hill by an idle truant boy, "which at first moveth slowly, avoiding by inflection every obstacle of the least importance; but when it has attained its full impulse, and draws near the conclusion of its career, it smokes and thunders down, making a rood at every spring, clearing hedge and ditch, like a Yorkshire huntsman, and becoming most furiously rapid in its course when it is nearest to being consigned to rest for ever. Even such," says he, “is the course of a narrative; the earlier events are studiously dwelt upon; but when the story draws near its close, we hurry over the circumstances, however important, which your imagination must have forestalled, and leave you to suppose those things which it would be abusing your patience to relate at length.”

Let the reader of the present work accept this explanation, as an apology for the abrupt and rapid manner in which we shall now accelerate our narrative. Since the last lecture, our history has advanced nearly three weeks, during which interval the major had made every arrangement for the approaching marriage. It was finally agreed that the ceremony should be performed at Overton church; and as the "happpy couple" expressed a wish to pass their "honeymoon" in a retired part of Yorkshire, the major consented to postpone his fête until after their return; nor was he displeased at such an arrangement, as it afforded time for getting up his entertainment on a more liberal scale than could otherwise have been accomplished, and for inviting his numerous friends to attend it. We shall now avail ourselves of that peculiar Lethean property which has been often ascribed to the pen of the author, and commit the reader to the arms of Morpheus, where it is our intention that he shall remain until the morning of the nuptials.

Reader, awake! the sun has risen, and Nature is robing

herself in her most gorgeous apparel for the approaching ceremony; the family of the Lodge have been already roused from their slumbers by the attendance of minstrels, whom the vicar had directed to salute the bridal party at break of day. But hark! while we are thus trifling, the village of Overton is in a bustle; the marriage ceremony is over; the bells of the church are ringing right merrily their festive peals; many a handkerchief is waving from the cottage windows, while the doors are decorated with garlands; the vicarage is ornamented with fragments of Venetian tapestry; the peasants, dressed in their holiday garments, are carrying nosegays in their hands, to present to the bride as an offering of their respect, or to strew in her path, as an emblematic expression of their wishes.

The party having reached Osterley Park, we were proceeding to describe the banquet which had been prepared, and the various devices and emblems with which it had been decorated, under the classical direction of the vicar, when, alas! our publishers, like the harpies of old, unexpectedly pounced upon us, and warned us from the feast"diripiuntque dapes," as Virgil has it.

"You have already exceeded the prescribed limits-you must close the scene-remember that you have engaged to condense the work into one volume," said they. We remonstrate, but in vain. We request but a few pages, in order that we may give our charaters a dramatic exit; but they reply to us in the words of Sneer in the Critic, "O never mind! so as you get them off the stage, I'll answer for it the reader won't care how."

You see then, gentle reader, how vain it would be to struggle against such arbitrary and tasteless masters; we shall, therefore, without any further apology, ring the manager's bell and drop the curtain.

CHAPTER XXIV.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE APPROACHING FÊTE.

THE ARRIVAL OF THE GUESTS. THE PROCESSION OF THE BRIDAL PARTY TO OSTERLEY PARK. THE MAJOR AND HIS VISITORS SUPERINTEND THE ARRANGEMENTS IN THE MEADOW. THE CURIOUS DISCUSSIONS WHICH TOOK PLACE ON THAT OCCASION.-THE ORIGIN OF THE SWING.-MERRYANDREWS.-TRAGETOURS, ETC. THE DINNER AT THE HALL, —THE LEARNED CONTROVERSY WHICH WAS MAINTAINED WITH RESPECT TO THE GAME OF CHESS.

