'What a Boniface it is!' said Verdaunt.

As to that,' continued landlord, 'some loikes it moild and some loikes it bitter; as for myself, I loikes it 'alf-an'-'alf. It's capital for the rheumatiz. I do n't think oi should have been alive now, if 't was n't for ale. Ha! you think it's too bitter? Oi do n't. It was made out of as good 'ops as ever growed in Sussex or Kent. 'T was as foine 'ops as ever you see with your eyes, oi do n't care what any man says. If you rub them 'ops in your 'and, ah! they

smell sweeter than a posy!'

Why, what is this?' said Verdaunt, staring through his glasses at the rabbits, which William had just placed upon the table.

A pair of Welch rabbits,' I whispered: eat yours, and say nothing about it.'

'Why, it's nothing but toasted cheese and bread!' said Verdaunt, turning it over disdainfully with his knife.

Well, it's not Stilton nor double-Gloster, I'll say that,' muttered landlord; but a foiner bit of cheese never came out of Cheshire, I do n't care who says it. Oi do n't believe Sir Robert Peel himself ever had a foiner rabbit than that on his table.' 'It is not the cheese,' said Verdaunt, but the thing itself. disappointed in not seeing a rabbit. It's an imposition !'

I was

Ah, I dare say they make good cheese,' said landlord, 'but it is n't such cheese as you get in Oxford-street, at any cheese-monger's, I know that. I am not blind, if I am a little hard of hearing! Stilton 's the cheese for me! Bless your 'art, perhaps you wont believe it, but it 's true though, the Lord Mayor used to buy of the same shop as I did. But, with such a glass of ale as that! ah! but it 's foine, though!'

'Well, I'll give up!' said Verdaunt; it's no use talking! Old Will Boniface was a child to him. It's nothing but ale, ale, ALE!'

Just so! it's a rather bitter ale, I know,' said landlord; but you shall try some of my third tap. Here, William, draw a toby out of the third tap. He's a tightish boy, that, (in a gruff whisper;) he can draw a glass as well as I can do it myself, (aloud,) and he 's only nineteen next Christmas. The missis will make a man of him. I like to encourage him, you know, by a good word; (in another whisper, which the passers-by in the street might have heard.) There, taste of that: ah! but its foine! I thought so; I knowed you'd loike it! I've five butts of that in my cellar, ripening for next October.'

It is shocking bitter!' said Verdaunt.

'As for that, I think so myself; it wants a little more hage, and then it won't taste so strong of the 'ops. For my own use now, I like it better than Barclay's double ale; many 's the mug of that I've tasted. My missis thinks it is best, too; and she knows what ale is. I say, gentlemen, if either of you wants a good drop of British brandy for your own tooth, you know, I can let you have a demijohn, or a couple of quarts, or a pint or so. It's capital stuff! only half a guinea a gallon, you know.'

'Hallo!' exclaimed a dumpy little man, with a dreadfully red

face, who had been snoring until this moment with an empty tumbler before him, and a 'Bell's Life in London' under his forehead; I say, Mr. Adn, give us a mug of ale, quick! it's almost 'alf an hour since I drank my brandy-and-water, and I am getting thirsty. Draw it mild, Adn, and give it to me in a mug; I can't give up the pewter. I say, Adn, what do you think of Cobden and Bright?" That makes five mugs and two glasses,' replied landlord, putting his hand, trumpet-wise, to his ear.

Confound your mugs and glasses!' roared the little man with the red face; 'I say, Adn, what do you think of Cobden' and Bright?'

'O, he is a roarer!' replied landlord, at a venture.

'Yes, and I know what I would do if I was Chancellor of the Exchequer,' said little Red-face. I would bring in a bill to have the pair of them sent to Botany Bay.'

Ah, yes! he's a capital fellow!' replied landlord; many 's the time I have seen him walk into the Queen's Arms,' in Parliamentstreet, and take his ale, just like me or you would a' done.'

'What a spoon!' muttered the indignant Red-face, as he buried his visage in the pewter. 'What has that to do with it, Adn?' 'I always liked the Queen's Arms,' said landlord.

