to Krähwinkel and back, I may as well mention briefly who his master was, how he came to be possessed of this little animal, and how the fair Jewess had found her way to a Christian student's house. Lorenz's parents lived at Polkwitz, which everybody knows is a hundred leagues from Krähwinkel. They were the most pious, orderly, excellent people ever known, and their son bade fair to equal them in all respects. He had come to Krähwinkel to study at the famous university there; but he never frequented the place except for the lectures; never made one at the noisy students' drinking bouts; and was called, for his piety and solitary life, the hermit. The first year of his residence, he was to be seen not only at lectures, but at church regularly. He never ate meat on a Friday; he fasted all through Lent; he confessed twice in a month; and was a model for all young students, not merely at Krähwinkel, Bonn, Jena, Halle, and other German universities; but those of Salamanca and the rest in Spain, of Bologna and other places of learning in Italy, nay, of Oxford and Cambridge in the island of England, would do well to take example by him, and lead the godly life which he led. But I am sorry to say that learning oftentimes begets pride, and Lorenzo Tisch, seeing how superior he was to all his companions, ay, and to most of the professors of the university, and plunging deeper and deeper daily into books, began to neglect his religious duties at first a little, then a great deal, then to take no note of them at all; for though, when the circumstances of this true history occurred, it was the season of Lent, Lorenzo Tisch had not the slightest recollection of the fact, not having been at church, or looked into an almanack or a prayer-book, for many months before. Lorenzo was allowed a handsome income of a hundred rixdollars per year by his parents, and used to draw this at the house of Mr. Abednego, the banker. One day, when he went to cash a draft for five dollars, the lovely Miss Rebecca Abednego chanced to be in the room. Ah, Lorenzo, Lorenzo! better for you to have remained at home studying the Pons Asinorum; better still for you to have been at church, listening to the soul-stirring discourses of Father Windbeutel; better for you to have been less learned and more pious: then you would not have been so likely to go astray, or allow your fancy to be inflamed by the charms of wicked Jewesses, that all Christian men should shun like poison. Here it was Lent season-a holiday in Lent, and Lorenzo Von Tisch knew nothing about the matter, and Rebecca Abednego, and her father, were absolutely come to breakfast with him! But though Lorenzo had forgotten Lent, the citizens of Krähwinkel had not, and especially one Herr Bürcke, the court butcher, to whom Tisch had just despatched Spitz for a dollar's worth of sausage-meat. The visits of Tisch to the Jew's house had indeed caused not a little scandal. The student's odd, lonely ways, his neglect of church, his queer little dog that ran of errands for him, had all been talked of by the town'speople, who had come at last to believe that Lorenzo was no less than a magician, and his dog, as he himself said in joke, his familiar spirit. Poor Spitz!-no familiar spirit wert thou; only a little, faithful, ugly dog-a little dog that Tisch's aunt Konisgunda gave to him, who was equally fond of it and him. Those who know Krähwinkel (and who, I should like to know, is not acquainted with that famous city?) are aware that Mr. Bürcke, the court butcher, has his handsome shop in the Schnapps-Gasse, only a very few doors from Abednego's banking-house. Mrs. Bürcke is, or used to be, a lady that was very fond of knowing the doings of her neighbours, and passed many hours staring out of her windows, of which the front row gave her a command of the whole of that beautiful street, the SchnappsGasse, while from the back the eye ranged over the gardens and summerhouses without the gates of the town, and the great road that goes to Bolkum. Herr Lorenzo's cottage was on this road; and it was by the Bolkum-gate that little Spitz the dog entered with his basket, when he went on his master's errands. Now, on this day in Lent, it happened that Frau Bürcke was looking out of her windows instead of listening at church to Father Windbeutel, and she saw at eleven o'clock Mr. Israel Löwe, Herr Abednego's valet, porter, coachman, gardener, and cashier, bring round a certain chaise that the banker had taken for a bad debt, into which he stepped in his best snuff-coloured coat, and silk stockings, handing in Miss Rachael in a neat dress of yellow silk, a blue hat and pink feathers, and a pair of red morocco slippers that set off her beautiful ankle to advantage. "Odious people!" said Mrs. Bürcke, looking at the pair whom Mr. Löwe was driving, "odious, vulgar horse!" (Herr Bürcke kept only that one on which his lad rode ;) "Roman-nosed beast! I shouldn't wonder but that the horse is a Jew too!"