visitors, nor did she visit any; so the little communication she had with the world was principally with her dress-maker and the different professors under whom she still studied.

Miss Lnmly was too bewildered even to allow her ambitious father to trace the flash of indignation which flushed her bosom. 'Twere tedious to follow poor Louisa through all her troubles, and the many More than a month had passed since the marriage efforts she attempted to crush the hopes of her father, of De Vanly. Miss Lumly had still been allowed but in vain. The day was fixed for the sealing of her the indulgence of the Morning Post, which was the destiny; but prior to which Mr. Lumly's unfortunate only half hour in truth that she looked forward to victim was to be presented to her Sovereign. That with any pleasure. "Tis true she had many other day arrived. Louisa's pale though ever-beautiful elegant resources, but they had all lost their excite- countenance formed an interesting contrast to the brilment for her, even before she had completed her pro- liant beauty of the youthful presentations, and many ficiency in any. "Surely I am singularly unhappy," a young and noble heart would have proudly treasaid she, as she stood caressing the little plumed favou-sured the lingering look with which the eye of Royalty rite, "in being thus denied the common privilege of the meanest slave that toils on my father's estate, who, though chained to the land of his birth, enjoys the blessing of sociability!" She was roused from a train of thoughts by a summons from her father. She has tily obeyed the mandate, surprised and pleased by the gracious manner in which Mr. Lumly saluted her, telling her to take a seat, as he wished to have a little conversation with her. "In the first place, Louisa, do you know how old you are?" Nearly seventeen, Sir." "And now, my dear, in the second place, I have something of importance to communicate. No donbt you have thought it arbitrary-perhaps you have thought proper to attribute a harsher term to my conduct towards you since you have been home, but it is for your well-doing in life that I have so acted. It is now," added Mr. Lumly, "three years since I heard my Lord Everton express his ideas and sentiments as to the usual introduction of young women of rank: he was much averse to it, and declared he would never marry again without he could receive a wife free from the caprices of the day, and a novice in fashionable life." Here Mr. Lumly paused, and looked as if he wished his daughter to reply. "His Lordship," Mr. Lumly resumed, is by no means an old man, and to-day he honours me with his company at dinner, and I should wish you to be in the drawing-room to receive his Lordship this evening."

was observed to dwell on the fair recluse, who, quite
unconscious and unmoved, passed on with her Noble
conductress; and welcome to her agitated heart was
the lonely hour of which but a few short weeks since
she had mourned the dreariness, Thought succeeded
thought, as she laid her throbbing temples on the
downy pillow of her couch, which the morning sun
had made resplendent e'er its fair possessor had closed
her wearied eyes. And now she heard the step of
her light-footed attendant, who gently advanced to see
She was re-
whether her mistress still slumbered.
tiring, shocked at the pallid countenance which met
her view. "I will rise now, Therese," said Miss
Lumly in as firm a tone as her agitation would allow,
but her fortitude gave way, and she burst into tears
as she beheld her bridal robes displayed by the
waiting-woman.

The chimes of the neighbouring church had already struck the tenth hour of the morning; the Bishop of E— had arrived at Mr. Lumly's mansion; the drawing-room was crowded with the Honourable and Right Honourable guests who had assembled to witness the nuptials of Lord Everton and Miss Lumly : the appearance of the latter they were anxiously anticipating. The doors unclosed, and Mr. Lumly entered with his daughter. Her beauteous features were partially concealed by the deep blonde of her headdress, and when thrown back, she presented an imMiss Lumly naturally drew the inference this con- pression of exquisite interest as she received the saluversation was meant to convey. Need it be said she tation of the high-born Everton. No trace of grief felt pained and mortified? She blushed for her was visible on that marble brow; no fluttering emofather, and wept her own inability to avoid the tion agitated her snow-like bosom. All appeared dreaded encounter of his Lordship. My dear tranquil. She exhibited but one expression, but that Louisa," said Mr. Lumly at breakfast the next morn-expression was painful to the few to whom it spoke. ing, "you made me quite proud by the admirable The ceremony had commenced; all was silent save manner in which yon conducted yourself last evening. the low voice of the holy Prelate, when a confused Lord Everton was quite in extacies when he spoke of noise from the stair-case caused his Reverence to you, and it only remains for you to name the time pause, and in another moment a female of majestic which releases you from my protection, and makes although emaciated appearance, stood before the you Lady Everton." "Impossible, my dear Sir," amazed assembly. "Cease!" she exclaimed in a voice said Miss Lumly, half terrified at the earnest tone in the tone of which smote like a knell upon the ear of which her father spoke, "Lord Everton is already Mr. Lumly and the no less agitated Lord Everton, who married." "Beware, girl!" returned her father, and vainly essayed to demand explanation of each other. the dark frown lowered o'er his features, "Beware of" Cease!" again she said, and waved her hand with what you are saying; and as you value me, you will never breathe a sentence relative to the disgraced object of his Lordship's first affection, from whom the laws of his country has indissolubly severed him His son has irretrievably forfeited his inheritance by his marriage with that young woman, who it appears was the orphan of Lord Everton's tenant, and whom his Lordship was bringing forward in life, when the unworthy object of his bounty rewards her benefactor by ensnaring the son to marry her."

