their powers of misrepresentation and abuse, he himself became their most efficient ally, by the wildness of his life, and the unbridled insolence of his demeanour towards his aunt. Frank was a patron of pugilists and cock-fighters, whose constant demands upon his purse occasioned as regular applications to hers, and though she really answered these claims with more liberality than could have been expected from her penurious habits, he could never endure with any decency of patience the long lecture which filled up the time from the moment of his arrival to the production of what he emphatically termed "the tip," whose apparition was always the signal for his disappearance. His last application, being somewhat too rapid as well as heavy, was encountered with a positive denial, and the recusant was commencing her usual exhortation, when Frank disrespectfully exclaimed, "Come, come, no preachee and floggee too," and muttering, loud enough to be heard, the words "stingy old mummy!" flung himself out of the room.

Now though it must be candidly confessed, that Mrs. Pitman, who had by this time become somewhat aged, and brown, and shrivelled, bore no small resemblance to those leathern ladies and gentlemen of Egypt, who mount guard at Museums in their glazed sentry-boxes, she considered herself too young by three thousand years to justify any such comparison, and was indignant in proportion to her own sense of juvenility. Mr. Swipes and Mr. Currie were even more moved than the old lady, for they felt the value of the insult. Never was a sorrow more joyous, or an anger more complacent, than that which they expressed upon the occasion. So deeply were their feelings injured, that they declared themselves unable to continue their visits, if they ran any risk of encountering such an ungrateful profligate; and Frank was accordingly forbidden the house.

As the tanner's widow waxed sickly and infirm, she became an enticing object for Mrs. Doldrum, an inhabitant of Leighton-Buzzard, one of those human screechowls who prowl about the abodes of misery and death, croaking out dismal tidings, and hovering over corpses. She seemed only happy when surrounded by wretchedness, and her undertaker-like mind appeared to live upon death. When she could not treat herself with a dissolution, she would look about her for a broken leg, a bankruptcy, a family where there was a dishonoured daughter, a runaway son, or any calamity she could by good fortune discover. "O my dear friend," she exclaimed to Mrs. Pitman, a short time before her death, "I am so delighted to see you, (here a groan)— you know my regard for you, (another groan)-seeing your bed-room shutters closed, I took it for granted, it was all over with you, so I came in just to close your eyes and lay out your body. Delighted to find you alive, (groan the third)--let us be of good cheer, perhaps you may yet linger out a week longer, though it would be a great release if it would please God to take you. (Groan the fourth.)-And yet I fear you are sadly prepared for the next world. (Groan the fifth and longest.)-You know my regard for you. The Lord be good unto us' Hark! is that the death-watch? I certainly heard a ticking."

This consolatory personage was all alive the moment she heard of Mrs. Pitman's death, which occurred shortly after; and she was obviously in her proper element when superintending the closing of win

dow-shutters, and all the minute arrangements usually adopted upon such mournful occasions. At her own particular request, she was indulged with the privilege of sitting up with the body the first night, and would not even resign her station on the second day, which was the time appointed for the reading of the will. Frank Millington had been sent for express to attend this melancholy ceremony; Mr. Swipes and Mr. Currie were of course present in deep mourning, with visages to match, and each with a white pocket-handkerchief to hide the tears which he feared he would be unable to shed. Mr. Drawl, the attorney, held the portentous document in his hand, bristling with seals; and two or three friends were requested to attend as witnesses. The slow and precise man of law, who shared none of his auditor's impatience, was five minutes in picking the locks of the seals, as many more in arranging his spectacles, and, having deliberately blown his nose, through which he always talked, (as if to clear the way,) he at length began his lecture. As the will, at the old lady's particular request, had been made as short and simple as possible, he had succeeded in squeezing it into six large skins of parchment, which we shall take the liberty of crushing into as many lines. After a few unimportant legacies to servants and others, it stated that the whole residue of her property, personal and real, consisting of -here a formidable

schedule of houses, farms, messuages, tenements, buildings, appurtenances, stocks, bonds, monies, and possessions, occupying twenty minutes in the recital, was bequeathed to her dear cousins Samuel Swipes of the Pond-street Brewery, and Christopher Currie of the Market-place, Saddler.

