of his youth, was moved even to

verse.

Bagot, though not poetic, was moved to feelings more akin to poetry than he would easily have believed. The gaiety of these memories of his hot youth made the present more dismal by contrast. There were invitations to parties which Bagot remembered to have found particularly jovial. There was a letter from his mother, written to him at school, when there was somebody in the world to care about him. Then he lighted on a whole packet of letters with the superscription of the top one in a female hand, and these he opened, one by one. It was difficult, even for Bagot himself, to recognise the hero of those endearing phrases, that affectionate solicitude, that eager interest, poured forth with the warmth of an imaginative girl who had been resolved to turn defects into charms, and to exaggerate the latter where they existed, in the red-nosed, grizzled reader who now frowned at them over his eyeglasses. He remembered that this love affair had been a pleasant pastime, and that these affectionate epistles, ascribing to him qualities on whose absence he valued himself, had a good deal diverted him at the time. Somehow the expressions of interest and affection did not now strike him in a jocular light.

He dropt the last of them from his hand, and sat gazing at the wall with eyes more watery than usual. Halfformed visions of future respectability flitted across his mind-he was scarce fifty yet older fellows than he married and settled down quietly every day. Only this cursed prosecution still hung between him and the horizon. Let that be well over, and he would seriously think about changing his life. But to get it well over he must have money, and how that was to be procured he did not know; and to avoid returning into the old weary hopeless track, he took up another let ter. It was from Sir Joseph, written before his marriage, at a time when he was seriously ill; and it recommended to Bagot's care and consideration, as heir to the property, some improvements the Baronet wished carried out. Sir Joseph had recovered from the attack, and the circumstance

had made but slight impression on Bagot; but now he could not help thinking what a different position he would have been in had his nephew died then. As he was dead now, it would have been all the same to him, and what a difference to Bagot! There would have been no Lady Lee, no Julius, no impending disgrace.

Presently Bagot put away his letters, took his hat, and set out to walk over to Monkstone. In two or three previous interviews, his creditor, Mr Dubbley, who could not quite divest himself of his respect for Bagot, had professed great regret at the proceedings against him, promised to stop them, and renewed his assurances of friendship; but no sooner had Bagot turned his back than all his promises were forgotten. On this occasion, however, the Squire was either really absent, or, as Bagot suspected, had denied himself. The Colonel was returning homeward in desponding mood, when, passing by the Dubbley Arms in Lanscote, he stept in to refresh himself with a glass of brandy at the bar.

This drinking of drams at the Dubbley Arms, when Bagot happened to be passing of an afternoon, had never been a very rare occurrence. Bagot was not proud-he liked to keep up his popularity by talking with the people who lived in the neighbourhood of the Heronry, many of whom had known him from a boy, and he would chat with the landlord or his guests for half an hour together with great condescension. Of late, Bagot's craving both for drams and for society had increased. He had never been fond of being alone, but at present his own thoughts became speedily intolerable to him; and, not caring under present circumstances to venture among his usual associates, he became doubly affable to his inferiors.

Accordingly, on the evening in question, Bagot entered as aforesaid for a dram. It must not be imagined that Bagot ever did this in a way to suffer loss of personal dignity; on the contrary, it increased his popularity without diminishing the respect in which he was held. The landlord was a sporting character, and Bagot had therefore plenty of inquiries to make from him-in the midst of which

he would introduce the subject of the dram quite incidentally. As there happened, this evening, to be two or three farmers drinking in the bar, Bagot, after bidding good evening to these, who stood up and touched their hats at his entrance, said to the landlord, "Oblige me with a glass of sherry, James." For Bagot did not choose to be heard asking for brandy; but the landlord, understanding him perfectly, handed him a glass of cognac.

"Really," said Bagot, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief after drinking it "really, I was beginning to feel quite exhausted; I don't know how I should have got home without that."

The Colonel having finished his brandy, and impressed the landlord and the farmers with an almost oppressive sense of his affability, was leaving the inn, when he encountered at the door an ancient man dressed in a narrow-brimmed hat, a skin waistcoat, and black breeches and stockings. This singular figure drew itself up and saluted the Colonel with a very elaborate, ceremonious bow.

Bagot stared at him for a minute. "What! the conjuror, eh?" he said. "Come to conjure a little money out of the villagers' pockets, my friend?"

"My errand, sir," returned Mr Holmes, "is of a less cheerful nature. I am come in search of the sexton." "What d'ye want of the sexton?" asked Bagot. "Anybody dead?"

"My little grandson departed this life just now in the caravan on our road to this place, returned Mr Holmes. "Perhaps you do him the honour to remember him, sir-a child about the size of the young gentleman you have at home. Ah, sir, you may recollect I always said he was not strong enough for the profession."

Bagot stood gazing at the old man in deep thought. I'll show you where the sexton lives," he said; "I'm going that way. Walk on and I'll follow you."

Bagot turned hastily into the inn, swallowed another glass of brandy, and followed Mr Holmes, who was walking slowly up the road.

The Colonel walked for some time in silence beside the old man.

