the exemplary Welsted, he had toiled and laboured, and contrived and planned, for what? To be deprived at once of the being who absolutely supported his credit as a schoolmaster, to be robbed of the society of an only daughter, and yet to be left as much exposed as before to the perils of a debt, to cancel which had been the great object of all his schemes and toils. And not only was this the case, but from the declared hostility which existed between young Stevenson and Sir Frederick, the very fact of Miss Rodney's marriage with the general, would, it was pretty clear, (if it had any effect upon the young gentleman's conduct touching the fatal security,) induce him to act with severity rather than lenity towards her father.

Rodney felt at that moment the meanness, the needless, fruitless meanness of which he had been guilty: that the match was advantageous to his daughter in a worldly point of view nobody could deny, but its advantages were most assuredly not sufficiently great to have induced him to excite the animosity of his principal creditor, in whose hands his fate literally rested.

In this, as in all other trying situations, the unhappy poet was more to be pitied than his fellows; he was not a man of the world himself, and moreover had not to look for the solace of compassion, nor the relief derivable from a communication of his sorrow to another: he was afraid, nay certain, that if Mrs. Rodney were put into possession of any of the facts which agitated him at this moment, they would infallibly burst out in the course of the succeeding day in the shape of little jocularities or direful presages; and therefore, stifling his remorse for what was past, and his apprehension of what was to come, the unhappy father proceeded with the arrangements for the nuptial ceremony which was so shortly to take place.

WE left poor Francis Welsted, as perhaps the reader may remember, on the outer side of a stage coach, journeying towards the metropolis, and perhaps, considering all that has been doing since his forced march from the academy, the reader may also wish to know how the unhappy exile has been employing his time since we have been compelled to lose sight of him.

Francis had never been in London, and felt an almost indescribable awe of his first visit; as the coach proceeded at its wonted pace, the desire to reach the end of a journey rendered pleasant neither by the weather nor his companions, was mingled with an apprehension of entering the mighty maze of which he had heard so much, but which he had not yet beheld; and as the day closed in, and the sun retired into a black mist, such as the young adventurer had never before seen, and left in deep purple shadows the clustering spires of the great city, and the stupendous dome of its towering cathedral, he felt something like a dread of the scene before him, which he was so rapidly approaching, and which, in all probability, was destined to be his future sphere of action.

Having made sundry enquiries of his fellow-travellers, and, for a miracle-not having been misled by them, he ascertained that the stage coach "inned at the sign of the Bell and Crown, in Holborn." The sound was any thing but romantic-any thing but inviting; yet Francis determined at all events to take up his abode there in the first instance, considering that the coach and his luggage would satisfy the inmates of the house that VOL. II:

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he was bona fide a traveller, and a stranger fresh from the country; whereas, had he proceeded to some more agreeable domicile in the first instance, his self-introduction might perhaps have been more equivocal.

As the vehicle entered London, and commenced its rapid progress over the wretched metropolitan pavement, threading, as it were, the apparently impervious mass of coaches, carts, and other conveyances, in the midst of cries and yells, and most discordant noises, Francis felt himself bewildered, and congratulated himself that from his situation he was exalted above the necessity of making his own way amongst the crowd and confusion by which he was surrounded.

At length the broad street of Holborn presented itself, and the stage dashed rapidly beneath the gateway of the Bell and Crown, at the door of which, assiduous waiters and active chambermaids made their appearance, offering all sorts of aid and attentions, while the landlady (much too important to take a personal share in their toils) enlivened the scene by keeping up a continual ringing with a huge bell in the bar, which might have served for the sign of the inn itself: a group of wellringletted daughters peeping over the blinds to witness, if not welcome, the arrival of the passengers, gave an air of doubtful gaiety to the dingy apartment in which they were immured; and tired as he was with his journey, Francis felt relieved and comparatively comfortable, when he found himself ushered into a neat sanded slip of a coffee-room, the windows of which gave to the street. He enquired if he could have a bed; was answered in the affirmative; and taking it for granted that the kind hostess, whose assiduities in noise-making had attracted his early attention, would select a comfortable apartment for his use, left it entirely to her good-nature to provide one, and did not take the precaution of reconnoitring his room until bed-time, when he was deposited in a cell, high up in the house, and far down the yard, in which the bed was of the smallest size, the glass of the worst quality, the sheets not clean, the washing-stand soapless, the ewer and water-bottle empty,

