protested that no unbeliever dared to touch | dashing, at a mad gallop, down the single street of the famous city of Jasenica. the sacred volume. But the Bimbasha in sisted on the Book being given into my hands; "For," said he, " you must show me how you can sing the Citab." I submitted to my fate, and opening the Book after I had duly applied my lips to it, I fell to singing the "Bismillah errahman errahim," in pure orthodox Turkish fashion. It so happened that I had lighted on a chapter, which I had read over and over again in the course of my Arabic studies; and I, consequently, acquitted myself to perfection. The old Turk was amused, and the Hodza admitted that my singing was as good as that of the truest believer. "I wish that little giour would embrace the true faith!" said the Bimbasha; "I would gladly keep him here as Hekim Effendi!" and turning full upon me, he said, in a louder but a most alarmingly insinuating tone: "Art thou a horseman ?" 66 Yes!" Each "Allah küvvet versün!-May the Lord give us strength !"—prayed Jusuf, as he spurred his lean horse in advance of the fugitive party. A retreat is the severest trial of human courage; and ours, I grieve to say, was found signally wanting. of us urged the others on by the furious speed into which he lashed his own horse, and in this manner, panting, foaming, and all but exhausted, we reached Jusuf's house at nightfall. Early next morning, we proceeded to Jarak, and recounted our adventures and sufferings to the patient ears of Ahmed Beg. "It is what I expected," said he. "But I thought you had considered the danger, and as my advice was not asked for, I did not give it." Thus terminated my first and last trip into Bosnia. “And a smoker of chibuks and a drinker We copy the following piquant sketch from of coffee?" "Most certainly.” "Behold, these shall be thy labors. Stay with me! Thou shalt live in my own kula, eat at THY MASTER'S table, and ride about with me. Thou shalt have plenty of money and horses; and if thy heart be set upon wedlock, thou mayest marry girls as many as thou pleasest. What canst thou want more ?" I listened with astonishment to this oration-for so it was for a Turk-and, in reply, begged to decline the Bimbasha's generous offer with my warmest thanks, adding:-" I have a house and a wife in my own country, nor must I leave them behind; and I acknowledge no master except God and his law." an old number of the New Monthly Magazine. Its authorship is ascribed to BULWER LYTTON : LITERARY MISERIES. "I'll print it, And shame the rogues."-POPE. My friend Fosbrook,-Dick Fosbrook,for the abbreviation which his good-fellowship had won for him at Westminster and Cambridge did not desert him upon his entrance into the real man-and-woman world of society,-was a very excellent personage. He was something more substantial than a mere "good fellow;" he was a well-informed, sensible man, with more originality of talent than a reserved disposition permitted to rise to the surface. His shyness at length took refuge behind a titlepage; that which he found no courage to say, he resolved to write. "Some sin, his parents' or his own," indeed, bad dipped him in ink very early in life; his infant elegy upon his mother's favorite tabby had been wept over by every maiden aunt of the house of Fosbrook; his translations had been applauded by Busby; his prize-poems had been printed at Cambridge; he had In another moment we were on horseback, lodged in the same house with Lord Byron; Hm !-I understand you: you would be your own master. Such things may be in your own country; but here," added the Bimbasha energetically-"here there is no master except me and the Sultan." All the Turks in the room crossed their arms and bowed, while we thought it time to make our adieux. Mehmed and our escort seemed inclined to see us off, but a peremptory order from the Bimbasha kept them back. his grandmother was a Hayley; his bankers, | literary ephemera, basking in the transient Rogers, Towgood, and Co. Such a concat- sunshine of modern fame. enation of impulses was irresistible, and Dick Fosbrook became an author! One fatal and highly unpoetical stumble befell him upon the very brink of Helicon. He married!