means an indispensable article of prison attire. Next in favour to the frock is the short single-breasted jacket, because this is a form to which (like invalids in the army) any class of coat may be reduced, when it is no longer capable of doing duty in the regular line. Moreover, the jacket has an air about it indicative of riding on horseback, and is therefore worn here somewhat on the same principle on which cockneys wear spurs to their hessians, and carry horsewhips in their hands; namely, precisely because they are not going to ride.

As to the head gear, that is pretty equally divided between the travelling-cap, the white hat, the black hat, and no hat at all; many preferring the latter fashion, probably on account of the air it gives them of being at home.

It only remains for me to endeavour, if possible, to convey to you a notion of the distinctive and characteristic expression of countenance which prevails almost universally, in the inhabitants of this singular spot; a sort of look which, as it never is and cannot possibly be acquired elsewhere, deserves to be designated as, par excellence, the prison look. And yet this look must be the result of so many contradicting feelings, that I can scarcely hope to make it intelligible to you by a description; and indeed I am by no means sure that I should succeed in making it obvious to you, even if I could point it out to your eyes as an actual appearance. You would, I doubt, be apt to reiterate upon me the words that I remember having once put into your mouth against myself, and tell me that I was, as usual, looking further into the millstone than the actual thickness of the millstone itself. But I have promised to describe to you, not what you or any one else is bound to see in the objects examined, but what they appear to me; and if, in fulfilling this promise, I present more than would otherwise exist for you, why you ought to be so much the more obliged to me. The prison look, then, of which I have spoken above, seems to be made up of the following particulars, all blended together in proportions more or less noticeable, but all present, and all modifying each other, according to their greater or less prevalence: Item, a sinister and selfinvolved cast about the eyes, as if their owner was in the habit of turning them inwards upon himself before he permitted them to judge of other people. Item, a contracted brow, bearing upon it an involuntary half-frown, which is balanced by a not involuntary half-smile, almost perpetually upon the lips. (So true is it that " a man may smile and be a villain," that in fact he cannot be much of a villain unless he is a perpetual smiler.) Item, an assumed air of easy superiority among equals in station, which is strangely contrasted by a co-existing air of conscious degradation and inferiority. Item, a studied nonchalance of manner before strangers and free men as if it were not a mark of superiority rather than otherwise, to be able to owe more than one is able to pay!

Leaving you to digest these somewhat contradictory expressions into one homogeneous look, I remain, my dear Frank, your loving cousin, TERENCE TEMPLETON.

KING HAROLD.

"KING Harold! the Norman is on his way!
I have seen him, my liege, in his battle array-
Full sixty thousand in harness and helm

From Pevensey march o'er thy English realm,
And William the Bastard is leading them on-
King of England make speed, or thy sceptre is gone!
O hasten thy journey by night and by day,

Leave the northerns behind thee and hurry away!"
Thus to Harold a Kentish noble said,

As he bow'd to the monarch his snow-plumed head,
And sprang from his courser with gory spur,
Of the tidings the weary messenger.

He's from Stamford gone, and city and hold
Pour out his axemen and slingers bold;
His soldiers in brass and steel shine bright,
And his men at arms are a goodly sight;
For their courage is high as an eagle's way
When she soars in the noon of a cloudless day,
And their hearts are link'd like the steel they wear,
And their honour is pure as their swords' blue glare.
They have enter'd Kent, where the wooded vales
Echo trampling steeds and wild clarion peals;
And their ardours increase as the foe draws nigh-
"Our England, and Harold, and home" is their cry!
"Our England," fair realm! they defend thee in vain,
And "Harold" shall bleed with the weltering slain,
And "home"-the charm it possess'd will be gone,
When the foot of the victor hath trampled it down.
The dwelling that stands by the wild-wood tree
No more shall look smiling or shelter the free,
But the law of the curfew, the forest, the strong,
Envemon "sweet home" that enchanted so long.

How damp'd then their ardours, how hopeless their swords,
Had fate but unfolded her dark records!

Up, warriors, in ignorance, and hie to your death,

"Twill be something to sell at the dearest, your breath.

The sun of that morning on ocean is bright,
And the headlands are bathed in its rosy light;
The deep-blue sky in the morning's pearl
Is kissing the billow's snow-white curl;
And the landscape, like beauty reposing, lies
Enwrapp'd in the robe of its witcheries.

