On my return home, I found the friend who had introduced me to Miss Jackson waiting for me. I mentioned to him what had occurred, and the determination to which I had come to prosecute my unknown assailant. My friend was very inquisitive to know who had thus assaulted me, and what could have prompted the fellow to such a step. I told him again-as I had told him before, though he seemed to think I rather wanted the will than the power-that I could give him no information on either head.

"Can you not," said he, "can you not, at any rate, give me some description of the personal appearance of your assailant?

I answered in the affirmative.

66

Well, let me hear all you can communicate on the subject." I described the brute as well as I could.

"Oh! I know now who it is! It is Mr. Jackson!" exclaimed he, after a few moment's hesitation.

"Mr. Jackson! Impossible! Did you not tell me that Miss Jackson's father was dead, and that she never had a brother?" "It is another Mr. Jackson," said my friend; one who lives in the same street. Do you not recollect having seen a Mrs. Jackson, a beautiful woman, among those present at Miss Jackson's mother's house? Her husband would have been present also, but was out of town that day."

I did recollect having seen a newly married lady at Mrs. Jackson's on the evening in question. I mentioned this to my friend.

"But what possible ground of offence could you have given to her husband?" enquired my friend.

"None in the world that I know of," answered I. "I never before saw the man in my life: his wife I have never seen before or since that evening."

"The matter is certainly involved in much mystery. Did he say nothing when committing the assault that could have led you to infer the cause of his displeasure?"

"Nothing further than asking me whether a letter he held in his hand was in my hand writing, which I confessed it was. I believe he also muttered something about no man's making an attempt to seduce his wife with impunity."

"What! it is not possible that you could have meditated any thing of the kind ?" said my friend, in a tone indicative of surprise. "Never, never; and I had thought that you were the last man in the world that could have conceived the bare possibility of such a thing."

"Did you ever write his wife at all; for if you did, however innocently, a jealous husband would construe an epistle from a man to his wife into something bad? Do you not know, as Shakspeare says, that

'Trifles, light as air,

Are to the jealous confirmations strong

As proofs of holy writ"

I never in my life penned a syllable to his or any other person's wife; but I will confess to you that I did write Miss Jackson, to whom you introduced me; and, from the hasty glance I gave the letter my

assailant held in his hand, it is the identical one I addressed to her How he came by that letter is to me as mysterious as any of the countless incomprehensibilities in nature."

"What was the nature of your note to Miss Jackson, if it be fair to ask such a question ?" said my friend.

It was written in very general terms. I merely, as I suppose is common in all correspondence between the sexes, professed a fervent, an immutable and eternal attachment to her, an attachment formed from what I had seen of her on the evening and at the party referred to, and concluded by urgently begging the favour of a meeting with her, next afternoon, at a given hour, at Hyde Park Corner."

"I have it! I have it!" exclaimed my friend, Archimedes like. "The letter you intended for Miss Jackson has by mistake gone to Mrs. Jackson; and no wonder that such an epistle should have kindled suspicions in the husband's breast: no wonder that he chastised you

as he did."

The hypothesis struck me as probable, though I could not exactly see how the missending of the letter should have occurred.

"I will go to Mr. Jackson's," said my friend," and learn all the particulars from him."

He departed that moment: he had not far to go; he returned in an hour afterwards, and informed me his conjecture was quite right, and that he learned from Mr. J. the whole details of the awkward business.

The story may be told in a few words. The two Jacksons, as formerly mentioned, resided in the same street. The right house had no brass plate, with the name inscribed, on the door; the wrong one had. Being ignorant of the number of the right house, I could not of course write it on the back of my letter. The postman, in these circumstances, very naturally delivered the letter at the wrong place. I scrawl a wretched indistinct hand; so that when the letter arrived Miss was read for Mrs. The latter lady, probably wishing to pass, in the estimation of her husband, for a woman of surpassing rectitude, showed him my letter, instead of consigning it as she ought to the flames.

Why, Charlotte, my dear," said the husband, "if ever villain deserved chastisement, this amorous rascal does. You only do as I desire you, and zounds! if I don't give it him in style."

