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cordially joins with Scott in regarding "the downfall of our old nobility" as a "jest" at which only fools will laugh. There is no mirth for "Ulster" in the toppling over of an ancient house, or the tarnishing of a famed escutcheon. One of the most remarkable of the stories told in this volume is Jack Mytton's,-a piece of wildfire, madcap lessness, almost without a parallel.

any kind he could find to help the one kitchen fire,—always a sore point with him. He was found pulling down a crow'snest with this object, complaining of the cruel extravagance and waste of materials of the birds in the construction of their homes. He would have a sheep killed, and go on eating reck-mutton till all was consumed, though the meat was quite putrid at last, and "walked about his plate." He gave up sheets, and, indeed, cleanliness generally, as much too expensive for him. He went about in rags, and would hardly relinquish these to go to bed. He was always in a panic of fear lest he should be robbed, and would start from his sleep crying, "I will keep my money-I will! Nobody shall rob me of my property!" He died, in 1789, almost of starvation. With common indulgence, remarked his physician, he might have lived twenty years more. By his will his enormous wealth was much divided, five hundred thousand pounds being bequeathed to his natural sons, John and William Elwes. One of his relations, Sir John Henry Elwes, experienced some remarkable changes of fortune; losing within a few years not only all his wealth, but also every chance of retrieving himself from the difficulties into which his dissipation had plunged him, and being almost incessantly the tenant of a debtor's jail. To such extremes did his spendthrift proceedings reduce his family, that his eldest son, utterly homeless and destitute, was glad to bind himself apprentice to a collier. Subsequently he was under-boots at the "Queen's Head Inn," Morpeth; then head-waiter, then station-master at Longhirst, and, lastly, postmaster, by the gift of Sir George Grey, at Long Horsley, Northumberland. Changes, these, for the son of a baronet! Rich or poor, the Elwes family seem to have been always dogged by starvation. One hoards, another spends, and the result is pretty much the same in either case.

A grand old Shropshire family were the Myttons of Halston, representing Shrewsbury in parliament in the days of the Plantagenets. In 1486, Thomas Mytton, high sheriff of Shropshire, captured Stafford, duke of Buckingham,-"off with his head" Buckingham,-and by that service earned from Richard III. the duke's forfeited castle and lordship of Cawes. In the civil war, Mytton of Halston was one of the few gentlemen of his country who followed the parliamentary standard. Fifth in descent from the parliamentarian general was John Mytton, squire of Halston, born in 1796, and an orphan at eighteen months old. The property was carefully nursed during a long minority of nearly twenty years, and the heir, on coming of age, placed in possession of a large sum of accumulated savings, and a noble property, producing some ten thousand a year. He fully availed himself of the opportunity presented to him for playing duck and drake. He was expelled from both Harrow and Westminster. He was entered on the books of both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, but he matriculated at neither; he got no nearer his degree than sending down three pipes of port, addressed “Cambridge," to assist his reading. He entered the army, and joined his regiment on active service in France. The war over, he lost enormously on the turf, and quitted the army on his marriage, in 1818. His wife dying two years afterwards, he entered on a new career of extravagance. His liabilities assumed threatening proportions. "Be content," advised his agent, "with six thousand pounds a year for six years, and all may yet be well; the beautiful old property shall be saved." "No; I would not give a straw for life on six thousand a year." In fifteen years' time he had flung away half a million of money. He cut down the grand oaks of Halston,-centuries old,-one tree alone containing ten tons of timber,-altogether to the amount of eighty thousand pounds. "If he had had two hundred thousand pounds a year, he would have been in debt in five years." His eccentricities were of the maddest kind; he had been known to hunt wild ducks stark naked,-he rode into his own drawing-room mounted on a bear, he fell asleep in an open carriage, counting his winnings at Doncaster, and his bank notes were blown away by the wind, and lost,-he set fire to the tail of his shirt to frighten away the hiccup, and was only saved from being burnt to death by the active exertions of two persons who happened to be present. At length came the crash,-the Times advertised the sale of all his effects at Halston; he fled to Calais, "three couple of bailiffs hard at my brush," as he said. An eye-witness describes him as 66 a round-shouldered, decrepit, tottering oldyoung man, bloated by drink." He is flung into a French prison for a paltry debt. Released, he comes over to England, only to be captured and die miserably, horribly, of delirium tremens, in the King's Bench Prison, at the age of thirtyeight.

