fourteen years ago, under circumstances singular, if not romantic? Was this person, at the expiration of a year, driven from Mottram Hall in a way not altogether creditable? Was it afterwards understood, that being reduced to a destitute condition, she fell into sickness; and that she was conveyed in a state of delirium to a parish workhouse, by the miserable and sordid wretches with whom she lodged, in the neighbourhood of Holborn, and that she died there? "If all this statement be true, would the humanity of Sir Frederick lead him to visit that workhouse, on receipt of this letter, and perform an act of charity, which may reflect with a blessed influence on his after life? videlicet, to see that person, whose former wretchedness may have caused him some remorse; but who did not, as was supposed, then die. In her delirium, she escaped from the spot--to which, after many years of strange vicissitude, she has again been brought by misery and the fatality of circumstances. The writer is commissioned to express this poor woman's desire to see Sir Frederick once more; and has yielded to the weakness of a creature, still perhaps but too devoted to earthly ties, in forwarding her request, and enclosing the accompanying packet. The subjoined order will admit Sir F., without delay, to ward C of the parish workhouse of The emotions produced by the perusal of these documents, acting upon a mind already shaken by strong passion, had all the wildness and confusion of insanity. A rush of recollections awakened a long-subdued compunction, exciting a struggle between pride and feeling-between all that is worst and all that is best in humanity. Sir Frederick, however, felt what ought to be done, and he resolved on doing it. Putting up the papers, therefore, in his pocket, he resumed his shoes and cloak, took his hat and gloves, and went forth. He was followed by Larry Fegan, whom he shook awake as he left the house, and questioned about the letter. Agnew's Bill for the due observance of the Sabbath. One among the splendid equipages bore the Mottram arms. The two sleepy footmen, in Sir Frederick's rich livery, swung behind; and the pale, faded face of Lady Frances, (white as the pearl that glistened in her fair uncurled tresses,) was visible within. A broken exclamation rose upon her husband's lips; but he felt that, at that moment, he had no right to accuse. He hurried on. The bottom of St James' Square was still choked with the carriages of the company at the Princess Schaffenhausen's. His incognito air had drawn the attention of the revellers; but they soon made him out, and found a resistless source of fun in detecting the great commoner, the most moral man in Europe, in apparent bonne fortune. With a look and manner not to be mistaken Frederick shook them all off. He reached the workhouse, and was admitted passed through the ranks of the inmates— "The moping idiot, and the madman gay"— wretched women, and famishing children-vice lowering on their young brows, and want pinching their cheeks. At last he reached the point he sought. The bed, No. 14, was covered from head to foot with a clean white sheet, on which shone a ray of sunlight from the opposite window. Under this simple covering appeared the outline of a human figure. Beside it, knelt a female in a black mantle and hood. An ejaculation of horror burst from the lips of the visitor, wholly unused to such scenes, and now so agitated and unshaken. He stood for a moment at the foot of the bed, covering his face with his handkerchief, and articulated with difficulty, "I am come, then, too late!" "Too late!" muttered emphatically the woman, rising slowly from her knees, and remaining motionless beside the bed of death. There was a silence of more than a minute. Why, thin, Sir Frederick, it was a faymale Sir Frederick. -a leedy in a hackney-coach." "A lady! What sort of a lady?" 66 Axing your pardon, Sir Frederick, did iver you see one of the leedies of the House of Mercy, in Baggot Street, Dublin? Well, sorrow a bit but it was just that same sort, sir-a kind of a blessed and holy woman.” As Sir Frederick hurried on, the carriages were still rolling from clubs, soirées, thées, operasuppers, and gambling-houses of various descriptions, public and private; many of them filled by the orthodox and consistent voters for the permanence of tithes, and for Sir Andrew "Charity and duty brought me to this asylum of misery two days back. The poor have no friends, save Heaven," she added, lowering her eyes and crossing herself. "The story of this wretched person, her sufferings, and her wrongs, (for she was of a class of sufferers and used to wrongs,) moved me much. They are now over in this world!" And she clasped her hands and bent her head. "And for ever, be it hoped!" said Sir Frederick, with burst of uncontrollable and solemn emotion. "Her sins be forgiven her! for she loved, as she suffered, much," slowly murmured the pious | dice; the more extraordinary in the son of an woman. The infected atmosphere, the images of misery, sickness, and death, were becoming too much for the heart and the imagination of a visitant so unpractised in haunts like this. He had felt and suffered more, perhaps, in the petty space of time he had passed