'Ah! but that's not what I was talking about,' said the other; 'but first give me another mug of ale: I can 't talk without I have somethink before me. The Queen's Arms was never a favorite tap of mine. I always liked summat a little more select and genteel, like the Nag's Head. But that is neither here nor there. I think I must try some of the brandy again; this ale do n't sit well on me. After I have taken this and one more, just to top off with, I must be going. But I say, Adn, it 's well for those fellows that I ain't Sir Robert Peel! I'd pay 'em off for ruining the country! I say, my father's 'op plantation in Sussex won't pay anythink next year; 't won't be worth ten pound an acre. The country is going to ruin. I only wish I stood in the Queen's shoes for a week or so!'

'Do you think you could get down the price of ale?' said land

lord.

6

Taking advantage of the beginning of a long argument on the state of the country, Verdaunt rose to go; but we first took a glance at The Grapes,' to see if it contained any thing to remind us that we were in the western hemisphere. The walls of The Grapes' were decorated by a series of colored engravings, dedicated with permission' to His Grace the Duke of Beaufort, representing a series of tableaux composed of horses, dogs, and noblemen in red coats, engaged in that truly British occupation of running down a fox, who was caught, in the last of the series, and his tail brandished over the heads of the assembled nobility by one of their companions, mounted on the limb of a tree. On the little mahogany tables of The Grapes' were scattered various London newspapers; and inside the bar hung a great number of pewter mugs and brown tobys, while 'missis' in the flamboyant cap sat beside a baron of beef to keep it in countenance.

'Why, Franco,' said Verdaunt,' there is nothing American here, that I can see.'

"O yes there is,' said I. 'Here are ourselves, and there is an 'Albion.''

'Well, for all that, it is exactly like London,' said Verdaunt. 'Not exactly. If 't were London, the landlord would call his beer-house a Wine Vault;' here he only calls it 'The Grapes.'

HARRY FRANCO.

LAY OF THIE

VISIONARY.

BY MARY A. MERRITT.

I.

CALL me not lonely! Unseen spirits linger
Around my path when evening zephyrs sigh,

As Mem'ry traces with a mystic finger

On flower and leaf, some dream of days gone by;
Some scene, some form the youthful spirit cherished,
E'en as a portion of its trembling life,

Some blossom 'mid the wreath whose buds have perished,
And some bright dream of love without its strife.

11.

Call me not lonely, while the lightning pinions
Of viewless messengers around me float:
Some from the clime of Fancy's far dominions,

Some from the land of song, with plaintive note;
They come, when moonbeams shed a dewy splendor
O'er shore and wave, at midnight's solemn hush;
They come, to bid my dreaming soul surrender,
And bear me on their pinions as they rush.

III.

Then earth adieu! I seek the shore eternal,

The sphere where grief-worn hearts resume their spring;
Where spirit brows are wreathed with blossoms vernal,
Fanned into being' by the Bright One's wing;

And where the boundless ocean of existence
Flows smoothly on, beneath immortal skys.
But with the morning it will melt in distance,
That bright, yet transient glimpse of Paradise!

IV.

What hast thou, Earth! to satisfy each longing
Of world-worn spirits after dreams like these?

But they will come again, in silence thronging

This heart, when sighs the twilight's gentle breeze;
Yes! they will come once more, through darkness winging,
Those forms that greet me when the day hath flown;
Some wished-for message to my spirit bringing:

If this be lonely, let me still be lone.

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF FASHIONABLE LIFE.

BY PRIER CHEMIL,

'ICH habe gesehen, was (Ich weiss das) ich nicht würde geglaubt haben auf ihre Erzählung.' TREVIRANUS, TO COLERIDGE.

'I have seen what I am certain I would not have believed on your telling.'

MRS. SMITH, desirous of relieving the GENTLEMAN IN BLACK of his embarrassment, and wishing to change the current of his thoughts, requested him to give her the benefit of his opinion of her library, and of the authors it contained.

