Boy, and the Calf with Two Heads; while high over even these edifices, and occupying the most conspicuous vantage-ground, a lofty stage promised to rural play-goers the "Grand Melo-dramatie Performance of the Remorseless Baron and the Bandit's Child" Music, lively if artless, resounded on every side; drums, fifes, penny-whistles, cat-calls, and a hand-organ played by a dark foreigner, from the height of whose shoulder a cynical but observant monkey eyed the hubbub and cracked his nuts.

It was now sunset-the throng at the fullest—an animated joyous scene. The day had been sultry; no clouds were to be seen, except low on the western horizon, where they stretched in lengthened ridges of gold and purple, like the border-land between earth and sky. The tall elms on the green were still, save, near the great stage, one or two, upon which had climbed young urchins, whose laughing faces peered forth, here and there, from the foliage trembling under their restless movements. Amidst the crowd, as it streamed saunteringly along, were two spectators-strangers to the place, as was notably proved by the attention they excited, and the broad jokes their dress and appearance provoked from the rustic wits, jokes which they took with amused good-humour, and sometimes retaliated with a zest which had already made them very popular personages; indeed, there was that about them which propitiated liking. They were young, and the freshness of enjoyment was so visible in their faces, that it begot a sympathy, and wherever they went, other faces brightened around them.

One of the two whom we have thus individualised was of that enviable age, ranging from five-and-twenty to seven-and-twenty, in which, if a man cannot contrive to make life very pleasant, pitiable, indeed, must be the state of his digestive organs. But you might see by this gentleman's countenance that if there were many like him, it would be a worse world for the doctors. His cheek, though not highly coloured, was yet ruddy and clear; his hazel eyes were lively and keen; his hair, which escaped in loose clusters from a jean shooting-cap set jauntily on a well-shaped head, was of that deep sunny auburn rarely seen but in persons of vigorous and hardy temperament. He was good-looking on the whole, and would have deserved the more flattering epithet of handsome, but for his nose, which was what the French call "a nose in the air" -not a nose supercilious, not a nose provocative, as such noses mostly are, but a nose decidedly in earnest to make the best of itself and of things in general-a nose that would push its way up in life, but so pleasantly, that the most irritable fingers would never itch to lay hold of it. With such a nose a man might play the violoncello, marry for love, or even write poetry, and yet not go to the dogs. Never would he stick in the mud so long as he followed that nose in the air!

By the help of that nose this gentleman wore a black velveteen jacket of foreign cut; a moustache and imperial (then much rarer in England than they have been since the siege of Sebastopol); and

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yot left you perfectly convinced that he was an honest. Englishman, Who had not only no designs on your pocket, but would not be casily duped by any designs upon his owi

The companion of the personage thus sketched might be somewhere about seventeen; but his gait, his air, his little vigorous frame, showed a manliness at variance with the boyish bloom of his face. He stuck the eye much more than his elder comrade. Not that he was regularly handsome far from it; yet it is no paradox to say he was beautiful; at least, few indeed were the women who would not have called him . His hair, long, like his fiend's, was of a dark chestnut, with gold gleaming through it where the sun fell, inclining to cul, and singularly soft and silken in its texture. His large, clear, dark blue happy eyes word finged with long chon lashes, and set under brows which already wore the expression of intellectual power, and, better still, of flank comage and open loyalty His complexion was fair and somewhat palo, and his lips, in laughing, showed tooth exquisitely white and even. But though his profile was clearly out, it was far from the Grock ideal; and ha wanted the height of stature which is usually considered essential to the personal pretensions of the male sex. Without being post tively shot, he was still under middle height, and, from the com pact development of his proportions, seemed already to have attained Lis full growth. His dress, though not foreign, like his comrade's, was peculiar: a broad bumimed straw hat, with a wide blue ribbon¦ shirt collar turned down, leaving the throat bare; a dark grool jacket of thinner material than cloth; white trousels and waistcoat Completed his costume. He looked like a mother's darling perhaps he was one.

