the attack, he said, 'It is my turn to be biographer now; let us see if the honourable member will call the victory his.'”

"He must do nothing of the kind. I will not answer for his life if he gives way to these bursts of temper."

"I declare I think I'd not interfere with him," drawled out Sewell, as he broke an egg. "I suspect it's better to let those high-pressure people blow off their steam."

"I'm sure Dr Beattie is right," interposed Mrs Sewell, who saw in the Doctor's face an unmistakable look of disgust at the Colonel's speech.

"I repeat, sir," said Beattie, gravely, "that it is a question of Sir William's life; he cannot survive another attack like his last one."

"It has always been a matter of wonder to me how he has lived so long. To go on existing, and be so sensitive to public opinion, is something quite beyond my comprehension."

"You would not mind such attacks, then?" said Beattie, with a very slight sneer.

I should think not! A man must be a fool if he doesn't know there are scores of fellows who don't like him; and he must be an unlucky dog if there are not others who envy him for something or other, though it only be his horse or his dog, his waistcoat or his wife."

In the look of malevolence he threw across the table as he spoke this, might be read the concentrated hate of one who loved to insult his victim. The Doctor saw it, and rose to leave, disgusted and angry. "I suppose Sir William knows I am here?" said he, coldly.

"I suspect not," said Sewell. "If you'll talk to my wife, or look over the Times,' I'll go and tell him."

The Chief Baron was seated at his writing-table when Sewell entered, and angrily cried out, "Who is there?"

"Sewell, my lord. May I come in ?"

"Sir, you have taken that liberty in anticipation of the request. What do you want?"

"I came to say, my lord, that Dr Beattie is here."

"Who sent for him, sir ?” "Not I, my lord, certainly." "I repeat my question, sir, and expect a direct answer."

"I can only repeat my answer, my lord. He was not sent for by me or with my knowledge."

"So that I am to understand that his presence here is not the result of any active solicitude of my family for the consequences of this new outrage upon my feelings," and he clutched the newspaper as he spoke, and shook it with passion.

"I assure you, my lord, Beattie has come here of his own accord."

"But on account of this!" and the words came from him with a hissing sound that denoted intense anger. Sewell made a gesture to imply that it might be so, but that he himself knew nothing of it. "Tell him, then, sir, that the Chief Baron regrets he cannot see him; that he is at this moment engaged with the reply to a late attack in the House of Commons, which he desires to finish before post hour; and add, sir, that he is in the best of health and in excellent spiritsfacts which will afford him increased enjoyment, if Dr Beattie will only be kind enough to mention them widely in the course of his visits."

"I'm delighted, my lord, to be charged with such a message," said Sewell, with a well-assumed joy.

"I am glad, sir, to have pleased you, at the same time that I have gained your approbation."

There was a haughty tone in the way these words were delivered that for an instant made Sewell doubt whether they meant approval or reprimand, but he thought he saw a look of self-satisfied vanity in the old man's face, and he merely bowed his thanks for the speech.

"What do you think, sir, they have had the hardihood to say in the House of Commons?" cried the Chief, while his cheek grew crimson and his eye flashed fire. "They say that, looking to the perilous condition of Ireland, with a widespread conspiracy through the land, and rebellion in most daring form bearding the authorities of the Crown, it is no time to see one of the chief seats of justice occupied by one whose achievements in crown prosecutions date from the state trials of '98! In which capacity, sir, am I assailed?-is it as patriarch or a patriot? Am I held up to obloquy because I came into the world at a certain year, or because I was one of the counsel for Wolffe Tone? From whom, too, come these slanderous assaults? do these puny slanderers not yet know that it is with men as with plants, and that though the dockweed is rotten within a few weeks, the oak takes centuries to reach maturity?

"There were men in the Administration once, sir, in whom I had that confidence I could have placed my office in their hands with the full conviction it would have been worthily conferred-men above the passions of party, and who saw in public life other ambitions than the struggles for place. I see these men no longer. They who now compose the Cabinet inspire no trust; with them I will not treat."

Exhausted by this outburst of passion he lay back in his chair, breathing heavily, and to all seeming overcome.

"Shall I get you anything, my lord?" whispered Sewell.

The old man smiled faintly, and whispered, "Nothing."

"I wish, my lord," said Sewell, as he bent over his chair-"I wish I could dare to speak what is passing in my mind; and that I had that place in your lordship's esteem which might give my words any weight."

