Such was the man who was Lilian's fellow-passenger on board the Ramsay Castle. In that situation he renewed with her a slight acquaintance, contracted at the Presidency, which, during the voyage, ripened into a sentiment, on one side at least, of a more tender character. Lilian had only met Maitland once since their return from India. This was on a short Christmas visit which she paid my mother at her father's house in Kent. But that one meeting had done much to revive, in the woman, the romantic sentiment of the girl, and she loved him with the enthusiastic fondness of a warm, but ill-regulated heart. CHAPTER II. "With lips depressed, as he were meek, Himself unto himself he sold: Upon himself himself did feed, Quiet, dispassionate, and cold, And other than his form of creed, With chiselled features, clear and sleek." -TENNYSON. A Warm Man-His Early Life, and its results. HAVING thus far acted the part of a pedagogue or nurse in a Greek play, and given you all the facts which I deem it necessary you should know, I make way for the principal performers, and the piece begins in real earnest. Scene-the parlour of Spring-grove Villa, Clapham; Mr. and Mrs. Nibley standing on the hearth-rug; Miss Bulmer "doing" a blue peasant tending yellow sheep under fervid skies, after a Berlin pattern. Mr. Nibley was just going to start for his office, where he always arrived as the clock struck ten; and the debris of their early breakfast were still upon the table. Nibley was evidently a little out of sorts, for the 'bus was late. "Well, my love," said he, somewhat pettishly (for him), "I shall ask Mr. Tesdale for all that. It is the first dinner-party we have ever had, except when Miss Brise dined here, on the day of the eclipse; and I should like to show Mr. T. that we can do the thing." "I'm sure, Mr. N., you may ask any one you like," was the rejoinder of his wife, "so long as you don't promise them anything on my part, If you choose to bring your rich, proud folks here, you must do it, only I won't answer for the consequences." Here Mrs. Nibley looked very mysterious; and falling into an arm-chair, expressed a desire that her husband would invite his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, and the Government collectively, taking upon himself the arrangements for their accommodation. In the meanwhile, Mr. N. had an opportunity of relapsing into his usual silence, which he did, and contented himself with smiling. By this time, the omnibus, which knew (that is the driver knew), Nibley's habits and hours as well as the good man himself, drew up, and Mrs. Nibley had only time to put a large red comforter round her husband's neck. This she always did, and he invariably took it off the moment he was concealed in the vehicle. A conjugal embrace, and a smile ratified the reconciliation, and Nibley's silence had carried his point. The fact was, that the Nibleys were about to perform what had been the silent, unconfided ambition of each of them for many years—to give a dinner party, and to ask the great man of Lothbury to join their circle. Time had been when such a consummation, mellowed by distance, had appeared to the simple couple a pinnacle of earthly grandeur to be contemplated in the abstract, but too much to happen. And now that their circumstances enabled them to take up the daring flight, they did not shrink so much as they had expected. But Mrs. Nibley still felt anything but calm. She trembled lest the accomplished palate of the epicure should find a fault in her cookery, or the discernment of the opulent magnate should discover any blemish in her arrangements. Leaving her in close confabulation with the cook, and with Robert, the man of all work, and permitting Lilian to commune with her own thoughts, heedless and unheeded, we will proceed to see what sort of person the dreaded one really was. Simon Tesdale's father had been a cadet of an old, but impoverished family, and had ended his days on an annuity of 501., at a small Dutch sea-port. It may therefore be readily conceived that his blessing was all he had to leave to his two sons; which was rather consolatory to their piety, than satisfactory to their wants. They tried different paths in life on this slender capital; Henry, the eldest son, a lad of talent, to whom the kindness or pride of an uncle had afforded an excellent education, attempted the flowery paths of literature; in addition, however, to the difficulties which usually beset this profession, Henry had to combat the fatal danger of being taught to rely on his uncle's doing something for him. When this relation died intestate, and the allowance from his agent ceased, the unfortunate man began to sink ;-nothing occurred to break his fall, until ruined in pocket, health, and character, he became a licensed beggar about one of the universities in term-time, and at other times at the university haunts in town; living precariously, and always intoxicated, he sank into an early and uncared-for grave. Meanwhile Simon, happy in having neither education, expectations, or principles, got on from half-a-crown to half-a-million, and had a thriving business in the city, as well as a luxurious mansion in a quiet out-of-the-way part of town. He doubtless appeared to the eyes of the world— his world-a happy man. But he was not one of those whom Nature forms for happiness. His early life had induced habits stern, cold, and selfish. He was not a solitary because he liked it, but because he had been used to it; and thus it never occurred to him that this might be the very thing he wanted. For through his long and arduous struggles with the waves of adversity, his pride of birth had somehow stuck to him, and kept him aloof from the society of his fellow-sufferers. Without a living friend or relation; almost without a taste or pursuit for anything except for amassing money and indirect speculation; and finally a confirmed and zealous Deist,-can it be wondered that Mr. Tesdale was not a happy man. Much to Mr. Nibley's surprise he eagerly accepted the meeklysuggested invitation for the approaching festivities. THOUGHTS ON BEING ALONE. "In solis sis tibi turba locis."-TIBULL. IV. 13. 