conscious dignity. The venerable Prelate bowed accordance, and closed the pages of his holy book. "Proceed, my Lord Bishop," exclaimed Mr. Lumly, as well as his agitation would allow, "this raving idiot must not interfere with your solemn and important duty." Misguided man! you know not whither your fatal ambition would hurl you," interrupted the female. "Heaven has restored the distracted mind of an unfortunate mother to save an innocent victim from everlasting misery. Lumly," she con

66

a bitter

tinued, "you have yet to learn who it is that crosses
the path of ambition. And
your
you, my Lord Ever-
ton, the cause of all my woes, behold," and she
threw the covering from her head, "behold in your
divorced wife the mother of your affianced bride."
Louisa turned, and in the care-worn countenance
recognized the features which memory had so sacredly
treasured. "My mother!" was all that she could
utter as she clasped herself in her unfortunate parent's
embrace, who proudly turned towards the dismayed
spectators of this extraordinary scene, while
smile of triumph hovered round her pallid lip.
And here would we leave the fashionable throng,
though it is but in justice to the father of Miss Lumly
to add, that until now he was ignorant of the mar-
riage of the ci-devant Lady Everton, who, for a
seeming imprudence, was cruelly and unjustly con-
demned to seek a refuge for her unmerited disgrace
in a foreign clime, where first she saw Mr. Lumly,
and to whom she was privately married. Still cru-
elty and oppression directed the merciless storm to
crush the already-blighted flower; but Reason in
pity resigned her empire, and the mother of Louisa
Lumly, the high-born daughter of prosperity, sunk
into a wretched delusion, from which Heaven restored
her to be the salvation of her child.

MEMOIRS OF AN UMBRELLA.

An elevated station naturally produces, or ought to produce, elevated sentiments. A habit of spreading myself about the heads of mankind has begotten in me a wish to write this brief history of my life, that my name may live to posterity, when my silk, wood, and whalebone shall have mingled with their native earth. Mr. Gibbon the historian congratulates himself on not having been born a peasant or a slave. I too am not devoid of pride when I reflect that I might have been created fifty years ago, in which case I should infallibly have been born a compound of vile oil cloth, with a shabby ring at my head adhering to the fore-finger of the peripatetic, in lieu of possessing, as I did at my birth, a smart silken canopy, now spread like a Chinese dome, with a shining ring and glittering brass pinnacle, and now smoothly rolled round my polished stem in the character of a walking stick. The first recollection I entertain of existence is in the shop of Messrs. Briggs and Son, the glib glovers of Oxford-street. Mr. Briggs, the father, had long dealt exclusively in gloves and hosiery; Umbrellas, he used to say, were very well, but quite out of his line. Mr. Briggs, the son, wished him to extend his line, that he might catch more fish. The father was inexorable, and the son rebellious. Accordingly one afternoon, unknown to his progenitor, he repaired to a manufactory in Moorfields, and bespoke a lot by way of experiment. Great was the surprise, and still greater the indignation of Old Briggs, when on entering the shop on Tuesday morning then next ensuing, he espied me and fifteen of my brethren arrayed in a thousand colours, perched in the shop window. "Zounds!" cried the father, "I wash my hands of the speculation: the profit and loss shall be all your own." The aspiring youth consented to "stand the hazard of the die." The day closed, and no purchaser appeared. Another day passed away, and still the umbrellas were not in request. With hope gradually waning towards despair, Mr. Briggs, jun. had on the third morning taken the tin aquarium with a small hole at the bottom, and was watering the shop floor in moody semi-circles, when the joyful sound "I want an umbrella," proceeding from the mouth of a female, roused him from his reverie, and caused him to drop the watering-pot, whose liquid contents rushed into the back parlour, to the grievous annoyance of old Briggs' slippered soles.

