of the tempest, the spray rising to the very tops of the cliffs, pale and ghastly in the lightning, and hear the roar of the sea, the moaning of the wind, the roll of the thunder, and, among them all, the fearful sound of the minute-guns, telling of death and danger on that iron-bound coast. This was the one exception to the general brightness of that lovely bay, and it passed by me like a dream. For the most part, all was beauty on every side; the sunshine seemed reflected from the rich valleys and the glorious sea; and the people of the little port, the thriving peasantry, and the bustling seamen, had a peculiar air of cheerfulness and comfort. It was a strange place to be sad in. And yet sad I was. Nobody told me, but I felt, I knew, I had an interior conviction, for which I could not have accounted, that `in the midst of all this natural beauty and apparent happiness, in spite of the company, in spite of the gayety, something was wrong. It was such a foreshowing as makes the quicksilver in the barometer sink while the weather is still bright and clear. And at last the change came. My father went again to London; and lost-I think, I have always thought so―more money; all, perhaps, except that positively settled upon my mother, and a legacy of rather smaller amount left to me by the maiden sister of the angry cousin. Then, one by one, our visitors departed; and my father, who had returned in haste again, in equal haste left home, after short interviews with landlords, and lawyers, and auctioneers; and I knew-I can't tell how, but I did know—that every thing was to be parted with, and every body paid. That same night two or three large chests were carried away through the garden, by George and another old servant, and a day or two after, my mother and myself, with Mrs. More, the good housekeeper, who lived with my grandfather before his marriage, and one other maid-servant, left Lyme in a hack chaise. We were to travel post. But in the general trouble nobody had remembered that some camp was breaking up between Bridport and Dorchester, so that when we reached the latter town we found, to our consternation, that there was neither room for us at any inn, nor chaise, nor horses to pursue our journey. All that could be done for us, after searching through the place, was a conveyance in a vehicle which was going seven or eight miles our way, and from whence there was a prospect of our getting on in the morning. This machine turned out to be a sort of tilted cart, without springs, and the jolting upon the Dorsetshire roads fifty-five years ago was doubtless something sufficiently uncomfortable. The discipline of travel teaches people to think little of temporary inconveniences now-a-days, and doubtless many a fine lady would laugh at such a shift. But it was not as a temporary discomfort that it came upon my poor mother. It was her first touch of poverty. It seemed like a final parting from all the elegances and all the accommodations to which she had been used. I never shall forget her heart-broken look when she took her little girl upon her lap in that jolting caravan (so, for the more grace, they called the vehicle), nor how the tears stood in her eyes when we were turned all together into our miserable bed-room when we reached the road-side ale-house, where we were to pass the night, and found ourselves, instead of the tea we so much needed, condemned to sup on stale bread and dirty cheese, as people who arrive in tilted carts have been and will be to the end of the world. The next day we resumed our journey, and reached a dingy, comfortless lodging in one of the suburbs beyond Westminster Bridge. What my father's plans were I do not exactly know; probably to gather together what disposable money still remained after paying all debts from the sale of books, plate, and furniture at Lyme, and thence to proceed (backed up by his greatly lessened income) to practice in some distant town. At all events London was the best starting-place, and he could consult his old fellow-pupil and life-long friend, Dr. Babington, then one of the physicians to Guy's Hospital, and refresh his medical studies with experiments and lectures, while determining in what place to bestow himself. In the mean while his spirits returned as buoyant as ever, and so, now that fear had changed into certainty, did mine. In the intervals of his professional pursuits he walked about London with his little girl in his hand; and one day (it was my birth-day, and I was ten years old) he took me into a not very tempting-looking place, which was, as I speedily found, a lottery office. An Irish lottery was upon the point of being drawn, and he desired me to choose one out of several bits of printed paper (I did not then know their significance) that lay upon the counter: "Choose which number you like best," said the dear papa, and that shall be your