cerning the fortin that's left him. If I may be so bold, how is it?""

"Sir," was the reply, "when any business is entrusted to me, I generally perform my duty in the premises. Now, this is a secret matter, and you must excuse me if I keep it so."

"Oh, yes; but I thought there was no harm in ask ing. I s'pose there's no mistake about it that there's a fortin out there."

The ostler announced that the horse was ready, and the two travellers stepped into the vehicle, bidding good day" to a group of starers, all wondering who these two people were, and what could be the meaning of their mysterious visit to the Carlisle minister, unless it was as the ostler had told the maid, and she the mistress, and she the whole household, that a fortune had been left to the minister.

CHAPTER XIII.

"For England, ho!”

FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND-APPEARANCE AT DRURY LANE THEATRE-IDEAS OF ENGLAND-RETURN.

For some time I had determined to visit Europe professionally, although it was not without a great effort that I resolved to separate from my family for this voyage; and until the hour of parting came, the arrangement seemed to me like many other schemes of mine, which had been planned in earnest, but which entirely failed when the time arrived for putting them into execution.

This proved real; and soon after bidding good-bye, I found myself on board the packet ship

bound for Liverpool.

We had a cheerful set of passengers. Among thèm I may mention the Hon. Charles A. Murray, who was returning from a tour through the United States. It was his intention to publish a book of his travels. I make no doubt it will be an entertaining and impartial work.

I can only inform my reader that after the usual incidents of a pleasant trip in a fine packet across the Atlantic, I arrived in Liverpool, and stood a stranger in the land of my forefathers.

I experienced much anxiety in respect to my mission; how should I succeed.

Here Mr. Hill's journal seemed not to have been regularly kept, beyond dates and the ship's workings. Memoranda, here and there, refer to other memoranda in the pages of books, or on loose sheets of paper, which were hereafter to take their proper places in the jour. nal, according to Mr. Hill's promise previous to his leaving home.

He appeared at Drury Lane theatre on the evening of November 6th, 1835, as Hiram Dodge, in the "Yankee Pedlar." The newspapers of the day announced his debut as entirely successful.

What Mr. Hill's views were upon his arrival in England, and soon after he had played, may be ascertained by the following letters to a friend.

The hiatus occaisoned by the unfinished journal, may in part be supplied from this source. It had been Mr. Hill's intention to collect his "loose memoranda," with a view to complete this unfinished part of his life, as before stated.

The narrative is necessarily again interrupted by the introduction, at this time, of the letters. Their contents are descriptive of the events in the order of time to which they belong. Mr. Hill's letters to his wife are more elaborate, but so mingled with domestic matters, and private business directions, as to render them inappropriate for the purpose of this work.

London, October 20th, 1836.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-There is no mistake in my being here in the identical city named at the head of this sheet. It seems to me like a dream, but here I am; and I take this opportunity to fulfil a promise made to you before leaving the United States.

I have seen the scenes made familiar to me by that immortal production, witnessed in my early days, of "Tom and Jerry, or Life in London." Temple Bar by moonlight; Tattersalls; Burlington Arcade; Rotten Row; St. Giles's-have each and all of them been visited by me. Little did I think, when I was enacting Jemmy Green, that I should one day stand upon the pavement of the localities rendered classic by the great burletta, once so popular in all the theatres of America. I thought I had a tolerable idea of the great Babylon, London, before I had seen it. I was mistaken. The reality is as "Ossa to a wart," compared to my conception of its extent. I have been to the Abbey and to the Tower. important events of my life rushed upon my mind when in the Tower;-one, the first time I saw Booth as Richard; the second, on an after occasion, at the instigation of the said Booth, whose personation of the crook-back'd tyrant so impressed me with the reality of my doings that I dreamed the same night of being executed for the crime.

Two

I have no doubt I murdered the murderers of the royal babes; for in those days, although I thought myself no small potatoes in small tragedy parts, the manager and my friends had opinions on the subject no ways coinciding with my own. I have not yet played, as I am to have a new piece written for my first appearance. I wish you were here to take some local hints and put them on the track for me. There are clever playwrights enough here, but they do not understand the nice points of Yankee character. I like the appearance of things well, and I think I shall have fair play.

You know I never could write long letters, and I suppose you will see by the papers what they think of me when they have seen me. I will send all to you, whether I hit or miss. It's more of a job than I thought for when I started; but I am in for it, and

for the honor of Yankee land, I will put my best foot foremost the first time I have the opportunity of making my public bow to John Bull.

London, November 8th, 1836.

MY DEAR *****-I have played in London, upon the great stage of Drury Lane, in a new piece written for me by Barnard— "The Yankee Pedlar." It is a touch-and-go sort of affair, and I believe I hit them. I should much rather have played in an old part. The Pedlar, as written, gives them not the best idea of an honest Yankee boy. However, I contrived to give them a little of the spice of other parts in the ad libitum business.

I felt famous for the occasion, and the notices in the papers I send you are of value to me, as I did not write them myself, nor procure their insertion.

Bunn, the manager of Drury Lane, is a queer fish. He has of fered me terms. I am as yet undecided about accepting them. Other establishments have also made me offers which I shall consider. You know there is none with a greater love for his own country, and the things it contains, than I have; and the sights I see in and out of the house do not in the least change my affection for the land of my birth. I am a good democrat, and glory in a Republican form of government; therefore you will believe me that, in spite of some preconceived notions not in favor of John Bull, I think from what I have seen that Englishmen are ahead of Jonathan in many matters that Americans do not fairly acknowledge the corn" about.

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I am happy that I am an American, and not less so that I descended, in common with our countrymen, from the sires who came from the "fast-anchored isle."

I send you one of the first sovereigns the Yankee received from a London theatre, for making a British audience laugh at the Yankee's comics.