While he, unmov'd, the deadly stroke surveys So stern a heart might feel, a weaker deign to show. ADVENTURES OF THE EDITOR'S BUREAU. Olim truncus eram, ficulnus, inutile lignum. Well do I remember the day on which I arrived at my first domicile, fresh from the plane and chisel of the carpenter, that Prometheus, who called forth my living energies from among the well-seasoned boards, which had long waited for vitality before his workshop. Two chairs, who went before me into my new apartment, seemed scarcely to have recovered, the one from a spinal complaint, the other from the wounds of a red-hot poker. We were ushered into a newly-whitewashed room, cold and comfortless; for the wet coals literally threw a damp on the shy advances of half a green faggot. I was innocent enough to be pleased with the neatness of the sanded floor; nor could I have expected, even in my dreams, the luxurious carpet on which I now rest my tottering feet. Oh! it was a proud moment for me, when I saw my predecessor, a superannuated veteran, unable to maintain his place in the corner between the fire-place and the window, leave the room. After some hours of suspense, I was delighted to hear "Moody's Original" rumble through the street, and stop before the gate of the Christopher. Scarcely had a saucy porter deposited on the floor a trunk, a hamper of game, and a square box, redolent of Christmas cheer, when my new master entered the room. I surveyed him with eager curiosity, and was gratified by the polite attention with which he returned my gaze. No sooner was his apparel disposed of, than, with the confidence of youth, I flung wide my doors for the reception of his well-worn library. I noticed with pleasure, how carefully he arranged and re-arranged his books, how he assigned each to a higher or lower shelf according to its probable utility, that he might be able to summon his favourite authors to his aid, without losing time in rising from his chair. In short he 66 was a sap." It was a grateful smile, with which, many months after, he regarded me, as he wrote over the last line of a sent up" exercise, originally composed under my auspices. That smile will ever be laid up on the shelves of my memory. Often would he pore over a "locus conclamatus," or labour at an inharmonious verse, until the unsnuffed candle threatened to deluge my bright green baize with streams of no poetic liquid. This was my only source of apprehension; from all other risks the careful habits of my master were sufficient to preserve me; his fags dared not profane my penetralia; the boys' maid was too idle to disturb my repose. But the time of his departure was at hand; and I received with mingled sensations of pride and sorrow, the choice, but scanty collection of leaving books, presented to him by friends, who, like him, had adored the memory of Porson, and emulated the elegiac sweetness of the Musæ Etonenses. It may have been fancy, but methought he sighed as he consigned my treasures to the packing-cases, whose precious freight was doomed henceforth to sicken with the mathematical malaria ever hanging over the waters of the Cam, I now became the property of his younger brother, an unfeeling boy, who knew not how to estimate my worth, I could not but consider myself insulted, when a mouse was imprisoned in my choicest recess, and taught to climb a ladder of string, where, in former times, an atlas had displayed its varied colours to the young geographer. A squirrel soon joined the impious invaders of my peace, and was in his turn exchanged for a colony of less injurious redpoles; I succeeded in suffocating three of these new comers; the boys' maid kindly finished the rest. Picture to yourself, gentle reader, the feelings with which I saw a new favourite installed in the place of the deceased. Those who have never had a ferret in their insides, cannot estimate the depth of my despair. My spirit was broken. Sealing wax had imprinted burning kisses on my baize; gamboge and Prussian blue had left an indelible blot on my escutcheon; ink had trickled down my legs;-I looked for the worst. Daily at the hour of twelve, I was reminded by an old Dutch clock, my neighbour and fellow-sufferer, that I must prepare myself to meet my oppressor. For a full hour he would sit before me, engaged in transcribing passages from the poetæ ; but no sooner had my friend struck one, than he flew away with a zealous precipitancy, for which at the time I could not account, I have since learned, that it was his custom to present these sheets daily at that particular hour to his tutor's servant. After having in this way almost transcribed the authors, whose works his brother had been content to read, he withdrew, or rather was withdrawn, from Eton, before he had entered the middle division, The Easter holydays were all too short for me to forget my sorrows; and at their close, I found that I had exchanged the frying pan for the fire. I was now doomed to add moral to my physical degradation. The world must excuse the loquacity of an injured being, and bear with me, while I tell my tale. "Nihil est tam miserabile, quam ex beato miser," as Cicero told my last master but one. Had I never been faced with oak, and carpetted with baize, I might even now have been comfortable; had I never known quiet and respectability, I might even now by the aid of a little philosophy, have been a happy bureau. But my readers are longing to know what enormities could have given birth to these sad reflections. I pass by the insults which I endured from greasy cricket balls, awkward fishing rods, the foul stench of forgotten gentles and caddis-worms, the pollution of muddy fives' balls, the intrusion of boating jackets, and straw hats into the part of me expressly devoted to literature. These and a thousand other evils of equal inhumanity I must forget; they are swallowed up in the recollection of sights that shocked my moral nature. My new guardian passed his life under the influence of a strenuous idleness, which allowed him to be regular in his attendance at Surly, and the aquatics, but made it utterly impossible for him to compose his own themes or verses. For the one, he was usually indebted to his fags; for the other, he looked to some obscure poet, whom in bring unintentionally to light. I blush to think of the space which I was compelled to devote to illicit translations, or, as he anomalously termed them, "Englishes," to the well-digested bundles of "old copies," miscellaneous offspring of equally unwilling poets, his predecessors, to double pens, and all the paraphernalia of shuffling. I still shudder at the cards the end he never failed to and dice, which I concealed; at the chaos of sporting pictures, penny songsters, unpaid bills, and tickets for ale and cyder. I trust I shall be pardoned for these expressions of my disgust at his immorality, they are heightened perhaps, by my vivid recollection of personal ill treatment. I was selected to show off the strength of his arm, and the invulnerable cuticle of his knuckles, After standing for some minutes in an attitude, which would have done honour to Hercules or Tom Spring, he would, with an emphatic whistle,' drive his fist through my breast. To this operation of "panelling," I was subjected (start not, courteous reader, at my assertion,) no less than thirty times. Not only was my chest weakened, but I was at last completely unhinged. Then was it that even Boxiana and the Racing Calendar were removed from my charge, to make room for a set of stumps, which, after being pierced with three wounds, I was compelled to admit. I am confident that I should not have survived many months in these savage hands; my days were numbered, but fortunately my master's constitution gave way at the same time with my own. He went home, I to my old friend the carpenter, who made me better than new, and sold me for twice my original value. By the help of putty and red cloth I was turned out in renovated beauty, and gladdened the eyes of a nice young man, who would have scorned me but three months since. again looked forward to literary ease; and such indeed it was; for, satisfied with the symmetry and brilliancy of his books, my new patron paid little regard to their interior. "Indulge ordinibus," was his motto; quartos and octavos, pens and pencils, shirts and cravats, were arranged with Chinese exactness. I have no great idea of his scholarship; of his personal neatness there could I |