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As a contrast, turn to the story of Jack Meggot, who took the name of Elwes under the will of Sir Hervey Elwes, and half a million of money with the name. He was forty years of age when this good fortune came to him. He settled in Suffolk as a country gentleman, kept fox-hounds and a stable of hunters, the first in the kingdom,- -was an indulgent landlord, an upright magistrate, a conscientious and independent member of the House of Commons. Of manners so gentle, so attentive, so gentlemanly, and so engaging, that rudeness could not ruffle them, nor ingratitude break their observance." Yet this man became afflicted with miserly habits to the extent of a deep-seated disease. He put down his kennel, his stable, and expense, luxury, comfort of every kind. A broken window was mended with brown paper; a hole in the roof was never stopped. To keep himself warm, he allowed no fire but in the kitchen,-he paced up and down an old greenhouse; he gleaned the corn at harvest time on the ground of his own tenants; his morning employment was to pick up any bones, chips, or fragments of

Here is a story of another "Jack."

Jack Robinson was born at Appleby, Westmoreland, about 1727, the son of a huckster. The free grammar school of the town bestowed on him the rudiments of education. A mere boy, he enters the service of Sir James Lowther. In a brief space, but how or why it is hard to say, he rises to be M.P., first for the county, and afterwards for the borough of Harwich, lieutenant-colonel of the Westmoreland Militia, secretary to the Treasury, and surveyor-general of his Majesty's Woods and Forests. "When he died," says one of his biographers, "there were upwards of three hundred letters in his writingdesk written to him by his sovereign,—some on agricultural matters, but many on the American war,-letters proving alike the unbounded confidence placed in his head and heart, and that George the Third, as a farmer and politician, was one of the ablest men of the age in which he lived." In the High-street of Appleby he built an odd-looking, large, oblong, white-washed mansion, and lived there in a sort of regal splendour. Ask concerning it of a native, and he answers, "Thaat pleaace? wya! it's t' hoos et Jack belt." He is Jack Robinson to all Appleby now and for ever. His only child, a daughter, was sought and obtained in marriage by a Mr. Nevil, afterwards Earl of Abergavenny. At the height of Jack's prosperity, however, comes a sudden fall. There is a threat of inquiry into the Woods and Forests generally, and a call for accounts which a dozen of reasons, dishonesty not being one of them, make it impossible to ronder. At three score and ten Robinson breaks down. After his death, too late, it is proved how unjustly he has been treated, and that the government is his debtor to a large amount. Of his family some curious things are told. One relation turned smuggler, was detected and fled; and, years afterwards, was recognised in a guardsman on duty at the foot of the royal staircase. His son was an itinerant tailor. The Robinsons thus fell as rapidly as they rose. They have joined again the middle class reputability of the Browns and Joneses.

Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne, passed through Bristol and ordered dinner at the White Lion. A big, bluff gentleman, by name John Duddlestone, a boddice. maker, pushes his way to the illustrious visitor, introduces himself, and proceeds to state, in blunt Bristolian dialect, "that he had waited to see if any of his fellow-townsmen would be bold enough to ask the prince to dinner, and as the hearts of all had failed them, he had himself plucked up the

Theresa, and becomes his under-groom some time between 1825 and 1830. His skill in the stables attaches him to the duke,—who, indeed, exhibits great partiality for the English. Suddenly the stable-boy is promoted to the post of valet de chambre,-not so startling a transition after all to those who have studied the wondrous spruceness and cleanliness, that amount almost to elegance, of the British groom. In 1836 he occupies the highest position in the dressing-room of the duke, and is, indeed, his most confidential attendant; following him to England, in 1838, to attend the coronation of Queen Victoria. About this time the financial affairs of Lucca appear to have been tied up in one of those tremendous knots, to untie which seems to be a task of superhuman difficulty. The pecuniary difficulties of an individual are com❤ plicated matters enough, but what are they to the monetary rushing madly into panics, and crises, and ruin ?

necessary courage for the occasion." The prince eats and enjoys the plain substantial fare of the boddice-maker, and invites his host to return the visit whenever he comes to London, "and to bring his good lady with him." In due course, affairs bring Mr. Duddlestone with his wife to London. The worthy couple find out the prince, who receives them kindly and courteously, and brings them to the queen. Pleased with their rough honesty, the queen takes a gold watch from her side and gives it to the wife, offering to confer a pension on the husband. This he declines, declaring that he has fifty pounds out at interest, and that he is quite sure her Majesty has no money to spare with such a flock about her. Before he is quite aware of it, the worthy gentleman is knighted. Fortune subsequently favouring him, he amasses great wealth, and a baronetcy is conferred upon him in 1692. Then comes the turning point,-the great storm of No-entanglements of a state, with the whole financial world vember, 1704, and the loss of all his property. He dies in very poor circumstances. His grandson, the second Sir John, holds a humble appointment in the Bristol Custom-house. Then nothing more is heard of the Duddlestones; they and the baronetcy drop out altogether from history.

