but I ken more of you

than

you may suppose. Are you not retained in the case of S-v. Wainwright?" I had that honor, and acknowledged it.

me.

"Eh bien: the plaintiff and I have been these fourteen years exchanging draughts-he is my winemerchant and the good man reposes confidence in On the morning in which my corns so narrowly escaped crushing by your retrogressive movement from the bookseller's window, I was on a mission to the merchant's; and, while there, his solicitor entered to communicate an opinion of Mr. C. I ascertained the identity of this Mr. C. with the carnal cataclysm that had nearly overwhelmed me at the bookshop; and when the solicitor retired, S. related the particulars of his suit, as well as certain professional incidents to your personal credit: inter alia, the defence"

I had long been on terms of intimacy with the good-hearted vintner, whom to know was to esteem ; and remembering his loquacity, and apprehensive of exaggerated commendation, I felt a slight effeminate tinge getting the better of my professional sang froid - a mark of modesty so monstrous, that the old man reined-up abruptly, and exclaimed, astounded,

"Eh, sirs? a blush on the face of a lawyer! I vow then the tribe is basely slandered and maligned: the calumny of the Talmud, after this, sinks into a "soft impeachment;" and in dilating upon the qualities

essential to the appreciation of Wordsworth, it seems I have not been feeling for a pulse in the dead!”

I bore with all the fortitude I could summon the raillery excited by the display of a constitutional infirmity which I had hardly mastered at that time, but which, fortunately, does not now interfere with the imperturbable nonchalance indispensable (or nearly so) to the legal profession, wherein reputation is not a little favored by the preservation of a wintry exterior. Women must have strange tastes or the compassion of angels (I attribute it religiously to the last alternative,) to wed with lawyers of first-rate uncoguid physiognomical advantages (professional), cased, as they appear to be, in a covering of that complexion which seems made of soiled skins,-a hue bloodless but less like the untrodden snow on Linden than that in a thoroughfare, which is in process of dissolution and dingy.

Previously to leaving Ivy Lodge on this occasion I was bent upon obtaining information of the visits there of the child mentioned in E.'s letter; and to avoid returning unenlightented, I was constrained to prosecute an indirect examination, which elicited for the maiden the ready Elder's affectionate praises, and for me sufficient data whereupon to determine my next appearance at the Lodge. E.'s fondness and

fervour for his godchild was of that order of love which, according to Scott, has in it "less of earth than heaven;" and the glowing old man's tone was so thankful for this treasure of his heart, that as he indulged in its expression his feelings deepened and his voice grew tremulous-imparting to his language and his look an effect of indescribable pathos.

"God's name be blessed!" said E., looking upwards with patriarchal grace, "His mercy be praised for this one gift, that having endowed me with the heart to love, I am not left in the wide world to mourn in loneliness that unencountered one, for whom our Human Nature yearns;-in whose absence, if deeply felt, the craving of Solicitude knows no appeasing, but supplicates the boon, with plaint fathomless as the source of life and holy as the hope of heaven! Of the bosom's better instincts, the least despoiled of its divine simplicity is, methinks, the pure longing to lavish our heart's wealth upon a child; and even where, as here, the strong paternal bond is wanting, the great Father of love doth sometimes implant a principle exotic, whose tendrils intertwine and wreathe around their object with such tenacity and tenderness, that stronger I can hardly conceive to originate in man the Parent. Once-lang syne-I might have cherished the hope of closer ties, and did cherish; and e'en now, encompassed by the goodness of an

F

overflowing Hand, this scarce-resigned heart is apt to repine at what the Father willed not; and stirs to re-invest with the irksome mantle of mortality a spirit which-thanks to the Finisher of our Faith-it is my confidence as that I live, is enrolled among that blissful band from whose faces GOD hath for ever wiped away all tears. There is a stanza of Campbell that moves deep feelings in me like a heaving flood when I think of it, for in its solemn plaintiveness I hear again that angel's breath, while lingering at the portal of the City whose dwellings have their light and joy from the countenance of the Lamb:

Clasp me a little longer, on the brink

Of fate, while I can feel thy dear caress;

And when this heart hath ceased to beat, oh! think,

And let it mitigate thy woes' excess,

That thou hast been to me all tenderness,

And Friend to more than human friendship just.

O! by that retrospect of happiness,

And by the hopes of an immortal trust,

God shall assuage thy pangs when I am laid in dust."

COLLOQUY II.

Turning mainly upon Holy Mother.

CHAPTER IV.

"And sure there seem of human kind
Some born to shun the solemn strife;

Some for amusive tasks designed

To soothe the certain ills of life,

Grace its lone vales with many a budding rose,
Call forth refreshing shades, and decorate repose."

SHENSTONE.

THERE were three souls in the sanctum at Ivy Lodge on a laughing day in merry May. The Church, by a rather affecting process, quite apart from necromancy, has since resolved those three into two, after an honest and straight-forward fashion, on which one needs not to be over-explicit. I have before hinted at this "catastrophe." That eulogistic description in detail which it might have been excellent gratification