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returned so often, and remained so long, and sat so still and solemn, never speaking, never being spoken to, and rarely lifting up its face, that Paul began to wonder languidly if it were real; and in the night-time saw it sitting there with fear.

"Floy," he said, "what is that?" "Where, dearest ?" "There! at the bottom of the bed." "There's nothing there except papa!" The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bedside, said "My own boy, don't you know me?" Paul looked it in the face, and thought, Was this his father? But the face, so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it were in pain; and before he could reach out both his hands to take it between them, and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly from the little bed, and went out at the door. Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart, but he knew what she was going to say, and stopped her with his face against her lips. The next time he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the bed, he called to it, "Don't be so sorry for me, dear papa; indeed I am quite happy!" His father coming, and bending down to him- -which he did quickly, and without first pausing by the bedside-Paul held him round the neck, and repeated these words to him several times, and 1 very earnestly; and Paul never saw him again in his room at any time, whether it were day or night, but he called out, “Don't be so sorry for me; indeed I am quite happy." This was the beginning of his always saying in the morning that he was a great deal better, and that they were to tell his father so.

How many times the golden water danced upon the wall; how many nights the dark dark river rolled towards the sea in spite of him; Paul never counted, never sought to know. If their kindness, or his sense of it, could have increased, they were more kind, and he more grateful every day; but whether they were many days or few, appeared of little moment now to the gentle boy. One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in the drawingroom downstairs, and had thought she must have loved sweet Florence better than his father did, to have held her in her arms when she felt that she was dying; for even he, her brother, who had such dear love for her, could have no greater wish than that. The train of thought suggested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother; for he could not remember whether they had told him yes or no, the river running very fast, and confusing his mind. "Floy, did I ever see mamma ?" "No, darling; why?" "Did I never see any kind face, like mamma's, looking at me when I was a baby, Floy?" he asked, incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face before him. "Oh yes, dear!" Whose, Floy?" "Your old nurse's; often." "And where is my old nurse?" said Paul. "Is she dead too? Floy, are we all dead, except you?"

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There was a hurry in the room, for an instant-longer, perhaps ; but it seemed no more then all was still again; and Florence, with her face quite colourless, but smiling, held his head upon her arm. Her arm trembled very much. "Show me that old nurse, Floy, if

you please!" "She is not here, darling. She shall come tomorrow."- "Thank you, Floy!"

"And who is this? Is this my old nurse?" said the child, regarding with a radiant smile a figure coming in. Yes, yes! No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and taken up his wasted hand and put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some right to fondle it. No other woman would have so forgotten everybody there but him and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and pity. "Floy, this is a kind good face!" said Paul. "I am glad to see it again. Don't go away, old nurse! here!"

Stay

"Now lay me down," he said; "and Floy, come close to me, and let me see you!" Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together. "How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, Floy! But it's very near the sea. I hear the waves! They always said so." Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on; and now there was a shore before them. Who stood on the bank? He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He did not remove his arms to do it; but they saw him fold them so, behind her neck. "Mamma is like you, Floy; I know her by the face! But tell them that the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light about the head is shining on me as I go

י!

The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion-Death! Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of Immortality! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!

3. CHARACTER AND APPEARANCE OF MR PECKSNIFF.

("MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.")

It has been remarked that Mr Pecksniff was a moral man. So he was. Perhaps there never was a more moral man than Mr Pecksniff, especially in his conversation and correspondence. It was once said of him by a homely admirer, that he had a Fortunatus's purse of good sentiments in his inside. In this particular he was like the girl in the fairy tale, except that if they were not actual diamonds which fell from his lips, they were the very brightest paste, and shone prodigiously. He was a most exemplary man:

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fuller of virtuous precept than a copy-book. Some people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there; but these were his enemies; the shadows cast by his brightness; that was all. His very throat was moral. You saw a good deal of it. You looked over a very low fence of white cravat (whereof no man had ever beheld the tie, for he fastened it behind), and there it lay, a valley between two jutting heights of collar, serene and whiskerless before you. It seemed to say, on the part of Mr Pecksniff, "There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen, all is peace; a holy calm pervades me." So did his hair, just grizzled with an iron-gray, which was all brushed off his forehead and stood bolt upright, or slightly drooped in kindred action with his heavy eyelids. So did his person, which was sleek, though free from corpulency. So did his manner, which was soft and oily. In a word, even his plain black suit, and state of widower, and dangling double eye-glass, all tended to the same purpose, and cried aloud," Behold the Moral Pecksniff!"

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The brazen-plate upon the door (which, being Mr Pecksniff's, could not lie) bore this inscription, "PECKSNIFF, ARCHITECT;" to which Mr Pecksniff, on his cards of business, added, “ AND LAND SURVEYOR." In one sense, and only one, he may be said to have been a land surveyor on a pretty large scale, as an extensive prospect lay stretched out before the windows of his house. Of his architectural doings nothing was clearly known, except that he had never designed or built anything; but it was generally understood that his knowledge of the science was almost awful in its profundity.

