she has had nursing him. He lay, at first, down in one of the under rooms; but, poor body, she could not pay the rent, and the landlord was going to turn them into the street, but I persuaded him to put him up here to die, and here this poor thing has never left him night or day but when she went to buy their bit of victuals, when she had money for that same; and here she has staid in this cold garret, when one would think she would be frozen to death. Her great wish was to eat a Christmas dinner with him. Poor thing, it was a fancy she took; and at the same time, God help them, they had not as much as would buy it for them. But he is gone now. Mrs. Smith, honey," she continued, going over to the girl, who still lay upon the corpse," Mrs. Smith, honey, there is no use in your lying there; you can't bring him back to you. God and the blessed Virgin rest his soul; he'll be rewarded now for all his sufferings on earth." She lay heedless of her consolations; her cheek pressed close to the livid face of the corpse, and all her senses apparently absorbed in contemplating that pale and distorted visage. There was but little use in remaining to witness this heartrending scene. To Mrs. Mulvany, with whose kindness we had been taken, we left some money to provide the comforts that were necessary for the living. Edmund told her that he would see and provide decent burial for the dead. She was astonished. "Well, sir," she said, "I always heard that Mr. Smith had decent people; if he is either kith or kin to you-and 1 ask your pardon for speaking so freely -troth it was a mortal pity you did not find him sooner." We made no answer to this remark; we hurried from the room. Mrs. Mulvany brought the candle to light us down the narrow staircase; the gust of wind from the window extinguished it. We hastened on in the dark; we were both anxious to escape the piteous lamentation that still smote upon our ears from the desolate being we had left behind. Scarce had we regained the street, when Edmund burst into a passionate invective. "Ah, Edward, there is a picture of female constancy! Did you see that? Good God! she an outcast of the earth; she at whom the finger of scorn would point; she upon whose brow the brand of infamy is stamped; she came to share the cheerless garret of the man who had heartlessly be trayed her; she is mourning over his corpse; and she! ay, she! the child of fortune, she has forgotten her vowshe has sold herself-her oath for a title-a bauble; and yet the wretch! were that girl we have just left to pass by her, she would fancy herself contaminated by her presence. Edward, we have much to learn: how false is the judgment that is passed by the world-by society. Tell me, tell me, which is best? upon which will God look most favourably-on that poor Mary, with all her faults, or on the proud and haughty Lady Disney? She sold herself for gold. What more could be done by the worst of her sex? and she will mock her God by completing the bargain at his altar." There was too much truth in what he said; he began again, "And a sinful world will leave that girl to starve-and the proud ones of her sex will scorn her-no! she shall not want. I have a hundred pounds in the world; I will send it to her tomorrow. You seem to wonder at my extravagancewhat use is money to me-I will promise," he added bitterly; "I will promise the same sum every time that I find such female constancy." He was as good as his word. Next day he gave the poor girl the only hundred pounds that he could command; he afterwards took pains to find out her friends, and was the means of restoring her to the house which she had forsaken, and from which afterwards she had been driven. but I went with him to see poor Nolan's remains committed to the grave; no one attended the sad ceremony the paid bearers, ourselves, Mary, and good Mrs. Mulvany, who came to comfort her. We buried him about the time of sunset; the ground was covered with snow; and he was laid in a corner of one of the crowded churchyards of the city. It was a sad funeral. I cannot attempt to describe poor Mary's wild grief, when the mingled snow and clay hid the black coffin altogether from her eyes; it was a sad sight to us all to see the gold rays of the setting sun, as they broke from the masses of snow cloud that covered the sky, fall with a gladness that seemed mockery upon the new-piled grave of the young. I felt my spirits giving way beneath the constant and painful excitement in which my mind was kept. I hoped that all was now over, and that I might have that peace which I needed; but no! I had still one more scene to go through. Edmund had ascertained the morning upon which the wedding was to take place; he had formed the strange resolution of being present. A pew in the gallery of church, surrounded by red curtains, afforded us a place from which we could witness the ceremony without being observed ourselves. Edmund made his arrangements with the sexton to admit us early, and then lock the gallery doorit was a private gallery, containing only two pews-so as