-and she saw the party turn down to the left into Bolkum-Strasse, towards the gate which I have spoken of before. When Madame Bürcke saw this, she instantly flew from her front window to her back window, and there had a full view of the Bolkum road, and the Abednego chaise jingling up the same. Mr. Löwe, when they came to the hill, got off the box and walked, Mr. Abednego sat inside and smoked his pipe. "Ey du lieber Himmel!" screamed out Mrs. Bürcke, "they have stopped at the necromancer's door!" It was so that she called the worthy Tisch: and she was perfectly right in saying that the Israelitish cavalcade had stopped at the gate of his cottage; where also appeared Lorenzo, bowing, in his best coat, and offering his arm to lead Miss Rebecca in. Mrs. Bürcke could not see how he trembled as he performed this work of politeness, or what glances Miss Rebecca shot forth from her great wicked black eyes. Having set down his load, Mr. Israel again mounted his box, and incontinently drove away. "Here comes that horrid little dog with the basket," continued Mrs. Bürcke, after a few minutes' more looking out of the window: -and now is not everything explained relative to Herr Lorenzo Tisch, Miss Rebecca Abednego, and the little dog? Mrs. Bürcke hated Spitz: the fact is, he once bit a hole in one of her great, round, mottled arms, which had thrust itself into the basket that Spitz carried for his master's provisions; for Mrs. B. was very anxious to know what there was under the napkin. In consequence, therefore, of this misunderstanding between her and the dog, whenever she saw the animal, it was Mrs. B.'s wicked custom to salute him with many foul words and curses, and to compass how to do him harm; for the Frau Hofmetzlerinn, as she was called in Krähwinkel, was a lady of great energy and perseverance, and nobody could ever accuse her of forgetting an injury. The little dog, as she sat meditating evil against him, came trotting down the road, entered as usual by the Bolkum-gate, turned to the right, and by the time Madame Bürcke had descended to the shop, there he was at the door, sure enough, and entered it wagging his tail. It was holiday Lent, and the butcher-boys were absent; Mr. Bürcke himself was abroad; there was not a single joint of meat in the shop, nor ought there to be at such a season, when all good men eat fish. But how was poor Spitz to know what the season was, or tell what his master himself had forgotten? He looked a little shy when he saw only Madame Bürcke in the shop, doubtless remembering his former disagreement with her; but a sense of duty at last prevailed with him, and he jumped up on his usual place on the counter, laid his basket down, whined, and began flapping the place on which he sat with his tail. Mrs. Bürcke advanced, and held out her great mottled arm rather fearfully; he growled, and made her start a little, but did her no harm. She took the paper out of the basket, and read what we have before imparted to the public, viz. :-" Mr. Court Butcher, have the goodness to send per bearer a rixdollar's worth of best sausage meat, NOT pork.-Lorenz Tisch." As she read, the dog wagged his tail more violently than ever. A horrible thought entered the bosom of Mrs. Bürcke, as she looked at the dog, and from the dog glanced at her husband's cleaver, that hung idling on the wall. 66 Sausages in Lent!" said Mrs. Bürcke: " sausages to be fetched by a dog for that heathen necromancer and that accursed Jew! He shall have sausages with a vengeance. Mrs. Bürcke took down the cleaver, and * * * ** * About twenty minutes afterwards Herr Lorenzo Tisch opened his garden gate, whither be had been summoned by the whining and scratching of his little faithful messenger. Spitz staggered in, laid the basket at his master's feet, licked his hand, and fell down. "Blesh us, dere 'sh something red all along the road!" cried Mr. Abednego. "Pshaw! papa, never mind that, let's look at the sausages," said his daughter Rebecca-a sad gormandizer for so young a woman. Tisch opened the basket, staggered back, and turned quite sick.-In the basket which Spitz had carried so faithfully lay the poor little dog's OWN TAIL! What took place during the rest of the entertainment, I have never been able or anxious to learn; but this I know, that there is a single gentleman now living with Madame Konisgunda Von Speck, in the beautiful town of Polkwitz, a gentleman, who, if he has one prejudice in the world, has that of hating the Jewish nation-a gentleman who goes to church regularly, and, above all, never eats meat in Lent. He is followed about by a little dog-a little ugly dog-of which he and Madame Von Speck are outrageously fond; although, between ourselves, the animal's back is provided with no more tail than a cannon-ball. "THIS NIGHT VAUXHALL WILL CLOSE FOR EVER!" THESE were the words-or rather, this was the line of heartbreaking octosyllabic verse-that met the gaze of the living on every dead wall of the metropolis. They stared at me from the newspapers, they glared on me from the shoulders of perambulating board-men, they rang in my ears everywhereVauxhall will close for ever! Had it been the "Pyramids to be sold by auction, by George Robins," or "the positively