"Poor, dear boy! Wait a moment." locked a drawer, and drew forth a purse. The lady un "Here are thirty guineas I believe, nephew-they may be of service to you. But do not go to-night; do not, dear Jerry !" "I must, aunt; I am resolute." "O, what will you do, poor child, without a soul to protect you? With no kind handSince you will go, nephew, listen to the last words of your abandoned aunt. You are about to enter a world, poor child, replete with snares, and full of brambles-where every path is strewed with thorns, every road is dug with pits, every highway is choked with rocks. Your tender hands, untaught to labour, will be torn by the pitiless briars; your feeble limbs, unapt to climb, will be dragged into the pits of destruction; and your tottering footsteps, unused to rugged travel, will stumble over the petrous impediments which wicked man has sown thick in your course. Alas, my poor boy! would that I might wander with you! would that I might lead you through your perilous wayfare!' would that I might be your guide, to indicate to you the multifarious difficulties which encircle the youthful pedestrian in life's mazy labyrinth! Then might you pass, unharmed, the wanton wiles of destruction! then might you soar, on eagle's wings, far above the fuliginous atmosphere of this mundane sphere! then might you breast, in safety, the pitchy billows of misfortune! But, alas!—it may not be. Alone you must trim your sails o'er the rapid tide of manhood-alone you must struggle with the adverse waters; and should they merge thee, Jerry-should they, in their gloomy vortex, bury for ever those hyacinthine locks, inhume those godlike features, and sepulchre that noble form-let it console thee, in that trying hour, that there is one eye on earth to weep for thee, one mouth above to pray for thee, one hand still left to strew affliction's flowers o'er thy youthful ashes. Farewell!-farewell!"—and the tender-hearted lady rushed into my arms, kissed me on each of my cheeks, and turning aside her head, burst into tears. The least I could do was to "And farewell, too," I said, "thou best of aunts! Though severed from thee by the cruel hand of an unfeeling uncle; though torn from the wings of thy galli. naceous affection, never-never to regain their lanugi. nous asylum; though parted from thy presence far as the East is from the West; yea! though Ætna's self should vomit flames sulphuric, to bar me from the paradise of thy protection; yet shall not this avulsion cloak the eyes of my remembrance; but they shall look, through the gloomy vista of the distance, to where thy cherished form is seated, shining in the seraphic refulgence of its beatific loveliness; they shall see thee dispensing the genial ray of thy angelic goodness, to revivify, and kindle into existence, the inert hearts of those who move around thee dead in the petrescent torpidity of their flinty depravity; and as they weep at the prospect of the far-of Eden they may never hope to contemplate in greater proximity of vision, they shall smile, mid the dewiness of their lachrymation, at the sun they have left behind them to illuminate the tenebrosity of this terrene spheroid. Farewell, thou best of aunts!-farewell !"-and I rushed into her arms, kissed her on each of her cheeks, and turning aside my head-took up my bundle and left the house. It was the hour of meeting with my mistress: so leav. ing my bundle at a tavern which I was in the habit of frequenting, I repaired to her house. She was already at the door. "Celestina-you know I love you?" "You have told me so." "What! do you not believe me, Celestina?" "No-yes-I don't know: you men are ever such de. ceivers !-heigho!" My God, Celestina! you distract me with these doubts. What would you have me do? Shall I say again all that I said to you yesterday?-Stay, 1 will convince you-thus:-" and I whispered "Will you elope with me ?" She started. "Yes, Celestina! this very night-this very hour-now! I am ready to fly with you whithersoever you please; say but the word." "La! I'm so afraid! you men are ever such deceivers !—and if you should betray my virgin innocence, O, what should I do!" "By heaven, you wrong me, Celestina! I swear to you-Say, love, shall we not fly together?-a coach shall be at the corner just as the clock strikes eight; you will be ready by that time, and away we will-Say, sweet, shall it not be so ?" "Ah, you are so bewitching! But if you should deceive me-heigho!" and she threw her arms about my neck and leaned her head upon my shoulder. "Never fear me, Celestina. We go then?