In his chapter on the vicissitudes of Bulstrode, the author traces the proprietorship of this splendid Buckinghamshire property from the Shobingtons, an old Bucks family before the invasion of the Normans, to the present day, when it pertains to the Dukes of Somerset, having been acquired by them by purchase in 1810. The Lord of Bulstrode, in 1681, was the famous Judge Jeffereys, who commenced humbly enough as a law student, and soon afterwards carried off a citizen's daughter, the fair Mary Nesham, and married her in spite of her father and her friends, thereafter living a life of devoted attachment to her, the while he was perverting to murderous ends the sword of justice, driving victims in herds to the hangman, and dabbling his judge's ermine in blood. It is curious to trace the descendants of Jeffereys, His son, the second lord, a gamester and debauchée, married the Earl of Pembroke's daughter. Their only child and heiress became the wife of Thomas, first Earl of Pomfret, and through her, as Sir Bernard tells us, "the blood of the Jeffereys passed not only to the succeeding Earls of Pomfret, but also to the Carterets, Earls Granville, to the eighth Earl of Winchelsea, to Dr. Stuart, Archbishop of Armagh, to General Sir William Gomm, G.C.B., and numerous other nobles and gentlemen." The baronetcy and peerage became extinct on the second Lord Jeffereys dying without male issue, in 1702. Many members of the Jeffereys family were Quakers, the brother of Judge Jeffereys among them. One Quaker marriage seems to have linked two singularly antithetical men. Lady Juliana Fermor, the great-granddaughter of Jeffereys, was married to Thomas Penn, of Stoke Park, Bucks, the third son of the illustrious Quaker, William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania.

Tom Ward is despatched by the Duchess of Lucca on a secret mission to Archduke Ferdinand, governor of Gallicia, to implore his aid in unravelling the dreadful mysteries of the cash-books of the state of Lucca. On his road he draws up, to help his memory, a statement of the position of the duke's affairs, and of the frauds and pillagings to which he has been perpetually subjected. His enterprise succeeds. Confidence is restored; the ruin of the state is postponed until a more convenient opportunity. Ward is offered the portfolio of a minister, which he, point blank, refuses, making, in 1844, his accustomed journey to England, as head of the duke's stables, to purchase Yorkshire horses.

Still, the management of all the duke's affairs naturally, almost necessarily, devolved upon one who was the master mind of the household, and Ward was no longer an uneducated groom. Plain, simple, and modest in dress, manners, and habits, he had been always, and was still; but he could now converse and write fluently in German, Italian, and French. Refusal to take office, under all the circumstances of the case, could not long be persevered in. He was created a baron and minister of finance; soon afterwards to take the post of prime minister. His diplomatic tact and address were remarkable. In 1847, he succeeded in settling, to the advantage of Lucca, a difference between the duke of that state and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Both potentates hastened to cover him with orders. The Duke of Lucca busied himself in devising a coat of arms for the ex-groom, proposing to give him the silver cross of Savoy, with the golden fleur-de-lis of France in dexterchief. Ward plainly asked for something emblematical of his native land,-wished to add to the cross and the lily "English John Bulls" as supporters, and, so we are told, the duke acceding to his request, that among the arms of Englishmen who have obtained foreign orders are to be found those of Baron Ward, thus heraldically described:-" On a field gules, a cross argent; in the dexterchief, a field azure, surmounted by a royal crown, and charged with a fleur-de-lis, or; supporters, two bulls regardant, proper."

With the story of Tom Ward we close our notice. In 1809, Mr. Ridsdale, a trainer, at York, had in his service a stud groom, named William Ward. In the same year was born Thomas Ward, the son of William Ward and Margaret, In 1847, the Duke of Lucca abdicated his crown. In effecthis wife. The little boy is soon bereft of his mother, -a loss ing the consequent transfer of the state to Tuscany, the indeof which he is only too constantly reminded by his father's fatigable Ward was actively employed. At the conclusion second wife. The home in time becomes unbearable. It of his labours, however, the duties of sovereignty again must take something to make a child of seven years old devolved upon the duke; for the archduchess Maria Louisa run away from his father's house. The boy finds refuge with died, and he became Duke of Parma. Tom Ward writes, his grandfather, a respectable labouring man, at Howden, in "Now I am settling the liquidation betwixt the Duke of the county of York. He becomes an apt student at the Parma and the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and I have four secrechurch school, winning a bible as a prize. At twelve years taries and ten writers at this present moment here at of age he is at the national school at York; then he begins Florence under my direction, to get it done as quickly as poso earn his own living in Mr. Ridsdale's stables. A smart sible, as the Duke of Parma wishes me to take part in his ctive Yorkshire lad,-lithe, little, dapper, with fair clear government there. However, I shall retire, if possible. I English complexion, and keen, sparkling gray eyes, and have had enough of this life. They will finish me with hat sort of honest plainness of feature which has something fatigue. I have not a moment's rest, and have much to fear ositively winning about it. A compactly built, sinewy, for my health, as really I feel I cannot go on this way. I ght weight, just the little man who, on a satin-coated thought it necessary just to give you a sketch of my past life, 'crack," would win gold cups and St. Leger stakes at a not for vanity's sake. I am, and I hope God will maintain attling pace on Doncaster course. In 1822 he is sent with a me so, always the same; nothing has altered in me, only I brse to Vienna, and enters the service of Prince Aloys Von feel burdened by what many envy me for possessing. In it, Fichtenstein. For some years he remains in the stables of the law and honour will be my guide through life. Though rince. He is then recommended to Charles Louis, Duke of humble, God has raised me above many thousands that Jucca, a Bourbon, and a son of France, a grandson of Maria | sneered upon me. But he has likewise blessed me with a

