punctual and attentive to business, regular in his habits, and amiable in his disposition, don't leave us any longer to conjecture, but tell us at once the cause of John's 'poverty.' "Well, then, John had a wife;—" "Of cours he had," puts in our short-tempered reader, "that is, if he married a woman and she hadn't gone off the hooks, run away, or been transported? but wha on earth has that to do with his poverty? surely it does not follow that because a man has a wife he must have poverty also." To this we answer, "If we are to finish the task we have undertaken, we are determined to do it in our own manner; therefore, we repeat, in contempt of our fast man's frowns, John Thrifty had a wife-beautiful in her person-graceful in her carriage—benevolent in her disposition-industrious in her habits, and to all appearances, just the woman to make the fireside of an intellectual man happy ; but she had, in a multitude of excellences, one failing; she would keep up appearances.' So this failing was her own and her husband's ruin, in a worldly point of view." · No one could, or did, appreciate a woman, more than John did his wife, and though he saw and pitied her besetting sin, he hadn't the courage to denounce it. Sometimes, it is true. he would endeavour to reason with her on the impropriety of incurring certain expenses, but then, though he brought forward the most convincing and incontrovertible arguments in favour of his propositions, she had such a sweet and persuasive voice, and such a captivating manner, he was sure to be defeated; and the debate always ended with, Well, John, love, I dare say you're perfectly right, but then, my dear, only fancy! what would the world say ?" and poor John, silenced by the unaccountable interest manifested by the world in his domestic arrangements, could only wonder how he could ever have been so oblivious of this world's approbation. For instance, when discussing the necessary preparations for their marriage, John suggested, a cab to church-a few friends to dinner-a quadrille in the evening, and business next day; but the bride elect, anxious to "keep up appearances," remarked that, "though, for herself, she didn't care a rush how matters were arranged," yet "what would the world say?" "Hadn't Mr. Shuffle (who didn't get near John's salary), a couple of coaches, a pair of greys to each, outriders in liveries, and white favours: and why should they do the thing less respectably ?" This reasoning was conclusive; the world required them, and coaches, greys, outriders, liveries, and white favours were agreed upon. "Then, you know, John dear, it is always customary for newly married people who would stand well with the world, to make a wedding-jaunt, for a fortnight or so, to the lakes, Blackpool, Cheltenham, or some such place.” This was a matter of course; so, to please the world, they went to Bath. Then it was arranged that, as Mrs. Grizzle sent out cakes, cards, and gloves (and Mr. G. didn't hold half so good a situation as John), they should send out cards, cakes, and gloves too. Then Mrs. Frizzle had such a lovely dinner-service (and her husband's income was very limited); Mrs. Dornton had such a love of a piano; Mrs. Bonsall had such exquisite China; Mrs. Crane had such handsome Brussels carpets; Mrs. Chink had such chaste bed-hangings; Mrs. Lipman had such rich window-blinds; Mrs. Screw had such a dear of a sofa; Mrs. Price had such a duck of a time-piece; Mrs. Griffin had such delicious chairs and tables; Mrs. Biffin had such charming fire-sereens; Mrs. Bouncer had such costly fittings in her church pew (and none of their husbands had the means that John had); therefore, that the world might not accuse him of parsimony, John had to copy or excel his neighbours; and the dinner-service, piano. China, bed-hangings, window-blinds, Brussels carpets, sofa, time-piece, chairs, tables, fire-screens, and the fittings for the pew at church were all provided, secundum artem. Then again, the babies-precious innocents-when they came, must, of necessity, be treated like other genteel babies; and elegancies and luxuries were supplied ad libitum; and, when all their attentions could not keep the little dears alive, hatbands, gloves, and biscuits must be distributed at their funerals-it would be such a shame, as this was the last token of affection that could be paid them, not to do as other respectable parents did. And thus they went on. This deference to the opinions of the world, and this desire to compete with and outshine their neighbours, commenced with their union and ended only with the death of John and the poverty of his widow and orphan daughter. And this was the reason "why John Thrifty didn't get rich." P. M. R. AMONG THE TREES. AMONG the trees, the whispering breeze Shine summer morn, my soul to thee is clinging; Shine morning; breezes wander, singing, singing, singing. The snow white stream glides, like a dream, Earth's floor is chequered o'er with shadows. Flow, river, flow; through this rich landscape gleaming. Long years have passed since I stood last, Tho' this time comes with mem'ries tender. Rest, village rest! in brightest beauty lying; Rise, Memory! wake past times; Heaven's to thee replying. I came this morn by hope upborne, With love then, now with sorrow, laden! Come, dearest, come; alas, i' the grave she's lying. Sleep, sweetest, sleep! I'll love thee, love thee, living, dying. IN MEMORIAM-ROBERT BROUGH. BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. I