the door without a lock, and the bell without a string; in short, he was "stowed away" in a manner perfectly suitable, as Betty the chambermaid thought, to the condition of an outside passenger on a heavy coach, who took tea instead of dinner, and carried his own portmanteau up stairs.

Francis, as it may be imagined, was wretched during the evening; he attempted to abstract his mind from the objects which engrossed it, by reading all the newspapers, spelling the red-book and the directory, and subsequently all the framed and glazed bills of steam packets, and patent soda-water manufactories, with which he found the coffee-room plentifully adorned. He feared stirring out; the crowd and darkness combined with the total absence of pursuit and want of knowledge of the streets to keep him prisoner; he ventured, it is true, as far as the side-door of the house, which gives to the yard, and saw the Poole Mail take its departure; but he returned to his old seat in the window, where he remained until the sound of ten o'clock striking, justified, he thought, his proceeding to bed; and accordingly, marshalled by the chambermaid, bearing in her hand a flaring tallow-candle, in a japanned candle-stick, quitted the coffee-room, and ascended a dreary staircase, passed through a dismal, narrow passage, and found himself abandoned to his fate in a garret, the merits and conveniences of which I have already attempted to describe.

The reflections which Welsted's situation gave rise to in his mind, were, at the moment he lay down, any thing but consolatory. In novels and romances, love, when it once gains the ascendancy, is represented as banishing, in the most arbitrary and tyrannical manner, every other feeling, every other wish, every thought, indeed, unconnected with the one object of its tender solicitude; but in real life the case is somewhat, though not greatly different; and although Welsted's heart was sore when he thought of his beloved, and although her ill-executed portrait slumbered that very night beneath his pillow, he could not, in considering dispassionately the line of

conduct which he had adopted, fail to recollect that his prospects, at the moment, were any thing but flattering.

The state of the case was this-(for as the historian of Francis Welsted, I must develop that, which his pride assiduously concealed,) the young man had arrived in the metropolis, friendless, unknown, and unpatronized; and although with his talents and application, and the highly satisfactory testimonials which Rodney would doubtlessly be ready on any proper occasion to afford of his exemplary conduct and character, he had a fair chance of employment, still things do not so speedily fall out as sanguine persons often wish, and though he might in time procure the situation most desired by him, that of assistant in an academy removed from the scene of all his past happiness and present sorrow, still it was highly improbable that such a vacancy should present itself until the termination of the current halfyear, a period when changes are made, and new plans arranged in such establishments. Seeing therefore that his stock of worldly wealth amounted but to eighteen pounds and some few shillings, the vista which opened before him was, it must be admitted, neither very gay nor very cheering; and little as he knew of the world, he knew enough to be convinced that such a pittance would last but a few days in the metropolis, live as frugally and abstemiously as he might.

The journey, the rapid progress through the air, the strong present excitement of his feelings, nay, the very fatigue of sorrow itself, and those who have felt it will perfectly understand what I mean, "weighed his eyelids down, and steeped his senses in forgetfulness." And in spite of the vigorous attacks of a large army of small animals, whose persons are unknown in the country, and whose names are never mentioned in London, he slept soundly until nine o'clock the following morning: perhaps he would have reposed longer, but the chambermaid having first opened the door of his room, in order. to ascertain whether he had absconded in the night with the sheets and counterpane, finding he still slumbered, and considering that all her other beds being made,