in this chamber of woe, than he had ever done in his life. His breathing, too, was becoming oppressed, and his strength was failing him; but, aware of his situation, he made an effort to rouse himself, and said "I trust, madam, you will not allow an acquaintance, begun under such affecting circumstances, to drop here. You have probably been put into the confidence of my late unfortunate friend, and "Was she your friend?" asked the woman, in a tone of almost contempt. "Will you allow me to call on you?" was the evasive answer. "You were, of course, the writer of the letter which "Yes, I wrote, and brought it, when this poor woman was at her agony." "Will you allow me, then, an opportunity of thanking you for your humanity? Where shall I call on you?” "I have no home! I was once like her," (pointing to the corpse,) "homeless from necessity; I am now so from choice. But you have a splendid and a happy home. I will call on you." Sir Frederick started, unconscious alike why he had made his own proposition, or why he was disturbed by hers. "I am leaving town," he said faintly. "I will wait your return," said the female ; and she knelt down and buried her face in her hands, as if to cut short the interview. Next morning Lady Frances sat in her luxuriously-furnished dressing-room a few hours after her husband had returned from the St workhouse, and with his letter in her hand. She read it through with a running commentary of "pishes!"-" pshaws!"-" bahs!"— and " 80 very tiresomes." It frightened her, however, into reflection. She wrote for advice and consolation to her dear friend and sister-in-law the Marchioness Montressor, a lady once admired by Sir Frederick, but now piously inclined and in very delicate health. She pitied" dear Lady Frances with her strange plebeian husband," and sent her sound advice"Remember," she wrote, "no separation! mind that. First, in a religious point of view, separation is sinful as St Paul says, in dear Mrs Medlicot's Tracts of Ton,'' Let not the wife depart from the husband.' Besides, there is all the difference in the world, dear, between a princely mansion in Carlton Terrace and a box' in Cadogan Place, or a sweet little cottage at Tonbridge: and believe me, Fanny sweetest, it will come to that. Your conscience tells you, that you are innocent, and Sir F. wrong—I do not dispute it; and there are many reasons to warrant your opposing his vulgar caprices and plebeian preju actress, who, of course, was not over rigid. "I shall give tea as usual; it is now almost the only peep at the world my health, and indeed my way of thinking, allow me to take. You must come, child. But remember, love, I do not receive till ten minutes after midnight. "I will not keep your pretty page any longer. What a nice boy! I have had him up in my dressing-room, and talked to him of his catechism." Lady Frances was still reading the pale, blue pages of the epistle, when the Princess was announced. Lady Frances huddled up her letter; but not before the Princess's quick eye detected the action. "I see I am de trop," she said, throwing herself into an arm-chair opposite to Lady Frances, after having kissed her cheek. "That letter interests you; and I don't-now." "Comment, ma belle! You always interest me." "No-no-finish your letter, ma petite, and then we'll talk. It is from Lady Montressor. Stay, you have dropped an enclosure-protocole de mari!" Lady Frances coloured, and opened her eyes. "How do you know that?” "I am just come from Arlington Street; and the Marchesa has put me into your confidence." She laughed, and sunk back in her chair. "How very foolish!" said Lady Frances, much annoyed. "Not at all foolish, child-only false. You are all THAT, vous autres. You betray each other, for ever, in your idleness and garrulity. There is no point of honour in your coteries; for, if rogues can sometimes be true to each other, roguesses never can. Your friendships are but masked rivalries. By the by, why do you fle yourself up in that chevaux-de-frise of lace and ribbon ? Such things only become the figures chiffonnées of French petites-maîtresses— they are not for true English beauty." muf She arose, took off Madame Devy's last' from her friend's head, and let fall that profusion of fair hair which gave to Lady Frances' languid beauty its true character and appropriate embellishment. "There, child-your connoisseur de mari, in his collection of Grammont beauties in the salon là-bàs, has nothing like that you are precisely La belle Jennings. Why don't you receive him at breakfast just so?" "But, Princess," said Lady Frances, glancing at an opposite mirror in conscious beauty, and ever charmed by flattery at all hours and from all persons, "I never see my husband at breakfast; and, at this season, but rarely at dinnerthat is, at home. We sometimes do dine out together." "Yes, I know. I've seen you perched up in the same chariot, like two sulky birds in a cage after a pecking-match. You are both to blame; you most, as being the superior animal.” Lady Frances smiled, and shook her head. Yes, you are, by nature, if there was any nature about you; but there is not." Lady Frances laughed. "How very odd you are!" "The state of what you call high society in England is so