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THE FUGITIVE:

A SCENE FROM NATURE.

By WILMINGTON FLEMING,
No. I.

-I love the range
Of busy life-the ever-varying scene
Of human passion.-

IT is my happy lot to be blessed with a genteel competence; as far removed from the gnawing cares of penury, as it is from the excess of affluence, and the soul-dreading influence of uninterrupted prosperity. Possessing that happy medium, neither poverty nor riches,-I have it in my power often to befriend others, and always to please myself; and being a single man, unfettered by many relative ties, I make it my business to ramble through the world, not in search of Quixotic adventures, but those little incidents in human life, which, though they fail of producing effect on the great stage of the world, are not the less interesting, in a minor degree, from the truth with which they pourtray our nature, our feelings, and our passions. I am a fugitive then; without settled residence, aim, or connection. The great world is toiling around me, and I scarcely hear the distant hum of its commotion. The book of Nature is before me, and her noblest page is to be read in the heart of man. Thus I travel calmly on through life's journey; smile with the happy, and weep with the afflicted; and to this moment I never could decide which gave me the purest pleasure, the one, or the other.

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In one of my pedestrian excursions (for I am generally inclined to the use of Adam's ancient vehicle), I was suddenly overtaken by a violent thunder-storm, in the immediate vicinity of the beautifully retired valley of Oatvale; and as I hastily descended the romantic path which led to its silent and sequestered bosom, it seemed one of those happy spots in the creation that slumber in blissful tranquillity amid the surrounding turmoil of mighty states, and the destructive conAlicts of human passion. All was serene beneath me, and it appeared as if the sacred tranquillity of its innocence had slumbered gently onward since its formation, undisturbed by the struggles of rank and interest, or the glittering parade of men in arms.

But fate had, seems, decided, that I should be completely wet; and then, as if in mockery of my ineffectual haste to obtain shelter, the sun, that had before concealed his refulgence beneath the mantle of the passing storm, now shone forth with a lustrous brightness, that

gave all nature a deeper glow of beauty, and then, as in compassion to the fugitive, darted directly on the sign of the "Silver Cow," which, with its new and gaudy emblazonry (probably the work of some itinerant artist who possessed no better means of defraying his reckoning), seemed smilingly to invite the wearied traveller to a habitation, where good order, cleanliness, and decency, made ample atonement for those deficiencies which are the ostensible characteristics of higher establishments.

As may well be supposed, this was the only house of public entertainment in the village, and the host, who appeared the very tutelary genius of good cheer and good humour,-who filled the very important functions of parish clerk and sexton, and was equally happy in chanting a stave from the reading desk on a Sunday, as in chanting the old favourite songs of the Vicar and Moses, the Yarmouth Tragedy, or William and Margaret, during every evening in the week, to the great edification and delight of the jovial rustics who constantly assembled in his well-sanded tap-room (ornamented with sundry highly-polished brass utensils, and sprigs of evergreen), where they talked over the private affairs of the parish, or the public interests of the nation, of which by the bye they knew as little as the Esquimaux do of the Elgin marbles, or the Turks of a stereotype edition.

As my appearance denoted me to be above the level of a common tramper, I was ushered by mine host into the parlour, which he assured me, with an important air, was usually reserved for the convenience of the vicar himself, who, with the apothecary and exciseman, generally passed his evenings there, with a toast and tankard, and a pipe of Virginia; the grateful clouds of which might very probably have inspired their very orthodox and learned disquisitions.

Having dispatched mine host with my coat to take the benefit of the kitchen fire, I seated myself to enjoy a mug of the Silver Cow's "very best," in all that pleasing tranquillity of mind which a man feels at a distance from the hum and bustle of society, when reflection gives as it were a bird's eye view of the world, and we look about us with that pleasing security of soul which the being feels who is firmly seated on the towering rock above the ocean, and looks down with tranquil inanity on the turmoil of its waves.