22. * THE subject of solitude is one which has furnished matter to very many writers. Montaigne has treated of it in his own pleasant discursive egotistical way; and Burton, in a paragraph to which I shall presently refer, has shown how it courts some men of melancholy temperaments, till what was a relaxation becomes a disease, or a hard taskmaster. But it is not this view of the subject that I am about to take. There is a natural and common weakness connected with it, which I do not remember to have seen commented upon in the works of any such author. It is that men are afraid of being alone. This may, at first sight, appear a startling proposition. People will readily agree with Mr. C. Lamb,† or apprehend what he says about the night-fears of children, and their agonies when alone; for they can remember a period when their own young nerves were thus urged. But observe,-children, having their imagination strong, and their reason most weak, terrify themselves with personations of their own creation. They make a monster like Frankenstein, and then, like him, flee from it. But the man puts away the things of the child;—he walks with a high head - manlike; he is visited by no imaginary terrors : why, then, should he fear to be alone? Do you ask why? The truth of my proposition depends for its verbal accuracy upon the meaning we attach to the word "ourselves." If it means something more than the mere animal,—the body; if, in short, we consider our spiritual essence-whatever else we call it-as the most important element in our composition, (as it is certainly that without which we should cease to be man), then I say we are afraid of being by ourselves. Is a man left to himself during the day, he flies to his books, his music, to the contemplation of the sky, trees, and fields; anything but his own spirit. Or, is he alone at night, he shuns himself in the catalepsy of sleep. And thus the many go on, neglecting the all-but-divine and saving communion that cures by giving pain; they raise to themselves unmeet associates, inanimate companions, or mere forgetfulness, any substitute or excuse, rather than be alone with their heart. Be sure, that the man who does not commune with his own soul has little communion with his soul's father. Nor is this all the mind ‡ gradually weakened by neglect, and continual fritterings, is unequal to high flights for the good of others, has not power to take care of its own. But let the man of thought be sometimes alone. If he is a man of much sin (as it may chance) let him look inward, talk to the spirit that has so often erred for him, and understand his misdoings. otherwise, shall he repent of them? § How, It was an old paradox,-methinks of the stoics,||-that man did not know himself. As far as its uses went it was well said; yet it does not seem all true. In most cases but those of great levity, or extreme insensibility, there is a principle within us that hath knowledge of ourselves; but we shun to consult it for this is, in some sort, an exposing of our own faults,-it is akin to the mortification of telling them to others. : A word from Burton shall conclude my speculations on this subject : "I may not deny," says he, "that there is some profitable meditation, contemplation, and kind of solitariness to be embraced, which the Fathers so highly commended,.. .. .. which Petrarch and others so much magnify in their books; a Paradise, an Heaven on earth; if it be used aright, good for the body, and better for the soul."¶ P. C. Review. SKETCHES FROM LIFE. By Samuel Laman Blanchard. 3 vols. Colburn. THE Volumes before us are made up of papers written from time to time; and of contributions to periodicals. A Memoir of the Author is prefixed to them by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. And, indeed, "The Sketches" form the best commentary on this memoir. The habits of life so forcibly, yet so feelingly, pourtrayed § μετανοήσει. Rambler, No. VII. We cannot change what we have not in our hands. "E cœlo descendit yvwo σEAUTOV."-Juv. Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 88. Ed. 1660. in the Memoir, appear to us, in every page of the "Sketches," just as the mind is said to look through the eye. When we remember that Blanchard in youth wavered between the drudgery of a lawyer's office, the excitement of the stage, and the hurried exertion of periodical literature, that in manhood he devoted himself to the last of these three employments, seasoned, perhaps sharpened, by political strifethat every week he contributed to four or five periodicals, and edited as many more, till the maddened thoughts of the dying man ran upon work, work, then we may see how it was that he amused when he might have instructed, that he gently insinuated when he might have impressed. The necessities of life denied to him, "when the precious hours of leisure came, Wisdom and knowledge gained from converse sweet With books." For information he must draw upon the resources stored up at Southwark School; further knowledge he must snatch up "while he ranged the crowded streets With a keen eye and overflowing heart."' Blanchard was, in many respects, qualified for using effectually such means of knowledge: he had powers of observation ever watchful, quick and vivid. Many of the Sketches, such as "Confessions of a Keyhole," "Talk of the Devil," "Women and their Masters," "Faults on Both Sides," show that his eye had marked the human character in its domestic traits. Many social peculiarities are noted in "Public Dinners," 'Speech-making," "Essays on Mum." Newspaper incidents are skilfully adduced as evidence of life and manners, in such articles as "The Blunders of the remarkably-skilful," ""The Record of a Police-Office." Most of these subjects are embellished by circumstances, which from their number could not have been collected to-day or yesterday, but must have been noted down some time before. " The circumstances thus retained are called forth with great readiness, and effectively brought to bear upon any point. Blanchard is peculiarly happy in this respect, in his " Quarrel with Old Acquaintances," that is, time-honoured Proverbs. To blacken the fame of one old saw, he draws evidence from matters connected with Adam Smith, whip-tops, Thomson the poet, stuffed ducks, arithmetic, pedestrianism, duels, alligators, Shakspere, the hydra, Milton, wives, doctors, nightcaps, and Burgundy wine. This is but a solitary instance: a whole string of proverbs are refuted with a similar copiousness. The fruits of this observation are beautified by a graceful fancy; by that which Mr. Leigh Hunt calls "the poetical part of wit.” Whether the object be an event, a thing, or an idea, the fancy plays and hovers around it; it instinctively perceives whatever beauty the object itself NO XIV.-VOL. III. 3 E |