artificial, that there is not a trace of nature to be found among you. Your religion, your morality, your hours, you habits, even your follies -all are artificial and conventional. But you are reaching that solstice, beyond which no society can go." "I don't understand you." Well, then, the reign of fine ladyism, the despotism of coteries, are crumbling away. Almack's, like Westminster Abbey, once destined to illustrate only the great, will be thrown open to all who can pay for their admission. Do you understand that?" "There is something in it," said Lady Frances, gravely. "Almack's is not what it was. What is to be done?" "Now, that you are all nearly undone nothing. Stand aside, let the torrent pass. You cannot stop it, though you may be overwhelmed in the attempt." "This is odd, from you!" said Lady Frances. "One may act wrong," replied the Princess, yet think right; and may sin, as you English call it, without being absolutely a fool. Lady Montressor has told me all. Your husband wants an excuse to part from you, and has hit upon me. What advice has your friend, the Marchesa, given you? She told me that she had written." "Since you know all," said Lady Frances, "there is her letter; she deserves that I should shew her up." delighted. She regretted more than ever that such horrible things had been put into her husband's head about a Princess that had a castle on the Rhine, to which it would be so pleasant to go after the London season was over, and who gave such charming parties. "I know," said the Princess, "they have told him I am a sort of a Madame de C-——————, a political intrigante, one who carries a printingpress in her dressing-box." "Oh! worse than that!" The Princess sunk back in an easy attitude, and continued: "An affaire de sentiment with Metternich, probably?" "Encore pire," said Lady Frances, smiling. "Now, don't be angry, dearest Princess!" "I? not in the least.-Something about a husband missing, perhaps?" Lady Frances threw down her eyes and coloured. "But, belle enfant, if all this were true, do you think I should be received in the first society of England! run after! courted! my house never empty! and my porter's book always full ?" 66 66 nor No," said the Princess, significantly; with domestic ones neither. A crime or a vice, more or less, is easily forgiven or forgotten here, provided rank or party give le mot d'ordre! But, never mind me and my vices. Sir Frederick is not so prudish as to be shocked at the failings of a German princess; but he hates me personally, because some of my dear, trustworthy friends have repeated an epigram or two, "To be sure she does. Voyons donc." which have touched his amour-propre where it While reading Lady Montressor's epistle, the is most susceptible. He hates me, too, for the concentrated expression of her countenance yield-influence he supposes I have over you, and by ed, more than once, to a smile of humour and finesse. Beautiful as was the smile, it had a very sinister expression; and it might well have passed for that of a handsome imp. She laid the letter on the table. Well," said Lady Frances, "what do you think?" "That your friend is a fool-as the false ever are; and that her letter is a tissue of cant and nonsense. Shall I answer your husband's letter for you?" The incorrigible Lady Frances burst into a fit of laughter. "That would be too pleasant!" "You must first let me see it." Lady Frances put her husband's letter into the Princess' hands, who read it calmly and smilingly, as if her own vices had not formed its principal subject. "Give me pen, ink, and paper," she said. Lady Frances rung the golden bell on her table for the page, who was in the veranda tying flowers. Lady Frances fell asleep-the Princess sketched her where she lay; the resemblance, though flattering, was perfect, and the original w which they say I mean to get at him." "Oh! par exemple, he is right as to your extraordinary influence over me: Claude says it is a spell." "Yes; the spell of convenience. You like my house, and my parties; and the freedom of foreign habits suits your purposes." "No, no," said Lady Frances, smiling and caressing her; "I like yourself and your society for its own sake." "You never missed it last night?" said the Princess. Lady Frances opened her eyes. "Missed you?" "All charming as I am, nobody missed me!" "What do you mean?" "Only that I was otherwise employed than presiding over orgies, of which I am, truth to tell, completely ennuyée! But you had my house. And now to the point. Send this portrait to your husband; it is the best answer to his letter. The Princess stated her reasons for this odd measure, and gave her friend energetic counsel and warning." I see by this book," (a breviary which she held,) she said, “ you are just thirtyfive-two years older than myself; a glorious age for a woman-the prime of her beauty, of her The Princess was returning to the continent, diately visiting Mottram Hall; but the Fates had and thus the new friends parted. In the wreck of his hopes Sir Frederick still retained one friend. Stimulated by the inuendoes of the Morning Post, the Age, and the Standard, that friend, Horace Harvey, wrote to inquire into his political and domestic distresses. After philosophizing