regent, convinced that, while Frenchmen could dance and sing, they were not to be reduced to obedience, suffered them to return to Paris, and thus broke up the most sportive scene of Europe.

In the month of November, the India and Mississippi Company were stripped of all their royal privileges, and reduced to a private establishment. This was ruin. Law was suffered by the regent to leave the country, and he set out for Brussels under an escort of cavalry. All his property in France was instantly confiscated; and he is said to have retained only a single diamond, worth five or six thousand pounds. The notes in circulation were stated to be 2700 millions; for not one-half of which, on the largest calculation, was specie to be forthcoming. The national debt had risen to 3100 millions of livres, (£124,000,000 sterling, at an interest of £3,196,000,) a small sum, compared with the burdens of later times-but formidable, compared with the French ability to bear it. All the leading actors in this affair soon sank away.

D'Argenson, overwhelmed with the loss of office, died in retirement within a year. The regent died in 1723 suddenly, while sitting by his fireside, perhaps from the habits of a profligate life, but not improbably also from vexation and a sense of the popular hatred. Law retired to Venice, where he was compelled to pawn his diamond; he then lived in Copenhagen, and, pursued by creditors, obtained leave to reside in England. After a residence of four years, he returned to Venice, where he died in great embarrassment. His brother, who had shared his prosperity and his fall, being imprisoned in the Bastile, was ultimately more fortunate; for, settling in France, he became the founder of a family,

possessing the marquisate of Lauris

ton.

Law must have been an impostor; for it is a rule of finance, as well as of nature, that "ex nihilo nihil fit ;" and paper cannot supersede coin without exposing its holders to the rapid discovery that it is worth nothing. But he must also have been an enthusiast. Inflated with the success of his projects, he must have thought that time and circumstance would be controlled for him, and that the delusion would last until he, at least, would be out of the reach of the general debacle. It is only on this ground that we can account for his extraordinary disregard of all the common precautions by which property is to be secured-his purchase of great landed possessions in France, where they were in the grasp of authority-his neglect of remittances to the foreign banks, or any of those various arrangements by which chance is turned into certainty. The only solution for his conduct is, that he was by nature and by habit a gamester, and the gamester knows not the word "to-morrow." The success of the moment is always regarded as perpetual, and no success can exceed his expectations, or satiate his avarice. To this propensity he fell, and justly fell, a victim. His apostasy deprived him of all respect and all sympathy. Europe looked on him with contempt as a beggar, France with hatred as a swindler, and England gave him a refuge, only with that disdain which must be felt for the knave combined with the fool.

We have felt much amusement and interest in these volumes. The remaining subjects — the Crusaders, Witchcraft, and others, offer striking illustrations of popular error--strikingly detailed. And we shall be gratified by seeing the History of the Alchemists, from the same writer.

ANY one passing along that fine row of cottages on the way to Dul wich, each standing (like a nobleman's mansion) in its own grounds, and guarded from the vulgar intrusion of every thing but noise and dust, by bright green railings-each also ornamented with a line of shrubs along the walk, and four, rather finer than ordinary, safely ensconced in gigantic flower-pots; any one, I say, passing along that line might have seen, a great many years ago, a bright brass plate at No. 7, with the name of Mr John Hibbert engraved on it in the Roman letters. Furthermore, any one on enquiry would have found that Mr John Hibbert punctually paid his weekly bills, was as regular as clockwork in his daily movements to and from Old Broad Street, was in a flourishing way of business; and, in all senses of the word-even to the extent of keeping a gig—a respectable man. Mr John Hibbert was a widower; and as history has forgot ten to record the maiden name of his deceased companion, we may very safely conjecture that she was not any near relation of the Plantagenets or Howards; but she was a most excellent woman, as Mr Hibbert frequently took occasion to mention, especially when he was in wrath with either of his daughters; and it would indeed have been astonishing, as he often observed, that such a paragon should have been the mother of two such very provoking creatures, if it had, indeed, been true that she was so entirely faultless as she was now represented by the irate father. It was remarked as a fine trait of his character, and a proof of his contempt of flattery, that he had never made use towards her, during her life, of a single expression that could lead her to think it at all remarkable that the girls were much like the ordinary race of mortals. She had no idea that she was such a wondrous piece of perfection herself; probably from having it pretty often dinned into her ears that she was the very reverse-from all which we are bound to confess that Mr John Hibbert, in spite of his

