"Oh, no, not for the world, on my account; I should be quite sorry not to taste your old madeira." "Well-well, please yourself; and it's no great hardship, after all, but mind you do which you like best, this is Liberty Hall." Having said this with the slightest possible asperity of tone, the old gentleman directed his conversation for some little time, entirely to the vicar, leaving the captain to sip his madeira in silence. As, however, ill-humour never lasted very long with him, and his guest had already made a favourable impression on him in other ways, he very soon said, "Well, doctor, which beat shall I take the captain to-morrow; there's Hovendon, Pudsybrow, and Taffrillgap?" "All swarming with partridges," said the silent Vicar. And not a gun fired at one of them this year," said the Baronet, with a look of triumph, to his guest. "You had better begin with the furthest, if it is a fine day," said the Vicar. "What say you, my young friend?" cried the kind-hearted old man; "are you up to a ride of six or eight miles by eight to-morrow morning? All over my own estate; see 'em all feeding as we go along ?" Now, the fact was, Captain Morland, though a keen sportsman, and a good shot, had not exactly taken his tour in this particular direction for the sake of popping at partridges, but had been led, partly by the wish of seeing the beautiful scenery of Wensleydale, the falls of Carparby, Askrigg, &c., and partly to pass a few days in the house with the pretty Miss Oldstyle, by whose beauty he had been much struck in London. The present proposal of the excellent old baronet did not seem to further either of his projects, he therefore simply replied, as was indeed the fact, "Why, I am sorry to say that my gun will not yet have arrived from Cumberland." "My dear fellow, you shall have as good a killer as old Nock ever made. I used to call it my Nock, but now it always goes by the name of my Nock-down, so you may imagine what a slaughterer it is." "I am afraid my shooting things are with my gun." "Well-well, we'll set you up there too. I believe I've got every shooting-jacket that has ever been made for me, so it's hard if we can't find a jacket to fit you, and a pair of gaiters that you can button on your young legs;" and the Baronet looked down with complacency on his own calves, set off as they were by the white silk stockings and nankeens which decked them. Morland now saw that there was no refuge but in a decided answer, he therefore replied, "The fact is, my dear Sir George, that I have got so fond of my sketch book, I shall not be easy till I have transferred to it the views in the immediate neighbourhood. After I have done that, I shall be delighted, on a future day, to accompany you in your shooting to some more remote parts, where I shall, no doubt, find other subjects." The Baronet's countenance fell at this speech, and he answered, very dryly, “Oh, well, if you really mean, that you had rather go about the country drawing, than have the first of the shooting at Pudsybrow, of March.-VOL. XLIX. NO. CXCV. 2 A course you will do so. I only did think, though, it seems, I was wrong, that you might like to secure the partridges while you could get at them. Your cascades won't run away. The birds will very soon get wild; and all these hills and mountains won't get a bit wilder than they are -as Heaven knows there's no occasion they should-that was all I meant." "I am sure you are very good, and I am much obliged to you," said Morland, who was not one of those weak persons who, after incurring all the odium of having a different opinion on any point, suffer themselves to be talked out of it. He did not feel inclined to give up his point after having had his fight for it. Sir George was silent for a few moments, and at last turned to the Vicar, with the short tone of a man who had by no means recovered his good humour, saying, " Perhaps you, Doctor, would like to accompany me to-morrow ?" "I should be delighted; nothing I should like better," said the Vicar. "Well then, as Captain Morland will not help himself to more wine, perhaps we may as well go in to coffee." And so they did; the clouds on his brow not being sufficiently dispersed to prevent the kind-hearted Fanny, who looked up for that very purpose on their entrance, from perceiving that something had gone a little wrong. As soon as coffee was over, Dr. Dawkins approached Fanny with his usual petition at that period of the evening, couched in the same terms night after night "Will my fair pupil give her master another beating at chess this evening ?" Fanny would have given anything to have refused for only this once ; she naturally wished to have a little more of the rare enjoyment at the Hall of the society of a clever, well-informed, and agreeable guest. She was not, however, used to consider merely her own feelings and wishes, and she thought it would be a sort of treachery to her old friend to disappoint him on this the first occasion of her wishing to be otherwise employed. She therefore immediately began placing the men. Poor Morland, who was not under nearly such good self-discipline, looked almost angry (without having any right to be so) at this arrangement; and as Sir George was not disposed to be very talkative, and as Lady Oldstyle, though an "excellent creature," really had it not in her to lead a conversation herself, the evening was not very lively. Sir George, who had been defrauded of a full quarter of an hour usually devoted to quiet repose in the dining-room, was leaning back in his arm-chair. His eyes fell from time to time on his guest's dress, and as his French-polished boots glistening in the fire-light, and his long black neckcloth, and delicately-wrought gold chain, severally attracted his notice, they drew from the meditating Baronet sundry low, but expressive grunts of disapprobation. The latter part of the evening was principally passed by the Captain in uneasy strides from the clock to the chess-table. Each peep at the latter, however, only served to convince him that the game was one of those that might last almost any time. He was just thinking whether he could, without affronting them, do as he might very well in a larger party have done, viz., go up to his own room for the night, when the Baronet, across whose mind no such thoughts had been passing, but who saw his guest in an unsettled state, cried out to him from his seat by the fire "Now, Captain, do just what you like, you know." Morland was just opposite the bed-candles, and this seemed an answer to all his doubts. 