noble mind, and I feel his blessing in all I do. My path is straightforward, and here they call it talent." These are the plain words and thoughts of a fearless, single-minded man, going straight to his object, quickly and boldly, as of old, as a jockey, he would have ridden at and cleared a gate. Through all, he most tenderly loved his wife,-chosen from a humble station, but good, and foud, and faithful,--and his three children, and always remembered his old Yorkshire friends and kinsmen, constantly sending home subsidies to his father, brothers, and uncles, and, above all, to the old grandfather, at Howden, who succoured and sheltered the runaway child so many years ago, and as oonstantly writing to them full accounts of all his doings, knowing they would be interested in all that concerned him. Fancy the old labourer kept au courant with Parmesan politics!-proud of grandson Tom, the prime minister.

understanding and true meaning of the book is, after all, this, viz., that princes, lords, counsellors of state, and everybody should be prudent and cautious in dealing with beggars, and learn that, whereas people will not give and help honest paupers and needy neighbours, as ordained by God, they give, by the persuasion of the devil, and contrary to God's judg ment, ten times as much to vagabonds and desperate rogues, -in like manner as we have hitherto done to monasteries, cloisters, churches, chapels, and mendicant friars, forsaking all the time the truly poor."

By its author, the work thus prefaced is described as "a pretty little book, written to the praise and glory of God, for all persons' instruction and benefit, and for the correction and conversion of those that practise such knaveries as are shown hereafter; which little book is divided into three parts. Part the First shows the several methods by which mendicants and tramps get their livelihood, and is subdivided into twenty chapters, et paulo plus,-for there are twenty ways, et ultra, whereby men are cheated and fooled. Part the Second gives "Asome notabilia which refer to the means of livelihood afore mentioned. The Third Part presents a vocabulary of their language or gibberish, commonly called Red Welsh, or Beggar-lingo." Such is its author's account of the contents of the book.

In 1848, Ward represented his master amongst the diplomatists of Vienna, and the soldiers of Radetsky's camp. "Events go by steam, and, being reckoned among the first locomotives, I am constantly at work," he writes. heaven-born diplomatist," Metternich called him. He worked hard, honestly, and usefully for the state, and was a great favourite of the duke, though unpopular with his excitable, mutinous people. Then came 1854, and its strange events, the mysterous tragedy of the king's violent end, the succession of the duchess, her ungrateful cruelty to the minister, and his deposition and banishment, as a concession, though a useless one, to popular feeling. He lived not to see the final downfall of the family he had served so faithfully, and who had repaid his services by so strange an ingratitude. He stepped back quite naturally to his former position of humility and retirement. He became proprietor of a farm in the neighbourhood of Vienna, and, after some few years of rest, and peace, and happiness, breathed his last in 1858, at the age of forty-nine, in the arms of his affectionate wife and children. A glory to England, an example of honest hard work rising by the force of its own merit to the highest places; of a nature whose greatness was rather enhanced than marred by prosperity. All honour to Tom Ward, stable-boy and premier!