The young shopkeeper advanced, with many bows, to proffer his newly-purchased wares. My colour, I should have informed the reader, was sober green. The cusme, paid her one pound ten shillings, and carried me off. tomer cast her eyes upon us, and fortunately pitched upon As we quitted the shop, I overheard the young glover exclaim to his father, "There, Sir, what do you think of my speculation now?" but I retreated too fast to catch the answer. My purchaser was Mrs. Margaret Grimstone, a maiden lady of forty-seven: she had styled herself when thinking all chance of marriage at an end, she had Miss Grimstone till she had reached her forty-fifth year, exchanged Miss for Mrs., deeming imputed widowhood more reputable than antiquated virginity. Mrs. Grimstone usually spent half the morning in taking snuff and reading political pamphlets in Johnson the bookseller's shop. Here, in converse with Presbyterian divines, she was wont to rail at the Establishment, they wondering at the blindness of the ministry in overlooking their mental merits, and she astonished at the blindness of mankind in remaining insensible of her personal attractions. With me in her lean paw, she was in the act of trudging up Ludgate-hill, when she was accosted by a fellow-labourer in the political vineyard, Mr. Fowler, from the city. The usual salutations having passed, the gentleman cast his eyes upon a large bill affixed to the gate-way of the Belle Sauvage, informing the public that at Bedford street a most interesting debate would that night take place, namely, "whether it would not be more consistent with the liberty of a free country that the office of Lord High Chancellor should be raffled for; and whether the Parliament should not in that case abolish the Little-Go act." "An admirable subject,' quoth Fowler; "that Little-Go act is the devil. I was at Brighton last year; there was no raffling at the libraries, and I was as stupid in consequence as H's travels." An appointment was forthwith made to adjourn at eight o'clock to the house of debate. But, alas! delays are dangerous. When our political couple had reached the bottom of the stairs, they found the candidates for the Woolsack so numerous, that there was no possibility of forcing an entrance. Mr. Fowler therefore escorted Mrs. Grimstone home, calling at the sign of the Black Boy in the way, to replenish her snuff-box with three pennyworth of high dried. On arriving at her house, the lady pressed Mr. Fowler to stay supper, promising him his share of some hot boiled tripe, cold bullock's heart, and the segment of a suet dumpling. But not even these delicate viands could prevail on the gentleman to stay. Mrs. Grimstone had deposited me at the foot of the stairs; and Mr. Fowler, on making his exit, snatched me up sans ceremonie, unobserved by the maid, a sudden gust of wind having blown out her candle.

The following day was destined to be a day of business. An immense dinner was cooking at the Crown and Anchor for some liberty purpose, but what in particular my carved polished head does not now remember. To this dinner Mr. Fowler of course repaired, and on arriving at the emporium of inebriate oratory, he was a little A natural fondness for puzzled what to do with me. smuggled wares prompted him to take me with him into the dining-room; but when he cast his eyes upon the crowd that darkened and dirtied the staircase with heads that seemed to have performed the duties of the mop, and cravats that looked as though they had undergone the ablution of the kennel, his mind misgave him, and he trembled lest some patriotic neighbour should purloin his recent acquisition. From this uncertainty he was awakened by a gentle touch upon the elbow, proceeding from a man in black, who exclaimed, "wont you please to leave your hat and umbrella with me, Sir? You'll find them troublesome in the room." Mr. Fowler surveyed the spokesman, and found him surrounded by at least sixty hats and forty umbrellas, with card labels numbered and affixed to them. "An excellent plan," cried Fowler; an unbrella during a feast annoys the legs, and a hat quarrelleth with the feet; one cannot rise up to drink a toast or sentiment without stroddling like the Colossus of