Mr Pecksniff's professional engagements, indeed, were almost, if not entirely, confined to the reception of pupils; for the collection of rents, with which pursuit he occasionally varied and relieved his graver toils, can hardly be said to be a strictly architectural employment. His genius lay in ensnaring parents and guardians, and pocketing premiums. A young gentleman's premium being paid, and the young gentleman come to Mr Pecksniff's house, Mr Pecksniff borrowed his case of mathematical instruments (if silvermounted or otherwise valuable); entreated him, from that moment, to consider himself one of the family; complimented him highly on his parents or guardians, as the case might be; and turned him loose in a spacious room on the two-pair front; where, in the company of certain drawing-boards, parallel rulers, very stiff-legged compasses, and two, or perhaps three, other young gentlemen, he improved himself, for three or five years, according to his articles, in making elevations of Salisbury Cathedral from every possible point of sight; and in constructing in the air a vast quantity of castles, Houses of Parliament, and other public buildings. Perhaps in no place in the world were so many gorgeous edifices of this class erected as under Mr Pecksniff's auspices; and if but one-twentieth part of the churches which were built in that front room, with one or other of the Miss Pecksniffs at the altar, in the act of marrying the architect, could only be made available by the parliamentary

commissioners, no more churches would be wanted for at least five centuries.

4. MRS GAMP'S APARTMENT.-(" MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.”)

Mrs Gamp's apartment in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, wore, metaphorically speaking, a robe of state. It was swept and garnished for the reception of a visitor. That visitor was Betsy Prig; Mrs Prig of Bartlemy's; or, as some said, Barklemy's; or, as some said, Bardlemy's; for by all these endearing and familiar appellations had the hospital of Saint Bartholomew become a household word among the sisterhood which Betsy Prig adorned.

Mrs Gamp's apartment was not a spacious one, but, to a contented mind, a closet is a palace; and the first-floor front at Mr Sweedlepipe's may have been, in the imagination of Mrs Gamp, a stately pile. If it were not exactly that to restless intellects, it at least comprised as much accommodation as any person not sanguine to insanity could have looked for in a room of its dimensions. For only keep the bedstead always in your mind, and you were safe. That was the grand secret. Remembering the bedstead, you might even stoop to look under the little round table for anything you had dropped, without hurting yourself much against the chest of drawers, or qualifying as a patient of Saint Bartholomew by falling into the fire. Visitors were much assisted in their cautious efforts to preserve an unflagging recollection of this piece of furniture by its size, which was great. It was not a turn-up bedstead, nor yet a French bedstead, nor yet a four-post bedstead, but what is poetically called a tent; the sacking whereof was low and bulgy, insomuch that Mrs Gamp's box would not go under it, but stopped half way, in a manner which, while it did violence to the reason, likewise endangered the legs of a stranger. The frame, too, which would have supported the canopy and hangings, if there had been any, was ornamented with divers pippins carved in timber, which on the slightest provocation, and frequently on none at all, came tumbling down, harassing the peaceful guest with inexplicable terrors. The bed itself was decorated with a patchwork quilt of great antiquity; and at the upper end, upon the side nearest to the door, hung a scanty curtain of blue check, which prevented the zephyrs that were abroad in Kingsgate Street from visiting Mrs Gamp's head too roughly.

The chairs in Mrs Gamp's apartment were extremely large and broad-backed, which was more than a sufficient reason for their being but two in number. They were both elbow-chairs of ancient mahogany; and were chiefly valuable for the slippery nature of their seats, which had been originally horsehair, but were now covered with a shiny substance of a blueish tint, from which the visitor began to slide away with a dismayed countenance immediately after sitting down. What Mrs Gamp wanted in chairs she made up in bandboxes; of which she had a great collection, devoted to the reception of various

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miscellaneous valuables, which were not, however, as well protected as the good woman, by a pleasant fiction, seemed to think; for, though every bandbox had a carefully-closed lid, not one among them had a bottom; owing to which cause the property within was merely, as it were, extinguished. The chest of drawers having been originally made to stand upon the top of another chest, had a dwarfish, elfin look alone; but, in regard of security, it had a great advantage over the bandboxes, for as all the handles had been long ago pulled off, it was very difficult to get at its contents. This, indeed, was only to be done by one of two devices; either by tilting the whole structure forward until all the drawers fell out together, or by opening them singly with knives, like oysters.

Mrs Gamp stored all her household matters in a little cupboard by the fireplace; beginning below the surface (as in nature) with the coals, and mounting gradually upwards to the spirits, which, from motives of delicacy, she kept in a teapot. The chimney-piece was ornamented with an almanack; it was also embellished with three profiles; one, in colours, of Mrs Gamp herself in early life; one, in bronze, of a lady in feathers, supposed to be Mrs Harris, as she appeared when dressed for a ball; and one, in black, of Mr Gamp, deceased. The last was a full-length, in order that the likeness might be rendered more obvious and forcible, by the introduction of the wooden leg. A pair of bellows, a pair of pattens, a toasting-fork, a kettle, a spoon for the administration of medicine to the refractory, and lastly, Mrs Gamp's umbrella, which, as something of great price and rarity, was displayed with particular ostentation, completed the decorations of the chimney-piece and adjacent wall.

XXIII. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE has within the last few years turned the attention of the public once more to the eventful period of the English Reformation, and has endeavoured to counterbalance the tedium of a ten-times-told tale by giving an entirely different reading of the character and motives of the principal agents, especially Henry and Anne Boleyn. He is a graduate of Oxford University, where he occupied a conspicuous place, and was a fellow of Exeter College. Previous to the issue of his "History," he was known to the public as the author of the "Nemesis of Faith,' 99.66 Shadows of the Clouds," and an essay on the "Book of Job." To him it appears that Anne Boleyn, of whom Cranmer entertained so high an opinion, was a woman of the most abandoned habits, and addicted to profligacy in its most revolting shape; and Henry VIII., the husband of six wives, and the executioner of More, Surrey, and Cromwell, is, in Mr Froude's eyes, a highly chaste and virtuous man! Such startling conclusions Mr Froude supports by a plausible show of evidence, of which it is sufficient to remark, that Burnet, Hume, and Hallam, our best and most competent authorities on the