―neither a muse, nor a Madame Dacier; but a very pretty girl,-reasonably rich, and unreasonably silly ;-a professional alliance, however, for she was the daughter of a master in Chancery, and was already at the bar. The duties of his legal vocation did not at present interfere with his homage to the Nine; or, as his wife persisted in calling them, the foolish virgins. He wrote, he published, and wrote and published again; and if "the learned world said nothing to his paradoxes," he was equally taciturn as to the amount of the printer's bill, which he annually pocketed with a genuine Christmas groan! He flattered himself he wrote for immortality; that post-obit bond, the dishonoring of which falls so lightly on our feelings and his wife and her relations, who regarded authorship as a lawless and cabalistic calling, inimical to the interests of church and state, and an increasing family, exulted in the premature deaths which unfailingly awaited his literary progeny. I dined with him once or twice at this period of his domestic felicity and public misfortunes, and I never beheld a happier or more contented man; he laughed at my bad jokes upon withered laurels, and Lethe, and the stream of Time; he told me that the indulgent public was a dunce, "sans ears, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing;" while his wife, half aside, whispered to me that the ingratitude of this senseless dunce had nearly alienated his mind from his former unprofitable studies. "Sur ces entrefaites," my own equally profitless pursuits led me to the Continent; and in the course of the three years I was vagabondizing through Italy, an incidental paragraph in Galignani's Journal bore honorable mention of "Mr. Fosbrook, the popular author!" "Poor Dick!" said I, involuntarily, "no relation of thine, I fear !" Yet 'twas the same,-the very Dick I knew! One of his least meritorious works had made what is called a bit; he was now the "darling of the Muses;" and what is better still, of the booksellers; one of the Soon afterwards I landed at Dover, and after the due proportion of wrangling at the custom-house, and grumbling at the divers installments of tough beef-steaks and muddy wine, wherewith Messrs. Wright defy the patience of the returning exile, I arrived in town,-heard the muffin-bell once morethat "Squilla di lontano Che paja 'l giorno pianger che si muore !" and deposited myself and my yellow valet, Gioacchino, in an hotel in Brook-street. The next day I wandered to my old club, which was grown as fine and uncomfortable as "Ninette à la cour;" heard my contemporaries observe, as they glanced towards a mirror, that I was miserably altered; lost my way in a wilderness of new streets, and my footing in a plunge through the puddles of a Macadamized square; and just as I was recovering my equilibrium of body, if not of temper, I perceived a lank, rueful visage, gazing sympathizingly upon my mischance. "Twas a strangely familiar face,-'twas Fosbrook's; not Dick's, but the "popular author's!" His dolorous physiognomy expanded into smiles on this unexpected recognition. He took my arm, and my way onwards, and we turned literally and figuratively to the passages of our youth, till he almost became Dick again by the force of reminiscence. Nay! had it not been for the deferential salutation of two wise men, two very learned pundits, and the raised hats of a bustling Westminster-ward member or two, whom we met scuffling down Regent-street, his popularity and his authorship would have been forgotten between us. "Dine with me to-morrow," said he at parting, “ we shall be alone, and can gossip over our Trinity days.” "With all my heart," I answered. five,-in Gower-street !" 66 "At No, no! at seven in Curzon-street;" but the words came not trippingly from his tongue. The morrow came, and I was delighted to find that, among the various removes of the day, dear old Bond-street had not changed its town residence, although "almost ashamed to know itself;" and as I re-paraded my daily walks and ancient neighborhood, I review. was startled by the sight of poor Fosbrook's | room-Mrs. Fosbrook; looking as dressy as face frowning in all the panes of the print- the frontispiece of "La Belle Assemblée." shops. There, at least, he was no Dick of But if her gown were couleur de rose, her mine; for his worthy countenance was dis- brow was as black as Erebus; the honors torted into a most cynical sneer, and he which had made him sad, had made her looked as blue and yellow as an Edinburgh cross. I did not care; I had never abbreviated her name; so as it was the May of a London summer, I turned for consolation towards a fire bright enough to roast St. Lawrence. This movement necessitated a glance towards the card-rack, and I observed that its prominent features were " At Homes" from L. House and D. House, and a "requests the honor" from the Dowager Lady C. "Ah! ah!" said I to myself, " your popular author is ever a diner out." Rain came on, and I was driven to the cruel refuge of a morning visit; when, having excused myself from an impromptu dinner invitation, through my "pre-engagement to my friend Mr. Fosbrook,"-" The popular author?"