At

length turning abruptly to him, "Are you rich?" he asked.

"Rich!" echoed Mr Holmes; "your worship is pleased to be facetious." "Give a plain answer," growled the Colonel.

"Do you think," returned the conjuror, pointing to his dress, and to the caravan, which might now be descried in the gloom as he indicated its position-"do you think I would live like this if I were rich, sir? No, sir; if I were rich, I would indulge my taste for the legitimate drama-I would be a theatrical manager, sir. I have been smothered all my life by poverty."

"If a way were shown you to better your circumstances, with little trouble, would you undertake the small risk that might attend it?" asked the Colonel.

"If your worship would condescend to be a little plainer, I could give a plainer answer," returned Mr Holmes. "At any rate," stopping short and laying his hand on his skin waistcoat

"at any rate, I could be secret." "Have you told any one of the death of this grandchild of yours?" resumed the Colonel presently.

"No one!" answered the other. "It only took place half an hour ago.' "And where is the body?" asked Bagot.

"If you'll do me the honour to turn aside from the road here, I'll show you," answered the conjuror.

Bagot assented. The part of the road they had reached widened into a small green with some geese feeding on it. At the side of this green the caravan in which Mr Holmes and his family resided and travelled was drawn up, the horse that drew the vehicle being turned loose to graze. A flight of wooden steps led up to the door, and Mr Holmes ascending, held it open, and invited the Colonel to follow.

A lamp swung by brass chains from the roof of the interior, and by its light Bagot saw the child's mother seated by a little bed. Glancing thereon, the Colonel involuntarily removed his hat out of respect, partly for the mourner, partly for the poor little remnant of mortality she bent over. On the outside of the coverlet lay the dead child, who appeared to

have spent his last hours in the exercise of his vocation, for the body was dressed in the little tight drawers and hose, and the spangled doublet, in which he had been accustomed to appear on the stage. The strange dress, and the small, thin, sunken face, produced together an effect as quaint as mournful.

Bagot spoke a few words in a low tone to the conjuror, and he, addressing the woman, who did not look up at their entrance, told her he had business with the gentleman, and wished to speak with him alone. She rose, and, mechanically folding her shawl about her, left the caravan without any change in the tearless, settled melancholy of her aspect.

"There isn't a better place to talk of business in the whole world than a caravan," said Mr Holmes. "There are no walls, and consequently no ears and I'd defy a bird of the air to carry the matter."

So saying, Mr Holmes closed and bolted the door; while the woman, descending to the lowest step of the ladder, seated herself there, and buried her face in her shawl.

So she remained for near an hour. Twice, during that time, the door above opened, and the conjuror put his wizened face out, but, appearing satisfied that nobody was within hearing, immediately withdrew it.

At length the door opened for the

last time, and Bagot prepared to descend.

"Leave that cursed lamp," he said, turning on the threshold, with an oath, and re-entering, as he observed that Mr Holmes, having detached the cresset from the ceiling, was preparing obsequiously to light him down the steps.

"True-most true," said the old gentleman, blowing it out at three feeble puffs; after which, with his finger on his lips, he came on tiptoe to the door, and stretched his neck, with theatrical caution, in every direction. "You may come forth, sir," he said in a whisper. "Not a mouse stirring."

"So much the better," said Bagot, in whose eyes there was a wild look of excitement. "Now, don't fail in your part of the business. Mind, good treatment, and immediate compliance with my future directions whenever you receive them, are what I bargain for-let these conditions be fulfilled to my satisfaction, and your reward shall be proportionate."

Mr Holmes, with elaborate and graphic pantomime, patted his waistcoat several times, bowing deeply, and the Colonel descended. After Bagot's figure had vanished in the gloom, the conjuror called the woman, who reascended to the caravan, the door of which was then closed for the night.

THE memory of her great men is the noblest treasure of a great country; to preserve it is an act of duty, to honour it is an act of justice, and to vindicate it is an act of virtue. But the memory of her statesmen demands the exertion of those honourable impulses in a more vivid and vigilant degree than those of any other class of eminence. The monument of a Poet is in his works; all the world has there the living evidence of his claims on posterity. The Soldier has precluded all doubt by the brilliancy of achievements which speak to the universal conviction. The Orator, like the Poet, is to be judged of by the triumphs of his appeals to the hearts and heads of mankind.

But the leader of national council has a peculiar ordeal to undergo. His career must be through the ordinary circumstances of life, not, like the man of imagination, above them; his materials must be the common influences of mankind, not the nobler faculties of exclusive genius, dazzling courage, or profound philosophy; his renown must grow out of a long struggle against the difficulties of public events, the opposition of ignorance, the stubbornness of popular prejudice, the selfishness of individual feelings, and the thousand commonplace casualties of all things subject to the caprice, frivolity, or vices of man. He must be content to be misunderstood, and of course maligned, for a time; to have his most honourable motives arraigned, his clearest views pronounced to be problematic, and his profoundest policy ridiculed, even in proportion as it is profound; for few men will praise that which they cannot penetrate. The general result being, that the greatest statesmen in our annals have been compelled to wait for the tardy vindication of the tomb.

