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LEATHERLUNGS THE "LEG."

BY THE EDITOR.

CHAP. XVIII.-FACILIS DESCENSUS.

Truth! rouse some genuine bard, and guide his hand,
To drive this pestilence from out the land.

E'en I-least thinking of a thoughtless throng,
Just skill'd to know the right and choose the wrong,
Freed at that age when reason's shield is lost,

To fight my course through passion's countless host,
Whom every path of pleasure's flowery way
Has lured in turn, and all have led astray-
E'en I must raise my voice; e'en I must feel
Such scenes, such men destroy the public weal.

BYRON.

The hero of this history having achieved wealth and wedlock, here, were it a novel we were in process of inditing, our labour had been at an end, and "finis" inscribed on our page. We have followed him over a golden course. While yet in the prime of life, he has won a brilliant establishment in the West, and a banker's account in the East, to the tune of thousands of sterling pounds-to say nothing of stocks and other securities. At five-and-forty we find him the Amphitryon of the most fastidious of fashion's favourites; and at five-and-twenty we saw him attempt operations with his first silver fork, with which he was striving to scoop up his soup, thinking it was a particularly genteel silver spoon. His life had been a merry one: what matter that it was not fated to be a long one also? One must suppose merriment the characteristic of all malefacients; for so poets, painters, biographers, and all their historians invariably represent them. "The rogues," says the author of Gil Blas-Le Sage, perhaps the rogues were very merry on their booty. They said a thousand things that showed the wickedness of their morals."

The reader is not to prepare for horrors because he is advertised that the life of Leatherlungs was destined to be a short one; for this has only reference to his professional career. He shall very probably survive to a patriarchal age-provided porridge and oakum-picking agree with his constitution. But as when things come to the worst they mend, so the reverse of the proposition is, as it were, a passage of natural justice, upon the great compensation principle. Now, therefore, a change is about to come o'er the spirit of our dream; for this biography is indeed a Vision-of Judgment. The Leg of this our "mystery" commenced his pilgrimage of pottery (transformed, as we have seen, to such " precious porcelain") in the character of a youth

"Who in virtue's ways did take delight."

His first professional practice, it is believed, was upon his uncle's till, which he "cracked" on a Sunday afternoon, when the family had repaired to the parish church. This was not a promising beginning; and, consequently, when we followed him through a course of prosperity such as nor Socrates nor Melancthon might have hoped for on their merits, according to all literary law we must be prepared to accompany him, or rather to set him down, in no very comfortable lodgings on the winding up of the moral. Perhaps the actor was also prepared for the catastrophe; and, without ever having been as the distinguished seminary for young gentles-whose maxim in ethics it is, that "a day's fun is worth a year's flogging"—he would have probably compounded for such terms.

We have conducted him to a fortune without parallel, almostexcept that of "Nong Tong Paw." Apicius would have "liked to dine" with him. His wife was altogether unexceptionable—that is, of course, as regarded her physique: his house has been sketched, and his menage admitted of no reproach. Here was the achievement of a great glory. Imagine a ragged rascal "begot" at Manchester, "by whom it matters not-which is so much the better, as there might be considerable difficulty in fixing the affiliation-imagine, we say, a shirtless scoundrel skimming from off the scum of the human cauldron into a reciprocity of roguery with men of the privileged order. Was not that sauter la coupe to some tune? Far be it from us to filch from him the credit due to his policy. If it showed no genius, it was replete with the knowledge of human nature-an acquisition, for the citizen of the world, beyond all price. He was morally (or immorally, if you please) vastly superior to your mere fisher of men; he was a discounter of the human race: not a huckster of humanity, but a merchant of mankind. No stroke of his policy, perhaps, was so finished as that of his marriage. The lady of his election had won for herself a position probably never attained before by any, of her class, in this country. She had refused young nobles by the dozen; had commanded the houses and homage of a crowd of the elite of fashion's and fortune's minions; and occupied a pedestal in the hall of fame-or infame-where convention instals the Houris of our western paradise. This remarkable woman was literally the rage during many seasons of her career, and is still "the first in the throng," whether in the ring in Hyde Park, or at other equestrian trysts more distinguished for daring deeds and artistical skill in horsemanship. To her the Leg was indebted for his coup de theatre: money he had put pretty handsomely into his purse (of course) before she enlisted under his banners in the capacity of an ally. But still he was one of the unwashed-a mere handicraftsman at his calling— a parcel of the understood snobbery of the Corner. By what potent spells he was enabled to secure such a recruit might be hard to say. She was the "bright particular star" of the system of the most perfect gentle knight about town, when suddenly she became eclipsed, to appear among the nebule of Leatherlungs, his hazy group, to become portion of the constellation of the Great Bear. By the wife the husband was initiated into the mysteries of tracasserie and tooth-brushes -made conversant with courtesy and clean linen. Instead of wearing hands like a coal-whipper, he might be ordinarily seen with

tolerably correct Paris kids; though now and then, they say, he has been caught in that abomination among gloves, the brown Berlinto our thinking as diabolical a device in toilets as ever saw the light.

Well, the man of lowly suit and ragged reputation set up, with a considerable capital, for a person of taste and pretension. He eschewed gin-cocktail and adopted claret; "swore but now and then;" wore a decent face upon his shoulders; and committed tete a tetes with his better-half. These were the occasions on which he took lessons in his new role. Thus he learnt his alpha beta of good manners. On the long winter evenings which succeeded her hymenials, you might have detected her reading choice morsels from the modern moralists, partly to instruct and partly to amuse; for example, such as this-

The hearth was swept clean, the fire burnt high and clear, the curtains were let down, and the light excluded. Our three adventurers and their room seemed the picture of comfort. So thought Mr. Pepper; for, glancing round the chamber, and patting his feet upon the fender, he said, "Were my portrait to be taken, gentlemen, it is just as I am now that I would be drawn!"

"And," said Tomlinson, cracking his filberts-Tomlinson was fond of filberts" were I to choose a home, it is in such a home as this that I would be always quartered."

"Ah! gentlemen," said Clifford, who had been for some time silent; "it is more than probable that both your wishes may be heard, and that ye may be drawn, quartered, and something else, too, in the very place of your desert!"

"Well," said Tomlinson, smiling gently, "I am happy to hear you jest again, captain, though it be at our expense."

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"Expense!" echoed Ned; ay, there's the rub! Who the deuce is to pay the expense of our dinner?"

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"And our dinners for the last week," added Tomlinson; empty nut looks ominous; it certainly has one grand feature, strikingly resembling my pockets."

"Heigho!" sighed long Ned, turning his waistcoat commodities inside out, with a significant gesture; while the accomplished Tomlinson, who was fond of plaintive poetry, pointed to the disconsolate vacua, and exclaimed

"E'en while Fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart, desponding, asks if this be joy.'

"In truth, gentlemen," added he, solemnly, depositing his nut-
crackers on the table, and laying, as was his wont when about to be
luminous, his right finger on his sinister palm; "in truth, gentlemen,
affairs are growing serious with us; and it becomes necessary forth-
with to devise some safe means of procuring a decent competence."
"I am dunned confoundedly," cried Ned.

"And," continued Tomlinson, "no person of delicacy likes to be subjected to the importunity of vulgar creditors: we must, therefore, raise money for the liquidation of our debts. Captain Lovett, or Clifford, whichever you be styled, we call upon you to assist us in so praiseworthy a purpose."

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