when Pendennis was a freshman, and who had left that sort of tradition behind him of his prowess intellectual, convivial, and athletic, which we fancy exists in all schools and colleges respecting one or another giant of a semimythical preceding age. Into the chambers of Warrington, then a briefless barrister, Pendennis is inducted, reads a little law, and sees a great deal of rough London life. When Pendennis' uncle the major, an old buck of St. James's Street, redolent of the fragrant memory of Brummel and the Regency, was first introduced to Warrington in his chambers," he was dressed in a ragged old shooting jacket, and had a bristly blue beard. He was drinking beer like a coalheaver, and yet you couldn't but perceive he was a gentleman." A gentleman he was to the backbone, and he does much to redeem the tone of Mr. Thackeray's book, and to prevent us from regarding it with so much repugnance as we should in his absence. To this friend, Pendennis for the first time confides his real resources when he has changed the last £5 note of his £200. We extract the conversation which takes place.

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"Inpecuniosity will do you good,' Pen's friend said, knocking out the ashes at the end of the narration; 'I don't know anything more wholesome for a man-for an honest man, mind you-for another, the medicine loses its effect-than a state of tick. It is an alterative and a tonic; it keeps your moral man in a perpetual state of excitement as a man who is riding at a fence, or has his opponent's single stick before him, is forced to look his obstacle steadily in the face, and braces himself to repulse or overcome it, a little necessity brings out your pluck if you have any, and nerves you to grapple with fortune. You will discover what a number of things you can do without when you have no money to buy them. You won't want new gloves and varnished boots, eau de Cologne, and cabs to ride in. You have been bred up as a molly-coddle, Pen, and spoilt by the women. A single man who has health and brains, and can't find a livelihood in the world, doesn't deserve to stay there. Let him pay his last halfpenny and jump over Waterloo Bridge. Let him steal a leg of mutton and be transported and get out of the country-he is not fit to live in it. Dixi; I have spoken. Give another pull at the pale ale.'

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666

You have certainly spoken; but how is one to live?' said Pen. There is beef and bread in plenty in England, but you must pay for it with work or money. And who will take my work? and what work can I do?'

"Warrington burst out laughing. Suppose we advertise in the Times,' he said, 'for an usher's place at a classical and commercial academy-A gentleman, B.A. of St. Boniface College, Oxbridge, and who was plucked for his degree—'

"Confound you,' cried Pen.

"Wishes to give lessons in classics and mathematics, and the rudiments of the French language; he can cut hair, attend to the younger pupils, and play a second on the piano with the daughters of the principal. Address A. P., Lamb Court, Temple.'

"Go on,' said Pen, growling.

"Men take to all sorts of professions. Why, there is your friend Bloundell-Bloundell is a professional blackleg, and travels the continent, where he picks up young gentlemen of fashion and fleeces them. There is Bob O'Toole, with whom I was at school, who drives the Ballynafad mail now, and carries honest Jack Finucane's own correspondence to that city. I know a man, sir, a doctor's son, like —well, don't be angry, I meant nothing offensive—a doctor's son, I say, who was walking the hospitals here, and quarrelled with his governor on questions of finance, and what did he do when he came to his last five pound note? he let his mustachios grow, went into a provincial town, where he announced himself as Professor Spineto, chiropodist to the Emperor of all the Russias, and by a happy operation on the editor of the country newspaper, established himself in practice, and lived reputably for three years. He has been reconciled to his family, and has now succeeded to his father's gallypots.'

"Hang gallypots,' cried Pen. 'I can't drive a coach, cut corns, or cheat at cards. There's nothing else you propose.'

"Yes; there's our own correspondent,' Warrington said. 'Every man has his secrets, look you. Before you told me the story of your money-matters, I had no idea but that you were a gentleman of fortune, for, with your confounded airs and appearance, anybody would suppose you to be so. From what you tell me about your mother's income, it is clear that you must not lay any more hands on it. You can't go on spunging upon the women. You must pay off that trump of a girl. Laura is her name ?-here is your health, Laura!—and carry a hod rather than ask for a shilling from home.'

"But how earn one?' asked Pen.

"How do I live, think you?' said the other. 'On my younger brother's allowance, Pendennis? I have secrets of my own, my boy;' and here Warrington's countenance fell. 'I made away with that allowance five years ago; if I had made away with myself a little time before, it would have been better. I have played off my own bat, ever since. I don't want much money. When my purse is out I go to work and fill it, and then lie idle like a serpent or an Indian until I have digested the mass. Look, I begin to feel empty,'

Warrington said, and showed Pen a long lean purse, with but a few sovereigns at one end of it.

"But how do you fill it ?' said Pen.

"I write,' said Warrington. I don't tell the world that I do so,' he added, with a blush. I do not choose that questions should be asked: or, perhaps, I am an ass, and don't wish it to be said that George Warrington writes for bread. But I write in the Law Reviews: look here, these articles are mine.' And he turned over some sheets. I write in a newspaper now and then, of which a friend of mine is editor.' And Warrington going with Pendennis to the club one day, called for a file of the 'Dawn,' and pointed with his finger silently to one or two articles, which Pen read with delight. had no difficulty in recognising the style afterwards-the strong thoughts and curt periods, the sense, the satire aud the scholarship.

6

He

"I am not up to this,' said Pen, with a genuine admiration of his friend's powers. I know very little about politics or history, Warrington; and have but a smattering of letters. I can't fly upon such a wing as yours.'