and moralizing at some length, Harvey concluded thus :-" Had I not, coxcomb❘ as I was, aspired to your sister, and, still worse, preached liberalism to yourself, I might have risen to wealth and consideration; and had you married that impersonation of Byron's beautiful spirit,'-that most gifted and unfortunate of an unfortunate class,-how different might have been our lot! You, at least, might have been more useful to your species, more elevated in your ambition, and, perhaps, more happy, than accident, or rather uncontrollable necessity, has left you. United to the woman of your choice, her restless energies would have roused your less active temperament; her intense devotedness would have met your passionate feelings; and her love and genius for the arts would have nourished that highest and purest source of human enjoyment, for which you were born. But I will not farther impose on your time and patience. I hear your apartments at Mottram Hall are getting ready for your reception: we shall soon meet there." Sir Frederick returned for answer that he had not split with his party, nor separated from his wife, and he once more denounced the intriguing Princess, told the anecdote of the picture, and recurred to his adventure at the workhouse of St The allusion of his friend had been ill or well-timed. "The image of that creature," he wrote, "has recently recurred to my imagination, as I saw her first at my father's, on my arrival from Oxford for my first vacation. She was singing at her easel, and copying my mother's picture by Romney. She was dressed in that fantastic Polish dress, which my mother's always theatrical taste compelled her to assume. What a perfect incarnation of all that is beautiful in form, with all that is bright in moral combination! Well, it is scarcely five days since I saw this being, this once beautiful shrine of talents and acquirements so superior; and where do you think? On the bed of penurious, public charity; a corpse in a workhouse; indebted to benevolent but mistaken piety for the last acts of compassionate sympathy! a different journey in store for him. Days past; his expected visiter did not appear, and the conduct of Lady Frances became daily more irritating to her sensitive husband, who, one night, in an access of wrath and misery, while her profligate coterie were in the middle of their orgies, rushed to his bath-room in despair, and there found a pencil note, on which was written "Up and away! You think yourself miserable; you are but ill. You think yourself aggrieved; you are but dispirited. You blame others for the result of your own conduct. Your springs of life want new tempering; your mind needs refreshment, but you will find none at Mottram Hall: you will find there old associations, and you need new impressions. Look to regenerated Europe; throw away the spectacles of faction, cleanse off the film of party, break the thraldom of fashion; learn to unlearn to feel, think, judge for yourself. Go forth to the world a man; and not that mass of habits, prejudices, morbid refinements, and factitious wants, an English aristocrat, the pupil of old schools, the support of goneby institutions. "I told you I would obey your call; I have done so, but your petulance brooked no delay, and I missed you in your study. I have passed through your dissipated house as a public robber might, unobserved, unmolested. My vocation is to seek the wretched, to alleviate suffering wherever I find it; in the golden saloons of the wealthy, as in the homely wards of the parish workhouse: you are miserable, and I am at my post. "Up then and away! The morning breaks, the wind is fair, sails are unfurling, steam is rising. There is a tricoloured flag floating on the Thames; it is the flag of a regenerated people. Try the effect of transition. Give to the winds the frivolous vexations which prey on your noble mind. The word of the age is, En avant! he who lingers last is lost!" Sir Frederick read and re-read this singular fragment: the identity of its author could not be mistaken. He felt impelled to obey the spell, and the next day found him at Ostend, attended by Larry Fegan; and, owing to the characteristic Hibernian blunders of the valet, without a shilling, a change of linen, or that first of civilized man's necessaries, a razor. After acquainting his man of business in London with his dilemma, he thus retrospectively epistlized his friend Harvey, bringing up his log from the eve of his intended departure for Mottram Hall:-"I paired off with Winterbottam, and returned from the House earlier than usual: I found my house a rendezvous of the elect, returning from a déjeúné at Norwood. Romping, carried on to the very verge of licentiousness, and high play, constituted the business of the night; and a new game, called a racing-table, (which has been recently introduced to shorten the process of ruin,) was in full activity. "There is a pretty little apartment in the farther end of the suit, which, pedantically enough, I have called the Tribune; because it contains the two Titians, the Murillos, the Chandos Correggio, with Canova's Venus, which he executed for me when I was in Rome. But I cannot go on! Perhaps I should have treated the whole thing as an