which is in waiting to receive us on the great north road. Away, away we go, swift as the wind-sixteen knots an hour to begin with. Scarcely is one mile-stone passed ere another pops in sight. Trees flit by us as if they were running for a wager. Towns appear and disappear like phantoms. A county is scampered across in an hour or so. Ah, there is another post-chariot dashing madly along in our rear! Go it, ye rascals, go it or I'll transport ye both for aiding and abetting in abduction! Don't be nice about trifles. If you run over an old woman, fling her a shilling. If you find a turnpike-gate shut, charge like a Wellington, and break through it! If the fresh horses are sulky at starting, clap a lighted wisp of straw to their refractory tails! Bravo! Now we fly again! Don't be alarmed, Leonora; the little boy was not hurt; the hind-wheels just scrunched in one of his finger-nails-that's all, my life! What, still agitated?" "Oh, Charles, we shall break both our necks I'm sure we shall!' And if we're caught, my sweetest, we shall break both our hearts-a far more agonizing catastrophe.' Behold us now approaching the Border! another hour, and we are in Scotland. I know it by the farm-yard cocks who are one and all crowing in the Scotch accent. What village is that right ahead of us? Gretna, as I live! And yonder's the Blacksmith's! Then Heaven be praised, Leonora is mine! Hip, hip, hurrah! Nine times nine, and one cheer more!!

"The scene changes. Love's first delirious transports have subsided, and ambition resumes the ascendency. A little love is sweet and palateable enough; too much makes one sick. It is like living on lump-sugar and treacle. Tired of my honey-suckle cottage, even though it be situated in a valley where the bulbul' sings all night, I bring my equally wearied bride with me to the metropolis. The news of the lion's return spreads far and wide. My late elopement has, if possible, increased my popularity, especially as, during my rustication, the main incidents have been dramatized, and played with astounding effect at the Adelphi. Melted by such indisputable evidences of my sterling celebrity, my old father-in-law, who has been sulking ever since I evaporated with his pet child, sends for me

with a view to reconciliation, and flinging his aged arms about my neck, formally acknowledges me as his heir; and, after introducing me to all his titled and influential acquaintance, dies, as if on purpose to give me another shove up ambition's ladder, and leaves me a tin-mine in Cornwall, shares in half-a-dozen London companies, and upwards of thirty thousand pounds in the three per cents. Excellent-hearted old gentleman! Here's his health!

"Adieu now to literature. My hopes expand with my circumstances. Who would creep when he could soar? or content himself with the idle flatteries of the drawing-room, when he could electrify a senate, and help on the regeneration of an empire? My destiny henceforth is fixed. The spirit of a Demosthenes swells within me- I must become a member of the imperial legislature. But how? There are no rotten boroughs now-a-days. True, but there are plenty quite fly-blown enough for my purpose-so hurrah for St Stephen's! Armed with a weighty purse, and backed by a host of potential friends whom my literary renown and handsome fortune have procured me, I announce myself as candidate for the borough of A—; make my appearance there in a style of befitting splendour, with ten pounds' worth or so of mob huzzaing at my heels; thunder forth patriotic claptraps on the hustings, with my hand pressed against my heart; shake hands with the electors, kiss all their wives and daughters-and, as a necessary consequence, am returned by a glorious majority to Parliament.

"Now comes my crowning triumph. On the occasion of some discussion of all-absorbing interest, I enter the crowded house, and catching the Speaker's eye, just as I am in the act of getting up on my 'eloquent legs'— as Counsellor Phillips would say-I prepare for a display that shall at once place me in the front rank of statesmen and orators. A prodigious sensation is caused by my assumption of the perpendicular. A buzz goes round the House that it is the celebrated author, Charles Meredith, who is about to speak. Peel rubs his eyes, which have been closed for the last half-hour by the irresistible rhetoric of HumeSheill trembles for his tropes-and each separate joint of O'Connell's Tail rattles with visible uneasiness.

Mean-while, I commence my oration. Unaccustomed, as I am, to public speaking,' is the modest and ingenious language in which I supplicate the forbearance of honourable members, who, with that generosity so characteristic of free-born Britons, reply to my novel appeal with reiterated cheers. Having thus secured their favourable opinion, I plunge unhesitatingly in medias res. I put the question in its broadest and clearest light; I philosophise upon it; am jocular upon it; embellish it by some apt Greek quotations, infinitely to the delight of Mr Baines, who expresses his satisfaction at my being such a ready Latin scholar; and conclude with an impassioned and electrifying apostrophe to the genius of British freedom. Next day the papers are all full of my praises. Those which approve the principles of my speech, extol it as a miracle of reasoning; and even those which are adverse, yet frankly confess that, as a mere matter of eloquence, it has never been surpassed within the walls of St Stephens. A few nights afterwards I create a similar sensation, which is rendered still more memorable from the circumstance that a lady of rank and fashion who happens to be listening to the debate in the small recess over the roof of the House, overbalances herself in the ardour of her feelings, and tumbles, head-foremost, through the sky-light into the Speaker's lap !

"So passes the Session. During the recess, the clubs are all busy in speculation as to my future course of proceeding. Not a gossip at the Athenæum, the Carlton, or the Reform Clubs, but has an anecdote to relate about Charles Meredith. The foreign secretary was seen walking arm-in-arm with me one Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park; and the next day it was remarked that the chancellor of the exchequer kept me fast by the button-hole for a whole hour in Palace Yard. Hence it is inferred that I shall ere long form one of the government. Even a peerage is talked of; but that I am doubtful whether to accept or not. Brougham's fate holds out an impressive warning. Weeks, months, thus roll on, and about the period of the meeting of Parliament, ministers, who are sadly in want of a ready, fluent speaker, begin to throw out hints of an intention to angle for me. These hints

daily become more significant, and as I take not the slightest notice of them, it is concluded that silence gives consent, and that I have my price. Acting on this conviction, the ministerial whipper-in sounds me on the subject, and lured on by my seeming acquiescence, proceeds to open his battery upon me through the medium of divers epistles marked 'private and confidential,' in which, in the event of my supporting government, I am promised a snug berth in Downing Street, and at the end of the session, when certain troublesome questions are disposed of, a foreign embassy, with an earldom, and a pension. Ye, who are honest men--and here, thank God, I feel that I am appealing to a vast majority of Englishmen, and the entire population of Ireland-imagine the blush that paints my patriotic physiognomy on receiving these affronting proposals! I am bewildered - horrorstruck- teetocaciously exflunctified' -(to use Jonathan's phrase); and when the whipper-in meets me by appointment to receive my final answer, I snatch up his insulting letters, which happen to be lying beside me on the table, and glaring on him, like a Numidian lion, while he, hypocrite as he is, puts his hands into his base breeches-pockets, like Lord Castlereagh's crocodile, by way of showing his indifference, I exclaim, in the most withering tones of scorn, Sir, were I bound to ministers by as strong ties of affection as even those which bind a Burdett to an O'Connell, still I would disdain to join their party on terms such as you propose. If you have no conscience, sir, I have; know, therefore, that nothing under a dukedom and a pension for three lives will suit my disinterested views of the case!' So saying, I tear the letters into a thousand fragments, and fling them into the fire thus !-thus !-thus,

"Heavens and earth, what-what have I done?" continued the excited castle-builder, his enthusiasm falling below zero in an instant. Why, I have actually, in the order of reverie, mistaken a pile of bank notes for ministerial communications, and consigned to the flames the entire sum I received but this morning from my publisher!" It was too true. Of the three hundred pounds, not one single vestige remained. The devouring element' had destroyed all.

So much for castle-building!"