"Speak-say on," said he, faintly. "What I would say is this, my

lord," said Sewell, with increased force, "that these attacks on your lordship are in a great measure provoked by yourself."

"Provoked by me! and how, sir?" cried the Chief, angrily.

"In this wise, my lord. You have always held your libellers so cheap that you actually encourage their assaults. You, in the full vigour of your faculties, alive to the latest events, interested in all that science discovers or invention develops, persist in maintaining, both in your mode of living and your companionship, a continued reference to the past. With a wit that could keep pace with the brightest, and an imagination more alive than the youngest men can boast, you vote yourself old, and live with the old. Why, my lord, is it any wonder that they try you on the indictment you have yourself drawn up? I have only to ask you to look across the Channel and see the men-your own contemporaries, your colleagues too-who escape these slanders, simply because they keep up with the modes and habits of the day. Their equipages, their retinues, their dress, are all such as fashion sanctions. Nothing in their appearance reminds the world that they lived with the grandfathers of those around them; and I say, my lord, if these men can do this, how much easier would it be for you to do it? You, whose quick intellect the youngest in vain try to cope with ; you who are readier in reparteeyounger, in fact, in all the freshness of originality and in all the play of fancy, than the smartest wits of the day.

"My lord, it has not been without a great effort of courage I have dared to speak thus boldly; but I have so often talked the subject over with my wife, and she, with a woman's wit, has so thoroughly entered into the theme, that I felt, even at the hazard of your displeasure, I ought to risk the telling you." After a pause he added, "It was but yesterday my wife said, 'If

papa'—you know, my lord, it is so she calls you in secret-'If papa will only cease to dress like a church dignitary, he will not look above fifty -fifty-four or five at most.'"

"I own," said the Judge, slowly, "it has often struck me as strange how little animadversion the Press bestowed upon my English colleagues for their advanced years, and how persistently they commented on mine; and yet the history of Ireland does not point to the early decline of intellectual power. They are fond of showing the characteristics that separate us, but they have never adduced this one."

"I hope I have your lordship's forgiveness for my boldness," said Sewell, with humility.

"You have more, sir; you have my gratitude for an affectionate solicitude. I will think over what you have said when I am alone."

"It will make me a very proud man if I find that my words have had weight with you. I am to tell Beattie, my lord, that you are

Yes. Say that I am occupied with my reply to this slander. Tell him if he likes to dine with me at six-"

"I beg pardon, my lord-but my wife hoped you would dine with us to-day. We have a few young soldiers, and two or three pretty women coming to us

"Make my compliments to Mrs Sewell, and say I am charmed to accept her invitation."

Sewell took his leave with every token of respectful gratitude. But no sooner had he reached the stairs than he burst into a fit of laughter. "Would any one have believed that the old fool would have swallowed the bait? I was so terrified at my own temerity, I'd have given the world to be out of the scrape! I declare, if my mother could be got rid of, we'd have him leading something of sixteen to the altar. Well, if this acute attack of youth doesn't finish him, he must have the constitution of an elephant."

In spite of Mr Montgomery's indignant protests against all who have in any way disparaged his hero, we must confess that neither the life nor the writings of Sir Richard Steele call forth in us the sentiments of admiration or esteem. We should look about for epithets of a much less enthusiastic character to describe the impression he makes upon us. His companions of the Kit-Kat Club, or his intimate friends, were doubtless too delighted with him in his jovial hours to be severe critics; we, to whom the voice of the man is long ago mute, who have nothing before us but the broad facts of his life and the labours of his pen to judge by, may be excused if we have but a very cold approval to bestow. Nevertheless, partly by a certain measure of indisputable talent, partly by his having been the projector of a new species of periodical literature, and partly by the good fortune of having associated his name with that of Addison, he has earned for himself a place in the history of English literature-a place which entitles him, and may long entitle him, to the attention of the biographer. We not unwillingly listen to what his latest biographer, Mr Montgomery, may have to tell us of his life and character.