The black ships are drawn on the distant strand,
Where the billows roll gently asleep on the land;
There is peace over heaven and ocean, the storm
Of ambition alone shall the green land deform;
For the Norman masses, more rude than the shore
Whence they sail'd, have awaken'd the battle's roar.
Now they wind through long valleys and woods, now appear
On the hill-tops, that bristle with helmet and spear,

Then darken and flash in the sunbeams afar,

And eclipse all its crimes by the splendour of war.

Who are they on yon heights, where the standards unfold

To the scant breeze of morn their emblazonings of gold,-

On the hill's roomy summit that gather and lour,
A thunderstorm hush'd in its blackness of power?

They 're the hosts of King Harold-he watches the foe,
And tracks his long march through the valleys below.
There is courage and conduct and might's lofty will,
With England's rich crown to be won on that hill.
Methinks if the Bastard would bear it away,
He must pour the blood of his bravest to-day!

The Norman approaches, the battle is made,
A sepulchred stillness is over the glade—
Slow moves as in death-march, his columns' tread,
Valkyriurs advancing to choose out the dead.
One step now another-now shouts and uproar,
The clang of the battle, the rush of the gore,
From the red lips of slaughter that gorge their repast,
As imagining mercy decreed it their last---
All rush on the terrified sense like the sound
Of a stifled volcano uplifting the ground.

But the Norman is foil'd-he advances again—
Again he retires-his valour is vain.

Eve comes!

There was carnage enough on that day,
When the crown of fair England was rifled away;
When the Norman shaft drank up the blood of her king,
And the land rang with shrieks and with sorrowing.
O long till'd was the soil for her foes, and her plains
Saw her sons bow'd down in the victor's chains;
Yet they broke them at last, and the links when free,
They hurl'd at all tyrants and tyranny!*

SECOND LETTER FROM MR. MARK HIGGINBOTHAM.

"Rings, gaudes, conceits,

Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats."-SHAKSPEARE.

HOWEVER fastidious, and even morbid, might have been my feelings at the assumption of my present degrading appellation, my mortification was rendered more acute by the apprehension that the fortune which it brought me would be speedily dissipated, and that I should live to bear the brand of my hateful and ridiculous name without retaining any portion of the wealth which could alone reconcile me to its infliction. Had my wife's deceased uncle poured his gold into the pitchers of the Belides, it could not more fluently have leaked away. She has imbibed the unfortunate notion that we must dazzle and outblaze the keen eye of ridicule by our magnificence, and draw down the unlifted finger of scorn by the weight of our purses; as if we could propitiate envy by supplying it with fresh food, or blunt the shafts of malice by incasing ourselves in golden armour. "My dear," I exclaimed, "this is only attempting to smother a fire with gunpowder. Fine trappings do but emblazon deformity, and the sun himself, splendid as he is, cannot prevent mortals from prying into the spots upon his disk. We had much better be modest and appropriate, humble ourselves down to our name, pocket our money with the indignity it brings us, and henceforward be content to dwell in decencies for ever.' "Heavens !" ejaculated my spouse with a horrent look, "to

* De Lolme was of opinion that the measures taken by William I. for binding his English subjects were the causes that brought about our free constitution.

6

what would it reduce us—this notion of an establishment that should be adapted to our cognominal circumstances!" To some Higginbotham House,' in Brunswick or Mecklenburgh Square, with one window beside the door, and two upwards; with a narrow slip of drawingroom, which, by its double fireplace and disproportionate folding-door, would fain persuade you it is capable of being subdivided into two; and a steep narrow staircase, sadly circumscribing the exploded and civic gallantry of your guests, as each pseudo-gentleman escorted a fat lady upon his arm to the twelve-feet-square dining room. Here would your door be opened for you in the morning by your sole undersized servant in a sky-blue-livery with a silver shoulder-knot; you would step into your pea-green gig with brass harness, to be conveyed every morning to St. Mary Axe; and be received on your return to your five o'clock dinner by a pale-faced wife with a red nose, a bushel of scarlet and yellow flowers in her straggling self-adjusted locks, her vulgarly fine clothes being all cut out by herself, and nearly as ill-made as the maker; who would pour sauce made of salt butter over your fish, and inquire whether she should help you to broccilo with your mutton. Such is your beau ideal of suiting the action to the word.' No, no, my dear Mark, I cannot, thank Heaven, bring myself down to my name, and we must, therefore, adopt the pleasanter alternative of elevating the name by the taste and splendour of the establishment to which it will be appended.”

