THE MAIDEN. "Of all the stages in that progress which the human being makes towards maturity, and then, by a sad continuance, to decay, none so surely attract our attention and sympathy as that which may be termed the bud of life. The boy from seventeen to twenty, just bursting into manhood, while the artlessness and candour of the child yet mingle with the spirit and daring of the man: the girl from an age, perhaps, somewhat earlier, when the mind, like the form, for a brief space combines all that is beautiful of the two most marked epochs of life. "No sorrowful experience of falsehood and treachery has yet poisoned the pure will of confidence in her bosom, or taught her to disguise the best feelings of her nature in that cloak of worldly wisdom which is the sad, yet only armour of proof in our intercourse with mankind. The picture of life, like a city of palaces, is yet before her. The blue haze of distance, and the golden lights of morning, have decked its dwellings with hues almost as beautiful as her cheek, and as dazzling as her eye. She has yet to learn in what false splendours extrinsic circumstances can array the meanest objects; or how many a delusive march imagination steals upon reality. "But it is to the beholder that the painfulness of the truth is given. Who can gaze on a young being like the prototype of that plate which faces these lines, without picturing to himself the future course that may be allotted to her? without involuntarily sighing over the sorrows that must be her portion, and breathing a fervent aspiration for the brightness and endurance of those joys by which they may be rewarded?-without, moreover, experiencing a strange and indefinable longing that in some mode, however remotely, his destinies may be interwoven with her own?-like some devoted antiquary, who cannot behold au object of vertu without committing the deadly sin of coveting it." ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S CHURCH, CHESTER. The church of St. John the Baptist is situated without the walls, on the eastern side of the city; a position which, according to an old legend, the founder, King Ethelred, was instructed to choose by finding there a white hind. This story was sculptured on the western side of the steeple; and it is said that some traces may still be discovered there. The church was once collegiate, and for a time was a cathedral, when Peter, Bishop of Lichfield, removed his see to Chester in 1075. This honour it did not, however, retain very long; but, till the dissolution, in the reign of Henry VIII., there was a body attached to it, comprising a dean, seven prebendaries, seven vicars, and two clerks. The structure, as it at present stands, consists of the nave, with some portions of the transepts of the ancient cruciform church. The nave has massive Norman piers, with a triforium and clerestory of the early English character. The north porch, in the same style, is extremely beautiful; and the tower, still a very fine one, though greatly mutilated, is detached from the church by the shortening of the western part of the nave. The eastern end of the building was demolished by the fall of the centre tower; and some ruins only remain. There was an anchoret's cell belonging to this church, that, according to some legendary accounts, King Harold, surviving the battle of Hastings, is said to have occupied til his death. Another historical circumstance connected with St. John's Church is related with, probably, more truth. Ranulph, Earl of Chester, it would seem, was besieged by the Welsh in the castle of Rhuddlan, with little hope of extrication; when Roger Lacy, constable of Chester, though destitute of real force, conceived the design of relieving the beleaguered baron. He assembled, from a fair which was being held, a band of fiddlers and minstrels, and marched with these motley troops to Rhuddlan, and so alarmed the Welsh that they raised the siege. Ranulph bestowed on Roger the very fitting boon of supreme authority over musicians; and, down to the last century, it appears that the event was celebrated by a procession of minstrels to this church on the festival of St. John Baptist's day. THE NEW MONTHLY BELLE ASSEMBLÉE. SEPTEMBER, 1851. THE HEIRESS AND HER WOOERS. BY MRS. ABDY. "As the Diamond excels every jewel we find, A new tragedy was about to be brought forth at the Haymarket Theatre. Report spoke loudly of its merits, and report touched closely on the name of its author. Either Talbot or Stratford must have written it; those regular attendants at rehearsal, who seemed equally interested in every situation, equally at home in every point, throughout the piece. Some said that it was a Beaumont and Fletcher concern, in which both parties were equally implicated; and this conjecture did not appear improbable, for the young men in question were indeed united together in bonds of more than ordinary friendship. They had been schoolfellows and brother-collegians; each was in the enjoyment of an easy independence, and their tastes, pursuits, and ways of living were very similar. So congenial, indeed, were they in taste, that they had both fixed their preference on the same lady! Adelaide Linley was an accomplished and pretty heiress, who, fortunately for them, was the ward of Mr. Grayson, an eminent solicitor, with whom they had recently renewed an early acquaintance. Rivalry, however, failed of its usual effect in their case, it created no dissension between them; indeed the manner of Adelaide was very far removed from coquetry, and although it was evident that she preferred the friends to the rest of her wooers, she showed to neither of them evidence of any feeling beyond those of friendship and good will. The night of the tragedy arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, their ward, and two or three of her "wooers," were in attendance before the rising of the curtain; they were just as ignorant as other people touching the precise identity of the dramatist about to encounter the awful fiat of the public. Talbot and Stratford were sheltered in the deep recesses of a private box: had they been in a public one, nobody could have doubted which was the hero of the evening. Talbot's flushed cheek, eager eye, and nervous restlessness, plainly indicated that the tragedy was not written on the Beaumont and Fletcher plan, but that it owed its existence entirely to himself. The curtain rose; the tragedy was admirably performed, and many of the speeches were beautifully written; but it lacked the indescribable charm of stage effect, so necessary to stage success; the last act was heavy and uninteresting, great disapprobation was expressed, and finally another piece was announced for the succeeding evening! Adelaide was much concerned; it mattered nothing to her whether the play was written by Talbot or Stratford: she wished well to each of them, and sympathised in the disappointment of the author. Talbot, who had anticipated stepping forward to the front of the box, and gracefully bowing his acknowledgments to the applauding audience, now found himself under the necessity of making an abrupt exit, muttering invectives on their stupidity; and Stratford repaired to his own lodgings, aware that Talbot, in the present state of his mind, was unfitted for the society even of his favourite friend. The next morning, Stratford had half finished breakfast when Talbot entered the room. Stratford was about to accost him with a lively remark, that “he hoped the severity of the audience had not spoiled his night's rest;" but a momentary glance at his friend told him that such a remark would be cruelly sarcastic: it was quite clear that his night's rest had been spoiled; it was quite clear that what had been "sport" to the public had been "death" to the dramatist; it was quite clear that the "Russian Brothers," although they had ceased to exist on the stage of the Haymarket Theatre, were still hovering about, K |