-I was amused to find that even to be his friend was a rising point in the thermometer of fashion; and my intervention was humbly prayed to render him my friend's friend too. Poor Fosbrook! I remember the time when I scarcely contrived to procure a third man to make up dummy whist with him; he was considered a chartered bore, by right divine, and according to the most approved authorities! It was, however, with a feeling nearly amounting to respect for his new honors, that I trod lightly upon the creaking step of my hackney-coach at the door of his new mansion, and was ushered by a sulky butler into a very literary-looking drawing-room. Over the marble sphinxed chimney-piece hung a fine portrait of its master, in oils, and by Lawrence! and over a buhl secretaire, a spirited sketch by Hayter-being the original of the authorial print of the Bond-street windows. Poor Fosbrook! I remember the time when a paltry profile was the only copy of his countenance! Several proofs of splendid new engravings were "ordered to lie on the table," besides a few presentation copies of the latest works of the day. "Are they good for any thing?" said I to Dick, who found me with a volume in my hands. "I really cannot take upon me to say," he replied gravely, and with the air of a man who is afraid of committing himself. "One of the worst consequences of scribbling ourselves is, that we have no leisure to look over these light productions, which are sometimes far from unamusing." "We"-thinks I to myself, editorial; while Richard (I will never Dick him any more) turned to the final page of the several works, and determined their length as the standard of their merits. I trust my friend Fosbrook was an habitual one; or at least that he did not affect to be "L'Amphitryon ou l'on dine." The solid joint and solid pudding of St. Pancras had been ill-exchanged, in his menu, for the unapproachable filets and fricandeaux of St. George's; and hot sauterne and iced Lafitte were abominable substitutes for the old Madeira and old port of old times. By the time the cloth and the lady were withdrawn, I was as much out of humor as Mrs. Fosbrook with popular authorship. To judge by the lowering brow of my host, his feelings were tuned to as doleful a key as my own. As we were tête-à-tête, I ventured an apostrophe to the memory of the Gowerstreet port; it was a fortunate digression; the butler was summoned; the cork squeaked beneath the screw, and Richard was himself again! "You have an excellent house here, Fosbrook !" 'Why, yes;—the situation is good, and the distribution better; yet somehow or other, even in my perfection of a 'gentleman's room,' I always regret my Crusoe's cave in Gower-street. There I was never interrupted by importunate idlers; my books ungilt and unprisoned behind the glittering wires of a library, came at my call; in short, I was able to read, and think, and write, as I liked." 66 "And as others liked," said I, courteously. My return to England has discovered to me an old friend in the most popular author of the day." Fosbrook literally shuddered at the word. "No more of that, an thou lovest me!" ex A very light production now entered the claimed he, in a tone of acute sensibility. "Keep the name for the first dog you wish | my family took me for a genius, and my to see hanged." "Pho! pho!" said I, "the mere cant of affected modesty! You have won your laurels bravely; do not wear them like a coward. They were long, it is true, in putting forth their verdant honors; but now it would seem as 'Birnam wood were come to Dunsinane.'" Fosbrook shook his head despondingly; and his whole air was so completely that of Matthew's admirable hypochondriac, that, spite of myself, I burst into a hearty fit of laughter. By good luck it proved contagious, and having roared and shouted “à qui mieux mieux," a happy tone of confidence was im mediately established between us. “Of popular author! a title good for nothing but to expose one without redress to the insolence of every scribbler whose pen is the channel of his venom. No one presumes to insult a gentleman, or to tell a man that he is a fool; but a popular author is the property of the public, its goods, its chattels, its ox, its ass, its every thing !'a culprit stuck up in the pillory of celebrity to be pelted by all the ragamuffins of the times." "And yet I can remember your eyes being upturned towards the Temple of Fame, as a devotee gazes upon the sanctuary." “Ay, ay; I looked at it through a teleScope: 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view! servants for a conjuror;-but now-my pages and myself are cut together." "My dear Dick !" said I soothingly, for he had really talked himself into a fit of irritation, "remember how often and how philosophically you have declared yourself indifferent to the award of criticism." "There you have me on the hip. My wife's family, and all the generation of bores at that, my former end of the town, are constantly reminding me that it is idle to value public opinion, since I have often proved to them that the world is an overgrown booby; to which I can only reply, like Benedict, that When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live to be married.