THE DISCOVERY-THE PRO

GRESS THE WRECK OF
BEAUTY.

(Continued from p. 152.)

Now, if I were an artist, whenever I painted a woman, whose beauty was such that I might have done so from my own choice as well as from her vanity-I would steal upon her at some moment like this

when, unconscious of being ob served, her countenance was in its natural, and therefore its most beautiful, state; when, with the head bent down over her work or her book, I might draw the fine sweep of her neck, without the alloy of any efforts at grace,—or, if I preferred the raised look of solitary thought, that I might catch the expression of the eye, without any false language being thrown into it.

up

All this is a little high-flown, perhaps, to be excited by a farmer's daughter sitting at her cottage door, but certainly she did excite it; for I thought what a pretty picture she would make, and that again brought up my ideas concerning pictures in general. At last we began to fear we should be observed thus skulking behind the trees, so we advanced towards the vision which had been the object of our contemplation. She recognised Dallas (hang the fellow, I grudged him his prior acquaintance,)—and welcomed us both with a very pleasing and graceful modesty of manner. Real modesty it in truth seemed to be;for, though certainly conscious of her beauty, and of its natural attraction to the eyes of two young men-to say nothing of D.'s dropping a gentle hint touching the early repetition of his accidental visit: in despite, I say, of the gratified consciousness unavoidable in a girl's mind, from these causes---her whole demeanour was marked by a quiet purity equally far from prudishness and affectation. We staid some time; indeed, my companion seemed in no hurry to terminate his visit---so that I had' full leisure to contemplate her. She' is certainly exceedingly pretty---more than pretty. Her clear skin, mant

ling on the cheek with the young blood of health, and on the brow and neck transparently white---her brilliant hair--and her general contour of feature---I had seen as she sat at the door. But now I observed the gracefulness of her form--her springy and elastic gait---and, still more, the beauty of her large eyes as they brightened into a smile, or sank bashfully down as she listened to what Dallas said to her. As I looked at them both, I thought to myself that it probably would be better for all parties if their fathers' houses were in rather less near neigbourhood.

When last I saw Susan she was then a beautiful girl--she is now an exceedingly fine woman. She is, or seems to be, a little taller; her form is more fully developed, and her carriage freer and more under self-command. But, indeed, if I had met her any where else, I might have been introduced to her as to Lady This, or Mrs. T'other, and never dreamed of the pretty, modest, country girl whom I admired three years ago. Not that I at all mean to say that there is the least immodesty in her manner or air-not the slightest; -but she is totally uncountryfiedshe has nothing left of that touch of the romantic in her appearance, which she had when I last saw her. One might have chosen her then for the heroine of a romance, or of a pretty, soft, gentle tale, such as would write, and ladies and lady-like gentlemen admire. But now she is very different. Dallas has spent a great deal of money, and taken infinite pains for her education and improvement. Her manners are unconstrained and good; and her whole appearance in no way distinguishable from that of nine women out of ten whom you meet at a rout, except

perhaps by a very suspicious superiority of beauty to almost every one of them.

She sat at the head of the table at dinner; and did the honours as if she had never been accustomed to an humbler board, or simpler fare. I drank champagne with her-and thought of the bright frothing ale I had last pledged her in! She was addressed as Mrs. Williams --- an appellation concocted, I believe, from D.'s christian name; and the guests, with the good taste and good feeling which I have more than once seen exercised on such occasions, paid her perhaps more delicate and respectful attention than if she had been possessed of all the immunities and honours of the place she occupied. Her own manners were, I have said, remarkably good-equally free from stiff and sensitive reserve on the one hand, and any thing approaching to levity on the other. Still there is always something---a certain conscious glance of the eye, if no more,-from which I have never seen any one placed in her unhappy situation totally free. I thought in particular that she did not feel quite easy when Dallas talked to me about going down to Kipplestone, in the autumn to shoot.

In the evening she sang, pleasingly enough, but to my mind not half so much so as when I heard her upon the bench at her cottage door. She accompanied herself by striking a few notes upon a splendid guitar, which was hung round her neck by a sky-blue scarf,---but it had not, in my eyes, half the effect of the work and the needle which had occupied her hands then. She looked very beautiful, certainly-for few things are more becoming to a woman than this and if I had never seen her before I should have been much struck with her :-but there was something which appeared to me unreal and exotic in the whole business, as compared with the simple and natural peasant whom I remembered."