66 "Well then," said he, as I have been travelling so far to-day, and have several letters to write to-night, I will wish you all good night." "To bed! are you going to bed?" said the Baronet; "well, good night, but shall you know your room again?" "Why perhaps I had better ring for a servant, if you will allow me?" "Indeed, I shall allow no such thing while I have legs to accompany you. I shall be down in a minute, Doctor, after I have conducted our sleepy friend here." Whether it was that there was something in the tone of the last speech which convinced the good-natured, kind, little Fanny that her father was not quite satisfied with his guest, or that the excitement of such an event as the arrival of a stranger in their usually quiet family, had made her thoughts wander from the game, I know not; but certain it is that the doors were hardly closed upon the gentlemen when she made a blunder in her game, of which her adversary was not slow to take advantage; and, by the time Sir George came down, the successful Vicar was employed in sliding the lid of the box on the conquering and conquered men, and in pouring forth the usual compliments to Fanny on "the capital struggle she had made." His gig was now announced, and he left the family party at full liberty to talk over the new guest. "Well, my dear Fanny," began the Baronet, "you certainly were right in saying that this Captain Morland is not a little fine." "My dear Papa, I didn't say he was fine; I only said he had the reputation of being fine." "No, of course you couldn't say so, as you didn't know him." દ No; but he does not come within my idea of a person who is fine." “Well, well, then I suppose he is not fine; but I am afraid he is too fine for us; I do not know how we shall get on with him, if he could not even bear us through one evening." "Oh but, Papa, the first evening is just the one which is most difficult, particularly when people have very different habits." "Yes, indeed, very different habits," said Sir George. "What do you think, my dear, of his having refused plump to go out shooting tomorrow at Pudsybrow, and merely because he says he is fond of sketching ?" "It was very odd taste, certainly," said Fanny, smiling, but by no means contemptuously; but you know you always say you like to see people enjoy themselves." "Yes, so I do; but I like it to be in the way I suggest," because then I am sure they do enjoy themselves." "Are they not still more likely to amuse themselves," said Fanny, looking at him archly, "if they do it their own way ?" "Well, I'll not argue the point with you, my little Fanny," said he, kissing her; "you know I always like you to do what you like best; and, with all that, I can't succeed in spoiling you. And yet," he continued, in a tone in which the remains of ill-humour struggled with his returning good temper, "one cannot quite like a young fellow who keeps one waiting a quarter of an hour for dinner, and then comes down in his shining boots and long black neckcloth, as if he had not dressed at all; who calls justice business a bore, and who has no idea of drinking his wine like a man!" Come, come, my dear, dear Papa, that is not like you," said the peacemaking Fanny; "you generally try to find out what you can like in a new acquaintance, and now you are choosing out, and making matters of accusation against him all the mere differences which belong to the altered customs and manners of the day. If he employs himself about us the same way this evening, what a cold unfriendly meeting we should have at breakfast to-morrow! No, no; if we judge him fairly, I have no doubt we shall find out as many good qualities in our new guest as he will, I am quite sure, discover in his host." Whether these kind anticipations, which were expressed as they walked up stairs for the night, were doomed to be realized, still remains to be seen. MARTIAL IN LONDON. TO AN ACTOR. I venture this advice to U., If these my hints are rightly prized, E. THE TIMES WE LIVE IN. "Malgré l'opiniâtreté des hommes, à louer l'antique aux depens du moderne, il faut avouer qu'en tout genre, les premiers essais sont toujours grossiers." "Oh! Time, oh! age, oh! isle, Le monde comme il va. Where flatterers, fools, and fiddlers are rewarded, Drummond of Hawthornden. It is a great question that has been started, to distract mankind and to set them together by the ears, between the laudatores temporis acti, the eulogizers of the wisdom of our ancestors, and the movement party, with its train of optimists, millenniumites, and other indescribable shades and varieties of perfectibility-men, moral, religious, social, and political. Great is the company of the preachers on both sides, and loud their clamour. Marvellous, too, are the fortunes that have been made, and that are still making, by a judicious advocacy of either opinion. Some, by embracing one faction, and sticking to it," through good report and through evil report," (for such is the fashionable formula in that case made and provided,) contrive, in the end, to work their way to the front ranks of society. Others, more adroit, discover the shorter cut to success, through an opportune change of sides; adopting an opinion, not from any peculiar respect or affection, but as a marketable commodity; and, less for present use, than with an eye to future barter. For, when a man has neither personal merit, nor endowment to make him worth a minister's purchase, treason to a party, and to self-respect, will seldom fail to egg on the bidder. The thing is of everyday occurrence, and nothing is more common than to witness a Serjeant Eithersides of a lawyer, ratting himself into the ermine, or running himself into the harbour of office by a sudden and judicious tack in a hard squall. Sometimes, indeed (to change the metaphor), an unlucky ground and lofty tumbler, less perfect in his art, will trip in attempting, mal-à-propos, the saut perilleux, and come to the earth with a crash, like the poor rope-dancer at Covent Garden. But then, how often, through some unforeseen accident, does the political Antæus arise again from his prostration, a giant refreshed with wine. For it is observable that in the market of parties, the last comer is always the most welcome; and the highest prices are ever reserved for the commodities least to be depended upon. It is, it must be, a great question, that is the making of so many; but infinitely greater is it, in its relations to the misfortunes of mankind, of which it hath been the prolific occasion. How many kings has it toppled from their thrones, and "sent to the son-in-law of Ceres by a bloody death!" How many goodly establishments has it levelled with the dust! What armies has it brought into the field, and left there! What towns has it sacked; what countries ravaged; what populations has it parcelled and re-parcelled; what estates confiscated; what nations has it rendered insolvent; what royal merchants bankrupted and overthrown! say nothing of the pamphlets to which it has given birth, the speeches it has prompted, or the leading articles it has thrown off, to the great wear and tear of eyes, and the seething of the brains of his Majesty's |