The Gentleman in Black, after a moment's abstraction, recovered himself, and looking around, said:

'As I have remarked, you have strange contrarieties of men and opinions here; on this side, the fathers of the church, and on the other, their antagonists. Here is ORIGEN, CYPRIAN, TERTULLIAN, ATHANASIUS, CHRYSOSTOM, Jerome, Augustine, Theodoret, Basil, the four GREGORYS, LEO, BENEDICT, and their successors; and there,' pointing to the English divines, 'the giants of Protestant theology.' They present a very respectable outside, certainly,' said Mrs. Smith; but I am guiltless of any knowledge of what they contain.' Ah!' said the Gentleman in Black, they were truly wonderful men! Here,' said he, rasping the toe of his boot against a row of folios, is one of the great works of the age in which it was written.'

Mrs. Smith stooped to read the title on the backs, but it was written in contractions, and in a language not known to the lady; who, finding her attempt at guessing at the purport of the title unavailing, candidly confessed her ignorance, and requested the Gentleman in Black to tell on what subject they treated.

He replied, smiling, 'On a subject which has divided* the christian world from its earliest ages: 'The Perpetual Virginity of Mary." 'Is it possible,' she exclaimed, that such a subject should afford matter for so many ponderous volumes?'

The Gentleman in Black answered, 'There was nothing so fruitful of controversy as questions which are beyond the reach of the human understanding. This is the receptacle of all the learning and argument held by the church on this subject, and on the sublime virtue of virginity in general. Who will say the Jesuits have done nothing for the advancement of learning, after this?'

To me,' replied Mrs. Smith, it looks like laborious idleness. But you tell me this subject has been deemed one of great interest in the early times of the christian church?'

Its rise is not now to be traced, though we know it was as early as the times of Origen; and we first hear of its existence, from

* THE two great orders of Franciscans and Dominicans were at war with each other as to this dogma, which was contemned by the Jesuits and Jansenists.

its being denied by Helvedius, a disciple of Auxentius, the Arian; and also by Tertullian, Appolonarius, Eunomias, and their followers.'

'It seems to me,' said Mrs. Smith, 'perfectly absurd.'

'Yes, Madam,' and however idle and puerile all this may seem to you,' replied the Gentleman in Black, I assure you no dogma has had so great an influence on the conditions of society, or has wrought more important changes on the moral aspects of the world, than this. Unlike most of the dogmas and dreams of the early ages, this still holds its place in the veneration and confidence of millions, and is now controlling the destinies of multitudes of men and women, who are doomed to a state of being at war with nature and the God of Nature. And yet, it was to the combined effort of the giant minds of Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome, that the church owes the perpetuity of this dogma, and all the institutions and consequences, which have existed and exist, and which have been founded on the glory they have conferred on the rare and difficult and uncalled-for virtue of celibacy.'

'And was it a belief of the pure and primitive ages of the church?’ inquired Mrs. Smith.

What ages of the past can be compared with the present?' replied the Gentleman in Black, in a tone of surprise.

'I speak of the centuries immediately following the days of the Apostles,' answered Mrs. Smith. How early was this wonderful virtue attributed to the Virgin Mary?' St. Augustine, whose fame is in all lands, as you know, held that she was as much a virgin after the birth of CHRIST as before!' 'But how could such an idea be for a moment entertained?'

It was entertained,' replied the Gentleman in Black, smiling; and some idea of the absurdities resorted to may be gathered from a very old picture in the church at Constance, which represents an old man lying on a cloud, from which a vast beam of light darts out, and which passes through a dove hovering just below; at the end of the rays of light appears a transparent egg, in which is seen a child in swaddling clothes, with a glory around it. Mary sits leaning in an arm-chair, and opens her mouth ready to receive the egg.' That accounts for the conception only,' said Mrs. Smith.

The Gentleman in Black smiled, and said: There were then, as in later days, men who, like Sir Thomas Brown in his Religio Medici,' complained that there were not impossibilities enough in religion for their active faith,' and who heartily adopted the axiom of Tertullian Certum est quia impossibile est.' It is certainly true, because it is impossible."*

In order to secure for this dogma the highest possible sanction,' continued the Gentleman in Black, Gregory Ivysen insists that the manner of CHRIST's entering the world was a tacit disparagement of marriage; and in his oration on Christmas day, adopts a tradition concerning the Virgin Mary, the import of which is to secure her suffrage in support of vowing virginity in very childhood.

*COLERIDGE's Aids to Reflection.'