to prevent the possibility of intrusion. I had received an invitation to be present, in a more regular manner, at the wedding; but I declined it, and Edmund forced me to accompany him to this hiding place. We drew the curtains close round us; and we had an excellent view of the communion table, where, of course, the ceremony would be performed. We waited some time impatiently for the arrival of the marriage party. I remember well, the frost had shaped itself into all fantastic forms upon a window which stood close behind us. I occupied myself in tracing plumes and coaches in the shapes which the congelations assumed. Edmund had found a prayerbook, and occupied himself in reading over the solemnization of matrimony. At last the bridal party came; there were two brides; for, as my aunt had told me, her two daughters were both DISPOSED OF On this day. Edmund laid down his book, and we both watched the party. Caroline walked boldly and freely up the aisle; she had just the same toss of her head as usual; perhaps it was rendered more remarkable by the large plume of white feathers which indicated every toss; just as you may have seen cricket players fix little feathers on the wickets, that their slightest movement may be detected. She seemed to have no nervous embarrassment about the obligations she was going to take upon her, and even when at the altar her manner indicated nothing of embarrassment. Letitia, on the contrary, was pale and agitated; to do her justice, she looked beautiful in the robe of white in which matrimonial etiquette had arrayed her. Edmund gazed on her with a steady and an unwavering eye. I watched his countenance, and not a variation passed along his features as she moved up the aisle in all her loveliness. A stranger could have detected nothing in the still quiet gaze of that passionless eye; there was not even the common admiration that an indifferent spectator might have felt for the beauty of the bride. The brides and grooms took their places at the communion rails; the clergyman took his station inside; Edmund turned round, "Is it not a mockery to complete this meretricious bargain here; listen how they will swear their troth to lies;" he took up the prayerbook, and began to follow the service. The clergyman commenced to officiate. I have always thought the matrimonial service of the church of England among the sublimest of her sublime forms. I never felt its sublimity as I did then, when I knew that it was desecrated. When the priest came to that awful adjuration that charges the persons themselves to disclose, in the sight of Him who knows the secrets of all hearts, all just impediments, Edmund trembled. "Oh why does he ask her that? she is my wife. I loved her once, I would not have the guilt of that upon her soul." There was silence-the colour came to Edmund's cheek. I thought he was rising to forbid the bans; he changed his position, and leaned his face upon his hand. The ceremony proceeded; the solemn Vows were interchanged; the solemn prayers were said. Oh, what a mockery of that holy form it is to pronounce it over a match of interest! the solemn blessing came next; Edmund leaned upon me for support; the deep solemn voice of the clergyman echoed through the church, as he exclaimed, with all the dignity of his holy office, "Those whom God hath joined let not man put asunder." Edmund's breathing came quick and short; his eye literally flashed fire; he tried to smile; but his features in the effort wore a fiendish grin. "God hath joined! how dare they mock their God? Say Satan-say money-how dare they mock their God?" I tremble when I think of what followed; he seemed as if he at once became a fiend; he kneeled down upon his knees; and while the party below were begging, or pretending to be begging a blessing upon the union, he knelt and he prayed; he prayed to God to curse them. And there was a terrible eloquence in his prayer, which he muttered with an awful distinctness; and there was an earnestness in his adjuration, as he prayed to the God of truth to remember her falsehood; as he called on the God of mercy to bear in mind how she had torn and lacerated his heart; and bitterly did he call on the justice of heaven to remember her broken vow, and to make her rue the day she broke it. And sometimes he would pray directly contrary to the prayers that were uttered by the priest. There was one of his prayers upon which I dread to think; the priest prayed for the blessing of children; and he-the malice of demons seemed in his soul-and he cursed her. How shall I tell that fearful curse? he cursed her with the curse of King Lear. The prayer had excited an unmeaning smile in the circle below. Oh! little did they know the terrible imprecations that were rising up from a broken heart. It was a strange thing to see them, all unconscious of the curses that were uttered nigh them; it was strange to see with what cold listlessness the blessing seemed to be invoked; and with what terrible earnestness the curse was called down. The ceremony ended; Edmund rose from his