Indeed, every thing arouud me was well calculated to abstract my ideas from the present, and to lead the ima

gination back to the days of other years. The old carved oak chairs with their high cane worked backs-the table creaking beneath the weight of the conviviality of ages the ticking old-fashioned clock in its ancient japanned case-all bore me back to the time of old Queen Bess of blessed memory!-though why her name should be blessed, who was a woman without a woman's feelings, and a lover without the stability or purity of passion, I have never been able to determine. When a man becomes involved in the selfish abstraction of his ideas, there is no knowing how far his imagination may carry him. I had hurried my attention from one object to another, until it became fixed upon an old-fashioned print of some worthy disciple of Calvin, with his Geneva cap, puritan band, and a countenance which seemed to bid defiance to the slightest touch of human charity; and I was vainly endeavouring to discover how religion could exist without mercy, or how the frail can condemn others for kindred frailty; and Heaven knows how far I might have proceeded, from the ecclesiastical rebellion of Luther, up to the old fathers, and ancient councils, if my curiosity had not been suddenly excited by deep sobs, and a low voice of female distress, that issued from a door partly open; which communicated with that depart. ment of the habitation usually termed the bar.

Now, there are two kinds of curiosity, which may induce us to pry into the secrets or distresses of others: the one excites us to learn them merely for the selfish gratification of knowing; the other, is an ardent anxiety to obtain the knowledge, from a generous impulse to relieve, and the sympathy to feel. However, without staying to inquire to which of those motives I might attribute the influence of mine, I stepped softly on tiptoe to the door, and beheld a young girl, the perfection of rustic beauty! weeping violently on the bosom of a woman whom I instantly recognised to be the wife of my host, and, from some few expressions of natural feelings, the parent of the sobbing fair one before me. I was not long in learning, that her sorrow arose from some blighted affection of the heart; and as we have heard so much lately of the indications and effects of broken ones, I must confess my first emotion was surprise, that instead of the angel of resignation hiding her lovely head within the cloud of sorrows that envelope her, or the beauteous Lily smiling with the canker-worm within its bosom, to which love-stricken mai

dens have been fancifully and elegantly likened, to me she appeared more like the full-blown rose, surcharged with dew, and glistening in the sun-beam.

(To be concluded in No. II.)

WHO'D HAVE THOUGHT IT? WITHOUT exception, I am one of the most unfortunate dogs that ever breathed, and though perfectly convinced that a communication of my case will not produce the slightest benefit, I shall make that communication, if it is only to show the origin and extent of my wretchedness.

I went the other night to a play at Covent Garden, and my attention on entering the box was caught by a beautiful creature who sat a few yards from the place I occupied. You must know, Sir, that I am constitutionally of a most susceptible nature, and I suppose there is hardly a man in England upon whom female loveliness is qualified to make a quicker or deeper impression. Well, Sir, only judge how my heart fluttered when I saw the bewitching woman I have just mentioned. A profusion of dark, glossy, curling hair hung about her forehead; a pair of bright hazel eyes sparkled most deliciously under those ringlets; her cheeks were not reddened over with the glow of rude health, nor blanched by the hue of continued sickness; her lips were pouting, round, and pulpy, and her bosom,-ab! Sir, I shall run distracted if I pursue this fascinating description, and I entreat you, as a gentleman, to accept my assurance that this was one of the fairest creatures that ever lent a lustre to the circles of public amusement.

You may guess the rapture I felt, when after stealing a few tender glances at iny charmer, I found they were not only noticed, but returned. My heart danced, and my eyes glistened, I am certain, when the first faint suspicion of this truth rushed upon me; but no sooner had my conjectures been realized by one of the kindest looks that ever were thrown by maiden purity upon the watchfulness of its humble admirer, than I shivered with extacy, and sank back upon my seat in a transport of rapture. On recovering my senses, which had positively been suspended by excessive emotion, I hurried down stairs to the place in which I had seen the box-list deposited, and soon ascertained the nanie of my incognita by the name of the box in which her party was seated. The boxkeeper, in answer to my enquiries, and, perhaps in gratitude for my liberality,

assured me that she was a person of respectability, that her name was Seymour, that she was unmarried, and that her residence was with her parents in * * * Street, Berkeley-square. Transported at this propitious intelligence, I found it necessary to give my overcharged feelings a little relief, and I proceeded to take a short walk in one of the neighbouring avenues, with the intention of returning as soon as my disordered ideas were arranged, and exhilarating myself with a sight of the dear girl, whose favour I had apparently engaged. You may judge of my torture, on returning, to find that Miss Seymour and her friends had left the theatre, and that several hours at least must elapse before the sight of her beauties could calm my fevered imagination. I endeavoured to console myself with the knowledge I had obtained of her residence, but my temper was so embittered by disappointment, that I actually pushed an old beggar woman into the kennel as I sauntered home.