Having found by experience that the only way to be complete master of my own house is to resign its entire management to my wife, I gave her a carte blanche for the decoration of our new mansion in Grosvenor-square; and as the upholster probably knew that I had a deep purse and a shallow wit (which I disguised under the veil of a goodnatured generosity, in the settlement of accounts,) I hold him responsible for the over-gorgeousness of the gildings, the gaudy magnificence of the hangings, the ponderous finery of the furniture, and all the gew-gaw flaring ostentation of rose-wood overlaid with buhl, and sattin-wood bedizened with or-molu. As for the designs, the forms, the taste-—these my wife as eagerly claimed for herself as if any rational being would have been disposed to contest her right. I know not what demon whispered her to have a taste, unless it might be some genius of the menagerie. But that I pay so much more for admission into their company, I could almost fancy myself, as I parade my splendid rooms, to be perambulating amid the wild beasts of Exeter Change; and I mournfully anticipate the ridicule as well as the impoverishment of Pope's Sir Visto. The crest of the Somers family, which I still retain, is a bear rampant, which ferocious figure presents itself to my eye in such threatening variety that I live in perpetual dread of the fate inflicted by his living prototype of the Jardin des Plantes upon the unfortunate Parisian who came within his gripe. If I lounge in my arm chair, two uplifted paws are ready to plunge their talons in the calf of each leg, while an open mouth, snarling with sharp carnivorous teeth, gapes upwards to catch my overhanging hand. Sofas, consoles, commodes, ottomans, and chiffoniers, all bristle with the same revolting ornament in such various modifications of size and material, that if Mr. Martin could carry his bill, and extend it to those who are baited by this animal, as well as to those who bait it, I seriously apprehend

my tormentors would be punishable by law. But this is by no means the only monster with which I am haunted. Sprawling dragons seem to be hissing at me from each end of the curtain-pole; gorgons and chimæras gnash their teeth at me from the arabesque compartments of the papered wall; I am actually obliged to sit down upon the griffins and hippogrifs of the furniture with which my chairs are covered, and there is not a handle in the house which does not represent some hideous form, and make me shudder and revolt as it touches my fingers. "The rich buffet well coloured serpents grace;" the everlasting bear offers itself to my hand from every article of the china dinnerservice; a grinning salamander forms the very appropriate termination of the shovel, poker, and tongs; I am obliged to grasp every silver tankard by a twisted snake, as if I could handle them with as much impunity as one of the Libyan Psylli: every time I lift my winecoolers I thrust my fingers into a satyr's jaws; and as if the heads of these various monsters were not enough, there is scarcely an article in the house, from the drawing-room table to the foot-stool, which is not supported by the protruding paws of a wild beast, or the claws of some enormous bird.

An

But there are classical nuisances about my mansion, which sicken me at my meals by their still more disgusting associations. Argyll pours me out hot gravy from the entrails of a silver mermaid; I have a great regard for the god Pan, but I like not to have my beer, which I am still vulgar enough to drink, vomited from his open jaws; and though I reverence the character of a Naiad, it irketh me to see her eject from her silvery mouth the cream which I am just about to swallow. In the ardour of her astronomical taste, it pleased my spouse to have the signs of the zodiac painted upon our dinner plates, so that I have the pleasant notion of always having a crab and a scorpion in my dish, while I smear irreverent lobster sauce over the celestial fishes, cut the throat of the ram and bull with my truculent knife, stick my fork into the left eye of Aquarius or the right one of Sagittarius, and daub with half-cold fat the features of the smiling virgin or the interesting twins; and if I retire to my dressing-room to purify my hands after this wanton butchery, I am again sickened with a marble shell, into which, as Pope has somewhat coarsely expressed it,

"Two gaping tritons spew to wash your face."

Even at tea-time I am not unmolested. A kneeling Atlas supports the hissing urn upon his naked shoulders, exciting my commiseration by the notion that he must be suffering the torture of this scalding infliction at the same moment that my little boy Alfred is tickling the sole of his outstretched bronze foot, and wondering that he cannot make him laugh. In ringing the bell to have this painful object removed, I must once more clutch at a circular serpent devouring his own tail; nor can I knock at my own street-door without raising a Medusa's head, horrent with snakes, and striking against the frontal bone of a minotaur, who seems to be roaring at me as I rap.

It will be thought that I am either singularly unfortunate in my establishment, or marvellously disposed to be querulous, when I state that these annoyances, irritating as they are to a man of my nervous temperament, are by no means the most intolerable of those that I am doomed