MARTIN LUTHER'S BOOK OF VAGABONDS AND
BEGGARS.*

Part the First commences with the plain, simple, honest beggar, who, through loss of work, or by some calamity, is obliged to solicit alms, but who, "could he proceed without it, would soon leave begging behind him." Of this class of beggars there were then, as there are now, very few. "Conclusio: To these beggars it is proper to give, for such alms are well laid out." The next chapter treats of the "Stabülers, or Bread Gatherers," who are less deserving. They are beggars by profession, and "never leave off begging, nor do their children, from their infancy to the day of their death." The subjects of the third chapter are the "Lossners, or Liberated Prisoners," who go about the country, carrying chains with them, and saying that they have been prisoners for years amongst the infidels, but have just made their escape. "Not one of them in a thousand speaks the truth;" nor are the "Klenkers, or Cripples," very much better. Some of these rascals mutilate their own limbs, others apply salves to make counterfeit wounds, and one, more ingenious than his fellows, once cut off a dead man's leg and exhibited it as IN the quaint-looking, but very beautiful, little quarto which his own. These cripples can always run fast enough from a Mr. John Camden Hotten, its translator and editor, as well constable. "Conclusio: Give them a kick on their hind as its publisher, has just issued with the title given below, parts if thou canst, for they are nought but cheats." The we have, so far as is known, the earliest treatise written in Dopfers, or Church Mendicants," beg for money to repair Europe on the tricks of vagrants, and their methods of levy. ruined churches, or to build new ones, or to provide new ing contributions on the benevolent and simple-minded. It church furniture, and spend the money so obtained in drunkseems to have been written "shortly after 1509," and to have enness and dissipation. The "Kammesierers, or Learned been frequently reprinted until 1528, when Luther edited Beggars," are "young scholars, or young students, who do an edition, supplying a preface, and correcting some of the not obey their fathers and mothers, and do not listen to their passages.' Of the author of the book nothing whatever is master's teaching, and so depart, and fall into the bad comknown. The version before us is translated from the edition pany of such as are learned in the arts of strolling and trampedited by Luther, and has prefixed to it, not only a translation ing, and who quickly help them to lose all they have by of Luther's preface, but also a highly interesting introduction gambling, drinking, and revelry;" whereafter they live by by Mr. Hotten, full of curious information respecting vaga-devoting their learning and talents to the arts of forgery and are adventurers who " wear bonds' tricks and customs, both ancient and modern, and also imposition. The "Strollers" giving account of some of the more remarkable of the books yellow garments, know the black art, and exorcise the devil which have been written about them. for hail, for storm, and for witchcraft;" and the "Grantners" are beggars who profess to be afflicted with the falling sick"Some of them fall down

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Luther's preface occupies only two pages. It is written in the great reformer's well-known pithy and straightforwardness, St. Vitus's dance, etc., etc. style. "This little book about the knaveries of beggars," it commences, was first printed by one who called himself Expurtus in Trufis, that is, a fellow right expert in roguery,which the little work very well proves, even though he had not given himself such a name. But I have thought it a good thing," it goes on, "that such a book should not only be printed, but that it should be known everywhere, in order that men may see and understand how mightily the devil rules in this world; and I have also thought how such a book may help mankind to be wise, and on the look out for him, viz., the devil." Afterwards Luther adds:-"But the right

• The Book of Vagabonds and Beggars: with a Vocabulary of their Language. Edited by MARTIN LUTHER in the year 1528. Now first translated into English, with Introduction and Notes, by Joux CAMDEN HOTTEN. London: John

Camden Hotten. 1860.

"Nota

before the churches, or in other places, with a piece of soap
in their mouths, whereby the foam rises as big as a fist
and they prick their nostrils with a straw, causing then
to bleed as though they had the falling sickness."
This is utter knavery." Of the same quality are th
"Dutzers," who say they have been ill for a long tim
and have promised a difficult pilgrimage to the shrip
of this or that saint, which they can only perform b
the aid of certain alıns; and the "Schleppers," or Kamm
sierers who pretend to be priests, and who solicit alms fr
some church or chapel, much after the fashion of the Dopfer,
"Conclusio: To these knaves give nothing, for it would
badly laid out." The "Gickisses" are beggars who affet
blindness; and the "Blickschlahers" are beggars "wb,
when they come to a town, leave their clothes at the hostelr,

leaf or a piece of paper close to their feet, so that the poor things
held fast to it, and turned and twisted in their endeavours to get
off the pin.
"Now the lady-birds shall read,' said little Inger. 'See how
they turn the paper!'

"As she grew older she became worse instead of better; but
she was very beautiful, and that was her misfortune. She would
have been punished otherwise, and in the long run she was.
"You will bring evil on your own head,' said her mother.
'As a little child you used often to tear my aprons; I fear that
when
you are older you will break my heart.'
"And she did so sure enough.

and sit down against the churches naked, and shiver terribly before the people that they may think they are suffering from great cold. They prick themselves with nettle-seed and other things, whereby they are made to shake. Some say they have been robbed by wicked men; some that they have lain ill, and for this reason were compelled to sell their clothes." The "Voppers" are beggars "who allow themselves to be led in chains as if they were raving mad," and who tear their clothes, and even go naked, in order to assist the belief that they are demoniacs. "There are also some 'Vopperinae,' id est, women who pretend that they have diseases of the breast. They take a cow's spleen, and peel it on one side, and then tinction. They were as kind to her as if she had been one of their lay it upon their bosoms, the pealed part outside,-besmear-own family; and she was so well dressed that she looked very ing it with blood, in order that people may think it is the pretty, and became extremely arrogant. breast." Thirteen other kinds of beggars, with their respective tricks, are further enumerated in Part the First; but we have not space to continue the catalogue. Those we leave unmentioned, like those specified above, all have their representatives at the present day.