After a night of sleepless inquietude and romantic arrangements, I rose, breakfasted, dressed myself with peculiar neatness, and proceeded towards ***Street, Berkeley, Square, determined, if all other expedients failed of getting access to Miss Seymour, to enter the house, request the honour of an interview with her parents, and make an offer of my hand and fortune. In my way to *** Street, I seemed to tread upon air, and I suppose a more buoyant heart was never lodged in a human bosom, than that which beat till it sickened with anticipation of my charmer's presence. How cruelly has this state of happiness been reversed! and that too by an accident of which no person upon earth would ever have dreamed, by nothing in the world but

I will finish the narrative, however, of my budding hopes, and then, Sir, you shall be troubled with the cause of my blighted expectations.

On arriving in *** Street, I found, by enquiring in the vicinity, that my information was perfectly correct, and that Miss Seymour's friends had long been established in opulence and respectability. She would put an end to a great deal of trouble, for I had fidgetted myself with abundance of apprehensions, and fancied a hundred times over that I might have been mis-directed by the box-keeper, or that I had inadvertently substituted some other name and address for the particulars he had supplied. To my great joy, however, these apprehensions were groundless, and I found myself tranquillized down to a state of gentle efferves

cence, as I reached the street in which Miss Seymour lived. Here all my old scruples rushed upon me, and I began to think that though Miss Seymour had been at the play, the ignorant blundering booby of a box-keeper might have changed the seats that were originally intended for her, and furnished me with the address of some old harridan spinster, by whom her place was filled. I knew that such mistakes were not improbable, and my fertile imagination immediately conjured up the present case, as one in which it might have peculiarly happened. The thought of losing my charmer, after such encouragement and exertion, was so agonizing, that I broke out into a profuse perspiration, and had absolutely staggered against the area rails of a neighbouring house, when, on looking up, I saw my dear Miss Seymour, seated like a blushing statue at one of the parlour windows. Yes, Sir, I actually stood in the full dark eye of the woman I adored, and such were the mingled efforts of suspense, surprise, and delight, that my head swam round, and I fell upon the pavement in a state of insensibility. You may easily guess what a heavy fall it was, when I tell you that my tortoiseshell snuff-box broke to pieces in my pocket, and that the gilt buttons on the back of my new blue coat, though I had only put it on that morning, were scratched, as if I had worn it for a twelvemonth. Well, Sir, on reviving, I found myself in a very handsome apartment, supported by a pretty servant girl. She was applying a bottle of hartshorn to my nose, a footman in a neat livery stood at her elbow with a glass of water, and an elderly lady, in whom I at once saw the mistress of the house, appeared to be directing their operations. I was sufficiently collected, in a few minutes, to recollect the nature of my situation, and when the domestics withdrew, summoned up courage enough to ask if my acknowledgements were not due to the hospitality of Mrs. Seymour. The good old lady answered, Yes; and I immediately gave way to my feelings, and disclosed the attachment I felt for her daughter. Mrs. Seymour smiled at my declaration, but her smile was rather marked by incredulity than approval; I saw this, and was proceeding to meet the scruples I thought the abruptness of my passion might have raised, when she asked me, in a good-natured tone, if I was fully aware of Maria's situation. I precipitately answered in the affirmitive, and confessed the whole of what the box-keeper had told me. Mrs. Seymour began to look serious, and requested to