3. HAMPTON COURT PALACE.

They neared that stately palace, rich in associations of storm and

illiam, of the immotal memory, whom we try so hand to like, and, in spite of the great Whig historian, that Titian of English prose, call only rigidly respect Hand task for us Britons to like a Dutchman who dethiones his father in law and drinks schnaps. Prejudice certainly, but so it is. Hanter still to like Dutch Wil ham's unfitial Flau! Like Queen Mary! I could as soon like Queen Cimmeril! Romance thes fom the prosperous phlegmatia Encas; fics from his plump Lavinia, his trusty Achátes,” Beu tinch, flies to follow the poor deserted higitive, Stuart, with all his sins upon his head. Isings have no rights divine, except when de posed and fallen; they are then invested with the awe that belongs To each solemn image at muital vicissitude vicissitude that startlos the Epicurcan, and strikes from his careless lyre the motes that attest a God! Some proud shadow chases another from the throne of Cyrus, and House hears in the thunder the rush of Diospiter, and identines Providence with the fortune that snatches of the

diadem in her whirring swoop. But fronts discrowned take a new majesty to generous natures ;-in all sleek prosperity there is something commonplace—in all grand adversity, something royal.

The boat shot to the shore; the young people landed, and entered the arch of the desolate palace. They gazed on the great hall and the presence-chambers, and the long suite of rooms, with faded portraits-Vance as an artist, Lionel as an enthusiastic well-read boy, Sophy as a wondering, bewildered, ignorant child. And then they emerged into the noble garden, with its regal trees.

XX. LORD MACAULAY.

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over

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY was born at Rothley Temple, in Leicestershire, in 1800. He is the son of Zachary Macaulay, so well known for his exertions in abolishing the slave-trade, and grandson of the Mr Macaulay whom Boswell and Johnson have celebrated in their "Tours." He was educated at Cambridge, where he highly distinguished himself; and at an early age he became one of the contributors to "Knight's Magazine," an able periodical, which was unfortunately discontinued. His first article in the "Edinburgh Review"-that on Milton-appeared in 1825, and its merits were at once admitted; its style was indeed highly-coloured and somewhat extravagant; loaded," as he himself subsequently admitted, "with gaudy and ungraceful ornament;" but its faults were such as to make more conspicuous the luxuriance of the author's genius. The essay on Milton was followed by a long series of articles on subjects connected with history, literature, and politics, all characterized by the same extensive knowledge, the same sound judgment, and the same gorgeous flow of eloquence, gradually chastened by experience, and deprived of superfluous ornament, but gaining in power what was lost in words. In 1830 Macaulay became a member of the House of Commons, and one of the most important defenders of the principles of the Liberal party. He subsequently received a legal appointment in Calcutta, to which we owe some of his finest articles in the "Edinburgh Review," those on Clive and Hastings. On his return he was elected member for Edinburgh, and in the various Liberal administrations he served as a Cabinet Minister. In 1856 his health obliged him to withdraw from public life, and the year after, with the consent of all parties, he was raised to the peerage as the foremost literary man of the day.

In 1842 Macaulay appeared as a poet: his "Lays of Ancient Rome" were expected with some curiosity, and more than realized the most sanguine anticipations of his warmest admirers. Their vigour and energy, their simple structure, their picturesque description, their rapid action, their nervous language, combined with the innumerable associations connected with the subject to render the " Lays one of the most popular volumes of verse which our century has produced. Macaulay's fame, however, will rest on his "History." This work was originally intended to embrace the period between the accession of James II. and the French Revolution; but from the minuteness

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with which Macaulay has completed the part which has already appeared, it does not seem very probable that the original design will ever be accomplished. Its minuteness, however,, is one of its chief excellences. Thoroughly versed in all the literature of the period whose history he has undertaken to write, he has been able to illustrate his work with a profusion of interesting details, which produce in the mind of the reader a more vivid impression of life and reality than is usually derived from historical works. The style it is quite unnecessary to praise: always lively and attractive, and never by any chance obscure, it may indeed seem overcharged and exaggerated when compared with the style of Hume, but its warmth is more in accordance with the ardour and impetuosity of the present age. Some of his more violent youthful opinions have been considerably modified, and the greatest pains has been taken in the verification of facts. Only four volumes have yet appeared, but the pleasure with which they have been perused only makes the public the more anxious to have a further instalment of the greatest historical work of our day.

