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studied the newspapers in hope of mecting something adapted to my capacity; but though in appearance no lack of these, I invariably found some fatal obstacle intervened to prevent my success. At one place, the requirements were beyond my means; at another, the salary was insufficient for bare support; and at one I remember my functions of teacher were to be united with menial offices against which my pride revolted. I resolved to adventure at last, and opened a little school — an evening school for those whose occupations made the day too valuable to devote any part of it to education.

At the end of some five weeks, I had three pupils; hard-working and hard worked men they were, who, steadily bent upon advancement in life, now entered upon a career of labour far greater than all they had ever encountered.

Two were about to emigrate, and their studies were geography, with some natural history, and whatever I could acquire for them of information about the resources of a certain portion of Upper Canada. The third was a weaver, and desired to learn French, in order to read the works of French mathematicians, at that time sparingly translated into English. He was a man of superior intellect, and capable of a high cultivation, but poor to the very last degree. The thirst for knowledge had possessed him exactly as the passion for gambling lays hold of some other men. He lived for nothing else. The defeats and difficulties he encountered but served to brace him to further efforts, and he seemed to forget all his privations and his poverty, in the aim of his glorious pursuit.

To keep in advance of him, in his knowledge, I found impossible. All that I could do was to aid him in acquiring French, which, strange to say, presented great difficulties to him. He, however, made me a partaker of his own enthusiasm, and I worked hard and long at pursuits for which my habits of mind and thought little adapted me. I need scarcely say, that all this time my worldly wealth made no progress. My scholars were very poor themselves, and the pittance I earned from them I had oftentimes to refuse accepting. Each day showed my little resources growing smaller, and my hopes held out no better prospect for the future.

VOL. XLII.-NO. CCLII.

Was I to struggle on thus to the last, and sink under the pressure, was now the question that kept perpetually rising to my mind. My poverty had now descended to actual misery; my clothes were ragged; my shoes scarcely held together; more than once an entire day would pass without my breaking my fast.

I lost all zest for life, and wandered about in lonely and unfrequented places, in a half-dreamy state, too vague to be called melancholy. My mind, at this time, vacillated between a childish timidity and a species of almost savage ferocity. At some moments tears would steal along my cheeks, and my heart vibrated to the very finest emotions; at others, I was possessed with an almost demoniac fierceness, that seemed only in search of some object to wreak its vengeance upon. A strange impression, however, haunted me through both these opposite states, and this was, that my life was menaced by some one or other, and that I went in hourly peril of assassination. This sense of danger impressed me with either a miserable timidity, or a reckless, even an insolent intrepidity.

By degrees, all other thoughts were merged in this one, and every incident, no matter how trifling, served to strengthen and confirm it. Fortunately for my reader I have no patience to trace out the fancies by which I was haunted. I imagined that kings and emperors were in the conspiracy against me, and that cabinets only plotted how to entrap me. I sold the last remnant of my wardrobe, and my few remaining books, and quitted my dwelling, to forsake it again for another, after a few days. Grim want was, at length, before me, and I found myself one morning - it was a cold one of December-with only a few pence remaining. It chanced to be one of my days of calmer temperament; for some previous ones I had been in a state bordering on frenzy; and now the reaction had left me weak and depressed, but reasonable.

I went over, to myself, as well as I was able, all my previous life; I tried to recall the names of the few with whom my fate seemed to connect me, and of whose whereabouts I knew nothing; I canvassed in my own mind how much might be true of these stories which I used to hear of my birth and

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parentage, and whether the whole might not possibly have been invented to conceal some darker history. Such doubts had possibly not assailed me in other times; but now, with broken hopes and shattered strength, they took a bold possession of me. I actually possessed nothing which might serve to confirm my pretension to station. Documents or papers I had none; nor was there, so far as I knew, a living witness to bear testimony to my narrative. In pondering thus I suddenly remembered that, in the letter which I once had addressed to Mr. Pitt, were enclosed some few memoranda in corroboration of my story. What they were exactly, and to what extent they went, I could not recall to memory; but it was enough that they were, in some shape, evidences of that which already, to my own mind, was assuming the character of a delusion.