most

know if I had made a minuter enquiry, or received more explicit information. Wondering at the oddness of this question, I answered, No, and was proceeding to state, that as beauty, character, and accomplishments, were the only things I aspired to possess, the fortune of her daughter would neither constitute an allurement, nor force an objection. "On that point, Sir," replied my projected mother-in-law, "your sanguine hopes might be gratified-but there is one obstacle to a union with my daughter, which I fear you will find insuperable." "I find insuperable! I, madam, who am devoured with eagerness to call her mine, and let the tenderness with which I shall meet her, evince the warmth of my attachment! Impossible!" "But have you heard, Sir, that Maria has had the misfortune" -I felt a cold perspiration creep over me as I strove in vain to quit my chair, and it was with exceeding difficulty that I could articulate, "How, madam; has Miss Seymour been so"- -when the old lady interrupted me with fresh earnestness, and exclaimed. "Have you never heard that my daughter has got" "Got what, madam," I cried, jumping up by a violent effort. "Oh! Sir," said Mrs. Seymour, covering her face with her handkerchief, "A WOODEN LEG!!!" Judge, Sir, of my anguish, my horror, my despair, when I received this intelligence! I stood for a few seconds like a petrifaction. My eyes were fixed and glassy; I clenched my hands, my teeth ground audibly together, and my whole frame shook with agitation. Fearing a relapse, Mrs. Seymour rose hastily to ring the bell, and call for assistance, when her action restored me to a consciousness of my dreadful disappointment. I attempted to say something by way of explanation or apology; but while my feelings were in this exasperated state, I heard a noise on the stairs, which seemed to my sensitive years so like the stumping of Miss Seymour's wooden leg, that all the violence of my grief rolled back upon me, and produced another burst of desperation. I snatched up my hat and stick without paying that respect to Mrs. Seymour which her kindness deserved, and rushed out of the house, overwhelmed with the sudden and irretrievable misery of my situation.

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Now, Sir, what am I to do? My heart is still devoted to the image of Miss Seymour, such as I fancied her before this horrible discovery took place; and yet my sensations are so acute, that the knowledge of her artificial limb

inspires me with alarm and aversion. You cannot help me, I am aware, to the remedy for this singular evil, but the publication of my case will perhaps deter other susceptible young fellows from falling in love with a woodenlegged beeuty; and so far some advantage may be derived from the sorrows of ANDREW AMOROUS.

ANECDOTES OF CELEBRATED
WOMEN.-No. IV.

LADY ARABELLA STUART. A CIRCUMSTANCE which happened towards the middle of the reign of James the First, though perfectly insignificant to all, but the unfortunate parties whose happiness it involved, was able to disturb the tranquillity of the period, and to raise the fears of the timorous monarch.

Arabella, daughter of Charles Stuart, earl of Lenox, the youngest brother of Lord Darnley, who espoused Mary queen of Scots, was born in 1577. She possessed talents above the ordinary stamp, and her papers are still preserved in the Harleian and Longbeat libraries. Her affinity to the English throne, subjected her to the obligation of not forming a matrimonial alliance without the consent of the king. Against this tyranny she was much disposed to rebel; and, undeterred by a censure which had been passed on her a short time before, for listening to a clandestine proposal, she ventured to receive similar overtures from William Seymour, grandson of the earl of Hertford. On discovery of this, in February 1610, both parties were summoned before the privy council, and reprimanded: they proceeded, notwithstanding, to complete their marriage, which becoming a matter of notoriety, the lady was committed to private custody, and her husband to the Tower. But the unfortunate pair still continued to hold intercourse by means of confidential agents, and in June 1611 concerted measures of escape. Mr. Seymour, having disguised himself in mean apparel, walked unobserved out of the Tower, behind a cart, which had brought him billets, and made the best of his way to Lee, a small port in Kent, where he expected to find a vessel waiting. His lady, in the mean time, who was detained at a gentleman's house at Highgate, from whence she was the next day to have been sent to Durham, continued to lull the vigilance of her keepers, by a pretended resignation to her fate. Then, "disguising herself by putting on a great pair of French-fashioned hose over her

petticoats, a man's doublet, and a manlike peruke over her hair, a black hat,black cloak, russet boots with red tops, and a rapier by her side, walked forth with Markham. After they had gone afoot a mile and a half, to a sorry inn, where Compton attended with horses, she grew very sick and faint, so that the ostler that held the stirrup said, the gentleman would hardly hold out to London: yet being set on a good horse, astride in an unwonted fashion, the stirring of the horse brought blood enough into her face, and so she rid on to Blackwall."