THE WRECK.

Years after this visit, coming one night from the theatre, he recognises her;

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Never, no never in my life, did experience a more violent and sickening shock. Gracious heaven! and this was the creature whom I remembered in her young purity and loveliness---whom I had so often seen surrounded with all that luxury and wealth could furnish for her pleasure,--at whose table, as I may call it, I had so often sat in the midst of troops of admiring and flattering friends,---whom I had left, not four years since, the adored, almost the idolized, object of affection to a man who was one of the most feeling, generous, and noble of created beings!

I had striven, since my last return from abroad, to obtain some tidings of poor, poor Susan: but in vain. Dallas's death was so sudden that he left no will---so she sank at once from splendid wealth to absolute destitution; for his friends (no---his relations) would do nothing for one on whom they had always looked with dislike and fear. Would, oh, would to God! that I had been here. She who had been dear to Dallas should not have been treated thus.

All this passed across my mind in one instant, as the poor wretch raised her face to the light, as she spoke. Heavens! what a face it was!---her eyes were bleared and red at the edges, and the balls were glazed with recent drunkenness. She had, it is true, recovered her senses; but her eye still reeled, and her breath still reeked, with the effects of that poisonous, debauchery. If there be, in the human shape, one object more revolting, degrading, and humiliating than another, it is that of a drunken woman !---and it was now presented to my eyes in the person of one whom I had known in all the delicacy of female youth---who had been the first and only love of my first and best friend. Her cheek was fallen and hollowed,---and an unwholesome, sodden paleness, which overspread the lower part of it, was made almost hideous by the contrast of a large blotch of coarse red paint which was plastered upon each cheekbone. Of her figure I could see nothing, for she was wrapped to the throat in a

large shawl, which fell over nearly her whole person, in folds in which grease, dirt, and dripping wet seemed to struggle for supremacy. Į never beheld a more pitiable being! She was so much agitated by the sudden revulsion, both physical and mental, which she had undergone, that for some time I thought she would have fallen upon the pavement where we stood. She spoke with an agony almost amounting to incoherence, of what she had gone through --of her present condition. She told me that she was reduced to the lowest pitch of distress,-that, (and I fully believe it to be true) she had not for the last six and thirty hours tasted any thing but gin! Good God! and this is the state to which we reduce those who lavish upon us their whole affection, who place in us their whole trust!

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It was some time before I could at all compose her; and then she wanted me to leave her to her fate--" to die," as she said, sinking upon a door stone, to die here!" At last, after considerable delay and difficulty, I procured a coach, and had her conyeyed to my house. I instantly sent for medical aid, and had a bed prepared for her. Mr. S. said, that she had undergone so much, and was in so debilitated a condition of frame, that he could not yet say what hopes he could hold out of her ultimate recovery. This morning, I have had her removed to a lodging close to Mr. S.'s, who is really kind and active, as well as skilful. Poor, poor,

creature!

It is not ten years since I saw this woman, beautiful, innocent, and happy-and, if it had not been for an almost incalculable chance, she would last night have perished in the streets!

February 20.-S. has just been with me to inform me of poor Susan's death.

EPITAPH

At Ockham, in Surrey, 1736. "The Lord saw good, I was lopping off And down fell from the tree; [wood, I met with a check, and 1 broke my neck, And so death lopp'd off me!"

WITCH-FINDERS.

An old woman who passed for a witch in the Commune of Faust, a village not far from Pau, having obstinately refused to employ her supernatural power for the purpose of restoring health to a young sick girl, the relations and friends of the latter laid their wits together, and (according to the Bearnais Journal) the most determined among them announced his resolution of burning the witch in spite of her disciples. This hazardous motion was tremblingly applauded; but the courage of others was excited by the praise it obtained, and the council broke up to prepare the pile. In short, a stake was driven into the ground, dry vine branches were piled about it, the witch was sought, seized, and attached to the stake, the fire was lighted, and the unhappy woman, who for the first time in her life found her art powerless, was on the point of perishing in the flames, if other persons had not come to her assistance. It was, however, somewhat tardy, for when she was set at liberty many parts of her body had suffered from the effect of the fire; it is even said that she is now ill, and that her restoration will be a matter of difficulty -an example that superior honour and respect are often attended with danger. It is, however, matter of congratulation, that justice has viewed the affair in a less amusing light, and that the king's procureur has already, It is said, commenced proceedings against the authors of this atrocious vengeance.