Mrs. Jackson, being newly married, expressed her readiness to do any thing her husband desired her. "Augustus," said she, “you know, dear, your will is always a law with me."

"Well," says he, as Solomon enjoins us to answer a fool according to his folly, you shall answer this villain according to his villany. You will immediately write him, declaring that he made an indelible impression on your heart when you saw him at the party to which he refers, and acquiescing in his proposal for a meeting at Hyde Park Corner."

She did as she was bid. I, never having seen Miss Jackson's hand-writing, was of course easily deceived. I was in perfect raptures with the supposed success of my proposal for a meeting. The reader is already informed how transitory my joy was. I never saw

Miss Jackson after this. I never wished to see her: I could not after what had occurred, again look her in the face.

It was long before I recovered from the effects of this new shock. I had well nigh determined never again to speak to woman kind; but a little reflection served to convince me, that, constituted as society was, that was impossible, unless I turned hermit.

CHAP. V.

It is the error of a great many, even of those who are considered sensible men, that they run from one extreme to another. This was the next error I committed in love matters. I resolved, as the best way of avoiding the recurrence of such mishaps as I had already encountered, to dispense with all and every thing in the shape of courtship, or lovemaking, and by some means or other get married at once. This resolution was taken shortly after the execution of Corder, of Red Barn notoriety. The statement, fact I may say, was then going the round of the journals, that though Corder was an unprincipled man himself, he had been married to an amiable and excellent woman, and that his marriage with that woman was the result of an advertisement, headed Matrimony," in the Sunday Times; was, in other words, the result of a notification in that paper that he wanted a wife. Why, thought I, might not I be equally fortunate, and the world never be the wiser as to the way in which I had been led to form a matrimonial connection. The idea struck me as a happy one. I resolved to put it into effect without any unnecessary loss of time. Accordingly, taking my pen and paper, I that moment drew up the following advertisement, and caused it to be published in the Morning Herald,—that Journal being then, as I believe it is still, the medium most generally made use of for sending forth such notices to the fair world:

"Matrimony.-Circumstances which it is unnecessary here to detail having prevented the Advertiser from mingling much in female society, he takes this opportunity of appealing to the heart, and soliciting the hand, of any young lady who, like himself, possesses a good temper, and a disposition to be happy. If the partiality of private friendship has not exaggerated his personal appearance, he flatters himself that no lady, however fastidious in taste, will be dissatisfied with him on that score. As regards his principles and disposition he takes on himself to say-though the statement would doubtless come with a better grace from another-that the former are perfectly unexceptionable, and the latter of the most amiable and affectionate kind. In fine, at the risk of being thought egotistical by those who know him not, the Advertiser ventures to say that it is extremely seldom that any young lady, desirous of entering the matrimonial state-that state especially appointed by the Deity himself for the happiness of his creatures-has such an opportunity presented her. The strictest confidence may be relied on, on the Advertiser's part, and he expects the same confidence on the part of any female making

application. It is hoped no male or female will exhibit any impertinent curiosity on the occasion. Address A. B, 23 Fetter Lane, Fleet Street. No unpaid letters will be received."

This duly made its appearance. Corder had but forty-five applications in consequence of his advertisement; I had nearly double that number, which circumstance I ascribed partly to the greater respectability of the medium of publicity I had employed, and partly to the fact that, while Corder debarred all from applying who had red hair, gray eyes, and sundry other things he considered personal blemishes, and, moreover, held up beauty, education, and a pretty round sum as a fortune, as sine qua nons, I made no stipulations whatever. My appeal to the hearts of the sex was clogged with no conditions. I wanted a wife: with that want supplied I was willing to be satisfied.