We are not aware that Mr Montgomery has added anything material to our knowledge of Steele. Such portions of his career as were obscure before, he has left obscure; but he appears to have collected together all that was known of his life, all that could be acquired from the usual sources of information. There are no indications of much research; and we wish we could speak more highly than we conscientiously can, of the style, manner, and tone of

thought in which the book is writ ten. There is no literary charm about it; no grace, no pathos; not a sentence that rises above a laborious mediocrity. On the other hand, we must congratulate both him and ourselves, and all readers of his book, on the absence of that flippant, strained, affected mannerism which infects so many of our modern biographies. We are not in companionship with one of those very clever personages who can never say anything as others say it; who constantly have the air of condescending to their subject; who are by turns very sardonic and very sympathetic, and both precisely where no ordinary mortal would be either one or the other. We have nothing to complain of in Mr Montgomery but a too decided mediocrity, which sometimes takes the shape of solemn platitudes, and sometimes displays itself in a string of ill-constructed and confused sentences, which perhaps should be partly ascribed to indolence or great haste.

Nor can we much commend the plan of the work. The brief biographies which are introduced of the contemporaries of Steele appear to be selected on no intelligible principle, and they often interrupt the thread of the narrative for no apparent purpose. Not all the illustrious men of the age are introduced, but some are admitted because they are illustrious, and some on no better ground than that a volume of the Tatler' or 'Spectator' had been dedicated to them. Some are admitted because they were contemporaries, and some (as in the case of Wycherley, Farquhar, Congreve) because they were predecessors of Steele. These slight biographical sketches answer no purpose that we can detect, except to increase the

bulk of the work, and make it double the size it might and ought to have been. We will not hint, however, that this looks a little like what people invidiously call bookmaking: how could we, when the author has taken pains in his preface to describe the extremely disinterested motives which induced him to undertake this life of Steele? "The writer would willingly," he says, "have left the task to others who might have done more justice to the subject; but finding none disposed to undertake it, and wishing to see such a work, which he considered a desideratum in our literature, he was obliged, as Mr Leigh Hunt said on a similar occasion, to undertake it himself." Mr Leigh Hunt and Mr Henry Montgomery no doubt wrote their several works in a purely self-sacrificing spirit. The thing had to be done. Some one must do it. How happy should they be if another-but if no other, then they will essay the task. And all these addenda-these numerous scanty notices of Pope, and Wycherley, and Swift, and others these also, we presume, had to be done-Mr Montgomery "wished to see such a work;" and as no one else came forward to gratify this wish, and to supply this desideratum in our literature, he was obliged to produce the work himself.

Steele was an Irishman. He was born in Dublin in the year 1671. His mother, we are assured, was Irish. Whether his father-" counsellor-at-law, and private secretary to James, first Duke of Ormond"was a native of Ireland is left uncertain. Steele had those qualities which are popularly ascribed to the Irish, if that could be an argument for his birth-mother-wit in abundance, a love of pleasure, and a contempt for prudence. But Ireland has no monopoly of convivial topers and careless spendthrifts. The "Sheridan type," under which Steele is here ranked, may be found frequently enough amongst the

Anglo Saxons. Where the wit and pleasure-giving qualities of this type of man are pre-eminent, the character is very indulgently treated; where the wit is scanty, the vice of it becomes very conspicuous, and is branded by very ugly names. It must be admitted, however, that though of this bad type, Steele was not a bad specimen of it. Those who are disposed to be very indulgent towards this class of men-who run so gaily into debt, who borrow with no chance of repayment except by borrowing again, who, when they have plundered their tradesmen, plunder their friends to escape from the bailiffs, and who lie largely at every turn of the transaction-may do well to reflect what it is that men of this character are really deficient in. In common prudence, it is generally said. In the sentiment of honour, say we. No one questions their want of prudence; but the marked defect in the character-that which is its real weakness-is the absence of that sense of honour which forbids a man to promise what he knows he cannot perform. For, after all, it is not prudence which comes to a man's aid in times of pressing need, when the want of money is sorely felt. The mind under these circumstances readily leaves the future to shift for itself, or conjures up vague probabilities that "something will happen." It is a sterner sentiment that comes to the rescue. Prudence is the virtue of prosperity, or of those who are on the safe road to it. When a man feels keenly a present want, to tell him not to gratify it by an expedient which, at a future time, will reproduce the want, will go but a little way to restrain him. How does he know that he shall feel the want more pressing then than he does now? It is a sentiment of a quite different kind that saves him-the feeling of shame at the thought of a dishonourable action-at the consciousness that, by some falsehood or other, he will be cheating others.