birth-day present." I immediately selected one, and put it into his hand : No. 2,224. "Ah," said my father, examining it, "you must choose again. I want to buy a whole ticket; and this is only a quarter. Choose again, my pet." No, dear papa, I like this one best." "Here is the next number," interposed the lottery office keeper, "No. 2,223." "Ay," said my father, "that will do just as well. Will it not, Mary? We'll take that." This is Cast up "No!" returned I, obstinately; "that won't do. my birth-day you know, papa, and I am ten years old. my number, and you'll find that makes ten. The other is only nine." My father superstitious like all speculators, was struck with my pertinacity, and with the reason I gave, which he liked none the less because the ground of preference was tolerably unreasonable, resisted the attempt of the office keeper to tempt me by different tickets, and we had nearly left the shop without a purchase, when the clerk, who had been examining different desks and drawers, said to his principal: "I think, Sir, the matter may be managed if the gentleman does not mind paying a few shillings more. That ticket, 2,224, only came yesterday, and we have still all the shares; one half, one quarter, one eighth, two sixteenths. It will be just the same if the young lady is set upon it." The young lady was set upon it, and the shares were purchased. The whole affair was a secret between us, and my father whenever he got me to himself talked over our future twenty thousand pounds-just like Alnascher over his basket of eggs. Meanwhile, time passed on, and one Sunday morning we were all preparing to go to church, when a face that I had forgotten, but my father had not, made its appearance. It was the clerk of the lottery office. An express had just arrived from Dublin, announcing that number 2,224 had been drawn a prize of twenty thousand pounds, and he had hastened to communicate the good news. Ah, me! In less than twenty years what was left of the pro What? except a duce of the ticket so strangely chosen? Wedgwood dinner-service that my father had had made to commemorate the event, with the Irish harp within the border on one side, and his family crest on the other! That fragile and perishable ware long outlasted the more perishable money! And then came long years of toil, and struggle, and anxiety, and jolting over the rough ways of the world, of which the tilted cart of Dorchester offers a feeble type. But it is a subject of intense thankfulness that, although during those long years want often came very close to our door, it never actually entered; and that those far dearer and far better worth than I, were more than ⚫once saved from its clutches when it seemed nearest, by something even more fragile and less durable than Mr. Wedgwood's china or the Irish lottery ticket. I Among the consolations and encouragements of those years, may reckon the partial kindness of the late excellent Mrs. Kenyon, for it is to her fancy for my poor writings that I owe not only her own highly-prized friendship, but the thousand good of fices of her accomplished husband. His poems, full as they are of the largest and most liberal views, of refined taste and of harmonious versification, make but a small part of his reputation. I think he intends to publish them, but he does actually disperse them among his friends before the public has time to find them out, so that they have the grace, frankness, and rarity of gift-books; and his hospitality, his benevolence, and his conversational power are far better known than his verse. Now this verse has to me a singular charm, particularly “The Rhymed Plea for Tolerance," which is so clear, so scholarly, and so full of strong, manly sense. Only see in how short a space he gives a history of English morals, or perhaps, to speak more accurately, of the morals of English literature, from the Commonwealth to the first French Revolution. When lofty Charles and ancient Privilege Of new-mailed liberty first felt the siege, Then first Old England rather groaned than sang But then not less the godless cavalier Flung his loose ballad on the offended ear; And still, for so extremes extremes provoke, Marked the prim preachment with the ribald joke. A following century struck a wiser mean; The mass was then more cheerful, but more clean. Then Pope deemed raillery unstamped no sin; War with pretense satiric Fielding waged, Then too our Second George, not overstaid, And Puritans extinct had ceased to rage Had won to bear his rogueries for his glee; And then-though Wesley, strong in fervent youth, Votaries the most with little to resign, Rude audience from the workshop or the mine; (For stimulants still charm fair devotee, Chapel for church, for writ extempore ;) And though a court more decent than before, With cowl and hood court-vices covered o'er, And cast from Windsor's towers a monkish gloom; |