ed with his visits to Carlton-house and Brighton, (sympathies not eminently decent in a Judge,) and the good things he had obtained for his kinsmen, and we could not help preferring our feelings at the moment to those which induced him to keep his eyes fixed on his papers, which he did almost the whole time of our being in Court, never turning them once to the place on which we stood. There were divers points besides those, on which he had some reason to fear that we might choose to return the lecture of the Bench. He did not even look at us, when he asked, in the course of his duty, whether it was our wish to make any remarks. I answered, that we did not wish to make any there, and Sir Nash proceeded to pass sentence. At the sound of two years' imprisonment in separate jails, my brother and myself instinctively pressed each other's arm. It was a heavy blow; but the pressure that acknowledged it, encouraged the resolution to bear it; and I do not believe either of us interchanged a word afterwards on the subject.

“We parted in hackney-coaches for our re

spective abodes, accompanied by two tipstaves apiece. I cannot help smiling to think of a third person whom I had with me, when I contrast his then situation with his present: but he need not be alarmed. I will not do him the injustice either of hurting or recommending him by the mention of his name. He was one of the best-natured fellows in the world, and I dare say he is so still; but, as Strap says, Non omnia possumus omnes.'

"The tipstaves prepared me for a singular character in my jailer. His name was Ives. I was told he was a very self-willed personage, not the more accommodating for being in a bad state of health, and that he called every body Mister. In short,' said one of the tipstaves, he is one as may be led, but he'll never be druv.'

"The sight of the prison-gate and the high wall was a dreary business. I thought of my horseback and the downs of Brighton; but congratulated myself, at all events, that I had come thither with a good conscience. After waiting in the prison-yard as long as if it had been the antiroom of a minister, I was at

length ushered into the presence of the great man. He was in his parlour, which was decently furnished, and had a basin of broth before him, which he quitted on my appearance, and rose with much solemnity to meet me. He seemed about fifty years of age; had a white night-cap on, as if he was going to be hung, and a great red face, which looked ready to burst with blood. Indeed, he was not allowed by his physician to speak in a tone above a whisper. The first thing he said was, 'Mister, I'd ha' given a matter of a hundred pounds, that you had not come to this place a hundred pounds! The emphasis which he laid on the word hundred' was enormous. I forget what I answered. I endeavoured, as usual, to make the best of things; but he recurred over and over again to the hundred pounds; and said he wondered, for his part, what the Government meant by sending me there, for the prison was not a prison fit for a gentleman. He often repeated this opinion afterwards, adding, with a peculiar nod of his head, and Mister, they knows it.' I said, that if a gentleman deserved to be sent

to prison, he ought not to be treated with a greater nicety than any one else: upon which he corrected me, observing very properly, (though, as the phrase is, it was one word for the gentleman and two for his own apartments,) that a person who had been used to a better mode of lodging and living than low people,' was not treated with the same justice, if forced to live exactly as they did. I told him his observation was very true; which gave him a favourable opinion of my understanding: for I had many occasions of remarking, that, abstractedly considered, he looked upon nobody whomsoever as his superior, speaking even of the members of the Royal Family as persons whom he knew very well, and estimated no more than became him. One Royal Duke had lunched in his parlour, and another he had laid under some polite obligation. They knows me,' said he, very well, Mister; and, Mister, I knows them.' This concluding sentence he uttered with great particularity and precision. He was not proof, however, against a Greek Pindar, which he happened to light upon one day among my

books. Its unintelligible character gave him a notion that he had got somebody to deal with, who might really know something which he did not. Perhaps the gilt leaves and red morocco binding had their share in the magic. The upshot was, that he always showed himself anxious to appear well with me, as a clever fellow, treating me with great civility on all occasions but one, when I made him very angry by disappointing him in a money amount. The Pindar was a mystery that staggered him. I remember very well, that giving me a long account one day of something connected with his business, he happened to catch with his eye the shelf that contained it, and whether he saw it or not, abruptly finished by observing, But, Mister, you knows all these things as well as I do.' Upon the whole, my new acquaintance was as strange a person as I ever met with. A total want of education, together with a certain vulgar acuteness, conspired to render him insolent and pedantic. Disease sharpened his tendency to violent fits of passion, which threatened to suffocate him; and then in his intervals of better health, he