last fall of the Falls of Niagara ;"-had it been the "final extinction of Mount Etna," or "the Moon shining for this night only, after which it will be disposed of to cheesemongers, by sale of candle, or private contract," my spirit had been comparatively untroubled ;-but Vauxhall! Truly does our great Wordsworth tell us that there are thoughts which lie too deep for tears. I cannot cry, though this be a crying evil; my pen must weep its ink-drops over the event. Had a dozen Union-workhouses been erected on Epsom downs, or a national school supplanted the grand stand at Doncaster. Had the Bank of England itself been turned into alms-houses, or the Royal Academy announced the last day of drawing-these, and millions of such minor evils, I could well have borne. Some substitute for the departed might yet have been discovered. Were there no bread, cheap or dear, at home or abroad, and all the bakers above-ground had burnt themselves to cinders in their own ovens, still could we have gone to the pastry-cook's for comfort, and have eaten buns. But the Royal Gardens shut! --closed for ever!--hammered down!-the light put out, which no Promethean lampman can relume! Where should Othello go?" "The days of my youth," I exclaimed aloud, as I wandered sorrowfully through the brilliant avenues of the doomed garden on the last night-" the days of my youth, where are they?" and an echo answered, "Here we are!" And there they are indeed, buried for ever in dark Vauxhall, knocked down as part of the fixtures, swept away with broken lamps and glasses, with the picked bones of vanished chickens, and the crumbs of French rolls that are past. To have visited Vauxhall, like bricks, for so many years, only to find bricks and Vauxhall becoming one! From But what a last night was that! There were many visions in one. the Vauxhall of Victoria, fancy reverted to the Vauxhall of the first George, and the walks became immediately peopled with periwigged beaux, and courtly dames fresh from the frames of Kneller. Never did living eye behold such a congregation of grotesque beauties, out of a picture-gallery. The paint was brilliant as the great master's canvas, the arrangement of the patches was a triumph of art, the flash of the diamonds made the lamps look dim, the flutter of fans filled the air with a delicious freshness. All the wits of the last century were there, from Steele and Addison to Fielding and Goldsmith, and from these to Sheridan, and the gallant roysterers of a later era. There was Beau Brummell;-it was the first night the world ever saw the astonishing spectacle of a starched cravat-the first night the great Discoverer of Starch ever exhibited to the vulgar gaze his sublime invention. That morning, a friend who called upon him encountered his servant on the stairs, descending from the Beau's dressing-room, with a whole armful of stiffened but rumpled cravats-there were at least seventy of the curiosities."What, in the name of mystery, have you got there?" inquired the friend,"what are those things?" "These, sir?" responded the valet,-“O, these are our failures!" The beau's cravat justified that night, by the perfection of its folds, the multiplicity of experiments. That seventy-first trial was indeed a triumph. * In the twinkle of an eye, what a change!-Beau Brummell had disappeared for ever! Renown and grace were dead. The stately dames had gone: fans, feathers, diamonds-all; and in their place appeared a very queer collection of feminine miscellanies, young and old, some from the country, some from the outskirts of the metropolis, dodging here and there, rushing from sight to sight, too eager and excited to see anything clearly; expressing their wonder in mingled peals of "My eye!" "Well, raally now!" and "Lauk-a-mercy!"-exclamations which were interrupted by frequent appeals to a bag of thick, home-manufactured sandwiches, borne on the arm-or critical observations on the ginger beer. The beaux, too, had vanished; and instead of the Sir Plumes, revelling in the "nice conduct of their clouded canes,” came a crowd of London lads, with boots innocent of Warren and hands guiltless of gloves-creatures, at the bare sight of whom through a telescope, Sir Plume himself would have fainted. And as for the wits-behold, where they of late perambulated, a troop of practical jokers, staggering forwards through the walks, or gathered in twos and threes and half-dozens in the supper-boxes, extinguishing lamps, smashing crockery, beating in the crowns of hats, and it may be smoking cigars in a kind of open secrecy. Short, however, is the duration of this scene. Retreating into another walk, out of the way of the reeling revellers, I obtained a new view of the yet famed and once fashionable gardens; and now, methought, their glory was indeed departed. The place, which before was brighter than the day, seemed the temple of Twilight. The most brilliant lamp it boasted shed but a miserable dimness round. The genius of Vauxhall was in the position of Damocles-only, instead of the sword it was a hammer that was suspended over her. Nothing flou |