knees; his features seemed all black and distorted; from the window where we stood, we could see the earriages drive off from the church door; he watched her entering the carriage of her husband; he gnashed his teeth; "ay, there she is, the legalized wanton; there she has ratified the bargain of her prostitution, and registered the indentures at the altar of her God. Lady Disney! and for that title she would have been the wife of Belzebub." Again he gnashed his teeth. The carriages drove off; he watched them until they were out of sight. He then turned round and said, coolly, “It is all over; I am content; but the curse WILL be with her." Years have passed away since that morning. Sir Harry Disney turned out a wretched husband, and poor Letitia died; literally died from the effects of his savage conduct, at a time when she could ill bear it. Edmund, from that hour, was changed; he became cold, heartless, and sneering. He went to the bar, where he was for some time doing little; he was distinguished for nothing but a bitter savageness of disposition, and a mocking at all the feelings of mankind. Once or twice he came forward on the liberal side in politics; but I must say no more; my tale has been, perhaps, already too long, and here I may better drop the veil. THE NEW PARADISE REGAINED.* THIS is the age both of physical and intellectual prodigies. Wheat or barley was once considered indispensable to the manufacture of bread; but now, with nothing but a peck of sawdust, the chemist promises you as nice a loaf as ever lay upon your breakfasttable; and your carpenter will probably at no distant period be also your fancy baker. In like manner we have been wont to consider the ox our proper resource when we stood in need of a sirloin; and, wishing to sweeten our tea, or our coffee, who ever dreamed of any other repertory of saccharine matter but the sugar-cane? "On a *Paradise Regained, an unfinished Poem; and Minor Poems. By Mark Bloxham, A. M. Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Errol. Groombridge, London, 1834. changé tout sela!" Natural philosophers now make beef-steaks out of Indian-rubber, and supply our sugarbowls out of old linen, poets' shirts, and articles of the like description. This is wonderful! but in other departments innovations are going forward every whit as marvellous. Time was when sense, wit, learning, genius, were looked upon as "sine-qua-nons" in the formation of a poet; just as corn was thought essential to the making of a roll or a barn-brack.* The world was then in swaddling-clothes: now it approacheth to man's estate, and things are ordered very differently. Not only, it has been shown, may the accomplishments we have enumerated be dispensed with in poetry, but the very opposite endowments have come into vogue; and the more of the dull metal a gentleman carries in his head, the higher the point on the Muse's hill to which he directs his flight. If he be merely deficient in the organs of causality and ideality, he becomes a lyrical bard like Anacreon, or a didactie poet like Pope; but if there be downright cavities, instead of prominences in the said regions-if he be not only a blockhead, but the chief of blockheads-forthwith he snatches the harp of Virgil, or dashes full speed into the lists with Dante Alighieri! In fact, genius has been proved to be nothing but an accident (as logicians speak) of the poet: a man may be a poet, albeit that he has got some heavenly light and fire within him-and still we may point to one or two splendid examples) but there is no necessity whatsoever for a particle of either: the essential difference is all that is required, and that you may purchase at the shop of the next stationer, if you have sixpence to lay out upon pen, ink, and paper. We have pondered not a little upon the causes to which this intellectual revolution is attributable; and unless we are much mistaken, it may be explained in the following way:-This is the age of economy and economists. To produce the maximum and expend the minimum is the grand problem that exercises the wits of the human race at the present moment. There is but a limited quantity of money in the nation, and the more of the sinews of war we save today, the more we shall have to spend tomorrow. So say our political philosophers; and our poets have begun to adopt the same principle. Our Humes economise gold, and our Montgomeries genius. The parallel is as complete as possible between the sons of Cocker and of Clio. The object of the former is to obtain the greatest amount of public service for the least outlay of pounds, shillings, and pence; and the ambition of the latter is to produce the greatest number of verses with the least expenditure of originality, meaning, and harmony. Our Scotts and Byrons were extravagant fellows, and made sad waste of mental treasure. Not a canto, or so much as a sonnet, could they produce without as much of the poetic energies as would, duly husbanded, compose a hundred thousand epics like the Omnipresence, or Satan. They had as little idea of the