“But you can on your own, my boy, which is lighter, and soars higher, perhaps,' the other said, good-naturedly. Those little scraps and verses which I have seen of yours, show me, what is rare in these days, a natural gift, sir. You needn't blush, you conceited young jackanapes. You have thought so yourself any time these ten years. You have got the sacred flame-a little of the real poetical fire, sir, I think; and all our oil-lamps are nothing, compared to that, though ever so well trimmed. You are a poet, Pen, my boy,' and so speaking, Warrington stretched out his broad hand, and clapped Pen on the shoulder.

"Arthur was so delighted that the tears came into his eyes. How kind you are to me, Warrington!' he said.

"I like you, old boy,' said the other. I was dev'lish lonely in chambers, and wanted somebody, and the sight of your honest face somehow pleased me. I liked the way you laughed at Lowtonthat poor good little snob. And, in fine, the reason why I cannot tell-but so it is, young 'un. I'm alone in the world, sir; and I wanted some one to keep me company;' and a glance of extreme kindness and melancholy passed out of Warrington's dark eyes.

"Pen was too much pleased with his own thoughts to perceive the sadness of the friend who was complimenting him. Thank you, Warrington,' he said, thank you for your friendship to me, and— and what you say about me. I have often thought I was a poet. I will be one- -I think I am one, as you say so, though the world mayn't. Is it—is it the Ariadne in Naxos which you liked (I was only eighteen when I wrote it), or the Prize Poem ?"

"Warrington burst into a roar of laughter. Why, you young goose,' he yelled out' of all the miserable weak rubbish I ever tried, Ariadne in Naxos is the most mawkish and disgusting. The Prize Poem is so pompous and feeble, that I'm positively surprised, sir, it didn't get the medal. You don't suppose that you are a serious poet, do you, and are going to cut out Milton and Eschylus ? Are you setting up to be a Pindar, you absurd little tom-tit, and fancy you have the strength and pinion which the Theban eagle bear, sailing with supreme dominion through the azure fields of air? No, my boy, I think you can write a magazine article, and turn out a pretty copy of verses; that's what I think of you.'

"By Jove!' said Pen, bouncing up and stamping his foot, I'll show you that I am a better man than you think for.'

"Warrington only laughed the more, and blew twenty-four puffs rapidly out of his pipe by way of reply to Pen."

Thanks to Warrington's pushing, Pen's light literature is taken and paid for by the publishers of annuals, and he is finally installed in the literary department of a new journal, writes a novel occasionally, and nets £400 a-year. He pays off by degrees the money advanced to him by his fair creditor, but instead of falling in love with her, he gets captivated by a susceptible little porter's daughter, with whom he falls in at Vauxhall one hot long vacation, when every body is out of town. After a little dallying with temptation he resolves to fly from it, but in walking and smoking down his incipient passion throws himself into a fever. The poor smitten little maid comes to nurse him in his delirium till she is turned out of doors without inquiry or hearing by his mother and Laura, and falls ill herself. She, however, recovers, and marries a medical student with plenty of coarseness and not much besides. Pen too gets well, and finding that his uncle is determined to marry him to a former flirt, the daughter by a previous marriage of a kind, vulgar Calcutta lady, married to a thorough blackguard of a baronet, and that he is on that arrangement to come into parliament for the baronet's borough, and have a good fortune with his wife, consents to do his part. His thoughts and views at this crisis of his life will be best set forth by quoting another conversation between him and Warrington.

"Our friend had arrived in London on that day only, though but for a brief visit, and having left some fellow-travellers at an hotel to

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which he had conveyed them from the West, he hastened to the Chambers in Lamb Court, which were basking in as much sun as chose to visit that dreary but not altogether comfortless building. Freedom stands in lieu of sunshine in Chambers; and Templars grumble, but take their ease in their Inn. Pen's domestic announced to him that Warrington was in Chambers too, and, of course, Arthur ran up to his friend's room straightway, and found it, as of old, perfumed with the pipe, and George once more at work at his newspapers and reviews. The pair greeted each other with the rough cordiality which young Englishmen use one to another and which carries a great deal of warmth and kindness under its rude exterior. Warrington smiled and took his pipe out of his mouth, and said, 'Well, young one!' Pen advanced and. held out his hand, and said, 'How are you, old boy?' And so this greeting passed between two friends who had not seen each other for months. Alphonse and Frédéric would have rushed into each other's arms and shrieked Ce bon cœur! ce cher Alphonse! over each other's shoulders. Max and Wilhelm would have bestowed half a dozen kisses, scented with Havannah, upon each other's mustachios. Well, young one!' 'How are you, old boy?' is what two Britons say after saving each other's lives, possibly, the day before. To-morrow they will leave off shaking hands, and only wag their heads at one another as they come to breakfast. Each has for the other the very warmest confidence and regard: each would share his purse with the other: and hearing him attacked would break out in the loudest and most enthusiastic praise of his friend; but they part with a mere Good-bye, they meet with a mere Howd'you-do, and they don't write to each other in the interval. Curious modesty, strange stoical decorum of English friendship! Yes, we are not demonstrative like those confounded foreigners,' says Hardman; who not only shows no friendship but never felt any all his life long.

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6

"Been in Switzerland ?' says Pen. 'Yes,' says Warrington. "Couldn't find a bit of tobacco fit to smoke till we came to Strasburg, where I got some caporal.' The man's mind is full, very likely, of the great sights which he has seen, of the great emotions with which the vast works of nature have inspired it. But his enthusiasm is too coy to show itself, even to his closest friends, and he veils it with a cloud of tobacco. He will speak more fully on confidential evenings however, and write ardently and frankly about that which he is shy of saying. The thoughts and experience of his travel will come forth in his writings; as the learning, which he never displays in talk, enriches his style with pregnant allusion and brilliant illustration, colours his generous eloquence, and points his wit.

"The elder gives a rapid account of the places which he has visited in his tour. He has seen Switzerland, North Italy, and the Tyrol