Here she found some attendants in two boats waiting for her, and they rowed down to Lee, where a French vessel awaited them. Her attendants dissuaded her from waiting for Mr. Seymour, who had not yet arrived, and they put off; but, lingering afterwards in the channel, in hopes of his reaching them, they were overtaken by a pinnace sent in pursuit, and, after standing several shots, were obliged to strike. The unfortunate lady was immediately conveyed to the Tower, not so much lamenting her own captivity, as rejoicing in the hope of her husband's escape, "whose welfare," she said, "was far dearer to her than her own."

In this affectionate hope she was not disappointed: Mr. Seymour, on finding that her bark had sailed without him, had rowed off to a collier lying in the roads, by which he was safely landed in Calais harbour.

The ill-fated Arabella never recovered her liberty she became distracted with the hopeless sense of her misery, and in that state died within the Tower, in 1615, and was interred by the side of Mary queen of Scots, in Henry the Seventh's chapel. M-.

THE DELIGHTS OF TRAVELLING.
Misery 1st.-Packing.

Misery 2nd. After a sleepless night
of anxiety, on the eve of the fatal day,
mixed with the interesting reflections
Is every thing right in my valise?-will
Mary remember to wake me at four?
where did I pack my shaving apparatus,
&c.?-you drop into a perturbed sleep,
which in half an hour is broken by the
appalling cry of, "The stage is come, sir;"
you wake with aching head and low
spirits, and would give every thing in the
world (except your already paid passage-
money,) to sleep till nine.

Misery 3rd-Getting into the coach in the dark; treading on the feet of the peevish, sleepy occupants: you are stuck upon the midst of the narrow, tottering, middle seat, with no back to

lein against, and two or three trunks already in possession of the place destined for your legs; a sick child is awaked by your entrée, and the mother opens an octave higher than concert pitch, to drown his cries, and aid in waking him thoroughly. After keeping you in this state half an hour, the coachman drives on, and you are greeted with the muttered curse of your opposite male fellow-passenger, as you pitch against him; and the whining, "dear me! luddy mercy" of the ladies, (to use the coachman's hyperbolical compliment to the gingham-draped travellers,) on whom, in turn, you recoil.

Misery 4th.-A breakfast at a poor tavern; domestic coffee, sweetened with maple sugar, heavy coarse bread, tough cold ham, no napkins, no salt spoons, no egg cups, no toast, no nothing. You have now a view of your fellow-passen. gers who are to bear you company throughout a long summer's day; and first, of the ladies, the sick child's mother, a red, fat, snuffed-faced widow, and two old maids with faded silk gowns and gold necklaces. The men, ignorant and presuming, wrangling about manufac tures and politics, and treating their salivary glands to a profusion of tobacco. You have a fine time to reflect on your folly in leaving the charming, cheerful breakfast at home. The strong hot amber of the coffee, the light French rolls, the Vauxhall ham, and above all, the rosy, laughing girls, blooming and giggling from their morning slumbers, and full of the amusements and sports of the day; a “longing, lingering look behind."

Misery 5th. As you are about to remount the mud-fleckered coach, you look with tardy prudence for your valise. Remember, at this convenient season, you forgot it. You thus endure, like the man in the play, not only disgrace and inconvenience, but positive loss. Forced to open your heavy, large, close packed trunk twenty times a-day, for want of the valise, as a tender, your imagination dwelling on it with nervous tenacity; so neat a valise, so convenient, all my dress ing articles, the very valise I had abroad, how could I lose my valise ? &c.

Misery 6th.-A rough stoney road, wooden springs to the carriage, the driver as well as the horses in spirits; or deep, clinging mud, lazy driver, and tired horses, long stages of 12 or 15 miles with a heavy load.

Misery 7th.-Wishing to make a cross cut, you are told at the next village you will certainly find horses; arrive, and while seeking the landlord, let the

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