Part the Second occupies only a few pages, and is devoted to the enumeration of a few beggars' customs, such as that of borrowing children, and maiming them, in order that they may excite pity, which had been omitted from mention in Part the First.

The Third and concluding Part consists of a vocabulary of the principal cant words and phrases in use amongst the beggars of Germany in Luther's time.

It is melancholy to reflect that from the period at which this "Book of Vagabonds" was written to our own day, no improvement has taken place in the character of the vagrant population of Europe. In the time of Luther, Europe swarmed with mendicants and cheats who, though leading a nomadic life, formed a community and had a language of their own. Bound by no social tie,-obeying no law, either human or divine, without truth, industry, marriage, or natural affections,-simulating everything except the sin in which its very heart was steeped, this class preyed upon a community to which it contributed nothing but its vices. It does so still. Feudalism tried in vain to kill it; it defied the Reformation; and all the revolutions of modern times have left it untouched. Coercion and kindness have been alike wasted on it. It is as rife now as ever it was. Most of us can say with the great reformer, "I have myself of late years been cheated and befooled by such tramps and liars more than I wish to confess," for the sad truth is, that every town, village, and hamlet in Europe is still visited by as many imposters as it ever was, those of to-day being just as idle, dissolute, and depraved as their forefathers were in the days of Henry VIII. or Queen Elizabeth. Our "shivering Jemmies," who may be seen every day in the metropolis, are the lineal descendants of the naked wretches who used to sit by the churches three hundred years ago; nor is there a single trick in the whole "Book of Vagabonds" which is not practised in London every day. There is still the same lying and false pretences, the same shamming of disease and infirmity, and the same depravity and licentiousness, that there has been ever since lisease was first turned into a commodity, since lying first became a trade, and imposture a profession. Is this seething nass of iniquity to be tolerated for ever? If not, what can le done towards reducing it?

NEW STORIES BY HANS CHRISTIAN
ANDERSEN.*

TIE best thing we can do with this volume of new tales by
Sveden's greatest novelist is to quote from it. At once,
then, for the story of

66 THE GIRL WHO TROD UPON BREAD. "You have doubtless heard of the girl who trod upon bread, not to oil her pretty shoes, and what evil this brought upon her. Thetale is both written and printed.

"she was a poor child, but proud and vain. She had a bad disposition, people said. When she was little more than an infant it was a pleasure to her to catch flies, to pull off their wings, and main them entirely. She used, when somewhat older, to take lady-irds and beetles, stick them all upon a pin, then put a large Sandhills of Jutland. By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. London: Bentley.

1960.

"At length she went into the country to wait on people of dis

"When she had been a year in service her employers said to her,

"You should go and visit your relations, little Inger.'
"She went, resolved to let them see how fine she had become.

She

When, however, she reached the village, and saw the lads and
lasses gossiping together near the pond, and her mother sitting
close by on a stone, resting her head against a bundle of firewood
which she had picked up in the forest, Inger turned back.
felt ashamed that she who was dressed so smartly should have
for her mother such a ragged creature, one who gathered sticks
for her fire. It gave her no concern that she was expected-she
was so vexed.

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"And Inger put on her best clothes and her nice new shocs, and she lifted her dress high, and walked so carefully, that she might not soil her garments and her feet. There was no harm at all in that. But when she came to where the path went over some damp marshy ground, and there were water and mud in the way, she threw the bread into the mud, in order to step upon it and get over with dry shoes; but just as she had placed one foot on the bread, and had lifted the other up, the bread sank in with her deeper and deeper, till she went entirely down, and nothing was to be seen but a black bubbling pool.

"That is the story.

"What became of the girl? She went below to the Old Woman of the Bogs, who brews down there. The Old Woman of the Bogs is an aunt of the fairies. They are very well known. Many poems have been written about them, and they have been printed; but nobody knows anything more of the Old Woman of the Bogs than that, when the meadows and the ground begin to reek in summer, it is the old woman below who is brewing. Into her brewery it was that Inger sank, and no one could hold out very long there. A cesspool is a charming apartment compared with the old Bogwoman's brewery. Every vessel is redolent of horrible smells, which would make any human being faint, and they are packed closely together and over each other; but even if there were a small space among them which one might creep through, it would be impossible, on account of all the slimy toads and snakes that are always crawling and forcing themselves through. Into this place little Inger sank. All this nauseous mess was so ice-cold that she shivered in every limb. Yes, she became stiffer and stiffer. The bread stuck fast to her, and it drew her as an amber

bead draws a slender thread.