A MONTH had nearly elapsed since the bridal pair had quitted Overton; and during this period the greatest activity had been displayed by the itinerant corps of Momus, under the superintendence of their manager, Ned Hopkins. The various show-booths had been erected by their respective owners with an expedition that might have put many a prouder architect to shame: the marquees and the temporary rooms had been completed under the management of Tom Plank; and for those whose appetite might hold precedence of the senses of sight and hearing, ample funds of gratification had been provided by the accomplished hostess of the "Bag of Nails," whose grim troop of kettles and stewpans had, during the whole of the week, been chirping and chuckling over the kitchen range until, for lack of rest, its very cheeks had cracked from yawning.

The numerous friends, who had responded to the joint invitations of the Major and Mr. Seymour were fast arriving. Amidst an assemblage of fashionables from Belgravia, and the élite of the county, were to be seen a motley display of discordant spirits. Foremost in the field were the military friends of the major, who, in these piping times

of peace, despairing of a glorious martyrdom from shells and cannon, were e'en content to lay siege to the major's well-stored pantry, to be blown up with ragoûts and turtle, fired by Burgundy, and bombarded by Champagne corks, under the command of their old and gallant comrade. Then came Members of Parliament, broken down by the weighty cares of legislation; poets reduced to a "caput mortuum," by a species of spontaneous combustion; novelists driven wild by the creations of a distempered fancy; Cambridge wranglers so attenuated by mathematical abstractions as to have become as angular as their diagrams of demonstration; etymologists, whose small and mole-set eyes gave token of their obscure and toilsome calling: then succeeded, as if in pleasing and striking contrast, a rubicund party of geological tourists, radiant with the healthful glow of the mountain breeze, with hammers in hand, as if prepared to knock the world about the ears of those who disputed their sovereignty over the universe; and, last, though very far from the least attractive part of this assemblage, came pale-faced but limber-tongued lawyers, who, having thrown off their cares with their wigs, and plunged their briefs in the Lethe of a long vacation, had joyfully accepted the hospitality of Osterley Park, as an agreeable and seasonable recreation: but as taciturnity and quiescence do not constitute the characteristic elements of a lawyer's holiday, let not the reader conclude that they abandoned their controversial tendencies; but, on the contrary, let him admire that harmonious adjustment by which the moral world is regulated; let him acknowledge the wisdom by which tranquillity is shed over such wild spirits, and a vent or safety-valve provided for the escape of that highpressure of pugnacity, which, no longer expended in actuating the wheels of the law, might have occasioned the most direful explosions, had it not, like the electricity of the thunder-cloud, found, if not a silent, at least a harmless conductor.-It is to be deeply regretted that a

reporter had not been engaged to chronicle the sayings and doings of these intellectual gladiators.

The major now anxiously awaited the arrival of every post, in expectation of a letter that might announce the day upon which Henry Beacham and his bride would return to Osterley Park. At length the long-anticipated intelligence was received, that they might be expected at Overton by four o'clock on the day after the morrow. The vicar was immediately summoned to a council, and, on his arrival, retired with the major for the purpose of consulting the chronicles of Holinshed and Froissart, touching certain points of ceremonial that might guide them in their arrangements for receiving the bride. The vicar pleaded in favour of the forms that were observed on the occasion of the public entrance of Queen Isabella into the city of Paris, but the major objected to the plan, on account of the pageant representing the siege of Troy; a point upon which the vicar, as may be readily imagined, most pertinaciously insisted; so that the gentlemen separated without having arrived at any satisfactory conclusion upon the subject, and the question was transferred to another jurisdiction. No sooner had it become known that Mr. and Mrs. Beacham were shortly to arrive, than the more respectable yeomen of the parish assembled at the village inn, to concert a plan for receiving them with all due honour, when it was finally arranged that the village should be decorated with garlands, and the maypole erected on the spot where its gaudy streamers had for so many ages annually floated on the breeze of spring. It was further resolved, that every person who could furnish himself with a horse should attend at a certain spot by the hour of three, in order to advance in procession, and escort the happy couple through Overton to Osterley Park. The major, upon receiving these resolutions, issued such orders as might be necessary for carrying them into effect; he also signified his desire that those musicians who had lately arrived for the im