FRENCH TRAGEDY.

M. SOUMET, the author of Clytemnestra and Saul, has presented a tragedy (called Cleopatra) to the Theatre de L'Odeon, where it has been unanimously accepted. It is said that this tragedy has been waiting a representation for 15 years, at the Theatre Français, where it was originally received.

HOGARTH AND HIS MERRY

COMPANIONS.

THE diverting scenes described in the five days' peregrination of five eccentric characters, hinted at precedently in this work, were turned into hudibrastics, which almost entirely destroyed their quaint humour, and published by Mr. Nicoll in his Biographical Anecdotes of Hogarth. Bad etchings of the drawings were likewise put forth, with a mutilated text in illustration; and these impressions are limited to the possession of a few collectors. In the hope that the droll adventures comprised in the original MS. will be in this manner more generally circulated and preserved, the following authentic сору is here introduced, with the omission of one or two passages, of too coarse a texture for readers of this refined age.

The

Saturday, May 27. Set out with the morning, and teok our departure from the Bedford Arms Tavern, in Covent Garden, to the tune of "Why should we quarrel for riches?" The first land we made was Billingsgate, where we dropt anchor at the Darkhouse. There Hogarth made a caricature of a porter, who called himself the Duke of Puddledock. drawing was, by his Grace, pasted on the cellar door. We were greatly entertained with the humours of the place, particularly by an explanation of a Gaffer and a Gammer, a little obscene, although in the presence of two of the fair sex. Here we continued till the clock struck one, and then set sail in a Gravesend boat we had hired for ourselves. Straw was our bed, and a tilt our covering. The wind blew hard at S. E. and by E. We had much rain, and no sleep, for about three hours. At Cuckold's Point, we sung Sir John-at Deptford Pishoken-and in Blackwall Reach ate hung beef and biscuit, and drank right Hollands. At Purfleet we had a view of three men-ofwar, from one of which we took on board the pilot who brought the Tartar Pink up the channel. He entertained us with the insult of the Spaniards to himself, and other

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affairs of consequence, which made us drowsy, and then Hogarth fell asleep; but soon awaking, was going to tell his dream, but falling asleep again, when awake, had forgotten he had dreamed at all.

We soon arrived at Gravesend, but found some difficulty in getting ashore, by a boy's boat that had intercepted the passage, and his refusing us to go across his vessel. We surmounted the difficulty, however, and happily arrived at Mother Bramble's at six. [The Horn alehouse I guess, T. A.] We washed hands and face, got our wigs powdered, then drank coffee and tea, ate toast and butter, paid our reckoning, and set out at eight. We viewed the new church, the unknown person's tomb and epitaph, and the market-place, and then, proceeded on foot to Rochester.Nothing remarkable occurred, except our calling and drinking three pots of beer at an evil house, as we were afterwards informed, called the Dover Castle; and some small distress Mr. Scott suffered in travelling through a clayey ground moistened by rain. But the country being exceedingly pleasant, alleviated his distress, and made him jocund; and about ten we arrived at Rochester.

We surveyed the fine bridge, cathedral, and castle, described the latter, ascended its battlements to the top, saw a beautiful country, a fine river, and the noblest ships in the world. A little boy descended the deep well in the castle, by small holes cut in the sides, and brought quickly up a young daw taken out of a nest there. We traversed the city, saw Watts' Hospital, viewed the basrelief figures on the front, and returned to the Crown Inn at 12. The chief of the company slept on chairs till dinner-time, in the dining-room. From one till three we spent at dinner on soles and flounders, with crab sauce, roasted calves-head stuffed, the brain fried, and the rest minced; a leg of mutton roasted, and green pease---all good and welldressed---with small beer and excellent port. The boy cleaned our shoes, and we went upon our adventures at three. Hogarth and Scott played at