To this faint chance I now attached myself with a last effort of desperation. Some clue might possibly be found in these papers to guide my search, and my whole thoughts were now bent upon obtaining them. With this object I sat down and wrote a few most respectful lines to the minister, stating the nature of my request, and humbly excusing myself for the intrusion on his attention. A week passed over — a week of almost starvation-and yet no reply reached me. I now wrote again more pressingly than before, adding that my circumstances did not admit of delay; and that if, by any mischance, the papers had been lost or mislaid, I still would entreat his excellency's kindness to-I believe I said recall what he could remember of these documents, and thus supply the void left by their loss. This letter shared the same fate as my former one. I wrote a third time, I knew not in what terms, for I wrote late at night, after a day of mad and fevered impatience. I had fasted for nigh two entire days. An intense thirst never ceased to torture me; and as I wandered wildly here and there, my state alternated between fits of cold shuddering, and a heat that seemed to be burning my very vitals. The delusions of that terrible interval were, doubtless, the precursors of actual madness. I bethought me of every torture I had ever heard of — of all the sufferings martyrdom had ever borne, but to which death came at last as the comforter; but to me no such release

seemed possible. I felt as though I had done all that should invoke it." Want -sickness suffering- despair-are these not enough," I asked myself— "must guilt and self-murder be added to the terrible list?" And it was, I remember, with a kind of triumphant pride, I determined against this." If mankind reject me," said I-" if they make of me an outcast and a victim, on them shall lie all the shame and all the sin. Enough for me the misery_I will not have the infamy of my death!"

I have said I wrote a third letter; and to make sure of its coming to hand, I walked with it to Hounslow. The journey occupied me more than half the night, for it was day when I arrived. I delivered it into the hands of a servant, and saying that I should wait for the answer, I sat down upon a stone bench beside the door. Overcome with fatigue, and utterly exhausted, I fell off asleep-a sound and, strange to say, delicious sleep, with calm and pleasant dreams. From this I was aroused by a somewhat rude shake, and on looking up saw that a considerable number of persons were around me.

"Stand up, my good fellow," cried a man who, though in plain clothes and unarmed, proclaimed by his manner of command that he was in authority; "stand up, if you please."

I made an effort to obey, but sank down again upon the bench, faint and exhausted.

"He wants a drink of water," cried

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come along with me as far as the road; I've a carriage there a-waiting."

I did my best to rise, but weakness again overcame me, and I could only stammer out a few faint words of excuse.

"Don't you see that the man is dying?" said some one, half indignantly; but the constable-for such he wasmade some rough answer, and then stooping down he passed his arm round me, and lifted me to my feet at once. As he half carried, half pushed me along, I tried to obtain some answer to my former question, "What reply had the minister made me?"

"You'll know all that time enough, my good friend," was all the answer I could obtain, as, assisting me into the carriage, he took his place at my side, and gave the word to proceed "to Town."

Not a word passed between us as we went along; for my part, I was too indifferent to life itself to care whither he was conducting me, or with what object. As well as utter listlessness would permit me to think, I surmised that I had been arrested. Is it not a strange confession, that I felt a sense of pleasure in the thought that I had not been utterly forgotten by the world, and that my existence was recognised, even at the cost of an accusation. I conclude that to understand this feeling on my part, one must have been as forlorn and desolate as I was. I experienced neither fear nor curiosity as to what might be the charge against me; nor was my indifference that of conscious innocence-it was pure carelessness!

I slept that night in a prison, and ate of prison fare ravenously and eagerly too; so much so, that the turnkey, compassionating me, fetched me some of his own supper to satisfy my cravings. I awoke the next day with a gnawing sense of hunger, intensely painful, far more so than my former suffering from want. That day, and I believe the two following ones, I spent in durance, and at last was conveyed in the prison-cart to the office of a magistrate.