Examples of this moral injustice, yet almost natural necessity, will recur to every reader of English history. In proof of both the partial

judgment and the slow vindication, for nearly his whole administration Pitt was assailed with every outcry of popular hostility. That stately tree, the noblest product of the intellectual soil of England, was stripped of branch and leaf, for year after year, by the blast of popular indignation. His fame now flourishes in a verdure which gives the promise of an imperishable luxuriance. The severest names of faction were flung on Burke-pensioner, partisan, tool, and knave. The nation now approaches his monument only to bow down to the majesty of his wisdom. We shall not quarrel with this law of public life, however we may regret its injuries to society, but we feel that it forms a stronger obligation to do justice to those, to whom we can do no more than lay our tribute on the grave.

The late Lord Castlereagh was one of those distinguished men whose honours are thus to be paid only by posterity. Commencing public life at an early age, sustaining high office with an ability now beyond all question, and engaged in the most important transactions of a time which throws all the past periods of England and of Europe into the shade, no man in Europe was more exposed to the virulence of party libel, and the violence of popular irritation. His brother, and the successor to the title, has taken on himself the duty of clearing off all aspersions in the most effectual way, by the publication of his Letters on the chief subjects of his public life.

The family of which Lord Castlereagh was descended was originally Scotch-the Stewarts of Wigtownshire, a branch of the royal house of Stewart. One of them, in the reign of James I., settled in the county of Donegal, on some forfeited land. Another ancestor, in the reign of James II., raised a troop of horse for the Protestant cause, and was attainted by the popish king for his religion

and loyalty. Robert (the father of Lord Castlereagh) was raised to the peerage by the successive titles of Londonderry, Castlereagh, Earl of Londonderry, and, finally, Marquis of Londonderry in 1816. Marrying a daughter of the Earl of Hertford, he had two sons, Alexander, who died in infancy, and Robert, born June 18, 1769. Robert being born while his father was a baron, was known in early life only as the Hon. Robert Stewart. Receiving his early instruction in Armagh, he entered, at seventeen, St John's, Cambridge. At college he was distinguished for his application. He next made the tour of Europe. On his return to Ireland he succeeded in the election for the county, but at the inordinate expense of £60,000. In 1793, he was made Lieutenant-colonel of the Derry Militia, and the next year married Lady Anne Hobart, co-heiress of the Earl of Buckinghamshire. He entered Parliament in Opposition, and as a Reformer, and his first speech was on the right of Ireland to trade with India. But from the time of the Rebellion he voted with ministers; and from the giving of the franchise to the Roman Catholics in 1793, he abjured Reform as dangerous to the Constitution.

Opposition, then in want of a grievance, took up the cause of the Roman Catholics. Lord Camden was sent to Ireland as viceroy; and his secretary, Mr Pelham (Lord Chichester), declared “that further concession was impossible; that concession seemed only to increase their demands; that those demands were incompatible with the Protestant Constitution; and that there he would plant his foot, and never consent to recede a step farther." On Mr Pelham's returning to England, Lord Castlereagh (whose father had now married Lord Camden's sister) was appointed secretary; on the appointment of Earl Cornwallis, was continued in the Secretaryship in 1799, and in the next year carried the

UNION.

We are not now about to discuss a question which was forced on England by circumstances wholly irresistible, which was hated by Ireland, which turned a brilliant kingdom into a disaffected province, and which has

crowded the legislature of one country with venality, while it seems to have consigned the intellectual progress of the other to stagnation. But the measure was at once a protection and a punishment. The folly of party-and folly in politics always has the effect of crime-had given power to a religion which denies all power to the Constitution; which, instead of peace, had filled Ireland with religious factionwhich, acknowledging a foreign master, extinguishes allegiance to a British sovereign-and which, adverse by its faith to all liberty, insisted on a supremacy which must have ended in civil war.

The Union saved Ireland from being a French field of battle, or a papal appanage; in both instances a Protestant grave. The Irish legislature, from the year 1793, when the franchise was given to the Roman Catholic peasantry, was popish by influence; in a few years it must have been popish by fact; through the violence of the priest and the passions of the people, it must have been inflamed into revolution, and that revolution could have terminated only in its being a French province, or an English dungeon.

But the Union has extinguished all the intellectual progress of Ireland. She is the land of the Swifts, Sheridans, Burkes, and Grattans, no longer. She doubtless gives birth to many a mind of the same calibre; but they perish in the cradle. It is remarkable, that, while mechanical skill can scarcely be retarded in its course to success, genius is of difficult rearing, and is more easily checked than any other attribute of man. A clever carpenter arrives by degrees at celebrity in building; we have men of twenty thousand a-year, and spreading their labours over provinces, who began the world with a chisel and a day's wages. We have before us the history of a man whose trade was weaving wigs, and whose amusement was making mousetraps, yet whose heir is said to be worth six millions sterling. But genius, with that pen in its hand which is the true talisman of immortality on earth, if repulsed in its first flight, either collapses in disdain, or shrinks, from the very force of its own sensibility, and perishes unknown. The Irish parlia