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Sams's book rarities. The closest and most careful inspection and collation were necessary to prevent being imposed upon, and these, under the conditions under which alone purchase was possible, were matters of extreme difficulty. I remember one occasion when, after buying from him more than seventy pounds' worth of books and paying him for them as was necessary in hard cash, I found the waning light of a September day impede further exploration. As I had two or three shelves through which to go, I asked for a light and was refused. Ultimately I was allowed a candle, on consideration of paying a halfpenny for it. Miserliness was the chief characteristic of Sams; next to that came his affection for some of his books. There were certain volumes he would never sell, and there were cases in his upstairs room which during the five years in which I knew him he resolutely refused to open.

W1

THE LAST OF OLD SAMS.

WHEN last I visited his shop, Sams was lying neglected and alone upon what proved, a day or two later, to be his death-bed. In his shop were two women, one old and having the look of a charwoman, a second young and with the appearance of a domestic servant. These two were selling the books which were not marked in a strange haphazard fashion, laying their heads together with a knowledge that the prices had to be high, but without the slightest idea of what they ought to be. I obtained one or two volumes for a sum that would undoubtedly have slain the old man had he lived to hear of it. Whether I was quite justified in carrying off for twenty shillings a Lydgate's "Fall of Princes" in a superb old binding for which old Sams would certainly have demanded ten guineas, I have since doubted. At the time I had no scruples, but was rather inclined to chuckle over a purchase that did something to compensate me for the many frauds by which, in spite of my utmost caution, I had suffered. I had at one time the idea of introducing this wonderful old miser into a work of fiction. Instead, however, of lining trunks with the matter of a printed romance, I have allowed a good intention to join with others in furnishing the proverbial pavement for Limbo.

A

TRISTRAM SHANDY AND MODERN SCIENCE.

CORRESPONDENT, signing himself "A Colonial Animal," remarks, in the course of a somewhat long and disjointed epistle, that my contributor, Dr. Andrew Wilson, has borrowed the method of biology described in last month's Gentleman's from "Tristram Shandy." My anonymous correspondent with the zoo

logical cognomen gives an extract from Sterne, wherein a white bear is made the subject of remark by "Mr. Shandy" in proof of his assertion. Now, I do not for a moment suppose that the complaint of my correspondent, that Dr. Wilson has not acknowledged his indebtedness to Sterne, is a matter of any consequence either to Dr. Wilson, to biology at large, or to any rational admirer of the author of the "Sentimental Journey"; but, as a matter of fact, I fail to discover in the quotation given from "Tristram Shandy" any likeness to the exact scientific method described by Dr. Wilson last month. My correspondent's opinion that Sterne's words are far finer than Dr. Wilson's is, of course, an opinion founded on a parallelism of things which no sane person would dream of comparing; and how Mr. Shandy's lucubrations about the behaviour of a white bear can possibly suggest even unconscious plagiarism by Dr. Wilson, is a matter which I confess lies beyond my powers of solution. Dr. Wilson, I apprehend, would tell my correspondent that he had owed nothing whatever to Sterne; and I suspect my anonymous correspondent knows rather less of Sterne than he would have me believe when he asserts any likeness between the now well-known methods of naturalhistory study, and a forgotten passage in a work not by any means a common object of study in the present year of grace. There is just a soupçon of unfairness in the remark wherewith my correspondent ends his letter. He says:-" But I do not know that fairness to the imaginary dead is to be expected from a writer who says that ‘a student who, in a northern university, attends a class of natural history, is understood to concern himself solely with the animal population of the globe.'" If my correspondent knows as little about Sterne as he certainly does about northern universities, one may cease to wonder at his complaint. In the list of classes of Edinburgh University, for instance, the class of "natural-history" is a class of pure zoology. There is a distinct class of botany; so that a student who enters the "natural-history" class in Edinburgh, studies animals and animals alone. Dr. Wilson himself is the lecturer on "natural history" in the Edinburgh Medical School, and I suppose it will be admitted that the Doctor ought himself to know what he lectures about. My correspondent, I think, is either an infatuated admirer of Sterne-or he is one of that tolerably large class of persons who think they know other people's business better than the rightful transactors thereof. He has a remark concerning the obligations of persons in this "serious age" to consume their own jokes; I should imagine he will not increase largely upon this practice as applied to the fruits of his own witticism.

SYLVANUS URBAN,

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

APRIL 1882.

DUST: A NOVEL.

BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE.

Only the actions of the Just

Smell sweet and blossom in the Dust.

CHAPTER XII.

OWARDS the close of the month, Sir Francis Bendibow,

TOW

having seriously turned the matter over in his mind, wrote a note to his solicitor, Merton Fillmore, asking him whether he could spare time to come over to the bank that afternoon and have a chat with him. This note he despatched to Mr. Fillmore by a private. messenger, who was instructed to wait for an answer. In half an hour the messenger returned, and Sir Francis read the following:

Dear Bendibow,-I don't see my way to come to you to-day. If you have anything particular to say, dine with me at my house this evening at seven o'clock.-Yours truly, Merton Fillmore."