brass plate and green railings, and perfect respectability, was a considerable brute in his way, and that his family were rather to be pitied than otherwise. His eldest daughter took the management of his house, and was trained from an early age in all the ways of her amiable sire. Such a tartar was never known by any of the butchers' boys or grocers' apprentices in those parts: roasting before a slow fire was not half punishment enough, if she had had it in her power to inflict it, for venturing into the kitchen with dirty shoes. The maid, when she heard of any one being condemned to hard labour at the treadmill, looked up, with a sigh of envy, reflecting that the unfortunate prisoner was at least free from the superintendence of Miss Susan. And it was a great pity that that excellent establishment had not the benefit of her assistance, for nature had exactly adapted her to be an overseer if she had been a man, she would have been a slave-driver from choice. Her sister Elizabeth was eight years younger, and if you had seen them walking together to church, you never would have thought them branches of the same tree. Susan was short and thin; a small red nose gave a finish to a countenance of which the other principal features were bright grey eyes, very small and deep, and a large mouth, with long white teeth. Elizabeth, on the other hand, had all the beauty resulting from a fine healthy complexion, good features, and a full well-shaped figure. She had nothing of what people absurdly call intellect in her face-as if clever people were not generally the stupidest-looking, ugliest monsters, you can meet with; but in her great black shining eyes, cherry-coloured lips, and rosy cheeks, there was something which, for my own part, I greatly prefer to the most intellectual snub-nose or philosophical squinting eyes you can imagine.

They say pretty girls know their prettiness at a very early age-and perhaps the remark may be right; but in this instance Miss Susanwhich is a very uncommon thing

very early made the discovery that she was atrociously ugly. Upon my word, I think, by constantly dwelling on the subject in her own mind, she exaggerated her ugliness, as other people, by the same process, exaggerate their beauty. She seemed to take a pride in it: she petted it, and caressed it; and was quite pleased when her mirror discovered to her that she was looking at any time more than usually hideous. The father, also, seemed to be enchanted with her frightfulness. He was an ugly fellow himself, and took it as a sort of compliment that his daughter was a second edition of his own unloveliness. But with regard to Elizabeth, they both felt that there was some implied insult in all that flush of health and beauty. They could not exactly accuse her of having fine-cut features and graceful movements, and white hands, and small delicate feet, on purpose to spite them; but they felt that all was not right; that there was some latent undefined satire-perhaps a libel-in those bright sunny eyes and glossy ringlets; and, if the truth must be told, they hated her with all their hearts. And no wonder; she was such a provoking girl she laughed, and talked, and sang, all day long, unless when Susan had succeeded in bullying and tormenting her into a good cry. She ran out of the house without her bonnet, and slipped into No. 9, and gossiped, and talked, and laughed, and played on the piano, with the young Misses Forman, and then hurried back again when she was tired, and bounded into the drawing-room without wiping her shoes on the scraper; in short, she was a hoyden of the most undeniable character, and cared nothing at all about punctilios, and not much more for her sister, who was little else than a great ill-natured redhaired punctilio in propria persona. This lasted for a long time. Mr John Hibbert grew richer and richer every year, and would perhaps have been lord mayor of London if he had lived long enough: but he did not; for, when his youngest daughter was eigh teen, and his eldest owned to twenty. three, though in reality she was twentysix, he was taken very unwell. He grew more sour and crabbed than ever. He could not go every day, as he used to do, into the city; so he sat and sulked most tremendously, at home. Susan sat opposite, and

VOL. LI. NO, cccxv.