TAKE up, to-day, the pen which has fallen from a dead man's hand. The sadness of my task is embittered by the consciousness that the writer whose decease I record, was one of my oldest and dearest friends. But a few days since, and bowing under a recent domestic bereavement of my own, I read the affectionate tribute which a friend and fellow-labourer had paid to the memory of one whom I had known and esteemed for fourteen years. Yesterday, it was poor Albert Smith. To-day, it is my duty to trace a few lines in sorrowful mention of another loss to literature and to friendship. Their theme, alas ! is Robert Brough. He died on the night of the twenty-sixth of June, at his brother-in-law's house at Manchester. His dear nurse-his widow now--had got him so far in the hope of taking him to North Wales. There had been little hope of him for months; but just a feeble chance remained that the bracing atmosphere of a mountainous country might do him good. His medical advisers had forbidden that he should be taken to the sea-side. There was no use in sending him to Nice, or to Devonshire, or to the Isle of Wight. Indeed, for a long period, those nearest and dearest to him had known that the most that could be done for him was to soothe and cherish him to the end. There was just a little oil left in his lamp, and it was consumed, and he died. He had not any chronic or organic disease that I am aware of, beyond an inherent weakness—a weakness that seemed to waste away his muscular fibre with such slow, unerring regularity, that you might almost note the progress of his decay, day by day, for years. I knew him first in 1847. He was a mere boy; but he was weak and ailing. He never looked well. Each successive time I saw him until a few weeks since he was in some degree or manner worse; and now he is better-for he is dead. Robert Barnabas Brough was born in London in 1828. Three brothers and three sisters, all hale and hearty, I am glad to believe, survive him. He passed a considerable portion of his childhood and his youth in Wales and in the North of England. His father, one of the worthiest and most amiable of men, was engaged in commercial pursuits; and his sons had a plain English educa tion. Robert Brough had neither Latin nor Greek; but before his thirtieth year he was always learning something-he had taught himself plenty of French, and some German, and a little Spanish. I am sure, poor fellow, that he had a sufficient appreciation of the advantages of a classical education; but, as from the age of fifteen or sixteen he had to earn his livelihood by the labour of his own hands and brain, the most he could do was to add to his stock of knowledge such adjuncts as he deemed most valuable for his working career. His taste and capacity for pictorial art were very great, and under favourable circumstances might have been developed to fame and fortune. He would, with that proper artistic training he could never afford to undergo, have become a graceful and varied artist. As it is, he only leaves behind him a few unfinished oil-sketches and a mass of humorous drawings. His comic pictorial efforts will bear a very favourable comparison with those of Thomas Hood. I believe that, as a lad, who had to push his own way and get his own bread, he tried half-a-dozen avocations before he discovered his real one-Literature. He was a merchant's clerk and a portrait painter at Manchester and Liverpool. He was fond of amateur acting; and he, with his brother William, wrote plays and acted in them, and painted the scenery, as dozens of boys have done before. The brothers even started a little weekly satirical paper, called the Liverpool Lion, to which Robert Brough, in addition to parodies and jokes, and comic essays, contributed political and humorous cartoons, in that style of which Mr. Leech is so great a master. It happened that Robert and William Brough had written a burlesque on the "Tempest," called the "Enchanted Isle." This, being performed at Liverpool, attracted the notice of Mr. Benjamin Webster, then "starring" in that town. The "Enchanted Isle" was a very boyish production, but it was full of broad fun, and was even not deficient in very brilliant wit. The piece was transplanted to metropolitan soil, and performed with great success at the Adelphi Theatre. Other managers became eager for burlesques, and the "Brothers Brough," to Robert's misfortune, attained immediate popularity, and, in theatrical circles, celebrity. I say, for his misfortune; for he leapt at once, from provincial obscurity, raw, half-taught, and quite deficient in worldly experience, into a prominent position among the wits and viveurs of a bustling time. He had almost everything to learn; but his dramatic successes made him at once the compeer of such men as Planché, Morton, Oxenford, Bourcicault, Reach, Albert Smith, Charles Kenney, Shirley Brooks, and Mark Lemon, men who had been before the public for years-who were used to its ways, and indifferent to its seductions. He had the run of the green-rooms and the literary cénacles, when it would have done him much more good to have had the run of a decent library, or even of a garret, a book-stall, or a coffee-shop, with some back numbers of the Quarterly Review on its shelves. Then he speedily found that Christmas and Easter will not come a dozen times a-year, and that he could not earn a livelihood by burlesque writing, however handsomely those productions might be paid for. Let