The court was densely crowded, but the cases called seemed commonplace and uninteresting-at least so they appeared to me, as I tried in vain to follow them. At length the crier called out the name of Paul Gervois, and it

was less the words than the directed looks of the vast assembly, as they all turned towards me, showed that I was the representative of that designation.

My sense of shame at this moment prevented my observing accurately what went forward; but I soon rallied, and perceived that my case was then before the court, and my accuser it was who then addressed the bench.

The effort to follow the speaker, to keep up with the narrative that fell from his lips, was indescribably painful to me. I can compare my struggle to nothing save the endeavour of one with a shattered limb to keep pace with the step of his unwounded comrades. The very murmurs of indignation that at times stirred the auditory, increased this feeling to a kind of agony. I knew that it was all-important I should hear and clearly understand what was said, and yet my faculties were unequal to

the effort.

The constable who arrested me came forward next, and spoke as to the few words which passed between us, affirming how I had confessed to a certain letter as being written by myself, and that I alone was to be held responsible for its contents. When he left the table, the judge called on me for my defence. I stared vaguely from side to side, and asked to what charge?

"You have been present, prisoner, during the whole of this examination, and have distinctly heard the allega. tion against you," replied he. "The charge is for having written a threatening letter to one of his Majesty's ministers of state; a letter which in itself constitutes a grave offence, but is seriously aggravated, as being part of a long-pursued system of intimidation, and enforced by menaces of the most extreme violence."

I was now suddenly recalled to a clearness of comprehension, and able to follow him, as he detailed how a certain Mr. Conway-the private secretary of the minister-proved the receipt of the letter in question, as well as two others in the same hand. The last of these-which constituted the chief allegation against me-was then read aloud; and anything more abominable and detestable it would be hard to conceive. After recapitulating a demand for certain documentsso vaguely worded as to seem a mere invented and trumped-up request-it

went to speak of great services unrewarded, and honourable zeal not only neglected but persecuted. From this -which so far possessed a certain degree of coherency and reason—it suddenly broke off into the wildest and most savage menaces. It spoke of one, who held life so cheaply, that he felt no sacrifice in offering it up for the gratification of his vengeance.

"Houseless, friendless, and starving; without food, without a name— for you have robbed me of even thatI have crawled to your door to avenge myself and die!"

Such were the last words of this epistle; and they ring in my ears even yet, with shame and horror.

"I never uttered such sentiments as these words like those never escaped me!" cried I, in an agony of indignation.

"There is the letter," said the magistrate; "do you deny having written it?"

"It is mine-it is in my own hand," muttered I, in a voice scarcely audible; and I had to cling to the dock to save myself from falling.

Of what followed I know nothingabsolutely nothing. There seemed to be a short debate and discussion of some kind; and I could catch, here and there, some chance phrase or word that sounded compassionately towards me. At last I heard the magistrate

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He uttered some commonplacesat least so they sounded to me-about there being no necessary connexion between want and crime; but I stopped him short, saying

"Then you have never fasted, sir— never known what it was to struggle against the terrible temptations that arise in a famished heart; to sink down upon a bed of straw, and think of the thousands at that moment in affluence, and think of them with hate! No link between want and crime ! None, for they are one. Want is envy -want is malice. Its evil counsellors are everywhere-in the plash of the wave at midnight-in the rustle of the leaves in a dark wood-in the chamber of the sick man; wherever guilt can come, a whispering voice will say, 'be there!'"

Some friendly by-stander here counselled me to calm myself, and not ag gravate my position by words of angry impatience. The air of sympathy

touched me, and I said no more.

I was committed to prison-remanded, I believe they said-to be called up at some future day, when further inquiries had been made into my mode of life and habits. The sentence-so well as I could understand it was not a severe one imprisonment, without labour or any other penalty. I was told that I had reason to be grateful; but gratitude was then at a low ebb within me; for whatever moralists may say, it is an emotion that never thrives on misery. As I was led away, I overheard some comments that were passed upon me. One called me mad, and pitied me; another said I was a practised impostor, far too leniently dealt with; a third classed me with the vile herd of those who live by secret crimes, and hoped for some stringent act against such criminals.