sulked too. Elizabeth couldn't sulk; but she sat as quiet as she could, and tried to look unhappy: but beautiful girls of eighteen find it very difficult to look unhappy; and so she sometimes looked up from her work with a radiant smile, and was sure to be rebuked for it, as if it had been a heinous sin, by her father and sister. Then she began to cry, and they said she was sulky; then she smiled again, and they said she was thoughtless, and did not care whether her father lived or died; then she went up to her bed-room to avoid their reproaches, and they said she neglected the sufferer. In short, one pretty, silly, happy creature of eighteen, is no match for two ugly people that are determined never to be pleased. And Elizabeth was treated worse than Cinderella, without any fairy coming to give her carriages and fine clothes-a clear proof to me that there are no fairies left, or they would have done it to a certainty. But all this scolding at the poor girl, and grumbling at every thing else, did not do a bit of good to Mr Hibbert's complaint. He grew worse and worse, and, by sympathy, Susan scolded more and more. Both the maids rushed out of the house in a fit of frenzy, as if they were going to drown themselves in the Thames; the butcher's boy refused to take another joint to No. 7, and the grocer's apprentice meditated an attack on the till, and a flight to America. They were, therefore, unattended to, and nearly starved, and at last had to send Elizabeth round to the tradespeople, to make matters smooth. The butcher's boy at the first smile agreed to deliver, if required, an ox per day, cut up into half pounds; and the grocer's apprentice became moral and religious all of a sudden, and would not have gone to America to be made president of the United States. Even the maids, when they came back about their boxes, agreed to stay, all for the sake of Miss Elizabeth. What two beautiful things are good nature and good looks! Mr Hibbert sold off his stock in trade, and got a large sum for the good-will of the business-added up all his accounts, and found he was worth fifty thousand pounds. Fifty thousand pounds, and to live all his life at No. 7!- Poor man, he did not know that all his life was not to be

E

very long; and felt as much disgusted at the thoughts of being imprisoned in such a cottage, as if he was to live as long as Methusaleh. As long as he had been in business, he had never thought of the inadequacy of the house for a man of his possessions. I suspect money-making people, while in trade, think their houses a sort of back-room to the office; a part of their commercial premises, and are very well pleased if they can get a chop in them, and a bed. But the moment they have closed the ledger, they are different beings. They have given up their office; why the deuce should they continue to live in the back room? Mr Hibbert looked every day through all the advertisements of the Times in search of an estate with a commodious mansion, fit for the reception of a family of respectability. Such a wonderful number of houses to be sold! all so beautiful-woods and lawns and waters it seemed as if Cubitt or Burton had got a lease of Paradise, and let it out in lots; but, on close enquiry, it turned out that sin had entered in and cut down the trees, or ploughed up the lawn, or let out the water, for the places were dreadfully ugly, and the houses in bad repair. At last he heard of an admirable place in the county of just the thing; finely cultivated land, spacious house,

elegantly furnished, and most select neighbourhood. Oh what a curious metamorphosis of our snarling friend in No. 7 A select neighbourhoodyes-he would get into the best society; give dinners to all and sundry, get a red cuff to his coat, and I.P. to his name. What a pity he should die just when he had concluded the bargain; three and twenty thousand pounds, the timber valued at three more-altogether, with expenses, and a few alterations, twenty-seven thousand pounds; leaving him twentythree thousand on a first-rate mortgage at five per cent. One little week before he was to take possession he became much worse-sent for another doctor-and for an attorney, to make his will. The other doctor came, and took his three guineas, and shook his head sagaciously as he left the house. The lawyer arrived, and shook his head sagaciously as he went in. Now you may remark, that in those two professions, medicine and law, a great deal of meaning is conveyed by a shake of the head. The shake of the doctor said as plainly as words could have said it, that there were very few more three guinea fees to be had; and the attorney's was no less explicit as to his belief that the undertaker might reasonably calculate on a speedy summons.