enfantillage: for this association of middle-aged matrons and foolish young men is the most puerile thing imaginable-the men, from constant frequenting such coteries, being as trivial as the women, and the women borrowing the free tone of the men. "In aggravation of such a meeting in such a place, Master Claude Hamilton and his playfellows had mutilated and disfigured Canova's superb work; and that female Mephistophiles, the Princess of Schaffenhausen, stood presiding over the whole inischief, in her wizard dress and veiled face, notwithstanding Lady Frances' solemn promises to the contrary. I could not control myself. I was mad! acted like a madman; and, under the influence of I know not what spell-led by a sort of anonymous letter, counselling me to the hasty step I have takenordered the horses to the Tower-stairs, instead of the great north road, and embarked for Ostend." Sir Frederick next related his humorous distresses, as a gentleman placed in very suspicious circumstances. From these he was relieved by the kindness of that very Sir Ignatius and Lady Dogherty the reader has alreadyseen in the roundroom of the King's Theatre, and their professional friend and travelling companion, Doctor Rodolf De Burgo. Sir Frederick was certainly more indebted than grateful to his polite new acquaintainces. His pride and his fastidious taste disdained these Hibernian friends in need, who, to say truth, admired him more for his fashion and the rank he bore in England, than they sympathized with his ludicrous distresses in Ostend. At last, money came from England, and he was prepared to continue his journey to Brussels; but the ubiquious Princess had arriv. ed suddenly at Ostend, and engaged all the post-horses. He was, therefore, compelled to travel by the treckschuyt. Gradually were the swampy banks of the canal near Ostend exchanged for scenes of more broken and woody outline; the country rising into highly cultivated ridges on either side. As Bruges was approached, rural prosperity and beauty became more striking. Snug cottages and substantial farm-houses, deeply coloured, as in a Dutch picture, peeped through trees, and presented images of comfort and ease, which, throughout even this, the flattest part of Belgium, amply compensate for the absence of the more striking features of mountain countries. On some spots, the hay was still making, and sent forth its perfume on the air; and wherever man appeared, his fresh colour and decent garb betokened the full suppliance of the first wants of life. Among the passengers much free and animated conversation took place upon the history, the antiquities, and the present position of Flanders, and the state of the arts. On the latter subject, Sir Frederick spoke with so much interest, that a lady in a deep black hood, who had been drawing upon a card, remarked "Monsieur est-il artiste de profession?" and she put the card on which she had been drawing into her book. 66 'Only an amateur, madam,” he replied, a little hurt at being taken for anything professional. "Eh bien," she continued ; " look before you! There is one of those originals from which our Flemish painters might have taken their subject. There is the chiaro scuro of Hobbima, in which he equals Ruysdael. There are his deep masses; and there his setting sun, in which he rivalled Claude. Those trees have his feathery but firm touch; and the whole distribution of light and shade is his! Our Flemish painters all studied in the great school of Nature, and Hobbima most of all." They parted at Bruges; but it was not till after a solitary, but sumptuous eight-o'clock dinner, to which the host of the Hotel de Commerce gave the name of supper, that the weary, but not unsatisfied, English traveller remem. bered a card which he had picked up near the little port of the canal, and which he had thrown on the table of his room on arriving. It contained a slight but admirable sketch of the group on board, which had struck his own pictorial imagination; the melancholy Italian, the joyous Flemings, the placid English, and, distinguishable above all, his own fine figure and handsome head! "What a splendid talent!" he said, his eyes rivetted upon his own resemblance. Next morning, Sir Frederick, after writing to England, went to visit the Hotel de Ville, and was engaged in examining its series of basreliefs, when a living figure moved towards him, that, by its picturesque outline, harmonized with the antique scene, and drew to itself his suspended attention. It was clothed in the mantle and hood of the Brugeois toilet, which might serve alike the purposes of devotion or of concealment. But besides something peculiar in the bearing of the wearer, sufficiently distinct to identify her as the artist of the treckschuyt, the singular and dumpy figure and white coif of the female who followed close upon her steps would have betrayed the fact. Sir Frederick could not resist the desire of addressing the admirable designer of his own likeness. His graceful salutation, and gracious, though reserved address, were scarcely acknowledged. "I beg a thousand pardons," he said, "for this awkward manner of returning an object which I cannot in honesty retain, though it will be a sacrifice to resign it." |