"The Old Woman of the Bogs was at home. The brewery was that day visited by the devil and his dam, and she was a venomous old creature who was never idle. She never went out without having some needlework with her. She had brought some there. She was sewing running leather to put into the shoes of human beings, so that they should never be at rest. She embroidered lies, and worked up into mischief and discord thoughtless words, that would otherwise have fallen to the ground. Yes, she knew how to sew and embroider and transfer with a vengeance, that old grandam!

"She beheld Inger, put on her spectacles, and looked at her. "That is a girl with talents,' said she. 'I shall ask for her as a souvenir of my visit here; she may do very well as a statue to ornament my great-grandchildren's antechamber;' and she took

her.

"It was thus little Inger went to the infernal regions. People do not generally go straight through the air to them: they can go by a roundabout path when they know the way.

"It was an antechamber in an infinity. One became giddy there at looking forwards, and giddy at looking backwards, and there stood a crowd of anxious, pining beings, who were waiting and hoping for the time when the gates of grace should be waddling spiders wove thousands of webs over their feet; and opened. They would have long to wait. Hideous, large, these webs were like gins or foot-screws, and held them as fast as chains of iron, and were a cause of disquiet to every soul,—a

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painful annoyance. Misers stood there, and lamented that they had forgotten the keys of their money chests. It would be too tiresome to repeat all the complaints and troubles that were poured forth there. Inger thought it shocking to stand there like a statue: she was, as it were, fastened to the ground by the bread.

"This comes of wishing to have clean shoes,' said she to herself. See how they all stare at me.'

"Yes, they did all stare at her; their evil passions glared from their eyes, and spoke, without sound, from the corner of their mouths: they were frightful.

"It must be a pleasure to them to see me,' thought little Inger. 'I have a pretty face, and am well dressed;' and she dried her eyes. She had not lost her conceit. She had not then perceived how her fine clothes had been soiled in the brewhouse of the Old Woman of the Bogs. Her dress was covered with dabs of nasty matter; a snake had wound itself among her hair, and it dangled over her neck; and from every fold in her garment peeped out a toad, that puffed like an asthmatic lap-dog. It was very disagreeable. But all the rest down here look horrid too,' was the reflection with which she consoled herself.

"But the worst of all was the dreadful hunger she felt. Could she not stoop down and break off a piece of the bread on which she was standing? No, her back was stiffened; her hands and her arms were stiffened; her whole body was like a statue of stone; she could only move her eyes, and these she could turn entirely round, and that was an ugly sight. And flies came and crept over her eyes backwards and forwards. She winked her eyes, but the intruders did not fly away, for they could not,-their wings had been pulled off. That was another misery added to the hunger,-the gnawing hunger that was so terrible to bear!

"If this goes on I cannot hold out much longer,' she said.

But she had to hold out, and her sufferings became greater. "Then a warm tear fell upon her head. It trickled over her face and her neck, all the way down to the bread. Another tear fell, then many followed. Who was weeping over little Inger? Had she not a mother up yonder on the earth? The tears of anguish which a mother sheds over her erring child always reach it; but they do not comfort the child,-they burn, they increase the suffering. And oh! this intolerable hunger; yet not to be able to snatch one mouthful of the bread she was treading under foot! She became as thin, as slender as a reed. Another trial was that she heard distinctly all that was said of her above on the earth, and it was nothing but blame and evil. Though her mother wept, and was in much affliction, she still said,

"Pride goes before a fall. That was your great fault, Inger. Oh, how miserable you have made your mother!'

"Her mother and all who were acquainted with her were well aware of the sin she had committed in treading upon bread. They knew that she had sunk into the bog, and was lost; the cowherd had told that, for he had seen it himself from the brow of the hill.

"What affliction you have brought on your mother, Inger!' exclaimed her mother. 'Ah, well! I expected no better from you.' "Would that I had never been born! thought Inger; that would have been much better for me. My mother's whimpering can do no good now.'

"She heard how the family, the people of distinction who had been so kind to her, spoke. She was a wicked child,' they said; 'she valued not the gifts of our Lord, but trod them under her feet. It will be difficult for her to get the gates of grace open to admit her.'

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"They ought to have brought me up better,' thought Inger. "They should have taken the whims out of me, if I had any.'

"But will she never come up again?' asked the child.
"The answer was,-

"She will never come up again.'

"But if she will beg pardon, and promise never to be naughty again ?'

"But she will not beg pardon,' they said.

"Oh, how I wish she would do it!' sobbed the little girl in great distress. 'I will give my doll, and my doll's-house, too, if she may come up! It is so shocking for poor little Inger to be down there!'

"These words touched Inger's heart; they seemed almost to make her good. It was the first time any one had said, 'poor Inger,' and had not dwelt upon her faults. An innocent child cried and prayed for her. She was so much affected by this that she felt inclined to weep herself; but she could not, and this was an additional pain.