So the lawyer was shown into the room, a dapper-looking little man about five-and-thirty years of age, with an amazingly clean shirt, ornamented with two gold pins; a bright blue satin waistcoat, with gold buttons; and three little chains across the breast, retaining his watch in the left-hand pocket, like the cables of a seventy-four at anchor at Spithead. All his clerks thought him the perfect beau-ideal of a gentleman, so we may be sure he had what is called an air distingué, which on this occasion was perhaps a little marred by a great blue bag which he carried in his hand. But, to be sure, even the blue bag he carried with a very distingué air, as they say Virgil scattered manure about his fields as if he had been a sovereign distributing crosses of the Guelphic order; and when he-not Virgil, but the smart little attorney,

"You end with a good many though."

Ah, just the old man; always joking."

"Never joked in my life, sir. Begin. I, John Hibbert, of Willerdon Hall, in the county of Esquire, leave all my property of all kinds whatever to my eldest daughter, Susan Hibbert, for her life, if she continues unmarried, and to her and her children for ever if she marries and has any, on condition of her paying an annuity of a hundred pounds to her sister, my daughter, Elizabeth Hibbert; and after her death to her child or children. And in case my eldest daughter dies without children, I then leave every thing to my second daughter, if then living, or her child or children, if she has any."

"And failing them, sir?" enquired the attorney.

"I don't care where it goes-put any body's name in you like."

Mr Tyem reflected above half a second; and, as he was directed to put down any one's name he liked, and he liked his only son better than any body else except himself, he enquired if he might insert the name of Augustus Tyem.

"You may put down the devil, I tell you!" answered the meek invalid, suffering probably from a twitch of pain !

"Oh, thank you, sir! I'll put down poor Augustus out of compliment, for he hasn't a chance-not the remotest. They'll both marry; they're so very good looking, especially Miss Hibbert."

"She's as ugly as sin, sir, and you know it. The other one is what they call pretty, and may marry without a fortune a thoughtless, careless gipsy'

Oh, I beg your pardon, my dear sir; indeed you are mistaken. Miss Hibbert hasn't, perhaps, such regular features; but there's a fine acute intelligent expression about her, that you must be a little blinded not to perceive."

"Well, turn all that I've said into proper phrases, and let me sign it, for I am tired."

The lawyer sat down and did as he was directed; and, by dint of sundry whereases, and furthermores, and neverthelesses, contrived to manufacture a document so totally unintelligible to ordinary men, that it bore strong internal tokens of being profoundly legal. When it was finished to his satisfaction, and carefully read over by Mr Hibbert, proper witnesses were called in, and the document was signed, sealed, and delivered, in due form. Then did Mr Tyem discover his politeness and good taste, and displayed his ingenuity at the same time, by pouring into the dying man's ear all the tittle-tattle of the citythe late failures, the expected bankruptcies, the gallant news of the day; for Mr Tyem was a gay widower, and read the unstamped newspapers, and some of the stamped ones, every Sunday morning. Then he was eloquent about the East End Club, of which he was a member; and related various anecdotes of being overcharged twopence for lunch, and resisting the imposition with the indignation of a virtuous man, who never made an overcharge in his life; and finally, when the two girls fortunately came into the room, he had nearly succeeded in talking the almost speechless sufferer to death.

"Oh, father! how very ill you look!" said Elizabeth, horrorstruck at the change produced by the loquacity of the visiter.

That's always the way you go on"-exclaimed Susan in a sharp tone "always trying to frighten poor dear papa about his looks. I wish you wouldn't speak to him at all, if you can't give him any more comfort than that."

But Elizabeth was not to be put down by sharp speeches, when she saw her father so dreadfully changed.

"Oh father," she said, "is there any thing I can do?-tell me," and she took his hand.

"Yes," said the father in a tone that might almost have been mistaken for Susan's, "you can hold your tongue and leave me alone."

"Your father, Miss Susan, has just done me the favour to dictate to me his will"-said the attorney, smirking at the same time.

"Oh!" said Miss Hibbert enquiringly.

"And I believe, sir, I may mention