* When I wrote the public down an ass, I little expected to become a popular author !" Lege, Dick, lege." We copy the following interesting intelligence from the Newcastle Mercury. 'Mr. Fosbrook the popular author. We are happy to be the first to congratulate our townsmen upon the near and dear claim we can boast upon the parentage of this celebrated man. Richard Toppletoe, formerly a master tailor in North Lane, but at the period of his decease a much respected member of our corporation, proves to have been his maternal grandfather. Many still surviving among us retain a lively remembrance of the full-buckled flaxen wig and brocaded waistcoat of old Toppletoe; and there can be little doubt that from this eccentric knight of the shears, Mr. Fosbrook derives much of his originality of mind, his baptismal name, and private fortune.'" and the farther the better! I had not then assumed the foolscap uniform turned up with ink;' I had not donned the livery of the booksellers to fetch and carry sing song up and down!' I published, it is true, but what then? The sin lay dormant between you and me and the press! I lived secure from criticism: not a reptile of a magazine deigned to tickle me with its puny antennæ. My wife, however angry, borrowed no sarcasms from the leading reviews-'I found "Till I read that cursed paragraph,” obnot Jeffrey's satire on her lips,-I slept the served Fosbrook, "I had always believed next night well-was free-was happy.' and proclaimed myself to be of irreproachOn the strength of my uncut pages, I passed able descent, and the heir of an old Northfor a literary man, in my own select circle; | umberland family; had I never become a "Very provoking, certainly," said I, perceiving that some comment was unavoidable. 399 of their first application for a loan, on the popular author, I should have remained in "Bow Street. Mr. Fosbrook.—Another instance of the irregularities of genius came this morning before the attention of the bench. The above popular author, returning from a deep carouse with some brother wits, -some choice spirits, who appear to have been partial to proof spirits,—chancing to unite the rampart valor of Othello with the disastrous plight of Cassio, fell into an outrageous affray with the guardians of the night ('Guardians! I wished they would make her a ward in Chancery!' ejaculated Dick,) and was at length victoriously lodged in the watch-house. Our worthy chief magistrate considerately gave this delicate case a hearing in his private room; and after a few pertinent (qy. im?) observations to the delinquent, upon the respect due to public decency, even from the genus irritabile, he fined him five shillings, and dismissed him with costs; judging, probably, that Mr. Fosbrook had already received poetical justice in the shape of two black eyes." Very provoking," said I again. did you pass the night in the watch-house?" "And Not I-I appeared before Sir Richard as a witness in favor of an Irish applewoman, whom I had caught the parish beadle in the act of maltreating, by virtue of some street bill. Unfortunately, I was recognized by some dirty reporter, who doubled his morning's pay by compounding this scurrilous attack." Fine Arts, for which my guineas have not friend, the Dean of 66 ?" these six months: he is persuaded he can about, with his hand in his breeches' "Mrs. Fosbrook gone out!" I exclaimed. Willingly, I have a silver ticket." "But of course you remonstrated with the and portentous packet in either hand. Dick editor ?" aloudbroke the seal of the largest, and read "Albemarle-street. Number of the "I did; and my very forbearing letter produced a second paragraph, headed ‘Mr. Fosbrook, We are authorized by this gentleman to state that he did not appear before Sir Richard Birnie with two blacked this day, and which contains some strictures on your new work. Permit me to say that I have always thought the editor an that I consider them highly illiberal, and envious little man. eyes.'" "Well, well !" said I," these idle slanders, if they filch from you your good name, do not steal the trash from your purse. Think of the solid profits, my dear Dick." "I have the honor to be," "I do, and with regret; for they are all gone. Every poor relation, (Toppletoes in particular,) and every literary acquaintance I had in the world, gave me the preference it aside. |