"Well, perhaps that will answer better, after all," murmured the baronet, folding the paper up again with sombre thoughtfulness. "He gives you a decent dinner, too." So, punctually at seven o'clock, Sir Francis's carriage drove up to Mr. Fillmore's door; the footman

gave a loud double knock, and the baronet, in black tights and ruffled shirt, was ushered into his host's presence.

Though a solicitor, Merton Fillmore was an English gentleman, of Scotch descent on his mother's side, and more Scotch than English in personal appearance; being of good height and build, lean, bony, and high-featured, with well-formed and powerful hands, carefully groomed finger-nails, short reddish whiskers, and bushy eyebrows. His eyes were dark blue, sometimes appearing black;

VOL, CCLII.

NO. 1816.

CC

clear and unflinching in their gaze. The head above was well balanced, the forehead very white, and hollowed at the temples. His movements were quiet and undemonstrative; when speaking at any length, he habitually pressed his clenched right hand into the palm of his left, and kept it there. At the end of a sentence, he would make his handsome lips meet together with a grave decisiveness of expression. His voice had unexpected volume and depth; it could be resonant and ear-filling without any apparent effort on the speaker's part; it could also sink until it was just above a whisper, yet always with a keen distinctness of enunciation that rendered it more audible than mere vociferousness. Soft or melodious it never was; but its masculine fibre and vibration were far from unpleasing to most ears, certainly to most feminine ones. Fillmore, however, was a bachelor; and though still a little on the hither side of forty, he did not seem likely to change his condition. He threw himself with unweariable energy into his profession; it almost monopolised his time and his thoughts. He saw a good deal of society; but he had never, so far as was known, seen any woman who, to his thinking, comprised in herself all the attractions and benefits that society had to offer. He might, indeed, have been considered cold, but that was probably not so much the case as it superficially appeared to be.

That he should have chosen the solicitor's branch of the legal profession was a puzzle to most people. His social position (his father had been a gentleman, living upon his own income, and there was no economical reason why Merton should not have done the same) would naturally have called him to the Bar. It can only be said that the work of a solicitor, bringing him as it did into immediate contact with the humours, the ambitions, the disputes, and the weaknesses of mankind, suited his peculiar genius better than the mere logical partisanship of the barrister. He cared more to investigate and arrange a case than to plead it before a jury. He liked to have people come to him and consult him; to question them, to weigh their statements against his own insight, to advise them, to take their measure; to disconcert them or to assist them. He by no means cared to bring all the suits on which he was consulted before the court; on the contrary, he uniformly advised his clients to arrange their disputes privately, furnishing them at the same time with such sound reasons for so doing, and with such equitable advice as to a basis of agreement, as to gain for himself the reputation of an arbitrator rather than of an advocate. Nevertheless, whenever it became necessary to push matters to an extremity, the side which Merton Fillmore was known to have espoused was considered to be already

half victorious. No other solicitor in London, in fact, had anything like the reputation of Merton Fillmore; he was among his fellows what Mr. Adolphus or Mr. Serjeant Runnington was among barristers. But his acquaintance with the domestic secrets of London fashionable society was affirmed, doubtless with reason, to be more extensive than that of any physician, confidential clergyman, or private detective in the metropolis; he held in his hand the reputation and prosperity of many a man and woman whom the world delighted to honour. Such a position is not attained by mere intellectual ability or natural ingenuity; it demands that rare combination of qualities which may be termed social statesmanship; prominent among which is the power of inspiring others with the conviction that their revelations will be at least as safe in the hearer's possession as in their own; and that he is broadly and disinterestedly tolerant of human frailties. Most men, in order to achieve success and eminence, require the spur of necessity or of ambition; but it is doubtful whether Fillmore would have been so eminent as he was, had either ambition or necessity been his prompter. He loved what he did for its own sake, and not any ulterior object. From the social standpoint he had nothing to desire, and pecuniarily he was independent. What he made with one hand in his profession, he frequently gave away with the other; but no one knew the details of his liberality except those who were its objects. He seldom spoke cordially of anyone; but few were more often guilty of kindly acts. He was a man with whom nobody ventured to take a liberty, yet who spoke his mind without ceremony to everyone. No one could presume to call Merton Fillmore his friend; yet, no honest man ever found him unfriendly. He was no conventional moralist, but he distinguished sharply between a bad heart and a good one. These antitheses might be produced indefinitely; but enough has been said.

Fillmore lived in a handsome house in the then fashionable district of London. It was one of the best furnished and appointed houses in the town; for Fillmore was a man whose naturally fine taste had been improved by cultivation. During his annual travels on the Continent he had collected a number of good pictures and other works of art, which were so disposed about his rooms as to show that their owner knew what they were. The machinery by which his domestic economy moved was so well ordered as to be invisible; you never remarked how good his servants were, because you never remarked them at all. Once a week he gave dinners, never inviting more than five guests at a time; and once a month

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