it not be imagined that the managers starved him. I be lieve that from Messrs. Charles Kean, Buckstone, Webster, Keeley, and E. T. Smith, and especially from Messrs. Robson and Emden, he never received any. thing but kind and generous treatment. But they could not be always bringing out new pieces, and he could not be always inventing them. The "Brothers Brough" parted company-as joint-authors, at least, but never as affectionate relatives and each betook himself to the work-a-day life of literature. Robert married very early in life, and he has left a widow and three young children to lament his untimely loss. Robert Brough had little aptitude for the dry but remunerative labours of the daily and weekly press. His forte lay in humorous narrative, in light essay, in pure joke-weaving and persilage, in satiric, and sometimes in pathetic, not sentimental poetry. When he had room and time, he was an admirable story-teller; and some of his ballads are replete with grace and picturesque colour. Summing up his works from memory, I can chiefly recall his sharply satiric Songs of the Governing Classes; his translations or rather adaptations of Beranger's Songs of the Empire, the Peace, and the Restoration; his novels of Marston Lynch (just published by Messrs. Ward and Lock), and Which is Which or, Miles Cassidy's Contract. This was the last book he published; and the Saturday Review thought the fact of the author being on his deathbed, a favourable opportunity for making a savage onslaught on him. It is 80 safe to attack a dying man! Then he wrote a Life of Sir John Falstaff, as a text for George Cruikshank's admirable plates, illustrating the fat knight's history. There is, also, from his pen, a capital translation of Alphonse Karr's novel, La Famille Alain; and in the Train, a magazine undertaken as a speculation among a knot of friendly literary men, there is dispersed a number of exquisite paraphrases of Victor Hugo's Odes et Ballades. His brother, John Cargill Brough, is about to collect the best of his poetical fragments for republication. In Household Words and in All the Year Round, he wrote a variety of graphic essays and pictures of manners, and notably a charming little piece of fugitive poetry, entitled "Neighbour Nelly." He was an early and prolific contributor to the comic publications called the Man in the Moon and Diogenes; but I don't know what clique interest or what clique squabbles excluded him from the columns of Punch. For some period, also, he officiated as Editor of the Atlas. For a shorter term he held a literary appointment with Mr. Buckstone at the Haymarket Theatre. For some months he was the Brussels correspondent of the Sunday Times; but newspaper work, as I have already observed, was unsuitable to his turn of mind. His last regular engagement was with the proprietor of the Welcome Guest, as its conductor and chief contributor. Of his productions in this publication readers are the best judges. I may. however, offer an opinion that "Doctor Johnson" is one of the most beautiful poems that ever flowed from the pen of a contemporary writer. How am I to speak further-and with common fortitude-of my dear, dead friend-I, who knew him, and loved him, and was once young and enthusiastic, and poor and miserable, with him; who have often lagged behind to let him win the race, and fondly hoped to see him one day prosperous and famous; who am not worthier than he, and am yet alive, the senior, and strong? If his memory be assailed, I shall know how to rebuke and shame the slanderers; but I had rather that his praises came from other lips. As I write this, in the silence of the night, I lift my eyes from the blotted sheet, and see hanging round my room the pictures of three dear friends, all good and tender, and true as Bob was. They are all dead: all dead within six months. Who is the survivor that can tell when his turn may come, and when a friendly hand may be required to close his eyes, and turn his picture to the wall? [The above admirable tribute to the memory of one of the most original and single-minded of our modern litterateurs, I extract from the pages of the Welcome Guest, a weekly periodical of great and singular merit. It was my intention to have written something in the way of biographical sketch of Robert Brough, with whom I was well acquainted for several years; but my friend, Mr. Sala, has performed this office so gracefully, and so well, that I am sure he will forgive me for tran ferring his brief and touching memoir to these pages. But I have another motive in doing this, and that is that I may make the readers of the Odd-fellows' Magazine more fully acquainted than some of them probably were with the name and fame of Robert Brough. Writing at the last moment ere this sheet passes finally out of my hands, and the words are fixed irrevocably in type, I am very happy to say that the subscription which is being got up for the widow and children of Robert Brough is proceeding satisfactorily. Many of the best names in literature will be found attached to it. But, more than this, the friends and companions of the wit--members of the now world-renowned "Savage Club-are exerting themselves in " commemoration performances" at various metropolitan and provincial theatres, with great and encouraging success. Thus friendship and love are doing their office gently, in letting the world know the worth of its dead favourite, and hanging a laurel wreath above his grave.-ED.} |