There was not one to ask, Why has he done this thing, and how shall others be saved from his example?

They who followed me with looks of contempt and aversion never guessed that the prison was to me a grateful home; that if the strong door shutout liberty, it excluded starvation too, and that if I could not stray at will through the green lawns, yet my footsteps never bore me to the darksome pond, where the black depth whispered -oblivion !

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE STREETS.

I was liberated from prison at the end of eight days. I begged hard to be allowed to remain there, but was not permitted. This interval, short as it was, had done much to recruit my strength and rally my faculties; it served besides to instil into me a calm and patient resolve to depend solely on myself; and, effacing, so far as I might, all hopes of tracing out my family, I determined now to deem no labour too humble by which I might earn a livelihood.

I am now speaking of fifty years ago, and the world has made rapid strides since that. The growing necessities of our great population, and the wide field for enterprise offered by our colonies, have combined to produce a social revolution few could have predicted once. The well-born and the tenderly-nurtured have now gone forth in thousands to try their fortunes in far away lands, to brave hardships and encounter toil that the hard sons of labour themselves are fain to shrink from; but at the time I speak of this bold spirit had not burst into life . the world was insolent in its prosperity, and never dreamed of a reverse.

By transcribing letters and papers for one of the officials, while in jail, I had earned four shillings, and with this sum, my all in the world, I now found myself following the flood-tide of that host which moves daily along the Strand in London. I had breakfasted heartily before I left the prison, and, resolving to hoard up my little treasure, determined to eat nothing more on that day. As I walked along I felt that the air, sharp and frosty as it was, excited and invigorated me. The bright blue sky overhead, the clear outline of every object, the brisk stir and movement of the population, all helped to cheer my spirits, and I experienced a sense of freedom, as that of one who, having thrown off a long carried burden, is at last free to walk unencumbered. A few hours before I fancied I could have been well satisfied to wear out life within the walls of my prison, but now I felt that liberty compensated for any hardship. The town on that morning presented an aspect of more than ordinary

stir and excitement. Men were at work in front of all the houses, on ladders and scaffoldings; huge frameworks, with gaudy paintings, were being hoisted from the roofs, and signs of wonderful preparation of one kind or other were everywhere visible. I stopped to inquire the meaning, and was told, not without a stare of surprise, that London was about to illuminate in joyful commemoration of the treaty of peace just signed with France. I thanked my informant, and moved on. Assuredly there were few in either country who had less reason to be interested in such tidings than myself. I possessed nothing, not even a nationality that I could safely lay claim. to. In the hope of approaching prosperity to-morrow, so forcibly expressed in many an inscription in all those devices of enthusiastic patriotism, I had no share. In fact, I was like one of another nation, suddenly dropped. in the midst of a busy population, whose feelings, hopes, and aspirations were all new and strange to me.

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As I came up to Charing-cross a dense crowd stopped the way, gazing with wondering eyes at a great triumphal arch, which spanned the thoroughfare, and whose frail timbers gave but a sorry intimation of the splendour it should exhibit after nightfall. Immense draperies floated from this crazy framework, and vast transparencies displayed in tasteless allegory the blessings of a peace. The enthusiasm of admiration was high among the spectators; doubtless, the happy occasion itself suggested a cordiality of approval that the preparations themselves did not warrant; for at every step in the construction, a hearty cheer would burst forth from the crowd in recognition of the success of the work. My attention, undisturbed by such emotions, was fixed upon one of the poles of the scaffolding, which, thrown considerably out of its perpendicular, swayed and bent at every step that approached it, and threatened, if not speedily looked to, to occasion some disaster. I pointed this out to one beside me, who as quickly communicated it to another, and in less than a minute after, a panic cry was raised

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