-Well precisely at eight, remember, be at the corner of the street,— I shall be waiting for you in the carriage, love. Don't forget now!" "No," she softly whispered, and suddenly imprinted a burning kiss upon my lips, and left me, sighing as she went "Ah, you men are ever such deceivers !" "Devilish free that !" thought I, as I wiped my lips. "However, I have no time to lose"-and off I started to engage a hackney-coach. Ah, Reader-that smile of incredulity! Suppress it, I beseech you; for though it may seem strange, that, at the age of twenty, I should committ an indiscretion so boyish, yet I do assure you I relate the fact. You may never have been guilty of such frolics-you ; At mî: sum paulo infirmior, unus Multorum CHAPTER XXII.* DEDICATED TO THAT NOBLE ILLUSTRATION OF THE "SIMPLEX MUNDITIIS," THE MODEST AUTHOR OF Between the twa was made a plot; They raise a wee before the cock, And wyliely they shot the lock, And fast to the bent are they gane. The Gaberlunzie Man. NIGHT hung her pall o'er the streets of London! It was the hour of eight! The prudent shopkeeper had taken in his goods, and his bustling clerks had ranged * I do not expect the reader to understand this chapter-and for the very sufficient reason, that I do not understand it myself. Any accusation he may have to bring against it, as well as any admiration he may have to offer for its impassioned tone, its magnificent mass of imagery, its close files of chosen epithets, the romantic echoings of its reduplications, and its nervous and majestic anticlimaxes, he must lay at the door of the writer to whom the chapter is dedica ted; for I light my lamp at the sun, as another great man once said, when found composing with the Iliad open before him. In justice to myself, I must remark that, while I ridicule the absurdities of the author of -, no man can feel a deeper respect than I do for the talents which he really possesses. There is no novelist of the present day that surpasses him in brilliancy of wit, or refinement of humour and did he but keep clear of the magic circle of fairy and haunted thoughts, and dip his hand less frequently into the fountain of deep and passionate feeling,-in other words, did he but purge himself of the affectation of the day, and-study Blair's Lectures, there are few that would rank higher in any quality, perhaps, which becomes an author. As it is, though petty journals and menial magazines may puff him as the rival of the great Scott, and many young gentlemen may grow sentimental on his pages, and all young ladies take him to bed with them, every true critic must smile at his pretensions. them on the shelves, and the pavements rattled with the rare and lessening noise of carts; and the lighter of the city lamps mounted, with light and match in hand, the lamp posts in the streets, and then performed his duty, and was seen no more: but neither lamp nor light was in Jeremy's hand, as it clasped the slender waist of Celestina, which was pressed against it. As Life clings the more to the plank of safety,-while the land lessens from her sight and the waves dance wildly round her; so Love clasps that, which is his hope and comfort, the closer,-for the absence of every thing that might distract his attention and the chills of the night air that make him shiver. O Love! in this world of care, and sorrow, and anguish, how could we drag, from day to day, on the vulgar and slavish soil, the dull chains that bind and shackle, in their endless length, the pith and marrow of our ener. gies, without thy soothing and consoling solace? 'Tis thou, O Love, who gatherest in thy holy fount all streams of deep and passionate feeling, to be to us a comfort and delight, when wandering through the hot, and shifting, and feverish sands of life's leafless desert! thou, bright dove of hope, who, when the floods are beating round us, spreadest thy pure and snowy wings for the tidings that make glad our wearied, and desolate, and afflicted hearts ! Thine, O Love, are the realms of fairy and haunted thought thine the hopes whose delicate imaginings, shaped into forms of deep, and utter, and ineffable joy, come over the sick and pining soul, as the beautiful dew on the parched and feverish lip of Night! thine-the fears that bless us while they sting! thine-O thine !—the noonday vision and the nightly dream, that wrap, as in a spell, the gladdened fancy, carrying it to other lands than these lands of brightness and of song-lands, where the sluggish foot of mortal hath never trodden down the gay and laughing flowers, nor left one print upon the VOL. I. 21 |