At this time I lodged with an old woman, whose house I had entered eight days before. I mentioned to her, immediately on sending the advertisement to the Herald Office, that I expected early next day several letters, desiring her to receive such as should come, and bring them up-stairs. My landlady nodded assent. Just as eleven o'clock forenoon chimed on St. Dunstan's, I heard a rap at the door. On my landlady opening it a thickly spoken lad enquired if there were any A. B's. within. "A. B. no; there's no A. B. nor B. C. here," said the old woman somewhat ill-naturedly. "Bring the letter to me, bring the letter to me," cried I, popping my head a little bit down-stairs. My landlady brought the epistle up. I forgot to apprise her, on the previous evening, that the letters I expected would be mostly, if not altogether, for a certain reason, addressed A. B. I then repeated my request that all letters so addressed should be brought to me immediately. She had scarcely got down-stairs, and shut the outer door, when another knock was heard. It was another A. B. letter, which of course was directly brought up-stairs to me. In short, for an hour after, epistles in answer to my advertisement were brought up at the rate of one per minute: in one instance two arrived at once. By the time my landlady had brought me up twelve or fourteen she evidently began to get surprised and alarmed at the number of A. B. letters; by the time she had delivered the twentieth -for it will be observed that she had hardly got down-stairs when there was some new bearer of an A. B. epistle rapping at the doorby the time, I say, she had delivered the twentieth, the good old woman got fairly out of breath. When she came the length of No. 30, she began to think her best way would be to bring up several at a time, which would of course lessen the frequency of her up-stair journeys. By the time the fortieth epistle arrived, she commenced the system of bringing up six at once. By this time I myself had become dreadfully alarmed. I began to think I had done some excessively foolish action, and that surely all the unmarried ladies in London had all of a sudden become correspondents of mine. I grew quite sick of love epistles. I could almost have wished both them and their fair inditers at the antipodes. "Here is too much of a good thing," said I emphatically to myself. While in this agony of uneasiness at the Mont Blanc of letters piled up on the table before

me, there was a rather long interim between the last and next epistolary delivery. This gave birth to the fond hope that the love Cholera had begun to abate among the sex, and that there would be few if any more new cases. Foolish hope! Short-lived delusion! The hope, the delusion, had hardly a moment's existence when it vanished by the sound of my landlady's footsteps on another journey up-stairs. She entered my apartment. "Here, Sir," said she, throwing down on the table ten more A. B. letters, "here, Sir, and if there come any more A. B's, you must come down and fetch them up yourself, or get somebody else to do it for you."

In ten minutes thereafter I went down-stairs, and to my ineffable satisfaction found there was only one new arrival. I was never more thankful in my life. I returned to my own apartment, and "sat me down" to examine the contents of the heap of epistles before me; for hitherto they had poured in so fast on me that it required all my activity to receive them and lay them on the table, instead of reading them. An occasional stray one continued to drop in on me until nine o'clock past meridian. Not one of these late ones, however, was opened by me. I chucked them into the fire on their receipt, concluding that they could not be the offspring of true, ardent love, as it is always prompt in its motions.

Well, I at length got to the most important part of the businessthat of reading the letters, and deciding as to the claims of their respective authors. O how my heart palpitated as I sat down to the task! I commenced. Though the inditers of all professed a boundless attachment to me, there were great differences in the contents of the letters. The first epistle I read augured very ill indeed. The writer made sundry enquiries about my finances, my prospects in life, the rank of my relations, &c., which I assuredly did not like. I tossed her letter at once into the fire. The second epistle unfolded a candidate for matrimonial bliss who spoke a great deal touching the propriety, necessity indeed, of being regularly asked in church before marriage; and of having, in the event of making a bargain, a respectable wedding. "Bargain!" I hated the word. It imported something too sordid for me. The flourish about a respectable wedding I concluded to mean, if translated into plain English, that the fair scribe had a shoal of acquaintances, which I abhor in a wife. The third lady ran to the opposite extreme. She proposed an instantaneous elopement, lest her brother should hear of the thing, and by that means prevent the marriage. Elopement! Brother! How the words grated on my ears! I had already the reader will not yet have forgotten poor Lavinia and the inn-I had already had a great deal too much of brothers and elopements, to run my head into any thing so foolish again. This letter, as well as the second, followed the first epistle up the chimney in a volume of smoke. It would be endless, and would, besides, answer no good purpose, to specify the objectionable matter I discovered in every intervening letter until I came to number twenty-four. It was just the thing. Its contents were as much to my mind as if I myself had guided the pen of the lovely writer. I put it to all my readers who are aspirants after con nubial felicity whether they also would not have been charmed by it. Here it is: