there was nothing that the world did or could call wrong,-the world don't trouble itself about the inside of hearts.

As for Mr. Simper, he had learned the fact that the old gentleman's property would be left to his wife: the reverse, however, was the case, and that Mrs. Groby had only recently learned. This alteration of the will, while it turned her still more towards Simper, was too humiliating to be divulged to that personage; and then antagonism grew upwards in the family; Mrs. Groby and her minister, Simper, on the one side, Mr. Groby and his daughter Clara on the other.

Clara Groby had scarcely reached her third year when an aunt of her mother's, who had been living with the family, died, leaving Clara the whole of her property; now, as to obtain the reversion of this income had been Mrs. Groby's only motive in persuading her aunt to reside under her roof, this proved a death-blow to maternal affection, and from that day the mother had persecuted the unhappy child with every petty torment within her power.

Mr. Simper had, of course, been informed of the dispute between mother and daughter, and the day before Clara's return home, had promised Mrs. Groby to work reformation in the heart of this very bad girl; but, when for the first time he met her, strange to relate, the daughter awed the man more than the mother. He found a woman where he had expected a child; beauty, in place of a very ordinary person; simplicity and dignity, where he had expected mere sullen obstinacy. The truth was, Mr. Simper was smitten with Clara, and would gladly have joined the opposition, seeking the present daughter, instead of the future widow; but he preferred prospective competence to present dowerless beauty; as to mind, it was not at all in his line of business, moreover, he did not acknowledge it as an attribute of women; he, therefore, wisely kept to his allegiance with the mother, and at length commenced a fatherly attack upon the girl, when to his astonishment he was rudely repulsed. In a conversation, consequent upon this repulse, Mrs. Groby became so enraged that she struck Clara a violent blow, more violent than she intended, and she, poor girl, fell to the ground senseless. Mr. Simper carried her to her room, and endeavoured to soothe her; and so plausible and changed was his manner, that the simple-hearted girl believed she must have wronged him; and even Mr. Groby, for the moment, waved his dislike. Had Mr. Simper gone over to the enemy?-we shall see.

In her passion, Mrs. Groby had uttered sufficient to make Mr. Simper aware of the real position of all parties, he therefore lost all sympathy for that lady, and wonderful was the self-possession of that great man in seizing so immediate and fortunate a chance of making the amende honorable to Clara and her father; having, as he supposed, gained a victory, like a skilful general he followed it up. The mother must perceive no difference; the daughter must be gradually trained from disgust, the word is not too strong, to love; he had never been conquered by woman, and therefore had no fear as to the result; his power over the mother had become stronger -the ice had been broken-he had openly dared to speak, and she to listen, of a time when she would be free from the old man's tyranny, and now, though living in the same house, separated from her husband, this wife and mother gave range to her thoughts and hopes for the future; this open confidence had commenced before the memorable day of her striking Clara, before Simper had discovered the true disposition of the property; and how bitterly chagrined he felt we will not attempt to describe, for had he kept silence but a short time longer, he would not have been compromised. This was a serious difficulty, but genius loves difficulties, and he would overcome it, for the great man knew, that when once he felt sure of Clara, jealous as

her mother might be, she could not dare, for her own sake, disclose the double plot.

The mother and daughter now being separated, his scheme was in no immediate danger of discovery, and his visits to Mrs. Groby were as frequent as ever; thus days and days passed onwards, and, to the annoyance of Clara, her medical friend persisted in his attendance, but as he had oiled his manners, Clara became a trifle more friendly, and the manner grew very oily, easy to a fault; so easy that a faint suspicion of the state of his thoughts flashed across Clara's mind, and she grew uneasy; still more oily grew that tongue, and words of love and hope ran prematurely along it. This was too much for the girl, and she gently repulsed his overtures, which only made him more importunate, and he appealed to a still higher court, even to the master of the house, with whom he was now on friendly terms, and to whom he at once proposed for his daughter; and great was Mr. Simper's astonishment at the reception his proposal met with, for Mr. Groby, then and there, fetched Clara into court, when, still more to his surprise, the girl greeted him kindly, and in the exuberance of his joy, but rather wildly for a man of his solemn soberness, he warmly grasped her hand exclaming, "Am I then so happy, Clara?"

That hand to hand touch sent a shock through the fair girl's frame, and for an instant her eyes flashed with anger, but, remembering the task she had to perform, coolly withdrawing her hand, she said, "One minute, sir, one minute," and put it to her throat, coquettishly to show it, as Mr. Simper thought, but more probably to check her rising indignation.

"Yes, yes, a moment if you please, Mr. Simper," added Mr. Groby, and now something like a suspicion came across him that he was trifled with ; but pooh, pooh, they would not dare to treat him as a cat would a mouse. "This is rather a serious affair, Mr. Simper, for a young thing like my little Clara; and an old man like myself is scarcely fit to manage such a matter; no, no, I am old, and you know my wife manages everything, you have been very kind to her, Mr. Simper, we must have her advice, you must ask her, Simper, she can refuse you nothing," and before our hero could reply, Mr. Groby had summoned his wife to take part in the conference.