Here Mr. Drawl laid down his parchment, drew breath, blew his nose, and began to wipe his spectacles, in which space of time Mr. Swipes was delivered of a palpable and incontestable snivel, in the getting up whereof he was mainly assisted by a previous cold; and endeavouring to enact a sob, which however sounded more like gargling his throat, he ejaculated-"Generous creature! worthy woman! kind soul !""

Mr. Currie, who thought it safer to be silently overcome by his feelings, buried his face in his handkerchief, whence he finally emerged with indisputably red and watery eyes, though it is upon record, that he had been noticed that morning grubbing about the onion-bed in his own garden, and had been seen to stoop down and pick something up. They were both with an ill-concealed triumph beginning to express to Frank their regret that he had not been named, and to inform him that they could dispense with his farther attendance, when Mr. Drawl with his calm nasal twang cried out-" Pray, gentlemen, keep your seats I have not quite done yet"-and resuming the parchment and his posture thus proceeded-"Let me see-where was I?-Ay, Samuel Swipes of Pond-street Brewery, and Christopher Currie of the Market-place, Saddler,”—and then raising his voice, to adapt it to the large german text words that came next, he sang out-" IN TRUST for the sole and exclusive use and benefit of my dear nephew Frank Millington, when he shall have attained the age of twenty-five years, by which time I hope he will have so far reformed his evil habits, as that he may be safely intrusted with the large fortune which I hereby bequeath to him

"What's all this?" exclaimed Mr. Swipes--" you don't mean that we 're humbugged?-In trust?-how does that appear?-where is it?"-Mr. Drawl depositing his spectacles, looking up at the ceiling, and scratching the underneath part of his chin, pointed to the two fatal words, which towered conspicuously above the multitude of their companions, and the brewer's nether jaw gradually fell down till it crumpled and crushed the frill of his shirt. Mr. Currie, with a pale face and goggle eyes, stood staring at his co-trustee, not exactly understanding what it all meant, though he saw by his countenance that there was some sudden extinction of their hopes. As the will was dated several years back, Frank only wanted three weeks of the stipulated period of possession, and as he hastily revolved in his mind all the annoyances he had occasioned his aunt, and the kind generosity with which she had treated him, his eyes remained fixed upon the carpet, and the tears fell fast upon the backs of his crossed hands.

H.

THE MOUSE TURNED HERMIT. FROM PIGNOTTI.

"O beata solitudo!"

IN winter when my grandmother sat spinning,
Close in the corner by the chimney-side,
To many a tale, still ending, still beginning,

She made me list with eyes and mouth full wide,
Wondering at all the monstrous things she told,
Things quite as monstrous as herself was old.

She told me how the frogs and mice went fighting,
And every word and deed of wolves and foxes,
Of ghosts and witches in dead night delighting,
Of fairy spirits rummaging in boxes;
And this in her own strain of fearful joy,
While I stood by, a happy frightened boy.

One night, quite sulky, not a word she utter'd,
Spinning away as mute as any fish,

Except that now and then she growl'd and mutter'd ;
At last I begged and prayed, till, to my wish,

She cleared her pipes, spat thrice, coughed for a while,
And thus began with something like a smile :-

"Once on a time there was a mouse," quoth she,
66 Who, sick of worldly tears and laughter, grew
Enamoured of a sainted privacy;

To all terrestrial things he bade adieu,
And entered, far from mouse, or cat, or man,
A thick-wall'd cheese, the best of Parmesan.

And, good soul! knowing that the root of evil
Is idleness, that bane of heavenly grace,
Our hermit laboured hard against the devil,
Unweariedly, in that same sacred place,
Where further in he toiled, and further yet,
With teeth for holy nibbling sharply set.

His fur-skin jacket soon became distended,
And his plump sides could vie with any friar's:
Happy the pious who, by Heaven befriended,

Reap the full harvest of their just desires!
And happier they, whom an eternal vow
Shuts from the world, who live-we know not how !
Just at that time, driven to the very brink

Of dire destruction, was the mousal nation;
Corn was lock'd up, fast, close, without a chink,
No hope appeared to save them from starvation,
For who could dare grimalkin's whisker'd chaps,
And long-clawed paws, in search of random scraps?
Then was a solemn deputation sent

From one and all to every neighbouring house,
Each with a bag upon his shoulder weat,

And last they came unto our hermit-mouse, Where, squeaking out a chorus at his door, They begg'd him to take pity on the poor.