Rhodes." With this observation he deposited his two | ing confliet with Crib. "Wont you want to take it burthens, and receiving in exchange a card numbered down with you?" cried the dame. "No" answered the 264, walked up stairs, preceded by the sound of "ball- sable gladiator. "Lord Mill'em takes me down in his room" echoed from waiter to waiter. On the dinner and chariot, and the Duke of Dunder brings me back in his the guests, the toasts, sentiments, squibs, and squabbles, barouche." Mrs. Anderson promised to lock me up with my remote situation prevented me from making any ob- her two silver spoons; but afterwards recollecting that servations. Fowler was one of the last to leave the room, gin and gingerbread would be in high request upon the and on applying for his hat and umbrella, found that occasion, packed up her eatables and drinkables, and with some one had politely exchanged cards with him: his me spread over her head, mounted on the outside of the former number of 264 was changed to 127. I had vanished stage coach to repair over night to the scene of action. with a new round hat in the grasp of a patriot, and poor The mob assembled on the following day by thousands. Fowler was forced to put up with a battered collection of "Jove consented in a silent shower," and Boreas whistled broken whalebone appertaining to No. 127, and a greasy over the heath like a rude ploughboy. Mr. Daffodil, an old three-cornered beaver, which seemed to have strutted eminent poet was there, merely that he might say he had on the skull of Sylvester Daggerwood. "If my neigh- been there; he paid Dame Anderson eighteenpence for bour possesses what I want," cried iny new master, as he the loan of me, and was raising me, to my no small grasallied out from the tavern door, "I have a right to tification, when a cry of "Down with umbrellas!" soon deprive him of it." This fine G-w-ian principle, sail- levelled me with my legs. I now began to fear I had ing in the very teeth of the Decalogue, hit the bird in taken the journey to no purpose; but what can interest the eye, and the philosopher's conscience was straitway a beau so much as the preservation of his own person? unruffled. The rain had fallen in torrents, and, mixed Daffodil finding he must, without my aid, be wet to the with half-melted snow, had accumulated in large pools, lily skin, quietly withdrew from his position, and occuto the no small peril of the crossers. An old soldier had pied a post at the outside of the mob, where he might taken post at the corner of Norfolk street, with a plank elevate me without molestation. I now obtained a comto act as a bridge for the foot passengers, and naturally manding view of the fight. It was grand beyond delooked for some reimbursement for his trouble. He scription to see Lords from St. James's, merchants from accosted the patriot for a few halfpence, and was saluted Broad-street, bankers from Lombard-street, lawyers from with "Pooh! you go the devil," in answer. The veteran Lincoln's Inn, and labourers from Dyott street, met in disliked the proffered journey, and determined to dispatch congenial sympathy to enjoy a spectacle equally rational his opponent thither by water carriage. He accordingly and refined, made me rejoice even to the marrow of my suddenly whipped away the plank while my purblind whalebone, when, alas! a sudden hurricane arose, which proprietor was in the act of stepping upon it. The con- swept every man's beaver from his head as though Boreas sequence was equally obvious and calamitous-I and my had determined to turn hatter, and in an instant tore my master lay sprawling upon our respective sides in the silk skin from my bones, carrying the former over three torrent. A demure Quaker, wide in the girdle, and nar- fields into an elm tree, and deposited my stem in a muddy. row in principle, was passing by: with one hand he cart rut. With that stem, like the hoof of Io, I now snatched me up, and with the other he helped up the imprint my adventures: perhaps they may never see the poor bespattered patriot. "Where is thy umbrella, light; but to suffer is the lot of humanity. If many a friend?" cried Aminadab, "thy fall knocked mine out genius in Arabia has been immured for a hundred years of my hand; see how thou hast muddled it." The dis- in a leaden cistern before he began to complain of his ciple of Gn begged the Quaker's pardon, who freely situation, why should I, who am no genius, grumble at granted it, and walked off with me dangling upon his being immured in a cart rut? finger, leaving my late owner to ruminate amid congenial mud for what his prim interrogator had so demurely deprived him of.

For many a weary month I stood in the corner of the Quaker's parlour, and began to fear I was fixed there for life, when I was relieved by his cook-maid, who stepping across the street to gossip with a fellow-servant, took me with her to shelter her white cap from the rain. It was Valentine's day, and so busy were the two ladies in talking about love, that my master's cook returned forgetting

me.

The groom appertaining to the opposite mansion soon espied me, and did not allow me to "waste my sweetness on the desert air." With a quick step he bore me down Parliament street, and at the corner of Downing street was accosted by no less a friend than the late celebrated Mr. Molyneux, the black. They had no sooner shaken hands than they were mutually seized with a zeal for laying wagers. It was provoking nothing wagerable occurred till Molyneux bethought him of an expedient. "Ill lay you a guinea," says the black, "that the next hackney coach that passes is numbered above 500." "Done," cried the groom. A coach drove by: it was marked 630. "Oh! you flat," cried the cunning American, "dont t you know that there are more hackney coaches than 1000? the odds were in my favour." "A bite, by Inigo," cried the defeated Centeur; but upon applying to his corduroys for coin, found he had none. It was a debt of honour, and must be paid somehow: I was considered to be about the value of the bet, and was surrendered to Molyneux, who struck my solitary brass toe in triumph on the pavement with a force that made my ring rattle round my ribs. Mr. Molyneux took me with him in the course of time to the stall of old Mrs. Anderson, who sells gin and gingerbread, desiring her to keep me safe till he returned victorious from his then approach

ORIGINAL POETRY.
Written expressly for this Work.

THE POET'S WISH.

BY MRS. CORNWELL BARON WILSON.

Be mine some calm sequester'd Vale
Thro' which a murmuring streamlet flows,
When Life's faint Lamp is glimm'ring pale,
And waning Nature seeks repose.
'There, in my Children's artless smiles,
Watching each mental blossom bloom,
Joy would be mine that Care beguiles,
And smoothes the passage to the Tomb.
For I am wearied of the sound

Of heartless praise-and empty Fame:
Those hollow'bubbles that are found
Floating about the POET's name.
For what is FAME? a fever'd Dream!
Soon from the Sleeper's mind to fade;
A snow-flake, falling on a Stream,

That melts and To! we grasp a shade.
Then, oh! be mine some peaceful Vale,

That Strife and Envy never knows;
When Life's faint Lamp is glimm'ring pale,
And waning Nature seeks repose.

THE MAIDEN.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE WIFE."
A flush is on thy cheek, Maiden,
A tear-drop in thine eye;
Is it of grief they speak, Maiden?
Why heaves thy breast the sigh?