Little as Mr. Simper had enjoyed the previous conversation, a coal now was burning upon his heart (on the black spot we hope, for fire is cleansing and purifying); he would have given half his income for the power of vanishing through the ceiling, or even up the chimney with the other blacks, like his schemes, in a volume of smoke; there he was, however, in the midst of the fire, and he felt that he must trust to the chapter of accidents for escape, so he endeavoured to put on a bland look: it was a failure, however, being an expression twin-born of the wolf and the sheep. Mrs. Groby finding her husband and daughter present, after the arrangement that they should not meet, exclaimed, "What new insult is this?" "If an insult is intended, Jane," replied the old man kindly, but firmly, "it is on the part of our friend, Mr. Simper, who is here for the purpose of asking you for the hand of Clara."

To pity guilt in its extremities is to castigate it; and those who have watched the tragedy of Temper, as performed by this unhappy woman, must pity her; from her marriage to her meeting Simper, she had been the torment of her family, before that time she had been guilty, indeed, in temper, but neither in thought or deed towards her husband. In the midst of her fancied miseries, she relied on Simper as a friend, she intended nought else. No other mind could come into friendly collision with his, without being tainted with the same poison; gradually and by inuendoes he had softened her habits of thought, till he could impress upon them his own wishes, and by degrees, as we have seen, she had been led to ponder on

her chances of becoming free, a widow; while her thoughts were locked within her own breast, she felt guiltless, but when Simper had broken the ice, and spoken openly, though at first shocked, she was deficient in moral courage to repulse him; the discovery of Simper's double villany, in the presence of her husband, made her tongue cleave to her mouth, while her heart was bursting with rage and contempt; and yet, horrified as she had been at the idea of her husband discovering her duplicity, the first shock once over, the discovery of the surgeon's villany was an antidote to her poisoned heart. Thus we may understand the meaning of her clasping her husband's hands with a look imploring that forgiveness her tongue dared not ask for; the kind old man melted into tears and kissed her cheek; then placing her hands in those of his daughter, Clara, said, "There, Jane, love her, love her, she will have none other when I am gone."

"Pardon, pardon," cried the sobbing woman, "and you too, Clara." "God bless you, mamma, God bless you; papa knows all and pardons all." Wiping the tears from his eyes, Mr. Groby turned to our hero, who from the turn things had taken, finding himself in an inextricable difficulty, stood silent during the whole scene, said, "I have no words to waste on you, villain, I have long watched, long known, all your scheming; go at once, or you shall be horsewhipped; go," and Mr. Groby pointed to the door.

Then, with oily look, and manners most bland, our hero again having recourse to his genius, backed out still bowing politely, till he had reached the edge of the stairs; when stopping, he advised Mr. Groby to make no allusion to the neighbours of what had occurred; the reply was, "Go, rascal," and pushing him, the next moment our hero lay, genius and all, at the foot of the stairs of that very house over which he had made most complete arrangements to rule lord and master.

In conclusion, we may add that Mr. Groby had moral courage to tell all his neighbours, by way of warning; the consequence was, that Mr. Simper was compelled to find a new neighbourhood to practise in. As for the Groby family, notwithstanding that the good lady is not so perfect as she might be, still she believes that she once made an idiot of herself, and now endeavours to do all in her power to render her family comfortable; and although some few years have elapsed, since the occurrence of these events, Mr. Groby still lives, a hearty old man; and Mr. Simper is almost as glad he didn't succeed; for, as a speculation, the daughter wouldn't have answered, if he had had so long to wait for the money.

TO MEMORY.- BY MADLLE. ST. VINCENT.

OH Memory! by thy recurring strains
Of pensive melody, that love to dwell
On joys long vanished, like a fairy spell,

Think'st thou to soothe the deep and burning pains
That sorrow pileth up in this poor breast,
Like clouds replete with lightning's awful flames;
Where sad despondency forbids sweet rest,
And desolation in dark silence reigns?

Ah! beauteous minstrel of departed peace,

Recal no more the loved delusive dream;
Wait until hope's sweet dawn dispels the night,

And anxious pangs their restless warfare cease;
Then will I welcome thee with heart serene,
And hear thy tuneful echoes with delight.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes.

OUR land has, of late, been continually under some kind of mania. We have had the Palmerstonian in politics, the perambulator in infant economy, the Shanghai in domestic fowl and matutinal bliss, the moustache and beard in facial decoration, the Brewsterian stellular theory in astronomy, photography in art, the bull and griffin in archæology, the Shaksperian and antique in literary study, purism in prose, the spasmodic in poetry, and a hundred others besides. In each of these manias, John Bull, like a little child in teething, has manifested extreme petulancy. Still we are indisposed to set down all these fits, or whatever else they most resemble, as being very bad in their tendency. In one case, however, we think they have verged that way;-we mean in the intense study of our ancient poets; which, though beneficial in itself, has detracted from our less studied, and therefore less popular, modern ones. Our classical scholars, from the fascination of long and studious retirement, have so imbued their minds and memories with the past, that, in using it as a lens to view the present, they are disposed to deprecate science, culture, and modern practicality, as fatally opposed to the existence of all poetry. We can forgive the Olympian dignities a collegian awards to Homer, or the fervour a bookworm may expend on the Elizabethans, but we cannot submit to these cavalry-like charges.