art of writing epic poems, without sense or imagination, as Harpagon's cook had of getting up a dinner without applying to his master's purse. feras-tu bonne chere?" Harpagon-" Dis moi un peu, nous M. Jacques-"Oui, si vous me donnez bien de l'argent." -A reply which Valere properly observes was impertinent in the extreme. Voilà une belle merveille que de faire bonne chère avec biende l'argent! C'est une chose la plus aisée du monde, et il n'y a sì pauvre esprit qui n'en fît bien autant. Mais pour agir en habile homme, il faut parler de faire bonne chère avec peu d'argent!" Put sense for money, and poetry for good cheer, and Valere's idea of a clever cook answers exactly to the notion which we wish to convey of a clever poet-a poet like the author of the new Paradise Regained! work we have an instance of the intellectual economy above alluded to car In this We are not sure but that we have misspelled the name of this ancient and (we fear) somewhat idolatrous cake. If we have, we implore Sir William Betham's pardon. ried to its utmost perfection. Here is a dinner got up without money at all! First, let us give the bard's reasons for selecting the subject. He gives them to the public in his preface, which, unless all taste for the ridiculous has left the world, ought to make either Mr. Bloxham's or his publisher's fortune. none. "As a poet, I desired to be all or Milton stood at the head of English poetry. He was said to have failed in the Paradise Regained. I had never read his work, nor have to this day. The subject suited my taste—was of the kind which alone by its magnitude and dignity filled the cravings of my mind -in consequence of having been already treated by Milton, met my views of emulation as a poet-having been unsuccessfully treated by him, the field was open for the erection of a building, to harmonize with his, and perfect the general effect, without detracting from the Paradise Lost."!!! It is kind of Bloxham not to wish to pull Milton from his pedestal. We never should have forgiven him had he demolished altogether the fame of his great rival. How easily he might have achieved it, had he but pleased, we tremble to think! His forbearance was, fortunately, equal to his power. Mighty as he felt himself, he still remembered mercy. Yet half his strength he put not forth, but checked His thunder in mid volley; for he meant No! Bloxham means "not to destroy" "What then!" (he supposes the reader to exclaim)- -"do you think that Milton can ever be equalled?" To this very natural interrogatory he replies as follows: "Why should I not think so?" Why should he not, truly? Bloxham, of all men, had a right to entertain such an idea; for Bloxham knew what was in Bloxham ! But he goes on to demand-we implore our readers to believe that we do nothing but cite his words with the most scrupulous fidelity and exactness-he de mands "Who made Milton? Can He that made him not make others?" Then comes a theological discussion upon the matter; for this gentleman, the reader should be apprized, is of the true order of the vates-at once a priest and a poet. "Where has the Creator registered an engagement against himself that he will not hereafter create as he has already created, or that on the past all his powers have been expended ?”— That is to say, when the Creator made a Milton, he did not covenant never to make a Bloxham ! The divine power is illimitable, and this gentleman was certainly born to prove it, although not exactly in the way he himself so The omnipomodestly informs us. tence of the Deity is not more clearly exhibited in the production of the highest than of the lowest orders of intellect; and when we have given some specimens of Mr. Bloxham's muse, we shall leave it to the reader to decide in which of these two ways that great canon of divinity has been established by the volume before us. For our part, we should have said (had not this work so seasonably ap peared to remove our error) that human folly, not human genius, had reached the "Ultima Thule." So far as this, we have been perhaps unintentionally guilty of limiting creative power. When the " Omnipresence" appeared, we deemed it impossible that a lower descent into the realms of stupidity could ever be attained by mere mortal dulness; and we continued of that mind until a bard arose who sung of "chaos and creation” in strains that made Montgomery's lead look almost like silver. We stood amazed at the exploit; and "well," said we, the bottom has at length been gained; imagination may conceive a superior blockhead, but never may we hope to witness such a phenomenon amongst living and real beings." Alas! we knew not how unfathomable are the depths of folly! Even at the moment that we so argued, the womb of Dulness was teeming with the genius of a Bloxham. Of what materials she formed him we can make no conjec ture, unless he was produced in the way in which Dryden tells us that Nature produced Milton, his sublime competitor, by a reproduction and bination of his two great predecessors. Thus Bloxham may, perhaps, be re com |