"Oh my dear children," said the anchorite,
"On mortal happiness and transient cares
No more I bend my thoughts, no more delight
In sublunary, worldly, vain affairs;

These things have I forsworn, and must, though loth
Reprove your striving thus against my oath.

"Poor, helpless as I am, what can I do?

A solitary tenant of these walls;

What can I more than breathe my prayers for you?
And Heaven oft listens when the pious calls!

Go, my dear children, leave me here to pray,

Go, go, and take your empty bags away."

"Ho! grandmother," cried I, "this matches well,
This mouse of yours so snug within his cheese,
With many a monk as snug within his cell,
Swollen up with plenty and a life of ease,
Who takes but cannot give to a poor sinner,
Proclaims a fast and hurries home to dinner."

"Ah, hold your tongue!" the good old dame screamed out,
"You jackanapes! who taught you thus to prate?

How is 't you dare to slander the devout?

Men in so blessed, so sanctified a state!

Oh, wretched world!-Ah, hold your wicked tongue!-
Alas! that sin should be in one so young!

"If e'er you talk so naughtily again,

I promise you 'twill be a bitter day!"

So spoke my grandmother, nor spoke in vain;
She look'd so fierce I'd not a word to say;

And still I'm silent as I hope to thrive,

For many grandmothers are yet alive.

S. Y.

MISS HEBE HOGGINS'S ACCOUNT OF A LITERARY SOCIETY IN

HOUNDSDITCH.

LETTER I.

SIR,-You will please to consider the red ink in which the commencement of this letter is indited, as emblematic of my blushes when I make the confession that my father is a cooper in Houndsditch; and not that there is any thing degrading in the profession, for we have poets who have started into celebrity from the inferior stations of cowherds, ploughmen, and shoemakers,-but, alas! my poor father is not likely to achieve greatness, still less to have it thrust upon him, for he understands nothing whatever but his business. Determined that his own defect of education should not be entailed upon his daughter, he sent me to a genteel boarding-school at Kensington, where my associates, in the petulancy of youthful pride, presently assailed me with every species of ridicule on account of my parent's vulgar occupation. One christened him Diogenes, and with an air of mock-gravity enquired after his tub; another told me I resembled him, inasmuch as I carried a hogs-head upon my shoulders, (which was a gross libel upon my physiognomy); a third, quoting Addison, exclaimed

while a fourth, whenever I ventured to sing, observed that I was then in my proper element, as I was favouring them with a few staves. Nothing reconciled me to this spiteful persecution but the superior success with which I prosecuted my studies. Mortified vanity stimulated me to aspire to a higher rank of intellect as some atonement for inferiority of station; and my object was so far attained that I was enabled to retaliate upon fashionable dunces the sneers and taunts which they levelled against city minxes and upstart vulgarians. Among my schoolfellows there were several who feared me, and many who re frained from open quizzing; but they all held themselves aloof from any intimacy, and I found the pride of surpassing some in their studies and of inflicting pain upon the feelings of others whenever my own were attacked, but a poor compensation for the unsociableness to which I was condemned by their open or suppressed contempt.

Even this miserable comfort was denied me when I left school and was taken home to Houndsditch, for my own acquirements only served to render more striking, and infinitely more galling, the wretched illiterateness of my parents. Conceive, my dear Mr. Editor, the horror of hearing my father, who had yielded to my mother's wishes in the selection of a polite seminary for my studies, enquire whether I had larnt to darn stockings and make a pudding! But even this Vandalism was less grating to my soul than the letter which my mother wrote a few days after my return, to the parent of one of my schoolfellows, enquiring the character of a cook, which she thus commenced: "Mrs. Hoggins presents her compliments to the Honourable Mrs. Hartopp, as I understand Betty Butter lived in your family as cook, Mrs. H— begs Mrs. H- will inform her whether she understands her business, and I hope Mrs. H- will be particular in stating to Mrs. H—," &c. -and thus she continued for a whole page confounding first, second,