Our Lilliputian lance is mainly directed against the belief shadowing itself under the name of our historian, Macaulay, from the poetic theory he mapped out in his essay on Milton. It is, that all science is antagonistic to poetry. To this certain enthusiastic followers have appended, and of all sciences none more so than that of Hippocrates and Galen; it is too practical and disenchanting to yield any poetic quintescence. Moreover, it is too absorbing to admit of a rival pursuit. We ask, for we would rather stand by fact than theory,--are not others?

Few poets have been so blest as to be able to devote themselves wholly to the inspiring muse. Milton himself was at one time a schoolmaster; Burns, a ploughman and exciseman; Keats, a surgeon's pupil; and Scott a barrister. În moments of mathematical study, Kirke White was often visited by his plaintive muse; and many of the sparkling songs of Jasmin, the living troubadour, came into being while he curled a dandy or clipped a bourgeois, to be afterwards written on the most prosaic of pages, in the form of disused curl-papers. Dr. Moir (better known by his anonyme of Delta), was a poet and physician. Others still continue to prove that the science that reveals some of the grandest secrets of God's grandest creation, MAN, neither cramps nor stifles, but rather shelters by its wisdom, and kindles by its philosophy;

Foremost in the number towers THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES. His name may be unfamiliar to the reader, but if he will bear with us for awhile, he may believe, after all, that Esculapius and Apollo (in him at least) had some godship in common.

He was born July 20th, 1803, at Clifton, near Bristol. By his mother's side, he was related to Maria Edgeworth, the gifted novelist. His father,

Dr. Thomas Beddoes, was the friend and early patron of Sir Humphry Davy, and a man of a vigorous and philosophic intellect. His prose and poetical writings form a bulky quarto. The following verse was written on the geologic views of himself and his friend, Professor Hailstone, the "mighty spirit," meaning Sir Humphry:—

"Plutonian Beddoes, erst, in spiteful ire,

To see a Hailstone mock his central fire,
A mighty spirit raised, by whose device

We now burn Hailstones, and set fire to ice."

Dying when his son was young, he left him to the guardianship of Mr. Davies Giddy, afterwards known as Sir Davies Gilbert, of the Royal Academy. In June, 1817, his young charge was removed from the Bath Grammar School to the Charter House, where he at once distinguished himself. With the old pensioners there, or, as they were nicknamed, "Cods," bearing the everlasting pot and broom, he maintained frequent intercourse, making hostile incursion to their territories, and gathering much knowledge of human nature. Here it was that, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, he perpetrated his first rhyme. We have, unfortunately, no attendant circumstances, so that whether he passed a sleepless night on that occasion, and clomb Parnassus on a pile of pillows, or whether it supervened on some recent truce with a belligerent "Cod," is left to the reader's imagination. He first appeared in the columns of the Morning Post. A novel, several burlesques and dramatic interludes, also, mark this period. Here he began his study of our fine old Elizabethan dramatists.

In 1820, he entered Pembroke College, Oxford, as a commoner. His college career is devoid of interest. Intoxicated with a poet's dreams, he cared nothing for the honours and distinction of his Alma Mater. The year following he published a volume of poetry, chiefly sonnets, and dedicated them to his mother. A college incident formed the groundwork of the play he produced in 1822, entitled "The Bride's Tragedy," which was accepted, and published by the Messrs. Rivingtons. The periodical press at once recognised in it a new era-a revival, in fact, of dramatic literature. A writer in the London Magazine for December, 1823, under the nom de plume of John Lacy-a person at once a critic and a poet-awarded him a very distinguished position.* Had he, as his critic advised him, confined himself henceforth solely to the drama, his fame, instead of glowing like a will-o-the-wisp, would have burst into a brilliant unextinguishable flame. He took his Bachelor's degree in 1825, and, preferring medicine to Blackstone, he fixed upon the continental University of Göttingen as his place of study. Here, under the inspiration of the soothing weed, he gave his leisure to his last work, "Death's Jest Book." From his letters to his biographer and Barry Cornwall, whose friendship was secured him by his maiden tragedy, we are in possession of many details respecting his life and habits. How Blumenbach, Coleridge's favourite professor, lectured, blustered, told tales, and swore; how German authors pilfered from Shakspere; how he himself journeyed hither and thither in search of the beautiful and grotesque; and how his last poem advanced, step by step, will best be seen by turning to the originals. For manly vigour and terse ness they have not inaptly been compared to Lord Byron's. His criticisms upon German literature are very satirical. With Goethe's writings he was alike delighted and disgusted; of Tieck and others he was chary in praise; and the only person upon whom he looked with hero-worship, was

*The passage is given in Beddoes Works, Vol. I., Appendix 2.