1. BATH AND LONDON IN 1685.

At the head of the English watering-places, without a rival, was Bath. The springs of that city had been renowned from the days of the Romans. It had been, during many centuries, the seat of a bishop. The sick repaired thither from every part of the realm. The king sometimes held his court there. Nevertheless, Bath was then a maze of only four or five hundred houses, crowded within an old wall in the vicinity of the Avon. Pictures of what were considered as the finest of those houses are still extant, and greatly resemble the lowest rag-shops and pothouses of Radcliffe Highway. Even then, indeed, travellers complained of the narrowness and meanness of the streets. That beautiful city, which charms even eyes familiar with the masterpieces of Bramante and Palladio, and which the genius of Anstey and of Smollett, of Frances Burney and of Jane Austen, has made classic ground, had not begun to exist. Milsom Street itself was an open field lying far beyond the walls; and hedgerows intersected the space which is now covered by the Crescent and the Circus. The poor patients, to whom the waters had been recommended, lay on straw in a place which, to use the language of a contemporary physician, was a covert rather than a lodging. As to the comforts and luxuries which were to be found in the interior of the houses of Bath by the fashionable visitors who resorted thither in search of health or amusement, we possess information more complete and minute than can generally be obtained on such subjects. A writer, who published an account of that city about sixty years after the Revolution, has accurately described the changes which had taken place within his own recollection. He assures us that in his younger days the gentlemen who visited the springs slept in rooms hardly as good as the garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The floors of the dining-rooms were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown with a wash made of soot and

small beer, in order to hide the dirt. Not a wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or a chimney-piece was of marble. A slab of common freestone, and fire-irons which had cost from three to four shillings, were thought sufficient for any fireplace. The best apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, and were furnished with rushbottomed chairs. Readers who take an interest in the progress of civilization and of the useful arts, will be grateful to the humble topographer who has recorded these facts, and will perhaps wish that historians of far higher pretensions had sometimes spared a few pages from military evolutions and political intrigues, for the purpose of letting us know how the parlours and bedchambers of our ancestors looked.

The position of London, relatively to other towns of the empire, was, in the time of Charles the Second, far higher than at present. For at present the population of London is little more than six times the population of Manchester or Liverpool. In the days of Charles the Second the population of London was more than seventeen times the population of Bristol or of Norwich. It may be doubted whether any other instance can be mentioned of a great kingdom in which the first city was more than seventeen times as large as the second. There is reason to believe that, in 1685, London had been, during about half a century, the most populous capital in Europe. The inhabitants, who are now at least nineteen hundred thousand, were then probably little more than half a million. London had in the world only one commercial rival, now long outstripped, the mighty and opulent Amsterdam. English writers boasted of the forest of masts and yard-arms, which covered the river from the Bridge to the Tower, and of the stupendous sums which were collected at the Custom-House in Thames Street. There is, indeed, no doubt that the trade of the metropolis then bore a far greater proportion than at present to the whole trade of the country; yet to our generation the honest vaunting of our ancestors must appear almost ludicrous. The shipping which they thought incredibly great appears not to have exceeded seventy thousand tons. This was, indeed, then more than a third of the whole tonnage of the kingdom, but is now less than a fourth of the tonnage of Newcastle, and is nearly equalled by the tonnage of the steam-vessels of the Thames. The customs of London amounted, in 1685, to about three hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year. In our time the net duty, at the same place, exceeds ten millions.

Whoever examines the maps of London which were published towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second, will see that only the nucleus of the present capital then existed.

The town did not, as now, fade by imperceptible degrees into the country. No long avenues of villas, embowered in lilacs and laburnums, extended from the great centre of wealth and civilization almost to the boundaries of Middlesex, and far into the heart of Kent and Surrey. In the east, no part of the immense line of warehouses and artificial lakes which now spreads from the Tower to Blackwall