"Oh, Jemmy, you should not be thinking about money after you have said your prayers," whispered a fairhaired little girl, whom Beaty loved above all the rest; "you know that nurse says, the fairies can turn it all into chucky stones, if we think about money in our beds."

"Tut, nonsense!" said Jemmy;"Mary is always dreaming about the fairies, because papa calls her his little elf. Well, if I get five shillings for my hansel, I'll buy you a little green coaty, Mary, if you'll promise not to turn my money into chucky stones."

Well, do not say another word about it, but go to sleep this instant. See, you are wakening Willie, and I'll have the whole pack of you up; and if that's the case, Jemmy, I'll positively leave you at home when we go to the shops in the morning."

This terrible threat had the desired effect, for Beaty was known to reign despotic in the nursery; and her judgments being as merciful as just, they were never interfered with by Mrs.

Sutton, the mother of these children.

Sweet were the young voices, and the pattering of little feet, which assailed the happy parents' ears, as the little troop burst into their room to wish them a good Hansel Monday. Mr. Seaton kissed his children, and then led them to their mother's bed. The three elder of Beaty's charge could just on tiptoe reach the mother's lips; whilst the father helped a round faced little girl to scramble up the bed, and Beaty held the crowing baby in her arms.

"Now, little Jane, you must not sit on mamma's pillow," exclaimed the dauntless James; for I know all our hansels are under it."

"No, not all," said the silvertongued Mary, "for I see something very pretty peeping out on the other side. Oh, mamma, may I see what it is ?"

The mother smiled, and Mary drew out a little, green silk frock, with silver clasps.

'Oh, it is for me," said the happy child, "because I am papa's fairy!— And here is a doll for Jane, and a purse for James, and another for William; and a little one for me, I declare, besides my pretty frock!"

“Oh, mamma and papa, how good you are!" exclaimed the joyous creatures, and the kisses were renewed.

"Now, my little ones, you must go to breakfast. Nurse, take your boy; his mother's kiss is all he cares for yet."