"Years passed on in the earth above, but down where she was there was no change, except that she heard more and more rarely sounds from above, and that she herself was more seldom mentioned. At last one day she heard a sigh, and 'Inger, Inger, how miserable you have made me! I foretold that you would!' These were her mother's last words on her deathbed.

"And again she heard herself named by her former employers, "Perhaps I may meet you once more, Inger. None know and her mistress said,— whither they are to go.'

"But Inger knew full well that her excellent mistress would never come to the place where she was.

"Time passed on, and on, slowly and wretchedly. Then once more Inger heard her name mentioned, and she beheld as it were, directly above her, two clear stars shining. These were two mild eyes that were closing upon earth. So many years had elapsed since a little girl had cried in childish sorrow over 'poor Inger,' that that child had become an old woman, whom our Lord was now about to call to himself. At that hour, when the thoughts and the actions of a whole life stand in review before the parting soul, she remembered how, as a little child, she had wept bitterly on hearing the history of Inger. That time, and those feelings, stood so prominently before the old woman's mind in the hour of death, that she cried with intense emotion,

"Lord, my God! have not I often, like Inger, trod under foot thy blessed gifts, and placed no value on them? Have I not often been guilty of pride and vanity in my most secret heart? But Thou, in Thy mercy, didst not let me sink; Thou didst hold me up. Oh, forsake me not in my last hour!'

"And the aged woman's eyes closed, and her spirit's eyes opened to what had been formerly invisible; and as Inger had been present in her latest thoughts, she beheld her, and perceived how deep she had been dragged downwards. At that sight the gentle being burst into tears; and in the kingdom of heaven she stood like a child, and wept for the fate of the unfortunate Inger. Her tears and her prayers sounded like an echo down in the hollow form that confined the imprisoned, miserable soul. That soul was overwhelmed by the unexpected love from those realms afar. One of God's angels wept for her! Why was this vouchsafed all the actions of its life,-all that it had done, and it shook with to her? The tortured spirit gathered, as it were, into one thought, the violence of its remorse,-remorse such as Inger had never felt. Grief became her predominating feeling. She thought that for her the gates of mercy would never open, and as in deep conpenetrated into the dismal abyss,-a ray more vivid and glorious trition and self-abasement she thought thus, a ray of brightness make in their gardens. And this ray, more quickly than the snow than the sunbeams which thaw the snow figures that the children flake that falls upon a child's warm mouth can be melted into a a drop of water, caused Inger's petrified figure to evaporate, and a little bird arose, following the zigzag course of the ray, up towards the world that mankind inhabit. But it seemed afraid "That any one should have to suffer so much for such as that, and shy of everything around it; it felt ashamed of itself; and -be punished so severely for such a trifle!' thought Inger. All apparently wishing to avoid all living creatures, it sought, in sat, and it crept into the farthest corner, trembling all over. It these others are punished justly, for no doubt there was a great haste, concealment in a dark recess in a crumbling wall. Here t deal to punish; but ah, how I suffer!' could not sing, for it had no voice. For a long time it sat quietly there before it ventured to look out and behold all the beauy around. Yes, it was beauty! The air was so fresh, yet so sot; the moon shone so clearly; the trees and flowers scented so sweetly; and it was so comfortable where she sat,-her feather garb so clean and nice! How all creation told of love and glory! The grateful thoughts that awoke in the bird's breast she would willingly have poured forth in song, but the power was denied to her. Yes, gladly would she have sung as do the cuckoo and the nightingale in spring. Our gracious Lord, who hears the mute worm's hymn of praise, understood the thanksgiving that lifted itself up in the tones of thought, as the psalm floated in David's mind before it resolved itself into words and melody.

"She heard that there was a common ballad made about her, the bad girl who trod upon bread, to keep her shoes nicely clean,' and this ballad was sung from one end of the country to the other.

"And her heart became still harder than the substance into which she had been turned.

"No one can be better in such society. I will not grow better here. See how they glare at me!'

"And her heart became still harder, and she felt a hatred towards all mankind.

"They have a nice story to tell up there now. Oh, how I suffer!'

"She listened, and heard them telling her history as a warning to children, and the little ones called her ungodly Inger.' 'She was so naughty,' they said, 'so very wicked, that she deserved to suffer.'

"The children always spoke harshly of her. One day, however, that hunger and misery were gnawing her most dreadfully, and she heard her name mentioned, and her story told to an innocent child,-a little girl,-she observed that the child burst into tears in her distress for the proud, finely-dressed Inger.

"As weeks passed on these unexpressed feelings of gratitude increased. They would surely find a voice some day, with the first stroke of the wing, t perform some good act. Might not this happen?

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